posted
Suppose you were a terrorist. In fact, suppose you were a terrorist with access to the resources of some large, powerful state; not piddling little half-starved lapdogs like North Korea, but a mean bulldog like France or Russia.
Being a terrorist, naturally you hate America with a passion. So much, in fact, that you don't want merely to sting it with a few thousand deaths like that amateur OBL; no, you'd like to cripple the Great Satan once and for all.
So the question is, just how many nuclear bombs would you actually need to smuggle over, let's say, the porous Mexican border? The effective destruction of a single city has not crippled America; but then, New Orlean was hardly a center of industry. Would a bomb in Washington do it? How about Washington, Chicago the rail hub, and LA the economic powerhouse?
Could it be, perhaps, that you don't need to destroy factories and people so much as confidence in the dollar - abroad, if not in the US itself? In principle, the belief of the American people in their country is probably your best target; but I think it is a rather tough one. It is probably easier to create so much disruption and devastation that the country fragments into isolated middle powers whether it likes it or not, each region thrown back on its own resources. But how much devastation is that? How many road hubs do you need to hit before Kansas can no longer send emergency food rations to the Californian refugees?
Obviously, the USSR could easily have done this back in the bad old days, and the Russian Federation, for all its 'collapse', still has a bunch of nuclear warheads and rockets. But I'm interested in the minimum force that would destroy the US (or any other modern state; the US is interesting mainly because it is so large and powerful). Just how interdependent is a modern economy?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I don't think terrorists could pull off a permanent or even long lasting crippling of America like that. They'd have to smuggle a couple dozen nuclear weapons, all of the five megatons or more, city-busters to take out most large cities. And they would have to all be in the country before any were set off, or else the border would be sealed afterwards.
After that, I'd set off two of them in Anchorage and Juneau Alaska, it more or less eliminates the population of an entire state. Washington would be clamped down on as far as security goes, as would New York, but that's fine, those are not the keys to crippling America. After Alaska I'd hit Seattle, and San Francisco, which would cripple half the US economy, as those are two of the busiest ports in the world, let alone the nation. After that, you don't really need nukes.
But nukes really aren't the best way to cripple America. The best way is for two or three hundred terrorists on the loose in the nation with sniper rifles easily causing mass chaos with one single mission: Every day it is their duty to kill one medical worker, law enforcement official, or politician. It's relatively easy, pick off a doctor as he leaves the hospital, or a cop on his way home from work, or a politician as he leaves his office. After two weeks, doctors and nurses won't report to work, law and order will break down from a lack of enforcement, and people will be too afraid to run for office. With that plan, you don't even really need the nukes.
Nukes will unite the nation in anger. The random killing plan will cause mass chaos, confusion, and a break down in civil order, all while keeping cities intact, and killing a great many less people. Plus, there is no way to tie it to a larger nation like you could with nukes. Nukes are traceable. We'd find out who did it by testing the fallout.
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quote:Nukes will unite the nation in anger. The random killing plan will cause mass chaos, confusion, and a break down in civil order, all while keeping cities intact, and killing a great many less people.
^ | | Agreed. See "DC sniper shootings" vs. "September 11th." The former didn't cause mass chaos, but unlike 9/11 it caused more fear than anger.
quote:just how many nuclear bombs would you actually need to smuggle over, let's say, the porous Mexican border?
If you had the resources of France or Russia you you probably wouldn't need to smuggle weapons across the Mexican border. Having ICBMs would be enough.
Posts: 164 | Registered: Aug 2005
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ICBMs are kind of traceable, though. I'm assuming you would hope to decapitate the US government and command and control systems, so that the infrastructure for tracing the nukes and ordering effective retaliation would no longer exist.
