What do you think about the possibility of another real war between two evenly matched nations? We've not seen anything like that since World War II. As world war two closed every major power realized that nukes or no, a serious war would be completely devastating. I would think that the huge increase in comfort of living worldwide would cause people to think twice about starting something big again, because if they do, life as we know it will almost certainly end for a very long time. Still, humans seem to be petty cantankerous fools, and after they've forgotten what exactly war is like they go and fight wars over stupid things. Do you think it'll happen in our lifetime or will laziness and complacency save our lousy skins?

[war]
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
[/war]

I'm at the point where I think annexation by an extraterrestrial empire is more likely than a real war.

For the Greater Good!

If there is a war, I hope it is atleast something I can moraly and physically support.

It's hard to imagine another war anything like ww2. So many people would die, and everyones standard of living would drop dramatically. No one wants that, except maybe the people that already live with a very low standard of living...

Oh, but crazy people somehow manage to get into positions where they can make war, so who knows.

ever heard of a place called africa before?

Yeah. Their small, constantly warring armies are comprised of crap that was obsolete in the seventies. They are not major players.

Usually people are more likely to fight when they are poor because they have little to loose and much to gain. Richer, more powerful countries are less likely to get up from their TVs to go get killed, unless they have a really, really good reason. Still, WW1 happened. I think the more times people forget how bad war is, the worse the reminder gets. I think we've already had our last chance.

The only way I could imagine evenly-matched war is if the United States has another civil war.

I agree with Freelancer.

Mostly because another American civil war should lead into Deus Ex happening in real life.

So what are you people waiting for?

I think the next big war should be fought in space... that way we don't have to eff with atom bombs and ruining everyones lives. It's retarded because normal people just want to live their lives and be happy, but the governments like to bicker.

So I have to ask, in a war between America and China, who would you guys expect to win? Would America overpower China, or the other way around?

I think Finland and The Netherlands should go to war. Then, when the war is over, the two nations will merge into The Netherfinns.

Well, probably neither. On the one hand, you can't invade China. You just can't. On the other hand, China can't really invade anyone because they just don't have the ability to move a lot of soldiers over long distances.

If it's a nuclear war, it ends with catastrophic destruction in the United States and total destruction in China.

you're a fool.

we're talking about people at war here, its not some ****ing video game.

Somewhere was written that a (real) democracy has never attacked another democracy. That makes a world war a bit unlikely in the current situation. Before WWII, the world had more totalitarian states (or very crippled former democracies) than real democracies, which was a good setting for major wars.

Right now we only have China as a lone powerful non-democracy, and China has been very uninterested in sending conquering armies right and left. Taiwan might be the only place they are interested in, and I doubt we will have a world war over one little island.

However, when the oil wells really start to run dry and cars and petrochemical industries halt, then we might have to review things, and might even see the laid-back populations of democracies get ready for desperate measures.

All I'll say is "keep your eyes on Kashmir, kids!"

Most countries wouldn't be stupid enough to get involved in a war over Kashmir.

You mean aside from Pakistan and India, who are to this day a hair-trigger away from war? China could easily use Kashmir as a staging point for a smoke screen in order to make a power play for resources. Especially when their top generals are claiming they don't have enough fossil fuels to last a decade. But ok, yeah, no one is that dumb...

We have had this kind of debate in #massassi. Basically, no matter who you pit against them, be it the rest of the world or some intergalactic space overlords, America always wins.

Duh.

The Nation of Burgerboys will always prevail.

the thighs?

So you don't feel that the conflict in Vietnam was a real war, despite the fact that it raged for years and presented America with a situation that they could not win?

Sure, the North Vietnamese army didn't have all the technology that the Americans did, but it would be foolish to say that they weren't a force to reckon with.

i still keep my guns pointed north....

canada will invade, nobody will see it coming.... they will make it this far before i send them back to their igloos

Do you think I'm retarded? Obviously I mean nations other than Pakistan and India. But they both have nuclear weapons aimed at each other, which is exactly why they haven't already fought it out over Kashmir.

