US vs the world - hypothetical war

[Famine]

UK vs Italy?

50% right...

 

[///M-Spec]

I'm starting to revise my thinking on this a bit...

Interesting post. I actually spent the drive back from lunch thinking about how it would unfold. It goes something like this:

US strategy. The US HAS to leverage it's initial force capability in order to secure the North American continent. It needs to make sure there is no staging area for a homeland assault from the north or south.

Hitting the EU and Japan is also high on the priority list. China doesn't have a large or sophisticated enough navy to worry the US Pacific Fleet, BUT Russia still have a bunch of subs. Chasing them down will be a full time job.

World strategy. The rest of the world needs to simply hold off US air and naval attacks until it can ramp up military production. Since the US has an almost overwhelming advantage to begin with, the best bet is to concede and make any advancements costly and time consuming.

Russia has long range bombers capable of hitting the US mainland. But not in any sufficient numbers to worry us much. And definately not capable of surviving over North America for every long. The EU bomber force is mostly short ranged and will need bases in Canada or Mexico in order to carry out missions --not going to happen if the US is already advancing into these areas. Best bet is to hold them in reserve until they are needed to protect EU homeland.

Therefore the first battlefields will be Canada (also includes Alaska), Mexico, probably Greenland/Iceland and mostly likely Japan and Korea.

EDIT: I forgot Cuba and various islands in the Gulf of Mexico, Hawaii and the Philipines.

An interesting note is how to treat the vast US bases in countries like Germany, Saudi Arabia, Korea and Japan. Once the shooting starts, those bases are in for a world of trouble. And how do we treat the 150,000+ troops currently deployed in the Middle East?

I've played too many RTS and strategy games.


M

 

[Zardoz]

50% right...

Okay, the Axis powers were Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The first three sure weren't "proper" democracies, and I have no idea what the other three were like back then.

I'll guess that Hungary was the one. Knowing what Romania and Bulgaria were like later, I'd say they had no democratic tradition whatsoever.

 

[Famine]

Not one of the countries you listed.

 

[Zardoz]

Not one of the countries you listed.

Well, I give up. Truly stumped. What in the world is this about?

 

[Famine]

It's just a nice little aside - seeing as we're talking about the World fighting the US, and only two democracies have ever declared war on one another.

War was declared, but no armed conflict ever arose between the two countries.

 

[DeLoreanBrown]

It's just a nice little aside - seeing as we're talking about the World fighting the US, and only two democracies have ever declared war on one another.

War was declared, but no armed conflict ever arose between the two countries.

Great Britain & Taiwan

 

[Famine]

Not as far as I'm aware.

It arose out of a conflict in WWII. This nation allied itself with Germany to attack an Ally nation, resulting in the UK declaring war upon it. No shots were ever fired between the UK and that country.

 

[DeLoreanBrown]

Albania !
edit ; Belgium ( last guess )

 

[Solid Fro]

The UK and Finland?

I know that Finland were allies with Nazi Germany only because they were fighting the Soviets.

 

[Famine]

DLB: Well-known democracy during WWII, that one...


Viper Zero has it. Give that man a prize. Not sure what though.

 

[Solid Fro]

Satisfaction of paying attention in history class.

 

[Zardoz]

The UK and Finland?

I know that Finland were allies with Nazi Germany only because they were fighting the Soviets.

Wow. Good, VZ.

 

[Dave A]

Is America the most powerful nation in the history of mankind?

Yes. Why?

Think about it. Who is the closest runner up, Rome? Rome couldn't have extended it's threat to the Americas. Rome couldn't extend it's threat to Asia. Rome wouldn't have had a chance against certain regions like in northern Russia for example.

The might of Rome was highly immoble. Sure they were able to cover much of what they knew on the Earth, but the rest of the Earth still existed - and they couldn't get to it.

The US can extend its power to every inch of the globe. If we want to surface a sub in the arctic we can do it. If we want to nuke Antarctica we can do it. In fact, if we wanted to nuke Mars we could do it (with a few modifications). Not only do we have the firepower to noticably change the orbit of the planet (we actually do), but we might just have the firepower to eliminate mankind altogether - who in the history of the world has had that kind of power?

Could rome have conquered Siberia if they wanted to? No. Could they have wiped out an entire country in a matter of hours just because they wanted to? No.

While I agree that the US is the most powerful nation, I think thats a stupid analogy. Rome was a power way before we had vehicle's and gun's, if the US didn't have planes, tanks and trucks they wouldn't get that far either. It's a stupid comparison, for what the Romas had, I'd say they were the most powerful by far.

 

[Danoff]

While I agree that the US is the most powerful nation, I think thats a stupid analogy. Rome was a power way before we had vehicle's and gun's, if the US didn't have planes, tanks and trucks they wouldn't get that far either. It's a stupid comparison, for what the Romas had, I'd say they were the most powerful by far.

You're making the discussion relative... which is fine. But the discussion is illustrative in an absolute sense as well. Rome did not have the level of power over the remote regions of the world that we do. Rome did not have the mobility of power that we do. That's a real, tangible difference.... not some intangible inflationary difference as someone else tried to make it seem earlier. This isn't anything like money inflating - where the amount of money changes but the purchasing power stays the same. We have MORE power than Rome did in an absolute sense and that affords us MORE ability and options than Rome had.

 

[Zardoz]

...We have MORE power than Rome did in an absolute sense and that affords us MORE ability and options than Rome had.

