The success that war brings, US style that is.

[Rupert_Baehr]

For all those that support the Corporate US military industrial complex, just how many wars in the last 60 years has the great and the good actually won? Don't prattle on about WW2 as without Russia sacrificing over 20 million deaths it could have been a different outlook, as slowly it seems to be accepted its Russia that won it.

 

Don't forget the glory that was Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, which just might suggest that force, as in bombs don't really work or did these countries / nations actually gain from Uncle Sam’s Boot?

 

By the way I love the new concept of a hero the US propaganda machine has succeeded in. Once a hero was an extraordinary person, Alexander the great springs to mind, the revamp in the USA is that hero’s come ready boxed, covered in bright material, and seriously dead. So repacked in many ways it seems.

 

THe point was, what use is the USA outside of making war? Like a child that only knows how to break toys????

 

 

For all those that support the Corporate US military industrial complex, just how many wars in the last 60 years has the great and the good actually won? Don't prattle on about WW2 as without Russia sacrificing over 20 million deaths it could have been a different outlook, as slowly it seems to be accepted its Russia that won it.

 

Don't forget the glory that was Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, which just might suggest that force, as in bombs don't really work or did these countries / nations actually gain from Uncle Sam’s Boot?

 

Are you really as small-minded, bitter and twisted, poorly-infromed and stupid as you portray yourself?

 

Do you understand the term 'Corporate US military industrial complex'?

 

Are you aware of the (largely economic) reasons for military-industrial complexes (throughout the West; they're not merely confined to the US)?

 

There are two known (tried and tested) alternatives to the military-industrial complex:

 

1. Communism. Well tried, well tested - and failed.

2. The Japanese model. - Works for them, but would be very difficult to sell in the West (where commercial collaboration between competitors is about as common as hens' teeth.)

 

If you were the head of a major British manufacturing company and you had made a vitally-important (and potentially commercially valuable) discovery, would you want to share that discovery with your competitors? Would you give it to (say) a French company? - Would you as like!

 

If you were Mr Sony and you made a similar discovery, you would be obliged to share it with Mr Aiwa, Mr Akai and all of the rest of them down to Mr Yaesu. (And probably Mr Zuken, too.)

 

The Japanese government provides funding for research, the major Japanese manufacturers contribute to that research and all companies benefit from it - they share the results.

 

In the West, it doesn't work like that. Companies compete! - And they sure as hell don't give details of their research to their competitors.

 

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) there are few companies which can afford to fund unlimited research. But they all need research funds, so who provides the money?

 

Should the government of an EU member State pour masses of money into one of its companies (and they do need research money) then unless the government was called 'France' and the company was called 'Renault' or the government was called 'Italy' and the company was called 'Al-Italia' there would be an outcry!

 

If the Military fund research programmes, nobody seems to have a problem with that.

 

Admittedly, in some countries, the government does not control the military. The governments in such countries tend to change.

 

The Military-Industrial complex is a necessity in Western countries. (Because they are reluctant to accept the Japanese model and not stupid enough to embrace Communism.)

 

You appear to think that the success of a military-industrial complex depends on war. Not so. It's actually easier to manage the complex (and your finances) if you don't have a war.

 

Give a soldier a rifle, a rifle range, a handfull of bullets and he'll fire them down the range. Then he'll need some more bullets.

 

Somebody somewhere else in your economy has a job making bullets. Somebody else has a job delivering them and somebody else makes money out of recycling the brass and de-leading the butts.

 

If you're running the bit of the government which determines the size of o military, then you can contol how many soldiers you have and how many bullets they fire each week.

 

Until they go to war - at which point, all your plans go out of the window.

 

If your country is sufficiently wealthy, you can pour government money into research (without running foul of anti-competition laws.)

 

You can either do that through outside contractors (and you can use your country's laws to stop them from talking about the research or you can even set up your own research labs. (Los Alamos, Sandia, Phillips and JPL spring to mind.) Those labs (along with many others) are funded by the military with money from the government. (Military-Industrial complex) but more than 95% of their output finds its way into civilian life.

 

If (as you appear to suggest) you are so averse to the military-industrial complex, are you prepared to 'put your money where your mouth is' and abjure from the use of all technology which derives from that source?

 

If you are - and you're not a hypocrite - I don't suppose we woll be hearing from you on this forum again. After all, the Internet originated from a project at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

 

No Military-Industrial Complex = no DARPA = No Internet, No Sat Nav and a whole host of other things we treat as normal parts of everyday life.

 

 

Is there any point to any of this pretentious little rant other than to give the Americans a slagging? Only a simpleton would believe that any one single nation won WWII, whether that be Russia or the USA.

 

The title of the OP has nothing to do with WWll. - But I'm certainly not going to argue with your implied asessmnet of the person who wrote that post.:hihi:

[Harleyman]

Ok let's look at the Ardenne offensive,

 

German involvement in the offensive 200,000 men, 600 tanks, and 1,900 guns.

 

 

compared to Kursk,

 

900,000 soldiers, 10,000 artillery guns, 2,700 tanks and 2,000 aircraft. About 1/3rd of all Germany’s military strength was concentrated in the area.

 

 

So you tell me, which was the vital battle? Of those 200,000 men involved in the Ardennes how many were Volksgrenadiers? Certainly the 7th and 15th Army were of very dubious quality. Whilst the Ardennes Offensive might have been a 'big deal' for the US it was little more than a skirmish, when compared to the battles on the Eastern Front. It is also worth pointing out that, again according to German sources the Campaign in the Ardennes had little effect upon the defences of the Eastern Front, so where does the along with the catastophic loss of tanks and personnel was a great and vital factor in taking the strain from the the Red Army come from?

 

 

The battle of Stalingrad is considered to be the turning point in the battle on the eastern front. That said however to eliminate the Americans as of being of any importance in the defeat of Germany is to crassly overlook other facts.

The bombing of German factories seriously hindered their ability to produce tanks, guns and aircraft. Had this bombing not ocurred which incidentally cost the lives of some 50 thousand US aircrew in the process the Germans could have produced their far superior weapons in great numbers.

The King tiger tanks was far better that anything that the aliies could turn out. Had these tanks been able to be produced in the thousands the T-34s would have been history. The German airman was far superior to his Russian counterpart and if unheeded by allied round the clock bombing of German war industry the Messerschmidt jet fighter would have blown the Soviet air force out of the skies. Even the ME-109 and FW-190 were superior to what the Russians could produce. Much of the Luftwaffe however was tied up in western Europe defending Germany from the Allied air campaign The Soviet air force on the other hand carried out very little bombing of German cities and factories. That was all done by the British and the Americans.

 

The difference between the American and Russian soldier bears some looking at . The American citizen soldier came from a democracy and thought as a product of that society. The Russian soldier on the other hand was a peasant who knew nothing of democracy and was often more in fear of his brutal offcers and the NKVD Units who were attached to the infantry units than he was of the Germans.

 

If you've ever studied the relationships between the allied leaders you would know that a main caus of tension between Stalin and Roosevelt was because of what Stalin perceived as being the slowness of the Allies in establishing a second front. Stalin knew that the Soviet army could only sustain it's momentum so long before it started to crack. The enormous losses it had suffered were beginning to tell. The man was desperate for the western allies to draw off large numbers of Wehmacht.

[Phanerothyme]

If you are - and you're not a hypocrite - I don't suppose we woll be hearing from you on this forum again. After all, the Internet originated from a project at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

 

No Military-Industrial Complex = no DARPA = No Internet, No Sat Nav and a whole host of other things we treat as normal parts of everyday life.

 

No, that's not the case at all.

 

You're arguing that these things could not have been developed without a military-industrial complex.

 

I would say that is unsupportable speculation.

 

Nor have you accounted for the need of the military in Military Industrial Complex.

 

Besides which, since 1980 it's been the Prison-Industrial complex.

[Harleyman]

No, that's not the case at all.

 

You're arguing that these things could not have been developed without a military-industrial complex.

 

I would say that is unsupportable speculation.

 

Nor have you accounted for the need of the military in Military Industrial Complex.

 

Besides which, since 1980 it's been the Prison-Industrial complex.

