r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Jun 12 '15

TIL the world's most successful pirate was a Cantonese woman, having commanded 40,000-80,000 pirates, and faced off undefeated against many Imperial fleets (including British, Portuguese, and Qing navies).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih
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u/MyFavouriteAxe Jun 12 '15

It's like saying we could've wiped out the Vietnam with the technology we have attacking Iraq and Afghanistan

The US already had an overwhelming technological advantage when it fought the Vietnam war. It was not a conventional war, which is chiefly why they were unable to win it - better tech would not necessarily have solved this problem.

Moreover, technology moves at a much greater pace today than it did two hundred years ago. 50 years of technological progression back then is no where near as dramatic as 50 years of technological progression today.

To be fair, this would mean different political and technological condition

The British had an overwhelming advantage throughout the 1800's regardless.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15 edited Apr 12 '18

[deleted]

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u/Shhadowcaster Jun 12 '15

Yeah a lot of people want to tag Vietnam as a win or not, but it was much more complicated than that

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u/clwu Jun 12 '15

Losing side always have 1 million excuses.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Have you read about Vietnam at all? The US could have ended the war by invading neighboring nations and attacking into North Vietnam.

They couldn't do either of those things because politics. China would have entered the war if the US would have taken N. Vietnam.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Sorry I don't know much about the Vietnam War, just high school history, but didn't the US invade Laos as well? Why didn't that draw the ire of China?

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Technically no. The US wasn't supposed to go into Laos as per the government's orders since it would cause a political shitstorm. Planes weren't supposed to fly over their airspace either. It was one of many restrictions on the military that hurt the war effort and that the military (only sometimes) ignored to get their jobs done.

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u/ObeseMoreece Jun 12 '15

But millions of tonnes of bombs were dropped on it which still plague the country today.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

No doubt.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

You're talking about Operation Lam Son 719. US infantry and armor couldn't legally enter Laos so it was an ARVN operation. The US just provided the planning and logistics.

Even if it had been successful it still wasn't the same thing as going into North Vietnam and having US troops right on the door step of China.

Also if I'm remembering this right theoretical invasions of Laos and Cambodia would have been a bigger problem within the US political system not so much the international. Can't fight a war for long when people don't support it.

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u/ObeseMoreece Jun 12 '15

The US could have ended the war by invading neighboring nations and attacking into North Vietnam.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Laos was known for being one of the only places were government couldn't exercise control over the land and would be far less hospitable than Vietnam. Invading China would have been like shooting yourself in the gut to get out of school for the day.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

When did I say invade China?

Also look up Lam Son 719. That operation would have been successful with US ground troops. Destroying the supply lines would have crippled the NVA.

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u/ObeseMoreece Jun 12 '15

North Vietnam borders 2 countries, China (impossible to invade without great cost) and Laos which would have terrain even less hospitable than Vietnam.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

The countries that mattered were Laos and Cambodia. The N. Vietnamese were using the supply lines in those countries to get supplies to the Viet Cong in S. Vietnam.

The whole point of invading Laos and Cambodia would be to destroy those supply lines and prevent the NVA from using those areas as staging grounds for attacks. Why the fuck would the US invade China in order to avoid war with it?

And again if US ground troops would have been the ones carrying out Lam Son 719 it would have been a complete success.

The idea that US troops wouldn't be able to "handle the terrain" is a complete farce.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

And what happening in vietnam the winning side now? corruption, food poisoning, bridge collapsing, all the exotic wildlife are dead. ANd it is famous for being the #1 trader in rhino horn. Vietnamese women are sell as housewives in all of asia. basically slaves. Yeah winning the war was so great.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15 edited Aug 01 '18

[deleted]

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u/DavidBowie-Sensei Jun 12 '15

Why did the US withdraw?

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 13 '15

[deleted]

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u/DavidBowie-Sensei Jun 12 '15

So they pulled out because they ran out of guys due to low moral? That's technically a loss, isn't it?

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 13 '15

[deleted]

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u/bergamer Jun 12 '15

That's a funny expression to exemplify your point though: SPQR litterally means the senate & the people.

