Here is a little trivia to think about. Look at the criteria and listings of nations with losing records in 20th Century wars and answer this question: Does the U. S. belong on this list? Excerpted from The History Guy: Nations With A Losing Record In War.
Criteria: A nation
is on this list if they
have lost three or more inter-state wars in a century
OR they lost a half million troops and/or civilian
casualties in a single losing inter-state war.
Nations which were ultimately on the winning side
in the World Wars, such as Rumania in the First World War, France and
Poland in the Second World War, are counted as losing. In each case,
they were defeated in their military confrontations with Germany and
occupied until liberated by their allies. Though they were ultimately
on the winning side, they did temporarily lose their freedom as a
result of military defeat and enemy occupation.
Note: Civil Wars do not count, but colonial
conflicts do count. For example, if the French fought a civil war
among themselves, that would not count for this list, but if they
lost a war against a colony seeking independence, as they did against
Vietnam and Algeria, that would count as a defeat.
Russia/Soviet
Union:
Russo-Japanese War (1905)-Russia
lost to Japan.
First World War (1914-1918)–Even though
Russia belonged to the Allies from the beginning of the war, after
the Communist revolution, the new government made a separate peace
with Germany and surrendered huge tracts of land to the
enemy.
Afghanistan War (1979-1989)–The Soviet
Union did not militarily defeat the Afghan guerrillas.
Cold War (1946-1991)-The Soviet Union
lost the long Cold War and fell apart.
Chechnya War (1994-1996) Post-Soviet
Russia gave up trying to subdue the rebellious Muslim region of
Chechnya.
Ottoman
Empire/Turkey:
Italo-Ottoman War
(1911-1912)
First Balkan War (1912)–
First World War (1914-1918)-
Iraq:
First Arab-Israeli War (1948-1949)
–See Arab-Israeli
Wars
Six-Day War (1967)–See Arab-Israeli
Wars
Yom Kippur or Ramadan War (1973)–See
Arab-Israeli
Wars
First Persian Gulf War (1980-1988)
Second Persian Gulf
War (1990-1991)
Third Persian Gulf
War/War in Iraq
(2003-Present)
Bulgaria
:
Second Balkan War (1913)
First World War (1914-1918)
Second World War
(1941-1945)
Germany
:
First World War
(1914-1918)
Second World
War (1939-1945)–Both wars
resulted in millions of German deaths and the loss of huge tracts
of German territory.
France:
Second
World War
(1939-1945)–France was utterly defeated by the Germans and
remained an occupied country until freed by the U.S., Britain,
Canada, and other allied nations.
First Indochina War (1946-1954)–See
Wars
of France
Suez/Sinai
War (1956)–Even though
France and her allies, Britain and Israel, enjoyed military
success, political factors forced the allies to withdraw from
Egypt. France and Britain did not achieve their war goals. See
also Wars
of France
Algerian War of Independence
(1954-1962)–See Wars
of France
Portugal:
Angolan War of Independence
(1962-1975)
Mozambican War of Independence
(1962-1975)
Guinea-Bissau War of Independence
(1962-1975)–Note–Portugal decided to grant independence to
these rebellious colonies following an internal military coup in
1974.
Serbia
/Yugoslavia:
First World War (1914-1918)–Even
though Serbia belonged to the winning side, the nation suffered
military defeat in 1914, and occupation by Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria until 1918, when Allies defeated the Central Powers.
Second World War
(1941-1945)–Even though
Yugoslavia belonged to the winning side, the nation suffered military defeat in 1941, and occupation by Germany, Italy, and
Bulgaria until 1945, when the Allies defeated the Axis.
Kosovo
War (1998-1999)–NATO forced
Serbia to give up control of the province of Kosovo.