Beastro wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 12:52 amMost American do not realize how scared their country has been of the military and how despised it has historically been.
And rightly so. Standing armies mean you soon get standing wars. Militaries are something that you ramp up in times of war, but defund immediately as soon as the [tightly defined] victory conditions can be met. Otherwise you get... well, the current situation in the Middle East and Central Asia.
I dunno, I can come up with three or so reasons for professional armies:
1) The decreasingly physical nature of labor in the developed world means that the physical demands of a soldier (I understand that infantry carry 200 lb. of equipment) are further and further from the norm.
2) The increasingly technical nature of, well, everything means that training times become longer and longer.
3) Conscription has become extremely unpopular and economically disadvantageous.
The current situation in Western and Central Asia has more to do with the George W. Bush more than anything else.
It is why all officers were trained as engineers up to at least the Civil War so they could be fired in peace time and allowed possible careers as civil engineers to build up the country to keep any from going Napoleon as people dreaded.
And the events in America earlier this year [and ongoing events in the UK] show the wisdom of this approach.
Which events? The capitol riot? I don't think that turning a quarter of them into ex-conscripts sent to fight in Afghanistan would have helped any.
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Most American do not realize how scared their country has been of the military and how despised it has historically been.
And rightly so. Standing armies mean you soon get standing wars. Militaries are something that you ramp up in times of war, but defund immediately as soon as the [tightly defined] victory conditions can be met. Otherwise you get... well, the current situation in the Middle East and Central Asia.
It is why all officers were trained as engineers up to at least the Civil War so they could be fired in peace time and allowed possible careers as civil engineers to build up the country to keep any from going Napoleon as people dreaded.
And the events in America earlier this year [and ongoing events in the UK] show the wisdom of this approach.
Except modern wars don't work that way. They are so quick and lethal you go in with what you have at the start of the war and little to nothing else.
The days of seeing a war coming in a few years and building a military up from scratch to face it are gone. War is simply too complex and high tech now for that and Navies have lived with that reality for far longer than anyone else (The Civil War was about the end period for that).
TGLS wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 12:59 pm The current situation in Western and Central Asia has more to do with the George W. Bush more than anything else.
Bush and Obama.
The latter's recoiling from owning up to agreements has done massive damage as well that has little to do with Bush's legacy. Obama stabbed Qadaffi in the back ensuring he lost the Libyan Civil War while doing nothing to help ensure any successor had the ability to actually maintain power. The result was he guaranteed chaos in the country while demonstrating to the world that you cannot trust the US; Qadaffi played ball with the US, stopped his WMD programs and the result was his corpse got dragged through the streets.
Obama then tried a repeat of it in Syria and fortunately that was prevented even if it meant it being prevented through horrible and loathsome means.
Well there was more about that than just being scared of the military. The US just didn't want to get involved in any of the European wars. The US wasn't that highly developed yet to make war over thousands of miles away. Also that thousands of miles of water also created a very very efficient buffer.
The US looked mostly inward.
Pretty much by the 20th century, the US started to develop larger ambitions. And the world was getting smaller, and the US was economy giant. Even then, the US Navy was really the only branch they actively funded.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 31, 2021 2:51 am
The US looked mostly inward.
Well, apart from the Mexican War, various schemes to seize land south of the Rio Grande (i.e. Fillibusters, Ostend Manifesto, Knights of the Golden Circle, etc.), and the expeditions by the navy in the Pacific (i.e. Opening Japan, expeditions against Fiji, Formosa, Korea, Sumatra).
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McAvoy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 31, 2021 2:51 am
The US looked mostly inward.
Well, apart from the Mexican War, various schemes to seize land south of the Rio Grande (i.e. Fillibusters, Ostend Manifesto, Knights of the Golden Circle, etc.), and the expeditions by the navy in the Pacific (i.e. Opening Japan, expeditions against Fiji, Formosa, Korea, Sumatra).
Well I did say mostly.
Now I am fuzzy on the Mexican War but didn't it start with Texas wishing to be part of the US? And the conflict was about Texas thinking it was a independent country but Mexico felt it was still part of itself? I don't know, that does sound a bit internal to me.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 31, 2021 4:58 am
Now I am fuzzy on the Mexican War but didn't it start with Texas wishing to be part of the US? And the conflict was about Texas thinking it was a independent country but Mexico felt it was still part of itself? I don't know, that does sound a bit internal to me.
Well it's kind of complicated, because:
1) Texas made very large claims that they didn't control.
2) Texas was de facto independent or part of the United States for about a decade before the war.
3) The Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo handed over a bunch of land Texas didn't claim.
4) There were meaningful movements to press for more land, up to the whole of Mexico.
5) The war only ended after the United States occupied Mexico City.
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McAvoy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 31, 2021 4:58 am
Now I am fuzzy on the Mexican War but didn't it start with Texas wishing to be part of the US? And the conflict was about Texas thinking it was a independent country but Mexico felt it was still part of itself? I don't know, that does sound a bit internal to me.
Well it's kind of complicated, because:
1) Texas made very large claims that they didn't control.
2) Texas was de facto independent or part of the United States for about a decade before the war.
3) The Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo handed over a bunch of land Texas didn't claim.
4) There were meaningful movements to press for more land, up to the whole of Mexico.
5) The war only ended after the United States occupied Mexico City.
