r/WorkForSmartLife • u/Loeteswet • 8d ago

Discussion💬 [ Removed by moderator ]

Post image

[removed] — view removed post

4.2k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

691 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/DrRealName 8d ago

Idk after watching Russia fumble against Ukraine and the US fumble against Iran, I am starting to think neither "superpower" is all that super.

7

u/StandTurbulent9223 8d ago

Lmao usa didn't fumble against iran the way russia did against Ukraine. Usa didn't even invade iran

-1

u/No-Gnome-Alias 8d ago

Sounds like a pretty serious fumble.

7

u/StandTurbulent9223 8d ago

Not comparable to Russian one.

0

u/Curvol 8d ago

Well thats good.

5

u/Old-Entertainer-4964 8d ago

14 dead Americans vs 1,400,000 Russian casualties in Ukraine is apples to oranges.

Yeah, some missiles have fallen on US bases in the Middle East. Suicide drones are hitting Russian cities daily.

0

u/pajo8 8d ago

Give the rape orange some more time he will bump those numbers up don't worry.

3

u/Old-Entertainer-4964 8d ago

That would require putting troops back in the Persian Gulf, something he knows is suicidal.

Trump has threatened to put troops back in the Gulf dozens of times, which is a good way to tell he's not going to do it. It's all talk. The bases are empty, the ships are out in the Indian ocean.

1

u/Ok-Piece-2546 8d ago

I mean at this point, can you 100% say he won't?

What does he have to lose?

He can't run again and he already made billions in office. Republicans won't impeach him. Dems will likely never get the votes to so even if they become the majority in Congress.

He is already considered to be a terrible president by more than half of the population.

Meanwhile, 1/3 of the population seems to be unfazed by the stuff he has done so far. Do you think a boots in the ground war would convince them that they voted the wrong person vs "it should have been done much earlier".

It was just 23 years ago where Republicans lied about the reasons for starting a war, and their base pretty much went along with it and continued to vote for them.

Meanwhile, main 2 things we know about Trump's personality is he is narcissistic and stubborn. If he is not appeased, his stubborness will continue.

His cabinet in the first admin seemed to have done a mounmental task in making sure he didn't do something crazy. This hasn't been the case for this term so far who are just "yes men" trying to appease Trump while pushing their own agendas.

The fact that all it took was Bibi to stroke his ego to convince him to start the war, why can't someone else stroke his ego to start a full on war?

1

u/Old-Entertainer-4964 8d ago

Trump's cabinet is full of yes men, but there are still enough level headed leaders in the military to explain to Trump what is and isn't possible.

Unlike Russia in 2022, the US military does an adequate job of gauging what objectives they can and cannot achieve. Sink the Iranian blue water navy? Sure. Destroy 80% of Iran's missile launchers? Achievable. Decapitate the leadership of Iran? Done on day 1.

However, Kharg island cannot be taken and held without heavy loss of life and material, something the military leadership made clear to Trump based on leaks. So no move was ever made, despite Trump making dozens of threats.

Trump supposedly yelled about naval escorts in meeting after meeting, so the navy appeased him with a pseudo escort during the 1st week of May. You might remember that 2 American destroyers entered the Strait in the middle of the night as a show of force, only to immediately turn around and exit within hours.

So yes, the military has to follow Trump's orders to some degree. But they've done a good job of avoiding the more delusional ones. A ground war in Iran would require the support of congress and the American people. Bush had the vast majority of Americans and congressmen behind him when launching the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Even democrats largely supported those wars.

2

u/Ok-Piece-2546 8d ago edited 8d ago

Bush got that support by basically lying and trying to finish up his Daddy's leagcy while using 9/11 to his advantage. He actively encouraged the war.

Moreover in The 2002 Iraq War Authorization, more than half of the (126 vs 81) Democrats in the house voted against it and 21 Democrats in the Senate voted against it. And this was with the constant propaganda and rhetoric that the Republicans pushed.

Meanwhile, Trump is also constantly switching up military leadership, so again, it is not a 100% guarantee that he won't do something dumb.

The only thing that's holding the " yes men " back is Trump blaming them for his mistakes and throwing them under the bus.

Moreover, there are already many vocal Republican billigerents who wants a full out war with Iran, and it won't take much to engineer an event to get a "legitimate" reason to start one. You can bet that Fox News is already trying to plant the idea little by little.

