Can we fight another Major War?

[André Masséna]

Can the United States, or any other Western Power for that matter actually fight and sustain another major war? The last Major War any of us have really had was World War II and plenty has changed since then. Our citizens don't seem willing to join the military in mass like they used to, Patriotism is often called "nationalism" or even "racism" in some European Countries, and we are often shocked when our military loses 10 men in one day, let alone 4,000 over 5 years.

Can we even hope to fight or win another major war? I seriously doubt we could hope to sustain a fight against Russia...or China....or any other first world country these days. The United States has become too reliant on Technology to win our wars against piss poor enemies. This really started after we decimated an over hyped Iraqi army in the 90's. We were projected to have casualties in the hundreds of thousands in that war, and we left with 200 KIA vs a tens of thousands of Iraqis dead. We are too expectant of quick victory from the skies as we destroy our poorly equipped enemies on the ground. What is going to happen when we start fighting people with technology equal to our own, or dare I say greater?

I don't think the American people of today, nor any other Western Country, has the stomach to lose thousands of their young men in war....even for an easily justifiable cause. Sure, we'll have a good number of young men willing to join up, but compared to days of old, this number seems to be diminished greatly. Of course, everyone has a yellow ribbon sticker on their car, or supports the troops in one way or another, but I find that the West has become too soft to actually act upon that. I think the days of buying war bonds are over, the days of rationing are over, the days of switching production from fridges to fighters are over...in essence...our greatest defense, a highly motivated population is gone. Today we have fat slobs interested more in their stock portfolio than the well being of their country or their allies.

Our enemies have that advantage over us now. They care, enough to kill and enough to die. We are setting in our own little world where everyone has a car, everyone has opportunity, and we take it for granted. We think we're unbeatable....but when was the last time we were challenged by a worthy foe?

Everyone hopes that major wars are over, but eventually there will be another, sooner or later, and I fear that the Western Powers don't have the will to fight one, let alone win one.

[Pickle_mole]

America is not willing to sacrifice anymore. How can you defend yourself if you arent even sure if america is worth defending? (looking at all you on the left!)

[Admiral Piett]

America is not willing to sacrifice anymore. How can you defend yourself if you arent even sure if america is worth defending? (looking at all you on the left!)

This is a moronic statement. I'm sick of conservatives blaming liberals for all of life's little inconveniences to them and liberals thinking conservatives are the devil.

[Gelgoog]

well considering that we are fighting two wars a world away without mobilizing the economy or instituting a draft to support it....yea I'd say were doing pretty good right now. Since there hasnt been a total war( thats copy writed ) since WW2, then you can't judge the capabilities of a nation. Right now the USA is incredibly powerful and every year getting more so even with the striking manpower difference since even Nam.

The fact remains that the bulk of our power lies in fighting a conventional war. you could send 10,000 russian tanks rumbling across poland and watch them get massacred really quickly with todays precision weapons technology. Our non-nuclear destructive potential has never come even close to being tapped because we dont have any enemy worthy of it. So yes, we are unbeatable by any convential army/ any coalition.

[Viking Prince]

well considering that we are fighting two wars a world away without mobilizing the economy or instituting a draft to support it....yea I'd say were doing pretty good right now. Since there hasnt been a total war( thats copy writed ) since WW2, then you can't judge the capabilities of a nation. Right now the USA is incredibly powerful and every year getting more so even with the striking manpower difference since even Nam.

The fact remains that the bulk of our power lies in fighting a conventional war. you could send 10,000 russian tanks rumbling across poland and watch them get massacred really quickly with todays precision weapons technology. Our non-nuclear destructive potential has never come even close to being tapped because we dont have any enemy worthy of it. So yes, we are unbeatable by any convential army/ any coalition.

Perhaps. I do not think we have enough smart weapons to take out 10,000 tanks rolling into Poland. The problem is not capability nor even money. These weapons take time to produce and a major war would spread very quickly. Only the equipment and manpower that is currently trained and deployed (including staged) is available. Quite a bit of firepower, but is this enough to blunt a few million troops? Given time, the USA military would win. The question is if the time is available to get new production onto the field.

