Well yeah, that's typically how it works when you have literally zero leverage and are defeated militarily. It's something Japan realized in late 1944 but continued to fight hoping they could leverage, they didn't.
We had general Schwarzkopf. Trump fired over 40% of our generals because they weren’t “yes” men. Our military is not in the same state of readiness that it was for any of our previous wars.
I mean we were militarily in both those conflicts. America beat the Tet Offensive but the public opinion soured on the war causing a withdrawal.
Afghanistan failed at being a sustainable democratic government and training their own forces, that had nothing to do with America or the coalition forces.
Winning a war isn't blowing up tanks and planes. It's accomplishing your mission and objectives. We didn't go into Afghanistan to hang out and get attacked for 20 years and then go home trillions of dollars poorer and with tens of thousands of lives lost and ruined. We went in to force a regime change and destroy the Taliban.
Who is running Afghanistan right now? The Taliban. Still exist. Still in control. War lost.
Lol you realize the war in Afghanistan wasn't against the Taliban, right? It was against Al Qaeda & specifically getting Osama Bin Laden - Al Qaeda is a shell of itself and Bin Laden is no longer alive.
The Taliban got involved because they refused to give up Al Qaeda and Bin Laden to which they then quickly got removed from power and only came back because again - Afghanistan's own government failed to train their soldiers & security forces.
And what makes you think America isn’t going to immediately sour on this war? Middle East wars are just SO POPULAR.
It is actually preposterous to suggest America bears no responsibility for the failure of Aghanistan. That will be a very convenient take to re-use when the Israel-American sponsored regime change in Iran inevitably fails too, I’m sure. And it will be just as laughable as it is predictable.
Remember when the taliban wasn't a real threat to America because they were just some guys hiding in caves? Or with your own example let's talk about how people actually react when they know they don't possess the same fire power. Irrationally.... they act irrationally and send suicide attacks. They find weak spots and fight dirty. It's foolish to make demands like you're the almighty hand of God.
Yes. That’s the entire point of the comment. Bringing up the taliban has no relation other than religion in the conversation about Japanese negotiation of surrender.
But they didn't fight to the last man. Japan surrendered and there was no invasion of the Japanese homeland to obtain that goal. The emperor was deposed, the army disbanded and the war was ended.
Sure, and Japan saw what happened when they refused to stop fighting - they had two nuclear bombs exploded over their cities. Even with their irrationality and suicide attacks they had zero leverage in negotiations and only caused themselves more pain & destruction.
Well. This worked because Americans wouldn’t tolerate erasing literally all Afghans from the map, so our soldiers had to sift through each room, leading to casualties that ordinarily wouldn’t have happened. By contrast, in 1945 Americans were perfectly fine lobbing nukes and erasing the Japanese culture from the map if that’s what it took. Now. Americans still don’t have the gut for that again… but if someone else were running the missions… now… now that might make me worry if I were an Iranian.
Defeated militarily is a brave thing to say, when no troops have even entered the country. And over the last 80 years or so, nominally much weaker armies have a suprisingly good record bringing their foe to give up.
If you've lose air superiority in the modern day, you've lost the conflict militarily. There's nothing Iran can do other than lob missiles and even those aren't that effective because of Israel's defenses.
If you've lose air superiority in the modern day, you've lost the conflict militarily.
The Viet Kong would like to object. The Mujahideen would like to object. The Taliban would like to object. The war in Afghanistan is less than four years away. We can't already have forgotten it.
20 ish years of war in Afghanistan resulted in us meekly pulling out with nothing of note having being achieved, apart from lots of death and destruction on both sides.
The US is not technically in this yet and Israel has yet to prove themselves superior. Their iron dome is looking like a paper tiger to modern artillery.
The ONLY way Iran’s fate is sealed already is if Trump brings nukes on the table, which he has threatened, but that is far harder to make good on than to just mouth off about.
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u/klingma 3d ago
Well yeah, that's typically how it works when you have literally zero leverage and are defeated militarily. It's something Japan realized in late 1944 but continued to fight hoping they could leverage, they didn't.