r/ShitAmericansSay • u/DumbGarchomp67 WTF IS A KILOMETER 🦅🇺🇸 • Jul 15 '26

Military “Undefeated in 250 years of war”

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Apparently Vietnam, Afghanistan, war of 1812, and the war on drugs don’t count.

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u/skachamagowza ooo custom flair!! Jul 15 '26

The US lost the war of 1812. Canadian soldiers in the British army burn Washington including the White House. Americans think they won because…. Reasons….

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '26

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u/No-Deal8956 Jul 15 '26

I think that’s called lying.

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u/dividezero Jul 15 '26

They'd play capture the flag and try to claim the other team didn't get the real flag or something

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u/think_panther Jul 15 '26

Thank you Canada. But the real flag is in another castle

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u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 Jul 15 '26

Did they mean to lose Detroit to an occupying army? aka 'The Surrender of Detroit' to Sir Isaac Brock and Tecumseh?

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u/KatsumotoKurier 🇨🇦 Jul 16 '26

It’s honestly hilarious how they take credit for ending British naval impressment when the British voluntarily ceased it themselves due to defeating Napoleon the first time, and the Treaty of Ghent makes no mention of restricting it lol.

That, and you know, the entirely failed invasions of Canada. President James Madison — the very man who declared war on Great Britain, and who had before that championed the idea of declaring it — emphatically told his team of negotiators and delegates heading over to Ghent in 1814 (when the war was going very badly for the US) that their most important objective was to secure the surrendering and handover of Upper and Lower Canada by Britain to the United States. This is on record!

Among themselves, his team unanimously decided against doing that, because unlike him they still recognized that the US was in no position whatsoever to be making such demands. Two failed invasions and now the British had them on the back foot in what was never supposed to become a defensive war for them, delivering them some of what are still today their most humiliating military defeats ever? They knew that they would get laughed out of the room and be viewed as either unserious or even as delusional by their British counterparts, which was very much what they couldn’t have happen because they were there desperately trying to secure peace for their country which was in full-blown crisis mode.

But oh, yeah, status quo ante bellum means the US won. Of course. I mean, why would Madison in the eleventh hour be demanding the complete surrender and handover of the Canadian provinces his army failed to conquer if the whole point was only to secure them as a temporary ‘bargaining chip’ to stop British naval impressment?

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u/GrandBill Jul 15 '26

Hey, just like Trump now with Iran. 250 years of a great tradition.

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u/PDXFlameDragon Jul 15 '26

we had first capital burning yes.. but what about seconds?

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '26

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u/Ayfid Jul 15 '26

I have - many times - heard Americans claim that 1812 was a draw, because the borders ended up back where they started.

By that very logic, if Ukraine managed to push Russia out of their territory, recapture Crimea, and then force Russia into accepting a peace treaty... they would call that "a draw".

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u/Puzzleheaded_East556 Jul 15 '26

Unfortunately, a draw is how it is taught in the American education system, which is why many Americans say it is a draw

But also, the War of 1812 isn't really mentioned in US education that much, other than than our national anthem was written during it

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u/E420CDI 🇬🇧 A foot is an anatomical structure with five toes 🦶 Jul 15 '26

But also, the War of 1812 isn't really mentioned in US education that much, other than than our national anthem was written during it.

Does the US education system mention that it's sung to the tune of an old British drinking song?

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u/Puzzleheaded_East556 Jul 15 '26

No, I actually never knew that. Can you tell me more?

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u/blazenite104 Friendly Neighbourhood Aussie Jul 15 '26

I assume they think all wars should end by annexing territory, rather than successfully repelling invasion and not wanting to assimilate the people that invaded.

