However I wouldn’t say a permanent neoliberal regime would be the measure of a win, the strategic objective was regime change and securing the natural resources, the latter of which we have not really succeeded at 20 years later.
Taking Iraqi oil off the market for 20 years, while the US becomes a major exporter, has been a solid consolation prize.
Not expanding into Iran is not a geopolitical defeat, but we still did lose cause we fail to hold our objectives
The folks that came out of the Bush Admin were greatly enriched, the staffers all went on to higher office or had children who climbed the ladder behind them, and - particularly after Trump - they're all remembered fondly.
How was this not a huge win for everybody involved?
Yes they won, but the US military did not. There is a difference between people lining their pockets, and militarily winning. Like the Nazis become entrenched in the western intelligence and got to do much of what they wanted, but that doesn't mean they won WW2
Guys like Tom Cotton and Dan Crenshaw leveraged military service into political careers. Others transitioned to private security, be it Blackwater or the local PD, or took their GI money to college.
The top brass have all landed on short lists for civilian admin posts - Lloyd Austin heading up the Pentagon, Kelly as Trump's chief of staff - or cushy board positions - Mad Dog Mathis at Theranos, for instance.
Contractors banked. Civilian support staff banked. The MIC banked. Which American military folks walked out of Iraq worse off?
Like the Nazis become entrenched in the western intelligence and got to do much of what they wanted, but that doesn’t mean they won WW2
The Nazis were running Western Germany and the UN, by the 1960s. They were gobbled up by Operation Paperclip and resupplied/reinforced under Operation Gladio. The ratlines to South America gave them an entire continent to conquer. They had won the Cold War by the 1990s and begun re-colonizing Africa at the turn of the 21st century.
Yeah but that's not the same thing as winning the war. People leveraged Vietnam to get elected, profiteers still made off. But that doesn't mean the US won that war. Confederates secured their legacy and the Klan got them their concessions back but the Civil War was still won by the Union.
Continuing on past a war and getting a lot of what you want in the long run is not winning a war. The Nazis failed to take the Soviets, their primary objective, that's a loss for them. Surviving does not mean you won
Yeah but that’s not the same thing as winning the war. People leveraged Vietnam to get elected, profiteers still made off. But that doesn’t mean the US won that war.
The failure in Vietnam relative to, say, Korea or Japan, limited who could ultimately profit from the region in the future.
But the repeated efforts to recreate a WW2-like wartime economy signaled that this was only a fringe benefit. The war itself was the prize.
Confederates secured their legacy and the Klan got them their concessions back but the Civil War was still won by the Union.
The Civil War was a dumb political misstep by the Confederate States, as they had historically gained far more from the Union than it cost them to participate. Even then, what the Confederates lost on the battlefield was recovered in Congress and the White House. They rolled back Reconstruction, resecured their land, re-conscripted their human chattel, and reclaimed governance of their home states.
The war itself was a disaster, but the survivors persisted and ultimately triumphed for another century or more.
The Civil War was not resolved at Appomattox Court House. It simply transitioned to a guerrilla war, and then a propaganda war.
Similarly, Germany's colonial ambition did not begin and end under Hitler. It spanned centuries, and ultimately came to fruition long after The Treaty of Paris supposedly ended the war. Once again, conflict merely transitioned, this time into Cold War Era intrigue and assassination. The conflict continued by other means.
Yes but those are still losses. You are literally saying "well they made off decently in the long run so their losses don't count as losses". a war is a war. You getting what you want eventually does not mean the martial conflict is changed. Those are all losses in which the loser got off easy or kept going in some form. By your logic literally no conflict but total extermination is a loss. The USSR eventually fell, so the whites won the civil war.
And no the war ended at Appomattox, the fact that the fight continued does not mean the war didn't end. The Confederates got their citizenship back, but that doesn't mean they won. If they won the CSA would exist still. Esoteric hot takes are not the same as literal surrenders and peace treaties. A class can win but their nation loses. The nation state and its profiteers are not the same thing
If you grow wealthier and more powerful over time, I don't consider that a loss.
a war is a war. You getting what you want eventually does not mean the martial conflict is changed.
