Is Defeat in a war good for a country?

[arp2041]

Is a defeat in a war good for a country in long term, we have many examples in the past where a nation has been badly defeated in a war with another country but has risen like a phoenix. Some of the best examples which can be given are:

1. Germany - Germany entered the first world war on the losing side, it was humiliated to sign a treaty after it's defeat called "The Treaty of Versailles" which forced it to pay war damages to the victors & accede some land. This treaty made Germany bankrupt, but it again rose as a major military & economic power in the 1930's & started a second world war, if it did not had open a second front against USSR & had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor, Germany would have annexed entire Europe under it's rule. Again there was a defeat for Germany in second world war, but after the war ended it soon emerged as a major economic power house which till recently was world's third most rich country until China overshadowed it. Without Germany, EU & Euro-zone can never be imagined, such is it's economic might.

2. China - In the late 1930s Japan annexed much of the parts of China & plummeted & looted it like anything. China fought very hard but there was no end in sight to the mighty Japanese march inside China much to latter humiliation. After the World war ended in 1945, China switched towards the Communists in 1949, this was a changing point in China's history the economic & military revolution that follows has made China now the second most powerful country in the world after the US.

3. India - After the independence of India in 1947, there was much to take care about for the country such as poverty,hunger, developing infrastructure, etc. but to a great shock to this newly formed nation, China attacked it in 1962 & annexed Aksai chin, the war ended as a bitter pill for India. Nehru was shocked at such a miserable defeat, but after that war India again stood on it's feet under the leadership of Indira Gandhi & in 1971 won a decisive battle against it's arch rival Pakistan, this was the biggest victory for a country after WW 2 where a new nation (Bangladesh) was formed & 90k soldiers surrendered. India now is the world's second fastest growing country after China.

4. Japan - After it's humiliating loss at the hands of US in WW 2, where it surrendered unconditionaly after 2 nuclear bombs perished two of it's cities, Japan became a economic success story which rivaled that of US, it always challenged the US in terms of economy & till recently was the second most richest country in the world till China took it's place.

5. Former USSR - Shocked by it's defeat in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, Russia changed itself completely by a revolution which removed czar from the throne in Russian Revolution & installed Communist rule in the country, with years to come it became champion of communist world, a military & economic power, it became one of only two superpowers in the world, the other being US.

6. France - Germany annexed France in the second world war & there was dark clouds forming all over it until the allied forces came as a savior & pushed the German forces out of France. France since than has become a major military & economic power & is one of the five permanent member of the UN security council (which Germany is not) as well as one of the five recognized nuclear power.

I am not generalizing the argument for each country & every war, but it can be seen in the past that whenever a nation is pushed to wall by another nation & it's self respect is hurt, it comes out more strongly.

 

[Ottoman-Turk]

Not really depends how quickly they get up to their feet and other things e.g in the war was there internal conflicts , if not easier to recover , and many other factors , but overall i would say no

 

[Icewolf]

I don't think India should be on there because 1962 wasn't a huge war, and India didn't basically rise up after that... It's been 50 years since 1962 and where is India, a third world overpopulated dump.

 

[Icewolf]

Not really depends how quickly they get up to their feet and other things e.g in the war was there internal conflicts , if not easier to recover , and many other factors , but overall i would say no

Nice post.

 

[Sashan]

India's defeat at the hands of China had wide ramifications for India.

1. After 1947, both USSR and USA courted India to side with them and offfered Security Council seat. Nehru rather was ambitious but stupid to start the Non-Aligned Movement(NAM). India was an untested power and the foreign powers imagined that India was lot more powerful than it really was. Nehru started triggering the decline of India by denying the resource for Indian army but this was not obvious for foreign powers.

After 1962, NAM disintegrated as NAM did not standby India. Major powers stopped seeing India as a power.

2. Pakistan, inspite of the Indo-Pakistan rivalry, under Ayub Khan was more threatened by China after China invaded Tibet and wanted a treaty with India where they wanted India to come to the help in case Pakistan is attacked by China as Pakistan had started aligning itself with western powers. But India declined it. But aftr 1962, Pakistan aligned itself with China as it saw India as a weak power. The threat of Pakistan-China alliance for India could have been avoided if Nehru had prepared Indian army.

I have provided a snippet to support my point below.

