From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis)
Subject: Re: Lost the War?
Originator: clewis@bcarh1d7
Organization: Eee.
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 20:15:09 GMT

In article <3=jz91a@rpi.edu> adamkp@rs6210.ecs.rpi.edu (Peter Adamkovics) writes:
>>In example, ask yourself this question - "Did Britain WIN the First ( or
>>Second ) World War?" Stupid question until you consider the fate of that
>>nation after the war. It was the US which rose to pre-eminence over Britain.
>>Economic victory overrides moral, idealogical, and miltary victories.

First one pretty well (if you include France).  Especially since US economic/military
ascendancy didn't really get established until WWII (H'm, well, at least military.
The US certainly had lots of potential, but it didn't really use this
potential until halfway through WWII (remember WWII started in mid 1939, not the
end of 1941.).

The second one it was more of an allied victory.  One might also want to contrast
Britain's economic fate after WWII to its probable economic fate if the allies didn't
militarily win WWII.

You have to carefully avoid getting confused by what the objectives were.
And avoid getting too general about "economic" victories versus the others
types of victories.  The "economic victory" of Germany (or the US, which
side were you on? ;-) pales to insignificance against the moral/ideological/military
victory of Britain (and the rest of the allies) of not being squashed or turned into
concentration camps - that was what the objective was - and that objective was achieved.
The objective of the war wasn't to exterminate the German or Japanese civilization, nor
was it to ruin their economy (except as a side-effect of impairing their military
effort).  In fact, the blossoming of the German and Japanese economies are
precisely because of the allied intervention and control immediately after
the war.  They *planned* it that way.  They just didn't think they'd be so
successful.  [This is in marked contrast to WWI, where the allies shamelessly
trampled Germany into poverty.  The allies learned their lesson.]

"Economic victory overrides moral...."?  Do you really think any Britisher
(or anyone else in Europe) would have preferred losing WWII to the Germans
if they *knew* that military victory would result in the Americans gaining
economic power?

>But anyway, I dont really think it was possible to win this war, I can't 
>recall any war won by an army fighting on someone else's soil.  The 

Are you limiting it to the loser's soil?  Or just anybody else's?

>indegeneous population will always try to throw off the yoke of the 
>conqueror, and will eventually succeed.  By the way, I havent taken much history
>lately, so if you can refresh my memory that would be great.  I guess the 
>American Indian is one case where the conquerors won.  there are a few others where 
>the losing civiliztion was completely wiped out, but in modern times??

While I I think I agree abut Vietnam, you're changing the definition of "win"
to something else again.  As in, win == "totally eliminating the civilization",
as opposed to "stopping them from doing X", or "doing X".  The former *cannot*
be done without an army fighting on someone else's soil (short of nuclear weapons) by
definition.  Hence if it has *ever* happened, it's *always* been with armies
on someone else's soil.  And it certainly has happened.  Fortunately not
much this century, because the objectives are now rarely "elimination of the
enemy".  But it often was in previous centuries.  And it has been in civil
wars or other internal strife this century.

You also have to define your timelimit for "throwing off the yoke".
[Ie: do you consider England's conquest of Scotland or Wales decided yet?
It's been almost a thousand years in the case of Wales...  Well, yes,
at lot of Welsh is still being spoken, but that's a lot different than
being an independent nation isn't it?  How about the Seminoles or Apache?]

If we go back to the original definition of achieving one's objectives,
there's many examples of wars being won on someone else's soil.
In fact, most wars that can be said to be won in any sense *were*
fought in part on the losing side's soil.

World War II Western theatre being the best recent example.

World War II Eastern being a little fuzzy.  But I consider the bombing
raids of Japan (not just Hiroshima and Nagasaki) to qualify.

Literally speaking, WWI *isn't*, because the allies never fought on German soil
itself.  But they certainly fought on areas that Germany had invaded - and
Germany was smart enough to realize that they were already beaten before
the allies got to march almost unopposed across the border.  [WWI can
be typified as an extremely messy war that kept going on and on and on in
one place until one side (Germany) simply "ran out of gas", and was
completely incapable of resisting the inevitable and capitulated it in
time to avoid being overrun.  WWII's ending was similar, but it
was "fight to the last drop of blood" time.  Which might even be
understandable considering what happened to Germany after WWI.]

How about Iraq?  While Iraq appears to be going back to its old ways,
the immediate (publically stated) objective of the Gulf War was achieved -
Iraq isn't in Kuwait anymore is it?  It might be again in future, but
that's a *different* war.
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