Why Do Americans Win Wars, and Why We Will Win The War On Terror
I wanted to share with you part of a book from the C.B.C. that I am currently reading.
The passage comes from the introduction to the book “America’s Victories; Why The U.S. Wins Wars and Will Win The War on Terror” by Larry Schweikart.
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“Why do Americans win wars? Even granting that Vietnam was a loss (although the military was never, ever defeated in an actual battle), and Korea was a “tie,” over the course of two hundred years the armed forces of the United States have whipped the British Empire (twice), beaten a Mexican army (against all European expectations), fought a fratricidal civil war that resulted in higher casualties than all previous wars put together (due to the fact that officers and soldiers on both sides were deadly effective), and crushed the Plains Indians with a minimal number of troops. American forces then dispatched the Spanish in less than a year (when, again, most Europeans thought Spain would win), helped the Allies evict the Germans from France, and dominated an international alliance that simultaneously beat the Nazis, Japanese warlords, and Italian fascists. During the Cold War, we battled the North Koreans and their Chinese allies to draw on the Asian mainland, then staved off a Soviet-supported invasion of south Vietnam for more than a decade. After the fall of the USSR, the U.S. military twice decisively crushed the biggest armed force in the Middle East, after which we essentially invited every foreign terrorist in the region to enter Iraq and join the fight. Squeezed in between two victories over Iraq, American forces did what the British and Russians could not do by invading Afghanistan and staying. Mix in with this incredibly impressive record the fact that even before the United States had a large standing army, a handful of Marines and their mercenary allies spanked the Tripolitan pirates; then while still on the road to superpower status, we soundly defeated a Filipino “insurgency”; and for good measure kicked the Cubans out of Grenada in 1982. Probably the most astounding success was that the United States defeated the “superpower” Soviet Union in the Cold War without firing a shot – or releasing a nuclear weapon.
[But] [a]n ironic unintended consequence has arisen form this success. Despite every victory, new military actions are greeted by even greater and more unrealistic predictions of failure from the Left and, more recently, the “mainstream media.” These prophecies are followed by “analysis” of how the triumph isn’t as complete as the public thought, how we are “mismanaging the peace,” or how we are “creating more enemies” by our actions. Inevitably, then, come the exposes of “near catastrophes,” intelligence screwups, troops run amuck, civilian casualties, and Pentagon mispredictions. Naturally, there is no room for context, of how in the last three major wars combined (Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq), the United States lost fewer troops than at Okinawa in World War II. Nor does the media provide any discussion of a “greater good” achieved by military action, and rarely is there offered any sense of the overall competence of the American armed forces. One is left to conclude that our soldiers triumph in spite of themselves, their officers, their government, and even their own culture – that they stumble and bumble along, form victory to victory, in the process abusing prisoners and spawning ever-growing numbers of enemies. There are, in fact, good reasons for America’s victories. One might call them “secrets” of American military success, except they are not hidden and often are so obvious that they are overlooked. The American culture of combat relies on several distinctly American elements[.]
It is impossible to separate these combat characteristics from the causes for which Americans have fought, for the American soldier is a liberator, not a conqueror, and millions of people around the world know it by personal experience. From Kuwait City to Kabul, from Germany to Grenada, a generation of free foreign citizens live every day with the knowledge that their liberty was purchased by the blood of American patriots. Modern-day Marxists demagogue over interventions on behalf of the “sugar interests” or “big oil” Halliburton, or Exxon. The truth is that in most cases, the United States has used its military reluctantly and, in Jefferson’s own words, only after “repeated injuries and usurpations.” Our soldiers fight precisely because they understand the causes for which they are committed – and the stakes. Ulysses Grant, briefly a slave owner himself, who married into a slave-owning family, nevertheless willingly waged war on the South – after reluctantly participating in what he saw as an unjust war with Mexico – because he came to see slavery as an evil that had to be checked militarily[2]. George Patton’s feelings about “the Hun” reflected his view that the dictatorships his men faced were the worst of humanity. Ask any of our soldiers, sailors, airmen or airwomen, or Marines in Iraq why they are fighting, and you will get a remarkably sophisticated, yet unmistakable message. The liberty they purchase for Iraqis there translates directly to our freedom from attack here. [Emphasis added.]”
***
Note: I have added the points that the author made about the "American culture of combat" to he comments section of this post, to keep down the length of the main segment.
