International Interventions and their comparability

Then we're in agreement.

I just took issue with the idea that a conscript can't be motivated, glad to see you weren't suggesting that.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

archonspeaks, in your #45 page 2 you wrote:

By their people and their home I also mean their country, as that still seems to matter for more than a few people.

You added: Are these US engagements in the Middle East ones deemed as necessary to defend the US or even some allies of the US, or ones having less clear objectives?

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

My take on the subject is the United States overreached itself in the War on Terrorism and if they had managed to stick their forces fully in Afghanistan and not be distracted by the Iraq War that it would have been a far more stable situation in the Middle East as well as perhaps in the Afghan region as well.

Mind you, I don't think the failures of the Iraq War were particularly military anyway but part of the issue which was involved in Vietnam, which is "unclear mission objectives." This is part of the issue in Afghanistan as well as a large part of the problem is victory conditions are a constant state of Moving The Goal Posts.

In wars which can and should be fought, the goal is to make peace with the enemy under terms which are forced. I.e. surrender land, pay tribute, or whatnot. A lot of the United States' failures in wartime can be chalked up to the goal of utterly DESTROYING the enemy—which leaves no one to make peace with.

Obama made a number of statements regarding this as an issue with the Taliban as he tried, on multiple occasions, to bring them to the negotiating table because the war can't end until there's some sort of negotiated settlement. However, the Taliban being regulated to a criminal organization/terrorists means you can't actually negotiate with them. Which means the war will just keep going on and on and on forever.

Part of the reason why there actually is progress against ISIS is the honest, "We're going to kill every single person involved in this" platform they're taking with it in Iraq. Which is not something we should get into the habit of it. It's also causing stresses in the war against Boko Haram as the survivors and their families are basically being dumped into prison camps for the rest of their lives.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 20th 2018 at 6:33:35 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

That's why it's so important to build a stable government to run in our stead, so they can maintain social order and crush the terrorist organizations that we can't make peace with.

Unfortunately as you say we split our attention and thus the situation in Afghanistan is deeply suboptimal.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

archonspeaks, in your #48 page 2 you wrote:

Based only on data from the US engagements from Vietnam onwards or some others as well?

You added:
Would defending the actual country count as such a dire circumstance?

Further:
See my first question above.

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 2:16:10 PM

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

Wait, during WWII, weren't the Russian conscripts motivated by Hitler invading their country?

Answer no master, never the slave Carry your dreams down into the grave Every heart, like every soul, equal to break

That and being threatened with being shot by Stalin's forces. When Stalin demanded you do something, no Soviet citizen who wanted to live to see the next day refused.

There's a reason the 40K unit infamous for "motivating" their troops by threatening to kill them is named the Commissar.

Disgusted, but not surprised

A bit of Christian history, the Orthodox Church had been outlawed by the communist government because Lenin hated religion with a passion. However, Stalin noted the morale problems with the Great Patriotic War were severe. When morale is problematic when the enemy literally wants to kill you all, that's bad enough for even Big Brother to notice.

So, he decriminalized the Orthodox Church to preach to the public and turn them against the Nazis.

And it worked.

Edit:

Throwing my hat into the ring on the argument of conscripts versus volunteers, the big issues aren't what most people think there. Conscripts, by general, are going to still fight and historically have been a big part of armies throughout history for better or worse. However, the big difference isn't a matter of morale but a matter of professional soldiers vs. untrained ones.

An all-volunteer army is one which benefits from the fact you can and do spend more time training as well as preparing them for use in wartime. Even if they're only enscribed for tours, they're people who are (for at least the duration) expected to hold that job for a lengthy term. Conscripts, by and large, are individuals who are only expected to be soldiers for the duration.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 20th 2018 at 7:06:54 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Fourthspartan56 in your #49 page 2, you wrote:

Sorry if wasn’t clear enough. When saying: Those very few ones being professional soldiers.
When saying (emphasis added): Those ones are conscripts.
So: I said professional soldiers are there because they want to while other soldiers are there because they have to.

You added:
Is the prevailing view here that wanting to be a soldier is the only adequate motivation for fighting for one’s country and that a sense of duty as a citizen as in having to makes one useless?

Maybe it has to do with cultural misunderstanding or somesuch, it seems to little old me that there are many things one wishes one not be doing yet are necessary and done out of duty. We can’t always do what we want, commonly enough we have to do what we need, and sometimes (hopefully rarely) what our country needs from us.

All this having also to do with political issues rather than purely military ones.

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 2:16:33 PM

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

Not exactly, rather it's that conscripts are perfectly fine if the motivation is very easy to explain such as "these people want to rape/torture/murder their way through your nation" but when you talk about more complex and nuanced conflicts like literally every asymmetrical war then their usefulness drops significantly.

While inversely professional troops often aren't enough alone when you facing a large symmetrical conflict, then you need to call up the conscripts to fight for everyone's future.

Not surprising, war is simply politics in another form and nowhere is this more true then asymmetrical conflicts.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 20th 2018 at 10:27:28 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

They are both. Those two aren’t mutually exclusive categories.

