How did they defeat the US military?
Wars having win-lose conditions like a video game is an extremely gay way to look at war and comes from a time when European aristocracy waged war just for prestige. Afghanistan was occupied for 20 years and is objectively the biggest shithole on the planet currently, they didn't win shit, the US just failed to complete its secondary objective of regime change (the primary objective was taking down Osama but that was done within the first 10 years). You all can call this cope but you know deep down I'm right.
>>787403The objective was to make money for a handful of oligarchs which was accomplished spectacularly.
>>787228because the US military had unrealistic objectives. if the US military came in and said "our strategic objective is to kill as many people as possible, whether or not they are combatants" then the US would have completed its objective. But the US objective was instead to impose US economic and governmental hegemony on the region. That is a lot more difficult. You can kill millions, but you can't force millions to live the way you want them to live, and to be the slaves you want them to be. Some people would rather die on their feet than live on their knees.
That being said, in other countries the US did not need to fail at counter-insurgency. They simply needed to coup the dissidents and replace them with compradors. I say "dissidents" and "compradors" because sometimes the dissidents aren't socialists. Sometimes they are merely social democrats, or even simply bourgeois nationalists. I say "compradors" because the compradors aren't always the exact ideology the US wants them to be, but they are always more useful to the US than whoever they are replacing.
This is why class struggle needs to be collective. The fate of a country should not be concentrated in the hands of an executive or legislature or judiciary that the imperialists can replace through a coup.
>>787403>the primary objective was taking down OsamaDo you really believe that?
>>787230This unironically. Most successful insurgencies are actually stalemates in the operational sense, but this favours the insurgents (at least in cases of foreign occupation) because they will inevitably have stronger resolve than the occupiers.
>>787403>Wars having win-lose conditions like a video game is an extremely gay way to look at warIt's the only sensible way to look at war. Wars are waged to achieve political outcomes, meaning they are decided by which side manages to achieve those outcomes. In Afghanistan the Taliban achieved theirs while the US did not.
>the primary objective was taking down Osama but that was done within the first 10 yearsThen they were total retards for remaining for a whole decade after that. Plus he was killed in Pakistan in a special forces raid that didn't require the occupation of a whole different country to achieve.
US imperialism lost vietnam but gained Indonesia after sukarno was tippled in the 60s. i think it was the pentagon papers where it said the biggest cost to withdrawal was US credilitbility. no doubt there was also some money made from heroin, and the usual military industrial shenanigans. but if indonesia was cut out of the third world sphere and firmly put into the western camp then it was like a cocaine shot in the arm for imerpialism
>>787403The US bourgeoisie (keyword) won because it destroyed productive forces and drove down excess labor, Afghanistan is getting integrated into the global market with or without it.
The US lost and eat shit according to your libtard interpretation of the war (le good vs bad guys)
Zero class analysis, pure ideology. Kys
>>787458>because it destroyed productive forcesAh yes, Afghanistan's robust productive forces. Truly the country was a powerhouse of industry in 2001.
>>787446>It's the only sensible way to look at war. Wars are waged to achieve political outcomes, meaning they are decided by which side manages to achieve those outcomes. In Afghanistan the Taliban achieved theirs while the US did not.within reason, because sometimes stated objectives are propaganda, and real objectives are secret. sometimes primary objectives are failed, while secondary objectives are completed. sometimes a country wins its local struggle against imperialism but then falls into the economic orbit of the imperialists anyway. sometimes the country that "won" lost millions of people, and suffers for decades with unexploded ordinance, depleted uranium, poisoned water, poisoned crops, and a peripheral position in the global system.
>>787460The glowies used project cyclone in 1979 to defeat afghan modernizers, put in power the predecessors to the taliban, destroy taraki's socialist govt. in kabul, and bait the USSR into a costly occupation that created the very economic conditions which led to the USSR's collapse.
>>787462That's all true, but if you're going to argue that there were some secret objectives then you need to actually identify evidence for them. To imagine one and simply declare it to be the case is the definition of cope.
>sometimes a country wins its local struggle against imperialism but then falls into the economic orbit of the imperialists anywayEh that's a little more complicated. Sure it happens, but in many other cases a country will become economically tethered to their former occupier, but on their own terms, while retaining their sovereignty, and in a way that is beneficial to themselves. Vietnam is the best example of this, which is why it's so successful compared to surrounding US client states like the Phillippines.
>>787464Okay, none of that changes the fact that the US failed its objectives in Afghanistan in the 2001 war, or how laughable it is to suggest that this war destroyed any productive forces.
>>787463>What even is overproduction and falling profit rates?Something the bourgeoisie don't think about in Marxist terms or wage wars to resolve.
>>787466>Something the bourgeoisie don't think aboutThe ruling ideology resolves around it, they're the unconscious tools of history. This retard thinks it's just an incident that the bourgeoisie can appeal to popular morality and ideals in order to justify destruction whenever profit rates drop
>>787470You're mistaken in thinking that the bourgeoisie have a conscious understanding of how or why profit rates drop in the first place. Even if they did, wars would be the most risky and least efficient way to actually resolve that problem. They often don't even produce the desired effect, and worse yet they can often result in a substantial loss in ability to generate profits for the losing side. Take WW1 for example. It was almost entirely fought in a few random fields in France and Belgium hundreds of kilometers away from major industrial centres. There was no substantial aerial bombing or destruction of industrial capital. At the end of it the German bourgeoisie lost their colonies and had to pay substantial indemnities to the Entente powers. If they really wanted to destroy capital it would've been much easier to simply dismantle factories and sell them for salvage. This is also true of every colonial war, e.g. Afghanistan, Algeria, Indochina. There the fighting was contained exclusively to poorly developed colonial regions entire oceans removed from the centers of excessbcapital that supposedly needed to be destroyed. The only war in the capitalist era that resulted in substantial destruction of productive forces was WW2.