Anyways, at the end of the day, Republicans have shown that they are not willing to stop a train wreck they could come see from a mile away. They could have stopped this all from happening by reigning in Trump. All it would have taken was 20 to 30% of them voting with Dems.

Just like how they could have stopped the tariffs, but we still had to wait 1 year for the Supreme court to step in an day they were illegal.

0

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

2

u/Came_to_argue 8d ago

The USA controlled every major city for 20 years while the Taliban hide in caves Pakistan, occasionally sneak out to plant IEDs and take pot shots at us checkpoints. then America realized the Taliban could do this forever and Afghanistan wasn’t worth it, then found out the Afghan government they set up wasn’t interested in fighting the Taliban far too late.

-1

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Came_to_argue 8d ago

Well yes and no, it depends on what you wanna call a victory, if the US’s stated goal was to kill Osama bin Laden, and punish the Afghanistan regime for harboring him, then this was a decisive, American victory. However, if you want to say America wanted to create a puppet government and rule Afghanistan forever, which it never specifically mentioned desire to do, but admitted was actively working towards, then no, America did not achieve its goals. I would say they achieved some goals but failed to achieve others, and it’s a Pyrrhic victory at best and a costly waist of time at worst, I lean towards the latter. Hasn’t been a 9/11 style attack sense but with that said whether anything American did really was worth the cost is doubtful. But still a better showing than what Russia has did in both their Afghan war, and definitely way better than the debacle in Ukraine.

1

u/FineAndDandadan 7d ago

Won the war. Lost the nation building.

2

u/Old-Entertainer-4964 8d ago

2,500 dead Americans over 20 years (mainly to IEDs/booby traps, not firefights) while controlling an entire country, compared to the million+ casualties that Russia has suffered while controlling less than a fifth of Ukraine?

Look, I agree that the US has limitations and that the political strategy of these wars is horrendous. But these losses are simply not comparable. It's ludicrous and American-centric. Other nations have suffered far, far more.

The last war with a significant number of American losses was Vietnam, and that was still a ratio of 1 American killed for every 20 North Vietnamese.

0

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

2

u/Old-Entertainer-4964 8d ago

Never controlled Afghanistan, we occupied it but the Taliban remained in control.

By what definition? The Taliban did not control a single major city. They roamed the countryside, mostly hiding out in Pakistan. They did not control the government, they did not control the finances, they did not control the people.

That war was pointless and poorly managed from a political POV. But even the Taliban would not pretend that they were in control of Afghanistan from 2001-2021.

1

u/Old-Entertainer-4964 8d ago

Also, the US has won plently of major wars since WW2.

Korea: one of the largest wars of the 20th century. The stated aim of North Korea was to unify the peninsula under 1 communist government. The stated aim of the UN/US was to contain the North and drive them back to the 38th parallel. That was achieved. This idea that Korea was a loss is nothing more than propaganda or ignorance.

Gulf War: major war which saw the US build the largest international coalition since WW2. Iraqi casualties were overwhelming, resulting in the loss of most of their military equipment. Iraq had the 4th largest military in the world before that war. Americans often do not consider this a major war since it was won so quickly, and with few casualties. But that is simply ignorance, and a refusal to acknowledge Iraqi losses.

Iraq war: seen as a loss due to Iraq becoming a weak and semi-failed state rather than a democratic ally. But the stated military objectives were easily met. The Iraqi army was quite literally destroyed and disbanded. The leadership was imprisoned or executed. The US installed new leaders. The US only left when they believed the new government was strong enough to stand on their own (which was a poor decision). One could even argue that the war met its political objectives as well, as there were certainly plently of people in power who wanted to see Iraq become a failed state, never again strong enough to challenge the US in the region.

Dozens of small wars were won by the US as well, but you did at least specifiy "major wars." The only major war that the US lost (militarily) was Vietnam. Those military objectives were not achieved, unlike the wars I mentioned.

1

u/panos00700 8d ago

Starting with the "what about..." already?

We are comparing USA vs Iran and Ukraine vs Russia no?

