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0 pointsFrustratedMonky1y ago0 comments

"Well, giving up is taboo in the military"

The quote was about the 'enemy'. Many civilian governments will end a war, before the military would have.

I'm sure there are a lot of examples in both directions, they should have just walked away sooner, or they should have stuck it out and all died gloriously.

Example: The German Military didn't want to end WW1, wasn't it the civilian government. But, weren't they actually really beat?

Or Vietnam. Did we lose? Or were we convinced we had lost.

It is possible to be 'defeated' but just not accept it. The never give up attitude leads to extra deaths.

What if Japan had this attitude, and we just kept dropping atomic bombs until the country was gone.

Guess goes back to some other quote I can't cite. War is easier to start than to end.

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tristramb1y ago

"The German Military didn't want to end WW1."

Not true. Following the breaking of the Hindenberg line on 1918-09-29 Ludendorff realised that further resistance would likely lead to communist revolution in Germany. On 1918-10-01 he explained this to the heads of department of his General Staff and said he had therefore asked the Kaiser and Chancellor to ask Woodrow Wilson for an armistice based on his Fourteen Points. It took six more weeks for the armistice to be agreed partly because Ludendorff was trying to ensure that someone else could be blamed the defeat.

Its all in "On a Knife Edge - How Germany lost the First World War" by Holger Aflerbach, 2022.

FrustratedMonkyOP1y ago

You're correct. I was referring more to the general attitude of the 'country'. There were a lot of people upset that Germany had 'given up', including rank and file. And a lot of that resentment went into WW2. Of course lot of details being skipped here.

Maybe Vietnam is better example. One could argue that after the Tet Offensive, that the North was out of resources and the US could have won. But the Tet Offensive had convinced the US that there was no winning, so by 'believing' they had lost, they lost.

"Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is"

I was just commenting on the original quote, that there is large part of psychology to winning/losing. If you can make the enemy 'think they lost' then you have won, even if it doesn't look like it on paper by the number of units, position, etc...

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