Conservatives love Rambo II and hate Rambo I

Conservatives made sequels to Jarhead

Turns out wars are won by the people who would really rather not be at war

Cultivate a forklift operator ethos

I love how this was grabbed from Tumblr.

Haha what do you mean? The way I screenshot it or?

a common mistake but you see this is literally the /c/tumblr comm

Considering how poorly US soldiers perform compared to the other nations—just look how consistently they lose war games too—they really should drop the act. The US military is a tech military and the warriors are just users looking for work and benefits in a difficult society.

Mmh..Afghans see war as a social event and that seems to work for them.

Robert Evans has said several times in recent episodes of BtB that the mentality of “good at war means good at killing” is demonstrably false. The US and USSR won WWII not by being better killers but by taking and holding territory (and while awful being less awful than the Nazis.) The US has arguably lost all its conflicts since then because they fell in love with the idea that you can bomb or brutalize your way to victory.

I recently watched both for the first time and they were horrible. But why would they like the hippie homeless vet killing cops story in rambo 2?

Edit: I was thinking of rambo 1. Rambo 2 he rescues hostages he was supposed to ignore. I forget the rest I think I was too hugh

It depends on the objective of the war. Nation building is basically impossible. Killing the crap out of an enemy until they surrender is pretty effective historically. Killing the crap out of select targets while avoiding excessive civilian casualties is generally ineffective. WWII was a total war scenario, the US and USSR absolutely killed entire areas of German and Japanese towns.

The people who become military when it is not wartime are psychos, believers and the desperate. The vast majority of people who are best at making war seem to choose to do other things with their time when it isn't wartime.

The red army is a similar story. They were mostly farmers who were tired of farming for rich people.

Afghans have had people fucking their shit up for like 4 generations now .. they don't really know anything else, pretty sure they were relatively normal prior to the US and USSR fuckery.

USSR being less awful than the Nazis is uhh arguable, if you look at the Eastern Europe. They had more people to throw into the grinder, that much is true.

WTF?

E: And the results are in.

I specifically said “with troops deployed abroad,” giving everyone who has reacted here (A) the option to read that far and (B) the chance consider why that qualifier might be significant, knowing the knee jerk was likely but that it would demonstrate how used to the idea of a warrior class and risk-free acceptance of American imperialism we truly are.

::: spoiler If you are an American reading this, please ask yourself…

• Is it OK that the risks endured in military service are only optional for the well-off and those who have other options, yet an “opportunity” for social mobility (a way out of poverty) to the least privileged?
• Is it just that people overseas should fear American boots on their soil while you feel none and feel entitled to balk at the “shitty idea” of you or those you care about being selected to fill those boots?
• Can you wash your hands of responsibility for American actions abroad simply by claiming pacifism or conscientious objection?
  :::

US imperialism can only continue as long as all those who would object to violence can simply choose economic participation instead, enjoying the spoils at a safe distance while imagining their hands clean.

::: spoiler —— end of edit, original comment below ——

It’s part of why I think random conscription should be kept as the primary if not only means of military enlistment for any country with troops deployed abroad.

But the other part is why I think this policy should be constitutional and considered utterly sacred…

If combat is required, that is far too important a job to be left to the combative.

This might seem like a cruel policy but that’s because war is the cruel policy, even if it becomes necessary. Citizens should not be as emotionally sheltered from that truth as they are.

This is the moral argument for conscription or mandatory service in many nations, that it’s a deterrent to war when civilian voters are not free to compartmentalize it.
:::

"The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards."

Are you suggesting we require certification to join the military?

Me too. You can add the islamist fuckery to your list.

What does the warrior have that the pencil pusher doesn't? Spirit.
What does the pencil pusher have that the warrior doesn't? Food and ammunition.

Random conscription is a terrible idea for a non-wartime army.

I always loved the idea of mandatory service. Everyone has to serve two years to get full "citizenship status", (what that means is definitely debatable).

But not necessarily military service. Your two years could be spent in a number of ways supporting the public good. Like the CCC from Roosevelt, or supporting firefighting, assisting with elderly care, all kinds of things could benefit.

Wasn't the islamist fuckery a result of CIA fuckery attempting to quash a moderate socialist government?

