Winnable vs Unwinnable Wars: Are there ways to know which are which?

[SpyderEdgeForever]

What I mean is this: In American and other nations' histories, there are wars that were "won" and wars that were lost. Though some claim no war is actually won in that all wars lead to loss of life and property and create other problems. But as an example: World War Two was won by the Allied forces against the Axis powers who were seeking to and carrying out mass murder and genocide and invasions against others. I do not want to set off a powderkeg of political debate and argument. I am just wondering: Are there ways for nations to know which wars can be successfully won ahead of time or not really?

[Crux]

This sounds more like a marital issue to me. What wars or battles are you willing to go to with your spouse? I for one have decided that knives are worth fighting for or hiding to avoid a battle. Guns must always be sneaked in unless you want to buy a lot of crap that that you can't give away in 3 years.

But to the subject, I think that it's a perfect time to conquer the world. My plan is that everyone gets an awesome Spyderco knife, obviously I will need to decide which one after testing all Spyderco stock to determine which one. Then instead of attacking like they would expect, we wait until winter and sneak into their cities and cut all their houses down with maxamet.

Granted, I haven't had this vetted so even as I post this I think I see a flaw. Either way, maxamet.

[ChrisinHove]

This sounds more like a marital issue to me. What wars or battles are you willing to go to with your spouse? I for one have decided that knives are worth fighting for or hiding to avoid a battle. Guns must always be sneaked in unless you want to buy a lot of crap that that you can't give away in 3 years.

Hah! All that crap ... too right! It’s just a price we have to pay!

As for wars... I’m not sure they’re not just about who loses the least.

[Bloke]

problems

[The Deacon]

I doubt any country has ever started a war thinking it would lose. Still, I think Helmuth van Moltke's observation that "“No plan survives first contact with the enemy" is true not only for a single engagement, but for war as a whole. So no, I don't think there can ever be certainty of victory (which doesn't mean I don't think there are a few countries we should wipe from the face of the earth).

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Good points. Deacon, I notice that, too. For example, when the "Great War" known as World War One happened, I read that there were both foot soldiers and officers predicting it would be "over by Christmas" and then some veterans of WW2 told me that is a common saying in most wars "We will beat the enemy and be home by Christmas" or some other holiday.

Do you all think one issue that causes people to either over or under estimate the length of a war and the actions of the enemy, is that all the strategy people have to work with are the results of former wars, and so they have to plan as best as they can and there are surprises that happen?

[The Mastiff]

A few countries have lost wars because they misunderstood their enemies. For instance both Germany and Japan had the idea that the Americans were so decadent and weak and would force the government to negotiate before too many soldiers were lost meaning that they could get what they needed before the economy and production ramped up to wartime levels and a wartime army was conscripted and trained.

Germany ( Adolf Hitler mainly) thought Great Britain and France wouldn't go to war over Poland despite a formal treaty. After France fell He thought Great Britain would negotiate rather than keep fighting. It's thought he would have not launched the attack on the USSR if he thought Great Britain was going to continue holding out.

Saddam Hussein was convinced that his military could cause enough casualties on US military forces that the public would demand we pull out leaving him not only with Kuwait but a group of countries in the middle east that would not only lose trust and confidence in the US as allies and they would then have to come to terms with Iraq and himself as the dominant force in the middle east.

Miscalculations are common throughout history despite the countries leaders having access to some of the smartest and most talented people around. By and large leaders of countries are going to tend towards being the types who are told and believe they are the smartest and toughest guys around and aren't the types to take advice. That is unfortunate and costs peoples lives. If you live in a dictatorship or a communist country you can just kill everybody you don't like and rewrite the textbooks to say it was the dead peoples fault and great leader did what he had to in order to save the country and all the world is in agreement that great leader is a truly wise man. Of course there is always a boogeyman enemy country to blame all problems on like Venezuela and Cuba does with the evil capitalistic Americans.

Etc., Etc.

Joe

[MichaelScott]

Yes. Sometimes. For example, Japan starting a war with America in 1941, Japan was obviously destined for defeat.

Just on resources and logistics alone, the end was clear at the beginning.

[demoncase]

We can thank the Ancient Greeks for the concept of 'winning' or 'losing' a war as thing in itself- and much of the sad parts of human history can be tracked back to this idea.

Before this, as Clausewitz espoused much later "War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means" (Or as Terry Pratchett had it- "So people think that war is like talking only a bit louder")- So that wars can neither be won nor lost- as they are simply the next and rather terminal step in negotiation......

