Advance Directive For End-Of-Lift Care If Good, Why Not: Fill & Download for Free

Note in advance- I’m writing this while doing several other things, so apologies for the somewhat disjointed nature of the response. It is meant to be factual, not unkind.People put their parents in nursing homes because the idea of being able to care for an invalid adult (or even a child) at home is currently unrealistic, and belongs to a time before extended life spans, extreme medical intervention, and ten or more children (and spouses) in a small local area all ready and able to help. Note that this is applicable in the US (the only country I am able to discuss).People are having fewer children, or no children at all - the birth rate in most industrialized nations is declining. This means not only less government funding for social security and Medicare (medical care), but also fewer people to share the financial, emotional and physical burden of caring for aging spouses. The burden on the one or two people in charge of care is significantly higher than in any previous generation.2. People live longer - far longer than our brains or bodies were originally designed for. End of life care could be expected to last no more than three years at the outset in older generations, and often only lasted a few months. Now end of life care can last ten or more years. The last month of care can be ruinous financially, especially if there is insignificant savings or financial resources for end of life care and “all lifesaving measures” are expected by the elderly (and they often are, or or not discussed so are presumed expected by medical staff).3. Families no longer live on self-sustaining farms (which reduced cost of living) or in a confined geographic region - caring for elderly parents can result in the end of one’s own career in prime financial building years, just as children need more resources (post high school education is quite expensive here, and even grade school has a large amount of expenses, as well as child care for periods when school is on break). Houses are much smaller and often contain stairs in some location of the house or apartment building, and the cost of making the home more accessible is beyond the means of most families, and not possible for those who rent. Children who rent instead of own will be a larger problem over time, as land ownership continues to consolidate in the hands of a smaller number of boomers, leaving later generations as renters. (The lack of universal health care, insignificant family leave, higher productivity requirements with stagnant wages - leaving children unable to financially care for parents- and insufficient tax funding for social programs to assist with aging in place or costs associated with elder care are collectively the direct result of decades of voting outcomes and political decisions rendered by the older generation, so they cannot lay claim to “unfortunate victimhood.”)The elderly in need of nursing care cannot assist with any of the requirements of the caregiving child, and add significant burden to the financial and physical obligations of that child/ children. The loss of one’s own social support network to relocate and provide constant care is a loss many do not understand until they go through it. This loss can be significant and irreparable.4. The burden falls disproportionately on women - wives, daughters, daughters in law, granddaughters. These people are already earning less than men, and, as women are marrying later or not at all, may have no means of outside support. If they lose their job to care for a parent during prime earning years, they may be homeless in their own older years.The emotional burden of caring for a parent can be unfathomable. Many elderly people are angry, due to their condition, their lack of prior status, their illness, etc. This only gets worse with dementia.5. Many elderly require constant physical help - but they are not children to be rugged and pulled, and are furious and resentful at being treated in this manner. However, they cannot move themselves. Lifting a a 100–200 (or more) lb weight that is resisting and spewing invectives can be physically backbreaking and emotionally overwhelming. Giving up independence is hard. Being the one to take it is often harder, and far less acknowledged.6. Many parents were also just terrible parents. They did not nurture a good relationship with their children, and those children feel little, if any, desire to assist a parent with their needs when they lived through having their own needs belittled or ignored. Duty doesn’t have the hold on society it once did, and this is generally a good thing - it prevents the rampant abuse that forced victims to stay because of societal obligation. However, if you don’t create a real connection with your children, without duty, they will not be inclined to deal with the anger, cost, personal loss, physical pain, and emotional overload of being a caregiver for duty alone.The upshot is that being a caregiver is incredibly hard and expensive, can last many years, and comes at nearly irreparable cost to the caregiver and the caregiver’s family. The effort is spread among significantly fewer children, and for a far longer period than in prior generations. Many with good relationships with their parents simply can’t afford to do this, or are physically unable. For those with poor relationships and/or ungrateful, mean, or victim-mentality parents, society doesn’t provide enough of a push to force children or grandchildren to undertake the effort.Before the hateful comments start, note the following:No, my husband and I don’t expect or want our children to care for us when we require it. If it happens that they can help (and can see us often), that’s wonderful. If it results in their suffering or derailing their own lives, we are not interested. We will always be their parents, valuing their happiness and success. We do not expect repayment for their existence or support. We expect them to love and value their own children as much as we value them. We pay love forward. If everyone does this, the world gets infinitely better.This response just reflects the facts of current US society. YMMV.Debate is welcome, but disrespectful, uninformed, or generally ridiculous comments will be deleted. Debate responsibly.Kind regards,AlexandraSent from my iPhone - please pardon errors.

There were four:Offer the Japanese conditional surrender by softening the surrendering termsWait for the Soviets to attack Japanese-held Manchuria and Korea in the hope that the Japanese would realize the futility of continuing fightingNaval blockade and conventional strategic bombingInvade the Japanese Home IslandsIn this post, I shall explain convincingly the historical circumstances and facts that will make you appreciate why those 4 alternatives were less effective to achieving victory over Japan than the A-bombs were.ContextIn 1945 - the last year of WW2, victory for the US in the Pacific War was a foregone conclusion despite unrelentingly fierce resistance by Imperial Japan.HOWEVERDespite recognizing that they could no longer win the war (after their decisive naval defeat at the battle of the Philippines Sea), Japanese leaders genuinely believed that they could still avoid defeat. Knowing that US leaders and the public were deeply averse to heavy casualties, it followed that if they could kill/wound as many Americans as they could, they could horrify US leaders and deter the US military from invading the Home Islands which would allow them to end the war with national honor preserved and some gains of their imperialistic conquest retained. That