Nuclear/Biological weapons now the ONLY weapons

[Vanguard]

It seems to me that the Iraq war clearly show the utter uselessness of building anything except nuclear and biological weapons. For any middle grade power, wasting money on conventional armaments is pointless: Iraq spent more on its military than any other middle grade power is ever likely to be able to spend, yet all that money and effort was completely worthless against either the United States or Israel.

Today only technological and numerical superiority in the air count for anything in conventional warfare. And no one except China, Russia, Europe and, maybe, India have the capability to achieve numerical superiority against the United States. So the only weapons capable of detering US attack are nuclear and biological weapons. And if you can deter the United States than you can deter anyone.

So spending huge amounts of money on Migs, Mirages or Hornets is stupid. They aren't worth anything. If you attack anyone else, the UN will make you pay more than you are willing to. If the US, or anyone else, attacks you, they are useless. The US will take no casualties, and an attack by anyone else will simply result in a war that makes the value of you initial weapons expenditures seem trivial compared to the cost of nuclear/biowarfare deterence----- all in a war in which it is now impossible to gain anything in the way of territory or reparations due to the UN.

Nothing short of nukes or bioweapons is worth anything anymore. Only they have deterent value, so buying anything else is pointless.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Vanguard
Iraq spent more on its military than any other middle grade power is ever likely to be able to spend,

North Korea has them beat. Hands down.

[Arrian]

Ok, but the main point I think is valid:

For middle grade powers, there are essentially two options: don't even try to defend yourself (spend very little on defense) or go nuclear.

The first leaves you at the mercy of the whims of the UN if you get attacked by a regional foe (since you will have no army and need help). The second puts you on the US hitlist, so you better hurry up & get those nukes before the US flattens you.

-Arrian

[My Wife Hates CIV]

'And no one except China, Russia, Europe and, maybe, India have the capability to achieve numerical superiority against the United States.'

still does not mean anything if what you're talking about (man power, air power) is worthless.

and as the years continue to pass by even nuclear weapons will mean less.

[Traianvs]

Yup Vanguard, you're quite right.... North Korea is being attacked by diplomats and stuff, but hey they're pretty invulnerable to those, they have a regime that consists of people that won't listen to what other people
Anyway they're still in power, and Iraq, without WMD, but with a big army, is done for (Well Saddam is out I mean)

[Drake Tungsten]

Vanguard's post is correct, but about 12 years behind the times. Rogue states learned this lesson after the first Gulf War and have been after nukes ever since. What do you think the "Axis of Evil" and Bush doctrine were a response to?

[Robert Plomp]

Pherhaps it's a good thing.
If the US are that powerfull that all other countries will see that they can't harm it anyway, so they'll stop building weapons.

Of course it's dangerous as well,
what if all countries have destroyed their waepons, and some dictator grabs all power in the US......

[GePap]

Nah...Vanguards post is incorrect.

Victory over Iraq, both in 1991 and 2003 do show how advanced Us weaposn are, but Iraq is also a poor testcase for most states. Mainly, it is the sort of terrain best suited to American tactics, flat and open. Even without nukes the US would not start a war with Nk at a whim, since it would be much bloodiers, simply given the level of enemy training and terrain. And lest not even get involved in jungle's......

But the bigger point is that for all the sabre rattling, the US is a far and sitant cop only interested in a few areas. There are 180 states in the world. At most, a sozen live under any level of US threat. The rest have to worry about neigbors. Does anyon here want to claim to India and Pakistan that all the moeny thy spend on conventional wepaons is useless cause they would loose to the US? The threat to them is not the US but each other, or other neighbors, who lack the US's weaponry.

There is, of course, another factor. If no-one else can get thier hands on rpecision weapons, it is because there is a oligarchy of states with the tech level to make them, and all of them work with the US (Europeans and Japan) and don't have the political will to make and sell them to others. This, of course, could easily change.

So, no, the arms business will continue to hum, since all these wonderfully goodies are still what gives one power.

[Drake Tungsten]

GePap is right; Vanguard's point only really applies to the handful of states who are directly threatened by the US. I should have been more clear about that in my previous post.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by CyberShy
what if . . . some dictator grabs all power in the US......

What if?

