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 Vaktathi wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


No, seriously, what are nukes even around for IRL? The only time they'd be used is in ending our entire civilization, and if you're planning on fighting off space aliens some day with them, then no, that was just a movie. That doesn't work in real life, because the fact they managed to reach Earth means their infantry are wearing body armor that lets them survive your nukes exploding at point-blank range, and if you're capable of fighting them off at all, you have access to better weapons than nukes - your infantry can just kill their infantry with their standard guns that don't take out massive areas around the battle, and your space fleet has to be capable of stopping them from firing a single shot at Earth that takes out the entire planet's biosphere. Nukes are not going to be relevant to fighting off space aliens.

O.o

Fatman and Little Boy ended World War 2.

Hrm, there's quite a lot of debate on that point. Japan was already completely incapable of meaningful resistance and about on the brink of total economic and national infrastructure collapse with many of her forces stuck in China (with no way home as Japanese shipping had been obliterated and there was no fuel for ships anyway) and little industrial or material resources left (having smaller oil reserves in the entire national inventory than a single US carrier battlegroup used in a month), the soviet invasion between the bombs had at least as much if not more to do with the surrender (and inflicted far more real military damage while gutting Japan's hopes of a negotiated peace as the USSR was the only realistic intermediary for negotiations, taking their last hope of peace terms they had any input on), conventional firebombings were proving at least as devastating if not moreso (as in Tokyo), the bombs were really more of an exclamation point, a finishing flourish, than anything else in such light.

There's a lot made about how Japan was going to fight to the last person and all that, but mostly it's fantasy. Japan wasn't essentially was no longer able to field anything that required a motor, or if it did, it was a short one-way trip. Tanks, ships, aircraft, etc. Resources to build anything that required significant amounts of metal or specialized inputs (stuff to make hardened steel for instance) were no longer possible for Japan to produce (so no more artillery or shells, even small arms production was dramatically affected), or at least produce in any sort of quality. Her transportation network of roads and trains had been dramatically neutered and moving large numbers of troops and equipment would have been almost impossible. Food supplies were an issue and Japan would have starved. Sure they may have gotten some people to pick up spears and try their hand at fanatical resistance in some places, but that's historically been shown to be both a very short and very one-sided battle against western armies with automatic weapons, tanks, artillery, etc. The idea that the US would have suffered insane casualties is, in many ways, a fantasy.

I think you're engaging 20/20 vision here quite a bit... there were a lot of unknowns of what Japan were capable of...

But, if you wanna feel guilty in using nukes... be my guest.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:
....

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Foreigners 'fraid that he'd use nukes?

AWESOME!

You do know that some of those "foreigners" are also armed with Nukes, some with enough to completely overwhelm any defensive "shield"?

Check your sarcasm detector please...

Who's being sarcastic?

Moi.

I'm genuinely checking that someone who made such a ridiculous statement might not be aware of the realities of modern geo-politics.

You do know that other foreign nations have nukes don't you?

Indeed.

And they may also be prepared to use them in retaliation, or even preemptively against a foreign power, particularly one who is theatening them, encircling them, and has used them before. Even if that opponent is the mighty US of A.

Sure thing bro.

There may have been a touch of sarcasm in this post.

Glad that's clear.

 whembly wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


No, seriously, what are nukes even around for IRL? The only time they'd be used is in ending our entire civilization, and if you're planning on fighting off space aliens some day with them, then no, that was just a movie. That doesn't work in real life, because the fact they managed to reach Earth means their infantry are wearing body armor that lets them survive your nukes exploding at point-blank range, and if you're capable of fighting them off at all, you have access to better weapons than nukes - your infantry can just kill their infantry with their standard guns that don't take out massive areas around the battle, and your space fleet has to be capable of stopping them from firing a single shot at Earth that takes out the entire planet's biosphere. Nukes are not going to be relevant to fighting off space aliens.

O.o

Fatman and Little Boy ended World War 2.

