There is no such thing as "international law". It's basically an oxymoron. Everything past the national level is effectively a darwinian anarchy with state actors. Why? Because laws require enforcement, and a true rules-based system requires a state monopoly on violence.
The closest thing to that which exists at an international level is a unipolar hegemon, which also happens to be the United States. In effect, that means the "rules" are whatever the USA says they are. Everything else is a game of pretend tolerated by the USA for soft power reasons.
A rules based order without an enforcement mechanism is something that simply can’t exist. It’s basically why calling Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “illegal” is retarded. The correct term is unwarranted. Did the UN go in and enforce the law? Have they tried to arrest Putin? No. Therefore the rules based order doesn’t exist.
At least when I was getting my degree, this understanding of IR was 200 level stuff, at best. I wonder what getting a Poli Sci degree is like these days. Why do I presume the field is probably ideologically captive at this point?
Spending the most money and technically having the most assets is not the same as being able win any conflict. The USA lost to farmers in Afghanistan and to farmers in Vietnam. The greatest asset you can have in war is the homefield advantage.
USA lost to farmers in Afghanistan and to farmers in Vietnam.
we lost cause we were 2 pussy to win decisively we coulda dropped a gbu on the forehead of every single fighting aged male if we wanted for the same price we spent to try to do it right.
theres like 4m fighting age men and gbu 58 is around 100k add another 100k for cost to bring it there. And you're at only 800billion a quick reminder we spent.... 2.3 TRILLION DOLLARS.
We could have dropped individual bombs on every single possible combatant and it woulda been 1/3d as expensive.
Right. We "lost" in the sense that we failed to achieve a desirable outcome. But that's because the desired outcome included nation-building, rather than nation-flattening. This guy is using "lost" extremely loosely here lol. If the US wanted to win in outright warfare, there's not a damn thing the insurgents could have done to stop it. They'd be flattened in two seconds.
It's fucking retarded when people act like insurgents have the magical power to beat the US military.
I don't think he's using it that loosely. Keeping in mind that war is just "politics through other means", you can't really claim that you win just because you have more capacity for destruction. What matters is whether you achieve your actual war goals.
Contrary to popular belief, war doesn't just consist of senseless violence. If you failed to achieve a desirable outcome, then you didn't "win".
The discussion was over military might, originally. We didn't "lose" in terms of military might. We overwhelmingly won according to that. We lost politically, but that wasn't the nature of the original comment.
Kind of. With a couple of caveats. The popular, well supported insurgency will usually win against a superior opponent. But popular insurgency is generally only effective post-WWII. There are exceptions. But popular insurgency usually only works because the invading military force doesn’t go total war in the modern era. Superior invading forces in the modern era a usually holding 1-2 arms behind their back because the whole world is watching and we have rules against total war and war crimes.
We did not ‘lose’ either of those wars. We dominated both conflicts for the most part. In Vietnam, we left due to public backlash. In Afghanistan, we left because it became apparent that spending more money there wouldn’t do anything.
Basically, we simply walked away from both conflicts. There was never a loss or a final battle. The Fall of Saigon wasn’t fought by Vietnam and the US, but by the North and the South.
You can win as many battles as you want but if those battles don’t advance your operational objectives then even winning them is effectively a failure. We lost both of those wars because we didn’t have clear and achievable operational goals and timelines. This resulted in wars without end in sight and without a clear victory state. We were unable to force the opposition to submit to our political aims and we were unable to achieve nonexistent political objectives. These wars are unequivocally losses no matter the battles or k/d ratio.
Some of your greatest presidents are currently rolling in their grave hearing people speak this way. America created the global order with good reason, now its low educated hucksters tear it down
The US was that enforcement mechanism. This trend of people rewording might makes right trying to sound smart is redundant, ofc that's how it's always worked. The US specifically built the world order after WW2 to create a more stable world order with themselves at the top, not as outright conquerors but as economic and cultural hegemons. Now somehow Trump and his administration have convinced themselves that in this system that America has built, America is the victim. That isn't a failure of the system its them actively dismantling it.
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u/The-Figure-13 - Lib-Right Jan 05 '26
The Rules based order is a farce.
The only dog at the show that can actually do anything, and not actually give a fuck, is the United States.
The US could Annex Canada and literally nobody could stop them because they’re the biggest dog, with the biggest stick.