Korea's been in so many wars and all of them have been important.

I feel that 1812 was the best war for canada we defended our selves and burned the white house aren't some of us just pyros

For Britain you have to appreciate that for much of our history our island was divided into 2 parts, Scotland and England/Wales. Despite that, it's easy to pick out the decisive wars that helped define what we are today:

1. The Battle of Hastings 1066 - ensured a Norman influenced England for centuries and explains why the French claimed the English Crown (the result of which was many wars between the 2 nations)

2. The Battle of Bannockburn 1314 - ensured that a Scottish crown and nation would last a few more centuries and allow a more equal merging of the 2 nations fully in 1707.

3. The Battle of Agincourt 1415 - this famous victory against the odds ensured that England as a nation would be independent from France.

4. The Battle of Trafalgar 1805 - Nelson's brilliant victory ensured that England survived as a nation and also was vital in ensuring her worldwide empire remained intact.

4. WW1 - Great Britain entered this war as a superpower and ended it weakened and impoverished.

5. WW2 - Truly a World War unlike WW1 which was still Euro-centric. The most important war in the history of mankind since Chalons in 461.

Well, I must say it was the Spanish-American War for America, we had proved several times before that we could defeat europeans on our own territory but this time we took the war to the enemy and we won a resounding victory, in Manilla we destroyed the Spanish Pacific Fleet with only one loss of life, and that guy died of a heart attack. For a while Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Phillipines were all part of America, we had an empire and we were the new kids on the block who had just beat the snot out of one of the big boys. One of the president's advisors are the time made the comment that he was trying to build an empire in the America's to rival what Spain had hundreds of years before, but we stood back, took a good look at what we had, and decided it wasn't for us.

The war proved we could take the war to the enemy but America also showed that we had no interest in colonizing other lands, we had what was at the time the second largest nation in the world and that was enough for us, basically two things were born from this war, the birth of America, the Superpower, and the birth of the isolationist movement in America.

And about the War of 1812, did Canada even exist at the time? I am pretty sure that it was still a colony of Britain at the time, and please don't tell me this is Canada's claim to fame, that they stopped two half *ss American invasions that most the country did not support and that their mother country then burnt down our capital building in response for our burning parts of Toronto.

Originally Posted by Damien435

we had an empire and we were the new kids on the block who had just beat the snot out of one of the big boys.

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Sorry, but at the end of the 19th century Spain wasn't one of the big boys.
In fact to european eyes the USA was a bully picking on an weak opponent

Yes, we're all black kettles here, Pot. You are quite correct that that was a clear case of US imperialism. Gee, I wonder what nation coined that term?

Originally Posted by redcoat

Sorry, but at the end of the 19th century Spain wasn't one of the big boys.
In fact to european eyes the USA was a bully picking on an weak opponent

Yes, Spain was on the decline and was not near the power it used to be, but I had never heard that statement before, US being seen as the bully picking on a weaker opponent, but I assume that is a compliment, not an insult, since Europeans had been doing that to each other for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years and hence they would recognize when something like that was being done.

Originally Posted by yurry

This thread is really good. I've never even heard of the 1812 war. :P

OK in my country (Slovenia) it was definetly the independence war of 1991. This is when we gained our independence from Yugoslavia, wich was at that time fast becoming a Greater Serbia. Altough the war lasted for only 10 days it asssured our soverieignty.

For a 10 day war it was quite intense - Slovenia only has about 20.000 square kilometers. And there were 19 dead and 182 wuonded on our side, the JLA (Jugoslovanska ljudska armija or Yugoslavian Peoples Army) had 44 dead and 146 wounded. Furthermore there were 4693 POW from the JLA and 252 POW from the Federal Police. We captcured or destroyed 31 tanks 22 armored veichles 6 helicopters 6787 infantry weapons 87 pices of artilery and 124 AAA pices.

And this is also more or less the only national war we had besides a few peasant rebelions in the Middle Ages and fighting the Germans guerilla style during WW2.

that was not war. slovenia was never in real war during it`s history.

Originally Posted by serbianpower

that was not war. slovenia was never in real war during it`s history.

Tell that to the men and women who lost their lives, or their families. Just because they secured their independence in only 10 days does not mean it wasn't a war. Some countries don't fight wars under the theory that countless numbers of human wave or suicide charge attacks will eventually wear down the enemy's supply of ammunition.

first thing, no woman died in that conflict. second thing is: to have a war u must have two sides in conflict. in slovenia in 1991. u had only one side-slovenia. jna was not in war. it was just tragedy and result of human stupidity. same result would be achived if politicians were just reasnoble. do you know anything about this "war" at all?