idea of exacting a terrible price in American blood was reflected in the following statement of Army Minister Korechika Anam - a member of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War:Wouldn't it be to our advantage if peace were established after we had given the enemy a terrible beating in the decisive battle on the homeland?To that end, in April 1945, the Japanese High Command implemented Ketsu-Go (decisive battle). Anticipating the American invasion of the Home Islands, the Japanese frantically built up their military strength in Kyushu and the Kanto Plain. US intelligence discovered from Ultra decrypt that nearly 1 millions Japanese combat troops were stationed in Kyushu. Nearly 10,000 aircraft were amassed for kamikaze missions. They were waiting to confront the expected American invasion.Japanese army force disposition on Kyushu August 1945 (image source: Downfall - Richard B. Frank).Also, through Magic - diplomatic intelligence, US leaders realized that the Japanese military not only refused to surrender unconditionally, but that they were prepared to fight to the death and would not shrink from sacrificing millions of their people in order to kill/maim as many Americans as possible.It was in this context that US leaders sought the answer to this questionHow could we achieve victory over Japan as quickly as possible with minimal American casualties?There were 5 strategies to fulfill that objective of which using the A-bombs was one of them. The other 4 strategies were presented below.1/ Conditional SurrenderAt the Casablanca Conference in 1943, US and British leaders vowed to commit to fighting until Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan surrendered unconditionally. Defeating the German and Japanese militaries on the battlefield was not enough, Germany and Japan had to be occupied and ruled by the Allies and German and Japanese war criminals had to be tried so that German and Japanese people would be thoroughly demoralized and deterred from starting another war of aggression.In May 1945, atter Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally, the Allies shifted their attention to Imperial Japan, seeking to enforce the same fate on her.On 26th July 1945, the Potsdam Declaration was issued jointly by Truman, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek to the Japanese government. The Declaration demanded unconditional surrender and unambiguously stated that:The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willing militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation or whether she will follow the path of reason.All the terms therein were chosen carefully to not only avoid giving the Japanese the impression that the Allies were offering the chance to negotiate for peace but also to emphasize unequivocally the demand for unconditional surrender.The Japanese government controlled by The Supreme Council for the Direction of the War whose 6 members were informally known as the Big Six - were divided by the Potsdam Declaration. Premier Suzuki and Foreign Minister Togo favored an end to war. But the die-hard militarists - General Anami, General Umezu and Admiral Toyoda outright rejected the Potsdam Declaration and favored carrying on with the war and Ketsu-Go. Because the military wielded far greater political power, their will to continue the war prevailed over the will of pro-peace members. In the end, the Japanese government issued a response which contained a verb called mokusatsu which could be interpreted as:ignoretreat with silent contemptwithhold commentAmerican leaders - being unfamiliar with the nuances of Japanese language - considered that response as a rejection of the terms for surrender. That belief was reinforced by the announcement Suzuki made to the press:The [Japanese] government does not regard it as a thing of any great value. We will press forward to carry the war to a successful conclusion.To US leaders, this meant the prolongation of the war that would increase casualties: both of which were unacceptable.It was at this critical juncture that some US officials considered mitigating the surrender terms to incline the Japanese to agree to accept it. The most ardent proponent of conditional surrender was Joseph Grew - Secretary of State who was generally regarded as an expert on Japan in the US government. Specifically, Joseph Grew proposed the assurance that the Japanese Emperor Hirohito would not be prosecuted as a war criminal and the Imperial Institution would be preserved. The basis for Grew’s recommendation was his deep appreciation of the status of the Emperor in the hearts and minds of Japanese people and soldiers. He knew that Hirohito was regarded as a living God who was both infallible and inviolate and that Japanese soldiers would zealously fight and die for their Emperor. It followed from this logic that executing the Emperor or harming him in any way would engender deep resentment among the Japanese people that would make the occupation and reconstruction of Japan after the war extraordinarily difficult, not to mention that it could lead to armed resistance that would claim more lives - both American and Japanese.Initially, Grew’s proposal appealed to several US military and civilian leaders. But it was quickly dismissed for several complex reasons:1/ While Suzuki and some Japanese officials deemed the assurance to spare the Emperor and preserve the Imperial Institution acceptable, the die-hard Japanese militarists in the Big Six wanted more than that. They wanted:No occupation of JapanSelf-disarmamentThe Japanese would try their own war criminalsAll of those additional demands were unacceptable to US leaders who demanded that Japan be occupied and Japanese war criminals be tried by Allied judges.2/ The legitimate concern that softening the terms of surrender would make it more difficult to end the war quickly.One, die-hard Japanese militarists would construe that as a sign of American weakness. They knew that after more than 3 years of war, war weariness was gripping the US public. There was growing demand for demobilization. That perceived weakness would embolden Japanese militarists to adhere to their plan of Ketsu-Go or to make unacceptable demands for ending the war. Indeed, US State Department officials feared that softening surrender terms wouldcreate in Japan the impression that we are weakening in our determination and hinder any movement in Japan to force the leaders to accept unconditional surrender.Even Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson opposed immediate offer of conditional surrender for fear that it would strengthen the positions of Japanese militarists who - with their absolute political and military authority - would continue to prolong the war until the US succumbed to war weariness and gave up at which point the Japanese could dictate the terms of ending the war that would allow them to end the war in favorable conditions.Two, deviating from the strategy of unconditional surrender would weaken popular morale and support for the war. This was because that strategy proved immensely popular with the US public. Throughout the war, the Office of War Information (OWI) sustained popular support for the war effort by instilling in American people the absolute necessity of unconditional surrender:Only [Japan’s] unconditional surrender can lead to the smashing of [its] militaristic hopes and imperialistic ambitions.American public support for this policy was reinforced by the fear that without unconditional surrender, there was the distinct possibility of the revival of Japanese militarism which would lead to another war