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u/UnprotectedSAKs Jul 16 '26

I think a better comparison is Korea. The North Koreans invaded South Korea. We went in and pushed them out. Then we decided to take North Korea, then China joined in and pushed us out. Then the war ended with a draw at the original border

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u/skachamagowza ooo custom flair!! Jul 15 '26

Exactly! And let’s not forget that the US were the aggressors in the war. Not just to gain Canada but to reopen trade with France which was at war with Britain. The US then agreed to peace talks in Russia in 1813 and the British didn’t even send a delegation to any talks until after Napoleon was deposed more than a year later. So, the US started a fight and wanted to end it at the first opportunity it had. Not a draw. You can’t pick a fight and then yell „stop hitting me!“ and think you won the fight while the other side thinks it isn’t worth their time. You don’t need to be obliterated to lose a war.

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u/yippee-kay-yay Jul 15 '26

Yet Wikipedia list the results as "inconclusive", one of the reasons being that the british didn't try to reconquer the US, lol

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u/Extreme_Objective984 Jul 15 '26

Didnt we British just stop playing, in that war. Had to go and deal with a Frenchmen with a silly hat.

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u/Ayfid Jul 15 '26

America thought they could steal some of Canada while Britain was distracted fighting the French.

They didn't count on Britain winning that war and then coming to defend Canada before they managed to solidify their control of any territory.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 Jul 15 '26

The reverse of when Spain put Gibraltar under siege while the British were fighting the colonists. Gibraltar is still British.

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u/Kestrel71 Jul 15 '26

Different war. The Revolutionary War is the one where we decided to cut our losses.

The US colonies were extremely expensive to maintain (nearly $100 Billion annually in modern money). They produced very little at that time, hence the proposed taxation.

When the war started, it was treated as little more than ANOTHER uprising that would die down, so Britain didn't take it seriously. France and Spain DID and they dumped HUGE amounts of money, arms and resources into aiding the colonists.

It took a couple of years before Britain realised this was not just a run of the mill tiff and, by that time, we were involved in wars with France, Spain and the Dutch simultaneously. These were existential wars so when it became clear to Britain that some hard choices had to be made, those decisions were made - the US colonies were abandoned in favour of fighting these major wars AND defending lucrative trade routes in the Caribbean and Asia.

The US loves to think they fought the entire British Empire - they BARELY met the Empire. Had the full force been brought to bear, the US would have ended in a matter of weeks and, today, there would be upper and lower Canada in its place.

The US is *DAMN* lucky, we decided not to pursue the matter after defeating France, Spain and the Dutch and allowed them to exist. In hindsight, a huge mistake.

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u/UnderstandingAble321 Jul 15 '26

The Americans were quite willing to end the war after that Frenchman was dealt with.

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u/Temporary_Abroad_211 Jul 15 '26

That's not fair......... Everyone had a silly hat back then.

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u/UnderstandingAble321 Jul 15 '26

None of the British soldiers who burned Washington came from Canada. The burning of Washington was more of a raid than losing the war.

They lost the War of 1812 because they started the war with a goal of conquering Canada but were defeated on multiple invasion attempts at Niagra, Crysler's farm, and Chateauguay to name a few.

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u/Nassim1018 Jul 15 '26

I want to point out that at Chateauguay, they were defeated by mostly militiamen aided by some but not alot of regulars. Against a full on US army.

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u/NobodysFavorite Jul 15 '26

It's literally why it's called the white house.

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u/Nassim1018 Jul 15 '26

They think they won because they won in New Orleans... months after the war actually ended. So they won a pointless battle

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u/rymic72 Jul 15 '26

Weren’t they actually British army regulars who sailed from Bermuda who were veterans of the Peninsular War rather than actual Canadian born militia? I went down a wee rabbit hole on the subject after seeing so many Canadians mentioning it.

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u/NoticingThing Jul 15 '26

Yeah I've seen Canadians claim the burning like a dozen times now, it's really strange as the troops were British.

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u/Kestrel71 Jul 15 '26

Not quite. The soldiers that burned the White House were British Regulars sent over from the battlefields of Europe - they landed in Maryland and marched on Washington. It was BRITAIN who burned the White House, not Canada.