Hrm, there's quite a lot of debate on that point. Japan was already completely incapable of meaningful resistance and about on the brink of total economic and national infrastructure collapse with many of her forces stuck in China (with no way home as Japanese shipping had been obliterated and there was no fuel for ships anyway) and little industrial or material resources left (having smaller oil reserves in the entire national inventory than a single US carrier battlegroup used in a month), the soviet invasion between the bombs had at least as much if not more to do with the surrender (and inflicted far more real military damage while gutting Japan's hopes of a negotiated peace as the USSR was the only realistic intermediary for negotiations, taking their last hope of peace terms they had any input on), conventional firebombings were proving at least as devastating if not moreso (as in Tokyo), the bombs were really more of an exclamation point, a finishing flourish, than anything else in such light.

There's a lot made about how Japan was going to fight to the last person and all that, but mostly it's fantasy. Japan wasn't essentially was no longer able to field anything that required a motor, or if it did, it was a short one-way trip. Tanks, ships, aircraft, etc. Resources to build anything that required significant amounts of metal or specialized inputs (stuff to make hardened steel for instance) were no longer possible for Japan to produce (so no more artillery or shells, even small arms production was dramatically affected), or at least produce in any sort of quality. Her transportation network of roads and trains had been dramatically neutered and moving large numbers of troops and equipment would have been almost impossible. Food supplies were an issue and Japan would have starved. Sure they may have gotten some people to pick up spears and try their hand at fanatical resistance in some places, but that's historically been shown to be both a very short and very one-sided battle against western armies with automatic weapons, tanks, artillery, etc. The idea that the US would have suffered insane casualties is, in many ways, a fantasy.

I think you're engaging 20/20 vision here quite a bit... there were a lot of unknowns of what Japan were capable of...

But, if you wanna feel guilty in using nukes... be my guest.

I'm not feeling guilty about anything, not sure where that projection is coming from, the decision to use those weapons and the people who made those decisions were dead long before I was born, and their use wasn't particularly any more devastating than other weapons that were used and that we still commonly use (such as incendiary bombing raids).

However, the idea that the atomic bombs were the great winners or finishers of WW2 (again, particularly when conventional firebombing was producing arguably even more devastating results in some places), and that their use was necessary to end the war, is hard to give credence to given the other circumstances at work. You may have a point about 20/20 vision, but at the same time most of these things weren't exactly secrets to the people in charge of the various nations at the time either. The bombs had an effect on Japan to be sure, but from an actual practical sense their use makes a lot more sense as a (horrific) scientific test run and forward thinking political move for the post-war era from a machiavellian standpoint (which has its own merits in some lights), but not as some necessary act to slay a fearsome foe. That line really holds more weight as cover justification for the former than anything else, and you can see that from the closing battles in the pacific where Japanese morale and discipline was beginning to break, prisoners were actually being taken in large numbers, organized action by military units was becoming increasingly less about achieving military objectives or inflicting meaningful casualties and more just about dying with honor, with heavy equipment and support arms like air cover or artillery going from rare to effectively nonexistent. Of probably greater practical impact than either A-bomb was the August 13th bombing of the last refinery in Japan that produced the overwhelmingly vast majority of the oil for the home islands, meaning that basically the home islands no longer had a petrochemical fuel source for *anything*, and barely enough reserves to fuel just one US carrier battle group for a month. Food supply was collapsing as well. August 1945 was not a good time for Japan even without the A-bombs.

I do think that Japan would have surrendered without the use of the atomic bombs. On the other hand, careful study of the aftermath of those atomic bombs massively increased our understanding of the effects of radiation exposure on the human body, including showing that our previous models of the dangers of radiation exposure were underestimating the effects when it came to the long term by huge margins.

So in that sense, some good did definitely come out of the use of the atomic bombs in Japan, but at a very high price.

Japan was already trying to surrender by the time the A-Bombs were dropped, and had been attempting to engage with the Soviets as an intermediary for some time on that (though they did not know that the Soviets were preparing to invade Japanese holdings themselves) in an attempt to do so on some basis where they had at least some input on terms (as opposed to the unconditional surrender demanded).

A whole lot of stuff happened in the last few months of fighting in 1945, any one of which would have been effectively ended Japan's ability to wage war, and all together ended her ability to do much of anything but roll over and cry uncle, but the tail end was all fighting over the terms of surrender as opposed to forcing a surrender, which was basically already assured and being pursued.

 whembly wrote:


We were staging an invasion force that would've been ridiculously bloody and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives would be lost.

