is starting to be applied to the US’s mid eastern expeditions.
First it increases visibility for Joe Haldeman’s work; it also increases the chances of more anti-war films being made. I’m sure this is hyperbole but they seemed to disappeer after ‘Three Kings’. Being replaced with more ‘hate the game not the player’ films.
It’s the longest war by far in the history of the US. It also doesn’t seem to be able to have a definable end. I actually thought it was done. Fighting ISIS could be a “police action”, as it were. But, I think it is all the same war.
I mean, we* only took three and a half years to beat the Axis on two fronts. How long can this war go on?
*for various values of “we”, and 3 1/2. Still, the point stands. It wasn’t 16 and counting with no end in sight, or likely even possible.
The longest war is probably the Korean war, since it’s technically still being fought.
There’s also a non-fiction book of the same name by Dexter Filkins which is a good read and addresses this exact topic.
It is not still being fought, and has not been “being fought” since 1953. There has been a signed armistice since then. At best you can say that a permanent peace treaty has never been signed. But that is hardly the same thing as saying we are still fighting a war.
If you are going to take that sort of legalistic definition of what war is then, technically, the USA has not fought a war since 1945 since Congress has not officially declared war on anyone since WW2. This is of course absurd. And so if we are going to consider conflicts like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc to be wars (as we should) then we should also recognize when those wars are over, even if some piece of paper is not officially signed.
That said, I do agree that the War on Terror (like the wars on drugs and poverty) does seem like if could be a forever war since there is no clear end goal.
Dale Sams, did you envision this thread to be a discussion of US military actions, or on movies and games using them as their plots/storyline?
If it’s the former, this is probably not the correct forum.
Aw c’mon, we’ve been fighting the War on Drugs since Nixon!
And argubly the War on Poverty since LBJ, but I think it’s fair to argue that it’s over and poverty won.
Uhhh either the book itself, or military movies in the vein of “Three Kings” since 1999 was how I thought it would go. I could see it going the former you stated but thought it was a pretty limited direction.
I hope it increases the chances of our deploying Stasis Fields in hot-spots like North Korea and the Middle East.
Just remember to bring your sword …