Strange Famous

irate - if you have nuclear weapons, you cannot have a major war without their use... that is the whole point of a doomsday weapon

utswo - I wish I could have your faith, in even the slight possibility that a nuclear war could be survivable, but I fear i cannot, Stanley Baldwin told Churchillin the 1930's... the bomber will always get through, there is no defence... within 30 seconds of a major nuclear attack, the missiles would be flying the other way, and everuone would be dead.

There cannot be another major war which is won, as far as I can see, major war is now impossible, the choice is simply peace or destruction, life or death.

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Fred181

I Disagree entirely. I think you've watched too much Dr. Strangelove. Nuclear weapons are not the "doomsday device" in the universal sense. The fact that many of the World's powers have nuclear weapons preculdes their use. The US is not going to launch a Nuclear Weapon at its enemy entirely out of the fear of retaliation. Just as our enemy's would not utilize them for the same reason. Thats is why the cold war ended without their use.

[EDIT] Okay, so WMD are doomsday devices based on the devestation that they cause and the "doomsday" that would ensue, but not because they are "Doomsday Devices"

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Ustwo

Hehe sorry to be part of the side tracking

The discussion about abilites is pointless I know.

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Rekna

Even if not a single missle got through to the US dropping nukes on the rest of the world would destroy the US. Nukes do a lot more the blow up a good part of the land. They destroy the enviornment and a large number of them blowing up would reak havoc on the earth ultimatly destroying the world as we know it.

Willravel

To answer the question without reaing the other posts: If by major war you mean our country against another country or groups of countries, then no. No one can really win a war anymore. Not the way we did with the first and second world war, anyway. I find that there are so many countries with nucklear weapons that the aweful truth of self destructive deterrant should be enough to keep rational governments from doing anything as major as a war. I was surprised that we went after Iraq, but that really wan't a war. Let's say that a major internationol incodent occours. Something that sets two major poweres at odds. Let's say that someone attacks the US again. This time, we have information linking the attacks to, say, China. We accuse them of attacking us, they deny it. We get into a cold war situation. Everyone is choosing sides and pointing missles at everyone else. Then what happens? I'll tell you what won't happen; we won't attack, and neither will they. We will both do our best to discover what had happened and look for proof (unless the moronic Bush administration is still in power). We will find out that China would never, in the way the world is now, attack the US. We find out the real attack was orchestrated by an outside group. The world after nuclear war is just so aweful, that people will avoid it at all costs. That is, sane people will avoid it at al costs.

Dragonlich

Fred181, the classical sense of winning would be to annihilate an enemy. Nukes can do that. Political goals you'd achieve: destruction of your opponent.

If the US were to use nukes in Iraq or Afghanistan wouldn't always strenghten the will to fight, particularly if the rebels are *DEAD*... Throw enough nukes at a problem, and it'll go away. (Of course, there will be many more other problems that will spring up afterwards, but that's a different matter.)

As for terrorism being a threat: not really. In the end, the loss of life and property of terrorist attacks is still rather insignificant compared to traffic accidents and/or industrial accidents. If the terrorist attacks go up, some country out there will be supporting it, and there will be a high price to pay.

Terror isn't a war; if you want to compare it to anything, you can compare it to commando raids - on the whole, rather small in scope, but very high-profile, and occasionally very deadly.

Dragonlich

What's up with the "nobody can win a war anymore" talk? Of course you can win!

Did you think WW1 and WW2 ended because of some magical event that convinced people that they should seek peace?

WW1 ended because the German people were starving, while the German army was pretty much destroyed (and starving too); popular unrest also played a part. Germany was sick of the war, so they had to ask for peace.

WW2 ended (for Germany) because the German people were bombed into submission, while the army was beaten into a bloody pulp. There simply wasn't anyone left who wanted to fight, besides some random loonies who eventually died or fled. In Japan, the war ended because the Japanese were threatened with annihilation, and the Emperor put an end to it.

Today's wars can be won too - you have to destroy the army, and then make the enemy's population lose the will to fight. For instance, in Iraq, if Fallujah is such a problem because of it's resistance, The US could flatten the city and kill everyone inside. Of course, that'd lead to world-wide condemnation, but that part of the rebellion would end. When other cities start acting up, you do the same there. At the end of the day, the remaining people will be so scared of retaliation that they'll stop fighting. Either that, or they'll all be dead. End result: you win.

pedro padilla

any major scale war in these times will involve nukes. thats what makes it major scale. i agree that no-one can win. USA has a pretty good history of provoking unwanted conflicts with seemingly weak opponents. if it boils down to fighting in a foreign desert or jungle or glacier, for smoke and mirrors evidence, we will never win. if americans have to fight at home they will never lose. anyone forced to protect their homeland against invaders or occupying foreign powers will never give up.