[Gelgoog]

Perhaps. I do not think we have enough smart weapons to take out 10,000 tanks rolling into Poland.

you dont need to think, we already have it. hell a few B-52s can destroy an entire armored front, thats several armored corps.

called sensor fuzed weapon
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/cbu-97.htm

The problem is not capability nor even money. These weapons take time to produce and a major war would spread very quickly. Only the equipment and manpower that is currently trained and deployed (including staged) is available.

what you dont realize is that America since WW2 has maintained a military industrial complex that not only has huge stockpiles are armaments and reserves that you can barely imagine. yes were talking about a giant army of millions of soldiers and a logistical system that the rest of the world combined couldnt match. All of this is well and good, but we also have in place that ability to quickly convert our industry into a war footing.

Quite a bit of firepower, but is this enough to blunt a few million troops? Given time, the USA military would win. The question is if the time is available to get new production onto the field.

again, the US has a superb tactical response set in place. Hell quick mobilization was what we were practicing during the entire cold war, you might want to look into how we intended to blunt the soviet invasion of western europe for one thing.

seriously, you really have no idea how powerful the united states is, its litterly much stronger then all the worlds armies put together and has a budget to match. even as we scale back on manpower, we replace that with an exponentially growing destructive capability with new weapon systems and integrated technologies. We are not the same army as we were in Nam, nor are we the same army that fought in the first gulf war.... in fact just in the past 15 years we've made incredible strides. Anyone actually in the army can tell you about their capabilities.

[Viking Prince]

I think you over estimate the armory at hand. We pretty much can shoot the whole wad in a few days. That is because we are so capable. Look at the depletion rate in each of the gulf conflicts. It is only because they were so short that we did not use up the available munitions. These were small conflicts and not the major war proposed in this thread.

We can take out quite a bit, but to the best of my knowledge our B52's are not dropping unguided bombs, but launching platforms for missles and targeted bombs today.

Whole divisions of armor with one plane is highly unlikely if the enemy is mobalized, modern, and aware. This may be a bit of an overstatement on your part. China (especially 10-15 years from now) is not Saddam and a crippled Iraq.

[antares24]

Can the United States, or any other Western Power for that matter actually fight and sustain another major war? The last Major War any of us have really had was World War II and plenty has changed since then. Our citizens don't seem willing to join the military in mass like they used to, Patriotism is often called "nationalism" or even "racism" in some European Countries, and we are often shocked when our military loses 10 men in one day, let alone 4,000 over 5 years.

Can we even hope to fight or win another major war? I seriously doubt we could hope to sustain a fight against Russia...or China....or any other first world country these days. The United States has become too reliant on Technology to win our wars against piss poor enemies. This really started after we decimated an over hyped Iraqi army in the 90's. We were projected to have casualties in the hundreds of thousands in that war, and we left with 200 KIA vs a tens of thousands of Iraqis dead. We are too expectant of quick victory from the skies as we destroy our poorly equipped enemies on the ground. What is going to happen when we start fighting people with technology equal to our own, or dare I say greater?

I don't think the American people of today, nor any other Western Country, has the stomach to lose thousands of their young men in war....even for an easily justifiable cause. Sure, we'll have a good number of young men willing to join up, but compared to days of old, this number seems to be diminished greatly. Of course, everyone has a yellow ribbon sticker on their car, or supports the troops in one way or another, but I find that the West has become too soft to actually act upon that. I think the days of buying war bonds are over, the days of rationing are over, the days of switching production from fridges to fighters are over...in essence...our greatest defense, a highly motivated population is gone. Today we have fat slobs interested more in their stock portfolio than the well being of their country or their allies.

Our enemies have that advantage over us now. They care, enough to kill and enough to die. We are setting in our own little world where everyone has a car, everyone has opportunity, and we take it for granted. We think we're unbeatable....but when was the last time we were challenged by a worthy foe?

Everyone hopes that major wars are over, but eventually there will be another, sooner or later, and I fear that the Western Powers don't have the will to fight one, let alone win one.

NO. Simply put, today the general population wouldn't make big sacrifices becouse the wars the west is fighting don't require it, so a politician asking for them would be clearly lieing.
If a really big war will happen in the future, in wich the fate of our countries is at stake, people will realize it and take action. It's not like the people of the west on each side in ww2 were all heroes, they had to fight.
Let's stop overidealizing the past and complain about the present, please.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

I think the OP's question was, "what happens if we go up against someone with technology like ours?" Obviously China and Russia lag behind right now, but they could catch up quite a bit if they put the money into it.

[André Masséna]

I think the OP's question was, "what happens if we go up against someone with technology like ours?" Obviously China and Russia lag behind right now, but they could catch up quite a bit if they put the money into it.

Bingo.

When we start losing entire squadrons of fighters, losing 5,000 men in a single battle, and our technological superiority is gone, do we still have the mettle to carry on a fight?

[Farnan]

I think you guys are wrong.

The US and the West can fight a major war and sustain loses a lot easier than they can fight the current wars. The general populace understand conventional wars, they can see formations be destroyed, battle lines change. They're willing to take large losses over short times due to the fact they can understand the losses.

However, the population can't stand unconventional wars, even when they have drastically less casaulties. That is because people can't understand them. They don't know why soldiers are dying even when the enemy army is destroyed, there are no formations to watch or battle lines to see change.

[Xan]

I don`T think the west could win a war against China or India just to many people.

[Caelius]

Well except no one has enough money to put 6 Sukohis for each US Raptor.

Or that the Raptor would shoot all six out of the sky in an engagement. It could be a whole squadron going up against two F-22s and they'd still have the same result.

[The Big Red 1]

Or that the Raptor would shoot all six out of the sky in an engagement. It could be a whole squadron going up against two F-22s and they'd still have the same result.

What the Hell is a Sukohis? I still agree with the above post, and the enemy planes wouldnt' even know the Raptors were there.

[Gelgoog]

What the Hell is a Sukohis? I still agree with the above post, and the enemy planes wouldnt' even know the Raptors were there.

yes what people dont realize is that the raptor is a generation ahead of every next generation fighter being produced/ prototyped right now. our technological leap is just so far ahead of the rest of the world and most importantly we can actually afford to impliment our R&D while others such as russia cannot.

One of the good things to come out of the recent wars in iraq and afghanistan is that not only does it use up a bunch of older vehicles sitting in our inventories ( meaning that they get replaced by new tech), but also the fact that its one big live combat sandbox in which prototypes can go directly into combat and get field tested (that alone greatly speeds up development to issue process).

so when your fighting against an enemy in a conventional war in which you have a massive technological edge, air superiority, naval superiority, ground superiority, logistical superiority, etc. well you get the point. having a very large army these days like china does, really doesnt mean a whole lot.

[gambit]

America would fight another major war just fine. Yes we'll sustain many losses but we have before.

The technological aspect shouldn't stop us either. During WW2, Germany had far superior tanks. Wasn't the stats something like it takes 3 shermans to take down 1 tiger, and 5-6 to take down a panther? We industrialized and fought the war with full strength.

If it was another war like WW2, which was America's shining moment of glory, with the whole nation behind the war, instead of something like Iraq which has 'divided' the country, then we'd be just dandy.

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

The technological aspect shouldn't stop us either. During WW2, Germany had far superior tanks. Wasn't the stats something like it takes 3 shermans to take down 1 tiger, and 5-6 to take down a panther? We industrialized and fought the war with full strength.

This is the failing of the US military, it is horrifically over-engineered, the result of a bloated budget. the Raptor may well be the best plane in the world, but the fact you can deploy about 6 Sukohis for the same price means that those Raptors are going to be swamped and destroyed.

[Farnan]

This is the failing of the US military, it is horrifically over-engineered, the result of a bloated budget. the Raptor may well be the best plane in the world, but the fact you can deploy about 6 Sukohis for the same price means that those Raptors are going to be swamped and destroyed.

Well except no one has enough money to put 6 Sukohis for each US Raptor.

[The Big Red 1]

Well except no one has enough money to put 6 Sukohis for each US Raptor.

And the fact that the raptor would still win.

What is a Sukohi link plz?

[sparty]

I fail to see how having liberal views categorizes a person as not loving their country. That's extremist politics talking not reason. It's exactly the same as when conservatives are labeled exclusively as war mongers and soulless corporate avatars.

The hate in American politics has to stop first and fomenting it on this board is highly irresponsible in my opinion.

To answer the question at hand though...

I think the United States would be in a very compromised position to mobilize industrially for a massive wartime production effort. During WWII plants existed, skilled laborers existed, and the US was not nearly as reliant upon foreign imports to make industrial products like tanks ,etc.

US manufacturers have cut costs and gained efficiency to increase their bottom lines well past the point where they still have the capacity to churn out tanks, boats, bullets, guns, and uniforms as they did in the 1940s.

The number of regional governments now (NATO, EU, UN, Pan American Union etc.) all exist now to resolve disputes that might spill over into something larger. Anything that would break out would have a regional international response as well as a larger extra-regional response. In this way there are checks and balances on how conflict escalates and then gets managed.

The first Gulf War was an excellent example of how this works.