The sniper idea is an interesting one. Still, your snipers would get caught eventually, and there are after all a lot of doctors in America; when the chaos is over, you haven't destroyed any of the actual resources or infrastructure that the now mightily pissed-off US will need to catch up with you and extract revenge.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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The problem with ICBMs is that it would be relatively easy to trace the source of the weapon using satelites and radar tracking. If the USA(or other target nation) can identify the aggressor, the concept of Mutualy assured Destruction applies. I don't think many nations would be willing to risk facing the overwhelming nuclear enslaught that the US could bring to bear. If a nuclear power made it's number one priority, even above self deffence, destroying the USA, then ICBMs would be an effective method, but doing so would be suicide for the aggressor nation. It would be very difficult completely destroy the US's retaliatory capabilities, considering the widespread nature of our nuclear arsenal (We have nuclear warheads scatered across the globe on aircraft carier and submarines, in misile silos, and many airforce bases). I doubt that the USA, knowing who had attacked, and possesing the capability to retaliate, would refrain from launching whatever nuclear and conventional weapons it could against the aggressor nation.
The advantage of a "suitcase bomb", or a nuclear bomb inside of an automobile, is that the agressor isn't imidiately apparent. Even after the lab results tracing the nuclear material used are confirmed, there would still be some ambiguity as to who ordered/instigated the attack. If the nation could aquire enriched uranium through illegitamit and untraceble chanels (steal bombs or fisile material from a former soviet nation for example), it might be posible for the aggressor nation to very effectivly hide its involvement
Without a target to retaliate against, the people of the USA would feel helpless and vulnerable, and the ensuing chaos and disruption of the economy would greatly damage the United States, while the aggressor nation/terrorist organization would remain unharmed. I think this senario would be much more apealing to a terrorist organization and its sponsor nation.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote: The sniper idea is an interesting one. Still, your snipers would get caught eventually, and there are after all a lot of doctors in America; when the chaos is over, you haven't destroyed any of the actual resources or infrastructure that the now mightily pissed-off US will need to catch up with you and extract revenge.
There's so much more to it than that though. The snipers all act independently, like cells would in an organized rebellion. They can't lead investigators to other terrorists. Also, the snipers are picking off FBI agents too, which will limit the US government's ability to investigate the crimes. The US will never know if they got them all or not. If they go on a week long rampage and then stop for a month and go to ground, they can easily pop up in all new cities a month later.
And there are less doctors than you might think. Killing 20 doctors at any major hospital in the country could cripple that hospital's ability to deal with emergency situations. It hurts even more if you start picking off nurses, who are in short supply. The most damaging part of the tactic though, is that you don't have to kill ALL the doctors and nurses. You just have to kill enough to scare the hell out of the ones that are alive. Once they stop reporting for work, your job is done, and you move on to a new city. If they go back to work, you head back to that city, pick off a couple more until they get the message, and move back on again.
As you whittle down the police force in a given city, their ability to keep order AND respond to terrorist assasinations is greatly reduced, giving the terrorists free reign, and while all this is going on, the government is in chaos trying to keep the public calm amidst its own members being assasinated.
The weapon isn't the killings, the weapon is fear. The killings are a means to an end. How long before the government is forced to call in the military to maintain order and pursue the terrorists? How long before individual freedoms would be suspended, and posse comitatus as well? Even if they are all killed in the end, I have a feeling a couple hundred men would be a small price to pay for crippling America and causing it to tear out its own heart to try and root out the terrorists.
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How long, indeed, before marital law is imposed? The thing is, you might be able to destroy some privacies and freedoms, but it seems to me that a sniper carrying a rifle can't very well walk around in a city full of surveillance cameras. (Incidentally, you could probably make a recognition program for a rifle quite easily; it's a simple geometric shape, and there's something like an 80% success rate for human faces.) So now you have an America which is not only mightily pissed at you, it's also a police state capable of marshalling its full resources. So what if you've destroyed its citizens' freedom? Its power is still intact.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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The surest way to destroy a great nation, IMO, is to keep it happy and content, but bitterly divided against itself.
I've heard lectures about the similarites between Rome at its fall and the USA. I believe there are enough similarities that we should be worried.
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Mix and match. Walk right up to the police officer and shoot him in the head with a revolver, or do a drive by. Not all cities are armed with cameras, and even if they are, so what? They might see a face, which will make it easier to stop them, but the cameras aren't going to forstall a planned killing. Sniper rifles can be disassembled and fit into briefcases, or dufflebags or backpacks. A beretta will fit under all clothing, cameras will never see it. I saw a special on TV once about high school shootings where a kid brought a rifle, three revolves, a couple switchblades and a pipebomb into school all hidden underneath his clothes. I think you vastly overestimate the power of technology in stopping crime, more often they are used in SOLVING a crime.