Kashmir is extremely mountainous which would make troop movements into the middle east basically impossible. Even the US and Canada had trouble with the mountainous terrain in Afghanistan; we have lots and lots of planes, they don't, and Kashmir is even worse. In addition to that, Pakistan and India both have ridiculously large populations (and nuclear weapons). China would not invade through Kashmir.

If China were to enter the Middle East without first invading Mongolia or Russia, they'd have to slowly (and I mean SLOWLY) move troops into Pakistan down their magnificent two-lane highway. The thing is, though: China and Pakistan are allies. Pakistan is a Muslim country, so pissing them off probably isn't going to help their bottlenecked invasion of the Middle East. Not to mention the fact that India has a total population of 1.1 billion (China has 1.3 billion) which would make ground warfare between the two countries just so very fun.

History shows that I'm not the first person to recognize the logistical problem of troop movements through the Himalayas. The People's Army stopped at the Tibetan Plateau. The Great Wall of China stops at the Gobi Desert. They'd be looking at sending their 3 million soldiers on a 2400 km trip across the worst terrain on the entire planet - impassable mountains, glaciers, deserts - and I'm pretty sure they don't have enough planes for that.

It's way more likely that China would forego the land invasion and just break out some nukes. But that's not very likely either, because a MAD situation is still a very strong reality. In fact, MAD is the very reason an invasion of any nuclear-armed country basically isn't going to happen, because the very second the situation becomes unwinnable that country will hit the big red button. WW3 isn't coming any time soon.

I love how this thread shows how egocentric Americans are. There was no mention of an "American real war" in the original post, and in fact seems to use more worldly terms, but most still automatically assume we must be talking about America.

Just making an interesting observation.

Well duh, whenever someone starts a world war we're the ones who gotta finish it!

[QUOTE=Mr. Stafford]you're a fool.

we're talking about people at war here, its not some ****ing video game.[/QUOTE]

Duh... Way to make logical leaps there bonehead.





We didn't throw everything we had into it. We held back a lot because we didn't want war with the USSR. We were trying to mess with an area with didn't have any business in, and refused to actually fight the war once we got involved. Like I say, I'm talking about all out wars between major powers.

To have a real modern World War it would have to involve the United States. To have equal forces on both sides it would have to be the entire planet against the United States, and that would be a war of attrition.

Even WW2 doesn't meet your qualifications. WW2 would have been a turkey shoot if Japan hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor. (Ignoring the fact that the US might not have gotten involved otherwise).

Not really. If things at Midway had gone any differently (as they very well might have) we could have lost the war in the Pacific. All the battleships in the world would have been useless against five fleet carriers, if we had none. Pearl was considered a major disappointment by Japaneses commander because they didn't get any carriers.

It's like a reverse Ender's Game! War Stays on Earth and the IF stays uninvolved*!

*koinda.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

-Albert Einstein

But not words!

I never said anything about China entering the Middle East. I said they'd stir **** up in Kashmir to focus global attention away from their power play.

After reading my original post, perhaps the use of "staging point" might have made you think that's what I was going for, I meant "staging point" as in the region to create the smoke screen.

It was, but even best case, Admiral Yamamoto thought that the Japanese Navy could hold out against the US for 6 months once the Nvay got back on its feet. The other thing was that the US recovered from Pearl Harbor a whole lot faster than the Japanese expected. Even if the US had lost at Midway, the shipyards were pumping out ships at an alarming rate. It really only would have delayed Japan losing in the Pacific.

There's no way we could've lost in the Pacific. Maybe drawn out the war there a bit longer, given the Axis time to find the secret to the nuke, MAYBE, but very doubtful. At least, iirc, the Axis were only a few months away from the secret.

Ok, so, the US isn't going to win in Iraq because they're not going all out. Right?

Oh wait, Iraq isn't considered a 'major power'.

Vietnam was a conventional war with fronts. You can't compare that to an occupational war against an idea.




True, but it would have been extremely difficult to recapture Hawaii if it fell in 1943, because it's the closest island to the US and already very far away.

Ok, so you're saying it's a war that can't be won? (Iraq)

I'm sorry, but you think that the Vietnam war was a conventional war? Go read a history book. Seriously. Do you know who the Viet Cong were, how they worked and where they operated?

Lordy another flamewar.

Canada will conquer the world because, as mentioned before, we can
STOP TIME!