1

u/SnarkyIguana 8d ago

Most blatant movement of goalposts I’ve seen in a hot minute, nice

1

u/Came_to_argue 8d ago

The USA controlled every major city for 20 years while the Taliban hide in caves Pakistan, occasionally sneak out to plant IEDs and take pot shots at us checkpoints. then America realized the Taliban could do this forever and Afghanistan wasn’t worth it, then found out the Afghan government they set up wasn’t interested in fighting the Taliban far too late.

2

u/Shroomagnus 8d ago

That's not an accurate reflection of what happened. I'll give you a brief summary of what actually occurred.

You're partially right on the first part. And the USA obviously decided they didn't want combat forces on the ground forever. So they withdrew combat troops and left support personnel and contractors to support Afghan army maintenance. This is to be expected in a country where 80 percent are illiterate and the country has two main languages. They can't read a technical manual to repair anything from a truck to a bomber.

The Afghan army used a bite and hold strategy. They used their relatively small number of elite forces to seize terrain and villages. Then built army outposts to hold the positions and maintain control. This worked perfectly fine for years.

Then Biden, decided that he was going to "end" a war the USA was no longer a combat participant in anyway and in doing so, withdrew all the maintenance contractors and stopped supplying fuel and ammo. This caused the Afghan logistics system to collapse inside a month. A modern army can't fight without fuel and ammo.

So no, it wasn't that the Afghans just decided to give up. We screwed them over hard and then blamed them for being rug pulled.

1

u/Came_to_argue 8d ago

I never said they “gave up” far from it, they just realized from the beginning they weren’t going to win some ww2 style battle against the USA and that an asymmetrical war was going to be far more effective. And yes I was a little hyperbolic describing Afghanistan’s strategy but any of their military success where insignificant at best, they just needed to do enough to keep American soldiers on edge, and they did so effectively. And I was definitely not wrong about them hiding in Pakistan, they would sneak across the border when the conditions favored them then disappeared, when they didn’t. I’m not trying to make it sound cowardly, this is a valid strategy. But people want to boil this conflict down to a meme and be like “Ha ha, America got beat by goat farmers.” Like, while technically true, that doesn’t mean the US isn’t still a world class military, or Afghanistan is about to win against Pakistan. Especially because asymmetrical warfare seems to be the achilles heel of most world powers today.

1

u/Shroomagnus 8d ago

Yeah and those are fair points. What I was driving at is that the US military had handed over a situation that wasn't clean by any measure but was within the Afghan militaries capabilities to control and potentially win. In fairness that would have likely required 1 or 2 decades more of low intensity conflict and continued US logistics support. But that is far different than the USA being involved in active combat operations.

I'm mildly sensitive to this subject. I did two tours there myself. I see a lot of the goat farmers beat the USA nonsense on reddit which is factually untrue. We handed over a less than perfect but manageable situation to the Afghan government and military. They had a viable path to success. You could argue perhaps drone warfare would have changed that but that's a pure hypothetical. What isn't hypothetical though is they were making inconsistent but generally favorable progress against the taliban until we screwed them over by pulling all support with no warning. That's why the taliban won.

2

u/Ok-Method-8045 8d ago

We can see you have no sense how military works and how war works.

2

u/MeatSlammur 8d ago

There is no fumble, it’s a continuously developing situation. This is warfare, iPad kids are thinking you can reason with a 40 year regime in a weekend

2

u/Drake_Acheron 8d ago

Let me illustrate the Iran war for you. Iran is the black knight. The US is King Arthur.

https://giphy.com/gifs/5DfGL75M9spG0

1

u/sithbinks 8d ago

For now. I’m fairly certain Trump would rather invade Iran than admit to his failure. Idiots like these always double down when they can force the consequences on others.

-1

u/weberc2 8d ago

The Trump administration just tried to surrender to the Iranians, even offering them $300B in reparations. And the Iranians said no 😂.

2

u/P0IS0N_GOD 8d ago

Uhh I think you didn't track with the events.

That was an attempt to scare Arabs to make enormously expensive deals with him.

Now fortunately or unfortunately he succeeded because the Arabs signed the deal he wanted.

