From: kurkku@hassuserveri.fi   
      
   "David Friedman"  kirjoitti   
   viestissä:ddfr-03412A.12194023082008@newsfarm.ams.highwinds-media.com...   
   > In article ,   
   > Anton  wrote:   
   >   
   >> James A. Donald kirjoitti:   
   >> > Anton   
   >> >> Both lost some, won some. Vietnam didn't bring US society down nor did   
   >> >> Afghanistan bring the USSR.   
   >>   
   >> > Vietnam led to a lot of dominoes falling, Afghanistan led to a lot of   
   >> > dominoes falling.   
   >>   
   >> > Because Soviet power relied overwhelmingly on fear, while the US   
   >> > relied on soft power, we would expect the domino effect to be a lot   
   >> > bigger for the Soviet Union than for the US.   
   >>   
   >> > And it was.   
   >>   
   >> You are quite vague here. You'd have to elaborate. I'd say "dominoes   
   >> fell", power was lost or gained only in those regions where they were   
   >> fighting. Proxy wars in Asia and Latin America had no significance in   
   >> Europe.   
   >   
   > It isn't quite the same thing, but Parkinson (I believe) argues   
   > somewhere that decolonization after WWII was in part the result of   
   > Japanese military success during WWII. The basic argument is that it was   
   > pretty widely taken for granted that non-European forces would lose   
   > against European forces, and since they were going to lose they didn't   
   > try to fight. The Japanese demonstrated, in the early stages of the war,   
   > that a non-European military could outfight and defeat a European   
   > military, which encouraged people such as the Indonesians to see if they   
   > could do it.   
   >   
   > Going to a different source, an interesting book on small wars after   
   > WWII whose exact title I have forgotten, one feature of the post WWII   
   > decolonization wars, as in Indonesia, is that the locals suffered much   
   > higher casualties than the colonial power--but won, because the colonial   
   > power was much less willing to accept casualties in order to win.   
   >   
   > --   
   > http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/   
   > Author of   
   > _Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,   
   > Cambridge University Press.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)