Pyrrhic victory isn't a victory. If you kill all the other guy's soldiers, but he ends up with the power and you don't, you didn't win.
The USSR eventually fell, so the whites won the civil war.
The USSR fell at the hands of the anti-commumists that mobilized against it at birth. A seventy year struggle culminated in their defeat.
Similarly, white supremacists have run this country lock, stock, and barrel from the day Colombus and his successors landed through to the modern political moment. The Civil War and Reconstruction were brief interludes that failed to break the stride of a movement spanning centuries.
Lots of schlubs died along the way, but their deaths are always sacrifices that folks in power have been willing to make.
If you want to talk about real sustained victory, look to China and Cuba and Iran. Hell, even France has a better track record than the United States when it comes to obliterating dynasties.
You are conflating ideological conflicts with wars. The USSR being defeated does not mean they lost the civil war. That is a ludicrous conception of what a war is. Well the sun will one day explode so really no one has won a war before.
Class conflict undergirding everything is NOT the same thing as literal martial warfare. That's just not what those terms mean, no poetic dramatic framing is gonna change the material reality of what a war is.
The Civil War was over who would rule Russia, the Soviets won through and through. Falling down the line does not change the objective victory in the war.
Also since we seem to love not defining terms; who is "you" that is growing wealthier? A class and a country are not the same thing. Profiteers make off no matter who wins, but wars are fought ostensibly over specific goals and come to a conclusion when both sides cannot or will not fight in that specific armed conflict. The upper class makes bank no matter what, but there is still a losing and winning side unless it is unresolved. If you are fighting over who will rule and someone wins and rules for about 7 decades, they won that war. They may lose ideologically in the long run, but wars are not measured in the esoteric.
You go to war with an objective, if that is achieved then you won. Future conflicts are future conflicts. Napoleon eventually being defeated does not mean the French Republic lost all the wars of the coalitions retroactively. Napoleon's line reclaimed the throne again later, does that mean he won the Napoleonic wars? No he lost, he died in exile his empire lost its holdings, and France would never achieve his set goals again. Larger conflicts exist within history, but they don't somehow change the material context of a war. We do not divide wars like that, no one, no historian, no materialist, no Marxist, no one.
Good study of war aims and goals and how we define them.
https://books.google.com/books?id=ETDtAwAAQBAJ
Taking Iraqi oil off the market for 20 years, while the US becomes a major exporter, has been a solid consolation prize.
The folks that came out of the Bush Admin were greatly enriched, the staffers all went on to higher office or had children who climbed the ladder behind them, and - particularly after Trump - they're all remembered fondly.
How was this not a huge win for everybody involved?
Yes they won, but the US military did not. There is a difference between people lining their pockets, and militarily winning. Like the Nazis become entrenched in the western intelligence and got to do much of what they wanted, but that doesn't mean they won WW2
Guys like Tom Cotton and Dan Crenshaw leveraged military service into political careers. Others transitioned to private security, be it Blackwater or the local PD, or took their GI money to college.
The top brass have all landed on short lists for civilian admin posts - Lloyd Austin heading up the Pentagon, Kelly as Trump's chief of staff - or cushy board positions - Mad Dog Mathis at Theranos, for instance.
Contractors banked. Civilian support staff banked. The MIC banked. Which American military folks walked out of Iraq worse off?
The Nazis were running Western Germany and the UN, by the 1960s. They were gobbled up by Operation Paperclip and resupplied/reinforced under Operation Gladio. The ratlines to South America gave them an entire continent to conquer. They had won the Cold War by the 1990s and begun re-colonizing Africa at the turn of the 21st century.
Yeah but that's not the same thing as winning the war. People leveraged Vietnam to get elected, profiteers still made off. But that doesn't mean the US won that war. Confederates secured their legacy and the Klan got them their concessions back but the Civil War was still won by the Union.