Fatman and Little Boy effectively ended the war EARLIER with less lives lost.

There are NUMEROUS documentaries and books attesting to that.

About that, I agree with you. Using the bombs was (at least partially) about forcing the japanese HQ to surrender as soon as possible, rather than going into a really bloody land invasion.

But the bombs in themselves didn't end the war. It was the effort of the men before, that destroyed utterly their navy and sky force until Japan itself was completely isolated. The bombs were launched to send a clear, definitive message, when they already have no means to be a real threat to US own territory anymore.

Yay, Trump's a dictator in the world's opinion!

:rolls eyes:

That's not what I said. What foreigners are afraid is more about Trump's personnality. Whembly, you are certainly aware of Trump's famous reactions on Twitter, for some things that you wouldn't really expect from a president. And that some of these tweets actually ended in kinda diplomatic mess.

When people see that, why wouldn't they be afraid of another Trump's "childish reaction" because something didn't go his way - but with more dramatic consequences than a mere tweet, this time?

It's not about dictatorship, here. It's about dealing with someone who already showed he can't be trusted (for all his lies and backpedaling on his campaign promises even before he is into office) and who is so impulsive he would shame himself on twitter and still not letting it go - so, why not launching some nukes on a whim?

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:
....

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Foreigners 'fraid that he'd use nukes?

AWESOME!

You do know that some of those "foreigners" are also armed with Nukes, some with enough to completely overwhelm any defensive "shield"?

Check your sarcasm detector please...

Who's being sarcastic? I'm genuinely checking that someone who made such a ridiculous statement might not be aware of the realities of modern geo-politics.

You do know that other foreign nations have nukes don't you? And they may also be prepared to use them in retaliation, or even preemptively against a foreign power, particularly one who is theatening them, encircling them, and has used them before. Even if that opponent is the mighty US of A.

There may have been a touch of sarcasm in this post.

I think you should demand a refund from where ever you learned geopolitics from. That isn't how it works. No nation will attempt a preemptive strike against the US. That is basically the eqivalent of falling on your sword out of spite. No, in actual geopolitics, smaller nations will attempt to better align themselves with the hegemon and likely sell each other out to the hegemon in order to increase their chances of survival. If every nuclear armed nation attempted a preemptive strike against the US all at once, the US would still be able to retaliate and destroy them. Nations will always choose to be bullied over being annihilated.

 BrotherGecko wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:
....

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Foreigners 'fraid that he'd use nukes?

AWESOME!

You do know that some of those "foreigners" are also armed with Nukes, some with enough to completely overwhelm any defensive "shield"?

Check your sarcasm detector please...

Who's being sarcastic? I'm genuinely checking that someone who made such a ridiculous statement might not be aware of the realities of modern geo-politics.

You do know that other foreign nations have nukes don't you? And they may also be prepared to use them in retaliation, or even preemptively against a foreign power, particularly one who is theatening them, encircling them, and has used them before. Even if that opponent is the mighty US of A.

There may have been a touch of sarcasm in this post.

I think you should demand a refund from where ever you learned geopolitics from. That isn't how it works. No nation will attempt a preemptive strike against the US. That is basically the eqivalent of falling on your sword out of spite. No, in actual geopolitics, smaller nations will attempt to better align themselves with the hegemon and likely sell each other out to the hegemon in order to increase their chances of survival. If every nuclear armed nation attempted a preemptive strike against the US all at once, the US would still be able to retaliate and destroy them. Nations will always choose to be bullied over being annihilated.

You want to chance that logic with nations like North Korea? Given nothing to loose, and a lot too fear, they may react in a way that doesnt fit your worldview. Obviously thats if they manage to develop a reliable way to deploy a warhead.

Are you also so arrogant as to believe that no one will challenge or attack the US? You're also going against the tide of history and human nature if you think smaller nations will just roll over and capitulate.
The 20th century provides an example of at least one nation willing to stand against the US, and offer them a humiliating defeat. They didn't choose to be bullied, but fought back and kicked you out of their country.
Just because you think, or have been taught, that the US is the "big dog" and can chuck it's weight around with impunity doesn't make it so. Many other empires, including the once invincible British Empire, have found that carrying a big stick just gets you smacked in the balls a lot more.

 r_squared wrote:

The 20th century provides an example of at least one nation willing to stand against the US, and offer them a humiliating defeat. They didn't choose to be bullied, but fought back and kicked you out of their country.

