Talk:Military history of the United States

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Military history of the United States was the collaboration of the week for the week starting on March 6, 2005.

For details on improvements made to the article, see history of past collaborations.

Contents

[edit] What about the war on drugs?!

What about the war on drugs?! posted by 69.140.251.156

Assuming you're serious, I imagine it warrants a brief mention. --Dhartung | Talk 15:47, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I think he was being sarcastic. It is pretty moronic to have a "war on terror" listed under the military history of a nation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.51.100.173 (talk) 14:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "TV disease"

Many articles are plagued by it. Each of the wars has its (more or less) comprehensive page and it should be addressed with a few lines here, mostly about the context, the premises and the consequences and less about actual evolvement. While Yugoslavia war has to few data on this page (why it took place? what were the results? how come Korean war has a lot of talk about allies - the enemies are enumerated twice in to consecutive phrases, and there's no word about the allies againt Milosevic?), the Iraq stories are really too long (while repeating stuff seen on TV by everyone who has a TV set). There's a bit of cleaning needed on the stories which don't involve the American governement in any way. As mentined earlier, the Spanish Civil War should then be mentioned on half of the countries' history pages. I would try to address these issues, but I fear that cutting would be felt as Anti-American and quickly reversed. Then adding reasons to attack Yugoslavia, once again, will be felt as an attack on the American history (which is described as short by this article, but, strangely, it has more text than Roman Empire's military history already, thanks to TV disease). I guess the article needs a stronger person.--Luci S 08:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not really clear what you mean by "TV disease" but I'll try to address your specific concerns first. The Korean War section could use some minor edits but overall I think it's fine. Yugoslavia could certainly use some more detail, and reasons for the conflict (as stated by the US) should definitely be mentioned. You can state those reasons without being anti-American: just find a cite for Clinton or other members of the US administration at the time. The Spanish Civil War was actually mentioned on the talk page before. It is not an "American" conflict, but we also aren't talking about a handful of Americans who went to Spain. There was a fairly large and organized involvement on the part of American citizens, on BOTH sides, so I think a short summary of American involvement is appropriate. The length of the Roman Empire's page is not our concern.
My contributions here include WW2, Korea, Vietnam & both Gulf Wars, and I tried to meet some stylistic goals in those sections, which I think are reasonable goals for every section of this page. The first para is the summary: who, when, where and why. The second para gives some brief background, describing the events that led up to the conflict. The third para provides a brief military summary of the key battles (or of the entire conflict, if it's short), and the fourth para covers the aftermath of the war and political and military ramifications. I think the WW2 and First Gulf War sections, although perhaps a bit too long, both reflect these stylistic choices. I also like the Vietnam section. I'll concede that my writing may be America-centric, but I try to be NPOV. This page is specifically about the US and its military history, and I think it's reasonable to focus primarily on the US in our writing here.
Finally, whether things are or were "on TV" is totally irrelevant. World War II was covered in great detail by every newspaper of the time; does that mean we shouldn't also cover it here? Our job should be to provide a reasonable starting point for people who are looking for a summary of the conflict. We cannot assume that all our readers are TV news junkies, and we must provide them with basic, "obvious" information. I believe this article as a whole is probably too long, but that should be resolved by splitting it into multiple articles to cover the various periods of American history, not by stripping every section down to the bare minimum. There are far too many sections of this article that simply say there was a war at some time. Right now, the American Civil War section doesn't even say who won! That's a pretty important fact that belongs in any summary of US history, regardless of how obvious it is or whether it's mentioned elsewhere. Yes, there's a very nice page dedicated to the Civil War, but there is still a place here for a 2-3 paragraph summary of the war. The summary here should give the reader an idea of the conflict's strategic importance in US history. Simishag 19:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Strength in Numbers

I'm inclined to add a mention of the importance to USCW of mass production of weapons, notably the Springfield which was increased about 12:1, but I can't find the source I found it in... Can anybody source, confirm, & include? Trekphiler 19:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] potential redirect.

should US military history be a redirect? i would do it myself, but i cant figure out how. Saganatsu 22:27, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect page move

Article was just moved to incorrectly capitalized title (Military History of the United States) by User talk:Brendenhull, who has been moving pages without knowing what he's doing. --Kevin

To give the benefit of the doubt, I concur. Otherwise its either malicious or juvenile pique.


