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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#371

Post by abandonliberty »

geggam wrote: post #126
us-throw1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is more of a problem with US Police

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#372

Post by candiodari »

teeray wrote: post #113
everdev wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The trouble is that opponents can mount a response while the attack is in progress. Information asymmetries would force a defender to assume the worst once they see the first missile in the air and launch their entire arsenal before their counter-attack capability was destroyed. It becomes a feedback loop when the aggressor is forced to assume they'll be met with the defender's entire arsenal.

Fortunately this is not true. Actually destroying retaliatory capability requires a sustained barrage of hundreds of nuclear weapons, the first rocket will definitely not do it. And while a single rocket will trigger a return strike with a nuclear weapon it will not trigger an all-out response.

If you ever get the chance to read old declassified nuclear attack plans against a city, you will see the same. A single nuclear weapon ... just doesn't do it. Those plans involve starting out with something like 10 nuclear explosions (not even directly against the city itself, rather on supporting infrastructure), and then one more every hour or so for 48 hours or even weeks (these plans are/were made for most large cities, and even for US cities where the likely plans for Russian nuclear attacks are created by US to allow for better preparations).

In some ways what you see in the first episode of Battlestar Galactica is somewhat accurate. First, dozens of nuclear explosions make an effective response impossible (e.g. military installations, runways, important bridges, train lines, communication, ...), then a methodical "sweep" with nuclear explosions of the entire city. This cannot be done with one, or even 10, nuclear bombs.

And even pretty bad radar systems can tell the difference between one and tens/hundreds of rockets.

So whilst this is a concern, it can and is eliminated with proper infrastructure and planning.

There will not be information asymmetry once a nuclear attack actually starts happening.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#373

Post by baybal2 »

mikeash wrote: post #370
baybal2 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the very point — while US were to be wasting megatons on Soviet cities without a plan B, Soviet paratroopers would be already landing on their lawn, and their main force moving down whatever left of enemy land force with a rain of short range tactical nukes.

The Soviets had no ability to land any significant force in the US. They would have poured forces into Western Europe, but both sides had so many tactical nukes there that the whole place would have ended up flattened.

Yes, I meant that they would've rolled over the Europe while US were trying to shoot them from another side of the globe.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#374

Post by mschuster91 »

jcranmer wrote: post #31
mschuster91 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations. The US and Russia are already in the midst of several proxy wars: Ukraine, Syria and Libya. In addition, Russia is directly destabilizing Europe by funding alt-right parties financially (AfD/DE, FrontNational/FR, FPÖ/Austria, Jobbik/HU, Lega Nord/IT) and by promoting their crap o…

> The Chinese seem to be playing the long game by strategically investing in infrastructure like roads and rail across Africa, probably both for strategic advantages (given Africa's large reserves of anything from rhino horns over diamonds and uranium to rare-earth metals) and economic advantages (the US and EU markets are saturated, South America is going down rapidly, but Africa can only grow and buy Chinese produc…

> and unlike the Marshall Plan, it isn't helping move these countries into China's camp in a putative global war.

China doesn't need African foot soldiers to burn away in the trenches, there are enough Chinese people to serve as cannon fodder. Sounds harsh but that's the ultimate advantage of China compared to any other military except maybe India's.

What the Chinese are doing actually is to ensure they control the world's reserves of uranium and rare-earth metals. Or, if they don't control it or the governments by puppet/bought governments directly, then by extortion a la "you give the West their uranium, we grind your economy to a halt". Or, by controlling the shipping ports in the sea countries of Africa so that resources from the landlocked countries cannot be exported, or at least the transport cost rises.

The latter strategy they are also pursuing in central Europe - they bought, for example, the port of Piraeus via Cosco.

Whoever crosses their path can be ground to pieces if the Chinese wish so. The West is too f...ing dependent on China and that's gonna bite us in our behinds.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#375

Post by abandonliberty »

Yetanfou wrote: post #336
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…

The US carrier force could be blown out of the water by modern electric submarines [1]. The chance of Sweden starting a war against the US is not all that great - this mouse does not roar - but the same or similar technology (Stirling engines, fuel cells, a boatload of 18650 cells running a sub, etc) are available to parties which might stand to gain more from such a conflict. Replacing a carrier takes years, blowing…

Modern torpedoes are quite impressive, do damage via cavitation. Not sure how detectable they are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_48_torpedo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV8MF-440xg

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#376

Post by jcranmer »

mschuster91 wrote: post #374
jcranmer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Chinese seem to be playing the long game by strategically investing in infrastructure like roads and rail across Africa, probably both for strategic advantages (given Africa's large reserves of anything from rhino horns over diamonds and uranium to rare-earth metals) and economic advantages (the US and EU markets are saturated, South America is going down rapidly, but Africa can only grow and buy Chinese produc…

> and unlike the Marshall Plan, it isn't helping move these countries into China's camp in a putative global war. China doesn't need African foot soldiers to burn away in the trenches, there are enough Chinese people to serve as cannon fodder. Sounds harsh but that's the ultimate advantage of China compared to any other military except maybe India's. What the Chinese are doing actually is to ensure they control the w…

American corporate control of Cuba sure did it well during the Cold War. Oh wait, the Cuban government nationalized everything the Americans owned.

Focusing on the levers of control given by corporate control of strategic foreign sectors ignores the ability of host countries to unilaterally seize control of those assets at their own whim. China's hold over Africa is a very tenuous grasp at best.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#377

Post by pteredactyl »

Koshkin wrote: post #80
pteredactyl wrote: post #27

The media would love another war. They'd make so much money. They've already made so much from Trump.

It's not the media who makes money off wars, it's the arms industry.

Of course they would. They profit off conflict. In their current iteration, at least.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#379

Post by tynpeddler »

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…

>* Russian S-400s can already deny air superiority to Israeli planes, which are not far behind US planes.

The S-400 is, like all major Russian weapon systems, an enigma. In the past, the Russian were capable of producing some excellent weapon systems, but they've also been very capable of inflating the capabilities of some real stinkers. The Mig 25 Foxbat comes to mind for example. All of my attempts to find real, verified information on S-400 capabilities have only turned up marketing material and articles quoting the marketing material. There have been no usages of the S-400 system in combat conditions that I am aware of.

It seems the S-400 should be taken seriously, but overestimation can be as dangerous as underestimation. It is possible that the S-400 is simply a rehash of the S-300 system with some of the interceptors having larger motors with longer range. This would still make it a potent system but one with known counters.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#380

Post by mikeash »

baybal2 wrote: post #373
mikeash wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Soviets had no ability to land any significant force in the US. They would have poured forces into Western Europe, but both sides had so many tactical nukes there that the whole place would have ended up flattened.

Yes, I meant that they would've rolled over the Europe while US were trying to shoot them from another side of the globe.

Right, so the outcome would have been: USSR wrecked by US strategic forces, Europe wrecked by medium-range forces on both sides, US hurt by Soviet strategic forces but largely intact. I didn’t mention Europe but that’s otherwise what I said.
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