of aggression:Japan hoped to take advantage of war weariness in the United States to achieve a compromise settlement. Japan will seek a compromise peace that will leave intact her present ruling clique and enough territory and industrial strength to begin again a career of aggressive expansion.Even as war weariness became more and more widespread, popular support for unconditional surrender did not falter as evidenced by the ovation Truman received when he became President and reaffirmed his determination to carry on Roosevelt’s legacy of unconditional surrender. Furthermore, when a Gallup poll was conducted in June 1945 around the questionwhether the United States should accept a surrender with the stipulation that it would not occupy Japan or whether it should continue the war until the enemy was completely beaten?The result of this survey was that: 9 out of 10 respondents favored fighting until Japan submitted to unconditional surrender. Not only that, the poll also revealed that Hirohito was regarded with deep hatred by a large percentage of Americans surveyed: 33% of respondents wanted the Emperor to be executed, 17% wanted him to stand trial for war crimes.Given the overwhelming public support for unconditional surrender and retribution against the emperor, American leaders legitimately worried that deviating from that strategy would risk diminishing popular morale and support indispensable to sustaining the war effort against Japan. General Marshall remarkedwe should diligently avoid any impression that we are growing soft because it might increase the difficulties of holding our own people and ending the war at the earliest possible date.As for President Truman who had reaffirmed the policy of unconditional surrender at the start of his Presidency, the consequence of deviating from that policy would be the loss of his credibility and trust in his ability to lead the nation to a successful conclusion of the war. Truman stated thatI believed nothing could be done to change popular sentiment on the question of unconditional surrender.And the 3rd reason was the most complicated: there was very little probability that the Japanese government would surrender even if the terms were softened.First, it is a myth that the Japanese were ready to surrender in 1945 as revisionists and critics of the A-bombs have asserted. Long story short, Magic - decrypts of Japanese diplomatic messages - revealed that the Japanese not only refused to surrender to the Allies with whom they were at war but also sought to enlist the help of the Soviet Union which was still neutral at the time to act as intermediary to negotiate an end to war between Japan and the Allies.And the thing to bear in mind is that: the Japanese desire to end the war was very vague and lacking realistic terms. In fact, Magic revealed that they more concerned with attempting to convince the Soviets to not attack Japan in the Far East than with ending the war. Even more ridiculous was that Japanese militarists were hoping to persuade the Soviets to side with Japan to fight the Allies - an intention that demonstrated how out of touch with reality they were.One of the very few diplomatic decrypts that suggested any hint of Japanese desire for ending the war was intercepted on 13th July 1945 sent from Tokyo to Sato in Moscow. The essence of the message was:the Emperor wanted to end the war quickly and that the main obstacle to a settlement was unconditional surrenderNow, if you think that this was the proof that unconditional surrender would end the war then you would be mistaken and this is because:The meaning of the message was unclear to those who intercepted it. This was typical of the Japanese who tended to express themselves indirectly. The nuances of Japanese language further obfuscated the intention of the message.The assessment of intelligence officer General John Weckerling. Having served as attached in the US embassy in Japan from 1928–1932 and 1934–1938, Weckerling possessed great insights about Japanese culture and politics. When Weckerling saw the intercept, he construed it in the following 3 ways:The Emperor had personally intervened and brought his will to bear in favor of peace in spite of military oppositionConservative elements close to the Emperor prevailed over militaristic elementsJapanese governing clique was making a well-coordinated united effort to avoid defeat by believing that the Soviets could be convinced to not enter the war against Japan and that a Japanese could exploit war weariness in the US to dictate favorable peace terms for themselves.The 1st and 2nd possibilities were dismissed as being unlikely. The idea that the Emperor was concerned with achieving peace falls apart in the face of Magic evidence showing his determination to continue fighting until all hope was gone. He personally approved Ketsu-Go. The idea that the pro-peace elements had prevailed over the militaristic elements was also preposterous given the absolute power of the militarists.Only the 3rd interpretation was probable. Most US military chiefs and even Joseph Grew concurred with Weckerling’s 3rd interpretation: the Japanese were merely trying to avoid defeat and to discourage the Soviets from entering war against Japan.Given all of those reasons, conditional surrender was extremely unlikely to work.2/ Waiting for the Soviet Union’s entry into the war against JapanAt least before the successful detonation of the 1st A-bomb in July 1945, many American military leaders and even President Roosevelt and Truman genuinely desired Soviet entry into the war. In fact, one of Roosevelt’s chief objective at the Yalta Conference was to elicit Stalin’s promise to enter the war against Japan shortly after Nazi Germany was defeated. Roosevelt was delighted to hear Stalin’s pledge to fight Japan 3 months after Nazi Germany surrendered. It was believed by American leaders that the Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria would tie down the 1-million-men Kwantung Army that would otherwise be transferred to the Home Islands to resist an American invasion.However, as the the Pacific War approached its final months, American naval supremacy ensured ensured that the Japanese could not move troops from the Asian continent to the Home Islands thereby making Soviet involvement no longer indispensable. American confidence that Soviet military intervention was no longer necessary - at least in military term - reinforced after the successful test of the 1st atomic bomb. If anything, Soviet entry into the war would at best have a psychological value in that it would make the Japanese realize the futility of further resistance.Moreover, American military chiefs believed that while Soviet involvement would be helpful, there was no guarantee that it would bring about Japanese surrender. For one thing, the Soviets had no sea-lifting capacity to mount an amphibious invasion of the Home Islands. Admiral King remarked:regardless of the desirability of the Russians entering the war, they were not indispensable and he did not think we should go so far as to beg them to come in.And finally, the fear of the expansion of Communist rule and influence in the Far East made American leaders adversely disposed to the prospect of Soviet entry into the war with Japan. The Allies were well aware of what the Soviets had done as they advanced across Eastern Europe toward Nazi Germany. Apart from the rapes of women and mass looting, the Soviets established puppet Communist regimes in Poland, Hungary, Romania, etc… As the alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union eroded and tension mounted, US leaders were not prepared