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[MonkeyHead]

I find myself thinking that one of the reasons why the US as an entity seems to be less averse to wars, and the maintenance of the ability to fight large wars when compared to the mindset of generally conflict averse EU nations, is that wars it has been involved in in a truly modern sense of the word (lets say post WW1 for sake of argument) have been wars at a distance fought on territory far from home. As a result, in its shortish history as a nation born of a liberation conflict now romanticised in its collective memory when compared with the nations of the EU and their shared history of trying to annihilate each other for reasons that probably made sense at the time, there are no examples of what it is like to be an entire nation truly under siege or occupied by a hostile force and no cultural memory of how civilians in a war can suffer en mass. There are no real US equivalent of the cultural memes spawned by things like the Blitz, the French resistance, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, and several other notable examples I have neglected to include for sake of brevity. The only example I can think of involving the US is the Lusitania incident - horrible though is was, it pales when compared to instances like the bombing of Dresden. Wars happen elsewhere, to other people, not on the doorstep to the place you call home.

[LordBucket]

Which explains why so many americans were so completely shocked and horrified at the comparatively few deaths in September 2001.

[MonkeyHead]

Which explains why so many americans were so completely shocked and horrified at the comparatively few deaths in September 2001.

I think this could be spot on. A truly horrible "one time" act of terror like that must have been a bolt out of the blue to a nation not really used to dealing with conflicts involving nation states on its own soil. I know that the July 7th bombings in London do not compare in scale, but the day after them, people in London were deliberately getting on trains and buses just to show that they could and would carry on as normal. I am not sure this would have happened many other places in the world.

[LordBucket]

a nation not really used to dealing with conflict

I recall a conversation once with an american who described the 9-11 attacks as "the worst civilian death toll from any single event in the history of the world."

They were serious.

[pisskop]

a nation not really used to dealing with conflict

I recall a conversation once with an american who described the 9-11 attacks as "the worst civilian death toll from any single event in the history of the world."

They were serious.

Most American can't pass their own immigration naturalization test.
http://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/naturalization-test

[Neonivek]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

a nation not really used to dealing with conflict

I recall a conversation once with an american who described the 9-11 attacks as "the worst civilian death toll from any single event in the history of the world."

They were serious.

In all fairness he is an American, they tend to have a very... clean image of war and events to say it politely.

It is a well tailored illusion, but an illusion non-the-less.

So be nice, he doesn't know how many people died during any single bombing run in WW2, Vietnam, or even how many people die in traffic accidents in a year.

I find myself thinking that one of the reasons why the US as an entity seems to be less averse to wars, and the maintenance of the ability to fight large wars when compared to the mindset of generally conflict averse EU nations, is that wars it has been involved in in a truly modern sense of the word (lets say post WW1 for sake of argument) have been wars at a distance fought on territory far from home.

I personally think it is because Americans hold a highly unrealistic view of war and its costs and that this illusion is well taught and hammered into the popular mind. They still believe in this idea of the "Surgical War"...

You notice that in Vietnam the second Americans realized "Hey, people actually are dying in this war" they immediately wanted to stop it... but good luck finding any American who has anywhere close to an idea of how many civilian casualties there were in that war.

While Europe a place that has been devastated by war before... don't really hide that aspect.

[Alev]

Ptw

[pisskop]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

a nation not really used to dealing with conflict

I recall a conversation once with an american who described the 9-11 attacks as "the worst civilian death toll from any single event in the history of the world."

They were serious.

In all fairness he is an American, they tend to have a very... clean image of war and events to say it politely.

It is a well tailored illusion, but an illusion non-the-less.

So be nice, he doesn't know how many people died during any single bombing run in WW2, Vietnam, or even how many people die in traffic accidents in a year.

I find myself thinking that one of the reasons why the US as an entity seems to be less averse to wars, and the maintenance of the ability to fight large wars when compared to the mindset of generally conflict averse EU nations, is that wars it has been involved in in a truly modern sense of the word (lets say post WW1 for sake of argument) have been wars at a distance fought on territory far from home.

I personally think it is because Americans hold a highly unrealistic view of war and its costs and that this illusion is well taught and hammered into the popular mind. They still believe in this idea of the "Surgical War"...

You notice that in Vietnam the second Americans realized "Hey, people actually are dying in this war" they immediately wanted to stop it... but good luck finding any American who has anywhere close to an idea of how many civilian casualties there were in that war.

While Europe a place that has been devastated by war before... don't really hide that aspect.

If I remember right, there were a little under 2.5 million dead on the other side, over half of which were not militant.

[Phmcw]

The U.S. had trouble in Vietnam (and in Afghanistan as well as Gulf War Two: Electric Boogaloo) for an obvious reason: we were trying to fight asymmetric conflicts against what were functionally loosely organized militias capable of striking, dropping their weapons, and blending with civilian populations... with a military designed to take on the Soviets in a straight war. Note that the exact same thing happened to European states in the same situations (in the same places, even); the French were chased out of Vietnam and ex-Soviet soldiers could have given a word of advice or three to the U.S. about the sort of quagmire that Afghanistan turns in to when you try to occupy it. It's been more than a decade and only now are we starting to see noticeable changes targeted directly at fighting that sort of conflict.

So yeah, the US army lack versatility and suffer from an unrealistic management. Add to that that Americains tend not to understand what war is and seems to take it for a glorified police operation.

The plain truth is that U.S. military force is still largely oriented around a type of war that really isn't fought any more -- large, powerful states don't war amongst themselves in this era. That said, that's also why the U.S. could utterly curbstomp just about any other state or group of states (barring something like U.S. vs. the world), because apart from China (whose arms are vastly out of date) nobody else bothers trying to field large militaries, not least because most of the other states which potentially could no longer have colonies to hold, and prefer to use their income for other things, especially given that many of them are in NATO and as such would reasonably expect U.S. support if for some reason they did need a big, stompy military machine for a few months.

I don't agree : large state don't go to war because of M.A.D. and Putin is challenging even that. You say that the US could destroy any conventional army in an all out war, but I disagree. Or at least, I don't agree with your reasons. The US could destroy any country's military because of his allies : it have military bases all over the world and can make supply line to anywhere. If it had to rely on Aircraft carriers, it would lose : they would not be safe at all.

I think it is very worrying that Americains seems to think that their military is their strong point. It's not. America is pretty bad, it even was in WW2 : it had trouble with Japan, a tiny mountainous island. And against germany, they had about the same casualites as the German despite outnumbering them 5 to one, indigenous support, total air superiority, and the fact that the best German units where on the eastern front.

Now, another question: What would the outcome have been if the Cold War had never existed, because the East-West conflict went hot as soon as Berlin fell?

Stalin had one million men on the Americains, and didn't have to cross the atlantic to approvision his troops. Most of the resistance movements were communists and would have sided with him. On the other hand, the allied were planning to use German troops againt the Red army, and they would have been defending Germany. I'd say that Russia would still win, quite easily. I don't think that the US army would have been able to whistand the brutality of the Red Army. They were almost overwhelmed by the Ardenne offensive which is the only time the US faced thee "good" german units.

[Sergarr]

The U.S. had trouble in Vietnam (and in Afghanistan as well as Gulf War Two: Electric Boogaloo) for an obvious reason: we were trying to fight asymmetric conflicts against what were functionally loosely organized militias capable of striking, dropping their weapons, and blending with civilian populations... with a military designed to take on the Soviets in a straight war. Note that the exact same thing happened to European states in the same situations (in the same places, even); the French were chased out of Vietnam and ex-Soviet soldiers could have given a word of advice or three to the U.S. about the sort of quagmire that Afghanistan turns in to when you try to occupy it. It's been more than a decade and only now are we starting to see noticeable changes targeted directly at fighting that sort of conflict.

So yeah, the US army lack versatility and suffer from an unrealistic management. Add to that that Americains tend not to understand what war is and seems to take it for a glorified police operation.

