Post #4261558

2026-07-30 20:22 UTC

RE: https://social.treehouse.systems/@PallasRiot/117006331101791062 The US is extremely bad at war. The US military doesn't have a reality-based understanding of war, the US military doesn't practice warfare competently, the US defense industry is a sprawling system of graft and spoils, and the US political elite largely don't understand war. The US public is frankly even more tragically and shockingly moronic about war, and fundamentally the American public really likes and is very impressed by the stuff that actually makes the US extremely bad at war. The US remains a kind of insane gun pointed at the world, but not because the US is likely to be able to carry out a bunch of successful wars but rather because any government that ends up at war with the US will see its people subjected to horrific, if largely ineffectual, violence. But like the US is just straightforwardly incompetent at war.

Replies (4)

@statsguy@mas.to 2026-07-30 20:28

@PallasRiot@social.treehouse.systems They did OK in the first gulf war in 1991. The big difference with that one is that it was a war of defence with clearly defined aims (kick Saddam's army out of Kuwait). Their problem is they keep starting unwinnable wars of aggression (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, etc). Doesn't really matter how good at fighting they are: the mistake is strategic rather than military. They are just intrinsically unwinnable.

Open ##4261557
@PallasRiot@social.treehouse.systems 2026-07-30 21:00

The US government's practice of warfare relies heavily on two concepts: special forces raids and ubiquitous aerial bombing. Those special forces raids amount mostly to poorly thought out campaigns of terrorism, while America is still desperately trying to win wars through air power which is literally the pipe dream of the dawn of aviation and has never worked. People often blame US political leaders for choosing bad wars and that's not untrue but it's definitely cope. The US military itself is pretty captured by fundamentally flawed ideas about war, and to be honest I think that US political leaders are as mislead by US military leaders as vice versa. This idea that the US military would win like crazy if only the dumb elected civilians would stop using the military wrong is bordering on Clean Wehrmacht levels of apologia. Like yeah if you need twenty dudes in a bunker killed at the low price of dozens of millions of dollars, the Pentagon is unbeatable. That's not warfare, that's money laundering with a modest body count.

Open ##4312455
@401matthall@mastodon.xyz 2026-07-30 20:28

@PallasRiot@social.treehouse.systems Gotta know what it _is_ before you can be good at it, right? We're pretty good a violence, though. We... We sling that pretty good.

Open ##4312457
@ehproque@neopaquita.es 2026-07-30 20:40

@PallasRiot@social.treehouse.systems look, you can't lose a war if you don't have clear goals for a war, therefore the US hasn't lost a war in many decades

Open ##4315044