The Stupidest War in History?

[Venezio]

I might also have to say that the Russo-Japanese War was stupid as it was a stalemate between the Russians and Japanese - and thus the Russians disliked what was happening. Throw in WWI and what you get is the Russian Revolution which leads to Communism (IMO, if we didnt have communism, the world would be in much better shape because of the aversion of the cold war and thus even more stupid wars - if you ask me, the cold war made America extremely powerful and thus started the conflicts between it and the middle east)

[Jusela]

The Great War, no doubt.

[Nouvelle-Albion]

The American War of Independence.

Explain, and make it good.

We fought to not pay significantly lower taxes than Britain, over a war fought on our behalf, and we still ended up having to foot the bills for the Revolutionary war. Not arguing with the results, just saying that it was a stupid war.

[Anti-Obamaland]

Coming off the heels of the Iraq occupation, I'd say now seems like a good time to discuss the stupidity of war, or rather: wars that were stupid.

I'm taking the easy way out and going with Vietnam. I mean, Iraq was bad enough, but with Vietnam, we're talking about twice the length. Throw in the bureaucracy, government deceptions, (seriously, writing a resolution and then just filling in the blanks with "Gulf of Tonkin"?) and poor military strategy and you've got the perfect recipe for a twenty-year debacle.

And...begin!

Nam wasn't twice as long as Iraq.

[Anti-Obamaland]

Explain, and make it good.

We fought to not pay significantly lower taxes than Britain, over a war fought on our behalf, and we still ended up having to foot the bills for the Revolutionary war. Not arguing with the results, just saying that it was a stupid war.

It was required to throw off the British tyranny that existed. That made it well worth the price.

[New England and The Maritimes]

We fought to not pay significantly lower taxes than Britain, over a war fought on our behalf, and we still ended up having to foot the bills for the Revolutionary war. Not arguing with the results, just saying that it was a stupid war.

It was required to throw off the British tyranny that existed. That made it well worth the price.

What tyranny? They had their own devolved governments, paid less tax, and were being defended from natives and other colonial powers at the expense of tax payers in Europe.

[AETEN II]

The Spanish-American War was the stupidest. The casus belli was iffy, the war was basically engineered by Hearst, and it was nothing more that the first American war for Empire.

We got a lotta land from that war, so it was definitely worth it. If you gain a fair share of land or resources from a war, that's worth the cost. On my list, likely the Crusades following the second and Vietnam. Both explain themselves.

[Tergnitz]

The Crimean War; Charge of the Light Brigade ho'

The 1905 Russo-Japanese War, Children's Crusade and Napoleon's invasion of Russia were all pretty stupid as well.

[New England and The Maritimes]

I might also have to say that the Russo-Japanese War was stupid as it was a stalemate between the Russians and Japanese - and thus the Russians disliked what was happening. Throw in WWI and what you get is the Russian Revolution which leads to Communism (IMO, if we didnt have communism, the world would be in much better shape because of the aversion of the cold war and thus even more stupid wars - if you ask me, the cold war made America extremely powerful and thus started the conflicts between it and the middle east)

It wasn't a stalemate. The Russians lost an entire fucking fleet to being absolute morons pit against a nation they viewed as "racially inferior," who happened to be Better Than Russia thanks to actually modernizing more than just what uniform their Emperor wore to fancy balls.

[Simon Cowell of the RR]

Explain, and make it good.

We fought to not pay significantly lower taxes than Britain, over a war fought on our behalf, and we still ended up having to foot the bills for the Revolutionary war. Not arguing with the results, just saying that it was a stupid war.

Yes, because the war was entirely about taxes.
That whole part of the Declaration explaining the offenses was just bull, right?

[Seleucas]

World War I, absolutely, without a doubt.

[Tim-Opolis]

One of these 3

WWI
Vietnam
Childrens Crusade

[Xsyne]

For everyone saying the Pig War, I'd like to point out that it wasn't a war, on account of the complete absence of any fighting, whether in person or through proxies. The British and American governments smacked it down the moment they caught wind of it, and put the island under joint military occupation for over a decade.

[Venezio]

The thought of having WWII as a stupid war makes me think about the scenarios postulated by the Red Alert series (although they are fictional)...

[Polinikia]

Has war ever been reasonable, despite all of the excuses made by the belligerent parties ?
The Gran Chaco War, The Football War. and while not a war, the US invasion of Grenada.

