Why the Strong lose

patriot

New Member
Cost of Vietnam (todays value) 550 billion causalities 58000 (not exact)

iraq 220 billion causalties 2193 and counting


In terms of money, every modern conventional war costs billions of dollars. If people have to evaluate a war on the basis of money. Then, none of the wars are worth it. This however, don't have much to do with winning a war especially a war of anti-insurgency. What matters is the number of casualties(people's support are mostly based on this) and wining the battles.

china's military modernisation threating us hegomony in pacific
All i'm gonna say on that is U.S is the one threatening China, building a ring of military base around China's border. I don't see anything wrong with reducing American influence around China's own border:china:
 

Baibar of Jalat

Junior Member
reply to patriot

Casualties ur right ar the most important for why big powers lose to the weak however ur belief stems from experiences of recent wars. throughout history money was a top concern same still applies today but politicians and military officials due to not seem insensitive because the nature of topic publicly never discuss funding. In private it is different.

(Sorry i have to use USA as an example i hope the moderators do not think i am bashing the US).

finally the current conflicts are not being finaced by war taxes and war bonds but by borrowing adding to the already high US deficet. the health of the economy is always an important topic for a nation. there is no one reason why the the strong lose but a whole list of factors some like world recession ar not controllable by an individual nation.
 

crazyinsane105

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Since we are talking about the cost of war, here is something very interesting:

Iraq war could cost US over $2 trillion, says Nobel prize-winning economist

· Economists say official estimates are far too low
· New calculation takes in dead and injured soldiers

Jamie Wilson in Washington
Saturday January 7, 2006
The Guardian

The real cost to the US of the Iraq war is likely to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion (£1.1 trillion), up to 10 times more than previously thought, according to a report written by a Nobel prize-winning economist and a Harvard budget expert.

The study, which expanded on traditional estimates by including such costs as lifetime disability and healthcare for troops injured in the conflict as well as the impact on the American economy, concluded that the US government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war.

The report came during one of the most deadly periods in Iraq since the invasion, with the US military yesterday revising upwards to 11 the number of its troops killed during a wave of insurgent attacks on Thursday. More than 130 civilians were also killed when suicide bombers struck Shia pilgrims in Karbala and a police recruiting station in Ramadi.

The paper on the real cost of the war, written by Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2001, and Linda Bilmes, a Harvard budget expert, is likely to add to the pressure on the White House on the war. It also followed the revelation this week that the White House had scaled back ambitions to rebuild Iraq and did not intend to seek funds for reconstruction.

Mr Stiglitz told the Guardian that despite the staggering costs laid out in their paper the economists had erred on the side of caution. "Our estimates are very conservative, and it could be that the final costs will be much higher. And it should be noted they do not include the costs of the conflict to either Iraq or the UK." In 2003, as US and British troops were massing on the Iraq border, Larry Lindsey, George Bush's economic adviser, suggested the costs might reach $200bn. The White House said the figure was far too high, and the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, said Iraq could finance its own reconstruction.

Three years later, with more than 140,000 US soldiers on the ground in Iraq, even the $200bn figure was very low, according to the two economists.

Congress has appropriated $251bn for military operations, and the Congressional budget office has now estimated that under one plausible scenario the Iraq war will cost over $230bn more in the next 10 years. According to Mr Stiglitz and Ms Bilmes, whose paper is due to be presented to the Allied Social Sciences Association in Boston tomorrow, there are substantial future costs not included in the Congressional calculations.

For instance, the latest Pentagon figures show that more than 16,000 military personnel have been wounded in Iraq. Due to improvements in body armour, there has been an unusually high number of soldiers who have survived major wounds such as brain damage, spinal injuries and amputations. The economists predict the cost of lifetime care for the thousands of troops who have suffered brain injuries alone could run to $35bn. Taking in increased defence spending as a result of the war, veterans' disability payments and demobilisation costs, the economists predict the budgetary costs of the war alone could approach $1 trillion.

The paper also came amid the first indications from the Pentagon that it intended to scale down its costly presence in Iraq this year.

Last night, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's number two, said in a video that hints of the American withdrawal amounted to a "victory for Islam".

The unforeseen costs of the war have been blamed on poor planning and vision by the architects of the invasion. In a frank admission yesterday, Paul Bremer, the first US administrator of postwar Iraq, said the Americans did not anticipate the uprising that has persisted since flaring in 2004. "We really didn't see the insurgency coming," he told NBC television.

