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World Police, we can take on the world, we could win a land war in Asia, god damn it!

24 (20.9%)

Matched Force, enough power to take on any other nation one on one and win

34 (29.6%)

Force Projection, enough to have influence around the world, but no real capability for a full on war in a foreign nation

10 (8.7%)

Fulfilling Treaty Obligations, no more

22 (19.1%)

Homeland Defense, no more

16 (13.9%)

Nuclear Deterrent is enough

4 (3.5%)

We need no military power at all

5 (4.3%)

Total Members Voted: 115

[Leafsnail]

...Ah, right, that's why it said "mainland" in the textbooks.  Cool.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Japan also dropped a firebomb on a mountain in Washington state. The plan was to create a giant fire on the west coast to destroy U.S. assets and cripple supply lines. It didn't work out.

[Soulwynd]

Also, one more thing, nuclear power is very dangerous power to hide behind, you could destroy the entire earth via chain reaction by launching one nuke. I'd rather spend millions on an army, thank you.

Please don't troll.

Hey Nadaka, maybe his earth is a one-dimensional body with a linear decay instead of an exponential one. In his earth, this little bomb would have destroyed it completely as the blast would reach over 42000km with a linear decay.

[JohnnyDigs]

Japan and England had great navies when they invaded the U.S.

Who currently has a big enough navy to invade today?

[Lagslayer]

Also, one more thing, nuclear power is very dangerous power to hide behind, you could destroy the entire earth via chain reaction by launching one nuke. I'd rather spend millions on an army, thank you.

Please don't troll.

Hey Nadaka, maybe his earth is a one-dimensional body with a linear decay instead of an exponential one. In his earth, this little bomb would have destroyed it completely as the blast would reach over 42000km with a linear decay.

I think he's referring to MAD. If someone launches a nuke, everyone launches their nukes and all hell breaks loose. If we have no military to speak of, then nukes are our only response, and nobody wants that.

[Soulwynd]

Also, one more thing, nuclear power is very dangerous power to hide behind, you could destroy the entire earth via chain reaction by launching one nuke. I'd rather spend millions on an army, thank you.

Please don't troll.

Hey Nadaka, maybe his earth is a one-dimensional body with a linear decay instead of an exponential one. In his earth, this little bomb would have destroyed it completely as the blast would reach over 42000km with a linear decay.

I think he's referring to MAD. If someone launches a nuke, everyone launches their nukes and all hell breaks loose. If we have no military to speak of, then nukes are our only response, and nobody wants that.

Ahhh, I didn't even think of that, thank you. Physicists often hear craziness about chain reactions, so I assumed that was the case. Oh yeah, the LHC can still melt the earth. :B

[Taniec]

He's actually right. Once one is launched nothing really stops them all from launching. But there was a thread a while back about if people and leaders had the cojones to accelerate such nuclear disaster.

[nenjin]

Which during the last nuclear crisis, they didn't. Neither Kruschev or Kennedy wanted to launch missiles, and said as much to each other in private letters. It was pressure coming from, surprise, their military establishments to launch that drove the crisis into the red zone. Domestic support for aggressive action is often half the equation, as much as a real external threat is.

The Russians only started moving missiles into Cuba because the American military was hot to invade a communist country off our borders, and the CIA had tried everything in their play book to either neutralize Cuba and Castro (assassinations, counter-insurgency, multiple invasions/attacks) or instigate a reaction from Castro so the president would be force to order a full US military commitment. The Russians believed that a Russian military buildup in Cuba had a greater chance of touching off WW3 than stationing nuclear missiles in there as a deterrent to an invasion. While they may ultimately have been right, at the time, their solution DID almost touch off WW3, were it not for the unwillingness of both Kennedy AND Kruschev to unleash it.

[Dsarker]

Yes. the us has been invaded. Several times in fact.

And we have at or near the top in coal, natural gas, uranium, arable farm land, fresh water and possibly rare earth metals.

Farm land? sure. Fresh water? Eh, pollution might render that wrong, I'm not sure. Coal? Becoming less and less important. Uranium? I'm not sure, but if a country just wanted uranium, Australia would probably be less risky. Natural gas? Probably. Metal? Not a clue.

Australia is a terrible place to invade. Nowhere is close enough to get supply lines except Indonesia, which has a reasonably sized military. Then you have the problem of the number of troops required to take and hold those places. Then you have the problem of Australia spending an awful amount of money on relatively elite troops. We'd be able to turn it into a Vietnam for any invading power, and thats without our allies (most notably...the US.)

[Grimshot]

 Hmm, I'm not to sure what the best thing to do with the military would be. I've never given it much thought. Off the top of my head I would say... Decrease military spending by half, recycle 50% of our nuclear weapons (starting with the old of course), reduce army manpower by 50%, increase training and discipline in the army, cease spending money on outside entities, stop being the world police and cease support of the U.N., focus about 80% of saved money on bioweapon research/counter bioweapon programs and 20% on paying off our debt. People seem to fail to realize just how dangerous biological weapons are and how vulnerable we are to them atm. I think they will be a much greater threat than nuclear weapons in the future.

[Gamerlord]

Yes. the us has been invaded. Several times in fact.

And we have at or near the top in coal, natural gas, uranium, arable farm land, fresh water and possibly rare earth metals.

Farm land? sure. Fresh water? Eh, pollution might render that wrong, I'm not sure. Coal? Becoming less and less important. Uranium? I'm not sure, but if a country just wanted uranium, Australia would probably be less risky. Natural gas? Probably. Metal? Not a clue.

Australia is a terrible place to invade. Nowhere is close enough to get supply lines except Indonesia, which has a reasonably sized military. Then you have the problem of the number of troops required to take and hold those places. Then you have the problem of Australia spending an awful amount of money on relatively elite troops. We'd be able to turn it into a Vietnam for any invading power, and thats without our allies (most notably...the US.)

Don't count on the US too much. If the invader is one of their allies as well, they probably won't help us. They're also pretty far away, and if a country like China came after us, well. I'm an Aussie, and my history teacher was pretty knowledgeable about this stuff. Most of Yr 10 History was him explaining the many ways we're fucked if we're invaded. Scary thing was, 99% of it made absolute sense. We would be able to put up a pretty damn good guerrilla war though.

[Dsarker]

Yes. the us has been invaded. Several times in fact.

And we have at or near the top in coal, natural gas, uranium, arable farm land, fresh water and possibly rare earth metals.

Farm land? sure. Fresh water? Eh, pollution might render that wrong, I'm not sure. Coal? Becoming less and less important. Uranium? I'm not sure, but if a country just wanted uranium, Australia would probably be less risky. Natural gas? Probably. Metal? Not a clue.

Australia is a terrible place to invade. Nowhere is close enough to get supply lines except Indonesia, which has a reasonably sized military. Then you have the problem of the number of troops required to take and hold those places. Then you have the problem of Australia spending an awful amount of money on relatively elite troops. We'd be able to turn it into a Vietnam for any invading power, and thats without our allies (most notably...the US.)

Don't count on the US too much. If the invader is one of their allies as well, they probably won't help us. They're also pretty far away, and if a country like China came after us, well. I'm an Aussie, and my history teacher was pretty knowledgeable about this stuff. Most of Yr 10 History was him explaining the many ways we're fucked if we're invaded. Scary thing was, 99% of it made absolute sense. We would be able to put up a pretty damn good guerrilla war though.

But that's why we have our military the way it is. We've got other allies (UK, NZ), and our military is set up so that we're relatively valuable in a conflict. And if China was invading, do you think the US wouldn't love the chance to write off all their debts to them?

[counting]

Don't count on the US too much. If the invader is one of their allies as well, they probably won't help us. They're also pretty far away, and if a country like China came after us, well. I'm an Aussie, and my history teacher was pretty knowledgeable about this stuff. Most of Yr 10 History was him explaining the many ways we're fucked if we're invaded. Scary thing was, 99% of it made absolute sense. We would be able to put up a pretty damn good guerrilla war though.

Your situation is much better than us stuck in a 400 km long island. We don't even have place to guerrilla.

[Dsarker]

Again, same thing. US doesn't want China to get too much power. They don't want it getting Australia or Taiwan.

To that end, I don't think China is going to go to war with Australia. Taiwan is infinitely more likely, and even then, I think it's far more likely that China will just outlast the people over there who don't want Chinese rule, and assimilate the rest.

[Gamerlord]

Again, same thing. US doesn't want China to get too much power. They don't want it getting Australia or Taiwan.

To that end, I don't think China is going to go to war with Australia. Taiwan is infinitely more likely, and even then, I think it's far more likely that China will just outlast the people over there who don't want Chinese rule, and assimilate the rest.

I know, but I was just using it as an example. I'd trust the UK and NZ to help us out, but the US? I don't think so.