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America's plan to invade Canada |
Dj Boyi
Joined: Oct 05, 2002
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From: Liberty City
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On 2006-01-14 04:36:22, JN wrote:
I think Japan can OUTBEST China too !
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Now even i know that aint true,whats Japan gona do,throw a million Ps2's at them? | |
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max_wedge
Joined: Aug 29, 2004
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From: Australia
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@scots, quote "The thing is max that China has no practical means to invade America. " Ah, I was actually agreeing with you there!! I agree they have no practical means, that was my point in mentioning that weight of numbers would not be enough. 
However I have to disagree that China would be on their own and have no adequate support in a war where they were defending themselves against the US. Even the European community would have to seriously consider whether they supported the US in an attack against China. There is already considerable economic amnosity between the US and Europe due to the US steadfast ability to promote free trade while protecting their own markets. 
The US has pushed China, Iran and Russia closer together. This is not a far fetched proposition. In the "old days" you could rely on China, and Iran being at odds, but it can be argued that this is no longer the case. This article pretty much sums up the view I've started to develop in the last couple of years of international politics:
http://www.zmag.org/content/s[....]e.cfm?SectionID=17&ItemID=8015
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max_wedge
Joined: Aug 29, 2004
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@boyi quote "Now even i know that aint true,whats Japan gona do,throw a million Ps2's at them? "
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scotsboyuk
Joined: Jun 02, 2003
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On 2006-01-14 05:19:50, max_wedge wrote:
However I have to disagree that China would be on their own and have no adequate support in a war where they were defending themselves against the US.
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Even the European community would have to seriously consider whether they supported the US in an attack against China. There is already considerable economic amnosity between the US and Europe due to the US steadfast ability to promote free trade while protecting their own markets.
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There are disputes between the EU and the US, but the two are heavily dependent upon one another economicaly. The EU may not directly contribute troops to a US war with China, but I doubt very much whether they would actively stand against America. They would know that China couldn't win, the best China could likely do would be to obtain a negotiated surrender. Where the EU may get involved is if Russia or Middle Eastern states entered such a war against the US. In Russia's case this is unlikely due to the reasons I posted earlier. In the case of the Middle East the EU's role would likely be to support Israel against an attack or to oppose Iran should it invade countries friendly to the US and the West in general.
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The US has pushed China, Iran and Russia closer together. This is not a far fetched proposition. In the "old days" you could rely on China, and Iran being at odds, but it can be argued that this is no longer the case. This article pretty much sums up the view I've started to develop in the last couple of years of international politics:
http://www.zmag.org/content/s[....]e.cfm?SectionID=17&ItemID=8015
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Only this week we have seen Russia show signs of frustration with Iran. The reason China and Russia and arguably Iran might band together on some issues is because they know that together they can more effectively oppose American influence. However, it is a big leap from that to a full blown military alliance.
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"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-09-26 06:06 ] |
*Jojo*
Joined: Oct 15, 2003
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This will be a very nice Q if ever Japan will be at war with China. Where do you think Taiwan will take side? We will have a thorough test of the saying: "Blood is thicker than water!" here . . .
This message was posted from a K700i |
max_wedge
Joined: Aug 29, 2004
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scots, good points, but I still think there is enough doubt either way.
I myself am weary about over-estimating the US ability to fight a war on many fronts. On one single front I'd almost agree that the US could "own" any country they like. However an attack against China that wasn't provoked by a nuclear strike or land invasion of the US or US allies by China, would garnish little sympathy from the EU or Russia.
An economic reason for attacking China (such as was the case in Iraq) just would not cut it with the EU or Russia. Many US allies would desert them if they attempted such a thing.
Even if China were to stand alone (extremely unlikely in my view) in an attack from the US, on their own soil, and using captured satelitte countries and their resources, they could mount a considerable defence. And while Iran is an enemy of Iraq, there is no love lost between the US and Iran, so I myself would be very surprised if Iran didn't take the side of China (in a situation where China was on the defensive). After all, after the US goes home after a negotiated surrender, Iran still has to live next door to China
Iran ranks 2nd to Israel in military power in the Middle East. They have 500 000 men in the armed forces (combat and support - in contrast Iraq had 200,000 unwilling combatants), equivelent to Israel but not as well trained. China ranks 1st in East Asia, and North Korea third. Between them they have 3.1 million men in their armed forces, with 4000 combat and support aircraft.
