Friday, December 18, 2009

The Cost of War and The Price of Victory

Today, I did venture out into the blogosphere for a very brief time and read a post dealing with the "Cost of War" over at Texas Fred. In his article Fred concentrated on the effectiveness of the "Hellfire Missile" and its use by the predator drones. A very lethal combination and one that saves American lives, but unfortunately this is not a decisive weapon. I've always thought that wars were fought to win and not obtain some type of draw. Being an old history teacher I have read about the early years of the "War for Southern Independence" in that bloody conflict the early generals selected by Lincoln would fight a battle and then retire back to the safety of Washington D.C. which quickly became the most fortified city in the world. Then after a few months they would venture out again and they repeated this over and over. Finally Lincoln put U S Grant in charge. Grant quickly realized the futility of the tactics used by his predecessors and chartered a new course. Although Grant's early battles were bloody he continued to throw men into the lines, his losses were astronomical even by the standards of those days. Grant, however knew the cost of war and in the end he did achieve the final victory. I'm sure Grant felt the sting of his losses, but he nevertheless pushed on. It does seem that many times in history "the cost of war is the price of victory". by Ron Russell


This is Victory


And This is Defeat

9 comments:

TexasFred said...

War should be fought in such a manner as to affect a TOTAL and unequivocal victory in the shortest time frame, at the cheapest cost and with the least loss of soldiers...

But, I was a soldier and not a businessman or a politician...

Ron Russell said...

As usual Fred you are right, the short path to a total victory is the only way to fight a war--unfortuately politicians are todays generals with the command-in-chief and his henchman controling the actions on the battlefield.

The Right Look said...

Great piece Ron!

I'm sure our General's want nothing more than to affect the kind of TOTAL and unequivocal victory that Fred speaks of.

Too bad their boss is retarded.

-j-
The Right Look

The Right Look said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

This is a major problem with today's military. Government contractors have far too much influence. It's far more profitable for them to fight a long drawn out war.

Right Truth said...

It's just like I said earlier, and like BlackFive posted, the ROE, rules of engagement, are so strict the military is afraid to do anything.

War used to be something we wanted to WIN, that was before political correctness took over.

Give it everything we have and WIN.

Debbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com

Matt said...

Had we fought WWII in this half-a**ed fashion, we'd all be speaking German.

Teresa said...

I am sure that our Generals have been planning for the least number of casualties and a quick and decisive defeat.

Unfortunately, Obama hasn't a clue of what it takes to win a war.

Dolley said...

Wow - that picture of the lady being stoned is hard hitting.

I love your blog, do you want to exchange links?

http://abigailanddolley.blogspot.com/