Further, who exactly is America pissed at? They have no way of knowing who or where these men come from, or even if they are acting together in concert. And an American police state is a huge victory for terrorists. Until now we've claimed they won't change our way of life. To achieve that kind of police state, we'd have to change the CONSTITUTION, if that isn't a victory against America, I think the term victory needs to be redefined.
Even further still, I think you also underestimate what it will take to cause widespread panic. Three hundred killings every day is a LOT, especially when all three hundred would be from the same three groups of people, primarily two of them, law enforcement and medical workers. That could cripple an entire state within a week. One week for Maryland to go from safe and secure to being enmeshed in a health crisis and being without the means to provide safety to the people. The nation rushes to help them while the terrorists are already on the move. They split up into three loose groupings each headed to different states. While the nation focuses on Maryland, the three groups hammer away at Maine, Michigan, and Georgia for three days each, then they break into 4 more groups each, 12 groups of 25 heading to 12 new states. It doesn't have to be sniper rifles, yes, those induce fear, but why not car bombings? Car bombs are easy to make and can be crudely implemented, and they make a mess which inspires panic.
After a month they could go to ground and lay low. Maybe a third of them or less make obvious mistakes and get themselves caught, or commit suicide and allow themselves to be found. The other 2/3s stay hidden as the nation focuses on cleaning up the mess from the past few weeks. Then two weeks later they spring up again in new places, and some of them also rehit the old places again to pick off the aid workers that came in to help the suffering. All the while new terrorists are being smuggled into the country across laughably porous borders, if not Mexico, then in San Francisco harbor or Miami harbor in shipping containers, of which less then 10% are actually inspected.
Looking at Iraq and Israel, I'd say it's a forgone conclusion that people willing to die will be able to achieve their objectives. An overwhelming military presence there hasn't slowed the rate of attacks at all, and even turning America into a police state won't solve that.
How does that cripple America? In every way possible. Facing a health care crisis, and the need to use troops to keep the peace at home with a lack of law enforcement officers (and maybe fire fighters?) America becomes ill equipped to attack anyone abroad, as they are struggling to maintain order at home.
Also a one time idea following the same line, skip over attacking law enforcement officials and medical personnel, and spend a few weeks killing off farmers and sabotaging tractors. Large agrobusinesses produce most of the food for the masses, and they are run by a small number of people in comparison. America is a giant breadbasket in many ways, kill off the people who produce it, and America starves for a year, or bankrupts itself importing food from outside the country. It'd be a much more complex operation, as there are farms all over the place, but if the attackers focused on the largest farms, and took out the workers and the farm equipment, it might take too long before new workers could be brought to bare. Most of the places where farms are have sparse populations, and it would be hard to draw significant numbers from those people. After they finish off the farm hands, they could start mowing down cattle and livestock en masse. There's too much for them to make a huge hurt probably, unless they took out whole herds of cattle in a fell swoop, but they might cause a massive spike in the price of beef at the very least.
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I'd agree with Scott Adams: you have to question the wisdom of people who live in the desert and would starve w/o imported food, trying to disrupt the economy of the country they import it from.
But, then, if people started starving in Arabia, it's not like bin Laden would care.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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I wonder if the Syrian Hacker is watching this thread.
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The part where your idea fails, Lyrhawn, is in the planning stage. Getting together, agreeing to do this, and then moving over here, these are the kinds of things intelligence services hear about. Especially with the kinds of numbers you're talking about.
We came this close to knowing, throughout our government, about 9-11 before it happened. That wasn't even 25 people. You're talking hundreds of people, with the same plan, albeit acting independantly.
Another problem is a decided lack of abandoned buildings and hiding places. You might be surprised at how difficult it is to hide in an urban environment when you need to carry something like a sniper rifle, and everyone is looking for people carrying things that might be sniper rifles.
