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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#121

Post by stareatgoats »

umvi wrote: post #99
stareatgoats wrote: post #28

> This is why the U.S. chose to stay so deeply engaged in the affairs of Europe Aside from this rather endearing naivete, the gist of the article is fine: we need to fear another 'Great War'. Modern warfare grants (perceived) first-strike capability to almost any state, rendering the power of MAD and military alliances close to negligible. We live in the 21st century now, things are different than before, and highly…

> rendering the power of MAD and military alliances close to negligible Are you implying you can destroy the enemy's nuclear arsenal in your first strike? If so, you don't understand MAD. Any submarine arsenal will be nearly impossible to destroy. If you first strike North Dakota (for example) to destroy all the missile silos, subs will simply eradicate your country.

I understand MAD. But "nearly impossible" is not impossible (think not only nuclear, but the whole arsenal of modern weapons, including computerized, chemical, biological etc). The problem is not actual first-strike capability though, it is perceived such, be it one's own or the enemy's.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#122

Post by pasbesoin »

jeffdavis wrote: post #29

What's the point of war in the modern world? Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be. Specific resources mig…

It's going to be to kill people, this time around.

The winners are going to want the resources -- and maybe a select subset of the losing populations, if opportunity provides.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#123

Post by leesec »

dandare wrote: post #60

We need to take a MUCH harder stance against Russia poisoning the public discourse with conspiracy theories, fake news and alternative medicine/science/history/morality. We have to restore values and trust to the public affairs.

Yes, it is the Russian's that have made America racist.

America is just as guilty of this as anyone.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#124

Post by ufmace »

nostrademons wrote: post #106
ufmace wrote: post #90

I kind of agree, but for different reasons. Part of the reason WWI came out the way that it did is that both technology and social organization had changed so much since the last big war that nobody really knew what would happen or what to do with it all. And we find ourselves in that situation again with nuclear weapons, modern air power, drones, and cyber war. I'm thinking that nuclear weapons will continue to prec…

Nuclear weapons likely preclude large-scale direct conflict between great powers, but they raise the stakes a lot for civil wars, civil disorder, and anarchy within great powers. MAD works great up until a splinter group gains control of a launch facility and says "What, you're gonna nuke San Francisco if we nuke Beijing? Be my guest. We hate those hippie libtards anyway."

Also a point, lots of tricky possibilities in there. I do wonder what would happen if a frustrated national government of one of the great powers tried to use nuclear weapons to subdue a rebellious province. If Russia nuked Ukraine or Poland to keep them in check, would we do anything? If California or Texas was openly defying the Feds and got nuked, would Russia or China do anything?

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#125

Post by evo_9 »

jeffdavis wrote: post #29

What's the point of war in the modern world? Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be. Specific resources mig…

You should read the entire article because you are parroting the people referenced in the article that claimed another world war was impossible, right before WWI broke out.

The entire point of the article is to not ignore history.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#126

Post by geggam »

us-throw1 wrote: post #19
AcerbicZero wrote: post #6

A modern "great war" would require countries of relatively equal military industrial power, so either it would be a great war without the US involved, i.e. China/India, Russia/China (with caveats), etc. In those situations the countries may temporarily forgo the use of nuclear weapons, at least until one side is pressed beyond the point of rational response. I'd also suggest the last time countries were so dominant i…

Are you really sure that the US is undisputed in those 4 categories? A list of obvious weaknesses: * The US economy and industrial power is dependent on IT and brittle supply chains. Nobody knows how much the cyber infrastructure holding this up is already compromised. * Russian S-400s can already deny air superiority to Israeli planes, which are not far behind US planes. * How does the US have space superiority when…

As a note the #1 complaint I hear in veterans groups is the frustration of not having a clear enemy.

Turn the military loose and Afghanistan will resemble a parking lot full of very submissive people.

Soldiers in combat have tighter rules of engagement with the enemy than US Police force have to follow when interacting with citizens. Let that sink in.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#127

Post by zaru27 »

learc83 wrote: post #89
zaru27 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's going far enough. There are several hundreds variables completely separating China and the USSR and Japan from a blanket comparison. I would like to hope that they hit the breaks in the same way that Japan did, and there's certainly plenty of evidence that it's possible. However, if their model remains viable and they continue growing at the same rate, they'll certainly eclipse us in political and…

>and they continue growing at the same rate, That's what I mean by the problem with extrapolation. There is absolutely no reason to think that they will continue growing at the same rate. The likely scenario based on all the historical evidence we have is that they won't. Their GDP growth rate has been declining since 2010, there's no reason to assume that they'll be able to stop it. The most likely scenario is that…

By the same token, there's no reason to think they'll fall anywhere near or under 5% in the near future. They have 1.5 billion people with a higher average IQ than the US with a strong educational culture, increasing economic opportunity with a lot of i's to dot in various industries, their per capita is still a fraction of that of a developed company, and there are another 1000 reasons to paint a fuller picture beyond my small sampling. In contrast, for example, Japan had less than half our population, didn't manage to steal all of our trade secrets, reached a high stage of development, and really didn't have anything revolutionary to offer.

I'm aware of what you're saying about the potential issues they're facing, but we really don't know how that will play out - it strikes me as western optimism.

That is true, but China is already setting the stage to assert itself as an imperial power.

I don't mean to come across as a sinophile - I don't want a hologram of Xi Jinping standing over me in 10 years, but, there is plenty of reason to worry and to not draw conclusions on whether or not they'll pull ahead or how quickly - that remains to be seen.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#129

Post by claydavisss »

jeffdavis wrote: post #29

What's the point of war in the modern world? Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be. Specific resources mig…

Why must war be about gain? Many conflicts in the Middle East seek to reduce standards of living to feed radicalism.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#130

Post by EthanHeilman »

robbiep wrote: post #116
EthanHeilman wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? The point of war in the modern world may in fact be the denial of a thriving economy or industrial base to an adversary. For instance in a large scale nuclear war many of the plans call for the destruction of enemy nuclear weapons as to protect your own infrastructure/popula…

Ultimately the answer to the economic value of Rome destroying Carthage was that Rome became the undisputed ruler of the Med for 500 years. Up until not that much time prior to the Punic wars, it wasn't at all clear that Rome would become the power that it did. Obviously the animosity between the two played a huge part in the desire to salt the fields of Carthage, but that is almost exactly how The Entente and the Ce…

> neither of them could stomach laying down their arms, because so much blood had been spilt.

Lets hope sunk cost fallacy doesn't doom our global civilization. =/

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