I Have a Question

Korea is a special case due to Chinese involvement. Certainly the Chinese were at our level, but we didn't engage the Chinese in all-out war because of the implied threat of the USSR stepping in. It's difficult to judge the North Koreans separately from the Chinese.

The north Vietnamese were not on our level at all, but we were fighting a conventional war against a guerrilla army. Add in the willingness of the NVA to do things like put machine gun batteries on top of hospitals, and it wasn't so much their training and ability as our inability to fight a guerrilla war. I think that's the biggest challenge with face with Daesh. They have relatively poor weapons, and outside of civilian areas, they're "vastly inferior forces in the dessert". But taking a city from them would prove extremely costly, both in U.S. lives and civilians.

Iraq's army was a decent army, probably better than they are given credit for due to the shortness of that war, but they also played by the rules of conventional warfare. So we took out their airfields and armored convoys and destroyed their missile batteries and they largely surrendered without resorting to guerrilla warfare in the cities.

The last unbridled slugfest involving the U.S. between roughly equivalent forces? WWII. Everything since has been half-measures on one side or the other, or the U.S. trying to fight guerrillas with conventional tactics.

@UnparalleledMonster, I disagree, we could have bulldozed the NVA and could bulldoze Daesh, _IF_ we were willing to cause massive civilian casualties as well. Once the NVA knew we wouldn't hit an AA battery on top of a hospital, the war was lost for us. Daesh doesn't just take over cities to have women to rape and supplies to plunder. They do it because they know we haven't had the stomach to level entire cities since WWII. Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima ... MacArthur was willing to go to that extreme in Korea, but Truman wasn't.

I'm not saying MacArthur was right or wrong. But when your enemy is willing to do anything (e.g. use civilians as shields) and you're not (e.g. kill the civilians to kill the enemy), you're already at a tremendous disadvantage. It isn't that the military _couldn't_ use superior firepower to crush the NVA or Daesh, it's that the collateral damage would be so high, the politicians won't let them.

(In case it's not clear, I am NOT advocating the U.S. take a "win at all costs" strategy against Daesh. I'm stating what I view as the reality of war.)

What you are willing to do to win is just as important as your level of resources in our politically correct world.

I'd go with what others said, Vietnam or Korea. But it could have easily been the cold war with Russia if that ever became a hot war. And it could easily in the future be a war with China. As Thomas Jefferson said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" so our military must always be prepared to fight any enemy and to be able to emerge victorious.

The question is accusitory.

And German soldiers admit that their criticism was based in jealousy.

And honestly, you fight to kill people and break stuff. Even the days of chivalry had plenty of barbarism.

Even with "evenly matched" forces if you fight fair you are an idiot.

The Germans in WW2 complained that Americans fought a "rich mans war" if we encountered resistance, often we pounded the place flat with artillery and air.
The thing is that their complaints were driven from envy as they often tried to do the same but were not as mechanized as the US...or even the late war Red army.

Think what you will...todays soldier is as brave as any, and better trained than most. Equipment is debatable.

@UnparalleledMonster Oh ok. Well, then you're probably looking at either Vietnam or Korea

it is not a game so why should both sides have equal strength/

That depends on what you mean by "on their level." If you're referring to another nation's standing army, then probably the first Gulf War back in 1991. If you mean in a 'symmetrical' war (both sides are conventional and fighting is fairly straightforward), you could be looking as far back as the Korean War in the 1950s.

Without accusing then or being defensive, what point do you want addressed?

Technically we have never fought a war against someone we were evenly matched against.

Germany in ww1 or 2 could not compare economically.

The revolution, we were underdogs.

Civil war....military strength was initially southern but northern resource base won out.

Not defensive. I am answering from a historical perspective. What army in general was a consistent winner while being evenly matched?

@ArnoldJRimmer

"If you fight fair you're an idiot"
"they were just jealous"
"soldiers just as brave as any"

Sounds a bit defensive man

@scrimshaw

Yeah i guess for a while the army just thought they could use superior power to bulldoze guerrilla fighters. Now they know better

@Sceadugenga

Well i guess i mean as opposed to fighting vastly inferior forces in the dessert for example

@ArnoldJRimmer

lol the fact that you feel it was accusatory only proves that you feel defensive about it.

Defend a point of view without being defensive....got it

@ArnoldJRimmer

The point was the question. I didn't know so i asked

@ArnoldJRimmer

No need to get so defensive.

@DuchessOfMapleSyrup

No one said it was a game

Fair enough.