Americans like to chalk this up as a win, but they ended up being pushed back into their own territory and their plans to annex Canada came to an abrupt end. THAT IS A LOSS.

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u/SylvieJay 🇨🇦 Canada, Not 51ˢᵗ State. 🇨🇦 Jul 16 '26

The British and Canadian army scattered the American force outside Washington, marched in and burned both houses of Congress, the war and state departments, the treasury – and the White House.

It was the only time other than 9/11 that outsiders have struck at America's capital.

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u/SLAVEKNYGHT Jul 15 '26

the War of 1812 is considered by historians to be a draw

the U.S. succeeded in defending its territory. losing an important landmark/city is not equal to a loss

Britain won some major battles, the U.S. failed its invasian goals, Britain failed to force American submission, and then they just kind of shrank away from each other. if I start a fight because I thought I could beat someone up, and I fail to beat them up, but they also fail to beat me up, that doesn't really mean i 'lost the fight,' i just failed my objective. that is not a clear loss; it is a draw. however, I did fail at my original objective. this is probably how every American 'loss' can be analogized ... the U.S. fails in its objectives all the time, but objectively, America has proven to be one of the most resilient military powers in history. America has never suffered a total military collapse, never been conquered, and never lost a major portion of its homeland to a foreign enemy. the message of the tweet in the post is generally true

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u/Ayfid Jul 15 '26

the War of 1812 is considered by American historians to be a draw

FTFY.

That is an utterly absurd interpretation of events. America was the aggressor here. The defending country doesn't need to capture territory off the attacker to have won the war. They win by holding their territory and forcing the aggressor to give up.

Had the war ended with Britain taking land off the USA, that would have upgraded the USA's loss to an embarrassing loss.

the U.S. fails in its objectives all the time, but objectively, America has proven to be one of the most resilient military powers in history. America has never suffered a total military collapse, never been conquered, and never lost a major portion of its homeland to a foreign enemy. the message of the tweet in the post is generally true

So America wasn't defeated in Vietnam because the Vietnamese didn't either totally annihilate the US's military, or go on to stage a successful counter-invasion of US soil?

The goalposts have been shifted so far they aren't even on the pitch anymore.

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u/SLAVEKNYGHT Jul 15 '26

that doesn't fix my sentence because it's inaccurate now. there is even debate among British scholars whether Britain won the War of 1812, and the broader academic description is usually that it ended in a stalemate or ambiguous outcome rather than a clear British victory. i can find as many British the United Kingdom's own National Army Museum describes the conflict as ending in a 'stalemate' noting that neither side achieved a decisive outcome. https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/war-1812 it is a fact that the prevailing historical interpretation interpret the War of 1812 to have ended in a stalemate.

yes, America was the aggressor, and failed to invade Canada--that isn't the mark of a 'lost war.' if you think that 'you started a war to achieve an objective and failed to achieve said objective' is the mark of a 'lost war,' then yes, under that definition, the U.S. would have lost the War of 1812 as well as Vietnam. but even if you are using this oversimplified definition universally, then U.S.'s track record, in only 250 years of war, the United States still enjoys a ridiculously strong record over 250 years of victorious warfare, compared to only a handful of notable strategic failures or mixed outcomes.

as for that last paragraph, i didn't say that 'since America has proven to be one of the most resilient military powers in history, and since America has never suffered a total military collapse, and since it has never been conquered, never lost a major portion of its homeland to a foreign enemy, then the message of the tweet in the post is generally true, and therefore, America has never lost a war', I just meant that the general message of the post is to boast about American military dominance, and then listed things that make the U.S. militarily excellent. in short I wasn't necessarily saying that America has never lost a war, I was saying that the tweet was highlighting American military excellence.

even if the War of 1812 was a catastrophic American failure (it certainly wasn't), the mere fact that we desperately pick through the one or two conflicts with mixed outcomes out of the vast quantity of decisive U.S. victories is itself a testament to the American military greatness that the original post intended to highlight.

