Korea and Desert Storm being seaming flukes at this point
It’s even less stellar than that. Korea was a stalemate. Desert Storm achieved its limited objectives but didn’t resolve the underlying problems, so we got Gulf War 2 (which had poorly defined objectives and which failed on a far greater scale).
There were far smaller skirmishes such as the Grenada invasion and the NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia that were arguably more successful at their near-term, limited aims.
If there’s any lesson to be learned, it’s that the Powell Doctrine should be reinstated. Also, that imperialist interference is a loser’s game, and initiatives by broad international coalitions are less likely to degenerate into clusterfucks.
I broadly agree except with Korea. The Korea was successful in its initial aims, the original end goal was to restablize the border and push the Norks to a higher parallel. The problems can be largely laid down at the feet of general MacArthur who wanted to annihilate the Norks, basically everyone disagreed but was unwilling to override him. This resulted in the Chinese getting involved which is why actually wiping out the Norks was not on the table originally, they were supposed to be used as a buffer state. Eventually MacArthur gets fired by Truman and people who aren’t stupid and don’t want to nuke Manchuria take charge, the warfront stabilizes and the modern borders are established. Maybe the active war couldve gone on for longer but by that point basically everyone involved was done with the conflict and figured that nobody winning outright was acceptable, UN and US succeeded at the initial goal if a bit lower in latitude and the Soviet bloc keeps the Norks.
It’s even less stellar than that. Korea was a stalemate. Desert Storm achieved its limited objectives but didn’t resolve the underlying problems, so we got Gulf War 2 (which had poorly defined objectives and which failed on a far greater scale).
There were far smaller skirmishes such as the Grenada invasion and the NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia that were arguably more successful at their near-term, limited aims.
If there’s any lesson to be learned, it’s that the Powell Doctrine should be reinstated. Also, that imperialist interference is a loser’s game, and initiatives by broad international coalitions are less likely to degenerate into clusterfucks.
I broadly agree except with Korea. The Korea was successful in its initial aims, the original end goal was to restablize the border and push the Norks to a higher parallel. The problems can be largely laid down at the feet of general MacArthur who wanted to annihilate the Norks, basically everyone disagreed but was unwilling to override him. This resulted in the Chinese getting involved which is why actually wiping out the Norks was not on the table originally, they were supposed to be used as a buffer state. Eventually MacArthur gets fired by Truman and people who aren’t stupid and don’t want to nuke Manchuria take charge, the warfront stabilizes and the modern borders are established. Maybe the active war couldve gone on for longer but by that point basically everyone involved was done with the conflict and figured that nobody winning outright was acceptable, UN and US succeeded at the initial goal if a bit lower in latitude and the Soviet bloc keeps the Norks.