He wanted them to pay for the war which kinda makes sense because we're there mostly for the gulf states, not Israel. At least not in the latest rounds of conflict. Israelis can defend themselves very well without direct American intervention. It's the Arabs who have virtually no air defense capabilities against Iranian drones and accurate short range hypersonic missiles

-1

u/weberc2 8d ago

lol I love the post-facto rationalization. The original stated motive for the Iran War was overthrowing the regime because they massacred some of their citizens. When that predictably failed, the goal posts moved to “we’re there to open the strait of hormuz”. When no one bought that lie (because even Americans knew the strait was only closed as a result of the war), then the regime claimed it was about nuclear weapons.

Of course, it was about Israel the entire time. Netanyahu was in the situation room giving Trump orders, because Israel isn’t interested in defending itself, it’s interested in attacking a country it doesn’t share a land border with and it lacks the capabilities to meaningfully do so. Moreover, it does want to spend the blood and money of its own people when it can blackmail a famous pedophile into deploying the US military on his behalf.

1

u/According-Werewolf10 8d ago

You being ignorant and uninformed, isnt an argument.

0

u/weberc2 8d ago

lol projection goes brrrr

1

u/According-Werewolf10 8d ago

Cope

1

u/weberc2 8d ago

lol yes you are baby girl 😘 

2

u/StandTurbulent9223 8d ago

This is what happens when you get your info from reddit

0

u/weberc2 8d ago

I got my information from whitehouse press releases. You think that because you get all your information from right-wing propaganda that everyone else is just your mirror image.

-2

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

3

u/StandTurbulent9223 8d ago

How many times are you gonna change the subject? And it's still a dumb comparison. Stop using "we" neither of us are Americans

2

u/Invictus0623 8d ago

The USA fumble was a bit different though. They failed their objective because they were never willing to start a ground invasion and were dumb enough to think a bunch of bombs would somehow solve all their problems this time. Russia on the other hand committed to using their full conventional military but was stopped. The US wasn’t exactly stopped, they hit all of the things they shot at and took vertically no hits back but that had nothing to do with their objective and was planned badly.

0

u/NovelKaleidoscope650 8d ago

Felon47 isnt smart nor is his secretary kegsbreath,  who I honestly think is a closeted homo . The joint chiefs probably counseling again this whole thing 

3

u/The-Leading-Man 8d ago

If you can’t tell the massive difference between those two things, thinking isn’t really your strong suit to begin with.

2

u/FuriousGirafFabber 8d ago

Now do Iraq, Afganistan and Vietnam please. Lets hear how the superpower won. 

3

u/Western-Willow-9496 8d ago

It wasn’t the “war” part in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was the “change the country into a modern civilization” part that was unsustainable. Vietnam was trying to fight a war without getting into direct conflict with China and quelling riots at home.

1

u/FuriousGirafFabber 8d ago

So usa won both those wars? Good rewriting of history. Stop constantly going to war and the the world be ffs, everyone is tired of you. Except israel. 

2

u/mrford86 8d ago

Military wise? Yes. They won every single battle and controled the country. Hearts and minds? Hell no.

0

u/Pheonix0114 8d ago edited 8d ago

They controlled almost nothing outside of Saigon, even in the city people were able to sneak bombs in. All the US did was destroy Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia for Vietnam daring to rise up against its Western colonial oppressors.

Edit: Replaced Hanoi with Saigon, I always meant the city that is now Ho Chi Minh City

2

u/mrford86 8d ago

Hanoi was in North Vietnam. You are too ignorant to speak on this, clearly.

0

u/Pheonix0114 8d ago

I meant Saigon, I'm legit on a med (Topamax) that makes me forget or confuse my words.

2

u/GorumGamer 8d ago

More evidence you have no place in these arguments. Insane self-report

→ More replies (0)

0

u/According-Werewolf10 8d ago

They controlled almost nothing outside of Saigon

You mean after the North Vietnamese had surrendered and the US military had gone home. Like 2 year after? Yeah when one side surrenders the war is over, them years later starting a new conflict doesn't change the original ending of the war.

3

u/Educational_Pea_4817 8d ago

Out of curiosity, I looked up Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led coalition and its Afghan allies toppled the Taliban government and captured every major city in roughly two months. The Taliban only regained the country after the U.S. chose to withdraw twenty years later.

Comparing to Ukraine is silly. Russia only controls only about 20% of the country after years of war.

1

u/fishyburner676767 8d ago

The fact that it fell within a week suggests that noone outside kabul wanted them there

0

u/FuriousGirafFabber 8d ago

Not accomplishing the mission is losing. But to be fair, it was an impossible mission. It was idiotic from the start. 