[raghar]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
What do you think the "Axis of Evil" and Bush doctrine were a response to?

Its an interesting question. There was "major" improvement in ways how can you get cheaply and in uncontrolable ways high concentrations of neccesary components.

It would be somewhat interesting if Iraq would have mortar guided amunition.

well che elections would be sooooooon. More than 10 months of Bush. :ack:

[PLATO]

Let's don't forget that the US is one of the few Nations with Nukes that has never even discussed a "No first strike" position. If regular armies become useless and the US anticipates the use of or is threatened with Nuclear attack, then it has always been its policy to use Nukes. Not that I agree with this, but it is the way it is. Fledgling nuclear powers should take note that the US tech advantage also applies to yields, guidance, and delivery systems.

[raghar]

Yields have decreased, guidance is crapy, and delivery system is bomber or tomahawk. If that missile lose its guidance system it could go everywhere in around 300 nm.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by raghar
Yelds have decreased, guidance is crapy, and delivery sistem is bombrer or tomahawk. If that missile lose its guidance system it could go everywhere in around 300 nm.

Dumb post.

Yields vary depending on tactical use. Guidance is to within a few feet at worst. Delivery systems include everything from a suitcase to an ICBM.

[Sandman]

Biological weapons are grossly over-rated in my opinion. When have they ever been used successfully? The anthrax attacks in America were quite nasty, but relied on the media to cause fear as much as anything. Those snipers caused more deaths and at least as much mayhem.

Suitcase nukes, whether they ever existed in the first place, are probably well past their sell-by date by now. They are also not capable of destroying a city, more like a city block or large building. A packed sports stadium could make a very tempting target.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Sandman
Suitcase nukes, whether they ever existed in the first place, are probably well past their sell-by date by now. They are also not capable of destroying a city, more like a city block or large building. A packed sports stadium could make a very tempting target.

This was pretty much my point. The US aresenal contains weapons that can be taylored to achieve a desired effect by controlling yield. Not that I believe that we would Nuke a sports stadium, but much more likely a military barracks.

[raghar]

Undercritical plutonium nuke's yield is around 1kT.

Not that I believe that we would Nuke a sports stadium, but much more likely a military barracks.

More like MOAB millitary barracks. But US hasn't guts to fight against opponent that could hit back.

Yields vary depending on tactical use.

Tactical use aka public opinion is against nuclear weapons so we will decrease yields and NW would become more acceptable.
US have NW and act as small children with MMG. They didn't went over deterRant idea, so why worry US NW are more or less useles. I think US should learn more about multilateral talks, or at least improve education of its citizens about US weapons. Ads differ from reality.

Do you remmember that treaty about not deploying satelite based weapons? It doesn't exist anymore. It started with antibalistic defense talk...

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by raghar
More like MOAB millitary barracks. But US hasn't guts to fight against opponent that could hit back.

Only countries with significant economic power can really hurt us. But no such country is our enemy today.

[Pekka]

I tend to agree with GePap here. Iraq as a case example is not good. It's like shooting fish in a bucket. Iraq has/had a crappy army. Bad training, bad weapons, bad or no tactics, no morale, no good leaders, flat and mostly clear terrain, defense not taken enough into consideration in the first place when building cities, no decent air defence, no good air force etc.. absolutely nothing. My grandpa would beat Iraq into submission.

The true test would be against more developed nation with actual army. Forgetting about old stuff is dangerous in my mind. While new is very important and should be added to new means, one should never forget about the older ones, you never know when they come handy..

[Lord Merciless]

None of the advanced nations are our enemies. In fact, most of them are our friends. The 2 most competent militaries in the world beside us are our most trusted allies: UK and Israel.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Vanguard
For any middle grade power, wasting money on conventional armaments is pointless:

What about using them to protect against other middle grade powers?

And wasting money is, in general, pointless

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
What if?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Don't encourage the troll, UR .

[Sir Og]

Tanks are definitely useless if they don't have air support. Airforce is also no good if it isn't large enough. But some more simple equipment like RPGs, Stingers etc. can inflict some heavy damage to any invading army especially in cities and jungles, forests, mountains etc.
Even the poorly trained Iraqi army could have inflicted a lot of damage to the US had it decided to fight in Baghdad instead of simply disappearing.

[Dis]

you damn lefties don't know a thing about dictators. No really. You computer geeks post in your advancd countries on comfy chairs. Have any of you ever been to a country with a real dictator? We still have elections in the U.S. And if Bush doesn't improve the economy asap he's toast. I haven't been to every middle eastern country, but I have been to Saudi Arabia. Things suck over there. You guys don't realize how good the U.S. goverment is, and how bad some other country's goverments are.

Anyways back to the topic.

I disagree with the original post. Air force is important as Sir Og said. the thing is Iraq was vested too heavily in army, but not enough on air force. granted, they lacked the technology to do much with an air force. But if they had some decent migs, and some decently trained pilots they could have wrecked havoc with american bombers and fighters. Even though we have programs like Top Gun, only a a select number of pilots attend. I do think our pilots can be defeated in dog fighting. Our jets are getting old and aren't all that great at dog fighting anyways. If they had a decent amount of training, and fairly recent migs- they could pose serious problems to the U.S.

Guided missiles from the U.S. still pose a significant threat to airfields though. So it would be essentual to knock out the U.S. early before their guided missiles start destroying airfields and aircraft. The navy ships have to be hit with aircraft. And all bombers must be shot down- even if they are over other countries.

biological/chemical weapons are useless.

Nuclear on the other hand is the way to go. The trick is to keep it secret until you actually have them. Then you can do all sorts of things with them. You could try to blackmail as N. Korea is doing now. You could threaten to give them to terrorists. Or actually give them to terrorists.

In any case, eventually terrorists will get one, and they will nuke an american city. If Bush is president, I do feel like he might nuke the entire middle east. That is a possiblity. That could start WW3 if China and/or Russia don't like us nuking the middle east. Now if Hillary Clinton is president, she would just make a deal with the terrorists for peace. That may or may not work.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Sir Og
Tanks are definitely useless if they don't have air support. Airforce is also no good if it isn't large enough. But some more simple equipment like RPGs, Stingers etc. can inflict some heavy damage to any invading army especially in cities and jungles, forests, mountains etc.
Even the poorly trained Iraqi army could have inflicted a lot of damage to the US had it decided to fight in Baghdad instead of simply disappearing.

Those RPGs are only useful if the US want to spare the civilians. In a case of total war short of nuclear, the USAF would just MOAB city block by city block.

Also, we don't have to act like Hitler's genocide maniacs. Doing the Ghengis Khan way should be sufficient.

[Dis]

that would never happen.

Only if we were fighting for our survival would killing civilians be accepted. And then we'd be killing our own civilians.

We can't just go destroying city blocks. The lefties would revolt- assuming we have a republican president. Every major american city would shut down. Except for my city- nothing shuts my city down- except a nuclear device being detonated on the strip.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Dissident
that would never happen.

Only if we were fighting for our survival would killing civilians be accepted. And then we'd be killing our own civilians.

We can't just go destroying city blocks. The lefties would revolt- assuming we have a republican president. Every major american city would shut down. Except for my city- nothing shuts my city down- except a nuclear device being detonated on the strip.

It can happen, if New York gets nuked and the government decides not to go nuclear.

Also, your theory about Hillary making peace with terrorists is totally laughable. You apparently don't understand how ruthless these career politicians can be. The American public would cry for blood if New York is destroyed by, let's say Islamic extremists. Any peaceniks, if there were still any, would certainly get lynched. It wouldn't surprise me if she ordered internment of all foreign Muslims. I would expect her to order destruction of every fundamentalist infrastructure such as Koran schools and execution of every fundamentalist Imams and Ayatollahs.

[Sir Og]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless


Those RPGs are only useful if the US want to spare the civilians. In a case of total war short of nuclear, the USAF would just MOAB city block by city block.

Also, we don't have to act like Hitler's genocide maniacs. Doing the Ghengis Khan way should be sufficient.

Well if the US (or any other coutry) goes that way in a conflict like Iraq, all other major countries would attack it.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Sir Og


Well if the US (or any other coutry) goes that way in a conflict like Iraq, all other major countries would attack it.

That's why I said "IN CASE OF TOTAL WAR". The total war will occur if, for example, a terrorist nuclear attack against New York has been carried out.