3. Bhutan was seeing India to protect it against any external threats. After 1962, Bhutan started taking more neutral stance and had voted with China atleast once in the UN going against India. Now India need to be wary of China-Bhutan relationship as seen in a thread yesterday.

4. Nepal Monarch started playing India against China lot more since 1962.

5. Pakistan started the 1965 war believing that India is a spent force.


The snippet to support my claim.


Soon after Ayub Khan's political ascendancy in 1958, some specific developments had been taking shape during 1959-62. For instance, Communist China had demonstrated rapid advancement in the decade of 1950s, which enabled that emerging Communist giant to challenge India in a border conflict over Tibet in 1959. Interestingly, the fear of Communism in Pakistan, which had subsided after the death of Marshal Stalin of USSR, was revived. China now appeared to be a potential Communist giant making headway with relatively three times more power than India. Although Pakistan was not the direct target, it got the hint and wanted to take necessary precautions, tactfully and carefully, to evade the revised charge of allowing Cold War in the region.



Therefore, the choice for it at that time was to prevent the Communist onslaught of any denomination in the subcontinent. Feeling the commonality of threat, Pakistan wanted help from neighbouring India, the immediate target of China. President Ayub Khan offered a joint Indo-Pakistan defence pact to Prime Minister Nehru to contain the 'danger from the North'. But the latter preferred to turn it down on the plea that, as long as Pakistan was allied to the West,


The Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

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No I disagree defeat in itself is not necessarily good for a country. Yes, Germany and Japan arose from the ashes but there are many other variables in play and therefore you are wrongly reducing this to one variable - defeat.

I think with a doubt total war is good for a country - By that I mean a protracted war that involves the entire nation in a life and death struggle. WW2 or the Iraq and Iran [in particular Iran ] war are examples.

The reasons are total wars involve millions of men and the result is society becomes moulded into one. A nation is born out of blood and guts of men killed. Such wars are equalizers in that any regional/sectarian/tribal or class differances are bridged as men of all backgrounds lie and spill their guts in the mud. A common national spirit is forged.

It brings out the collective spirit and discipline. It reinforces hard work anmd sacrifice for the collective good and it breads national pride. In addition total wars take a heavy toll on men and having faced real bullets men tend to be humble and less prone to rash rhetoric that typifies our people.

In addition there social implications. With so many men gone to war social norms start breaking down. Class differances are reduced as rich and poor sleep in the mud and take bullets. Because of shortage of manpower millions of women are drafted into work and some even end up working in positions reserved to men. This helps to emancipate women.

So I would suggest total war is good for a country however on the other side of coin is the maimed and killed which will run into millions. So I am not suggesting go have war but I just want to point out these type of wars do produce strange benefits. most European countries have been through these type of wars. W in South Asia have in comparison had nursery fights in Kindergarten school yard. Consider Battle of Somme. In one day British Army had 60,000 killed. By the time the battle was over 1 million men were dead. India, Pakistan in 65 years put togather have not lost half the men the British lost in one day.

Battle of the Somme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

arp2041

For god sakes why do you Indians keep bringing up 1971 as example of titanic victory. Even before the first Indian soldier took a step forward the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Would you expect anything else than a total defeat? Lets just recap and look at some facts from which you can conclude Pakistan Army was doomed from the start.

Do you lot use the 1971 defeat of a smaller country whose outnumbered army was swamped in the Bengal delta to mask the beating India got in 1962 at the hands of a country in your own size league, China?

1. Almost all of the 60 million Bengali population was hostile to Pak Army.

2. There was general insurrection [ civil war ] going on involving Pak army and Mukti Bahini and other Bengali rebels aided by India.

3. East Bengal is 1,200 miles from Pakistan with no GLOC. Logistics supply is either by air [impossible in hostile Indian airspace] or sea [ possible but involving sea journey of about 2,400 miles sailing astride Indian coastline vulnerable to attack from Indian Navy.

4. Bengal is a delta region ill suited to mechanized forces and alien to mostly Punjabi/Pashtun soldiers of Pak Army but ideal terrrain for the Bengali guerrilla fighters who are operating on home turf.

5. East Bengal was surrounded by India on 3 sides with the sea on the 4th side.

6. Total strength of Pak Army is nearly 90,000 men including staff, logistics etc. Most of this force was deployed on counter insurgency operations and was never intended to handle a Indian attack at the same time. [ As a example there are over 140,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan in a country of 25 million - East Bengal had about 60 million people with 90,000 Pak soldiers ] Yet as we know the combined might of NATO is struggling to control the insurgency.

