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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#11

Post by zaru27 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

How is it possible to write this article without mentioning MAD? The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations.

I don't really see MAD as being a given, especially depending on if China or the US develops rapid technological advancements over the next few decades. I think it's a really unlikely idea to assume the nuke will be the great deterrent or equalizer for the rest of this century. China could easily conquer the planet if they pull sufficiently ahead in China, which is a fair possibility, looking at the current state of the US and Europe

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#12

Post by dang »

VikingCoder wrote: post #9
aqme28 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if cybersecurity could be counted as a 5th area, and if so, how far behind the US is.

No, is not for you the worrying. US is best in all the cybers. Da, is good, comrade, is good.

Please don't do this here.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#13

Post by sehugg »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

How is it possible to write this article without mentioning MAD? The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations.

The U.S. and Russia have been signaling to each other recently that they would be willing to deploy low-yield nukes in a limited regional engagement.

Anyway, MAD has very nearly failed on several occasions -- Cuban Missile Crisis, false alarms, etc.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#14

Post by learc83 »

smacktoward wrote: post #4
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

How is it possible to write this article without mentioning MAD? The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations.

MAD is not necessarily a silver bullet preventative here. If two nuclear-armed states are fighting, for either of them to bring out the nukes would be a huge, difficult decision. It's entirely possible to imagine them settling into an unspoken "gentleman's agreement" to stick to conventional weapons only, as long as the conflict stays within certain parameters (i.e. the war doesn't pose an existential threat to eithe…

The article is specifically talking about another "Great War", not limited conventional conflicts. All out, generation crippling war is a far cry from anything we've seen large industrialized countries engage in since World War II. I can't see how anything like another "Great War" could be possible without going nuclear.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#16

Post by sevensor »

49531 wrote: post #7

Without the US's involvement in global trade Europe & Asia will likely erupt in war again. The US would be immune to most of the violence though.

What is it about trade that you suppose would protect us, this time around? In the run-up to the Great War all of the European powers, as well as the U.S., were engaged in vigorous trade with each other. That did nothing to prevent the onset of war.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#17

Post by everdev »

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…

A counterpoint would be examining each country's idea of "acceptable losses". If losing 1 major city to nuclear weapons is considered unacceptable, then the major nuclear power are essentially on equal footing. Nuclear deterrence seems to be so effective because no nation to date has seemed to be willing to trade 1 of their cities for 2+ of their enemies.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#18

Post by Symmetry »

smacktoward wrote: post #4
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

How is it possible to write this article without mentioning MAD? The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations.

MAD is not necessarily a silver bullet preventative here. If two nuclear-armed states are fighting, for either of them to bring out the nukes would be a huge, difficult decision. It's entirely possible to imagine them settling into an unspoken "gentleman's agreement" to stick to conventional weapons only, as long as the conflict stays within certain parameters (i.e. the war doesn't pose an existential threat to eithe…

Thankfully that stayed a limited war with combat in one region and relatively modest forces and casualties on both sides. It's when a country feels that its existence is threatened, as in WWI, that the use of nuclear weapons becomes very likely.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#19

Post by us-throw1 »

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 there is no ASAT defense besides MAD?

* The US has not been able to suppress a rebellion in Afghanistan with trillions of dollars and 17 years. Maybe in an actual war their hands would be untied, so this isn't the best point.

* The US Navy loses war-games to swarm attacks and is just now a decade later deploying solutions to this. When was the last time US ships actually had to fight? Vietnam?

* The US has increasing ethnic and social conflicts, not to mention the potential fifth column of residents with ties to enemy powers.

* Barely half of US fighter planes are combat ready at any given moment. The trillion dollar F-35 had to be flown with VFR the first time it crossed the IDL. Who knows what else is lurking in that software?

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#20

Post by noir_lord »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #5
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

How is it possible to write this article without mentioning MAD? The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations.

Given how many close calls we had when their were only 2 relatively well-balanced superpowers and how the nuclear balance of power is becoming more unstable these days, I think the chance of nuclear war is a lot higher than most people think it is. IMO, the chance of a nuclear war in any given year is about 1-2%. That's not very much for any particular year, but over a few decades...

Yes but while horrible India and Pakistan lobbing nukes at each other would be on a different order of magnitude to the US and Russia launching a global thermonuclear war.

The graph of warheads per country is basically the US, Russia and everyone else combined is a distant third.

The UK had ~200 warheads about a quarter of which are deployed at anyone time, two US ballistic missile subs fields more than that (they have 18) and then the missile silos, the cruise missiles, the gravity bombs and on and on it goes...

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