>>787474It doesn't retard, yet the ruling ideology is a reflection of their material interests regardless, because that's what ideology is. This is the fundamental thesis upon which Marxism is predicated.
>It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.<A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx>Through this theory we have come to know the deepest degradation of mankind, their dependence on the conditions of competition. It has shown us how in the last instance private property has turned man into a commodity whose production and destruction also depend solely on demand; how the system of competition has thus slaughtered, and daily continues to slaughter, millions of men. All this we have seen, and all this drives us to the abolition of this degradation of mankind through the abolition of private property, competition and the opposing interests.<Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, Frederick Engels >>787481>It doesn't retard, yet the ruling ideology is a reflection of their material interests regardlessYes, but it doesn't follow from this that states have achieved their objectives in war as long as they destroy capital. Insofar as war has anything to do with combatting the falling rate of profit, they're about securing new markets and new sources of labour and materials. Capital destruction is a side effect that can benefit the capitalist system as a whole, but that doesn't mean it benefits the individual bourgeoisie or states involved. Saying something like "the US won in Afghanistan because they destroyed excess capital" is operating from a level of abstraction so far removed from the actual thinking and goals of the people waging these wars that its totally meaningless. You could conceivably make the argument that capitalism "won", but not that the US did. It's also objectively untrue since Afghanistan had no capital to destroy.
>>787486So can we conclude that the Nazis won WW2 because Germany was reduced to a smoking ruin and 1/3 of it became socialist? That the remaining part was reduced to a satellite state without real sovereignty? The takeaway from this passage is supposed to be that capitalism as a system benefits from wars, not that individual states "win" as long as they kill people and break shit.
>>787485It doesn't count actually since Gaza and even Iran are economically pretty insignificant from the perspective of global capitalism.
Because peasant chads will always beat proletariat cuck. There has never been a proleteriat revolution
American foreign policy is just an incoherent manifestation of whatever shit is going on domestically. Hence the country constantly involving itself in aimless quagmires every few decades at a whim. In more recent times, it's why we suddenly care about Cuba, Greenland, Venezuela, and Iran.
Tangential, Cuba and Iran have hot women btw. Hard to pick which has better women, but I think Cuba has a nicer variety. Persian women are queens though and their hijabs heightened their facial features (underrated piece of apparel)
>>787411This too
>>787228triumph of the will, they are what hitler wanted to be.
>>787511Damn, goat herders and rice farmers are the ubermensch after all, yet wh*toids can't even do jack shit and vote in trump. I guess Kara Boga meme was correct after all.
>>787463>They think the US invaded Afghanistan for Osama and Iraq for WMDs. What even is overproduction and falling profit rates?If that were it they could just make a bunch of commodities and bury them or throw them in the ocean or set them on fire. No need to go to all the trouble of war.
>>787538Um actually sweaty, the only way to destroy excess capital is to wage a low-intensity conflict in a country that had no capital to begin with. This why when American agro-porkies need to destroy excess productive capacity, they don't just cut down fruit trees. Instead they simply order the US to attack Beijing so thay the PLA will drop napalm on their farms. This is obviously the least risky and most logical way to resolve a crisis of overproduction.
>>787538>>787546War happens because israel and epstein class are evil
>>787489>The takeaway from this passage is supposed to be that capitalism as a system benefits from wars, not that individual states "win" as long as they kill people and break shit. correct
US military spending during the the Iraq war (2003-2011) is estimated to be the equivalent of that of WW2 adjusted for inflation. The war on terror broadly costed twice as much.
The value of multinational reconstruction contracts in Iraq (still ongoing) are estimated to be in the trillions.
Contained wars are more efficient at delaying overproduction due to their prolonged nature but since they cannot halt it, global wars of annihilation take place.
No need to thank me for read Marx on your behalf.
>>787489>individual states "win"If by "state" you mean the general populace, than no.
If you mean investors, contractors and financiers, then yes.
"National interests" are bourgeois interests as defined by Marxists. So this is needless to say but I made sure to point by empathising the keyword "bourgeoisie"
>>787458 >>787559>If you mean investors, contractors and financiers, then yes.Even they lose if they lose access to markets, labour, and resources, or if they face new restrictions on their ability to expand or defend their interests. You can't seriously sit there and tell me that the German bourgeoisie "won" WW1 by losing their colonies, having their military severely reduced, having to pay onerous reparations, dealing with hyperinflation, etc.
>>787560No one said the national bourgeoisie cannot lose, retard. That's the outcome of inter-imperialist wars like WW1 and WW2.
Lenin pointed out that imperialist war isn't solely a war against the international working class, but also a struggle between imperialists themselves.
As it turns out destroying the productive forces of a given country entails hurting its national bourgeoisie, a small sacrifice on the alter of international captial as a whole and its wellbeing.
>>787564>No one said the national bourgeoisie cannot loseThat's the implication of stating that the purpose of war is to destroy capital and combat overproduction. If that's the real objective of every capitalist war, then any bourgeoisie which kills people and breaks shit "wins" the war, even if they lose. I'm pointing out the inherent absurdity in this way of thinking.
>Lenin pointed out that imperialist war isn't solely a war against the international working class, but also a struggle between imperialists themselvesYes that's my point. Bourgeois states wage war in order to accomplish specific objectives related to their narrow national (bourgeois) interests, not for the benefit of the global capitalist system in the abstract. As such they win or lose based on whether they achieve those objectives, and failure to do so can have serious negative consequences for them. It may be true for example that capitalism as a whole benefitted from WW1, but it would be pretty hard to argue that the German bourgeoisie specifically did.
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