The plain truth is that U.S. military force is still largely oriented around a type of war that really isn't fought any more -- large, powerful states don't war amongst themselves in this era. That said, that's also why the U.S. could utterly curbstomp just about any other state or group of states (barring something like U.S. vs. the world), because apart from China (whose arms are vastly out of date) nobody else bothers trying to field large militaries, not least because most of the other states which potentially could no longer have colonies to hold, and prefer to use their income for other things, especially given that many of them are in NATO and as such would reasonably expect U.S. support if for some reason they did need a big, stompy military machine for a few months.

I don't agree : large state don't go to war because of M.A.D. and Putin is challenging even that. You say that the US could destroy any conventional army in an all out war, but I disagree. Or at least, I don't agree with your reasons. The US could destroy any country's military because of his allies : it have military bases all over the world and can make supply line to anywhere. If it had to rely on Aircraft carriers, it would lose : they would not be safe at all.

I think it is very worrying that Americains seems to think that their military is their strong point. It's not. America is pretty bad, it even was in WW2 : it had trouble with Japan, a tiny mountainous island. And against germany, they had about the same casualites as the German despite outnumbering them 5 to one, indigenous support, total air superiority, and the fact that the best German units where on the eastern front.

Now, another question: What would the outcome have been if the Cold War had never existed, because the East-West conflict went hot as soon as Berlin fell?

Stalin had one million men on the Americains, and didn't have to cross the atlantic to approvision his troops. Most of the resistance movements were communists and would have sided with him. On the other hand, the allied were planning to use German troops againt the Red army, and they would have been defending Germany. I'd say that Russia would still win, quite easily. I don't think that the US army would have been able to whistand the brutality of the Red Army. They were almost overwhelmed by the Ardenne offensive which is the only time the US faced thee "good" german units.

Wait, what?

[Phmcw]

At the end of the war Stalin had 6400 000 men on the eastern front while the allies had 5 400 000 on the western one. (source wikipedia).

[mainiac]

They were almost overwhelmed by the Ardenne offensive which is the only time the US faced thee "good" german units.

The Germans advancing for two days against about 5% of allied forces in theatre is "almost overwhelmed"?

The Germans limped away from the battle of the Bulge having taken equal casualties and having nothing left.  They had put everything into the attack and the result was a two day reversal in a small part of the front.  People overstated it because history is boring if you just talk about the superior force inevitably grinding down the inferior one.

If the Cold war had gone hot right off the top then Soviet 50% edge in ground forces would have helped them defend but complete and utter western air superiority would have greatly limited Soviet ability to attack.  If the Soviets can't overwhelm France then they are left in the awkward position of having already exhausted their manpower reserved before the fight started and now fighting enemies who have three times their population and like five times their industrial potential.  Remember the US started reducing the number of tanks they made voluntarily in WWII, if they were going full out in WWIII expect to see numbers of like 50k a year.

[Loud Whispers]

Now, another question: What would the outcome have been if the Cold War had never existed, because the East-West conflict went hot as soon as Berlin fell?

Nukes: Nukes everywhere. If the Rosenberg spy ring is still successful then nukes for everyone, if not then nukes for communists. Russia would be hurt after having been hurt.

[andrea]

had war broken between west and east right after WW2... wouldn't US have used nuclear bombs? at the time they weren't such an huge taboo yet and there was no MAD to worry about.

Nowhere as devastating as a full nuclear war at the height of cold war could be,but it would still be a big advantage for a semi conventional war in 1945. In morale, if nothing else.

pre-post-edit: ninja!

[USEC_OFFICER]

The problem with using nuclear bombs to gank the Soviets is production. The Americans more or less used their entire nuclear arsenal on Japan, with a single bomb ready in the reserves. At most. And that's after several months of Uranium refinement. Admittedly I have no idea how many bombs were still under construction when WWII ended, or the projected rates of production assuming that WWII continued against the Soviets, but I think it's a safe bet that the Allies wouldn't have been wiping out the Russians with nuclear hellfires anytime soon. But on the other hand, strategic deployment of nuclear bombs to eliminate Russian production centers should tip the advantage towards the Allies. So... sucks to be the Russians?