 

 

It was enough to bring about the final collapse of the Soviet Union. Thirty years on that seems to have been forgotten and a whole generation have come of age since then knowing little of the Cold War and why because of Stalin's expansion in Eastern Europe after WW2 the rest of Europe felt threatened by the Soviet Union.

I think Truman had every intention of bringing US troops home from Europe and downsizing the military much as had happened after WW1 but the situation in post war Europe with Germany ruined, France raddled with political crisis it fell into place that the US would have to remain as a protective umbrella. China and North Korea falling to the Communists only seemed to heighten the threat

As an alternative you could look at a scenario where Truman pulled out all forces from Europe, an isolationist government was re-elected and western Europe left to defend itself.

 

The US economy in the years after WW2 certainly wasn't based in any military-industrial complex. It was generated by a huge demand for consumer goods of every type from cars to washing machines and fueled by a population that had hoarded billions of dollars from years of full employment, bags of overtime and good pay.

The Cold War which grew worse in the late fifties/early sixties accounted for the rapid rise in military expenditure

[Harleyman]

Oh I keep forgetting if it isn't a US figure it's obviously inaccurate? Because we all know only the US knows the real truth of what happened in WWII And I don't blame them for not paying for the crap we sent them.

 

What do you think an army moves on? Have you ever served in any army?

The General Motors 2-1/2 ton truck was the work horse of all the allied armies. A million of them served in every theatre of operations in WW2

 

The Russians may have had an abundance in tanks and artillery but they definitely did not have the means to move armies of millions of men around battlefields along with vital supplies in quick order without adequate transport and that can mean the difference between victory and total defeat in any battle

.

Even when the Red Army entered Germany in 1945 some of them were still moving soldiers in horse drawn carts.

One German civilian looking at convoys of ragged Tartars and Mongols riding in carts with women following behind remarked

"how could we have been beaten by an army such as this"

Well the fact is they werent beaten by an army like that. They were beaten by an army that moved aboard the good old Jimmy truck

 

If you consider that what was sent to the Russians was "crap" then I assume that includes Spitfires and Hurricanes as well

[enuffrespect]

For all those that support the Corporate US military industrial complex, just how many wars in the last 60 years has the great and the good actually won? Don't prattle on about WW2 as without Russia sacrificing over 20 million deaths it could have been a different outlook, as slowly it seems to be accepted its Russia that won it. .

 

agreed ,

 

 

Don't forget the glory that was Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, which just might suggest that force, as in bombs don't really work or did these countries / nations actually gain from Uncle Sam’s Boot?

 

 

Majority of population dont even know about the hundreds and thousands and dead in that "intervention " war

 

30,000+ dead American soldiers , were they protecting their homeland? NO same to be said about Vietnam!

 

Vietnam sold to the american public over a LIE! ( guess some things never change? ) it took riots by peace activists to bring a stop too that war!

 

riot police were used to beat down any one calling a end to the Vietnam war in the early days!

 

Empire never benefits the population! having 400 military bases , invasion conquest nearly every day has started the collapse of the american empire now...

 

 

 

As for heros just a media propaganda word which is used to keep decent too a minimum!

[enuffrespect]

I seem to recall a large US contingent fighting with us on the western front - good job as the Russians probably wouldn't have stopped at Berlin.

 

BTW the USA won by far and away the most important "war" post WWII - the Cold War.

 

you mean the fake war?

 

you saying american won the cold war?

 

but lost Vietnam , Korea , Afghanistan ( any many many many many many more military interventions during and after the Cold war?

[enuffrespect]

notice who he quotes the 'Soviet' figures. LOL. As if they were going to encourage the notion that the Soviet Union undoubtedly owes to it's allies of the time a great deal of credit that they managed to survive, and not just the US, but the UK as well.

 

plus the Russians still haven't paid for all that stuff or even bothered trying. Britain paid their lend-lease back. The Russians haven't.

 

agreed war can be very profitable ,

 

lots and lots of money to be made during war! the longer the better!

 

i wish i had a private contractor company ,,,

[Rupert_Baehr]

No, that's not the case at all.

 

You're arguing that these things could not have been developed without a military-industrial complex.