The US military has done a lot of research on conscription, both for itself and for its allies. The unavoidable conclusion is that at the end of the day a conscript is simply a less effective soldier. They can be motivated into performing basic tasks, but don’t have the initiative for more complex work and require specific conditions to be motivated to begin with.

They should have sent a poet.

Fourthspartan56, in your #60 page 3 you wrote:

And that every such asymmetrical war, just happens to be not quite related to actually defending the US, but rather to some misty objective more foggy than the fog of war itself?

You added: I was referring to my reason for addressing this matter, which is my contending that armed forces of citizens first then soldiers a distant second, are less likely to be engaged in wars not actually related to defence (as these would lead to less motivation front-side and more public discontent home-side) while professional-only armed forces more likely to be engaged in various military adventures more fitting your Clausewitzian paraphrase.

So to drop that proverbial anvil: When your armed forces are volunteer-only don’t act all surprised that your country gets all so often bogged down in Forever Wars in far-flung theatres difficult to disengage from.

This might have less to do with comparing international interventions, which is why I first addressed it in the US politics thread (not that I mind discussing it here).

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

archonspeaks, in your #61 page 3 you wrote:

All those engagements were therefore defensive ones, including Operation Iraqi Freedom beginning in 2003?
I guess, the same about recent long-winding engagements in other areas?

You added: I’m aware of those, as I’m aware of those whose unavoidable conclusions were opposed to having women in certain roles, that LGBTQ+ servicepeople should be absolutely avoided lest it be The End of the World as We Know It, similarly heard from other militaries so it must be true, etc.

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 3:33:06 PM

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

I think you're putting an awful lot of stock in a random person's sense of "civic duty". It's hard enough getting half the country to vote in an election, and that's literally the easiest possible thing you can do to support your country.

Expecting Joe Q. Normalguy to experience a surge of patriotic fervor and eagerly rush out to die on a battlefield the moment that conscription letter arrives in his mailbox is completely out of the question.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 20th 2018 at 9:43:49 AM

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Shit, getting people to go to jury duty is like pulling teeth.

Disgusted, but not surprised

I don't know enough about the topic to offer more than a skin deep criticism, so I'll be brief. Is your argument A)that conscription based militaries are absolutely better in terms of efficiency, B) that they are better in that governments are less likely to engage 'military adventures' with conscripts than volunteers or C) both? Because you seem to switch between the two arguments seemingly at random.

Again, my insight is narrow, but from my perspective, much of history from the Medieval period onwards would seem to disprove B, where as for A I would direct you to the American interventions in Vietnam and (to a lesser extent) Korea, as well as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Civic pride did not carry the day for America (not even in Korea), and nor did massive numbers of 'good enough' soldiers work for the USSR.

Edited by RandomTroper#89235 on Aug 21st 2018 at 12:00:55 AM

Given that the last time USofA’s Joe Q could have experienced bombers coming his way was in December 1941, and that was also the last time such patriotic fervour surged in proportion, one can understand such sense of civic duty being hard for to envisage.

Then it was assumed that keeping a certain global balance was needed by opposing Soviet expansionism, yet the mileage extracted for that argument rendered it almost moot by The '70s.

So I can get why it is preferred within the Beltway to rely on those whose job is war to fight their fight, as in theirs more than yours. With the results, accordingly.

And maybe just maybe, this correlates to a general decline in the notion of civic duty among the general public. With the results, accordingly.

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 4:01:50 PM

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

I'm not really sure what the point of this is TBH. Are you trying to argue for conscription?

Disgusted, but not surprised

Mind you, after 9/11 there was a surge of volunteers.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Random Troper#89235 you wrote:

No it isn’t. It does seem (please correct me if I’m mistaken) that my interlocutors argue that volunteer-only armed forces are absolutely better overall.

You added: With added emphasis since it’s not understood as I thought it would: That governments are less likely to initiate such adventures on condition that the concerned country being a liberal democracy after 1945 (such as the US), what with discontent among conscripts fighting for well something else (dominos, some tyrant in Saigon), and more public opprobrium on the home side, as was experienced in the Vietnam War. After that it could have been less military adventures or no conscription, no conscription it is.

Other than that, without getting too much into specifics for lack of time, US intervention in Vietnam could be easily termed as a military adventure, Korea slightly less so.

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 4:50:34 PM

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

M84 you wrote:

I don’t argue there must be conscription, rather against that there must not be one; that conscription could be necessary under certain conditions.
I knew it wasn’t a popular view, seems quite sacrilegious to some not that I meant it to be.

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 4:40:03 PM

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

IMHO there's no actual merit to conscription. Conscription is something you do when you really need troops and you don't have enough professional volunteers.

Edited by M84 on Aug 21st 2018 at 12:44:26 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised

There was indeed a surge of volunteers after the 2001 attack in New York. How about circa 2003-04?

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

Aside from other aspects, that seems merit enough actually.

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 4:46:49 PM

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

If conscription had actual merit on its own it'd be the first resort, not the last one.

I know you're trying to claim you're anti-anti-conscription, but you're just coming across as pro-conscription.

Edited by M84 on Aug 21st 2018 at 12:52:35 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised