Talk:Victory disease

Grammar

I don't quite remember, but isn't United States's supossed to be United States'. I'm trying to remember middle school now.... --Will 16:50, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Apostrophe (mark) is ambiguous -- if United States is considered a plural, then it is the second form; if it is considered a singular, then usage varies with most style guides preferring the first form.

Yes, I suppose your right --Will 23:17, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Categorization

One notes a tendency to label any action the writer disapproves of as an example of victory disease... Willhsmit 00:40, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I don't even get the Bay of Pigs one...I mean, wasn't it a sort of desperation measure anyways?

You both miss the point. What's common to the examples is, that the actions led to failure, not that the writer disapproves of them. That is history, not opinion. -- J M Rice 19:29, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, they are failures, but that the reason for the failure is best described as 'victory disease' is rather tenuous in several of the examples after 1950. It also seems strange that all of the examples given post 1950, with one exception, relate to the United States. Isn't 'Victory Disease' supposed to be something similar to 'overconfidence due to previous successes leading to catastrophe' in a military context? Including things like trying to encourage an insurgency in Cuba, and an ambush in Somalia seems to be stretching the concept quite a lot. Including 'trying to win the Vietnam War' is just silly- where is the prior string of victories leading to overconfidence? The Korean War? Come on.

....

Also, about the civil war example-- Lincon was prepared to save the Union at all costs. It was the confederates that thought the war would quickly be over. The general mentality of southern generals was that "the union might fight for a few months and then just give up becuase it's not worth it".

Well, my issue, I guess, is that Victory Disease is a pretty loose term. That is, any defeat is naturally going to be the consequence of mistakes, either in the diplomacy or in the war, and most such mistakes could fit one of the definitions of Victory Disease. Should the list then be a list of all defeats or setbacks? I didn't want to remove any of the campaigns, because I agree with your main point, but they would look better with a little analysis in the context of victory disease.

As for the Civil War example, I took it from the following: [1] That is, it was Northerners who initially opposed Scott's Anaconda Plan in favor of a direct invasion of Virginia, and who came out in carriages to watch First Bull Run. The South adopted a defensive strategy as a consequence of their war objectives and necessity, I would say -- if you take their goal of independence as a given, what less arrogant strategy would you have them adopt?

In the absence of commentary on this page from the person who put it up, we might as well take the NPOV message down, though. Willhsmit 23:39, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I guess my main thing at this point is that some of the examples seem to blur the line between Victory Disease and plain ill-preparedness. For example: in the quote where the soldier admits that the enemy is diffrent than expected, isn't that just a miscalculation rather than any result of arrogance or whatnot? In fact, arrogance/hubris would be just sending in lots of troops without any sort of planning and arrogantly assuming that you'd win.

Why is there no reference to King George and his victory disease during the British-American Revolutionary War? His was probably the greatest example of stereo-typing and over-looking in recent history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.59.249 (talk) 18:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Fight the last war

Somebody should wedge in a mention to fight the last war.

He did, under "established patterns of fighting". But fight the last war is a good topic. Why not expand on it? -- J M Rice 19:29, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Perfectly proper article

Unless one argues that there is no such thing as "victory disease" or that the term is meaningless, then an article on same is perfectly proper. If you disagree with elements of the article on the basis of NPOV, then by all means edit it - that's what Wiki is for! You can make what you consider a biased or opinionated statement more "neutral" without arguing with it or deleting it, simply by inserting qualifiers like "it has been asserted" or changing "is" to "may be" or "was" to "may have been," etc.

By the way, my background is history, and I see nothing wrong with any of the examples. If the author - of either the original article or later addition (like me) - uses language or style that suggests a non-NPOV, then by all means go in and help him out!

Wikipedia is supposed to be a collaborative effort!

J M Rice 19:29, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

ok, I made a kind of minor change like this

Changing the wording to be more neutral is a small improvement, but all contributors should be on the lookout for weasel words. It is far better to have a factual reference of who said something, and when and where it was said. CosineKitty (talk) 01:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

See also

Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week

More collaboration , non-American examples

I feel a certain "daddy" relationship to the article, having wrote the original. But ignoring partisanship, the article still needs more non-American examples. As an American myself, I of course thought of a few (plus a few non-American ones); others added a few. But Americans have no monopoly on Victory Disease. Something in that back of my fuzzy head says the Japanese coined the term, but I can find no reference. Any takers?

dino 18:55, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure they did -- okay with promoting it to the top of the examples list? Willhsmit 23:39, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And the Vietnam War?

