David Thornley

1,602 reputation

bio	website
	location	Minneapolis, MN
	age	59
visits	member for	1 year, 7 months
	seen	2 days ago
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	1,602 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	1 year, 7 months
39 badges		location	Minneapolis, MN		seen	2 days ago

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2d	comment	Why has the United States not attacked Iran in the past thirty years? I'd say a more useful question would be why the US would go to war against Iran. Peace between nations is the norm, and war is infrequent.
May 17	awarded	Critic
Apr 7	awarded	Good Question
Oct 12	awarded	Yearling
Jul 9	comment	Can One Use Attrition Tactics When There are No Other Clear Means to Win a War.? @T.E.D.: You're missing the point. Grant was responsible for the actions of the Army of the Potomac, but that wasn't the limit of his responsibility. If you're going to judge Grant's generalship, you need to consider the attacks on the Army of Virginia and Sherman's sweep through the south.
May 29	comment	Did any of the 50 Destroyers swapped for bases with Great Britain in 1940 sink any Axis military vessels? @Major Stackings: Those destroyers were completed in the early 1920s, and didn't see service in WWI. Completing hundreds of destroyers that were not of the best design (the late war British V&Ws were much better) right after a war is one of the USN's dumber moves.
May 9	awarded	Nice Answer
Mar 19	comment	World War II - Have Historians Envisioned How The Axis Powers Might Have Won? @Sid: The US was getting involved in the war in Europe about as fast as Roosevelt thought he could push it. The USN already was at war in the Atlantic, from September 1941 on. Having the US formally in the war in December 1941 actually created problems for the Allies.
Mar 12	comment	What incentives are in place for American soldiers to go fight in Iraq? @Rodrigo: Yes, since Vietnam was over the US military has taken very light casualties in wartime. In the 1991 Gulf War, during the ground action US deaths were, if anything, a bit lower than you'd expect from a comparable group of civilians in the US.
Mar 12	comment	Why weren't aircraft carriers utilized during D-day? Light bombers operated from carriers, and USN dive bombers and torpedo bombers (used as level bombers) were reasonably effective, and likely more accurate (if more vulnerable) than the fighter-bombers actually used.
Feb 24	answered	Why did the Western Roman Empire collapse but not the Eastern Roman Empire?
Feb 20	comment	Are modern handguns a major reason for democratization? You're leaving out crossbows, which were tactically similar to early arquebuses, but required a lot less training than longbows.
Feb 20	comment	Are modern handguns a major reason for democratization? What do you mean by "handgun"? I can see an argument for guns small enough to be carried by one person, but restricting it to pistols and the like seems excessive.
Feb 19	answered	Attempts to return the War to the Souths Favor after Gettysburg
Feb 19	answered	Did The Soviet Union Need Both Prongs to Succeed At the Battle of Stalingrad?
Feb 14	comment	Did the USA win the counter insurgency war in the Vietnam war? The Viet Cong were mostly ineffectual after 1968, and whether they gave up or not wouldn't have affected the outcome. The 1975 offensive was basically the NVA.
Feb 6	comment	Why did Chamberlain act to appease Hitler leading up to the outbreak of World War 2? Let's not forget the exaggerated size of the Luftwaffe, and the tremendous overestimation of the effects of air power before the war.
Feb 1	comment	What effect did tanks have on warfare strategies upon their introduction? If the question is about WWI itself, which is a possible interpretation, this is a reasonably focussed question.
Jan 27	comment	What were the reasons for making Prohibition a constitutional amendment? Actually, another reason (applicable only to the US Constitution) is to give Congress authority in the first place. All acts of the US Government are required to have Constitutional authority, and this is enforced (although you may not agree with some of the interpretations of the Constitution the Supreme Court makes). Sometime around then, the Constitution had to be amended to make the Federal income tax legal.
Jan 26	comment	What were the reasons for making Prohibition a constitutional amendment? People who really want to drive something in sometimes go for a Constitutional amendment for emphasis and to make it harder to change in the future. Some people in Minnesota are trying to pass an amendment to the state Constitution that would prohibit what is already prohibited by statute, for example.