 

I would say that is unsupportable speculation.

 

Nor have you accounted for the need of the military in Military Industrial Complex...

 

No I'm not suggesting that they could not have been invented, I'm suggesting that is is highly unlikely that had they been invented, they would have been developed without government funding.

 

Which company do you think could fund a GPS Satellite network?

 

In the West, the military is often used as the source of funding for the R&D. The government(s) put up the money (usually through the military, citing military needs as the reason for the R&D) and those private companies which obtain lucrative defence contracts to enable them to do so carry out the research.

 

In the US, many of the government research labs are on military installations and are heavily supported by government funds, but are operated by commercial enterprises. Much of their output (about 95%) goes to commercial industry.

 

In Japan, the law requires companies to collaborate. In the West, companies are usually loath to collaborate and they are certainly not required to do so by law.

 

Should (for example) the British government decide to subsidise a commercial company heavily to do research into a product which would probably give that company a significant competitive advantage over other EU companies, there would be an outcry and the UK would find itself before the EU Court.

 

Boeing has done rather well. It has received (over many years) hefty subsidies from the US government (to enable it to develop products for military use.) That aid has also helped the company to compete commercially. Many countries have argued that was 'unfair.'

 

Panavia didn't do too badly when it came to government funding, either. (Though we won't talk about that - It doesn't support the 'bash Boeing' argument .)

 

The purpose of the UK Armed Forces is not to provide funds for researchers, or to support British industry (though they have done that for many years*.) It used to be to provide 'The defence of the realm'. (I'm not sure what it is today ... Libya is not a British county and most of the recent military endeavours seem to have little to do with 'defending the realm.')

 

I was once asked [late 1970s] (a throw-away question) to name 5 medium to large British companies which had no connection whatsoever with the MOD. - Companies which did not benefit in any way from MOD contracts. I couldn't so so - and nor could anybody else in the group.

 

* The military may not have been tasked formally with supporting British Industry, but they certainly did so. For example, they used to buy vehicles from British Leyland (and, AFAIR from Vauxhall.) They didn't pay the going 'commercial rate' (and some of the rubbish they received would've been unsaleable on the commercial market.) The purchases appear to have been timed to coincide with 'downturns' in sales of particular models, so that production lines did not have to close. The MOD got vehicles 'on the cheap', workers kept their jobs, and British Industry recevied a hidden subsidy (which, if the government attemped to provide openly to a British firm nowadays would almost certainly fall foul of anti-competition law.)

 

In the early 1980s, the Air Force needed a Strategic Tanker. There were 2 options available:

 

1. The KC10 Extender. The Brits use 'probe and drogue' and the Americans use a boom refuelling system. The Shah of Iran had ordered Extenders from Boeing, he wasn't around to take them and the aircraft were available (fitted with the refuelling system in use with the RAF) off the shelf.

 

2. The Tristar. British Airways had some Tristars they didn't want and couldn't sell. The Tristar was not a tanker and would have to be extensively modified to convert it into a tanker.

 

The British government did not put any pressure whatsoever on the Royal Air Force. They chose the Tristar.

 

Eventually.

 

 

Besides which, since 1980 it's been the Prison-Industrial complex.

 

Please explain.

[Rupert_Baehr]

you mean the fake war?

 

...

 

Fake war? - Tell that to the people who died in it.

 

agreed war can be very profitable ,

 

lots and lots of money to be made during war! the longer the better!

 

i wish i had a private contractor company ,,,

 

War is indeed profitable - but providing the means for deterrence can (and does) provide greater profits in the long run.

 

Consider WWll. A lot of people (individuals and companies) made a lot of money out of it. - A lot of others lost both their pre-war wealth and their lives.

 

There was a winning side and a losing side.

 

Who came out ahead?

 

The UK was on the winning side. At the end of the war, it had massive structural damage, large numbers of 'orphaned' (Well, 'in care') children, a shortage of male labour and huge debts.

 

Germany was on the losing side. At the end of the war, it had massive structural damage, large numbers of 'orphaned' (Well, 'in care') children and a shortage of male labour.

 

Both countries needed re-building, both needed considerable financial assistance. The winners paid to re-build the losers.