whocarz

Here is a quote from a Sci-fi book about how to achieve true victory:

"What is victory? Is it to defeat your enemy on the field of battle? Is it to simply repules his armies and slay his misguided warriors? No, this is only the very beginning! True victory is to crush your foes utterly, to shatter his armoured legions and run down his fleeing troops as they scatter. Pursue them to their lairs and burn them out. Burst into his unholy temples, smash down his icons and topple his foul idols. Burn his heretical works and leave no stone upon stone. Slaughter his followers, their families and their livestock lest any of their taint remain. And when that is done, put the ruins to the torch. Any that have dealt with them or given them succor must be obliterated, for memory is insidious and though you have crushed their will and their bodies they may yet return. Send warrior scribes to excise the records of their name, expunge their deeds from the annals of history and remove even the memory of your foe's existance. Only then have you truly won. This is the meaning of victory."

Pretty brutal and biblical stuff, but I do think that is the only way to achieve total and uncontested victory. Of course it is much easier said than done, and I doubt anyone actually has the stomach to do it.

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Fred181

In Vietnam the United States killed between 1 and 2 million Vietnamese versus roughly 58,000 American lives lost and 350,000 casualties. That is some pretty heavy casualties inflicted yet I don't think there are too many people out there that would argue that we won. And based on your arguement that victory involves total annihilation of the enemy we have yet to win the Revolutionary War, WWI or WWII. On the contrary, modern war is waged for political reasons and it's victories are measured through political gains.

Political goals you'd achieve: completely alienating the rest of the world (even more so than we already have). Imagine attacking a country because they posesed WMD and then dropping a WMD on them.

Not really what I would consider just "a different matter"... But I guess given your argument, you're right we could drop a few nuclear weapons on Baghdad, Fallujah, Kabul and while we're at it the entire Middle East and Southwest Asia. Who cares about all of the innocent people killed and the reaction by the rest of the world

So based on that there has never been a major scale war? I don't understand why nukes have to be present. We didn't use them in Iraq 1, Afghanistan, or Iraq 2. Are these not major scale wars?

I don't doubt that, but please inform me which unwanted conflicts the US provoked and why they were unwanted.

Like the first Gulf War?

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My heart will be restless until it finds its final rest. Then they can weigh it...

irateplatypus

I'm baffled as to how you would draw this conclusion. If we emptied our entire arsenal sans our nukes and deployed all our troops against a formidable enemy would that not make it a major scale war? This doesn't make much sense to me.

germany. japan.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

pedro padilla

when you talk of any major global conflict breaking out among the so called superpowers, the overwhelming odds are that one of these wackos, ours or theirs, is going to pull out the ace in his hand. right now, the US military is spread so thin that any new action will necessitate invoking the draft. as has been shown pretty recently, the entire arsenal sans our nukes and pretty much all our troops has not quite cut it. unconventional weapons come into play when manpower aint available. add the bushies proposed bunker buster mini nukes to the equation.
going up against iran or nkorea will not be quite as simple as iraq. and iraq is far from simple. spreading the conflict will greatly increase the possibility of unconventional weapons coming into play. these guys truly have the bad toys and if threatened....
germany and japan were both aggressors. they were making a last stand after getting the beat down. no-one INVADED their country. different thing.
actually not that baffling at all.

dy156

In a hypothetical "major war" The U.S. would not try to eliminate collateral damage, and would presumably use everything it took, without nuclear/chem/bio weapons. The U.S. military is far better equipped and trained to fight offensively than it is to "peacekeep." We intentionally tried not to destroy infrastucture, and conquered a country that had had ample time to prepare for the invasion in a few days. In falluhja, we tried not to kill too many people for political reasons.
While Ustwo may have been too pithy, he had a point. Think back to 9/11. Now imagine that it had been an attack coordinated by N. Korea, Iran, and Iraq, and those nations had proudly taken credit for it, declared war on the U.S., and asked nations around the world to join in. The entire country would be behind it, and Congress would declare war, and the U.S. military could go about what it was equipped and trained and designed to do. The U.S. has a greater navy and Air force than the rest of the planet combined, and in a situation like that could use this advantage to it's full effect, probably first eliminating N. Korea's "possible" nuclear capability without trying to prevent civilian casualties with limited smart bomb strikes.

In an all out war with China over taiwan, nuclear possibilities are far more complex and scary, but we could enforce a strict naval and air blockade that could prevent China from continuing.
Just my thoughts.

irateplatypus

i hate to start splitting hairs... but i said your comment on nuclear war was baffling, not anything about invasions. you seem to have mixed the two.

also, germany was invaded. invasion does not exclude prior aggression. both germany and japan were occupied.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill