How did thirteen little colonies defeat the most powerful military force in the world?

[AndyS]

With grit and the support of France and Spain.

How did Vietnam defeat first the French and then the United States? With grit and the support of China.

How did Afghanistan defeat the Russians and arguably the United States? With grit and the support of the Islamic world.

They were fighting for their homes and families and culture WITH support that providing the tools and supplies to feed that determination.

Take Vietnam; there were no munitions plants in the country yet they never ran out of ammunition.

Is this how Ukraine survives? One thing is certain, without the rest of the world they surely won't.

"I don't need a ride, I need ammunition."

[Karadeniz]

1. Very well said !!! Thanks !

[Jerry2144]

2. But didn't TDFG

Think it was our Air Force that took out the Red Coats?

[MaryMagdaline]

3. Funny!!

[nycbos]

4. How does a ragtag volunteer army...

... in need of a shower somehow defeat a global superpower?


Who will be Zelenskyy's Lafayette?

[El Supremo]

5. And with only 1/3 support of the American people?

That 1/3 was far more determined.

[former9thward]

6. A little revisionist history in my view.

In the late 1700s France,Prussia and Austria all had stronger armies than Britain. The colonies defeated Britain because it became impossible over the long run to supply the British army from London.

Vietnam did not defeat anyone with the support of China. If anything it was support from the Soviet Union whose supplies were often harassed as they moved through China. China and Vietnam hate one another and that continues to this day. If you doubt that I invite you to visit the Museum of Chinese War Atrocities located in the former Saigon.

In Afghanistan the rebels against Russia were supplied and supported by the U.S. not the "Islamic world".

[El Supremo]

8. Correct! n/m

[TomSlick]

7. The Ukrainians will fight the Russians to the bitter end if the world provides sufficient weapons.

The Russians may eventually take Ukrainian cities, but they cannot hold them. The Russians may stand-up a puppet government but any Ukrainian collaborators in that government will be dead mean walking.

[Igel]

9. the colonies were large.

There were places to hide, recoup. Esp. when communication was by horseback, and long-range surveillance wasn't as good as binoculars you could buy for $40 at Walmart.

Vietnam? We could bomb the north, but the idea of conquering up to the Chinese border was considered suicidal. Unless we wanted to fight China.

Afghanistan? Taliban fighters could hide and cross the border. That, and it was hard to monitor the hill country.

If Russia goes through L'wiw and over to Moldova, who's going to let the Ukrainian resistance set up bases to operate out of? If they set up bases in backwaters of Ukraine, satellite imagery would show it. They could hide in the hills, but the only hills Ukraine has is the Carpathians in the extreme west--not exactly areas Russia would care about.

We can help them to not be conquered. But if the eastern 2/3 falls, it'll be really hard to do much except make a mess in the west. They'll be left with partisan activity a la Poland or France for much of the country, with pro-Russian Russophones losing their spines and going over to the dark forces of the Russian Vaderland. (Or, even, the western USSR--Soviet-era Russian war literature brims over with novels about heroic partisans during WWII, using sewers to travel in, bombing bridges, raiding Nazis. And that's not the "good" literature like Simonov's works.)