Talk:List of battles 2001-current

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Just for clarification im assuming this page and its like are for significant military actions that occured within the context of a pre-existing war/operation/taskforce. The battles that occured within Afghanistan for example should be included as well as a general listing for 'US invades Afghanistan'. I have included accidental incidents like Iran air 655 for those reasons, it was an intentional military act that occured under Operation Earnest Will.

[edit] battles?

What are listed currently are not battles. How about getting some actual battles listed here? Kingturtle 06:29, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Future problems

I can see problems developing on this page, for instance in Iraq what do we include as a battle and what do we exclude? To present a NPOV the actions of both sides have to be taken into account. The US/UK occupation forces can demonstrate 'battles' in the sense of the 'battle of falluja' etc. But the insurgents/terrorists/freedom fighters (delete as you see appropriate) would probably point to instances where they have 'won' firefights as battles in their own right. The US/UK forces would dismiss those as skirmishes. Can a battle only be defined as such by the bigger force with a more clearly defined hierarchy? If a tactical outcome of a battle is designed to aid the strategic outcome of a war then the insurgents can be justified in calling their actions against US/UK forces (note NOT civilians) as 'battles'. In the age of asymetric warfare when the notion of one army defeating another isn't really an option, how do you define the actions between a few squads of men that clearly have an impact on strategy (particularly as strategy is increasingly interlinked to public perception) but that last only hours - if not minutes.

The same problem in a way is presented in the 20th century board, the Vietnam war and the troubles of Northern Ireland are almost completely absent. The US and their South Vietnamese allies clearly lost the war in Vietnam, but for most of that war 'battles' in the traditional sense were not fought. So how do we assess who was winning strategically and tactically at a particular moment in time?

There must be some war historians about to help!Zaq12wsx 23:21, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Using United States Operation Names is POV!

I do not think we should be using United States Operation Names for these battles if they have other names (such as the two Fallujah battles), as this is POV. Battle of XXXX and Siege of YYYY are considered most neutral here, are they not? (See Military History Project's policy.) Roy Al Blue 20:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Another note: This is a List of Battles, not a List of Wars. The Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are essentially Wars (at least Campaigns), not Battles and therefore do not belong on this list. I have replaced them with some of their battles, but my lists are likely incomplete. Roy Al Blue 21:13, 14 December 2005 (UTC)