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Which wars has the United States lost?

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Voltaire X

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Let's have a discussion about which wars we should consider the US to have lost.
We are going to simply exclude the Civil War from the debate since it's not worth getting into the semantics. Also exclude silly "the war on xxx" things like the war on terror.


In my opinion, it is completely obvious that the US lost the Vietnam War. That one goes without question.

Korea ended in more of a stalemate so I don't think that should be considered a loss, rather a draw if anything.

The less obvious ones are Iraq and Afghanistan. We definitely succeeded in the initial goal of defeating Saddam in Iraq, but the attempt to replace the regime with a stable democracy was obviously a failure. So I am undecided on my verdict for Iraq right now. In the case of Afghanistan, we might just have to say that the war is still ongoing. At this point, though, I think it's extremely unlikely the US will win.

So my tally is:
1 loss (Vietnam)
2 draw (Korea, War of 1812)
1 ongoing (Afghanistan)
1 currently undecided (Iraq)

Everything else was a win.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?
 
I don't feel like we've lost any, we just decided to leave (except maybe War of 1812). We could've stayed. We could've utterly destroyed Vietnam if we really wanted to.

Politically speaking, Vietnam was at least a partial failure, but I don't think it was a complete failure. Communist countries knew we were prepared to fight long term even if not attacked on our own soil, and that had to be discouraging for them.
 
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By length:

Vietnam War (17 years, 2 months) - Defeat
Moro Rebellion (14 years) - Victory
War in Afghanistan (13 years, 2 months, 3 weeks) - Stalemate (Taliban insurgency continues as I type)
Northwest Indian War (10 years) - Victory
Iraq War (8 years, 9 months) - Victory
American Revolution (8 years, 5 months) - Victory
Second Seminole War (6 years, 7 months) - Stalemate
American Civil War (4 years) - Victory
World War II (3 years, 8 months) - Victory
Korean War (3 years, 1 month) - Stalemate
War of 1812 (2 years, 8 months) - Stalemate
Mexican-American War (1 year, 10 months) - Victory
World War I (1 year, 7 months) - Victory
Great Sioux War (1 year, 3 months) - Victory
Persian Gulf War (7 months) - Victory
Spanish-American War (4 months) - Victory
Kosovo War (118 days) - Victory

There's a pattern and hint of desperation here.
 
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Voltaire X said:
Let's have a discussion about which wars we should consider the US to have lost.
We are going to simply exclude the Civil War from the debate since it's not worth getting into the semantics. Also exclude silly "the war on xxx" things like the war on terror.


In my opinion, it is completely obvious that the US lost the Vietnam War. That one goes without question.

Korea ended in more of a stalemate so I don't think that should be considered a loss, rather a draw if anything.

The less obvious ones are Iraq and Afghanistan. We definitely succeeded in the initial goal of defeating Saddam in Iraq, but the attempt to replace the regime with a stable democracy was obviously a failure. So I am undecided on my verdict for Iraq right now. In the case of Afghanistan, we might just have to say that the war is still ongoing. At this point, though, I think it's extremely unlikely the US will win.

So my tally is:
1 loss (Vietnam)
2 draw (Korea, War of 1812)
1 ongoing (Afghanistan)
1 currently undecided (Iraq)

Everything else was a win.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

War of 1812 was a draw? the British burned the white house down...
 
The one on poverty
 
Voltaire X said:
Let's have a discussion about which wars we should consider the US to have lost.
We are going to simply exclude the Civil War from the debate since it's not worth getting into the semantics. Also exclude silly "the war on xxx" things like the war on terror.

In my opinion, it is completely obvious that the US lost the Vietnam War. That one goes without question.

Korea ended in more of a stalemate so I don't think that should be considered a loss, rather a draw if anything.

The less obvious ones are Iraq and Afghanistan. We definitely succeeded in the initial goal of defeating Saddam in Iraq, but the attempt to replace the regime with a stable democracy was obviously a failure. So I am undecided on my verdict for Iraq right now. In the case of Afghanistan, we might just have to say that the war is still ongoing. At this point, though, I think it's extremely unlikely the US will win.

So my tally is:
1 loss (Vietnam)
2 draw (Korea, War of 1812)
1 ongoing (Afghanistan)
1 currently undecided (Iraq)

Everything else was a win.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately what you are going to run into, especially with wars and military engagements in the past 20-30 years ('ish,) is the difference between listed objective and consequences of that objective.

As an example. You could say we won the War in Iraq. We did remove Saddam, we did allow a new government to form, and we are not longer in mass occupation or in charge of security for that nation. *However,* it is now a disaster where present government does not control all of their own nation, ISIS clearly took advantage of their weaknesses, and the currently Iraqi Military cannot on their own take the nation back without our (and many other nation's) engagement of ISIS.