Continuing on past a war and getting a lot of what you want in the long run is not winning a war. The Nazis failed to take the Soviets, their primary objective, that's a loss for them. Surviving does not mean you won
The failure in Vietnam relative to, say, Korea or Japan, limited who could ultimately profit from the region in the future.
But the repeated efforts to recreate a WW2-like wartime economy signaled that this was only a fringe benefit. The war itself was the prize.
The Civil War was a dumb political misstep by the Confederate States, as they had historically gained far more from the Union than it cost them to participate. Even then, what the Confederates lost on the battlefield was recovered in Congress and the White House. They rolled back Reconstruction, resecured their land, re-conscripted their human chattel, and reclaimed governance of their home states.
The war itself was a disaster, but the survivors persisted and ultimately triumphed for another century or more.
The Civil War was not resolved at Appomattox Court House. It simply transitioned to a guerrilla war, and then a propaganda war.
Similarly, Germany's colonial ambition did not begin and end under Hitler. It spanned centuries, and ultimately came to fruition long after The Treaty of Paris supposedly ended the war. Once again, conflict merely transitioned, this time into Cold War Era intrigue and assassination. The conflict continued by other means.
Yes but those are still losses. You are literally saying "well they made off decently in the long run so their losses don't count as losses". a war is a war. You getting what you want eventually does not mean the martial conflict is changed. Those are all losses in which the loser got off easy or kept going in some form. By your logic literally no conflict but total extermination is a loss. The USSR eventually fell, so the whites won the civil war.
And no the war ended at Appomattox, the fact that the fight continued does not mean the war didn't end. The Confederates got their citizenship back, but that doesn't mean they won. If they won the CSA would exist still. Esoteric hot takes are not the same as literal surrenders and peace treaties. A class can win but their nation loses. The nation state and its profiteers are not the same thing
If you grow wealthier and more powerful over time, I don't consider that a loss.
Pyrrhic victory isn't a victory. If you kill all the other guy's soldiers, but he ends up with the power and you don't, you didn't win.
The USSR fell at the hands of the anti-commumists that mobilized against it at birth. A seventy year struggle culminated in their defeat.
Similarly, white supremacists have run this country lock, stock, and barrel from the day Colombus and his successors landed through to the modern political moment. The Civil War and Reconstruction were brief interludes that failed to break the stride of a movement spanning centuries.
Lots of schlubs died along the way, but their deaths are always sacrifices that folks in power have been willing to make.
If you want to talk about real sustained victory, look to China and Cuba and Iran. Hell, even France has a better track record than the United States when it comes to obliterating dynasties.
You are conflating ideological conflicts with wars. The USSR being defeated does not mean they lost the civil war. That is a ludicrous conception of what a war is. Well the sun will one day explode so really no one has won a war before.
Class conflict undergirding everything is NOT the same thing as literal martial warfare. That's just not what those terms mean, no poetic dramatic framing is gonna change the material reality of what a war is.
The Civil War was over who would rule Russia, the Soviets won through and through. Falling down the line does not change the objective victory in the war.
Also since we seem to love not defining terms; who is "you" that is growing wealthier? A class and a country are not the same thing. Profiteers make off no matter who wins, but wars are fought ostensibly over specific goals and come to a conclusion when both sides cannot or will not fight in that specific armed conflict. The upper class makes bank no matter what, but there is still a losing and winning side unless it is unresolved. If you are fighting over who will rule and someone wins and rules for about 7 decades, they won that war. They may lose ideologically in the long run, but wars are not measured in the esoteric.
You go to war with an objective, if that is achieved then you won. Future conflicts are future conflicts. Napoleon eventually being defeated does not mean the French Republic lost all the wars of the coalitions retroactively. Napoleon's line reclaimed the throne again later, does that mean he won the Napoleonic wars? No he lost, he died in exile his empire lost its holdings, and France would never achieve his set goals again. Larger conflicts exist within history, but they don't somehow change the material context of a war. We do not divide wars like that, no one, no historian, no materialist, no Marxist, no one.
Good study of war aims and goals and how we define them. https://books.google.com/books?id=ETDtAwAAQBAJ