to see similar expansion of Communist rule in the Far East, as articulated by Secretary of State Joseph Grew:Already Russia is showing us —in Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia—the future world pattern that she envisions and will aim to create.... Once Russia is in the war against Japan, then Mongolia, Manchuria, and Korea will eventually slip into Russia’s orbit, to be followed in due course by China and eventually Japan.So there you have it: the infeasibility of effecting Japanese surrender and opposition to Communist influence in the Far East made Soviet intervention an unattractive alternative to American leaders. (and in fact it is the A-bombs - not the Soviet invasion of Manchuria - that had a decisive influence on the Japanese decision to surrender)3/ Naval Blockade and Aerial BombardmentThis strategy of enforcing Japanese surrender was embraced by several commanders in the US Army Air Force and the US Navy. They believed firmly thatunrelenting aerial attacks combined with the naval blockade were the best way to bring about the Japanese surrender. They insisted that an invasion of Japan was unnecessary and the price in casualties would be unacceptably high.One prominent champion of this strategy was General Curtis LeMay who was famous for executing the incendiary bombing campaign that proved extremely devastating to Japan by burning to the ground vast swaths of Japanese urban areas and killing more than 100,000 Japanese and displacing millions of Japanese. In April 1945, Lemay assertedair power could force the Japanese to surrender within 6 months, which would have ended the war before the invasion of Kyushu began.Critics of the A-bombs have based their criticism of the A-bombs on Lemay’s claim. There are several problems with this stance:Lemay’s assertion did not have any solid evidential basis.Conventional bombing was not any less barbaric than A-bombs.Lemay’s political ambition. It must be noted that it wasn’t until 1947 that an independent US Air Force was established. During WW2, it was part of the US Army meaning that the growth of the air force depended on the approval of US Army leadership. This was why air commanders like Hap Arnold and Lemay sought to establish an independent air force by proving the power of the air force to achieve victory. This was why they sought to force the Japanese to surrender by relentlessly bombing Japan by B-29s and of Germany by B-17s and B-24s.The implication was that LeMay’s claim that air power alone could bring about Japanese surrender was colored by political agenda. Thus, it could not be taken for granted. Furthermore, Germany was subjected to incessant bombing of far greater intensity since 1942 to the end of the war and yet it did not surrender until the Red Army annihilate the German Army in Berlin. There was no reason to think that strategic bombing alone could force Japan to surrender.Admiral Ernst King was another commander who favored naval blockade as a means to force the Japanese to surrender. His belief was also colored by his own political agenda. King was a highly ambitious and capable naval leader who wanted to earn lasting fame for his service by proving that the Navy could alone bring about Japanese surrender.In the end, the strategy of air bombardment and naval blockade fell into disfavor because it would take a long time for it to force Japan to surrender. In April 1945, the Joint Intelligence Committee concluded thatthe amount of time required to force an unconditional surrender by depending on bombing and a blockade without an invasion ranged “from a few months to a great many years.” Its best estimate was that such an approach would take at least until the middle of 1946 to end the war. In that amount of time American casualties could exceed the cost of an invasion.’That length of time was simply unacceptable to US leaders who sought to end the war as speedily as possible with minimal cost to American lives. As war weariness became more widespread, the longer the war went on, the more public support for the war would erode. There was the distinct possibility that eventually the US public would become so weary that they would demand an abrupt end to the war which would defeat the aim of forcing Japan to surrender unconditionally.4/ Invasion of the Home IslandsOperation Downfall the invasion of Japan that was never carried out. Despite spine-chilling estimate of potential casualties of at least 500,000, President Truman, General Marshall and several top military chiefs considered an invasion to have the highest chance of ending the war within reasonable duration. Every possible measure would be taken to minimize casualties.President Trumanconsidered the Kyushu plan all right from a military standpoint and that the Joint Chiefs should go ahead with it.General Marshallwas convinced the invasion of Kyushu rather than sole reliance on bombing and the blockade was the best way to achieve an early Japanese surrender.18th June 1945 witnessed a crucial conference attended by top US military and political leader. Despite the confusion, disagreement and doubts over various issues, the attendees agreed on the necessity of the invasion of Japan. In particular,They expressed little doubt at the meeting that the attack on Kyushu (Olympic) would prove to be essential. They were hopeful, however, that the second phase of the invasion, the assault on Honshu (Coronet), would be unnecessary.General Eaker who represented the Army Air Forces and General Henry H. Arnold told the president thatArnold “expressed complete agreement” with Marshall on the need for the invasion of Kyushu.Refuting Revisionist Distortion of HistoryThis section is intended for critics of A-bombs and revisionists who like to claim that Japan would have surrendered without the A-bombs.These revisionists base their assertion on the assertions of prominent US military commanders like LeMay, Eisenhower, or King that Japan and other details such as:The rapidly deteriorating food crisis in Japan. Had the war lasted longer, Japanese population would have faced starvation on a large-scale. That would have led to rebellion that would have compelled the government to surrender.Rapidly eroding public morale caused by hunger, resentment of incompetent Japanese leadership and the destruction of cities by B-29s.From these facts stem the revisionist claim that the Japanese would have surrendered without the A-bombs.All sounds good right?Unfortunately, that claim is invalid because the facts on which it is based were uncovered after the end of the war. In other words, they were totally unknown to all US leaders before the end of the Pacific War.Had Truman and other leaders known the domestic crisis that was gripping Japan before the A-bombs were dropped, they probably could have waited until hunger and domestic revolution compel the Japanese to surrender and thereby obviated the need for both the A-bombs and the invasion.But they were unaware of that.You have to bear in mind the fact that US leaders were facing enormous pressure caused by the consuming desire of ending the war at the earliest possible time and with minimal American casualties. That was the legacy Truman inherited from Roosevelt and one that he vowed to fulfill. It cannot be emphasized enough that war weariness was truly a tremendous problem confronting US military leaders. The American people back home were demanding for demobilization to reunite with their husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and to secure jobs in the post-war economy which was expected to shrink due to the end of wartime demand. The longer the war lasted, the more the