And which country(ies) was that?

If you're talking about Vietnam, I think you've got some history you need to read up on, because you're take away of that conflict is remarkably wrong.

America led forces were defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is there some dispute about that?

 r_squared wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:
....

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Foreigners 'fraid that he'd use nukes?

AWESOME!

You do know that some of those "foreigners" are also armed with Nukes, some with enough to completely overwhelm any defensive "shield"?

Check your sarcasm detector please...

Who's being sarcastic? I'm genuinely checking that someone who made such a ridiculous statement might not be aware of the realities of modern geo-politics.

You do know that other foreign nations have nukes don't you? And they may also be prepared to use them in retaliation, or even preemptively against a foreign power, particularly one who is theatening them, encircling them, and has used them before. Even if that opponent is the mighty US of A.

There may have been a touch of sarcasm in this post.

I think you should demand a refund from where ever you learned geopolitics from. That isn't how it works. No nation will attempt a preemptive strike against the US. That is basically the eqivalent of falling on your sword out of spite. No, in actual geopolitics, smaller nations will attempt to better align themselves with the hegemon and likely sell each other out to the hegemon in order to increase their chances of survival. If every nuclear armed nation attempted a preemptive strike against the US all at once, the US would still be able to retaliate and destroy them. Nations will always choose to be bullied over being annihilated.

You want to chance that logic with nations like North Korea? Given nothing to loose, and a lot too fear, they may react in a way that doesnt fit your worldview. Obviously thats if they manage to develop a reliable way to deploy a warhead.

Are you also so arrogant as to believe that no one will challenge or attack the US? You're also going against the tide of history and human nature if you think smaller nations will just roll over and capitulate.
The 20th century provides an example of at least one nation willing to stand against the US, and offer them a humiliating defeat. They didn't choose to be bullied, but fought back and kicked you out of their country.
Just because you think, or have been taught, that the US is the "big dog" and can chuck it's weight around with impunity doesn't make it so. Many other empires, including the once invincible British Empire, have found that carrying a big stick just gets you smacked in the balls a lot more.

If you follow clickbait journalism I could see how you might feel that North Korea is some manic nation with nothing to lose and everything to fear. Problem is, in the real world they actually make rational decisions in attempt to increase their chance of survival. Puffing their chest is currently helping them, they will never just choose suicide for reasons. I sugest you read more on North Korea.

Its nothing to do with American centrism, this is basic geopolitics. Less apocalypse guess work. Maybe start a thread on, "things I don't understand but want to argue at Americans for reasons I'm not sure of because I come from a place that isn't any different." That way you can do all the guess work and lashing out you want.

 r_squared wrote:
America was defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is their some dispute about that?

The US never lost a battle in vietnam, killed more than they lost and only withdrew due to lack of popular support. That's not defeat, that's just not caring anymore. The North Vietnamese did succeed, but it was a political, not a military. It was not a defeat, as that implies at some point that the US were beaten at some point.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America was defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is their some dispute about that?

The US never lost a military engagement in vietnam, and only withdrew due to lack of popular support. That's not defeat, that's just not caring anymore. The North Vietnamese did succeed, but it was not through a military victory.

The US objective in Vietnam was to prevent it falling to Communism due to belief in the Domino effect. So, from a strategic angle, the US may not have lost battles but it certainly lost the war.

Losing the support of the people at home which makes continuation of the war impossible is still a defeat. Germany beat Russia in WW1 due to a similar thing happening (Russian Revolution which lead to Russia brokering a peace deal with Germany with some very unfavourable terms).

 r_squared wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:
....

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Foreigners 'fraid that he'd use nukes?

AWESOME!

You do know that some of those "foreigners" are also armed with Nukes, some with enough to completely overwhelm any defensive "shield"?

Check your sarcasm detector please...

Who's being sarcastic? I'm genuinely checking that someone who made such a ridiculous statement might not be aware of the realities of modern geo-politics.

