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Did we?
I thought we were overwealmed and forced to retreat. The saving grace we had was the channel...
Israeli pilots are also known to give their American counterparts comprehensive poundings whenever the two carry out war games, and if the US were to face a proper adversary with a proper air force in a real conflict, things would be rather different from the walk-overs Iraq and Kosovo were...
The US wouldn't stand a chance in a war against Europe, Russia or China without resorting to nuclear weapons.
A scary thought really the amount of money the US spends on the miltary it is ridicullous!
"Vietnam , correct? The American military never lost the Vietnam war, they lost it in Washington due to the cowardice of the political elite. The US destroyed the Tet offensive, and with 100,000 extra troops they could have coonquered the North and secured it against communism."
You are 100% correct here Matadore.
No, technically speaking, we did not lose the Vietnam War, militarily speaking, we quit.
You are saying that the anti-war protestors "won" the war. The protestors did not help the plight of the soldiers in Vietnam. How familiar are you with the activities of some of the Vietnam War protestors LabRat? Do you realize that some of thes so-called "peace protestors" ALSO SPIT on returning Vietnam Veterans and physically assaulted them? Did you realize that the protesting activities also contributed to our pulling out of the war due to perceived lack of American public support.
If you consider that quitting the war was a "victory" well, that is your opinion. Actually, I don't think it was a victory for us, but an abject failure on a political level. We sacrificed a hell of a lot of soldiers for an effort that we did not see through until the end. THAT was the problem. In that respect, it was failure. Not because of military failure, but because of failure of support from LBJ, McNamara, and others.
btw, the vietnam war is over and long gone.ther wer many factors to be considered, and its not a simple the usa won or the usa lost situation
The technology they rely on so much is mishandled by incompetent troops, a good deal of their troops are totally unprofessional, and even their "high technology" weapnry is inferior in many aspects to European and Chinese hardware.
Take the British Challenger 2 tank for example. The gun, is completely controlled by computer, like the M1A2 Abrahms. The difference is ours is newer. The fire control system on a Challenger 2 enables it to hit a target the size of a football, from a distance of 5 miles. At night.
The frontal armour is able to withstand a direct hit from all known forms of shell and missile currently in existence.
The side armour is still able to withstand direct hits from virtually all Eastern Bloc tank ordanance.
And we know how to use them. What do you think would happen if the USA attempted to invade mainland Europe??? Imagine their troop ships landing at a British beach and facing a barrage of fire from tanks they cannot destroy because they ae 5 miles away?
China has a very good military not just old soviet equipment they get new russian equipment which is as good or better than US/Taiwan equipment they also get US equipment from Israel and what if France or Germany decide to abandon the embargo and sell military stuff to china. Note: China has the fastest growing GDP, they are the next superpower, do you think the US will sit back and let this happen?
North Korea has quite good technology and some nukes and has the support of the population to wage a people's war.
I think people here underestimate how hard it is to invade a hostile nation, sure on a neural flat ground the US could win where armies just face up and blow eachother up but that doesn't happen. from Iraq also, you can see how hard an occupation is especially when the US doesn't have enough troops there to make the country safe.
and an invasion of europe is too unpredicatble without knowing circumstances,such as public support,reasons for invading etc. i mean, if european countries had attacked the united states or lynched n slaughtered us nationals, then i expect use of heavy force or higher tiers wud be acceptable.
Imagine a single soldier with laser designator. Imagine a B-52 with missles. Put the two together and you have a fairly basic means of nullifying the Challenger...
Or, how about you imagine an Apache Helicopter.
You see for most weapons there are serveral counter measures.
This whole discussion in conjecture anyway, the US has military might, enormous military might. All they lack is the political will to use it to its capability. If they ever did that then there are very few countries who would be able to stop it effectively and it would come down to the guerilla warfare. As a nation which has disarmed the population, we'd be fucked. It's the one area where I agree with our US cousins about the "right to bear arms"...
but back to the main idea of this thread, the power of a military. basically, wen it comes to guerilla warfare, armies are incapable of stopping it effectively without looking like bastards int eh population. for example, because of the media presence in iraq they hav to do everything to look squeaky clean- hearts and minds etc. however, if ther was no media then the guerillas cud be tackled better, like the skirmishes around falluja. the only way to beat them is to take them head on, like the americans did, but with the earts and minds approach it makes an army very inneffectiv
I think that the bigger problem is one of logistics...
If their piss-poor record concerning Iraq is anything to go by, the US would be completely incapable to keep control on the ground in most places- in particular if they're engaged in several countries at once. They'd be able to bomb from the air and kill civilians and fighters alike, but they'd never be able sustain an occupation anywhere near what the Nazis achieved; or the Romans; or any other Empire throughout history.
The US army is very good at killing everything in its path on a grand scale (whether it is a threat or not) but when it comes to fighting guerrillas or keeping grip on countries it occupies or attempts to occupy its performance becomes appallingly poor.
Must say that I understand that sentiment.
We treated our subjects as near enough equals, gave them education and infrastructure.
We built an empire as it should be, not the mess the yanks are trying to make.
slave trade?slave trade?
Getting men and equipment into the theatre.
Europe just doesn't have the capability to do this easily...
If you can't get the forces there, they aren't gonna be able to fight.
The British Empire abolished slavery, and was the first country to do so. Then America's south wanted lots of slaves, and the north didn't, and then Spain kept shipping over slaves from the ivory coast illegally because it was actually under british occupation (i think) and therefore protected. Anyway, don't know what happened to spain, but America had a war over it (american civil war) and the north won, thus the south lost the rights to have slaves. Mind you, if you go there even today racism is ever present.
and you sed that in the british empire everyone was treatd equal...wel erm, if by equal, u mean everyone with white skin and a large sum of cash in ther pocket was treated equally, then hell yeh, ther was equality. but if you werent white and were poor, then life was bad. basically, the british could do wat they wanterd, they only wanted the resources(like kenyan diamonds or tea from india), which they could trade and make money. the peopl they occupied wer further down the list. they had no leash basically durin ther occupation. maybe life wud hav been slightly beta if u bent down and took n accepted everythin they gave you,forsaking ur old culture n customs, then maybe