It's been a battle ground as long as empires have existed

This is also a leadership problem.

The us military ran a massive wargame in 2002, and blue team got curbstomped by a red teamer who designed his strategy around what Iran would be able to do: shutting down shipping, avoiding sigint (using messengers on motorcycles to carry orders, for example), having a highly distributed and resilient command structure, using small speedboats to sneak in and damage American vessels who got too close.

The military said "boo not fair you're supposed to let us blow you all up".

Remarkably predictive all in all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

I mean, you could say the same thing about Europe .. but the current state of things in Afghanistan is definitely a result of the last 50 odd years of global super powers meddling.

Starship Troopers exemplifies just how fucking shitty that idea is

Everyone or just men?

This is an important and real question.

No, no, you don't understand. Afghanistan has been the place where external empires compete with each other for much longer than that. Nobody ever really succeeds there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Game

And, therefore, spirit.

Go on

God bless the military-industrial complex 🫡

What does the constipated mathematician do to solve their problems?
They work it out with a pencil.

First Blood: War is horrible. War destroys people's minds, bodies, and souls. War spawns never-ending cycles of trauma and violence. Don't do war.

Every Subsequent Rambo Movie: FUCK YEAH, WAR, ARROOOO!!! 💥💥🧨🧨💪🏻💪🏻

See also: Rocky

Would you like to know more?

Rambo 3: probably split because it's about killing Russians, but also aiding tErRoRiStS and watching it in modern times completely misses the point that this is kiiinda what lead to bin Laden

sorry if this is how you found out an anti-war movie had several pro-war sequels lol

Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics.

How many world wars did the USSR start compared to how long they existed?

The Nazis caused more war and in less time. And would have cause even more if they existed as long as the USSR did.

Doesn't mean the USSR wasn't awful. It just didn't commit genocide like a conveyor belt.

You've got fascism in your anti-communism again.

When was the last time the US wasn't in wartime though?

didn't commit genocide like a conveyor belt

It did, though. This isn't a competition. Both Soviets and Nazis were committing genocide. Sometimes they even collaborated on it.

It's also a problem with wargames in general. Since no one is dieing and there's no real stakes, it's more of a way for officers to show off their plans. If someone wins, but does it by deviating from the plan it makes the officers look bad. When there's actual lives on the line, winning starts looking better than how you won.

Actually this is utter nonsense. The Soviets killed around 80% of the Nazi soldiers and the West only 20%. The Allies did not do much killing because they did not do much in general. Besides trying to claim all the credit.

When are we going to recognise that the whole "warrior ethos" bs is just an excuse for when assholes desperately want to cosplay as Rambo?

but by taking and holding territory (and while awful being less awful than the Nazis.)

It wasn't just a matter of territory or PR. The soviets placed a huge emphasis on logistics, both their own and the enemy's. A typical soviet operation was to attack with a first wave to find a breach, then send a fresh second wave into the breach to cause as much damage as possible to the enemy support crew. At that point, the second wave would evaluate whether they could hold against enemy reinforcements, and if not, retreat before they even arrived, satisfied with the damage they caused.

The key difference in their approaches to war was that to the soviets, every worker who manufactures goods or drives a supply truck or fixes a tank was just as important to the war effort as the person on the front charging the front line. The Nazis placed all the emphasis on "warrior spirit" or whatever nonsense, the people on the front line were the only ones who mattered, and so to retreat from a position, especially without a fight, would be seen as cowardly (with potentially severe repercussions) even if it was the correct decision.

The differences are also apparent in military technology. German tanks were very powerful, in line with Nazi power fantasies, but they were expensive to build and difficult to maintain or repair. Soviet tanks were much cheaper and mass produced, allowing them to field more of them, and of course the AK-47 is famous for it's simplistic design, if something goes wrong, it can easily be repaired in the field. As the war went on, German tanks and aircraft became increasingly convoluted and overengineered, ignoring that the actual weakness was logistics.

This is right. It's impossible to say how much harm this organization has done to people over the world.

CIA funded islamists but did not create them. They gained broad popular support after Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when initial Afghani communist government imploded and USSR took control and installed their own puppet.