So we say "war" but modern conflicts are absolutely nothing compared to what has happened historically. Even though these new "wars" don't seem to have the same definitive results, the alternative could be much, much worse. We're much better off with the bomb critical sites, apply sanctions and political pressure methods vs. the send entire generations off to die methods of old.

In the real world, they choose to engage in wars that provide political power for the underlying party in power, without having a clear goal or objective on how the war would benefit the average U.S. person. This becomes more and more apparent as they continue to lose, until it’s viewed as a “success” by an invented exit criteria at the 11th hour.

super easy for US to kill lots of innocent civilians tho

just get rid of the agencies responsible for reviewing targets for civilians

imagine one person being able to put the entire country into yet another forever war

it will be 2029 and this nightmare will still be going down, sucking trillions from our economy while everyone suffers his damn ego

now we are taking out civilian bridges and water supplies, Iranians will never forgive us for generations, wait a another decade or two and the idiots here will elect someone even worse

btw diesel will hit all time record by the end of this year so even those who really don't care kids are being murdered for no reason might finally take it personally

Also since WW2, none of these countries posed a real danger to the US Public, plus people in the US are not invested. Compare what the public in the US had to do in WW2 compared to these "wars".

If the life style of the Average US person is affected like in WW2, then you can bet these "wars" would never happen. Just look at what a slight raise in US Gas Prices cause. If gas prices did not go up, people in the US would not care at all what Trump is doing to Iran.

It's not surprising the US aren't winning. It's surprising they are at all able to do something that resembles waging war at that distance. Wars are incredibly hard to fight away from home. On the other side of the world? There is basically only one country in the history of ever that has been able to do that.

The article does go on to discuss the Kuwait case and that's a meaningful discussion to have, because actually winning a war so far away is surprising. It's interesting to dig into why that might have been, and the article briefly does. But why they aren't winning is less interesting.

For more meat on how important a factor distance is, Bueno de Mesquita's The War Trap presents one of the most accurate models for predicting wars[1] I know of. That model measures the fighting ability of a country by two factors:

1. It's at-home military power as a sum of population size, metal production, fuel consumption, military expenditure, etc.

2. It's power projection as the distance between its capital and the closest point of enemy land.

Note that the second number is weighted equally to the sum of all other factors, because wars are a logistical nightmare.

[1]: https://entropicthoughts.com/war-what-is-it-good-for

If the USA could produce 4000 tomahawks per day, instead of 400 per year the Iran thing would be over.

Also USA is very sensitive about the other side's civilian deaths.

America didn't have to do this. And now they cry that nobody is helping them.

npr, btw, is in some sort of decline in news source legitimacy having to resort to these simple-minded click bait headlines ...

Is Russia expected to win wars?

And I would rather see none of these stupid wars start in the first place.

What they're doing in Iran, for example, is probably best described as 'raiding'--quick, damaging strikes--but that doesn't lead to the final result they want. It hurts the attacked country, but it doesn't control it.

They half succeeded in creating South Korea. They succeeded in Iraq, which I like to always point out because that war is often cited as a "loss" for the US. Mostly because Bush declared it over when it was really just beginning.

Really hard to say what will happen with Iran. Everyone online likes to act like military prophets that know the future, but truthfully it's very difficult to predict imo. And what does happen depends probably on how deep the US invests into it. If they start sending troops in to invade, then that obviously changes things.

"Weapons of Mass Destruction" a lie. "Weapons of Mass Distraction" a cover-up, and a mistake about to grow bigger than Putin's "walk in the park" in Ukraine.

A war based on politics and not national survival is unwinnable.

Ask Putin, Trump, Mussolini and others.

The article is really a book review (i.e.,SPAM!), the title is clickbait. But also interesting, informative and worthwhile.

And that plus current global politics has me thinking that I was correct, back in '79, that I should either build an underground shelter stocked with all necessities or move to a remote location in South America (much cheaper).

They are not wars in the narrow meaning. They are long term superficial conflicts, that human history has not seen before. With the modern weapons and technology a traditional war should annihilate the globe in 3 days, not still f.. around after 3 years.

The whole theatre seems to happen for three purposes: media consumption to cause widespread bother, constant increase of defense budgets and multiplication of public debts. The top leaders are not the presidents but the owners of the three pilars: finance, weapons and media, which happens to be the same group of people (guess who).

Since 1992 we are experiencing a slow war that continuous for about 8-10 years before a new one begins immediately after the previous ends. It's a perfectly executed soap opera in episodes and seasons that has managed to persuade us that it's inevitable and natural like sunlight.