Really- (as with so much in life) it comes down to achievement of realistic time-bounded objectives- and that requires setting clear objectives at the start of the war that don't suffer from scope-creep throughout..... Those wars we consider to have been lost clearly have failed to manage these things

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Thank you all for your very well-thought and conscise responses.

The next question is this: When it comes to the major established powers/nations, do you foresee, based on your knowledge and what we can look at, major future wars where super powers engage each other in war, such as USA vs China, or Germany and Japan once again becoming imperial and attempting to invade other nations, or, is that most likely over, because of technology and other things?

[MichaelScott]

I spent a number of years ensuring that if that kind of war came we would be able to reduce the world to nuclear rubble. Don’t see how it is much different now.

https://wp.me/pah6bZ-2R

[ChrisinHove]

I spent a number of years ensuring that if that kind of war came we would be able to reduce the world to nuclear rubble. Don’t see how it is much different now.

https://wp.me/pah6bZ-2R

I would put it that you were ensuring that kind of war *didn’t* come about by being able to reduce the world to nuclear rubble. It’s a different landscape now, but I’m not sure it’s any safer.

[Bodog]

Wars are only won when the population is subjugated. Having said that, subjugation does not have to be done through overt military actions. America is at war right now on multiple fronts, the military is only one. Look at who's being subjugated and who's doing the subjugating. It's not always clear when a war is being fought unless you can objectively admit who's being put under the boot and whose boot it is.

As for history, it rarely is anything like what history books say. How does a country protect itself via overt military means when the attackers perpetuate a war via covert means and proxy attackers without looking like they themselves are the aggressors?

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Bodog and others: How would true automated soldiers, such as war robots, alter this history? Let us say that truly flexible and self repairing robots that could do all that human beings do on the battlefield but even better are developed, and they are reasonably inexpensive, say produced through some form of replication: How would this change the global battlefield and human strategies? Say the humans still have to program and control the robots remotely.

[Bodog]

Bodog and others: How would true automated soldiers, such as war robots, alter this history? Let us say that truly flexible and self repairing robots that could do all that human beings do on the battlefield but even better are developed, and they are reasonably inexpensive, say produced through some form of replication: How would this change the global battlefield and human strategies? Say the humans still have to program and control the robots remotely.

What would be the purpose of a physical war waged between robot armies? The true point of war is to wipe out all viably breeding age males and then take their land, resources, and women and enslave their children.

We have moved past that type of war, sure. But we're currently engaged in the new age war, one where fighting aged males are emasculated through brainwashing and propaganda and the men never seek to physically fight to begin with. Except the war is no longer established through/across lines on a map that show national boundaries. They're attacking morality, tradition, culture, etc. in order to dominate wide swaths of peoples without regard to State lines. Their goal is the same as old, though. Dominate cultures to acquire land, resources, and women and enslave children, but now without a shot being fired. They're actually making the fighting aged males of a culture fight against their own culture through political and economic attacks. It's really genius... and effective.

Like i said, war as historically known is almost dead, though a new type of war is being figured out that accomplishes the same goals as the historic, physically violent wars.

Right now the only player on the field capable of fending off the attacks from this war is being attacked on multiple fronts, though there is only one main adversary. There are several pawns doing the attacking as proxies and they're basically mercenaries. As in fighting for greater economic shares, i.e., fighting for money. If you remember the goal in any war is to destroy the culture and capability of the other side, it's easy to see who's on the attack and who's on the defense and if you're versed in history and who's capable of what, it's easy to see who the king is on the opposite side of the chessboard. Once that's known, the pawns matter less and true strategies can be employed to not just defend, but counter-attack.

The problem is that people have a hard time viewing war as anything but physical and people have a hard time viewing war as anything but one country against another. We as a species are moving past that. Robots need not apply.

[Bodog]

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[demoncase]

Bodog and others: How would true automated soldiers, such as war robots, alter this history? Let us say that truly flexible and self repairing robots that could do all that human beings do on the battlefield but even better are developed, and they are reasonably inexpensive, say produced through some form of replication: How would this change the global battlefield and human strategies? Say the humans still have to program and control the robots remotely.

There's scads of 1960s and 70s sci-fi on this subject- and at least 2 Star Trek episodes on the same

But- really- the weapons of war don't change the nature of war or the reason to fight it.....It was only the Cold War and Mutually Assured Destruction that blunted the edge enough to stop us (so far) fighting with the maximum lethality available

Still: We can destroy a city with one nuclear bomb, 20 nerve gas bombs, 10,000 HE bombs or 50,000 Roman Legionaries- the outcome is the same......Especially for the inhabitants.

War.....War never changes