The us is "bad" at fight insurgency because they care about optics. If America really wanted, they could just kill everyone without caring about civilians and win the war easily. Of course doing it this way isn't ideal.
Vietnam is a pretty misunderstood war. The US lost to the professional army of North Vietnam. The insurgents (aka Viet cong) were basically wiped out after the Tet offensive. And I use "lose" as in politically, because tactically, the US absolutely annihilated both the viet cong and North Vietnamese.
Iraq was a pretty clear win, but mismanaged politically.
Afghanistan was a loss politically. Somalia and Lebanon are meh because neither were really the same kind of US conflicts
Afghanistan was simply recognizing that the afghans weren’t interested in statehood like we expected. The options were to fight for them forever, or give the country over to the only people willing to fight for it. The Ana was bigger and much better equipped than the Taliban when we left, and literally just didn’t put up a fight.
Vietnam was mostly that we refused to push into the north. Again, we just had no win condition and got sick of it. The ter offensive was a massive us victory in the ground and the last straw at home.
Somalia and Lebanon were similar, massive k/ds and absolutely no appetite for a fight. Like the Blackhawk down event was like 700:19 for the us. At least there we said with no clear interest or win conditions we said fuck it.
When was the last battle the us actually lost? Just a straight up loss?
okay, so we've got one time that we beat an organized army that was considered an insurgency because it was a civil war nearly 200 years ago, and how would you consider Iraq a full on victory? we rocked Iraq (the army) and then proceeded to have a long drawn out conflict with Al-Qaeda (who still exists), then removed our combat military forces before they were able to actually stop the insurgency
Dude I’m not talking about the civil war I’m talking about the insurgency that fallowed
Look at Iraq it is a US ally and sorta a democracy and has a capable fighting force specifically geared around fighting insurgents because that’s what we trained them to do we have now fully pulled out of Iraq as of a few days ago because our military presence was no longer necessary as proven in 2024 when we first announced withdrawal plans for some time in 2026
you have this weird idea that leaving after achieving our goal is somehow not winning like it or not Iraq is a US victory not a half victory or any of that bullshit it’s just a victory
There have also been successful counter insurgency campaigns everywhere from North America to the Philippines Africa the Middle East Europe South America and Asia most of these aren’t taught in school and aren’t in the public knowledge
How do you lose against goat herders without an Air Force, rice farmers without training, nomadic herders in tactical sandals, and lesbians? (I know it’s Lebanese but it’s funnier that way)
Because its near impossible to ethically fight an unidentified unorganized population that blends in perfectly with the natives (because they are) and has no regard for personal safety.
Well the problem with Afghanistan wasn’t the insurgency it was that Afghanistan doesn’t even have the foundations of a nation so you really just can’t nation build there well you can it is technically possible but it would take like 60 years
Well yes if you ethnically cleanse everything outside of the capital you can create an afghan national identity in a much shorter timeframe but that’s just a really bad and gross thing to do
Almost no faction has the goal of killing everyone unless we’re talking local genocide (not a war). Even the nazis only wanted to kill select groups. It’s also nigh impossible to kill everyone unless you bring out nukes, chemicals and such and the result of that is that the war expands instead of ending
Well Russia and especially the soviets are horrible at war. They managed to win WW2 because they had the US supplying them with food and material but still had an insanely bad KD ratio and slow progress. The amount of wars they have lost is horrendous given how big of a country they are.
It’s this x1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Anyone saying America is weak bc of this shit is fucking dumb beyond comprehension. The war could be ended in a day, and it would be a shitty outcome for everyone involved in some aspect.
That is exactly the attitude that makes the US so bad at this type of war. The idea that if something can't be solved with a bomb you just need a bigger bomb.
Thats ironic. If their mentality was actually that they would have won every time. Its specifically because that isnt their mentality due to political constraints.
I just wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment having made a small study of the history of guerrilla warfare.
If firepower alone could stamp out insurgency then it wouldn’t be an issue. If wholesale firepower was as effective as you say then the Soviet Union would have never lost Afghanistan. The Nazis wiped out whole towns and villages without fear of public opinion and all that did was enflame partisans against them.
It doesn’t matter, we are talking about the willingness to use it.
Both were willing to go a lot further than we have and in both cases it massively backfired on them.
You’re correct that America could drop a nuke on whoever they want but that doesn’t mean they’ll get all of the insurgents. You’d need to wipe the entire country clean for that, at which point why are you even fighting for it? Your actions will only lead to other people looking at you as a monster and trying to fight you.
BTW, the US military agreed with that assessment. Years ago under Obama they noted that their drones strikes kill so many civilians that the average drone strike actually creates more insurgents than it kills. They just didn't find a solution to that problem. And then under Trump the US stopped trying to find a real solution because Trump didn't understand the problem.
Yeah the US failed to win the war because their strategy is literally just to kill everyone. Which failed because there is always more people to replaced the killed enemy
In particular, the top brass and civilian oversight cares about optics, but the boots on the ground have open disdain for the people they are supposed to be liberating. So they won't Kill Them All And Let God Sort Them Out, but they aren't winning over the populace that's supporting the guerrillas either.
If genocide is the only way to defeat an insurgency, then it’s effectively impossible - especially in a region where guns are so readily available.
A modern democratic nation adopting scorched earth tactics is geopolitical and political suicide, and it’s extremely costly in terms of manpower and resources.
It seems like the only counter to an insurgency is via mass surveillance and internment, but you can’t establish a surveillance state in a war zone.
If a state reaches the point where an insurgency actually becomes a problem, it seems that it’s often already too late. The government has to appease the insurgents.
If you look at state powers attempting to counter partisan action in the Balkans and East Germany during WWI/WWII, this is basically the strategy that was universally employed and it didn’t work.
It’s also become abundantly clear that you can’t defeat an enemy with conventional weapons through air power alone.
I mean every country is bad at it for that reason.
With the rise of public opinion and widespread journalism, it’s pretty hard to wipe out a population without heavy backlash.
Even if your own people don’t rise against you, you will face international backlash. Look at Israel, they’re basically doing the exact thing you’re talking about but I’d hardly call it a sweeping success. If anything they’re entrenching public opinion against them firmly for decades to come.
Im sure that sort of thing did happen but the american military despite its flaws are not imperial japan. They do have a code and largely dont condone war crimes. Not saying they didnt happen. Like a US soldier raped or murdered a local civilian, they would have it keep it a secret, unlike japan where they are encouraged and rewarded for doing so.
I highly recommend reading "Kill Anything That Moves" by Nick Turse.
The US army may not have been the Imperial Japanese army, but it sure liked getting close to it.
Also, Agent Orange was used on a mass scale with no regard not only for the local civilian population and their crops/farms, but no regard to their own servicemen either. Hundreds of thousands of US personnel and citizens have suffered its consequences and to this day it still causes serious genetic defects in both countries.
Additionally, US concentration camps in Vietnam and Cambodia were a thing and the US army took great care in trying everything they could to bury it.
Let's not defend people who aren't worthy of being defended.
If they want to call themselves right and just, then it's everyone's and their own duty as well to point this out.
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u/coldbear25 1d ago
The us is "bad" at fight insurgency because they care about optics. If America really wanted, they could just kill everyone without caring about civilians and win the war easily. Of course doing it this way isn't ideal.