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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
The Iraq War reconstruction basically had a lot going on wrong with it but this included among other things:
- God levels of embezzlement
- Refusal to engage with any of the former regime
- Pre-existing ethnic tension
- Refusal to hire locals for reconstruction which is just idiotic on so many levels.
- The heavy handedness of America's attempts to dictate the new government's form.
- Incredibly bad optics and abuses
And so on and so on.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 20th 2018 at 3:47:28 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.![]()
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archonspeaks, you wrote:
And the wars it did win just happened to be have had conscripts in them, must have been some kind of fluke.
Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 10:58:20 AM
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
Considering how different the wars in question were I think this is a rather farcical comparison, the wars involving conscripts were mostly major symmetrical conflicts while the wars involving volunteers were asymmetrical counter-insurgency wars.
Thus comparing the two and pointing to conscripts as the deciding factor is unreasonably reductive at best.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangThat's...really bad history. That's equivalent of saying jet aircraft are directly proportional to America's decline as a military power.
The thing about American military intervention is that wars have become far faster and resolved quicker due to advanced military hardware making it possible to crush people quicker.
Also, your statement kind of fucks up because of Vietnam. The draft didn't win that one, did it? Ditto Korea. In fact, you're basically just referring to Afghanistan and Iraq since the first Gulf War was an all-volunteer army and a resounding victory.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.![]()
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, etc. Crushing a last-rate military such as Saddam’s Iraq might not be a challenge for a superpower.
As stated previously, not saying it be a deal-breaker or conscription being a guarantee for victory, yet it seems that holding a moderately large conquered country together and for a long while till it can be up and running again, may have required more personnel and more involvement. Not to say a professional military was redundant merely that it may not have been sufficient.
Of course, one could have defeated that Iraqi military then gone to Baghdad, brought down some statue, declared “mission accomplished” in bold capital letters all with a fully professional force, which was done, then folded the circus and gone back home which was not.
But that’s not the main point. It’s the one about some historical record pointing at a citizens-first military being less likely to go to far-away adventures, at least when the citizenry has some say in government. The latter point having some bearing with political matters.
Yet you seem so confident while I’m rather doubtful so don’t mind it too much.
Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 11:20:56 AM
Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friendIt's also worth noting that the US didn' "lose" the Iraq war or the Afghanistan war per se. In the case of the latter in particular, the US is technically winning, it's just that it's having trouble achieving outright victory.
Leviticus 19:34![]()
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You're looking at it from a too limited perspective.
As I understand it there are three crucial things to a successful counter-insurgency:
1. Sufficient force to stabilize the country and allow construction of the civic institutions to make it sustainable, conscription indeed helps with that and you're completely right on this front.
2. Sufficient investment to rebuild society and engender the occupied people's goodwill, this relies on the former and thus is at-least nominally benefited by conscription.
3. Sufficient public goodwill to tolerate the other two conditions, this is completely sabotaged by conscription. When you force a great deal of people to fight in a hostile foreign country then you are going to quickly cause quite a bit of public discontent which is the death blow to any democratic counter-insurgency.
So no while there are advantages to a conscript based counter-insurgency force I see no reason to believe that they are not massively outweighed by the major disadvantage(s).
While I agree on Iraq, it went poorly but the modern Iraqi state exists and thus calling it a failure isn't really accurate.
But Afghanistan I think has been a net failure, yes it was a justified war but considering how poorly the Afghani government is doing and their unsustainable losses I think calling it a failure is not unfair.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 20th 2018 at 7:30:06 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangOne of the larger issues of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam is the "victory conditions" have been kind of nebulously defined.
It's particularly so in Afghanistan.
The reason conscripts aren't a great solution is the fact the issue isn't "can the US beat them in a fight." It is, "can the US find them, eliminate them, and then successfully not piss enough people to replace them?"
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 20th 2018 at 4:25:51 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
×4 Or it could be kinda logical that citizens joining the military as a civic duty rather than ’cuz they just wanna, would be more likely to be motivated for defending their country rather than for some adventure in a far-flung country.
I think it's the exact opposite, conscripts need a clear motivator to give them sufficient morale to be useful while professional soldiers can tolerate much more esoteric mission reasons due to their professionalism.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 20th 2018 at 7:28:41 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangYeah, that’s kind of a non-sequitur. By that logic literally any modern innovation could be tied to the US military “not winning wars”.
And frankly, our issue is not military might. Our military steamrolls every opponent it faces, it just runs into issues with things it can’t shoot its way out of. We knocked over Saddam in a heartbeat and got mired in the chaos left behind. That’s not something conscripts would help with, it’s something they'd actually make worse.
Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 20th 2018 at 4:34:32 AM
They should have sent a poet.
×5 Fourthspartan 56, you wrote:
“Or it could be kinda logical that citizens joining the military as a civic duty rather than ’cuz they just wanna, would be more likely to be motivated for defending their country rather than for some adventure in a far-flung country.”
You replied:
Clear motivator: Defending your people and your home.
Esoteric mission: Some unclear objective, esoteric, mystic, psyhedelic?
Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 12:18:59 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 friendFound it, specifically it’s about International interventions and how we can compare them, but most of that covers state building. Will necro, here’s a link.[1]
Oh and the search function aparently doesn’t work anymore for topics, had to dig back manually.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranWonderful, thank you very much
Huh, that explains a lot about my searches.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
×8 archonspeaks, you wrote:
Further:
Then:
The reason I address this in this thread rather than the military one, isn’t to upset anyone (and I’m sorry if I do), it’s because it affects the politics of a country, in our case the US.
When the cause for war is national defence, it will draft all able bodied citizens and these will be highly motivated for it, not out of pride but of necessity combined with compulsion, i e: their civic duty.
Volunteers will feel motivated by a sense of duty as well, yet more often than not they choose the military as profession and vocation, worthy ones to be sure, yet while the former fight first and foremost for defence the latter will because it is their job.
Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 20th 2018 at 12:11:41 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

Btw, Germany is poised to reach the highest current account surplus in the world this year (sorry, the article is in German:
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/deutschland-schafft-den-hoechsten-leistungsbilanzueberschuss-der-welt-15746754.html
Hopefully nobody tells Trump...he would fly off the handle.