You do know that other foreign nations have nukes don't you? And they may also be prepared to use them in retaliation, or even preemptively against a foreign power, particularly one who is theatening them, encircling them, and has used them before. Even if that opponent is the mighty US of A.

There may have been a touch of sarcasm in this post.

I think you should demand a refund from where ever you learned geopolitics from. That isn't how it works. No nation will attempt a preemptive strike against the US. That is basically the eqivalent of falling on your sword out of spite. No, in actual geopolitics, smaller nations will attempt to better align themselves with the hegemon and likely sell each other out to the hegemon in order to increase their chances of survival. If every nuclear armed nation attempted a preemptive strike against the US all at once, the US would still be able to retaliate and destroy them. Nations will always choose to be bullied over being annihilated.

You want to chance that logic with nations like North Korea? Given nothing to loose, and a lot too fear, they may react in a way that doesnt fit your worldview. Obviously thats if they manage to develop a reliable way to deploy a warhead.

Are you also so arrogant as to believe that no one will challenge or attack the US? You're also going against the tide of history and human nature if you think smaller nations will just roll over and capitulate.
The 20th century provides an example of at least one nation willing to stand against the US, and offer them a humiliating defeat. They didn't choose to be bullied, but fought back and kicked you out of their country.
Just because you think, or have been taught, that the US is the "big dog" and can chuck it's weight around with impunity doesn't make it so. Many other empires, including the once invincible British Empire, have found that carrying a big stick just gets you smacked in the balls a lot more.

That logic applies specifically well to North Korea, you must always balance their outward aggression with the needs of their particular Hegemon, China.

No one will challenge the United-States until the international power dynamics change drastically. As in, the kind of shift that came with industrialisation. Until then, no, their is not going to be a direct challenge to the American hegemon. Their might be some power posturing to assert control over peripheral assets, but anything more would be ridiculously suicidal.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America was defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is their some dispute about that?

The US never lost a battle in vietnam, killed more than they lost and only withdrew due to lack of popular support. That's not defeat, that's just not caring anymore. The North Vietnamese did succeed, but it was a political, not a military. It was not a defeat, as that implies at some point that the US were beaten at some point.

They were unable to completely defeat the north Vietnamese through military force, lost their popular support and left the north Vietnamese to achieve their aim. How is that not a defeat?
They were beaten, they lost the will to fight as a nation, and withdrew from the conflict. That's pretty much the definition of defeat.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America was defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is their some dispute about that?

The US never lost a battle in vietnam, killed more than they lost and only withdrew due to lack of popular support.

Battles lost by the US in Vietnam:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ap_Bac
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Binh_Gia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dong_Xoai
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_A_Shau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Xa_Cam_My
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ong_Thanh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Loc_Ninh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dak_To
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kham_Duc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fire_Support_Base_Ripcord
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Snuol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Loc_Ninh

I think I included some "both sides claimed victory" and "tactical victories for both sides", but there are still more battles that had both sides claim victories and some that were inconclusive. It seams that the US won less than half of the named battles, but I didn't do the math. The one thing that can be easily countered is the claim that the US "never lost a battle in Vietnam".

 r_squared wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America was defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is their some dispute about that?

The US never lost a battle in vietnam, killed more than they lost and only withdrew due to lack of popular support. That's not defeat, that's just not caring anymore. The North Vietnamese did succeed, but it was a political, not a military. It was not a defeat, as that implies at some point that the US were beaten at some point.

They were unable to completely defeat the north Vietnamese through military force, lost their popular support and left the north Vietnamese to achieve their aim. How is that not a defeat?
They were beaten, they lost the will to fight as a nation, and withdrew from the conflict. That's pretty much the definition of defeat.

US forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1973. Saigon fell in 1975, after nearly two years of resistance by the ARVN. which when the US forces left had built the ARVN into one of the largest, best equipped, and most powerful armies on the planet. its obvious you are biased against the US since the nation it was defending did not fall until more than a year after the US was out of the war. AND it left after a treaty with the north. Granted that treaty was broken. I find it sickening that so called liberals gloat over the enslavement of a nation just to stick it in the eye of an "ally".

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:
....

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Foreigners 'fraid that he'd use nukes?