As if the six points above are not taxing enough for Pak Army [ clearly it's hands were already full] India joins in.

7. India is nearly 7 times bigger than Pakistan that would [ all things equal ] equate to 7 times more resources.

8. India throws all it's might on three sides of East Bengal and working in synergy with Bengali irregulars defeats the pinned down, overwhelmed Pak forces.

Even a friggin superpower would have had problems. In addition West Pakistan [ something Bengali's complained about with some justification ] concentrated on defence of the west wing. The east wing had hardly any air cover and nominal air force deployed thereby underlining Pak prejudice and double standards.

The policy was 'defence of Pakistan lies in the west' which was another way of saying 'as long as west is safewe don't care about the Bengali's'. Even the 90,000 men were the result of additional forces broughty in to quell the rebellion. Essentially these were light infantry units to tackle the Bengali populace.

Considering these points would you expect anything else than defeat? Even FM Runstedt or Rommel would have given up. The real crime was GHQ should have realized this the moment India attacked or better even before and put truce in place and voluntarily pull out. But nobody was big enough to do that.

 

[Rusty]

The Indian entry is very forced.

India lost some land in 62, but it was mostly disputed border lands. Nothing big.
And they took an easy victory over Pakistan, a country 7x smaller then it.

Hardly call that rising as a phoenix.

Of all the countries listed, India has the smallest GDP and the most poverty.
Still got lots of work to do.

 

[Veritas]

Losing war is not good.

Case and Point: Pakistan.

To quote a self-proclaimed wise guy on this board, it is still

a third world overpopulated dump.

 

[Icewolf]

Losing war is not good.

Case and Point: Pakistan.

To quote a self-proclaimed wise guy on this board, it is still

Dude we are least densily populated country...

 

[arp2041]

I am not at all trying to make this an Indo-Pak issue, just trying to make my point more clearer, there are many examples that a country has risen more strongly after a defeat in a war, this can be attributed to the fact that today's war effect every person either directly or indirectly & b'coz of this, when there country get a bloody nose in a war, people make this a issue of self respect & dignity. Not just war but other things like sanctions also make people more aggressive & work towards betterment of his/her country. Look at the sanctions on both India & Pak post 1998, they failed in every respect.

+ If we talk about Pak, there can be same theory applied here, after 1971 defeat it's people came up more strongly & Pakistan is now one of the nuclear weapons state & a reasonable military power.

+ If we see from a neutral perspective no one can deny the fact that 1971 was a great victory for India, whatever reason one may sight which helped/favored India but in the end it was a great military victory, after all victory is a victory. If some say that there are many points that favored India, one can sight alternate points which did not favored India:

1. Entire west was against India in the 1971 war.
2. Indian economy was in trouble already added to that the burden of millions of refugee influx that came in 1971.
3. China was also favoring Pakistan & there was always a threat of two front war.
4. Indian economy & polity was coping with the side-effects of 2 bloody wars in last 10 years - 1962 & 1965 (in fact in 1965 almost entire military arsenal was used by India & India had to start all over again) add to that loss of 2 PM's in the same period.

 

[third eye]

A lot depends on how a nation takes its defeat.

Germany & Japan took it correctly by deciding never to go there again and focused upon themselves and within two decades became industrial & technological powers which led the world.

Asians ( other than Japan) have long memories and even larger egos. We love to cling to the past and re- live it as often as we can coming to the same conclusions each time.

Nothing grows in shade and like the jungle fire, the undergrowth needs to be burnt for fresh grass to grow. For this a defeat is not necessary though.

For India, while some here contend that 62 wasnt much of a defeat, it must be seen in the Asian context. It served as a wake up call to the nation in general and its politicians in particular. Prior to the war questions were raised in the parliament on the necessity of a standing army and that soldiers could be used to help farmers during the harvesting season !!

On the military side , it helped professionalism which was a welcome change to the lickers who had risen thanks to their connections.

A setback helps in proving knowlegede to the sufferer on ways things can go wrong - its for him to draw relevant lessons.

 

[arp2041]

@ Atanz i have tried to counter your points, it's in the bold part:

*



arp2041

For god sakes why do you Indians keep bringing up 1971 as example of titanic victory. Even before the first Indian soldier took a step forward the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Would you expect anything else than a total defeat? Lets just recap and look at some facts from which you can conclude Pakistan Army was doomed from the start.