And there is another problem. While the type of guerilla warfare you're describing would be effective...we have people who are better at it than they are. If this started happening, very soon we'd bring our snake-eaters into our cities, and they'd carve them up like roast beef.
And frankly, even if we did declare martial law...that would be at best a temporary victory. It wouldn't last forever. America has done it before, and endured. And then, after all was said and done, we'd have at least a few of them alive. With this sort of campaign, American opposition to torture would fly out the window. We'd get what we needed to hear from them right quick, and then we'd go knocking on their door, and kill them.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
actually the possibility of success for sneaking a WMD is 90% according to the state department.
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Actually, if you turn the next Harry Potter book into a bomb, you could wipe out most of the US in a single night. The only thing that might save us is that a few bookstores are bound to try to open their stock "early" and thus provide a warning to the rest of us.
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Seattle, Bay Area, LA, Portland, Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, up the east coast... Into the Great Lakes with Milwaukee and Chicago...
But I wouldn't stop there.
I'd use barges to get them into the interior of the country. A startling number of cities have ports on the Mississippi river system.
Memphis, St Louis, Little Rock, Tulsa (You don't think of Tulsa as having a port, but it does.) Quad cities, Cairo (IL), Cincinatti.
Heck, why not load a few onto trucks to get to inland cities.
It's impossible to search every barge, every container.. to do so would shut down our economy.
Our nation runs on Freight. It's why Oil is so important. It's why the interstate highways are so important. And it's where we are vulnerable.
quote:Originally posted by Beren One Hand: Take out Starbucks and America will screech to a halt.
Now actually, there's an interesting premise, since it's so linked to cultural icon's, economics, and the ability of workers to effectively function at 9 am . . .
You sneaky thing, you, Beren . . . Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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About the DC sniper, it's worth noting that he killed random targets of opportunity. One moderately obvious solution for the snipers-killing-all-the-doctors scenario is to put all the doctors in the hospital where they are safe. (There should be plenty of beds, right?) With police this is a little more difficult, but they are after all armed and could be armoured also - head shots are quite difficult; where are you going to find 300 terrorists who are not only willing to go on a suicide mission but also extremely good shots? In short, I think you overestimate the efficiency of your snipers and underestimate the efficiency of countermeasures.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Doctors have to leave the hospitals eventually don't they? They have families, homes, some have private practices, in short, they have lives they need to live.
And again, they don't have to use rifles, and especially in hunting territory, carrying a rifle around isn't going to be that hard. But they could easily carry around berettas or other small firearms and shoot from close range then disappear into a crowd. And we have had information on Al Qaeda since before the Clinton Administration. What if this group of people came from one of the dozen new groups that popped up in Iraq? We have virtually no detailed information on who leads many of these groups, there are just too many and they have tons of resources. Our Humint in the Middle East is the thinnest it has ever been, and our Humint in Africa is even thinner. It'd be easier to plan the attack from Gambia than from Syria. And it would be much easier to catch a flight from there to Mexico and then up to America, or to hit a shipping concern and use that for entry. Especially if they all enter the country independently.
And the efficiency of the snipers depends on entirely on their training. Terrorist training camps are all over the world, and some of these people have become highly skilled guerilla fighters over time, they could give the Viet Cong a run for their money. I don't think it is that farfetched to say that with some training they could be quite good.
The problem with catching them, is that know America, even if all 300 are caught, they won't do much to stop the next 300 from coming in. You really think it would be that hard for even a thousand of them to get in? Homeland security has its eye fixed on WMDs in major cities, not domestic gun sales. They could all independently come in and be given very loose instructions on when to attack and when to lay low. If the 300 are found and caught, there'll still be backups waiting in the woodworks to come out when they feel the time is right. Maybe I underestimate the countermeasures, but it is laughably easy for them to get into the country. This takes a hell of a lot LESS complex planning and training than 9/11 did. That involved flight school training in the US. And we barely DIDN'T catch them.
