Exactly. This scenario involves direct conflict between nuclear powers. All nuclear powers so far have had the sense not to do that. A more realistic scenario is something like Vietnam, where the Russians supplied their communist allies in that part of the world enough armaments that they were able to defeat US agression. In the hypothetical of the US invading Iran, consider the EU supplying Iran with lots of high tech weapons that the Iranians could kill off huge numbers of US GIs. Iran could then become the Persian Gulf version of Vietnam for the US.
Under political science theories the idea that Democracies do not war is called "the Democratic Peace.’
There are two schools of thought, normative and institutional.
The normative school feels that democracies are comprised of enlightened individuals who will not war with other Democracies because they share the same ideals.
I tend to hold the normative school in low regard.
The institutional school just explains the “Democratic peace” as a result of slow decision making in a democracy which forces greater consideration, and on second thought most people just will often not go to war.
I don’t really think it is an absolute law that Democracies won’t war, but I think it is exceedingly rare because of institutional reasonings.
As far as Cecil goes.
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The Nazi explanation is meaningless, Nazi germany was not a democracy by even the most remote definition when it began to war with the democracies of Europe. It’s explained under the theory by the simple fact that it was not a democracy.
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Bismarck’s Prussia/Germany ultimately wasn’t a true Democracy because an unelected Kaiser appointed the Chancellorr (and could do so without support of the Reichstag) and the reichstag was powerless whenever the Kaiser/PM would decide to do whatever they wanted.
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Britain is probably the best example as Britain can be said to have been in the extreme early stages of democracy.
Well of course any organized group of countries can win against one single country even as powerful as the USA. History has shown time and time again that an empire can and will be taken down by a much smaller more dedicated force. They are usually a conglomoration of smaller nations united under one single goal, to destroy the empire. It is a matter of finding an exploitable weakness and concentrationg effort on that.
The USA seeks to conquer the world not in the old fashion way the British, French and German used to use which is full military might. The US Military is just a mere fraction of the arsenal that te US uses to conquer the world. The modern US empire is constructed with massive Industry, communication, entertainment and advertisement, demoractic processes with materialistic inducements. In otherwords, the US conquers with capitalism. Any nation that uses capitalism is weak against the US becuse if you destroy the US, its own economy also dies. Kill the US, and you kill yourself. You cant just beat the US militarily, you need to conquer its economy as well.
X~Slayer
Right-o. Economic and political maneuvering, perhaps in concert with China and/or India, and perhaps some mideastern oil suppliers, would probably be a lot more effective than a head-on military confrontation. Put a crimp in the oil pipeline, refuse to finance American debt, embargo American exports. etc. When the unemployment rate hits 10% and the stock market is in the toilet, the voters would be screaming for the President’s head, and the coalition against the U.S. would find
I’m not sure this is politically feasible though. A lot of countries would have to want to bring the U.S. to heel badly enough to suffer some serious economic hardship themselves and to put aside their own political differences. I hard find it hard to imagine a plausible scenario that would instill that kind of determination among so many nations.
I also find it hard to believe that France and Germany could summon the political will to enter a war against a major military power short of being directly attacked themselves.
… itself with an administration more willing to listen to them. Sorry, I hit the “submit” button before I’d finished editing.
Well, they wouldn’t just attack America. That is stupid. They would start with some economic sanctions, cancel trade agreements, beef up opposition forces, suplly opposition forces, eventually fight it out directly in foreign countries, but that is about as much as an attack on America as they can do. And it isn’t likely to happen short of Bush declaring himself emperor and invading 20 other countries.
Justifiable? Depends on what we’ve done to piss them off. At this point, I think they can justifiably grumble, but not do much else.
I want to apologize for that seriously screwed up post. I should have taken time to review it carefully before posting that mess. I’ve gotta pay some serious attention to my keyboard skills …
Say, other than the oil embargo back in the '70’s (which was directed pretty much against the entire West, not just us) has anybody ever attempted serious economic sanctions against the U.S.?
According to Alvin Toffler’s line of reasoning:
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The first revolution of mankind was the Agricultural Revolution many thousands of years ago. Those who could perform agriculture were in much better shape than those who could not. Thus the necessary components of agriculture become the measure of wealth. Since land is one of them, land is wealth. To be wealthy, therefore, you need to control land, which means having the ability to threaten violence on others. This gives rise to monarchies. War, therefore, is in a sense a conflict between agricultural societies.
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The second revolution was the Commercial/Industrial Revolution, in which trade became the determining factor deciding one’s status. Therefore, money and the ability to control an economy become the prime tools of power. Once money becomes power, one can use it to gain the ability to threaten violence in a way ancient monarchs could only dream of. Thus warfare becomes more nightmarish.
But one wonders if a nation can not use the power inherent in money to control another nation’s economy, in an analogy to the way the ability to threaten violence can give you power over another’s land. (Moving past Toffler here). One wonders if the historians should lok at these parallels, and see certain situations as true economic warfare (which they may in fact already do, for all I know). Can you wage war through strictly economic means as successfully as you can with violence?
In this way, the EU may be able to bring the US to its knees (if that were its goal) more effectively through economic means than through physical threats.
- Back to Toffler. The third revolution is the Information Revolution, which began to poke its head above the Commercial wave in the mid-50s, when the number of white-collar workers outnumbered the number of blue-collar workers for the first time. In this wave, access to information can be used to control both money and violence. Hacking into bank databases to get yourself access to money to buy and develop nuclear material requires neither a lot of money nor the ability to threaten violence, just the knowledge of how to do it and some cheap hardware.
Thinking beyond this along the lines of my previously mentioned parallels between money and violence, one wonders what all-out information warfare between technological societies would look like, and if it already occurs.
I was going to write a long post about toffler and the fact that if he thinks that argicultural revolution-era warfare was between agrarian societies, he’s missing the long tradition of plains invaders from Central Asia toppling sedentary governments throughout Eurasia, but decided not to continue the hijack 
But what I’m going to ask is, not meaning to be macabre or anything, but if Britain and France were to decide to nuke us, would they have enough weapons to complete the job? Apparenty between them, they only have around 550. But how many of those are capable of reaching the US? And remember also that some of those must be spent in taking out our nuke sites to avoid retaliation, AND take out our conventional military and our civilian population. Even if all of them hit certainly we will have many more available to lob back at them.
Net result, even if the only people on our side is 700 million screaming Chinese*, we’d lose at least half our population, but probably not all. But western Europe would be a puddle of glass 
*reference worth 3 pts.
Like many, you have confused which is the parisite and which the host. The US is a convenient host for capital, but there are several others.
Capital is a much greater force than the US. It has been a few decades, so from close up the 2 may appear indivisible. It isn’t so, the loudly bruited ‘strength’ of the US is largely a function of the fact that Capital is parked there.
Don’t delude yourself, it has no permanent abode or national loyalty.
French nuclear doctrine has no concept of taking out nuke sites. Nuclear strategic weapons have one purpose : targeting population centers. That’s pure detterence : “you’re going to sink with us”.
As for the numbers, you would have to multiply the number of sub-based missiles by the number of warhead on each missile. Other french nuclear weapons are tactical weapons that couldn’t reach the USA (assuming the USA still has an airforce, which I’m taking as a given).
The EU is an economic entity.
“I thought there were a billion screaming Chinese.”
“There were.”
Man, one of my all time favorite movies. Watching it as a grown up the other day made me realize just how preposterous the idea of a foreign invasion of US soil is, despite the bad acting and worse tactics.
slinks back into the darkness
Theoretically, it could happen if the US ambassador was absent for some reason. (That’s how the UN resolution for the Korean War was passed despite the fact that the Soviets had a veto – their ambassador wasn’t there to exercise it.)
Thanks to the OP, I will now have nightmares about invading hordes of EU troops, all of whom will be middleaged bureaucrats in beautifully tailored suits, goose-stepping and wagging their fingers at the same time.
We will counterattack in our Suburbans.
And it will not be pretty.