Do you lot use the 1971 defeat of a smaller country whose outnumbered army was swamped in the Bengal delta to mask the beating India got in 1962 at the hands of a country in your own size league, China?

1. Almost all of the 60 million Bengali population was hostile to Pak Army.

Who made them hostile on the first place??

2. There was general insurrection [ civil war ] going on involving Pak army and Mukti Bahini and other Bengali rebels aided by India.

Aided by India?? Again my question, why did they needed aid from India in the first place??

3. East Bengal is 1,200 miles from Pakistan with no GLOC. Logistics supply is either by air [impossible in hostile Indian airspace] or sea [ possible but involving sea journey of about 2,400 miles sailing astride Indian coastline vulnerable to attack from Indian Navy.

If that is the case India could have made it Independent in 1965 war only, it did not needed another war for it.

4. Bengal is a delta region ill suited to mechanized forces and alien to mostly Punjabi/Pashtun soldiers of Pak Army but ideal terrrain for the Bengali guerrilla fighters who are operating on home turf.

You are just making a scape goat here for the defeat.

5. East Bengal was surrounded by India on 3 sides with the sea on the 4th side.

Again my same point, that it would than had already be an independent country in 1965, but it was not so & 1965 ended in a stalemate.

6. Total strength of Pak Army is nearly 90,000 men including staff, logistics etc. Most of this force was deployed on counter insurgency operations and was never intended to handle a Indian attack at the same time. [ As a example there are over 140,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan in a country of 25 million - East Bengal had about 60 million people with 90,000 Pak soldiers ] Yet as we know the combined might of NATO is struggling to control the insurgency.

Who stopped Pak army from deploying more soldiers who can fight war??? don't say that it was India who did. Also does this mean PAF started a pre-emptive strike against India without knowing that it cannot fight a war in East Pakistan??

As if the six points above are not taxing enough for Pak Army [ clearly it's hands were already full] India joins in.

7. India is nearly 7 times bigger than Pakistan that would [ all things equal ] equate to 7 times more resources.

This is again no reason - firstly if we join Pakistan & Bangladesh together, it comes out to be much bigger & India will be just 4-5 times in land area. secondly if land & resources are the criteria that decide the outcome of war than there are many victories that should not have happened in the first place: Japanese victory against China (WW 2) & against Russia (Russo-Japanese war), Germany conquest of entire Europe in WW 2, Israel's victory in six day war, etc.

8. India throws all it's might on three sides of East Bengal and working in synergy with Bengali irregulars defeats the pinned down, overwhelmed Pak forces.

What else do you think India should have done?? thrown just half the might?? You are saying that if a nation is in war It should not give it's 100% to win it?? You are saying that Pak lost because it did not throw it full might, than it's only your country to blame for your defeat not India, since no one stopped Pak from giving it's 100% effort in the war

Even a friggin superpower would have had problems. In addition West Pakistan [ something Bengali's complained about with some justification ] concentrated on defence of the west wing. The east wing had hardly any air cover and nominal air force deployed thereby underlining Pak prejudice and double standards.

The policy was 'defence of Pakistan lies in the west' which was another way of saying 'as long as west is safewe don't care about the Bengali's'. Even the 90,000 men were the result of additional forces broughty in to quell the rebellion. Essentially these were light infantry units to tackle the Bengali populace.

Considering these points would you expect anything else than defeat? Even FM Runstedt or Rommel would have given up. The real crime was GHQ should have realized this the moment India attacked or better even before and put truce in place and voluntarily pull out. But nobody was big enough to do that.

 

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

In all those above countries, the factors for their rise i believe were state of insecurity , surrounding nations and competition.

 

[Shinigami]

@ rusty

1971 war

India:500k troops
Pakistan:350k troops.

so its not 7 times. its 1.3 times

 

[Rusty]

@ rusty

1971 war

India:500k troops
Pakistan:350k troops.

so its not 7 times. its 1.3 times

I was talking about population size.
Also your are including troops in west Pakistan who were not in the fight.
At the end of the day all the Pakistani troops in East Pakistan became POW and by all records there are about 40-45k Pakistani army POW

So if you want to compare troops, it would be 40-45k Pakistani troops vs 500k Indian troops.

So once again, nothing really "Great" about it.