"1 currently undecided (Iraq)"... the reason for that indecision are we are way past the listed reasons for going into Iraq (which were debatable) and existing in a political realm where Obama is now the 4th President in a row to be dropping bombs on Iraq for whatever reason. The cost is in the Trillions with no end in sight, and we lost quite a few lives just to get that nation to the chaotic condition it is in today.
 
OrphanSlug said:
Unfortunately what you are going to run into, especially with wars and military engagements in the past 20-30 years ('ish,) is the difference between listed objective and consequences of that objective.

As an example. You could say we won the War in Iraq. We did remove Saddam, we did allow a new government to form, and we are not longer in mass occupation or in charge of security for that nation. *However,* it is now a disaster where present government does not control all of their own nation, ISIS clearly took advantage of their weaknesses, and the currently Iraqi Military cannot on their own take the nation back without our (and many other nation's) engagement of ISIS.

"1 currently undecided (Iraq)"... the reason for that indecision are we are way past the listed reasons for going into Iraq (which were debatable) and existing in a political realm where Obama is now the 4th President in a row to be dropping bombs on Iraq for whatever reason. The cost is in the Trillions with no end in sight, and we lost quite a few lives just to get that nation to the chaotic condition it is in today.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think Iraq should be officially labelled a stalemate.
 
UPDATED LIST


By length:

Vietnam War (17 years, 2 months) - Defeat
Moro Rebellion (14 years) - Victory
War in Afghanistan (13 years, 2 months, 3 weeks) - Stalemate (Taliban insurgency continues as I type)
Northwest Indian War (10 years) - Victory
Iraq War (8 years, 9 months) - Stalemate
American Revolution (8 years, 5 months) - Victory
Second Seminole War (6 years, 7 months) - Stalemate
American Civil War (4 years) - Victory
World War II (3 years, 8 months) - Victory
Korean War (3 years, 1 month) - Stalemate
War of 1812 (2 years, 8 months) - Stalemate
Mexican-American War (1 year, 10 months) - Victory
World War I (1 year, 7 months) - Victory
Great Sioux War (1 year, 3 months) - Victory
Persian Gulf War (7 months) - Victory
Spanish-American War (4 months) - Victory
Kosovo War (118 days) - Victory
 
Voltaire X said:
Let's have a discussion about which wars we should consider the US to have lost.
We are going to simply exclude the Civil War from the debate since it's not worth getting into the semantics. Also exclude silly "the war on xxx" things like the war on terror.


In my opinion, it is completely obvious that the US lost the Vietnam War. That one goes without question.

Korea ended in more of a stalemate so I don't think that should be considered a loss, rather a draw if anything.

The less obvious ones are Iraq and Afghanistan. We definitely succeeded in the initial goal of defeating Saddam in Iraq, but the attempt to replace the regime with a stable democracy was obviously a failure. So I am undecided on my verdict for Iraq right now. In the case of Afghanistan, we might just have to say that the war is still ongoing. At this point, though, I think it's extremely unlikely the US will win.

So my tally is:
1 loss (Vietnam)
2 draw (Korea, War of 1812)
1 ongoing (Afghanistan)
1 currently undecided (Iraq)

Everything else was a win.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

Really? Sure, the traditional story is that the US lost the engagements. But is that factually true? I don't think so. We spent too much money in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, that much is true. But by which criteria do you think the US lost say Vietnam. Besides being only a battlefield in a 50 years conflict of sometimes hot and mostly cold war, we did achieve the major goal of conflicts of that kind. The dominoes stopped falling and nobody directly confronted the country again. That saved arguably large numbers of lives and treasure. So maybe the feeling was that of having lost, but the real-politic consequences were mostly positive.
 
JC Callender said:
I don't feel like we've lost any, we just decided to leave (except maybe War of 1812). We could've stayed. We could've utterly destroyed Vietnam if we really wanted to.

Politically speaking, Vietnam was at least a partial failure,
but I don't think it was a complete failure.
Click to expand...
 Communist countries knew we were prepared to fight long term even if not attacked on our own soil, and that had to be discouraging for them.
Click to expand...



Who rules Vietnam right now?

That's a pretty good clue.

:lol:
 
Given that Good and Evil are in constant conflict and will be until the end of time, does anyone really win a war?
 
Voltaire X said:
Let's have a discussion about which wars we should consider the US to have lost.
We are going to simply exclude the Civil War from the debate since it's not worth getting into the semantics. Also exclude silly "the war on xxx" things like the war on terror.


In my opinion, it is completely obvious that the US lost the Vietnam War. That one goes without question.

Korea ended in more of a stalemate so I don't think that should be considered a loss, rather a draw if anything.