AWESOME!

You do know that some of those "foreigners" are also armed with Nukes, some with enough to completely overwhelm any defensive "shield"?

Check your sarcasm detector please...

Who's being sarcastic? I'm genuinely checking that someone who made such a ridiculous statement might not be aware of the realities of modern geo-politics.

You do know that other foreign nations have nukes don't you? And they may also be prepared to use them in retaliation, or even preemptively against a foreign power, particularly one who is theatening them, encircling them, and has used them before. Even if that opponent is the mighty US of A.

There may have been a touch of sarcasm in this post.

I think you should demand a refund from where ever you learned geopolitics from. That isn't how it works. No nation will attempt a preemptive strike against the US. That is basically the eqivalent of falling on your sword out of spite. No, in actual geopolitics, smaller nations will attempt to better align themselves with the hegemon and likely sell each other out to the hegemon in order to increase their chances of survival. If every nuclear armed nation attempted a preemptive strike against the US all at once, the US would still be able to retaliate and destroy them. Nations will always choose to be bullied over being annihilated.

You want to chance that logic with nations like North Korea? Given nothing to loose, and a lot too fear, they may react in a way that doesnt fit your worldview. Obviously thats if they manage to develop a reliable way to deploy a warhead.

Are you also so arrogant as to believe that no one will challenge or attack the US? You're also going against the tide of history and human nature if you think smaller nations will just roll over and capitulate.
The 20th century provides an example of at least one nation willing to stand against the US, and offer them a humiliating defeat. They didn't choose to be bullied, but fought back and kicked you out of their country.
Just because you think, or have been taught, that the US is the "big dog" and can chuck it's weight around with impunity doesn't make it so. Many other empires, including the once invincible British Empire, have found that carrying a big stick just gets you smacked in the balls a lot more.

That logic applies specifically well to North Korea, you must always balance their outward aggression with the needs of their particular Hegemon, China.

No one will challenge the United-States until the international power dynamics change drastically. As in, the kind of shift that came with industrialisation. Until then, no, their is not going to be a direct challenge to the American hegemon. Their might be some power posturing to assert control over peripheral assets, but anything more would be ridiculously suicidal.

Perhaps I would agree that a normal, rational nation state might accept your logic, but a nation like North Korea is not a normal rational state. Otherwise they might not be enjoying so much brinkmanship.
I'm not north Korean, so I have no idea really how things may pan out if they end up on the wrong end of a POTUS tweet, but I think it's unwise to say that they may not do something stupid or irrational. It's not like we haven't had brinkmanship in which both sides faced annihilation, which was only solved at the last second with erudite diplomacy.

 thekingofkings wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America was defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is their some dispute about that?

The US never lost a battle in vietnam, killed more than they lost and only withdrew due to lack of popular support. That's not defeat, that's just not caring anymore. The North Vietnamese did succeed, but it was a political, not a military. It was not a defeat, as that implies at some point that the US were beaten at some point.

They were unable to completely defeat the north Vietnamese through military force, lost their popular support and left the north Vietnamese to achieve their aim. How is that not a defeat?
They were beaten, they lost the will to fight as a nation, and withdrew from the conflict. That's pretty much the definition of defeat.

US forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1973. Saigon fell in 1975, after nearly two years of resistance by the ARVN. which when the US forces left had built the ARVN into one of the largest, best equipped, and most powerful armies on the planet. its obvious you are biased against the US since the nation it was defending did not fall until more than a year after the US was out of the war. AND it left after a treaty with the north. Granted that treaty was broken. I find it sickening that so called liberals gloat over the enslavement of a nation just to stick it in the eye of an "ally".

The US forces withdrew in 1973 because they were unable to win the war.

Not only did we not win the Vietnam War, we fethed out own soldiers over while fighting it. And we are still fething them over.

 d-usa wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America was defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is their some dispute about that?

The US never lost a battle in vietnam, killed more than they lost and only withdrew due to lack of popular support. That's not defeat, that's just not caring anymore. The North Vietnamese did succeed, but it was a political, not a military. It was not a defeat, as that implies at some point that the US were beaten at some point.