Once again, it depends on your definition of "power".

We could defeat the combined armies of the world in a one-time-only slugfest. The Romans could not do that.

However, we cannot conquer a hostile nation, occupy it, and successfully control it. Okay, maybe we could keep the population of Tuvalu in line for a while, but any more than that and we couldn't handle it. Modern small-arms weaponry in the hands of insurgents makes that sort of thing impractical, unless you were willing to slaughter most of the population to get your way. The Romans only had to deal with peasants wielding primitive hand weapons, so they were able to control this much territory for a very long time:

Even then, they had to use the most brutal and cruel measures to do it. Their viciousness toward the conquered peoples of their empire matched that of any of history's worst oppressors.

Comparisons of ancient military powers with modern ones doesn't work. The conditions are too different.

 

[Danoff]

However, we cannot conquer a hostile nation, occupy it, and successfully control it.

But we can destroy it - that has to count for something.

 

[Diego440]

While I agree that the US is the most powerful nation, I think thats a stupid analogy. Rome was a power way before we had vehicle's and gun's, if the US didn't have planes, tanks and trucks they wouldn't get that far either. It's a stupid comparison, for what the Romas had, I'd say they were the most powerful by far.

live4speed: there is a difference in what we're talking about here. The difference is absolute power vs. relative power. While I'm with you on the position that the Romans were indeed the greatest power in the history of man, it's the US who has the greatest power now, both in quanitity and quality of armament.

///M-Spec: You also forgot Venezuela, #1 ally of Cuba. But really, if it were the US against the rest of the world, every other country would be a strategic point against the US.

I'm going to have a very long conversation with a friend of mine who was in the military and is a great "thinker" and argue about this. I'll bring some feedback later on.

 

[Duke]

...and the corporations behind them too...

Oh, dear Bob. Don't tell me you're a conspiracy theorist, too?!

 

[Danoff]

live4speed: there is a difference in what we're talking about here. The difference is absolute power vs. relative power. While I'm with you on the position that the Romans were indeed the greatest power in the history of man, it's the US who has the greatest power now, both in quanitity and quality of armament.

Ok look, bottom line. The US (arguably) has the power to end the human species altogether. That is substantially greater power than Rome ever had.

 

[Zardoz]

Ok look, bottom line. The US (arguably) has the power to end the human species altogether. That is substantially greater power than Rome ever had.

No argument at all. Spread the nukes out properly and only a few insect species survive. Back to Square One for life on Earth.

In that regard, yes, we're Number One, but the Russians' 3000 or so warheads could pretty much do the same thing. Nukes skew the discussion just a bit...

 

[Diego440]

Alright, now that we've pretty much covered the fact that the US has the capability to wipe out human existence and send us back to being amoebas, let's focus on the war itself. Anyone ever read that Tom Clancy book called Red Storm Rising? It actually features the Reds (Soviets) declaring war on the world.

 

[Melaneimoon]

The most decisive battles going on are those of the mind war. Propaganda, indoctrination, mental manipulation,... That's how the establishment fights the masses in order to preserve itself.

 

[Zardoz]

Alright, now that we've pretty much covered the fact that the US has the capability to wipe out human existence and send us back to being amoebas, let's focus on the war itself. Anyone ever read that Tom Clancy book called Red Storm Rising? It actually features the Reds (Soviets) declaring war on the world.

Yeah, and they didn't go to nukes, either. It seemed as unrealistic as our little exercise.

That was back in the glory days of the Soviet Union, of course, when they were so formidable.

 

[a6m5]

This thread really does remind me of Tom Clancy novels.

On the missile defense system, it is not ready as far as I know. I hear about it once in a while too, because Japan is involved in it as well. Doesn't that system invove Patriot missiles? I heard that they were way overrated, and not very accurate. Patriots were the big star in the Gulf War, but suppsedly they could barely hit few scuds. I should go googling.....

On the nukes, it's definitely a possibility, but I think the U.S. would choose to live and fight another day, PLO style. I'd think most nations would go that route.

 

[MrktMkr1986]

Oh, dear Bob. Don't tell me you're a conspiracy theorist, too?!

Maybe...

No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.

Where there is war, there is a corporation behind it waiting to take its cut. This is how the US will beat the world into submission. Not with SAMs...

...but with SAPs...

 

[Solid Fro]

Yeah, PATRIOT missiles are used in the Terminal phase of an ICBM trajectory (the oh ****, it's gonna hit us, moment). PATRIOTs were very successful in Operation Iraqi Freedom, destroying almost all Iraqi missiles that were fired, including Russian made Scuds and Chinese made Silkworms.

 

[MrktMkr1986]

Yeah, PATRIOT missiles are used in the Terminal phase of an ICBM trajectory (the oh ****, it's gonna hit us, moment). PATRIOTs were very successful in Operation Iraqi Freedom, destroying almost all Iraqi missiles that were fired, including Russian made Scuds and Chinese made Silkworms.

Patriot missiles made by who?

 

[Solid Fro]

Maybe I should buy some Raytheon stock.

 

[a6m5]

Thanks for a great link, VZ. 👍 Looks like there's still a bit of controversy surrounding the PATRIOT. That last part about how it shot down a NATO Tornado, killing the pilots were kinda scary. Hopefully, they fixed that.

Patriot missiles made by who?

God bless you, Bri!