The same could easily be asked of the Japanese understanding of American culture at the time. The overwhelming consensus in the Japanese military and political community was that Americans had no stomach for war and would not fight, least of all to secure the liberty of a bunch of Asians. They thought if they could destroy our immediate strike capability, we would sit the rest of it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by DexDexter
Funny thing about Americans and our culture. We will roll over for all kinds of nonsense so you never really know what you might do that will thoroughly piss us off. However, once pissed, we are an extremely dangerous adversary and will do whatever is seen fit to destroy you and your ability to make war. Note that "insurgencies" and general hooliganism does not constitute war in the conventional sense of a recognized government fielding conventional forces against the same.
Insurgencies are a different matter and can only be stopped by effective destruction of the groups manpower and logistics base. The argument of "...every time you kill, you compel others to join their ranks..." is a lot of tosh espoused by the fashionably stupid. The people that join these organizations would be attracted to any outlaw cause because it's their only hope for advancement and enrichment in their native society anyway. You either goatherd as nothing behind a donkey cart your entire life like your father and grandfather or you grab an AKM and go marauding with the boys, basking in the respect of the common people. What they call respect is fear. The fear the common people have of an unstable loose cannon in their midst with an automatic weapon that may kill with impunity for the slightest of reasons. The problem with giving in to insurgency groups is that one, it will cause even more to join their ranks (everybody loves a winner) and two, it will give birth to other groups that don't like things the way they are and want their own piece of the pie too. So you either combat insurgency or you dissolve the government and let anarchy reign and just allow everybody to do what they want as long as they are big enough and bad enough to do it. Now everybody is happy because everybody is in charge. It is working to some extant in Somalia right now.
Iraq was a mistake based upon the gratitude of the populations liberated from Nazi control after WW II. The nations that could, immediately began to form democracy based governments and used those as a basis to improve their standards of living. It never occurred to us that given the gift of liberty from a dictator, the Iraqis would be completely helpless, unable, and unwilling to shoulder the tasks and responsibilities needed to make democracy work. It would seem they are much happier having one guy in charge even if he feels the need to imprison and kill a couple of thousand from time to time.
Lastly, we in the west understand the need for wars, but we prefer short wars. 5 years is about our max before we start grumbling. We have high standards of living in our countries and want to get back to our leisure time activities, jobs, and families. Nosing into conflicts in areas where a donkey cart is high tech and and the standard of living is what it was 100 years ago is something we should avoid. If they want better, let them fight for it themselves. I never would have run my head about bagging Bin laden. I would have and would still gather all the intelligence I could on al-Qaeda and use either high tech like drones, small special forces, and quick, shoot n' scoot strikes to keep them backing up.
