Heard on C-Span "When American goes to war American needs to win"

[ThomWV]

Maybe I'm wrong but if you ignore Reagan's foray into Grenada I'm not sure you can say we've won any war since World War II. We didn't win either of the any of the big ones between then and now (Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq). Its also a good idea to ask yourself how many wars have Germany, Italy, or Japan been in since the big one? It almost makes one think that in a national sense getting your ass kicked now and then might not be such a bad thing.

[hedgehog]

1. Turn it around- if we can survive without winning the war, we need not to get into that war!

[KharmaTrain]

2. If You're A Defense Contractor...

...you surely won. In America, the bottom line determines who wins and loses.

[ejpoeta]

3. guess it depends what your definition of 'winning' is. if staying there as long as possible

and spending as much money as possible making war profiteers as rich as possible and enriching the people in congress who supported it and then go work for those war profiteers making more money winning... then yes, 'american' wins.

[gratuitous]

4. We've been making the rubble bounce for nearly 10 years

If that's not winning, then you're saying that war is a colossal waste of time, treasure and talent. And the teevee assures me that such cannot possibly be the case.

[Marblehead]

5. it's like a football

game, ra ra sis boom ba...

[Lurks Often]

6. Define "Win"

Grenada, Panama and the first Iraq War can all be considered wins, the military objective was achieved.

Korea can be argued both ways, we succeeded in driving the North Koreans and the Chinese out of South Korea, however the victory was not sufficiently decisive to permanently remove North Korea as a threat.

Vietnam was a loss

Afghanistan and the second Iraq War remain to be seen, although if things in Iraq continue to progress along existing trends, it will likely be considered a victory.

The atomic bomb and the rise of Russia and China as major powers seems to have changed how war is conducted. Most wars prior to 1945 were fought until one side lost decisively. Now, mostly because of a reluctance of the three major powers in the world (China, Russia and the US) to directly engage each other, wars are fought on a more "limited" scale, with areas that are "off-limits". For example, in Korea and Vietnam, China was always off limits, so there was always a place for the opposing force to re-group and re-supply before re-entering the fight. It is much harder to achieve a clear cut victory when there are safe areas for the enemy to use.