[Ostroeuropa]

The underreported second american civil war.
The red river war.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli ... cles/mgr02

[The Archregimancy]

Having already exhausted 19th- and early 20th-century postcolonial Latin American wars...

How about something mediaevally stupid?

Romanus IV Diogenes' war against the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan.

The Sultan didn't want a war (he was more worried about the Fatimids), had recently signed a peace treaty with the Byzantines, negotiations were well underway between the two parties to hand the fortress of Manzikert back to the Byzantines in exchange for a fortress Romanus had conquered from the Turks 3 years previously, and there was no immediate serious threat from the Turks against the Byzantines; Romanus also then placed the son of his arch-enemy in charge of a significant component of his army.

Result: Battle of Manzikert, the betrayal, deposition and death of Romanus, the Turkish conquest of central Anatolia, and the long-term fatal crippling of the Byzantine Empire - all for an avoidable war of choice that the conflict's winner had not only never wanted, but had been actively trying to avoid.

Romanus had an excuse of sorts; he realised that the Byzantine military system - especially the Thematic system - had been allowed to decay badly over the preceding 40 years, and came to the by no means stupid conclusion that a spell of active military campaigning would help drill the interior Themes into shape while helping to restore the frontier Themes. Even placing a Ducas in charge of part of his army wasn't wholly stupid; in the anachronistic but immortal words of LBJ, it was probably better to have Andronicus Ducas pissing inside the tent than pissing outside it. The basic tactical idea was probably sound; the strategic implementation, however - both in terms of timing and immediate choice of opponent - was disastrously stupid, with appalling short-, medium- and long-term consequences for the Byzantines, the Middle East, and Europe.

Because avoid Manzikert, and you avoid the Crusades.

[Kirrig]

Having already exhausted 19th- and early 20th-century postcolonial Latin American wars...

How about something mediaevally stupid?

Romanus IV Diogenes' war again Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan.

The Sultan didn't want a war (he was more worried about the Fatimids), had recently signed a peace treaty with the Byzantines, negotiations were well underway between the two parties to hand the fortress of Manzikert back to the Byzantines in exchange for a fortress Romanus had conquered from the Turks 3 years previously, and there was no immediate serious threat from the Turks against the Byzantines; Romanus also then placed the son of his arch-enemy in charge of a significant component of his army.

Result: Battle of Manikert, the betrayal, deposition and death of Romanus, the Turkish conquest of central Anatolia, and the long-term fatal crippling of the Byzantine Empire - all for an avoidable war of choice that the conflict's winner had not only never wanted, but had been actively trying to avoid.

Romanus had an excuse of sorts; he realised that the Byzantine military system - especially the Thematic system - had been allowed to decay badly over the preceding 40 years, and came to the by no means stupid conclusion that a spell of active military campaigning would help drill the interior Themes into shape while helping to restore the frontier Themes. Even placing a Ducas in charge of part of his army wasn't wholly stupid; in the anachronistic but immortal words of LBJ, it was probably better to have Andronicus Ducas pissing inside the tent than pissing outside it. The basic tactical idea was probably sound; the strategic implementation, however - both in terms of timing and immediate choice of opponent - was disastrously stupid, with appalling short-, medium- and long-term consequences for the Byzantines, the Middle East, and Europe.

Because avoid Manzikert, and you avoid the Crusades.

Despite having never heard of this war I think it is a perfectly reasonable contender for the title of stupidest war. However, the American War of Independence had a spectaculary silly reason for starting, as did WWI.

[Carloso]

The English-Zanzibar War. It lasted 48 minutes and the whole Zanibarian Fleet (3 ships, 1 armed)was destroyed.

[Biop]

Every single Crusade

[The Drone Empire]

The English-Zanzibar War. It lasted 48 minutes and the whole Zanibarian Fleet (3 ships, 1 armed)was destroyed.

Anywho, the Anglo-Swedish war. No fighting [Except for the murder of farmers who refused conscription], Sweden even allowed English ships in their Docks.

[The USOT]

Probably been said a lot, but definately World War 2. Such a mass scale of atrocities for such little reason.

[Nuclearpeace]

Almost all wars and conflicts America have been involved in. And israeli–palestinian endless conflict.

[Western cuba]

People tend not to know about the football war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War

[The Korean Confederation (Ancient)]

The Iran-Iraq War, more than a million lives lost, billions of dollars spent, and for what? Nothing