Mephisto2

I don't think people are the same.

Today's media society brings the horror of war into the living room. Even "everyday" things that were acceptable 50 years ago are no longer considered so.

It's hard to put into words what I've been thinking for some time. Basically, people today are "softer" than they were in the past. Society is no longer willing to accept things that it once was. Regulations on everything from food safety to manufacturing standards to what is socially acceptable (smoking for example) all are moving towards protecting people from unnecessary death and suffering.

The same applies in law enforcement and military operations.

If the Rodney King incident had happened in the 50's, no one would have batted an eye. Even if we take the racial aspect out of the equation, "softening up" suspects was accepted and even everyday practice back then. Today there would be an outrage, as there rightly was in New York recently.

Militarily, America suffered great casualties during WWII, Korea and (to a lesser degree) in Vietnam. In each war, the public's willingness to accept these casualties decreased, commensurate with an increase in unwillingness to support wars.

Look at what happened in Somalia. One video tape of a soldier being dragged through the streets and the President recalls the entire American forces. However, that kind of thing happened regularly in WWII. No one complained about the attrocities perpetrated (on both sides) during the most horrific stages of the war in the Pacific theatre.

Enemies were portrayed as sub-human, animals and they had to be defeated.

Society has evolved. It has matured.

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. The same applies for all nations, even Russia and China. As we have become more "socially and internationally aware", more complex in our understandings of the world and more empathetic with other people, our stomach for death and destruction has decreased. I don't think this is a bad thing. I think it shows how society is evolving, maturing, developing.

A major war, like that in Europe in the 40's, Korean peninsula in the 50s and French Indo-China in the 60's is no longer possible (in my mind). It may start, but it would end pretty damn fast. As one poster put it, the only way something like that could conceivably happen is if the US was invaded. And you might as well say America would be invaded by Martians, as we all know that that's a physical impossibility.

So, I don't think America could win a major war, simply for the fact that I don't think it would (or could) fight a major war. Militarily? Yes. Socially? Absolutely not.


Mr Mephisto


PS - Before anyone goes off their hat, the same applies (in my opinion) to almost all nations today. It's a human thing, not an American thing. Keep your knee-jerk nationalism to yourself. :-)