The Warden Collection (merged thread)

[Cliff]

How did that work out for us?

It generally achieved our strategic objectives (Saddam contained/not slaughtering Kurds, helped end genocide in FRY (once we chose to actually use airpower), Serbs withdrew from Kosovo)... without resorting to ground combat. I'm not saying it was effective in resolving the situations completely, but like I said, you do what you can afford to when it isn't an existential threat.

Consider also that if your conjectures of what might have been are removed and what was is considered, WW II was not existential. The only existential war the US has fought was our own Civil War -- which also and not coincidentally had the highest per capita casualty rate. All our other wars have been to disrupt, delay, deter or remove potential threats (think about WW II...). Old JMA on other threads lambastes our obvious lack of consistent policy -- but we do have a few and that one has been around for 220+ years -- we're pretty easy going but we do not tolerate potential threats. Just make noise and no problem, get bothersome and get hurt a bit (and not necessarily militarily...), get too serious and get removed...

Agree that WWI probably wasn't, Civil War definitely was. I stand by my words on WWII - I don't think we would have co-existed with the Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Third Reich for long. I agree that in 1941 we were not threatened with immediate destruction... but how long before someone pulls the trigger do they become a deadly threat to you?

V/R,

Cliff

[Ken White]

I'm not saying it was effective in resolving the situations completely, but like I said, you do what you can afford to when it isn't an existential threat.

I agree with that last but suggest that both your cases cite minor aims and part way solutions to the problems -- and the Kosovo thing is subject to the qualification of the KLA entry on the ground. Not to mention that in that operation the US -- indeed, the West in general -- got totally snookered by the Albanian Kosovars...

Agree that WWI probably wasn't, Civil War definitely was. I stand by my words on WWII - I don't think we would have co-existed with the Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Third Reich for long. I agree that in 1941 we were not threatened with immediate destruction... but how long before someone pulls the trigger do they become a deadly threat to you?

I think you just made my point.

IMO WW II was, for the US as opposed to many others, not existential -- in our case it was a contrived, indeed almost forced, entry (by FDR, devious old Dude...) into an ongoing war where we were not at the time threatened but which we entered in order to insure the removal or at least disruption of potential threats of great significance.

Both points more academic than of real import...