USA vs the World

[el freako]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Besides oil, the US simply does not have the industrial capacity of the World, this is particularly true after all production plants of US companies in foreign countries have been annexed.

Quite true, the US has only 20% of world GDP and 15% of world industrial output.

[GePap]

This thread is so precious.

The world, hands down. Certainly when it comes to WMD, and no, a nuclear war would not mean the end of all mankind. Evn in a conventonal war the US would loose. Many US forces are stationed outside the US, and thus large segments of the trained US military would be cut of, isolated, and eliminated without he chance for support. While the economic collapes would be severe for all, the US could not secure enough oil to meet its energy needs. oil installations are easy targets for asymetrical warfare, speaically in Latin America. If one assumes an unfriendly populace, the US would be unable to hold on to any territory outside of the US withou a very significant outlay of resources, which would be fast dwindling. The US would have to impose major drafts to maintain its forces and any administrative units, and no, the US could no control the seas. The US navy is the largest in the world and most advanced, but the submarine threat is greater than ever and the US does not have enough Anti-sub warfare units [did we not outsource much of this work to other NATO allies?] to cope with the threat of European (including Russian) attack subs, specially those with cruise missiles. The US controls 25-30% of the world economic output, but is deficient in several key materials beyond oil. Thus for the US to survie is not enough to keep invaders out of the US, but to secure the resources it needs from around the world, and this would lead to an endless bleeding of resources, specially in places like Africa, a key spource of many strategic resources.

One has then to assume attacks on US digital domains, economic warfare, and attacks against our space assets. When one is heavily reliant on such devices, their loss would be devastating, and anyone who thinks some engineer outside of the US could no think up some crude way of bringing down our GPS satellites is really a fool.

There would be no big winners in such a war, but most certainly the US would looe.

[el freako]

Originally posted by GePap
The US navy is the largest in the world and most advanced, but the submarine threat is greater than ever and the US does not have enough Anti-sub warfare units [did we not outsource much of this work to other NATO allies?] to cope with the threat of European (including Russian) attack subs, specially those with cruise missiles.

Yup, almost the only thing the British Royal Navy seems to have been designed for is ASW - i'd like to see the yanks try and get past us even with their new high-tech subs (of which they have 2 AFAIK).

Originally posted by GePap
and anyone who thinks some engineer outside of the US could not think up some crude way of bringing down our GPS satellites is really a fool.

It's simple as long as you can get to space (which Europe, Russia, China, Japan and possibly India can), just put up a load of sand in an intercepting orbit - that'll trash any satellite in it's way.

[Kaak]

hmmm....

my thoughts are this:
industrial output is negligable. were we to engage in a war with the rest of the world, I believe we would occupy a large portion of mexico. Mexicans, while they do have a reasonable sense of nationality, for the most part would not balk from us marching in, setting up factories, and paying them a less than reasonable wage to work incredibly long hours.

Productivity would sky rocket.

the second concern is numbers, and frankly, the US doesn't need them. technilogical superiority is already quite firm, and the kill ratio would be astronomical. We use unmanned drones to take out key targets and don't even worry about loss of life.

Also, as much money as the gov't spends on R&D, there is no telling what we haven't even seen yet. We have had no reason to pull out all the stops, so i think it is safe to say that we haven't.

The new fighters being produced out-run SFA missiles (and any other aircraft), so our fighters could attack with impunity in hit and run style.

While the economic focus might shift, i don't see our entire economy collapsing, just shifting to a more industrial situation.

Another important concern here is special forces. While american special forces (speaking collectively) may not be the best in the world, we have far more highly trained soldiers here.

The simple fact of the matter is that the only thing the world would have going for it is numbers. You couldn't starve us out. You couldn't wait us out, and frankly, the US has the technology to shift demand to accomodate need. We could have the entire country nuclear power in a matter of 3-5 years, leaving all the oil for battle purposes.

Again, not to sound prejudice, but i live in texas, and I see it every day. The mexican population, due to their situation, would be a huge asset.

[Kaak]

oh, and one HUGE consideration here. We would STOP foriegn aid. This means BILLIONS and BILLIONS. what do you think this would go for? factories, weapons, armed forces.

The impact on the rest of the world would also be tremendous. how would those against us deal with this? spend money on aid, or watch people die by the hundreds of thousands?

[el freako]

Originally posted by Kaak
oh, and one HUGE consideration here. We would STOP foriegn aid. This means BILLIONS and BILLIONS. what do you think this would go for? factories, weapons, armed forces.

$10bn (0.1% of GDP) actually, not that much extra to put into your millitary budget of $450bn. If military spending went as high, relative to GDP, as during WW2 then that spending would rise tenfold so we are talking $10bn extra onto $4,500bn - in other words negligable.