But the economists' costings went much further than the economic value of lives lost. They factored in items such as the higher oil prices which could partly be attributed to the war. They also calculated the effect if a proportion of the money spent on the Iraq war was allocated to other causes. These factors could add tens of billions of dollars.

Mr Stiglitz, a former World Bank chief economist, said the paper, which will be available on josephstiglitz.com, did not attempt to explain whether Americans were deliberately misled or whether the underestimate was due to incompetence.

But in terms of the total cost of the war "there may have been alternative ways of spending a fraction of that amount that would have enhanced America's security more, and done a better job in winning the hearts and minds of those in the Middle East and promoting democracy".

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 

adeptitus

Captain
VIP Professional
The cost estimate of war is difficult to compare, because it's usually a politically biased issue. People are hired to produce numbers that favor one arguement over the other, using different calculation criterias.

If you want to make the cost look lower, then you only account for cost directly associated with the war up until now. If you want to produce a higher number, then you add in "future estimates".

In the end, we're the ones stuck paying for it, one way or another. =P
 

Red not Dead

Junior Member
VIP Professional
MIGleader said:
cause the u.s sent in a very small number of paratroops to aid the northern alliance win, while the ussr simply sent more and more infantry, tanks, and apcs to roll in on torah borah. bin ladin and his men had a turkey shoot, especially since they had stolen soviet ak-74s.

just move the thread, please dont close it. i agree this has nothing to do with china, so we can put it in the world armed forces section.

Proportionally the US has already lost the same percentage of troops the soviet lost in 10 years of conflict...

256 on 8000 troops.

While Soviets lost 14967 soldiers on 110 000 but only ~5000 KIA. Most of them were victims of diseases or drug abuse.
 

FreeAsia2000

Junior Member
Red not Dead maybe future wars need to be judged on the basis of financial cost rather than casualties.

What was the financial loss to the US for the death of one soldier in Vietnam as compared to today in Iraq ?
 

Red not Dead

Junior Member
VIP Professional
FreeAsia2000 said:
Red not Dead maybe future wars need to be judged on the basis of financial cost rather than casualties.

What was the financial loss to the US for the death of one soldier in Vietnam as compared to today in Iraq ?


Everything needs to be looked proportionnally. What was the 1973 cost per KIA and and what would be the correlative number with 2005 values...BUT

WAr is judged by it's objectives, not by money poured on it. Vietnam was cost ineffective and in some way a military and political failure, but the Lebanese operation in 1958 was but was a political and diplomatic failure...Or the Granada Operation was cost Inneffective but a succes. America was back.

Yet again Afghanistan was a complete mess, cost ineffective, politically a great failure but militarily an average performance for the soviets for a relatively small human cost.

The correlation between the goals behind the military engagement will always matter far more than the money spent for them.
 

PiSigma

"the engineer"
can't just count the money for KIA, technically a wounded soldier would cost more for the government than a KIA. since all medical fees need to be covered, and some can get pretty high, more than what they pay out to families for a death. and so far Iraq has produced high numbers of wounded troops.
 

BLUEJACKET

Banned Idiot
PERHAPS THIS WILL ENLIGHTEN US! I HOPE YOU ALL WILL AGREE WITH WHAT THE WEBSITES & BOOK SAYS-
While trying to understand how to win in Iraq, US military scholars are turning to the classics, and one of the hottest books making the rounds is, surprisingly, over a century old.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
was written in 1896 by C.E. Callwell, a colonel in the British army, for British officers posted to Africa and India. It draws on his own experience in the Second Afghan and Boer Wars and claims that a powerful force can easily lose, if it doesn’t fully understand the enemy, fails to describe clear objectives or, worst of all, pursues military objectives that do not contribute to the conflict's political goal.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 

Cryptic

New Member
while the ussr simply sent more and more infantry, tanks, and apcs to roll in on torah borah. bin ladin and his men had a turkey shoot, especially since they had stolen soviet ak-74s.

Contrary to Arab Jihad propaganda, most of the Arabs assisting the Afghans were not heavily involved in the fighting. Ben Laden directly particiapted in only one raid into Afghanistan. The Afghan war was fought and won by Afghans.

For every Arab actually fighting deep in Afghanistan there were many more who only participated in a few brief raids into Afghanistan (At best). Thousands spent all their time loitering around base camps in Pakistan. That is where they developed the global Jihad ideaology and were able to tell the single girls from religous families back home that they were Jihad Veterans.

Also, the Afghan war was far from a Turkey Shoot for the Afghan resistace. The Soviets quickly adapted and began to deploy more Spetsnaz, Mountain Warfare and Airborne troops. What really helped the Afghans were the Stingers.
 
Top