It depends on the objective of the war. Nation building is basically impossible. Killing the crap out of an enemy until they surrender is pretty effective historically. Killing the crap out of select targets while avoiding excessive civilian casualties is generally ineffective. WWII was a total war scenario, the US and USSR absolutely killed entire areas of German and Japanese towns.

but by taking and holding territory (and while awful being less awful than the Nazis.)

It wasn't just a matter of territory or PR. The soviets placed a huge emphasis on logistics, both their own and the enemy's. A typical soviet operation was to attack with a first wave to find a breach, then send a fresh second wave into the breach to cause as much damage as possible to the enemy support crew. At that point, the second wave would evaluate whether they could hold against enemy reinforcements, and if not, retreat before they even arrived, satisfied with the damage they caused.

The key difference in their approaches to war was that to the soviets, every worker who manufactures goods or drives a supply truck or fixes a tank was just as important to the war effort as the person on the front charging the front line. The Nazis placed all the emphasis on "warrior spirit" or whatever nonsense, the people on the front line were the only ones who mattered, and so to retreat from a position, especially without a fight, would be seen as cowardly (with potentially severe repercussions) even if it was the correct decision.

The differences are also apparent in military technology. German tanks were very powerful, in line with Nazi power fantasies, but they were expensive to build and difficult to maintain or repair. Soviet tanks were much cheaper and mass produced, allowing them to field more of them, and of course the AK-47 is famous for it's simplistic design, if something goes wrong, it can easily be repaired in the field. As the war went on, German tanks and aircraft became increasingly convoluted and overengineered, ignoring that the actual weakness was logistics.

USSR being less awful than the Nazis is uhh arguable, if you look at the Eastern Europe. They had more people to throw into the grinder, that much is true.

God bless the military-industrial complex 🫡

Well, because that’s not what the warrior ethos is to begin with.

The ones seeking out an unnecessary fight are not following the warrior ethos as taught to the military. At least the Marines when it was required reading for me.

The warrior ethos is about being willing to rise to the fight when it’s necessary, putting the others around you above yourself, and not backing down from the fight even in the face of death. Honor is the cornerstone of the warrior ethos, and being the aggressor in an unnecessary fight is not honorable.

That’s exactly what all those school teachers, store clerks, and other everyday men in WWII did. The fight was necessary, they recognized that and stood up when called, left behind their homes and families to meet the fight head on, faced extreme circumstances and certain death and refused to back down.

THAT is the warrior ethos. Not some blood lust.

It’s a shame that those with a blood lust have coopted it.

Conservatives made sequels to Jarhead

First Blood: War is horrible. War destroys people's minds, bodies, and souls. War spawns never-ending cycles of trauma and violence. Don't do war.

Every Subsequent Rambo Movie: FUCK YEAH, WAR, ARROOOO!!! 💥💥🧨🧨💪🏻💪🏻

See also: Rocky

I recently watched both for the first time and they were horrible. But why would they like the hippie homeless vet killing cops story in rambo 2?

Edit: I was thinking of rambo 1. Rambo 2 he rescues hostages he was supposed to ignore. I forget the rest I think I was too hugh

And, therefore, spirit.

What does the constipated mathematician do to solve their problems?
They work it out with a pencil.

E: And the results are in.

I specifically said “with troops deployed abroad,” giving everyone who has reacted here (A) the option to read that far and (B) the chance consider why that qualifier might be significant, knowing the knee jerk was likely but that it would demonstrate how used to the idea of a warrior class and risk-free acceptance of American imperialism we truly are.

Random conscription is a terrible idea for a non-wartime army.

I always loved the idea of mandatory service. Everyone has to serve two years to get full "citizenship status", (what that means is definitely debatable).

But not necessarily military service. Your two years could be spent in a number of ways supporting the public good. Like the CCC from Roosevelt, or supporting firefighting, assisting with elderly care, all kinds of things could benefit.

This is also a leadership problem.

The us military ran a massive wargame in 2002, and blue team got curbstomped by a red teamer who designed his strategy around what Iran would be able to do: shutting down shipping, avoiding sigint (using messengers on motorcycles to carry orders, for example), having a highly distributed and resilient command structure, using small speedboats to sneak in and damage American vessels who got too close.

The military said "boo not fair you're supposed to let us blow you all up".

Remarkably predictive all in all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Are you suggesting we require certification to join the military?

I don't think that does the Red Army justice. It was a brutal, ideologically driven force that absorbed horrific losses and kept fighting. It wasn't a "warrior cult" in the Japanese or Nazi sense, but it wasn't a bunch of civilians who'd "rather be doing anything else," either.