Also, what urban environment are you talking about Rakeesh? Every inner city has abandoned buildings. Have you been to Detroit? Chicago? Boston? You'll always find hiding places in the slums.
quote: And frankly, even if we did declare martial law...that would be at best a temporary victory. It wouldn't last forever. America has done it before, and endured. And then, after all was said and done, we'd have at least a few of them alive. With this sort of campaign, American opposition to torture would fly out the window. We'd get what we needed to hear from them right quick, and then we'd go knocking on their door, and kill them.
And that costs us a lot of international support. Don't be so sure we'd get that many of them alive and even if we did, they can't reveal what they don't know can then? We ask who their leader is, and they don't know because they were never told. We ask them where they were trained, and they say in a training camp, it was hot there, but they don't know where because they were never told. They ask where they came into the country, they say Mexico, which is easily believable, or maybe under duress of torture they reveal they really did come in through container ship or whatever. So what? The US hasn't done anything to clamp down on frieght security, I don't see them starting now, it's too expensive.
Every question they ask leads to a dead end, for the very reason that this kind of compartmentalization is invented for. Each of them only knows five or six other people, and those five or six only know each other. If you hit and capture a cell, they can't give up anyone else, because they have no idea what is going on outside that cell. It has worked for centuries, and the FBI isn't going to figure out a way around it in the next few years. And they can't go up the chain of command either, because the men don't know their leader's name, or where he is, or any useful information.
Crippling America has to come through fear. We aren't used to fear. Nukes will piss us off and make twitchy, but everywhere except for where that nuke went off will return to normal after a couple weeks. Either you need a dozen nukes to knock out a few major cities, or you need something other than nukes.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Allow US credit to purchase your own artificially inexpensive goods, and destroy its manufacturing base. As the majority of America's people descend into poverty, cut off US oil imports by using your USdollar surplus to outbid American purchasers for oil. Then watch the fun erupt when folks in the 'burbs can't buy gasoline to get to their meager-paying jobs.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I think you misjudge the international community that we'd lose standing for endorsing torture under a campaign like this, Lyrhawn.
See, the thing is, when people really feel threatened, when they feel as frightened as you're describing...they want torture. They want revenge. They want something, ANYTHING.
And the thing is, you can't have as many totally unknown leaders as you're describing. Eventually, we'll bag the next guy on up, and the next guy, and the next guy.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: Take out Starbucks and America will screech to a halt.
Hey! Well, on second thought, as long as it's my day off, I'm cool with that. I might even phenaegal a decent severance package from the corperation.
I suppose if I wanted to cripple the nation, I'd start by destroying the bridges along the Mississipi. It might not cripple the nation, but it would slow down trade, the military, and law enforcement. Next, presuming you are attacking from a nation that is somewhat high profile, I'd target the Whiteman Airforce Base near Kansas City, where the B-52's are stationed. Next, set bombs on board some of the tankers coming into port. And lastly, target the laborforce in China and Japan.
Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Allow US credit to purchase your own artificially inexpensive goods, and destroy its manufacturing base. As the majority of America's people descend into poverty, cut off US oil imports by using your USdollar surplus to outbid American purchasers for oil. Then watch the fun erupt when folks in the 'burbs can't buy gasoline to get to their meager-paying jobs.
Gosh, it's so subtle, it just might work. What's the national poverty rate, again?
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Regarding the ICBM thing: If the goal is to bring down the United States, use the tracability of an ICBM to your advantage. The thing to do would be to launch from within a country that you don't care gets attacked. I understand a lot of Russian military hardware remains greivously poorly guarded; it might actually be easier to launch a rogue weapon than to import bombs into the United States. Leave town, watch the fireworks.
Or if you were of a particularly Islamic bent, find a way to launch from one of the "Israel-friendly" Middle-Eastern countries like Egypt. Reciprocity would unite every Moslem in the region.
Along the original lines, I think the easiest way to cripple the United States would be to go after not people but oil. If you render most of the major Texas and Alaskan oil fields, plus the strategic reserves, too toxic to touch for the next hundred years... OPEC is going to laugh. A few undergound nukes in the right places?...
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote: And the thing is, you can't have as many totally unknown leaders as you're describing. Eventually, we'll bag the next guy on up, and the next guy, and the next guy
Because that's worked out so well with captured insurgents in Iraq?
I don't see why it wouldn't work. This is historically, how these things work. And by the way, let's say there are 20 leaders, just throwing a number out there, 20 leaders who are in charge of training all these men. And then those 20 leaders are subsequently executed by the next high up leaders. Then what is your plan?
I can think of a half dozen ways they could escape capture. Either having to do with evasion or with pre planning precautions.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Those unguarded ICBMs im Russia probably don't even work. They are either unfueled, and therefore unlaunchable, or they have been fueled for too long and likewise are unlaunchable. The silos are probably leaking toxic wastes. Russia and especially Kazakhstan don't have the money to maintain all those ICBMs in the way necessary to make them launchable. You'd need someone with a LOT of knowledge on the inner workings to make them work.
And how do you transport an ICBM to one of those nations, such as Egypt without US spy planes and satellites noticing? ICBMs are rather large if you hadn't noticed.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Is the goal to cripple, take over, or destroy America?
If you just want to cripple it, there are SO many ways, easy I think. Has anyone decided the huricanes this season hasn't crippled America yet?
I think a campaign aimed at installing fear (Lyrhawn: what you describe) is designed to take it over. In other words, Osama for president. I don't think it will ever happen though. We are too powerful of a community. Yeah, our lifestyle will be forced to change if we have to endure a major terror campaign, but I believe we are capable of doing it. We were willing to go without a lot during WWII.
A major war offensive like an ICBM? I doubt anything like that would succeed. Since WWII, I think America has done everything they can to ensure that never happens.
If you really wanted to destroy America, you have to get Americans to turn on themselves. I think the best the terrorists can do now is turn the left and the right against each other so bitterly, we turn on each other.
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I think that short of an all-out nuclear exchange, it is not possible to actually destroy the United States. (Even that might be a little iffy these days; Russia's ICBMs are, as was pointed out, badly maintained; and just how good is China's aim, anyway?) And taking over - well, this is not a country where the President can dictate that people shall start praying towards MEcca five times a day, so that would seem a little useless. There's just too much continuity.
So the goal is to cripple the US, to end its ability to project power into the Old World and force it to concentrate on maintaining order internally. In an absolutely ideal scenario (for the terrorists, that is) it might be possible to Balkanise it, make it into several little statelets each about the power of a European nation; but in practice I think that's impossible with an army of occupation to enforce it. The idea of the US stretching from sea to shining sea is just too strongly ingrained. California might be thrown back on tis own resources for a while, but I very much doubt there is any part of its governing elite that would want to stay independent once communications with Washington were restored.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Oh, I dunno... I think Canada and Mexico deciding to enforce a trade embargo against the US while closing their borders could cause a pretty nasty economic collapse for more than a few years. Basicly, it'd be cutting off a major portion of the US oil imports and oil transportation lines. As well as their excess oil refining and electrical generation capacities, which mostly ends up providing energy to the US.
Of course, the worst effects would be because whatever angered both Canada and Mexico enough to embargo the US would have also ticked off a very large fraction of the US population. And the factionalization resulting from that would be what cripples the US.
posted
I don't know precisely how badly maintained Russia's ICBMs are, but you only need to find a single one that works to have the desired effect. Even if it doesn't succeed in hitting a U.S. target, the reprecussions would be devestating. Given the recent showing of the U.S. willingness to conduct "pre-emptive" war, an apparent attempt at a nuclear strike would likely tie the U.S. and U.N. up in knots.
You're correct about the prospect of smuggling an ICBM, in whole or in parts, Lyrhawn. It would take an awful long time to work, if at all. On the other hand, a short-range strike, nuclear or not, on a local U.S. military base would probably have a similar effect.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Keep in mind that no matter what you do to the US the nation can always call in favours from others in debt to it. Japan and the other major powers know if the US falls the world economy falls. Australia, England, South Africa, India, Singapore... all know that without the USA the world has less strength behind capitalism and more behind other ideas. The only way the US would fall is if these countries found a combined reason to all do away with it and face it, the world doesn't really hate America that much.