[edit] Korean War

Does nobody read a book any more? The portion of the summary about MacArthur is in error. Way too much of everything I come across about the US military in Wiki is "conventional wisdom", which usually means its incomplete, half-truths, author's POV, or simply wrong. The era doesn't matter. Or else its taken at face value off some poorly done web-site. I try to correct when I come across them, but there's only 24 hours in a day! I would urge those that feel as I do to please help.--Buckboard 08:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proportional attention

Why is the section on the Gulf War (now 4,959 bytes of text) longer than the section on World War II (4,925 bytes) and Vietname (3,125 bytes)? Formal US involvement in WWII lasted 46 months, involvement in Vietnam lasted 11 years, but the Gulf War was just 100 hours. Given that there is a comprehensive article on the Persian Gulf War, this seems unnecessary. --Dhartung | Talk 21:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] National Guard & border

I don't know if this is appropriate for this article but I'll leave it for now. Are there any other NG operations that deserve mention in this article? I don't think, for instance, that a section about NG & Hurricane Katrina belongs here. Simishag 06:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

No, because that is a non-military role (even if you count the active-duty involvement). To cite a roughly comparable example, the military gave broad support to the space program, but that isn't something that belongs here. On the other hand, it had occurred to me before that there should be something in the Cold War section about satellites, SAC, DEW, and ICBMs. --Dhartung | Talk 07:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colonial link

I see no link to a list of wars prior to nationhood (colonial period). I'm not sure which article to link to, but I think some readers would likely use such a link if provided. NoSeptember talk 11:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iraq is technically part of the War on Terror

Iraq is technically part of the War on Terror Whether you want to accept that or not, the President of the United States defines theses kinds of things. As a result it must be put under the same context as Afghanistan which is still on going as well. This article is slanted based on media coverage, not actual reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monorprise (talk • contribs)

That issue is being vigorously debated at Talk:Iraq War. It's true that the Pentagon formally considers them together, but it's not clear that the public or historians agree. Wikipedia does not represent just one single point of view. --Dhartung | Talk 01:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I took out that little disclaimer and I am probably going to get in trouble, especially since I am a new user. But the US military is conducting Operation Iraqi Freedom as part of the Global War on Terror. Analysts have disagreed with military decisions in every war-- but they are still considered part of that war.--Cbambrick 01:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
If the uniter, not a divider, was merely a Wikipedian and not in temporary authority, his contributions would require serious scrutiny to meet Wikipedia's NPOV and Verifiability standards. Then again, there was Peleliu. Debate amongst yourselves. MMetro (talk) 14:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I think it's definitely part of the "war on terror" because it's part of ops conducted under that heading. We can argue about whether this administration has made serious tactical errors in its campaign against global Islamic terror - like invading a country that wasnt a base for Al Quaida and overthrowing a leader who Al Quaida hated (hell just about everyone hated Saddam so it cuts both ways I suppose). But that op is definitely conducted as part of "war on terror" ops and so theres a connection. Kid Zed (talk) 16:36, 13 December 2007 (UTC)Kid_Zed

[edit] Reasons for USA's prolonged neutrality in WW2?

The silence, both in this article and the article on WW2, about US neutrality between September 1939 and December 1941 is positively deafening. The articles record the bare facts, and do not attempt to conceal the fact that both Japan and Germany initiated hostilities against the USA rather than vice versa. But there is no mention of why the USA should have chosen to sit out this glorious struggle for the survival of freedom, democracy, etc. etc., until it was forced to defend itself. Is this topic dealt with elsewhere? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.208.100.157 (talk • contribs) .

Please don't infer that the omission of something means anything significant. You've brought up a good point, and because the interwar period section was thin to begin with, I added some lines from relevant nearby articles to indicate this important era. As for answering your "why?" question, I'm not sure there's a simple answer. --Dhartung | Talk 22:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why does the Liberian Intervention warrant a mention, when the Haitian Intervention does not?

Both are very relevant in my opinion. In both cases, dictators were ousted and a better outcome ensured (not perfect, mind you) - but the Greater Good achieved.

[edit] War children (soldiers and their illegitimate children)

I want to link this article withWar children in the category section however I cannot for some reason. This article needs work it is bias. I am sure a whole article could be written on the American soldier and they sexual delights during World War I & II. However this article in an attempt to protect the dignity of the USA has left out a great deal of information on the American soldiers. I know there is enough information about GI children in Korea and Vietnam, however it is not hear. I see this article is very bias.--Margrave1206 (talk) 04:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that is relevant to this topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bheidinger (talk • contribs) 05:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)