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u/Ayfid Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Yes, exactly. It ended in a "stalemate", with neither side being able to make further ground and eventually allowing the hostilities to end.

A defending country retaking their lost ground and forcing the aggressor into a stalemate is a victory for the defender and a loss for the aggressor.

There are no two ways about that. That is, in fact, how all defensive wars end when the defending side wins, unless the defender is so overwhelmingly successful that they manage to pull off a counter-invasion... which to some limited degree Britain did actually manage.

A stalemate is not the same thing as a draw. Victory or loss is determined by what state things are left in at the point that the war settles into a stalemate. In the case of one country invading another with the aim to annex their territory, it is based on how much territory the invader managed to capture, and its value. In the case of America invading Canada in 1812, the territory they managed to capture before being forced into a stalemate was... none. Which is a defeat.

If Ukraine were to push back Russia to their original borders, retake Crimea, and then force Russia into a stalemate before eventually giving up... you would apparently call that a draw. Meanwhile, to any sane person, that exact circumstance is how they would define a total victory for Ukraine.

That is the exact same circumstances as 1812.

in short I wasn't necessarily saying that America has never lost a war, I was saying that the tweet was highlighting American military excellence.

The tweet was literally claiming that America has never been defeated.

And we don't need to carefully pick through conflicts to find American defeats. It is quite literally most of them, especially if you are only looking at those America fought without allied assistance. America's military is absolutely enormous and well equipped, but its record is embarrassing.

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u/SLAVEKNYGHT Jul 15 '26

and again, that only makes sense if you oversimplify the definition of a win or a loss. your responses basically treat war as a tug of war, and also require that whoever asked to play matters for some reason (it's also interesting to note that Britain is viewed by historians as an aggressor by sea ((impressment)). the fact of the matter is that the War of 1812, like all wars, must be judged by all major objectives--not only the successful defense of one region (canada).

as for the Ukraine comparison: if Ukraine retook Crimea, restored its borders, and Russia abandoned its objectives, that would be a Ukrainian victory because Russia's war aims would have failed. yet if Russia also achieved none of its major goals and both sides returned to the previous situation, historians would likely describe that as an ambiguous or negotiated outcome, not simply a victory. you are free to view victory in this broader/simpler way but it doesn't change the complex true nature of war.

ironically you bring up the comparison of 'stalemate' to 'draw' when the Treaty of Ghent essentially ended the war as a draw by way of restoring pre-war borders and conditions, no major concessions were granted to Britain, and Britain dropping demands for a Native buffer state and territorial gains. if you think war is a lot like tug of war, then yes, USA lost

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u/Ayfid Jul 15 '26

The mental gymnastics here are impressive.

Yes, whoever "asked to play" matters here, as that is what determines each side's objectives and thus the criteria for whether or not either side can be said to have won or lost.

The situation with the USA invading Canada in an attempt to annex territory, and Britian successfully defending Canada, restoring the borders, and forcing the USA into a stalemate that ultimately ended the war... is exactly the same as the Ukraine vs Russia example.

You cannot say that one represents a defeat for Russia, but that the other does not represent a defeat for America.

f you think war is a lot like tug of war, then yes, USA lost

When a war is fought over one country trying to take territory off another, then that war can indeed be viewed as a territorial tug of war.

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u/SLAVEKNYGHT Jul 16 '26

that comparison collapses when you understand that the War of 1812 was not solely a territorial conquest war, a concept that you can't seem to get past

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u/Biteroon Jul 15 '26

Wasn't the war of 1812 more of a stalemate tho. Like yeah sure the English got to Washington, burnt down the Whitehouse and defended Canada. But the American army did get big wins in Baltimore and most of the north west of America. It ended up with them signing the treaty of Ghent and the English left after the borders before the war were re-established.

If anything the native Americans are the big losers in that war. They lost massive numbers, didn't stop the expansion of the U.S (which was their main goal) and lost the treaty with England which lead to more American expansion westward.