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Order of examples

When I first wrote the examples, way back in the days of yore, I tried to make them chronological. It avoids charges of bias.

dino 02:24, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I was proposing to promote the Pacific Theater because it is the origin of the term (can't find an authoritative source but it is all over the web). I think the others are all chronological. I'm not fixated on the idea if there's opposition. Willhsmit 04:05, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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Ugly lists

Couldn't the stuff in the first paragraph be converted to prose? Borisblue 14:11, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

The first paragraph?

The first paragraph? Makes sense to me as a bulleted list. What I question is the long list of examples—while they certainly make sense, I have debated giving a few egregious examples like Napoleon's Invasion of Russia, and spinning most into a separate article.

Ideas? Takers? I wrote the original, way back, and still feel a "daddy" relationship, but don't control everything. The original list was short.

dino 03:41, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

additions lacking in historical perspective

Someone keeps adding,

* The United States' catastrophically-botched attempts to "export democracy" to Afghanistan and Iraq during the presidential tenure of G.W. Bush.

This is tiring. I frankly agree, but it lacks historical perspective, and wikipedia should not be the forum for anyone's private rants.

dino 22:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Japan example

As in Battle of Midway, the main reason for their defeat was the US being able to crack their code and thus know all their moves. As it was the Japanese plan was good enough to crush the outnumbered Americans. Is it an appropriate example of 'Victory disease'? Obscurans 13:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Many Midway historians still believe that the battle is a valid example. Partly/mainly that's because when wargaming the operation, Japan lost two carriers but umpires ruled "that would not happen" because it hadn't happened before. Consequently, the losses were erased and the game continued. That's arrogance!

Similarly, the Naval General Staff in Tokyo knowingly dispersed its forces with the Aleutians sideshow, depriving the Midway force of significant fleet units. That decision also has been attributed to victory disease.

B Tillman Aug 07

It can also be seen as victory disease because even while the code may have been cracked if Japan would have stuck to it's original plan of attacking then jumping on the defensive, then the cracking of the code would have done nothing.

JR Champ Mar 17 08 11:27 PST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.59.249 (talk) 18:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Periscope View

The illustration allegedly showing USS Nautilus' view of a Japanese carrier is not genuine. It's probably from the Bel Geddes series of dioramas prepared for the Naval War College. In any case, the sub attacked IJNS Soryu rather than Kaga, and the torpedo malfunctioned.

B Tillman Aug 07

British Army, 1815 to 1853?

I read in a book about the Crimean War that part of the reason the British army was unprepared for the war was that the victory at Waterloo had led to a high level of complacency among the officer class, preventing the implementation of much-needed reforms in, for example, the logistical service. Would this be a suitable example to use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.65.197.157 (talk) 17:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Operation Market Garden

If, in fact, the folly of "A Bridge Too Far" brought more loss of life than D-Day - if it is "The Great Mistake" of not taking the Scheldt Estuary - would this not qualify as a major example ?

Take Montgomery insisting that the advisor to Gen Eisenhower be excluded from their meeting - or is this 'great man' and 'hero' folly ? Hubris?

The Dutch people perceived the Germans as defeated and celebrated days before the battle leveled those very towns.

A serious of easy victories and discounting the enemy as "fleeing" and not "re-grouping" - fleeing faster than the victor could advance. G. Robert Shiplett 14:18, 20 February 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grshiplett (talk • contribs)

Original research?

Even if victory disease deserves an article, isn't the list of instances of victory disease just the original research of Wikipedians? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.224.49.68 (talk) 13:43, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Merged History of victory disease back into this article

I've merged the "History" article back into this one and converted it into a redirect. The daughter article should never have been split off from this one, since the material in the intervening years made the two articles almost completely duplicative, and there is, basically, no need for two separate articles on this one topic. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:51, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Sun Tsu

Might want to add that Sun Tsu's Art of War says to 'respect the enemy' for this reason. 71.139.178.219 (talk) 17:54, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

List unsourced

I see not a single reference of a source in the list, so it is not clear at all who claims those are cases of "victory disease". Reliable sources should be added or the respective claims be removed according to the rule of "no original research". --2.240.176.113 (talk) 12:47, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I concur. While I was very tempted to simply strip out the whole section, I decided against such drastic actions. Instead, I've tagged the section as being unreferenced, and removed a few items which were more obvious OR. - BilCat (talk) 00:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

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