Well for the sake of perspective and this discussion, I can think of two outright US “victories” since WW 2. Granada and of course the 1st Gulf War which lasted all of about 43 days. Never mind that in both cases the relative power ratio between adversaries could be judged to be between 100:1 and possibly greater than 1000:1. We won’t talk about the ties, losses or to-be-determined, objective-less outcomes, some of which are continuing to this day. Oh well, all just inconvenient truths I guess.
Our military is being run by 30 year veterans of a military that has not won a war in 40 years.
Our foreign policy is being crafted by "professionals" who have been in retreat since Ronald Regan was president.
Our commander in chief is a corruptocrat who can't control his own bowels.
But we are urged by these people not to vote for the man who MIGHT change things because he has bad manners.
We are SO fooked.
That is just not correct.
While your 1000 to 1 ratio might have some meaning with respect to Granada (though with regard to deployed forces not even there), there is no comparison between that small island and the armed forces of Iraq at the time of the first Gulf War.
At the time of Desert Storm, the Iraqi regular army numbered 400,000 troops organized into 6 Corps composed of 30 divisions. 7 were regular army armored and mechanized divisions, 15 were regular motorized infantry divisions, and eight were mechanized and armored Republican Guard Divisions. The mechanized brigades of the regular divisions were equipped with T-54 tanks and a mix of Soviet APCs. The Republican Guard, which represented Saddam Hussein's best trained and best equipped forces numbered some 70,000. Those formations were equipped with the latest Soviet T-72 MBTs and BMP IFVs. Their supporting artillery was modern and composed of Soviet, French, and South African models. Nearly all of their tube artillery outranged comparable US designs. Totals were 4200 tanks, 2800 APCs and IFVs, and 3100 artillery pieces. At the time of the start of the air campaign, Iraq operated approximately 300 aircraft, and a massive air defense network.
Coalition forces, particularly with respect to air power, did outnumber Iraqi forces. However, there was a far more important discriminator. That was the training, readiness, and professionalism of coalition forces - particularly the 450 thousand US soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors deployed, who had trained for just such a contingency. Fortunately, those soldiers also had a clear mission statement and desired endstate. With respect to airpower, there was indeed a 6 to 1 coalition advantage in aircraft. However, there too, the training, preparedness, and professionalism of American aircrew was the real discriminator.
All of that was made possible because of strategic contingency planning and materiel acquisitions begun decades before.
I'll offer one example. The seeping envelopment of the Iraqi Army carried out by Army's VII and XVIII Airborne Corps created operational surprise. That maneuver across trackless desert was made possible by a very few new GPS satellites and a few dozen receivers. They existed because war planning years earlier for a Middle East contingency called for better navigation technology in the open desert than a compass and a map. Similar contingency driven requirements touch every acquisition of every service.
Perhaps you know of a better way you could share with us.
Finally, the American military has accomplished all its objectives given it by civilian authority in every conflict of which I am aware since the First World War. That would include even Vietnam. Achieving political objectives has proven far more difficult regardless of administration or party. That group might be a better focus for your ire.
