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Bofferbrauer2 said:
Farsala said:

They can be criticized, but they were definitely US favored. Iraq and Afghanistan were pretty much complete victories for the US, but nobody can control what comes next except their own people. Vietnam would also be a victory for the US, but the people wouldn't allow more losses for questionable motives.

I still think the US could easily beat any single country on its own, without taking into account the will of the people.

The technology, military doctrine and tactics, logistics, and manpower is just unmatched.

The US has the strongest military, no questions asked. The thing is though that they have no clue at all what to do after they crushed the initial military opposition, which results into absolutely ineffective occupations and as a result, militias taking up arms against them.

One major problem is that for decades the US military have heavily promoted wars to be basically loss-free in terms of human lives. Of course, when the soldiers actually start dying, this mentality absolutely tanks the will of the population to continue the war.

Occupations in general are difficult. Russia didn’t do any better in Afghanistan. Occupations like Japan under MacArthur are very, very rare, and MacArthur orchestrated everything carefully. He made sure that Tojo got all the blame for WWII and portrayed Hirohito as a figurehead to Washington brass, in order to spare Hirohito from being tried and hanged. He knew that the Japanese still venerated Hirohito. He also appeared in public with Hirohito, which was unheard of for a Japanese Emperor. The Japanese had also expected to be treated the same way losers were traditionally treated in Asian wars, which was unchecked brutality, and were pleasantly surprised  

The second thing is definitely worth thinking about, and I even read an Atlantic Monthly article arguing that trying to make wars more humane actually made them worse. The article wasn’t arguing that we should go out there and commit war crimes and genocides, but it did point out the aversion to casualties that has made wars politically difficult.