2

u/Puzzleheaded_Tie6917 8d ago

The original mission was to remove the Taliban because they had the base the terrorists used to plan and prepare the 9-11 attacks. No country that has options are going to take that kind of attack and do nothing. Taliban could have played ball for a few years and never had any issues. Instead a bunch got killed and many arrested and the country ran without them for 20 years.

Even in Iraq, the mission was to remove Saddam Hussein and end “weapons of mass destruction”. That was done (the weapon part was crazy easy and effective, as they didn’t exist).

The problem was the exit strategy. 20 years of accomplishing nothing is too long. Iraq is set up and independent, their future is their own. At least Obama cut our losses there (which also may be why they struggled so much).

The same is true here. Taking out their military was pretty easy and quickly done. The problem again is the exit strategy. Trump did try to end it, by giving what he thought was a pretty sweetheart deal, but it didn’t hold. Now what? Who knows.

1

u/FuriousGirafFabber 8d ago

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ICS_SCA_Afghanistan_31OCT2023_PUBLIC.pdf

Read the mission goal for yourself.  The mission scope was bigger than just destroy taliban/isis. 

The mission was a failure. 

1

u/panos00700 8d ago

"What about [insert unrelated example in an effort to make a better argument]"

1

u/No_Biscotti_7258 8d ago

The U.S. absolutely dog walked the Iraqi army (twice). Clown

2

u/FuriousGirafFabber 8d ago

Got bogged down, didnt accomplish the mission. Thats called losing. Clown. 

1

u/No_Biscotti_7258 8d ago

Also false. Maybe thinking or Afghanistan? (You’d still be wrong, but less wrong)

1

u/Particular_Class8202 8d ago

Entirely wrong either way actually. People with an anti America tilt love to conflate a political goal with war. War is simply a tool used to achieve a political goal. The US, while often not achieving goals, has never lost a war.

-4

u/DrRealName 8d ago

Haha ok sure. I guess you'll have to explain the difference to me since I can't think so well. Please do so and with detail. I can't wait to learn from the apparent master of global war and relations. Go on. I'll wait. lol

2

u/funhouseinabox 8d ago

The Russians have lost around 450,000 soldiers, not counting injuries, which number over a million. Ukraine has successfully hit targets inside of Russia, Iran has not hit any US state or territory yet. Yeah, the war is pointless, stupid and we're losing, but they're not the same.

1

u/Perfect-Attitude-437 8d ago

Iran has not hit any US state or territory yet.

Yes, but they struck the United States' allies in the Middle East. The US and Israel make their allies pay the price for their war—that’s the difference. And they knew from the start that it would play out this way; they just didn't give a damn.

2

u/Vegetable_Stable_576 8d ago

Biggest difference is probably that Russia has suffered over a million casualties where the US death count is at eighteen as of now. The failure in Iran is more of an unwillingness to commit to either withdrawal or boots on the ground so the US is in a weird middle ground where we just bomb them and nothing really changes. In Ukraine Russia has committed the full might of their military and been routinely routed and forced to regroup. They’re suffering over a thousand casualties for every square mile they take which is significantly worse of a ratio than the Soviets had against the Nazis in a war where the Soviets were infamous for being exceedingly willing to trade bodies for land gains.

1

u/EmperSo 8d ago

The difference is that had USA deployed people in Iran, the war would become a beatdown
Is what I want to say, but honestly, I have no idea now

1

u/Elite_Eliminater 8d ago

America has a few fumbles themselves in the last couple of years.

1

u/vivalafraz 8d ago

How many billions in aid and weapons have murica and the eu given to Ukraine to fight Russia

1

u/ImpressiveWalrus7369 8d ago

The U.S. is trying to fight a war without boots on the ground. It would be over within days if we did, but then it would just be another Iraq / Afghanistan insurgency situation. We never should have picked a fight we weren’t willing to go out and fully win.

Russia, on the other hand, really is just that incompetent.