They were unable to completely defeat the north Vietnamese through military force, lost their popular support and left the north Vietnamese to achieve their aim. How is that not a defeat?
They were beaten, they lost the will to fight as a nation, and withdrew from the conflict. That's pretty much the definition of defeat.

US forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1973. Saigon fell in 1975, after nearly two years of resistance by the ARVN. which when the US forces left had built the ARVN into one of the largest, best equipped, and most powerful armies on the planet. its obvious you are biased against the US since the nation it was defending did not fall until more than a year after the US was out of the war. AND it left after a treaty with the north. Granted that treaty was broken. I find it sickening that so called liberals gloat over the enslavement of a nation just to stick it in the eye of an "ally".

The US forces withdrew in 1973 because they were unable to win the war.

Not only did we not win the Vietnam War, we fethed out own soldiers over while fighting it. And we are still fething them over.

The objective was to protect the Republic of Vietnam, not to conquer the north. by the time we left, the south was more than capable of defending itself in manpower and material. it only lacked the resolve.

The US objective was to prevent the fall of South Vietnam to communism.

It failed.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The US objective was to prevent the fall of South Vietnam to communism.

It failed.

I guess we won the second war in Iraq as well.

The objective was to prevent communist hegemony in the East, open markets for itself and Japan. On all accounts, this has happened. Communism never spread, there is no hegemony in the East and now we have the TTP. The conflict was never necessary, only patience was. The US achieved what it set to achieve ( which was not what it told the public), it only took...time.

 r_squared wrote:
America led forces were defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is there some dispute about that?

S. Vietnamese forces were defeated by N. Vietnam. America had pulled out from the fight due to popular demand from home, not at all due to military defeat. S. Vietnam fell after losing American support, not while they had American support.

The N. Vietnamese did not beat us, in any way, shape, or form.

Saying North Vietnam defeated America is a ridiculous allegation.

 r_squared wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:
....

 r_squared wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Foreigners 'fraid that he'd use nukes?

AWESOME!

You do know that some of those "foreigners" are also armed with Nukes, some with enough to completely overwhelm any defensive "shield"?

Check your sarcasm detector please...

Who's being sarcastic? I'm genuinely checking that someone who made such a ridiculous statement might not be aware of the realities of modern geo-politics.

You do know that other foreign nations have nukes don't you? And they may also be prepared to use them in retaliation, or even preemptively against a foreign power, particularly one who is theatening them, encircling them, and has used them before. Even if that opponent is the mighty US of A.

There may have been a touch of sarcasm in this post.

I think you should demand a refund from where ever you learned geopolitics from. That isn't how it works. No nation will attempt a preemptive strike against the US. That is basically the eqivalent of falling on your sword out of spite. No, in actual geopolitics, smaller nations will attempt to better align themselves with the hegemon and likely sell each other out to the hegemon in order to increase their chances of survival. If every nuclear armed nation attempted a preemptive strike against the US all at once, the US would still be able to retaliate and destroy them. Nations will always choose to be bullied over being annihilated.

You want to chance that logic with nations like North Korea? Given nothing to loose, and a lot too fear, they may react in a way that doesnt fit your worldview. Obviously thats if they manage to develop a reliable way to deploy a warhead.

Are you also so arrogant as to believe that no one will challenge or attack the US? You're also going against the tide of history and human nature if you think smaller nations will just roll over and capitulate.
The 20th century provides an example of at least one nation willing to stand against the US, and offer them a humiliating defeat. They didn't choose to be bullied, but fought back and kicked you out of their country.
Just because you think, or have been taught, that the US is the "big dog" and can chuck it's weight around with impunity doesn't make it so. Many other empires, including the once invincible British Empire, have found that carrying a big stick just gets you smacked in the balls a lot more.

That logic applies specifically well to North Korea, you must always balance their outward aggression with the needs of their particular Hegemon, China.

No one will challenge the United-States until the international power dynamics change drastically. As in, the kind of shift that came with industrialisation. Until then, no, their is not going to be a direct challenge to the American hegemon. Their might be some power posturing to assert control over peripheral assets, but anything more would be ridiculously suicidal.

