How do you fight a war nobody can win? - u-Assist Forums

nextlevel · 10-12-2007, 07:53 PM

And don't just say ''don't fight'.

I'm trying to look at questions like this from a philosophical p.o.v. any ideas?

Thanks =)

JulRPW · 10-12-2007, 07:53 PM

From the soldiers point of view you follow orders, try to protect your buddies, pretend that what you are doing makes sense and is honorable, and do the best you can while trying to stay alive.

farukay · 10-12-2007, 07:53 PM

simple,you allow the generals to command the troops and conduct the war.not some pencil pushing politician who has never served.

wanda31903 · 10-12-2007, 07:53 PM

Philosophically, nobody wins a war. One side surrenders. One side gets what it wants? But when the cost of human life and crippling injuries is figured in, what is won?

Yes, I realize that if you are attacked because someone wants your oil or timber or farm land, you must defend what's yours. And if you "win", you get to keep it. But you have to spend resources on the victory.

And if you lose someone gets your stuff, which sucks. But was it actually worth the victory? Perhaps. And if you counter attack and take it back?

There is the "Phyrric Victory" where the cost of victory is so great that you are destroyed by winning.

Still some wars must be fought because you have to protect your home. But the invader has to occupy the land and the defender has nowhere to retreat. So the defender will always fight harder, or revert to a guerilla war and bleed the invader.

joney1 · 10-12-2007, 07:53 PM

are you talking about from a lower ranking soldier's point of view or a general's point of view? i think in both cases that you just obey orders. though as deaths mount, anyone with a brain has to wonder what they are doing there.

bruder, you must be talking about the president, right? your draft dodger cic.

REaperMan · 10-12-2007, 07:53 PM

When was the last time we won ,WE have created our own enemy's another mil arty action , to control ,was it the wrong country ,what about Iran , we done it to our self's . We make the world what it is by the select few for there personal agenda at what cost did they try another way that is our own short coming!!!!!

kmten · 10-12-2007, 07:53 PM

Why do people look for fruit on a dead tree?
Is a grape plant dead if there is just a tiny piece of root left?
Why do worker bee's work for the Queen while she sits in the hive getting fat?
The answers should be somewhere between hope and survival.

jamesmarcus · 10-12-2007, 07:53 PM

A war is fought the same way whether it can be won or not. Sometimes it not a case of fighting the fights you can win, it's one of fighting the fights that need fighting. It's been observed before that you sometimes find yourself in a situation where something has to be done, and you look around and realize "It's me or no-one." If you can't live with "no-one", you go in like it or not.
From a Philosophical viewpoint, the problem is rarely one of how to fight the war, but of what the war is supposed to achieve. You can't win a war if it has no attainable goals. In the War on Drugs, for example, how do you kill the physical ability of human beings to abuse substances? Where there is demand there will be supply, that is an economic inevitability. In the War on Terror, how do you kill the ability of people to use force? In WW2 the goal was to destroy the ability of Germany, Italy, and Japan to make war, and that was achieved. In this case there is no country to defeat, no government to overthrow, no clearly identifiable enemy. It's the same problem we had in Nam, the people we want to help are mixed in with the people we want to fight, and they look exactly alike. It sounds great to say "Let the Generals do their job.", but what, in clear, precise, language, IS their job? Until we have that there can never be a winner, except maybe the skull-faced gent with the scythe.