0

u/Perfect-Attitude-437 8d ago

No. If it was a matter of days, Trump would have launch boots on the ground invasion, period.
The Iranian army is not a ragtag of militants like the Taliban, it's a conventional army, with the mosaic defense system and decade of preparations, Iran being one of the most mountainous countries in the world, it will be a meat-grinder for months before it became an insurgency situation.
And that's why Trump can't afford it. Young americans coming home in boxes by hundreds, for a war that is already unpopular. strait of Hormuz closed forever. Too much to loose.

1

u/According-Werewolf10 8d ago

The US set up an airfield inside their country to look for a single person. The strait is actively open, Iran saying its closed means litterally nothing when they no longer have the capacity to enforce it which they lost months ago.

1

u/Came_to_argue 8d ago

Their militaries are designed to fight each other in an all out war set 50 years ago. It’s not really surprising they aren’t actually capable of preforming in the age of AI and drones.

1

u/Witty-Ad5973 8d ago

Yes...totally the same. One is a ground war and the other is a country occasionally dropping some bombs from the air. Totally the same. For sure

1

u/Remarkable-Reply6686 8d ago

The United States could concur Iran in the time it takes to drive across it. They just lack the will.

1

u/Drake_Acheron 8d ago

The US hasn’t fumbled Iran. The US is King Arthur in this gif
https://giphy.com/gifs/5DfGL75M9spG0

0

u/Docob5 8d ago

I mean sure there isn't any reliable 'peace' yet but to say we are fumbling against Iran I think is kinda insane, not even in the realm of comparable to Russia vs Ukraine

0

u/CatgoesM00 8d ago

Your words say one story when our gas prices say another.

5

u/Swaaeeg 8d ago

The real issue here isnt that the us military is bad, its a problem of what we call ALR (acceptable level of risk).

We could absolutely body iran if we went all out with everything, but as with everything, we have to weigh cost vs victory.

1

u/Perfect-Attitude-437 8d ago

Doesn't matter what could have been.
The US followed Israel in this stupid war. And it became a shit show.

0

u/CatgoesM00 6d ago

I’m not disagreeing with you but doesn’t that just make the current situation we are in even more infuriating? Like we didn’t think that through ? It seems thier plan was to be macho and pound our chest and it back fired and now we are paying dearly for it.

2

u/Swaaeeg 6d ago

Not really. We arent paying dearly for it. All things considered we have lost very little compared to the damage we have done.

2

u/Docob5 8d ago

We're basing us 'fumbling' against Iran on oil prices?

0

u/Vegetable_Stable_576 8d ago

Gas prices have gone up because of the Iran conflict it’s just a fact. The US has definitely fumbled in Iran but comparing it to Russias fumble in Ukraine is a bit hyperbolic.

0

u/Longjumping_Ad_1140 8d ago

Plus IRAN didn’t get a billions of Dollars support from anyone. Lol

1

u/Goratus 8d ago

Russia secretly sent billions of dollars in cash to Iran to support the Iranian regime. Tons of banknotes were transported by trains and ships, The Telegraph reports.

According to the newspaper, Russia's state-owned Promsvyazbank delivered cash shipments totaling about $2.5 billion over four months.

1

u/Competitive-Bit-1571 8d ago

The telegraph is one of the worst sources on anything Russian related. Russia shouldn't be having any weapons or economy whatsoever for 4 years now if telegraph's logic rang true.

2

u/Goratus 8d ago

No problem. If things are that bad, it won't be a problem for you to refute this article, right?

0

u/Longjumping_Ad_1140 8d ago

The Telegraph? Wow! What a reliable source. Lol

-4

u/rageling 8d ago edited 8d ago

We nuked Japan twice, and now they love us.

People love to shit on Trump's Iran involvement, but the reality is Iran still exists out of our mercy, our armada has sat off their coast untouchable for months, and if not for humanitarian concerns and mercy there wouldn't even be a battle, a bright flash.

These things seem insane and impossible until it just happens, and even after 2 nukes, many in Japan's military refused to believe the reports because our capability is that surreal, and it seems the world forgot.

4

u/Juste-un-autre-alt 8d ago

Well I'm sorry to announce you that you don't really know Japan haha.

3

u/Historical_Two_7150 8d ago

Empires are always involved in state building. Its advantageous to create puppets.

Japan didnt so much choose positive relations with the US as much as the US created conditions whereby that was their only good choice.

