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Captain Seafort wrote:Law enforcement, not war.

Tell that to the South American countries we were landing in...

Captain Seafort wrote:Which, had it gone hot, you would have lost badly. As would the Russians, the Chinese and the rest of the planet.

Shit happens, but as it turns out... we didn't lose.

Captain Seafort wrote:Trade protection, not war

Those countries were at war or falling into it, we stopped and slowed and even ended some of those conflicts while restoring the European/Arabian Trade Lanes... Still a hell of a win.

Captain Seafort wrote:Correct answer: either Korea or WW2. If you want to count law enforcement operations then it brings the most recent UK-as-lead-nation victory forward to 1998.

No, thats the seafort's wishing well answer... not the correct one.

Deepcrush wrote:Shit happens, but as it turns out... we didn't lose.

You never fought either.

Those countries were at war or falling into it, we stopped and slowed and even ended some of those conflicts while restoring the European/Arabian Trade Lanes... Still a hell of a win.

Not a war though. Conducted in the middle of several other people's wars, but not ones you were directly involved in (heroic victories over civilian airliners notwithstanding).

Captain Seafort wrote:You never fought either.

Really... you sure about that... I'm so glad you're here to point out that there wasn't any fighting going on during the Cold War. That those pesky little world wide dreams of people dying in conflicts across the globe never happened according to the book of seafort.

Captain Seafort wrote:Not a war though. Conducted in the middle of several other people's wars, but not ones you were directly involved in (heroic victories over civilian airliners notwithstanding).

Not a war even though it was a war... Not directly involved while killing people...

Deepcrush wrote:Really... you sure about that... I'm so glad you're here to point out that there wasn't any fighting going on during the Cold War. That those pesky little world wide dreams of people dying in conflicts across the globe never happened according to the book of seafort.

Considering I specifically referred to Vietnam earlier...

Not a war even though it was a war... Not directly involved while killing people...

Oh, so every time a plod shoots a crook it's a war is it?

Nice, both comments a pure dodge of earlier statements... Its so cute.

Captain Seafort wrote:Considering I specifically referred to Vietnam earlier...

Your statement just prior is that "We didn't fight". So pick one or the other, either there was or there wasn't fighting during the Cold War.

Captain Seafort wrote:Oh, so every time a plod shoots a crook it's a war is it?

No, when other countries declare war... its a war... I know its hard for you but do try to keep up with your own talk.

Deepcrush wrote:Your statement just prior is that "We didn't fight". So pick one or the other, either there was or there wasn't fighting during the Cold War.

You gave the Cold War as an example of a US victory. Which it was, but it wasn't a war. There were various proxy wars going on within it, but with the exceptions of Korea and Vietnam they didn't involve US forces in anything close to a lead role, ergo they don't count for the purposes of this debate, which you established by your statement that "its been a long time since the English won a war where they were in the lead".

No, when other countries declare war... its a war... I know its hard for you but do try to keep up with your own talk.

In the cases of the various Middle-East bust ups you weren't directly involved, ergo they don't count for the purposes of arguing about wars in which the US (or the UK) were the lead nation.

Wars are rarely declared these days - if a formal declaration is required then the US hasn't fought a war since the 1940s (their last official declaration was against Romania, interestingly).

But if we ignore the idea of a formal declaration, then what constitutes a war is rather slippery. Politicians are loathe to use the word, but clearly the Falklands, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf I and II were wars by any reasonable standard. But was the US raid on Libya in 1986 a war? Hardly. Did the US shipping weapons to the Mujaheddin mean the US was at war with the Soviets? Dubious. Did the US military assistance to the British in the Falklands (lending munitions, giving intelligence info) mean the US was at war with Argentina? Of course not.

GrahamKennedy wrote:Wars are rarely declared these days - if a formal declaration is required then the US hasn't fought a war since the 1940s (their last official declaration was against Romania, interestingly).

We're honoured.

Giuseppe wrote:

GrahamKennedy wrote:Wars are rarely declared these days - if a formal declaration is required then the US hasn't fought a war since the 1940s (their last official declaration was against Romania, interestingly).

We're honoured.

*ahem* We had heard about an infestation of strigoi, and were just trying to prevent an undead apocalypse. Yeah, that's it...

Mikey wrote:

Giuseppe wrote:

GrahamKennedy wrote:Wars are rarely declared these days - if a formal declaration is required then the US hasn't fought a war since the 1940s (their last official declaration was against Romania, interestingly).

We're honoured.

*ahem* We had heard about an infestation of strigoi, and were just trying to prevent an undead apocalypse. Yeah, that's it...

Now *I'm* impressed. I'm curious, where did you come across that term?

I don't recall, TBH. I have a tendency to expand the scope of anything I'm researching to include anything I see that catches my interest; probably, I was looking at info on some old legends of my own people like dybbuks or the Golem, and came across strigoi tangentially. My ancestry is close enough geographically to the Romany for that to happen.

I see; that's not surprising, Romany/gypsies living in this part of the world had a tendency to adopt much of the mythology and customs of the people dominant in the region they were inhabiting. In our case they did more than just adopt Romanian mythology, they gave it a personal twist, with all sorts of magic rituals specific to the Romany.

One thing that I often wonder about is if there's much confusion abroad between terms like Romany and Romanian.

Because of my parents' ancestry, we always knew the difference between actual Romany and just people from Romania. However, in the modern U.S. I doubt that many people even know of the term Romany, and just use the word "gypsy" instead. In the UK, more people probably know of them as either gypsies or Travellers rather than Romany.