Any minority of terrorists are alone in this respect. The only thing that could destroy the USA would result in the attacker themselves being retaliated on just as harshly, with the exception of, dare I say, Mother Nature.
Posts: 75 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Their military is woefully technologically inferior. Russia is at least a decade behind us, and China is using Russia to augment its military hardware to make it more advanced. Their J-10 is inferior to the F-15, the ORIGINAL version, to say nothing of the Type J we're using now, with advanced avionics. The Japanese version is probably slightly more advanced than ours is. And we haven't even gotten to F-22s or F-35s. If it came to a conventional war, their air force would be eliminated, no real conversation. Numbers aren't everything. We have a battle hardened, technologically advanced force on hand. You can't batter your way through with numbers. It's just excess scrap metal after awhile.
Likewise, it doesn't matter that they are buying T-98s from Russia like gangbusters. Even if it were superior to the M1A2 variant of our own main line battle tank, which I think isn't a safe assertion, whole tank divisions could be wiped out by air dropped munitions from fighter bombers or more likely from Apache Longbows. Their air defense system would be immolated by B2 and F117 smart bombs before they even knew what hit them.
And they only have what, a half dozen nukes, all of which are tasked to turn Taiwan into a smoking ruin hell land.
What exactly are you impressed by Blayne?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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A wicked cool thread, KoM. To cripple the US would require either technological superiority or divisions in the US military, ie a civil war.
I'm working on a screenplay that contains both as plot elements. There are new satellite weapons, and the vice-president and others in the military/intelligence field work for the enemy (not quite a civil war, just traitors). I've been stalled for awhile though.
And of course, the US wins in the end, though it's close.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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I don't see that happening. The majority of the nation sits somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum. There's a minority that sits on the wings, but they are enemies of each other, and separately could not force a civil war in the country, even with outside help.
American patriotism is fickle. At some level, we all have our own agendas, and we all want a certain version of America to come about. But we all still want there to be a unified America.
The only faction I see capable of pulling together enoigh fanatical support for a clear division and revolution would be the religions right, and they'd never pull it off.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Alaska could be taken though, and that's a fair share of the US's land. Or even if they just sold it, do you think its enemies would be more willing to attack and more likely to succeed, or not?
Posts: 75 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
the Me262 was far more adavnced then a spitfire but it could still be taken down. Under right conditions of PanzerIII could take down a IS-3.
I'm saying that underestimating a nations ability to launch nuclear ICBM's is foolhardy at best and catastrophic at worst. And even if it does miss the fall out will be enough to kill millions. All it has to do is land in america.
Next, actually their newest model is comparable to the F-16 but their oly ordering about 300 while waiting for their F-22 varient, and then the F-35 varient. All with 10-15 years, the gap gets closer every year.
Next bombers are much easier to nuke down, the difference between Iraq and China is that China will not send their airforce to some misc country they'll fight and quite frankly 2 F-16's can still take down a F-35. Logistics and numbers will always favor China.
Next, the next President probly a democrat will probably cut military spending, not by much but it'll set a precedent to probly an eventual 75% decrease.
Your at a point here you'll either cut spending and/or raise taxes so far your short sighted president is raising spending (war in iraq/terror) and cutting taxes (tax cuts for rich).
You didn't even read the article right the T-96/98 varient is China's first INDIGINOUS design, their own not Russia's. And its pretty sweet and posses Anti Missile lasers.
Back to aircraft, if China fights primarily above their own soil the US WILL suffer astronomical casualties from attrition when compared to Iran, and you can't even land troops in China, a friend of mine who disagrees with me on arugements like this admits that it is unthinkable to land troops on CHina and if you can't put troops in China eventually America's airforce will be worn down.
As for their nukes they have around ~1800 nuclear waheads, with about say 20-30 ICBM's capable of reaching the USA, then theirs the SSLM's from submarines also cacable of lobbing nukes from the waters off of the coast.
But Nuclear wars are unwinnable and not even worth discussion, its tic tac toe.
I'm certain that even if the PLAAF can't win air suporiority it can still give as good as it gets and within 20 years imagine what they can give then.
