We weren't going to do it before...

[PLATO]

Originally posted by notyoueither
From Norway to Japan?

I was actually thinking of from Canada to the US

[notyoueither]

There already are. A lot of them.

What do you not understand?

If trends continue, there is about to be a second way around the large blob of land known as the Americas for super tankers.

Follow the bouncing ball, Canada wants a measure of control over the NW Passage that could see shodilly constructed tin cans trying to carry massive quantities of crude oil through ice burgs off pristine shorelines. Sound like a recipe for ecological bliss to you?

Not to mention we want to stop the Danes from stealing North America one rock at a time.

[Agathon]

Well we kinda rely on them and NATO to be there and protect us if anyone every got frisky with us. IN a crazy scenario-- Say China decided to invade Canada to grab the oilsands, do you think we are protecting ourselves.

Why would they do that when it would be vastly cheaper for them to simply buy the oil, which the Canadians would be happy to sell?

Since China will be the world's largest economy in 20 years, I fail to see how this would be a problem for them.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Or maybe they'd invade the US first. Then, having conquered the lower 48 states, they drive north for the Alberta oil sands.

Ye gods! We'd better start ramping up for that!

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Flubber


I actually like his crazy "what if" type scenarios. You know the Yanks will always pull it off in the end using magic, high technology etc but its fun nontheless.

and a lot of it has an vague plausibility about it. Does anybody believe that there hasn't been some Chinese high level guy look up at the empty vastness of Russia and fantasize that it might not be alll that difficult? . . . you know wonder is there any way to get away with it without getting nuked or something?

yep, he should know how it will all finish ... China (+whatever they have conquered) a nuclear wasteland (I think Russia still has enough capability to destroy the whole world a few times over)... and 20+ millions of recruited Russians slaughtering everything that moves on the way to annex China and elect the "proper" government...

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Not to mention we want to stop the Danes from stealing North America one rock at a time.

this is the best one so far - perhaps the biggest threat is that Greenlanders will invade and annex you

[Richelieu]

The good thing about pissing contests in the arctic is that it's easier to tell who won because yellow shows good on snow.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave


yep, he should know how it will all finish ... China (+whatever they have conquered) a nuclear wasteland (I think Russia still has enough capability to destroy the whole world a few times over)... and 20+ millions of recruited Russians slaughtering everything that moves on the way to annex China and elect the "proper" government...

Rising a 20M army would kill the Russian economy.

But yeah, the Russian nuclear arsenal would be quite capable of sending China back to the stone age.

[Krill]

I thought that was one of the advatages of being a Russian Leader. You just Conscript away, and use war of attrition tactics so that the majority of your men die.

You don't have to pay dead men...

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Flubber
Well we kinda rely on them and NATO to be there and protect us if anyone every got frisky with us. IN a crazy scenario-- Say China decided to invade Canada to grab the oilsands, do you think we are protecting ourselves.

Note that this scenarion is ludicrous mainly BECAUSE everyone knows the US would not allow it.

Russia wouldn't be too happy about it either. Ditto for the EU. China may be all right as a superpower, but no one wants it to become a hypermegauberpower.

I just believe generally, the US likes to see its allies increasing their military competence. The fact that its aimed at asserting some claims they reject is mildly annoying to them but I frankly can't see them getting too fussed.

Nah. A lot of the US economy is based on the ridiculously huge military-industrial sector. If we build our own stuff, they have to find new excuses for keeping it that large.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Flubber
O said at the beginning it was a far-fetched scenario (but I like them)

I am surprised to see such high confidence that we would have advance notice . BUt lets play what if-- If the Chinese get 10,000 troops with some light armored cars and entrench them in Vancouver ( 2 scheduled 747s land and take the airport in both Vancouver and Victoria and then dozens more land before we even know what happened), What Canadian forces are there to evict them?

We wouldn't actually need to evict them. We'd just have to make the Rockies uncrossable and wait for the Chinese to figure out that indefinitely shipping supplies to 10000 troops across the Pacific is not a sensible military policy. There's absolutely no advantage for China in keeping Vancouver, so they'll pull out and sue for peace once sanity prevails.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by notyoueither
There already are. A lot of them.

What do you not understand?

If trends continue, there is about to be a second way around the large blob of land known as the Americas for super tankers.

Follow the bouncing ball, Canada wants a measure of control over the NW Passage that could see shodilly constructed tin cans trying to carry massive quantities of crude oil through ice burgs off pristine shorelines. Sound like a recipe for ecological bliss to you?

Yeah, and we'll cut a deal to get you to accept the arctic is international waters in exchange for going your way on softwood lumber, and we let the oil industry and the timber industry fight it out on K street. Or vice versa, you get the arctic and we win on softwood lumber. Or a hundred other issues. Thats how we work things out, not with gunboats. I mean thats at least as farfetched as the hypothesized Chinese seizure of the Alberta Tar Sands. (though the latter would mean that it would make sense to visit Alberta for the cuisine)

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by St Leo
[q] Originally posted by Flubber
O said at the beginning it was a far-fetched scenario (but I like them)

There's absolutely no advantage for China in keeping Vancouver, so they'll pull out and sue for peace once sanity prevails.

Oh cmon, you know how uptight the Chinese are. I think they could really use Vancouver.

[St Leo]

Cue the obligatory Opium Wars joke.^-^

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Seeker
You see, this is why we should never have given back those US missiles.

What tremendous leverage to drop a few h-bombs!

And if they were based right along the border they would only have seconds warning time...

If we built 300-350 h-bombs like France we could possibly win a first strike nuclear exchange, especially if we had a good civil city evacuation plan. From Windsor nukes could reach washington during the state of the union address with only seconds warning! To say nothing of hitting the missile silos and all the airstrips. We're just so much closer than the soviet union.

The only thing standing in our way would be the us nuclear submarine fleet.

Think of how much better the USA would be if brought under our benevolent occupation!

Most of them would go along just fine, but we might have to create special 'resettlement camps' for the southerners...

also I believe there were also B-52s always in the air. these wouldn't get taken out in a first strike. then there is the fact that our land based missiles are spread out, and you'd need numerical parity atleast to destroy them, to say nothing of other assets. then there are our sub fleets, and any mrbms we have in other theatres(zero right now I think though I could be wrong). and it wouldn't be seconds, I think it would have taken our forward bases in Europe 6 minutes to launch into the Soviet Union.

all in all, many things to consider when pondering nuclear war.