American public support would erode and the more American casualties would be incurred.All decisions made by American leaders during that time were dictated by that one overwhelming concern AND the information available to US leaders before the end of war in August 1945. They had to decide on the best judgment informed by what they knew at the time.All they knew was that the Japanese rejected unconditional surrender AND that they were prevaricating with the Soviets to prevent Soviet entry into the war and to delay defeat.They did not know the terrible crisis that was gripping the Japanese people and could not have known well until after the end of the war.Facing enormous pressure to end the war ASAP and with the other options proving unviable (Soviet military intervention, blockade, and conditional surrender), they could only choose the remaining 2 options: A-bombs and the invasion of Japan.The argument against the A-bombs is nothing more than a product of hindsight and not a valid criticism. You cannot criticize actions done in the absence of knowledge uncovered after the fact.Reference(s)1/ Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the use of Atomic Bombs against Japan 16th ed. Edition - J. Samuel Walke2/ Downfall: the End of the Japanese Empire - Richard B. Frank3/ What is a false myth about WW2 that needs to be refuted before the WW2 generation disappears?4/ What really caused Japan to surrender in WW2, the atomic bomb drop of Nagasaki or the Soviet invasion of Manchuria?5/ How much amphibious lift capability did the Soviet Union have in the Far East in 1945? To what extent could they have meaningfully participated in the invasion of Japan without the Allies providing them with transport?6/ What would have happened if the US had decided to invade Japan with full military might, instead of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?7/ Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945 - Waldo Heinrichs, Marc Gallicchio

The US. Easily. Now, to be clear, I love the concept of Wakanda but militarily its completely trumped. Long story short, the US has a military built for real warfare, and Wakanda has a military built for a movie. It’s just not a fair comparison but in any case let’s go to the “whys”. So, so many whys:Overrated Technology:The basic premise of Wakanda is that they look like a third-world country but are actually so advanced they actually make the US look like a third-world country.However, the MCU hasn’t exactly translated this super-well to the big screen. There are only about 3 technologies that really stand out to me that the MCU Wakanda has, all of which are ultimately overrated.Their energy shields.Their aircraftThe Black Panther suit.Firstly, the shields. The city itself has a shield and this technology is shown to be downsized with infantry shields. The shields would be a great asset infantry, but unfortunately they’re actually not.In military science there is a progressive level of protection from the enemy. The first and best defense is if the enemy doesn’t expect and even know of you’re presence.In short, if you don’t want to get killed, remain undetected. If they’re aware of your presence, at least don’t be seen. If you’re seen, at least don’t get hit. If you’re hit, at least don’t get penetrated. If you’re penetrated, at least don’t get killed.What armor and shields try to do (stop penetration) is step 4 of a 5-step process. The Wakandan shield is built for a scenario which you have already been detected, seen, and hit. I don’t care if that shield is completely impenetrable: if there’s a scenario in which those three things are happening, something has gone wrong.Getting hit and surviving is great, but situational awareness is far better than any amount of armor: see first, shoot first, hit first, penetrate first, and kill first is the ideal combat scenario, not get hit, don’t get penetrated, then fire back.Also worth considering is that modern infantry almost never use bulletproof shields in combat, and when they do it’s in very specialized roles such as the point of a building-clearing team. Even still, they’re not used to the awkwardness and bulk of a shield in modern combat, as well as the fact that it leaves only one hand for your weapon, requiring you to use either an inferior one-handed weapon (i.e pistol instead of assault rifle) or use only one hand for a weapon that’s better handled with two.While the energy shields are doubtlessly lighter than SWAT-style entry shields used by modern police and militaries, the basic threat management flaw still holds: not only are advanced shields meant for a scenario in which you’ve been detected, seen, and hit before you could do it to the enemy: the shields actually make being detected, seen, and hit more likely by virtue of lighting up in a whitish-blue light.This is like anti-camouflage.A far better approach would be to work on making soldiers invisible or having some sort of active, hologram based camouflage technology, something which Wakanda clearly has the tech for given their whole city is hidden by a hologram. If they can downsize the energy shield for personal use, why not invisibility. I’d be far more terrified fighting an army of invisible soldiers than ones with shields.Secondly, we have their aircraft, which fire lasers. All I can say is “Oh boy, another sci-fi aircraft that seems super-advanced but depends completely on Within Visual Range weaponry”. Even if we assume their shields make them invincible they don’t seem to have too many of them, given we only see a handful in the background in Infinity War and how they only seem to have one “airport” and a small one at that.In short, there will be no Independence Day style aerial massacres. Best case scenario is turns out they’re immune to our air-to-air missiles and our jets are far away enough to retreat safely to base (seeing as we can engage them from dozens of miles away with missiles but they can’t). Worst case we get cocky and lose a few dozen aircraft in close-range dogfights before adjusting our tactics and mission loadouts i.e we’d focus more on missiles than bombs, or use cheaper aircraft and drones piloted by AI we’re not afraid to lose.Lastly, we have the BP suit. The BP suit is an infantryman’s dream, making the wearer almost invincible. Unfortunately, it’s main weapons are claws and I don’t think it can be mass-produced. I don’t think there’d be more than enough for a platoon of soldiers. That’s certainly enough to cause trouble on the ground for maybe a few hundred or a few thousand US soldiers, or strike at a key unit or facility, but ultimately any special forces equipped with the BP suit are going to be a force multiplier, not a force (i.e. they can’t win the war on their own, just make it easier for others) and as we’ll explore, they don’t have much of that either.Organization:Here’s what a modern infnatry division looks like.Google Image Result for http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/24th_US_Infantry_Division_1989.pngWe also have an experienced and large corps of NCOs and other kinds of officers to streamline command and control, or take intiative on their own.Wakandan organization, on the other hand, is basically just a medieval levy system where each tribe contributes some troops to supplement the king and his bodyguards. It’s literally a centuries-outdated method of raising an army, and there’s a reason why professional armies have replaced them: they’re unstandardized.Levies aren’t just simply your vassal giving you a few hundred guys to do whatever you want with. You’re basically building your army from a bunch of other armies, leaving you with