The less obvious ones are Iraq and Afghanistan. We definitely succeeded in the initial goal of defeating Saddam in Iraq, but the attempt to replace the regime with a stable democracy was obviously a failure. So I am undecided on my verdict for Iraq right now. In the case of Afghanistan, we might just have to say that the war is still ongoing. At this point, though, I think it's extremely unlikely the US will win.

So my tally is:
1 loss (Vietnam)
2 draw (Korea, War of 1812)
1 ongoing (Afghanistan)
1 currently undecided (Iraq)

Everything else was a win.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

It seems you contradict yourself. You exclude the war on terror in your second sentence, and then include Afghanistan and Iraq in your other calculation.
 
WCH said:
Given that Good and Evil are in constant conflict and will be until the end of time, does anyone really win a war?
Click to expand...

I've heard people say something along the lines of, those who write the history books are the winners. :shrug:
 
JC Callender said:
We could've utterly destroyed Vietnam if we really wanted to.
Click to expand...

What we "could have done" is completely irrelevant. yeah - we could have dropper nukes on them. Just like we could drop nukes on North Korea, or Syria, or....

Tell me, how many lives were lost in the Vietnam War?
How many lives were shattered beyond repair from the Vietnam war?

Now tell me, for what?

What did the USofA gain from all that tragedy and loss?
What was the prize we won? What spoils went the the victor?
 
OrphanSlug said:
Unfortunately what you are going to run into, especially with wars and military engagements in the past 20-30 years ('ish,) is the difference between listed objective and consequences of that objective.

As an example. You could say we won the War in Iraq. We did remove Saddam, we did allow a new government to form, and we are not longer in mass occupation or in charge of security for that nation. *However,* it is now a disaster where present government does not control all of their own nation, ISIS clearly took advantage of their weaknesses, and the currently Iraqi Military cannot on their own take the nation back without our (and many other nation's) engagement of ISIS.

"1 currently undecided (Iraq)"... the reason for that indecision are we are way past the listed reasons for going into Iraq (which were debatable) and existing in a political realm where Obama is now the 4th President in a row to be dropping bombs on Iraq for whatever reason. The cost is in the Trillions with no end in sight, and we lost quite a few lives just to get that nation to the chaotic condition it is in today.
Click to expand...

I would say defeat in Iraq- changed the balance of power in the ME, to Iran's and now Russia's benefit.
Repercussions in Syria, massive civil war, death toll, refugee crisis threatening stability in EU.
 
Dragonfly said:
What we "could have done" is completely irrelevant. yeah - we could have dropper nukes on them. Just like we could drop nukes on North Korea, or Syria, or....

Tell me, how many lives were lost in the Vietnam War?
How many lives were shattered beyond repair from the Vietnam war?

Now tell me, for what?

What did the USofA gain from all that tragedy and loss?
What was the prize we won? What spoils went the the victor?
Click to expand...

The Communist got a unified Nam.
 
Crovax said:
War of 1812 was a draw? the British burned the white house down...
Click to expand...

Seriously. Started with three invasions of Canada, all driven back by smaller forces, ended in New Orleans, and along the way...
The US won the last battle, New Orleans, maybe that's what makes it a draw. 'Course, the battle was fought after the war was over, and a loong way from Canada, but what the heck.
 
shrubnose said:
Who rules Vietnam right now?

That's a pretty good clue.

:lol:
Click to expand...

Yep. And a positive outcome. The Vietnamese have their own country, for the first time in generations, and they're doing pretty good with it, too.
 
Voltaire X said:
Let's have a discussion about which wars we should consider the US to have lost.
We are going to simply exclude the Civil War from the debate since it's not worth getting into the semantics. Also exclude silly "the war on xxx" things like the war on terror.


In my opinion, it is completely obvious that the US lost the Vietnam War. That one goes without question.

Korea ended in more of a stalemate so I don't think that should be considered a loss, rather a draw if anything.

The less obvious ones are Iraq and Afghanistan. We definitely succeeded in the initial goal of defeating Saddam in Iraq, but the attempt to replace the regime with a stable democracy was obviously a failure. So I am undecided on my verdict for Iraq right now. In the case of Afghanistan, we might just have to say that the war is still ongoing. At this point, though, I think it's extremely unlikely the US will win.

So my tally is:
1 loss (Vietnam)
2 draw (Korea, War of 1812)
1 ongoing (Afghanistan)
1 currently undecided (Iraq)

Everything else was a win.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

The "USA" and the "United States Military" did not lose Vietnam nor will it lose the current ones, if that happens.
The "US Civilian Government" Lost us / Cost us the Vietnam War and is failing at the current one against ISIS....
 
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