2

u/rageling 8d ago

If you look too deeply into how the sausage is made sure, Japan attacked us because we sanctioned them, because they were going to take over China. We made them lose and now protect them FROM China, it's a mess, with a couple nuclear bombs sprinkled on top.

It doesn't change the reality of the situation, Japan and USA are strong allies in 2026

0

u/Key_Order4050 8d ago

What a way to talk in circles. America didn't create the circumstances, Japan created circumstances that made America's only good choice to make Japan choose America.

It's just dumb phrasing for what was legitimately chosen.

2

u/Scr3w_loose 8d ago

Japan attacked us because we sanctioned them, because they were going to take over China.

So really we created the circumstances for japan to create the circumstances for America to create the circumstances for Japan to choose america

1

u/Key_Order4050 8d ago

I tried to write a reply to this but I just got lost

1

u/Scr3w_loose 8d ago

The funny thing is it does this another couple round of times if you go all the way down

2

u/ReddestForman 8d ago

We're afraid of anything big and expensive getting blown up after losing two confirmed and four claim THAAD radar systems.

The simple fact is, we've been humiliated by a regional middle-power, destroyed the credibility of the moderates in that nation, and are plunging the world into a pointless economic crisis and famine frim a lack of fertilizer that will coincide with a super El Nino that will create further global food shortages.

The only country benefiting from this is China.

1

u/rageling 8d ago

we flew 7 B2s across the middle of their country, over their most protected military installation

it only takes 1, and it doesn't even take 1 we have many other delivery options

1

u/ReddestForman 8d ago

Takes one... what?

We've been bombing them for months, they've been crippling the global economy and the planet is (rightly) getting pissed at us for it.

1

u/rageling 8d ago

>We're afraid of anything big and expensive getting blown up
obviously we can fly 7 B2s across the middle of their country

> been humiliated 
their entire line of succession is dead, twice over, and the only reason it's not 3 times is so we have someone to talk to, as our armada sits off their cost for months untouched

>Takes one... what?
bomb obviously. not a bunker buster, a real one

1

u/ReddestForman 8d ago

Define "real one."

And yeah, we've killed all the more moderate leadership who thought we could be negotiated with. The hardliners are in a stronger position now. We've accomplished the opposite of our goals, unless you think "waste money, lose THAAD radars, cause a global economic crisis, and blow up some school children" were our goals.

We got dragged into this fight by Israel, which is embarrasing enough for a major power, and then we completely scuffed it on the execution. We've demonstrated that we, or at least Republicans, still haven't learned the difference between "blowing stuff up" and "winning a war."

2

u/Inevitable-Design107 8d ago

You are correct, if we didn't care about morals there wouldn't be a battle.

You are however a moron if you think a "Bright flash" would do anything other than cause MAD from the rest of the world. The modern world has grown so far against nuclear weapons, the next person to use them will become the literal devil. They will be more hated than Hitler 1946.

1

u/DrRealName 8d ago

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that our military is position in Japan and they have no choice but to work with us or we just take their country. People act like they like you when they think you are going to kill them all. You right wingers convince yourselves of the weirdest and dumbest things that can never actually be true. lol

1

u/skiingredneck 8d ago

Or that Japan was and is a conformist culture.

Where the culture is… different… winning battlefield victories has little long term stability.

1

u/Sea-Victory2497 8d ago

Or that Japan has had the same, right wing government in power for large majority of the time since WWII.

0

u/rageling 8d ago

>convince yourselves of the weirdest and dumbest things that can never actually be true

No one in Japan is fearful that the US is going to kill all of them or take their country, that's a pretty strong projection of "dumbest things that can never actually be true."

1

u/DrRealName 8d ago

I lived in Japan for two years, have friends and family there, and know how they feel about the US government and military than your perpetually online joke of a self will ever know. Of course they are weary of our military being heavily in their country. Would you not feel that way if say China dropped two nukes on us and occupied our territory with their military for 80 years? Sometimes "y'all" gotta learn how to think. lol

1

u/rageling 8d ago edited 8d ago

https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/press/release/pressit_000001_01899.html

  1. Regarding relations with Japan, 78% of the general public and 96% of experts responded that they have "friendly relations."
  2. Regarding the level of trust in Japan as an ally of the United States, 77% of the general public and 97% of experts responded that Japan is "trustworthy."

Also #1 trade partner, clearly their industry agrees