a mixed force where weapons, training, unit size, tactics and doctrine can vary wildly.This can be seen in the Jabari Tribe, who brought sticks to the battle for the universe. While their dedication to low-tech tradition is an understandable trademark of their particular culture (I have no problem with off-grid living in and of itself), it seems that no one bothered thinking that maybe the trillions of sentient lifeforms at stake merited a break from their cultural norms. If this kind of nonsense is allowed when the universe is at stake, it seems clear that in no circumstances will Wakanda ever force its soldiers to equip, train, or fight a certain way.Lack of layered defenses:Wakanda has very little strategic depth. It’s just one city with one contingent of soldiers. There are no strategic-level fallback positions and no reserve if they fail. It’s greatest asset is the energy shield, but once you get through that they’re basically screwed since it’s their best and pretty much only line of defense.Total lack of CRBN defenses:The Black Panther suit probably comes with a filtration system and the shield may be able to protect Wakanda from disease, poison, and radiation, but what about the soldiers themselves?Once you get past that shield a single chemical or biological warhead could wipe their entire army out. I’m sure they have some magic cure-all antidote, but having thousands of dying troops that are revived easily is not as good as having them all be fine because they had gas masks.Meanwhile, modern soldiers have been trained and equipped to deal with chemical weapons since the First World War.Lack of WMDs:I’m pretty sure Shuri could create a Vibranium Nuke that’d make Tsar Bomba look like a firecracker, and of course the comics version of Wakanda has things that make nukes look like conventional weapons, but ultimately any idea that MCU Wakanda has WMDs is speculation.In fact, I’d almost say we can guarantee they don’t have them. The stakes in Infinity War were so high that it means that everyone is not holding back. If there was a time to reveal or use a skill/ability/weapon/whatever, IW would be the event to use it for.Seeing as a battle for the fate of the universe would more than justify a nuke or chemical weapon, we can safely say MCU Wakanda does not have them. The country is isolated so it’s not like collateral damage would be a problem.This lack of WMDs means not only does Wakanda have limited ability to wage war on a strategic scale, but also that the US is completely undeterred in using their nukes, chemicals, and pathogens.No logistical or medical support:Wakanda has great medical care, but the military apparently has no medics to administer treatments on the field, and the hovercraft that carried troops to the battlefield wasnt seem carrying any wounded back.Also, soldiers carry extra of everything. Extra weapons, extra parts, food, ammo, a sidearm entrneching tools, bandages. EVERYTHING.As far as I’mconcerned each Wakandan soldier only carries one spear and one shield. If either fails to operate 100% as expected you’re screwed.No body armor or helmets:I’ve already explained why shields are a bad idea in the overrated technology section, but that being said if you’re trying to not be penetrated, you might as well have armor if you’re also going to have a shield. It makes sense to wear armor but no shield (i.e. to free both hands) but not the other way around.Wakanda by all rights should be able to outfit everyone with at least some sort of full-body suit of some kind. Maybe the Black Panther suit can’t be mass-produced, but at a bare minimum every Wakandan soldier should have something like the Mark I Iron Man Suit.In fact, it doesn’t even have to be power armor. A modern-style vest but with Vibranium instead of Kevlar and ceramic would be more than acceptable. Or how about medieval plate armor or the kind of scale patterns used by Roman Legionaries or samurai? Some sort of modernized chain-mail would be far more practical (and cooler) than what we saw.This isn’t even a tactical concern: it’s a missed opportunity from a thematic and storytelling standpoint. Given how Black Panther is inspired by African culture, are you going to tell me that there isn’t a single noteworthy armor pattern of African origin? In fact, this has already been answered: Did ancient Africans wear armor if so pictures?The costume department could have had a killer day crafting some badass Vibranium armor designs that would pay homage to Africa’s military history, and yet we just get somewhat generic tribal garb that as far as I can tell doesn’t incorporate the material that Wakanda A. has a lot of and B. can refine and use pretty much any way they want. The failure to use any kind of body armor (or indeed, any kind of uniform for that matter) is a failure of fashion, worldbuilding, tactics, resource management, and common sense on all levels.If nothing else, go grab a bowl from your kitchen and duct tape it to your head. Everyone from athletes to soldiers and cops know the value of head protection. It contains 4 of your 5 sensory organs and your brain, the absolute most vital organ. If for some reason you must wear no armor (stealth, flexibility, weight, mobility, etc) at least wear a helmet.If nothing else Captain America of all people would know the value of having helmet on during combat. You know, from fighting WWII and being a supposed tactical genius, he probably saw a lot of this happen:Extremely Low Manpower:Wakanda, in its most desperate hour, with the entire fate of all life in the universe at stake, can barely muster a few thousand combat troops. High school reunions have mobilized more people.On the other hand, the US maintains a military of around 2,000,000 with only volunteers. If it ever came to it, conscription could push this number an entire order of magnitude higher, considering the US military had over 10,000,000 soldiers by the end of WWII with a total population of about half what we have today.Even if they inflict a 1,000:1 casualty ratio the US if nothing else will destroy them through sheer attrition.Little Heavy Ordnance and Almost No Weapon Variety:The Wakandans have energy spears than can supposedly take out a main battle tank. Even if this is true, so? Even the first anti-rank rockets had ranges several times that of a thrown spear (let alone modern anti-tank missiles with ranges of several miles) but this is barely scratching the surface. Where’s their mortars? Artillery guns? Rockets, missiles, close air support aircraft and strategic bombers? The heavy machineguns? The armored personnel carriers, the tanks? Their drones and smart bombs? Cruise missiles? Gatling guns?It doesn’t matter how powerful your small arms are. Even if they can take out a tank (something we never see), a military still needs a wide variety of capabilities to cope with all kinds of battlefield needs and situations. Even something as simple as “a gun” can still have plenty of variety: shotguns, pistols, submachine guns and carbines for tight CQC, sniper rifles for long range shots, assault rifles for general usage, machineguns for laying down suppressive fire, and so on.Even if we were to assume that the Wakandan spear was the ultimate ground combat weapon (it’s actually so bad it gets its own separate bolded point below), let me just ask one question: if Wakandan infantry weapons can take out a tank, what about a jet aircraft miles above you traveling several times the speed of sound? Can they shoot down a missile? Certainly those laser bolts, however powerful, have no guidance capabilities, not that the soldiers would be able to see let alone aim at a target so fast and far away with their bare eyes anyway. They also seem to fly pretty straight: what if a target is over the horizon or not in direct line of sight? All these concerns can be addressed by surface-to-air missiles and artillery respectively, nothing we see the Wakandans have. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a weapon in order to be necessary on the battlefield. Sometimes you need to use smoke to conceal your movements, mark targets or medivac locations, or confuse the enemy. This is where smoke grenades and smoke rounds come in.The Wakandan army is nothing more than a few thousand infantry with no protection except for a location-signaling shield and armed with a single type of a firearm, transported to the battlefield by unarmed, open-top hovercraft that leave everyone exposed. That’s just atrocious, with the rest of their inventory consisting of a small number of jet aircraft restricted to line-of-sight targeting (a limitation which was lifted in the 60s; while plenty of close-range dogfights have happened since then, this is no longer technologically required) and a small number of supersuits so that their head of state can run around the battlefield and claw enemies to death instead of…you know, shooting them at a safe distance, and maybe having someone else do it while they’re at it.Infantry are the backbone of the military but not the punching arm. Most casualties in warfare are inflicted by artillery and airstrikes, and having only footsoldiers essentially limits the Wakandans to small arms, and as we’ve seen only one small arm at that. Needless to say this puts their overall flexibility and firepower at several orders of magnitude below a real-life military. Even guerillas or third-world militaries at least have some kind of light artillery.Viet Cong with 81mm mortar. It’s also worth noting that the Battle of Khe Sanh, one of the most infamous battles of the Vietnam War, involved a months-long artillery duel between American artillery and aircraft vs. the NVA and Viet-Cong mortars and howitzers.Atrocious Small Arm (singular because of no weapon variety):TL;DR you can turn a gun into a spear, but not the other way around.See this?This is a socket bayonet, the invention that spelled the end of melee weapons as a primary tool in battle. Before the socket bayonet, soldiers with firearms either had to rely on melee infantry for protection or affix “plug bayonets” whose base went into the barrel, preventing them from firing.Melee combat would of course persist for centuries, but with every gunman now a spearman pure spearmen were outdated. Despite being originally a gun, the basic principle of “long shaft with pointy end” still applied, and thus guns were now just as effective as the spears of old were with nothing more than a simple attachment.See this?This is a Wakandan energy spear. It fires energy bolts that, so we are told, can take out a tank. However, there are no sights on that spear, making the aiming difficult. There is no butt or padding to make the spear easy to mount against your shoulder, hindering accuracy. The spear itself shoots bolts of energy that seem slow compared to bullets, light up the battlefield making them easily traceable to your location (as if your blue flashlight shields weren’t enough), and don’t fire as fast as a regular assault rifle even under the assumption they have infinite ammunition, which limits their ability to suppress the enemy with continuous fire like a machinegun can. There is no strap or sling to make it easier to carry for long journeys or if you need to free up both your hands (i.e. carrying something around your base), and the length of the spear itself compromises the user in some situations like urban combat where space is tight. There don’t seem to be any rails or any spaces for attachments, meaning that thermal sights, scopes, night vision lenses, etc or even just a simple flashlight are impossible to utilize. Presumably Wakanda knows the secrets of duct tape, but that is no excuse for lacking what is a standard feature on the vast majority of modern firearms from all us “less advanced” real-life people.Little (that is to say no) Support Equipment:This is what your average modern soldier looks like:This is what a couple average Wakandan soldiers look like:Wakanda is the world’s most technologically advanced civilization, but they make very poor utilization of that technology. Sure, their warriors have energy spears that aren’t as good as a JAVELIN anti-tank missile (or even just a regular M-16) and shields that reveal their location, but none of this compares to the utter travesty of what’s not there.I could honestly go on and on and on and on and on about the literally dozens of items the no Wakandan soldier has that pretty much every American one does, going in length about how they don’t have everything from proper camouflage uniforms (a basic concept universally implemented since the early 1900s) to first aid kids, or even just shovels (which have been standard kit for soldiers since the ancient Romans) , but I’m just going to focus on just one thing, one word.Radio.Every modern soldier should have a radio. No excuses. I don’t care if it’s a child’s walkie-talkie that has only 2 channels and a distance of only a few miles. I do not care if it’s a literal toy radio. Coordination is key in military operations, and the base of this is good communication. In modern times, every soldier who can’t transmit and receive information at literal lightspeed is at a significant, even crippling disadvantage.Granted, Black Panther apparently has some sort of earpiece comms system with fellow superheroes and Shuri, and yes, I suppose the Wakandan army was small enough and packed close enough that one person could be heard clearly by all of them, but two wrongs don’t make a right.“My army is small enough for me to talk to every soldier at once!” is not any sort of excuse the most technologically advanced country should have for not having every single soldier equipped with radios.It’s honestly embarrassing that a nation of Wakanda’s advancement is reduced to yelling verbal commands to the entire army at once like they’re Romans or something.Oh, and even the Romans have them beat, because at least the Romans would have things like horns that can carry an auditory signal farther and more clearly than a single unamplified human voice that’s just going to get lost in the chaos, not to mention standard-bearers which would allow commanders to readily find and distinguish different units on the battlefield.While the Wakandans are unable to fortify their positions for want of shovels, American soldiers’ biggest concerns will be about whether or not the government will help them with their chronic back pain after deployment from lugging around too many useful things.Horrible Doctrine:Wakanda has survived human history by trying to not be noticed. This in itself it not bad since you can observe and learn from others, but we can figure out how Wakanda wants to wage war by focusing on how they do it.When Killmonger aims to make the whole world burn, his plan is essentially this:Use cadres of “War Dogs” that are apparently in every world government to assassinate key military and political officials.Send out shipments of Wakandan weapons to arm black people to rise up.Granted, one could say that this is just Killmonger’s plan, and one could also make the argument that his ideas have no bearing on what Wakanda “would” do. That being said, the infrastructure for his style of warfare was already in place, implying that Wakandan “military” doctrine is based upon spec-ops and espionage instead of