The passage comes from the introduction to the book “America’s Victories; Why The U.S. Wins Wars and Will Win The War on Terror” by Larry Schweikart.
***
“Why do Americans win wars? Even granting that Vietnam was a loss (although the military was never, ever defeated in an actual battle), and Korea was a “tie,” over the course of two hundred years the armed forces of the United States have whipped the British Empire (twice), beaten a Mexican army (against all European expectations), fought a fratricidal civil war that resulted in higher casualties than all previous wars put together (due to the fact that officers and soldiers on both sides were deadly effective), and crushed the Plains Indians with a minimal number of troops. American forces then dispatched the Spanish in less than a year (when, again, most Europeans thought Spain would win), helped the Allies evict the Germans from France, and dominated an international alliance that simultaneously beat the Nazis, Japanese warlords, and Italian fascists. During the Cold War, we battled the North Koreans and their Chinese allies to draw on the Asian mainland, then staved off a Soviet-supported invasion of south Vietnam for more than a decade. After the fall of the USSR, the U.S. military twice decisively crushed the biggest armed force in the Middle East, after which we essentially invited every foreign terrorist in the region to enter Iraq and join the fight. Squeezed in between two victories over Iraq, American forces did what the British and Russians could not do by invading Afghanistan and staying. Mix in with this incredibly impressive record the fact that even before the United States had a large standing army, a handful of Marines and their mercenary allies spanked the Tripolitan pirates; then while still on the road to superpower status, we soundly defeated a Filipino “insurgency”; and for good measure kicked the Cubans out of Grenada in 1982. Probably the most astounding success was that the United States defeated the “superpower” Soviet Union in the Cold War without firing a shot – or releasing a nuclear weapon.
[But] [a]n ironic unintended consequence has arisen form this success. Despite every victory, new military actions are greeted by even greater and more unrealistic predictions of failure from the Left and, more recently, the “mainstream media.” These prophecies are followed by “analysis” of how the triumph isn’t as complete as the public thought, how we are “mismanaging the peace,” or how we are “creating more enemies” by our actions. Inevitably, then, come the exposes of “near catastrophes,” intelligence screwups, troops run amuck, civilian casualties, and Pentagon mispredictions. Naturally, there is no room for context, of how in the last three major wars combined (Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq), the United States lost fewer troops than at Okinawa in World War II. Nor does the media provide any discussion of a “greater good” achieved by military action, and rarely is there offered any sense of the overall competence of the American armed forces. One is left to conclude that our soldiers triumph in spite of themselves, their officers, their government, and even their own culture – that they stumble and bumble along, form victory to victory, in the process abusing prisoners and spawning ever-growing numbers of enemies. There are, in fact, good reasons for America’s victories. One might call them “secrets” of American military success, except they are not hidden and often are so obvious that they are overlooked. The American culture of combat relies on several distinctly American elements[.]
It is impossible to separate these combat characteristics from the causes for which Americans have fought, for the American soldier is a liberator, not a conqueror, and millions of people around the world know it by personal experience. From Kuwait City to Kabul, from Germany to Grenada, a generation of free foreign citizens live every day with the knowledge that their liberty was purchased by the blood of American patriots. Modern-day Marxists demagogue over interventions on behalf of the “sugar interests” or “big oil” Halliburton, or Exxon. The truth is that in most cases, the United States has used its military reluctantly and, in Jefferson’s own words, only after “repeated injuries and usurpations.” Our soldiers fight precisely because they understand the causes for which they are committed – and the stakes. Ulysses Grant, briefly a slave owner himself, who married into a slave-owning family, nevertheless willingly waged war on the South – after reluctantly participating in what he saw as an unjust war with Mexico – because he came to see slavery as an evil that had to be checked militarily[2]. George Patton’s feelings about “the Hun” reflected his view that the dictatorships his men faced were the worst of humanity. Ask any of our soldiers, sailors, airmen or airwomen, or Marines in Iraq why they are fighting, and you will get a remarkably sophisticated, yet unmistakable message. The liberty they purchase for Iraqis there translates directly to our freedom from attack here. [Emphasis added.]”
***
Note: I have added the points that the author made about the "American culture of combat" to he comments section of this post, to keep down the length of the main segment.
posted by Alpheus at 11:54 AM
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