My economics teacher ys that they'll reach super power status within 50 years and switches to more of an import/services economy assuming nothing goes wrong and if theirs no war its a pretty safe assuption.
But that is not the point, the point as stated is do not underestimate the enemy. Human wills decide warfare not the technological advancements (for as long as they are still comparable).
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I don't think numbers of tanks and aircraft are really very relevant here - neither side can transport enough stuff across the Pacific tostand any kind of chance at invading the other, or even maintaining a beachhead. I was really only making a throw-away comment on the unlikelihood of an all-out nuclear exchange. But even at that, the fallout from twenty or thirty nukes will not kill millions. Radiation just isn't that deadly.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
How many Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors could say the same?
I'm also pretty sure that the birth defects, deaths in cattle and livestock, and irradiated foods will be enough to at the very lest criple America for a time.
But the comment nevertheless didn't sound like that, it sounded like that the Chinese would not be able to hit a decent sized city, which to me sounded like an underestmation of their abilities.
As for the unlikelyhood I'll agree with you that I find the probabiity of nuclear war close to 0.
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It's a moot point, but the F-35 isn't an air superiority fighter, the F-22 is, and I don't doubt that an F-22 could take down three F-16s. It's radar cross section is small enough and radar systems good enough that it could take out the first two F-16s from a great distance while dodging any return fire. The following one on one dogfight would be a blowout, vector thrust control on the F-22 gives it unrivaled maneuverability.
And they have what, maybe two nuclear submarines? Even that much would surprise me, and if the US DIDN'T have a Seawolf sitting on the tail of both of those ready to blow them out of the water I would be extremely surprised. They'd never get a shot off.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Really? Interesting a friend of mine gave me a slightly different impression. If the F-22 is the fight China should be dealing with then again Russia's the answer, a Sino varient of the Mig-1.42 could handle the job then, its comparable to the F-22 and probably cheaper and more stealthy and versatile.
posted
It does seem to have similar capabilities, but I don't for a second think it will be more stealthy. America has more than 20 years of a headstart on Russia and double that over China in Stealth technology research. Shaping a plane a certain way to reduce its radar cross section can only do so much. You have to have the composite materials to absorb radar waves as well, which the Russians don't have, or if they do, they aren't up to our standards.
As for the US nuclear subs, why wouldn't they? Our sub fleet is big enough, and we wouldn't just leave 2 or 3 ballistic submarines hanging around ready to blow a hole in us. During the height of the cold war we had a sub following EVERY Russian boomer, and it was a lot more than 2 or 3.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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The Mig 142 I'm sure is made with composite materials, but as I think you may have misunderstood its more stealthy then the F-22, the F-35 is far more stealthy then either plane, I'm just saying that the Chinese only have to produce a varient of the Mig 142 on license and use it to get their F-35 equivilent, probly with ten years they'll have a plane comparable to whatever the latest american one is and with chinese massive manufacturing capacity build them in enough numbers to gain an edge on the US assuming they were producing them and newer models throughout that ten years.
But then again, my knowledge of submarine warfare is limited, so I can't argue much, though I must ask how many russian subs were trailing our boomers?
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More than likely none, if any. Ohios were incredibly hard to get a trace on, and most of the time OUR attack subs couldn't even find them. Even the latest Virginia class sub would be hard pressed to sense one. But if it was hard for us, it was impossible for them. Their sonar tech was a generation behind ours, and the Ohio was practically the pinnacle of the silent service. We know from some declassified Russian documents that they got a trail on our Ohios once or twice, and might have even followed one for awhile before losing it, but it was NOTHING like our constant trailing of their subs.
As far as the planes go, perhaps, but materials aren't everything. Both nations are still more than a generation behind on the computer hardware, though the Chinese are stealing at a pretty good clip, they might catch up through spying and bribery, but they aren't there yet.
And hardward isn't everything. You have to have the money to keep them armed, fueled, in repair, and keep your pilots at a high level of training and alertness. The Chinese AND the Russians are way behind us in that realm. I don't doubt they could get there in 10 years if they work hard and throw literally trillions upon trillions of yuan and rubles at the problem. But they are still some time away.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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