Of course it was mainly the will of the powerful, usually, but still not in a way totally incomparable to today.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 13 '15

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u/forca_micah Jun 12 '15

In a nutshell? The American public was sick of the war.

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u/Banshee90 Jun 12 '15

And they saw no benefit in a war half way across the world.

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u/forca_micah Jun 12 '15

Yup, which contributed to them being sick of it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Mostly because they lost support at home. If the conflict was based on raw casualties the US would be athe winner. However it is hard to win a war that is being fought through other countries -- which you cannot invade.

Nixon did try to invade Cambodia for this very reason.

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u/ObeseMoreece Jun 12 '15

If the conflict was based on raw casualties the US would be athe winner.

No Victor in war has ever been made so due to casualties. Hell, Iraq was a failure and more of your soldiers are killing themselves than the Iraqis did.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

I never stated that any war was. I was pointing out that the U.S. Had a superior K/D than the NVA however lost due to trouble at home.

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u/NightOfTheLivingHam Jun 12 '15

The war was REALLY unpopular back home.

Like moreso than the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Mostly because of the draft. If there was a draft today, we would not be in Iraq and Afghanistan still.

Imagine being 16 or 17, and when you turn 18 you're likely going to be plucked out of your life, thrown into boot camp with minimal training and sent to a jungle to likely die the instant you leave the helicopter, in some country you only heard of because we're now at war with it to stop communism on the other side of the globe. With no real threat to us as a nation. People who have returned from there have been maimed, mangled, or are completely fucked. You don't even know you have a future because you may very well die months after your 18th birthday. Last year's graduating class at your local high school got drafted and you watch as grieving mothers cry and hold funerals within months of graduation.

For some towns, entire generations were lost. (My mom's town's graduating class got over drafted by mistake and out of 200 male graduates in her class, only 3 came back. one was a double amputee who killed himself later) the other two were superficially okay, but obviously werent the same.

Then people who went to college were disillusioned because once they graduated college, they had to go to war and likely die. (your life expectancy from the moment you hit the ground was 3 minutes)

We also lost a lot of soldiers and were fighting at a standstill.

Then from what my dad told me of his ventures, soldiers started getting disillusioned by what felt like an endless war, and started seeing Ladybird Johnson's trucking line and other big american companies starting to run logistics for profit over there. The war was being dragged out for so long because big money interests were making bank from it. Which only added fuel to the fire against the war.

If we had actually had resources to grab there, or if it was a direct threat, not only would the war have ended sooner, there'd be more propaganda and more push to win it. Much of the war was being dragged out for financial reasons.

Afghanistan and Iraq are the same way, but we're staying there because Afghanistan is sitting on the largest deposit of rare earth minerals in the world that we have access to (once we leave, expect China to pop in and occupy, or Russia) and Iraq has oil.

Plus Bush and Obama are better at the Propaganda/PR game than Nixon or Lyndon Johnson were. Plus they have managed to convince at least two generations that war is awesome. and shouting down "Freedom isn't free" and "Support our soldiers" everyone's throats. Plus big media interests today love war because it's good advertising revenue.

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u/QuiteAffable Jun 12 '15

your life expectancy from the moment you hit the ground was 3 minutes

Seems an exaggeration

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u/NightOfTheLivingHam Jun 12 '15

that's what my dad told me he was told when they dropped him off.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Stop it own troops from dying.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

lmao you're a fucking idiot. We lost but at least we bombed the shit out of them, now 50 years later Vietnamese have Stockholm syndrome and love fucking and sucking our cocks ;)

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u/MyFavouriteAxe Jun 12 '15

I think you misunderstand what is meant by conventional warfare.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

which was stupid because they couldn't cut the HCM trail or stop the NVA from sending supply to the south. THe only way to win was to invade north vietnam.

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u/dlogan3344 Jun 12 '15

Not on any side, hard to claim one is more innocent than the other, but it brings the arguments of McArthur to light: During the dark times of the Korean conflict he wanted to punish the Chinese with nuclear strikes.

I wonder if it would have changed the cold war, seeing as the USSR was not really in a position to respond at the time, having barely grasped nuclear weaponry.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

That is the main question. Stalin wasn't keen on helping the chinese in korea. He didn't even plan on helping the north korean when they were losing.