In contrast, the US have 1.4 million in the armed forces, and 7600 combat and ground support aircraft. Russia has 850 000 men, and 2100 aircraft.
So basically however you factor these figures, the US doesn't have an overwhelming force.
In the scenario I am suggesting - an alliance between Iran, Russia and China (only likely if china is attacked by the US, not the other way around) then you'd have a force of almost 4.5 million men and 6000 aircraft against the Us/Israel with 2 million men and 8000 aircraft. After mobilisation the situation could be very different. Both China, Russia and the US all have phenomenal ability to mobilise men and machines (and israel can call on almost it's entire population) so it's really hard to predict an outcome.
Now, what hasn't been considered here is the use of nuclear weapons. If they get involved in nuclear exchange, well it's not likely that any one will win that scenario, regardless of who the "victor" is!
source: http://www.strategypage.com/f[....]makewar/databases/armies/m.asp
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scotsboyuk
Joined: Jun 02, 2003
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On 2006-01-14 07:41:16, max_wedge wrote:
I myself am weary about over-estimating the US ability to fight a war on many fronts. On one single front I'd almost agree that the US could "own" any country they like. However an attack against China that wasn't provoked by a nuclear strike or land invasion of the US or US allies by China, would garnish little sympathy from the EU or Russia.
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The US would be unlikely to go to war with China unless there was suitable provocation i.e. Taiwan. In that case there isn't really very much the EU or Russia could do about it and I don't see either wanting to involve themselves in such a conflict.
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An economic reason for attacking China (such as was the case in Iraq) just would not cut it with the EU or Russia. Many US allies would desert them if they attempted such a thing.
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As I said above I don't think America would go to war with China without a very powerful reason for doing so.
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Even if China were to stand alone (extremely unlikely in my view) in an attack from the US, on their own soil, and using captured satelitte countries and their resources, they could mount a considerable defence. And while Iran is an enemy of Iraq, there is no love lost between the US and Iran, so I myself would be very surprised if Iran didn't take the side of China (in a situation where China was on the defensive). After all, after the US goes home after a negotiated surrender, Iran still has to live next door to China
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What you have to ask here is what sort of war would it be? Would it be a case of seeking to safeguard Taiwan or would it be a case of completely defeating China? If it were the latter then I agree that China could probably put up a decent fight, but it would be unlikely to win. They just don't have the capacity to do enough damage to the US without using nuclear weapons to do more than bog America down in a protracted war. If they did that then they would be incurring some disadvnatges themselves, not the least of which would be the inability of their economy to support such a war.
Iran doesn't have the capacity to effectively aid China directly. The best they could do is to open a front in the Middle East, but they would almost certainly be dooming themselves to defeat. They don't have the strength to fight America in a major war, their armed forces may be able to do some damage, but ultimately they wouldn't be able to defend Iran from a full scale American invasion.
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Iran ranks 2nd to Israel in military power in the Middle East. They have 500 000 men in the armed forces (combat and support - in contrast Iraq had 200,000 unwilling combatants), equivelent to Israel but not as well trained. China ranks 1st in East Asia, and North Korea third. Between them they have 3.1 million men in their armed forces, with 4000 combat and support aircraft.
In contrast, the US have 1.4 million in the armed forces, and 7600 combat and ground support aircraft. Russia has 850 000 men, and 2100 aircraft.
So basically however you factor these figures, the US doesn't have an overwhelming force.
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Those numbers don't tell the full story though. The average American soldier is better trained and better eqipped than the average soldier from those countries you mentioned. American soldiers are volunteers, they are in the armed forces because they choose to be, not because they were conscripted. A better trained, better equipped and better organised force can beat a larger force.
Similarly China may very well have a large number of aircraft, but are they all at the same standard as those the USAF uses and are China's pilots trained to the same standard? One also has to look at such things as logistics and how able China would be to replace lost aircraft. A war in China itself would mean that aircraft could be destroyed on the ground and factories bombed, whilst American planes could sit safely back at base and American factories could churn out more planes.
Quantity is not always enough to win a war by itself, quality can sometimes be the more potent force. In this case the American military is of a very high combat quality and it is relatively large. As soon as the USAF had gained air superiority China would have lost the war, a ground war would leave China at a major disadvantage as American aircraft would be able to swing the tide of battle for their ground forces.
