this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023

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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

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[CW: Racism, violence] The war understander has logged on (preview.redd.it)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[+] [email protected] 55 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Have they won any war with boots on the ground since WW2 when they had the full support of the USSR and the UK, back then the biggest naval power in the world?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I suppose technically the second iraq war counts but that was the absolute textbook definition of a Pyrrhic victory.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I absolutely do not count that one, unless we assume that "turn the place into a civil war economy and enable the formation of ISIS" is a valid win condition. Which is a stretch when they went in there expecting to turn it into an obedient vassal state like postwar Germany or Japan, which is something that Dubya's administration seems to have seriously believed.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

DC's architects made their money off of rebuilding, mercenaries, and corruption. I'm pretty sure they count it as a win regardless of what ever humble pie the media made them eat for that brief period America pretended to care, back in... 2015/2016, was it?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It only works under the very narrow criteria of “removing Saddam from power,” but yeah by any other metric it was a boondoggle of the highest order. A sort of, I got rid of the wasp’s nest in the attic, I just caused a five alarm fire in the process.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Absolutely. What worries me about Iraq is that it may have tought the US that they do not need to be successful, but that it can already benefit them when they just fuck shit up for real in a strategically important corner of the globe.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Yeah there’s been a distinct shift in pentagon mentality where they don’t see wars as things to be won, but things to be managed.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think the first Iraq War is a better example, since they had clear goals (remove Iraq from Kuwait and completely obliterate its infrastructure) and achieved them in a short timeframe.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

I think the difference there is while it was successful in stopping the invasion, it’s also clear in retrospect that the neocons weren’t happy with that and wanted to march all the way to Baghdad. So the first one was successful in the abstract but a failure of the ideological project, and in the second they got what they wanted in the first place and got a failure in the abstract as a result.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

The last war the US won was the invasion of Grenada, a tiny Caribbean island.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago

Do remind me what were their victory conditions.

To me they look like: destabilise the region, sell military tech, build bases, establish puppets, plunder resources, repeat.

Everything else is just marketing

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

I mean, not in any way proud of it, but we did pretty much level Iraq.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

yea that worked wonderfully in Afghanistan

I would argue joker-laden is better at planning out aerial strikes than the U.S. Government.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Few things make me feel as much disgust in my bones like the kind of bloodthirsty wine cave warrior that wants to feel badass about the thought of vicariously watching the killing of people around the world through remotely controlled weapons.

There's multiple layers of alienation from the actual act of killing yet they savor it like it's theirs, like it's a fucking spectator sport. Then again, now it is.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Gonna post this at libs when the first aircraft carrier eats the first hypersonic missile

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

Millennium Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago

Lol, really trying to be an edgy racist with those queue haircuts.

Also, its not saying anything beyond it's better to have planes than not, since American training is full of hazing and abuse too. I'd prefer karate chopping cinder blocks to the whole hell week stuff. also Plaaf training should be similar to USAF since they recruit American veterans to teach dogfighting.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago

china doesn't have planes apparently

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

applying for a cartoonists job in Vanity Fair of the 1870s apparently