Perhaps I would agree that a normal, rational nation state might accept your logic, but a nation like North Korea is not a normal rational state. Otherwise they might not be enjoying so much brinkmanship.
I'm not north Korean, so I have no idea really how things may pan out if they end up on the wrong end of a POTUS tweet, but I think it's unwise to say that they may not do something stupid or irrational. It's not like we haven't had brinkmanship in which both sides faced annihilation, which was only solved at the last second with erudite diplomacy.

North Korea is a rational state, you just don't know what you are talking about. Again, read more on North Korea and understand geopolitics instead of marching about making ignorant claims and tooting your horn.

 d-usa wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America was defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is their some dispute about that?

The US never lost a battle in vietnam, killed more than they lost and only withdrew due to lack of popular support.

Battles lost by the US in Vietnam:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ap_Bac
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Binh_Gia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dong_Xoai
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_A_Shau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Xa_Cam_My
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ong_Thanh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Loc_Ninh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dak_To
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kham_Duc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fire_Support_Base_Ripcord
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Snuol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Loc_Ninh

I think I included some "both sides claimed victory" and "tactical victories for both sides", but there are still more battles that had both sides claim victories and some that were inconclusive. It seams that the US won less than half of the named battles, but I didn't do the math. The one thing that can be easily countered is the claim that the US "never lost a battle in Vietnam".

You realize about half of those were battles fought by the S. Vietnamese with American adviser's, right? Not exactly the best ammunition to fight the fight with.

 djones520 wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America led forces were defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is there some dispute about that?

S. Vietnamese forces were defeated by N. Vietnam. America had pulled out from the fight due to popular demand from home, not at all due to military defeat. S. Vietnam fell after losing American support, not while they had American support.

The N. Vietnamese did not beat us, in any way, shape, or form.

Saying North Vietnam defeated America is a ridiculous allegation.

You mean apart from where Americas objective of preventing Vietnam from falling to communism was missed due to losing the support of the US population as a result of american casualties and unfavourable news stories.

Managing your populations perception is a part of winning a war. The US failed to keep support on the home front and so it became untenable to continue. North Vietnam achieved its strategic objective, the unification of Vietnam. The US did not achieve its objective. By that measure there can be only one winner there.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America led forces were defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is there some dispute about that?

S. Vietnamese forces were defeated by N. Vietnam. America had pulled out from the fight due to popular demand from home, not at all due to military defeat. S. Vietnam fell after losing American support, not while they had American support.

The N. Vietnamese did not beat us, in any way, shape, or form.

Saying North Vietnam defeated America is a ridiculous allegation.

You mean apart from where Americas objective of preventing Vietnam from falling to communism was missed due to losing the support of the US population as a result of american casualties and unfavourable news stories.

Managing your populations perception is a part of winning a war. The US failed to keep support on the home front and so it became untenable to continue. North Vietnam achieved its strategic objective, the unification of Vietnam. The US did not achieve its objective. By that measure there can be only one winner there.

so how many years after the fact do we have to stay around? by your logic, we lost WW1 because France fell in 1936.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
America led forces were defeated by the North Vietnamese who achieved their goal of the reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Is there some dispute about that?

S. Vietnamese forces were defeated by N. Vietnam. America had pulled out from the fight due to popular demand from home, not at all due to military defeat. S. Vietnam fell after losing American support, not while they had American support.

The N. Vietnamese did not beat us, in any way, shape, or form.

Saying North Vietnam defeated America is a ridiculous allegation.

You mean apart from where Americas objective of preventing Vietnam from falling to communism was missed due to losing the support of the US population as a result of american casualties and unfavourable news stories.

Managing your populations perception is a part of winning a war. The US failed to keep support on the home front and so it became untenable to continue. North Vietnam achieved its strategic objective, the unification of Vietnam. The US did not achieve its objective. By that measure there can be only one winner there.

The American's met that objective, while engaged in the conflict.

24. WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER MEANS.

We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.
- Carl von Clausewitz

So, no more "we lost the politics, not the war" excuses. The US failed to achieve its political objectives in Vietnam, even if the final failure of those objectives occurred after US troops had abandoned the fight. North Vietnam achieved its political objectives by out-lasting the US on the battlefield, until the US conceded defeat and went home. Trying to spin this into some kind of US victory is pretty blatant bias in favor of the myth of the "undefeated" US military.