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| IL-2 Sturmovik The famous combat flight simulator. |
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#1
10-23-2010, 12:22 AM
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#2
10-23-2010, 05:02 PM
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Russia is the only other nation, currently, who could pose a legitimate "end of the country" nuclear threat. Strategic nukes are a different animal so let's take that off the table for discussion. A strategic nuclear exchange could not be won because of massive retaliation. The two largest militaries in the world, other than the US, are China and North Korea (to the best of my knowledge). If either, or somehow both, decided to test the US militarily they would lose because wherever they massed their troops, those troops would die en-mass. Stealth weapons (planes) and cruise missiles would take out command and control. Those and the bombers would take out transportation bottlenecks trapping the armor. Then the "dumb" weapons would do the butchery. Nah, what the US has trouble with is smaller, insurgent type adversaries. We have to "go get" those forces which takes boots on the ground where fighting gets bloody for the attacker. The opposing forces also tend to mingle with the civilian population which further ties the hands of the attacker (the US DOES seek to avoid civilian casualties no matter what silly prejudices are present in the world). These opponents hide among civilians and then pop out to attack US forces...that's a hard nut to crack because superior weaponry is a much smaller factor in victory. Military attacks on US soil are just impossible at the moment and for any foreseeable future. I know it's the dream of some for the US to get its' "come upin's", but no combined military alliance in the world could take and hold any US territory. First, the military, including the National Guard would fight desperately. Maybe more importantly, our civilians are armed to a great extent with around 40% of households having firearms. Civilians rarely pose a direct threat to military forces, but present a huge thorn in the side of occupying military forces (see the Liberator pistols dropped into France in WWII). Theoretically, we could arm every adult civilian with privately owned firearms. A rifle behind every blade of grass. We are safe from occupation  .Interestingly, Britain found itself with a disarmed population as WWII broke out and sought to quickly remedy the situation (Lend Lease and private firearms from the US). Speaking pragmatically, you don't take on a force like the US military directly. You chip away at its' foundation which is the American populace's whimsical opinion. With the right nudge here and there, we do a great job of tearing ourselves apart all by ourselves . Parade any civilian deaths before American cameras, make us feel guilty. Claim we targeted schools and hospitals. Put your forces among the population, use them as shields. Wait us out. Our public has a short attention span. We don't like the thought of your civilians dying. Many of us feel guilty about having the power to defeat any other nation. Our left will join you in your criticisms in short order. We will start fighting your battle in our media. Ask Minh. One thing that should never be done by an opponent is to commit and act that unites the population. In the short term, that's when we become dangerous to an opponent. But again, just wait. Splitter
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#3
10-21-2010, 03:14 AM
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#4
10-21-2010, 04:07 AM
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Morally, the US won. (lol) Reminds me of the Ariane space program. If the mission is a success; it's a French rocket. If they have to blow it up, its European. Quote:
Can't be me. See any Vietcong? What about the Ho Chi Minh trail? Was on the sout side too, no? Anyway, I agree with you on almost all the points you mentioned. Last edited by swiss; 10-21-2010 at 04:19 AM.
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#5
10-21-2010, 04:30 AM
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. OK, "pragmatic" is a better word (best president in my life time). BTW, I think we actually supported Iraq if I recall correctly. Saddam to be specific. We were still rather miffed with Iran for holding our people hostage for 444 days (umm, by the way, Iran released our hostages on the day Reagan took office for some strange reason....maybe promised annihilation? lol). Reagan knew that as long as they were fighting each other they would not be fighting the west. I know, it sounds Machiavellian but it certainly worked for a decade or so. They were bound to fight anyway and neither side could be allowed to win, especially the fanatical regime in Iran led by the Ayatollah. This policy was criticized later because Saddam became so powerful but....let's face it, his armed forces were really a paper tiger even in '91. The Iran-Iraq war had drained his military and he had not fully recovered. Understand also that Iran had nuclear dreams even before the war with Iraq just as they do now. Israel took care of it the first time around. Reagan understood that Iran could not be permitted a victory against Iraq. You simply have to love a leader whom the bad guys perceive to be just crazy enough to "do it". That was Reagan. He bluffed his way into winning the cold war (SDI my fat....). He bluffed the Iranians into turning loose the hostages (though he would probably have crushed them if they had held onto the hostages). He kept two dangerous enemies fighting each other rather than turning loose on the rest of the world. He backed up his threats, called saber rattling then, just enough (Libya) to give enemies pause. The man was a simple genius who understood people. Splitter
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#6
10-21-2010, 04:36 AM
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 But the Shah was in power that time.
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#7
10-21-2010, 04:54 AM
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Not "you", Swiss. "You" meaning anyone who rattles the big dog's cage
. I was using the "royal you" just as I use the "royal we"...after all, I do not speak for all Americans (insert a "thank goodness" here lol).The Ho Chi Minh Trail was a major supply artery, no doubt. The thing is, the supplies had to GET to the trail before they could be delivered on the backs of civilians, water buffalo, bicycles, and trucks. The air interdictions into the North hit railways, roads, and bridges and prevented about half the supplies from ever reaching the North Vietnamese army in the south. Make no mistake, the problem for the North was getting supplies to their forces in the South. Civilian casualties to them were just unfortunate byproducts of war. Sometimes, civilian casualties were a boon to their cause due to the "bad publicity" it caused in the US. I am not sure people outside the US understand just how divided the US was at the time (I can only imagine because I was an infant myself lol). The hippy, free love, peace movement was in full swing. The war had been going on for many years and people were weary of it. Families divided over opinions on the war. The North played on this division in the US. They fed the American left the anti-war meat it craved. Protests were rampant and people were frothing at the mouth. This was Johnson's problem. He was a leftist and was handed a little war which he did not want to fight. However, he could not get out of it either. So he chose the middle ground, neither fighting to win nor willing to pull out. He had great dreams (in his mind) for his presidency but the war always got in the way. Nixon came in with the plan and will to win but he found himself handcuffed by the left as to what he could do to win. He was a politician above all and never took his eye off of re-election. It ended up that he didn't have the stomach to win either as a result. Then the country got distracted with a bungled burglary job committed by Nixon's people and they just wanted to GTFO of Vietnam. Very sad. 50K Americans died over there and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. All because we didn't have the stomach to do what was needed to win. As a nation, we never fully committed which is usually a recipe for disaster. Splitter
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#8
10-21-2010, 06:23 AM
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Despite a massive kill ratio in their favor all the US could achieve is a stalemate where the North finally agreed to "peace talks" allowing the US save face and abandon South Vietnam without being totally embarrassed. It was well understood at that the time that after an appropriate period of a year or two the North would occupy the South. hence the panic to get US associates, employees and collaborators out of the country at the time. As far as the 60's protesters go their main point seem to be that encouraging people on the other side of the planet to embrace "freedom democracy and western values" by bombing hell out of them didn't seem to be particularly working that well.
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#9
10-21-2010, 08:06 AM
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#10
10-21-2010, 08:19 AM
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This whole middle east story, is about more than the drugs and oil, as the west (USA, UK, etc.) have supported both sides at one time or another.
The side they supported was the 'puppet in their interest', but as shown many times in the past that if you cannot win the minds and souls, you cannot win The souls are not winnable, as the opposing groups are fundentally different in religion and culture. The trick is to just leave the cultures alone and let them destroy (or develop) themselves. Even when they're divided don't think that it's a good time to attack as this idea has backfired in a big way, many times throughout history.
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