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Comment by ryanmarsh | Hacker News Reader

When you have the opportunity to train with non-US militaries one quickly learns a bit of gratefulness. Our officer and non-commissioned officers are far more professional, and our junior enlisted are far better trained. There are some exceptions. British Royal Marines and SAS really impressed me.

So why does the US lose wars? Because we don’t let the military fight them to win. How else does a 21st century military lose to someone living in the sixth century?

The officer corp spends 10x more time restraining soldiers than gassing them up. It’s difficult to fathom what we’re capable of (even with the law of armed conflict).

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> So why does the US lose wars? Because we don’t let the military fight them to win. How else does a 21st century military lose to someone living in the sixth century?

I mean, yes. If the US goal was to "win" by which you mean wipe out the Taliban (and with it the entire population of Afghanistan), that could have been accomplished in very short order with no loss of US lives on Sept. 12th 2001.

The US loses wars because most people in the US (and worldwide) don't want to live in a country that indiscriminately wipes out entire populations.

> How else does a 21st century military lose to someone living in the sixth century?

Part of the reason is this type of chronic underestimation of the enemy. The Taliban may hold some socially outdated ideas, but their use of digital communications and machine guns is absolutely not "from the sixth century". Rule 1 of warfare is to never underestimate your opponent.

The main problem the US had was that from basically day 2 (day 1 being spent winning the conventional war) they were looking for a way to leave the country again and everybody there knew it. If you are not looking to annex the conquered territory indefinitely (which is extremely unpopular in western countries for PR reasons) then eventually you will have to leave and so your opponents only need to find a way to survive until then.

> The Taliban may hold some socially outdated ideas, but their use of digital communications and machine guns is absolutely not "from the sixth century

Of course it's not. And the US should know that. They trained the Taliban in he 80's to fight the Russians.

A FRENCH SOLDIER'S VIEW OF US SOLDIERS IN AFGHANISTAN

https://warriorlodge.com/blogs/news/16298760-a-french-soldie...

I was never actually in the "armed" forces, but I did serve in the military, and I don't think the issue was lack of military force in Afghanistan. The problem was that we started off with overwhelming force, destroying civilian lives, and giving every opportunity for the taliban to generate anti-american sentiment in the process. It required a nuanced approach from day 1 and we didn't start that approach until day 300 (philosophically speaking). We needed to win the trust of the civilian population and we did nothing to secure that trust.

Exactly. This weird 21st century idea of military as gracious nation building conquerer is weird and we are not good at that.

Note that, conversely, force on force "wars" are won very quickly. We should have left Afghanistan in 2002.

Hannibal is famous for never losing a battle, over a decade campaigning on foreign soil.

And he lost the war.

Because of political forces outside his control

Well he did eventually lose at Zama to Scipio, but I get your point.

The US didn't lose the war in Afghanistan, it won that remarkably quickly. It lost the peace - temporarily at least.

But personally I wouldn't be quite so quick to write off 20 years of somewhat liberalism, and widespread internet access, in terms of that nation's development.

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