conventional forces.Having assassins ready to kill every head of state at a moment’s notice but not more than a few thousand actual soldiers in your actual army seems like a strategic choice and not a limitation. If you can destabilize the globe on a whim, you can field a military larger than your average high school. That just makes sense.This emphasis on special operations is confirmed in the movie’s opening scene wherein a Wakandan hovercraft infiltrates an American neighborhood as well as the Black Panther himself, a highly-capable soldier who takes part in at least two special ops missions in the film (ambushing the convoy and trying to get the guy who stole vibranium).Having expertise in espionage and SF is nice, but they’re the icing on the cake. If 10,000 soldiers attack a village and a covert team manages to assassinate the defending commander in the midst of battle, then victory is more likely. If a SF team just assassinates a commander with no concurrent operations or follow-up, they just ensure someone else gets a promotion.Seal Team Six took out Bin Laden in a historic raid, but the War on Terror also needs Marines and Army soldiers to do the everyday patrols, garrison duties, and humanitarian work.Ideally you should have both, but at the end of the day countries can win with conventional forces without SF, but not the other way around.Little history of combat:As said before Wakanda’s basic survival strategy is to hide from the world. This again is not automatically bad, given that you can observe and study the wars and conflict in other countries.That being said, there is no replacement for the real thing. Outside of minor infighting and a few skirmishes, it seems Wakanda has pretty much never faced a single major war against an outside power in its entire history. It’s people, leaders, weapons, and ideas on waging war have never been tested on a large scale. Even the battle in Infinity War was just a melee involving a few thousand people and lasted about an hour. Objectively speaking, there have been real-life riots larger and more destructive than that “battle”.The US, on the other hand…List of wars involving the United StatesWhile some people may gripe about the win rate of the United States, bringing up Vietnam and the War on Terror, those are terrible arguments. Firstly, the nature of these wars is entirely different. These are guerilla wars fought in vast expanses of rough terrain. Fighting Wakanda is mostly a conventional war over one city. Yes, I know cities are a nightmare to fight over, but as said before attrition favors the US by several orders of magnitude, and there aren’t hundreds of thousands of square miles to worry about.Secondly, they ignore political considerations that make these wars “unwinnable” and thus not really a point against the US’s win record. The United States didn’t pull out of Vietnam because of some horrible military disaster that no amount of technology or manpower could ever fix. We pulled out of Vietnam because of the antiwar movement and because the war could only ever be won by invading North Vietnam, which wouldn’t happen because it could have brought China and USSR into direct conflict with us. In the War on Terror, the US military needs to exercise extreme caution and care due to fear of civilian casualties since terrorists blend into the population. We also have to consider that terrorism is an idea, not a country, and terrorists are transnational networks of extremists who can flee across borders where the US is not legally allowed to strike at them. Wakanda is a country with a fixed location, and this is a conventional war, something which the US has traditionally always succeeded in.One last thing is that regardless of how you think the US is doing in current or past wars, the important thing is that we’ve fought them. We can argue about this or that war, but the fact is that the US has the most experienced military in the world, with everyone from the politicians and generals to privates having seen action. While of course not every soldier gets deployed or every commander get a commission in a combat zone, as an institution the US knows what war is like while the Wakanda doesn’t. Even if you think the US is terrible at wars, at the very least failures are things you can learn from, whereas the Wakandans have no frame of reference whatsoever.Horrible Tactics:Nobody ever claimed the Wakandans had better tactics, only better technology. Unfortunately, without the knowledge and experience to use it properly you’ll fail. Let’s take the performance of their leader during the Battle of Wakanda as an example:You are fighting a defensive operation on a hill. Your forces are equipped with spears that fire lasers, in tight formation behind a wall of energy shields held by the front ranks. The enemy is a far larger force of superstrong monsters, but they have no weapons and are mindlessly charging in a dense, unorganized mob. In addition, a huge energy field surrounding your whole position is killing the monsters as they try to come through, though a few slip inside. As your troops manage to hold them off at a distance you notice a few dozen of the creatures (out of thousands upon thousands) going around your flank, though still on the other side of your energy shield. What do you do?A. Redirect a small portion of your force to match the diversion.B. Redirect a larger portion of your forces to overwhelm and destroy the diversion.C. Carefully but quickly withdraw so your enemy can’t get behind you.D. Reorient your battle line so both threats are on the same side. (i.e. if someone is in front of you and another to your side, turning 45 degrees means you can see both of them in “front”).E. Shut down your shield, break formation, and charge down from the high ground so that your outnumbered human soldiers with ranged weapons can engage the swarm of superstrong monsters in hand-to-hand combat.If you picked E, you are not only the leader of the world’s most technologically advanced nation, but also a colossal moron.I respect Black Panther as a superhero, but as a general, he made literally one of the worst tactical decisions I’ve ever seen made by a military commander, either real life or fictional. Throwing away all of his advantages and playing to all of his enemy’s strengths is…I almost have to call it a work of anti-genius.In fact, he’s so bad of a commander here’s a writing exercise I want everyone to try: if you wrote Black Panther as being secretly on Thanos’ side and actively trying to lose, what more would you do than what he already did? His mission was to protect Vision, and his tactics involved tying up the entirety of his military in a pointless, risky battle in the open field far away, leaving his own family to be almost killed when enemy spec-ops effortlessly infiltrate their position. It really is that bad.With that kind of leadership, all arguments become invalid. Any potential tech advantage the Wakandans have would be immediately squandered by their commander. We all saw it onscreen for ourselves.You asked about the US but you know what could defeat Wakanda?A single artillery battery.No, not even that. A single Soviet rocket truck could conquer all of Wakanda. They’d line up in their Greek-style shield wall and Stalin’s Organ would just play away, destroying all of Wakanda’s 2,000 soldiers with just a few dozen rockets.In fact, you know who could conquer Wakanda? Pretty much any real-life African country.Rocket launchers, or spears? You decide.Fun fact: the world record for a javelin throw is about 105 meters. The JAVELIN anti-tank missile, for contrast, can take out targets at 4,750 meters.