Originally posted by Kaak
The impact on the rest of the world would also be tremendous. how would those against us deal with this? spend money on aid, or watch people die by the hundreds of thousands?

Well as the rest of the west spends $44bn (0.3% of GDP) on aid I think a 20% rise in the budget would be easily accomodated. It probably wouldn't even come to that as nearly half of your 'aid' is to middle-income countries like Israel or Egypt that can easily take care of their own populations.


You obviously thought that US aid is significant or effective in helping 'hundreds of thousands' of people to survive - if you had simply bothered to check the facts you would see how far from the truth that is.

[Kaak]

i'm wasn't just talking about the money the gov't gives out. do you have any figures on the donations of non-profit organizations? Also, saying that a 20% budget increase is insignificant for countries that would be pumping every spare penny into their military budgets? especially after the economic effects of the US pulling out of the world market?

also, do the math. say it takes $25k to support needy people recieving aid alive and well (which i think is probably a gross overestimate) Then $10B would suffice for about 400,000 people.

and i believe this is without the non-profit aid.

[Sprayber]

[DinoDoc]

Why is it the people who pose these stupid scenarios and those who side with the world never take the time to look at history? Water is a very effective barrier to invasion. We need only look at the example of the UK to see as much.

[Demerzel]

double post :/

[Demerzel]

If the world wanted to win and attacked first, don't you think that any US forces within range would be destroyed in a sneak attack? i.e. any US forces/aircraft in UK, Germany, S.Korea, Japan, etc... would be toast and any ships not back in US waters too.

That would kinda put a dent into your plans for holding us off

Looking at history, the Japanese used surprised tactics as above and they worked very nicely, taking over nearly every territory you had in the pacific. Consider if the whole world did this, not just the Japanese, and consider how much further we'd get

[DuncanK]

Considering sneak attack is adding something. We could also consider a sneak attack by the US.

[DinoDoc]

Demerzel: Look at the problems Germany had in mounting an invasion across the English Channel. Now multiply that several times to account for the size of the oceans surrounding us.

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by DuncanK
Considering sneak attack is adding something. We could also consider a sneak attack by the US.

that is indeed true. simultaneous sneak attacks would be incredibly funny though if the bombers passed each other halfway

[Barley]

Ok you guys enough is enough.

Firstly may I will state I have no expert knowledge in military assets, Gross Domestic Product, International Finance etc. I would like to make the following observations.

Oh and if you dont get the gist in the following paragraphs I am entirely sure that in a conventional war involving The World vs USA the latter would be Cream Crackered.

Ok where to start, lets look at the military capability. Firstly its true the USA have a technological advantage in terms of Military hardware though by my estimation its pretty small, most state of the art technology (except some very new or un-proven) is shared with Western allies, i.e. Britain etc. Besides, academics & scientists in other western countries share or helped to develop or understand cutting edge technology anyway (im thinking of astro physics, partical accelleration and all the rest). My point is that whilst the USA has developed this technology and employ it in theater to a much large scale than the rest of the world we are not behind in terms of technology.

I think the answer to the overall scenario lies plainly with assets, i.e. resources both human and material. The rest of the worlds resources are 20 times greater than the USA’s. That means USA could theoretically field a combat army of say 50 million while the rest of the world would be say 1000 million.

If total war was to happen the fact that your current assets include whatever number of Aegis Cruisers, Cruise Missiles, Large Carrier Battle Groups, Stealth Bombers, Attack Submarines etc would be irrelevant, so would the much vaunted protective belt of ocean. USA could not win in, as in total war the victor would be determined by war of attrition. The combined industrial and production capacity of the rest of the world once geared up for full war production would far outstrip that of the USA, and unlike USA would not be limited to such a small number of sites.

As suggested in earlier threads it was claimed the Navy’s would hold the key. Your coastline is relatively small compared to the rest of the world, how many cruise missiles would it take to destroy your ports (rest of the world could build millions of missiles if they needed to). You have 8 – 12 large carriers maybe a few others in mothballs, if these were dispersed or grouped they could only defend for a short period. Imagine if they were attached by waves of missiles and fighters, radio controlled commercial airliners or smaller planes loaded with explosives (apologies but in war against military targets this would be legitimate). You have the technology but with each carrier having say 40 attack fighters, limited stores of aviation fuel and munitions they would be out of ammo in the first few days.

I could go on and on but whatever way you look at it, in the end it boils down to industrial might and resources. The rest of the world could afford to take incredible losses in all out war where-as the USA would always be faced with finite resources and dwindling capacity to replace them.