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In the scenario I am suggesting - an alliance between Iran, Russia and China (only likely if china is attacked by the US, not the other way around) then you'd have a force of almost 4.5 million men and 6000 aircraft against the Us/Israel with 2 million men and 8000 aircraft. After mobilisation the situation could be very different. Both China, Russia and the US all have phenomenal ability to mobilise men and machines (and israel can call on almost it's entire population) so it's really hard to predict an outcome.
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There are some difficulties with your scenario although I can see where you are coming from. All those men need to actually get to the fighting, neither Russia or China, to say nothing of Iran, has the logistical capability to fight a global war far beyond its own immediate vicinity. Russia could sit with all those men amassed on its borders for an attack that may never come. It has no capability to take the fight to America and neither has China.
Both Russia and China rely on foriegn energy supplies and foriegn markets, disruption of those markets would have a serious impact on their economies, reducing their ability to maintain such large forces. America, by comparison has a bigger economy and can sustain large forces for longer.
American forces wouldn't necessarily have to engage those large forces, they could target them from a distance if they have air superiority and a naval blockade could further damage the ability to maintain and operate such large military forces.
Agreed.
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"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-09-26 06:12 ] |
absinthebri
Joined: Feb 11, 2004
Posts: 476
From: London, UK
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Well, as the US was thrashed in Vietnam and is losing in Iraq, I don't rate their chances of success anywhere else.
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scotsboyuk
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@absin
I think that's a bit of an over simplification of events there. The US lost in Vietnam due to various reasons, not the least of which was the fact that they did not fight a 'full on' war for much of the conflict. They also underestimated their opponents who were recieving aid from China and Russia. Furthermore it can be argued that significant opposition to the war at home led to the eventual withdrawal from Vietnam as much as the military situation on the ground did. One should also not overlook the fact that the US did not adopt tactics to effectively counter the jungle warfare strategies of the North Vietnamese quickly enough.
In a one to to one fight in the conventional sense the North Vietnamese had little defence. The North won because they were able to employ unorthodox tactics and prevent the Americans from using their strengths effectively coupled with the fact that America did not fight a full scale war at times and that the North was recieving aid from other communist countries, which the US did not effectively cut off.
As for Iraq the US was very succesful in the war itself. Maintaining the peace afterwards is a different matter altogether. Defeating your opponent is one thing, keeping control of captured territory and people is another.
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"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-01-14 07:49 ] |
max_wedge
Joined: Aug 29, 2004
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From: Australia
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scots, quote: "All those men need to actually get to the figting, neither Russia or China"
I'm not proposing that they would take the fight to the US, but to that the fight would be in Asia. Russia could easily mobilise troops through kazakhstan etc. If Iran, Russia North Korea and China combined their might they become almost one big geographic entity. Troops would have free and co-ordinated movement over all that land, including all those material resources to draw upon.
I don't see how the US could possibly extend their forces over such a united front and win.
Regarding the facts and figures I mentioned, I agree that the actual figures don't tell the whole story (aka my mention of the russian steamroller of ww1) however I still feel that logistically there is not such a critical divide in capacity, even if the differences may be more marked than they appear. When a country is on the defensive their ability to protact a fight is awesome. Look at the battle of britain in world war two. Or the ferocity of the Vietnamese against US forces.
To mount an attack against a well defended country requires overwhelming forces, not just superior forces.
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scotsboyuk
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On 2006-01-14 08:54:35, max_wedge wrote:
I'm not proposing that they would take the fight to the US, but to that the fight would be in Asia. Russia could easily mobilise troops through kazakhstan etc. If Iran, Russia North Korea and China combined their might they become almost one big geographic entity. Troops would have free and co-ordinated movement over all that land, including all those material resources to draw upon.
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But where would they go though? Until there is an actual invasion they have no one to fight. The US's first priority would probably be to gain air superiority, which it would no doubt use to severely disrupt communications and transport links. Moving mechanised forces over such large distances on poor roads an without proper rail services would be difficult.
China's biggest cities are along the eastern coasts, the US would not have to open up a large front to be able to stage an invasion of China, rather it could selectively target key cities. If several front were to be opened then the problems of moving troops would be further compunded.
Of course even if the troops were able to eventually get to the fighting there would still be the question of supply. Those huge distances, with damaged transport links, would not make it easy for those vast quantities of troops to be supplied with weapons, food, etc.
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I don't see how the US could possibly extend their forces over such a united front and win.
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They wouldn't have to. China and Rusia may be huge countries, but there populations and industrial hearts are concentrated in certain areas. It would be those areas hich would targeted, not the vast swathes of desert or tundra.
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Regarding the facts and figures I mentioned, I agree that the actual figures don't tell the whole story (aka my mention of the russian steamroller of ww1) however I still feel that logistically there is not such a critical divide in capacity, even if the differences may be more marked than they appear. When a country is on the defensive their ability to protact a fight is awesome. Look at the battle of britain in world war two. Or the ferocity of the Vietnamese against US forces.
To mount an attack against a well defended country requires overwhelming forces, not just superior forces.
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You are making a generalisation which is not necessarily founded in fact. The examples you give are very different and it is worth noting that the Battle of Britain was arguably the only successful defensive air war in history and for certain reasons.
As I said before one has to define what the objective of such a war would be. If the US sought to completely defeat China then it wouldn't necessarily be the case that they would invade right away, they would likely seek to destroy China's capacity to wage war first. If the Chinese economy and industrial base was damaged enough then by the time invasion did come China might be incapable of fielding a modern army capable of fighting the invading forces for very long.
The US has overwhelming forces, it does not need the largest forces for that. The US is capable of deploying very poerful military forces at all levels, Russia and China may be able to match it in some respects in certain areas, but not all. For instance neither Russia or China posesses a navy as powerful as that of the US. This gives the US an important edge in blocking trade with those countries as well as deploying and supporting troops and aircraft.
Russia and China may be able to defend themselves for a time, but, in their current state, they simply don't have the capacity to fight and win a major conflict with the US. I think what we would likely see in such a conflict would be the US accepting an early surrender that led to a negotiated peace rather than the US fighting a long war and forcing an unconditional surrender.
If you are interested in military history or strategy then you may be interested in taking a look at Project Evil. We include discussion of such topics there.
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"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-01-14 08:27 ] |
max_wedge
Joined: Aug 29, 2004
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actually my understanding is that there have been very few successful air campaigns where attack by air alone was responsible for winning a war or battle unless there is a much larger difference in power between combatants (for example Nato on belgrade) than there is between US and China/Russia. Air attack is to soften the target in prelude to a ground attack, sometimes the softening is successful, sometimes not.
In World War 2, Germany sustained perpetual 24 hour bombing for three years or more before ground troops forced them to capitulate unconditionally. The factories that made german war machines continued production 24 hours a day, underground, and were very well protected against the allied air assault. At the closing stages of the war, when both the US and Britain where hitting Germany with everything they had, the Germans still produced thousands of aircraft a month. (Adolf Garland, Leader of the Luftwaffe, wrote a book which is an excellent account of what the Luftwaffe, and German production ability, achieved in this desperate struggle - he wasn't a Nazi, just a soldier fighting a battle. Very interesting story) All Germany's supply routes had been completely severed.
Even today I would expect the Russians and Chinese could show a tremendous degree of ingenuity in maintaining supply lines and production even under constant bombardment.
The air forces the US mobilised against Baghdad is only a fraction of what they'd need to subdue China/Russia.
quote: "Russia and China may be able to defend themselves for a time, but, in their current state, they simply don't have the capacity to fight and win a major conflict with the US. I think what we would likely see in such a conflict would be the US accepting an early surrender that led to a negotiated peace rather than the US fighting a long war and forcing an unconditional surrender".
I don't think it will necessary be a surrender but a withdrawal of US forces unable to completely break the enemy. In other words I believe China and Russia could sustain their soverenty against a sustained attack by the US, and a mutual truce would be called.
But of course as you say, what would be the point of such a war? We are really only discussing hypothetical situations unlikely to occur in the current economic climate.
I do agree with one thing you say, China could certainly never mount an attack against the US. The don't have the Naval power, it's something that they simply could not do.
Thanks for the Project Evil link, sounds very interesting, I'll check it out
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Davo_169
Joined: Sep 06, 2004
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From: perth/thredbo
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your all forgetting the extreme military power of australias 3 men and two sheep
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absinthebri
Joined: Feb 11, 2004
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From: London, UK
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On 2006-01-14 08:47:09, scotsboyuk wrote:
@absin
I think that's a bit of an over simplification of events there. The US lost ...
[snip]
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Yes. As I said, they lost. Period.
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*Jojo*
Joined: Oct 15, 2003
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USA - bring OUT those NUKES please . . . . !
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Posted: 2006-01-14 05:09
