I’m not talking about a war like what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan, where various international forces proceeded to promptly beat the crap out of a smaller, (relatively) unallied nation, but something on the scale of World War II, where the most powerful nations are locked in a fierce struggle for life and death.
What will happen to things like the internet? International commerce? Any thoughts?
(And let’s leave the nuclear option off the table, since that puts an end to everything quickly.)
I would guess something very similar to what happened in Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, which dealt with a modern day US/USSR war in Europe/Middle East. I read it a while ago and I’m pretty sure nukes weren’t used.
I don’t think you can leave nukes off the table. In your scenario, it’s entirely likely that strategic nukes would be used. They were during the last global war. At the very least, tactical weapons would be deployed. The current US administration seems partial to the idea of them and if developments keep playing out as they have, I imagine we’ll see nuclear bunker busters being used in the field in the next five years or so.
However, international commerce is the reason I believe we won’t see such a war in our lifetimes. The elites running the major powers have far too much to lose in another world war.
I suspect that such a war would largely be unlooked-for by both sides.
And, as history shows, unexpected or poorly-planned-for wars are especially bloody.
There are juust too many people who remember WW2, & too few who still buy into that “glories of war” cr@p to think it would be a good idea.
It’s not all impossible that nukes wouldn’t be used. The Germans in WW II had enough sarin nerve gas stored up to wipe out several major cities, but Hitler refused to use it. (No doubt the gassing he got in the First World War was a reason behind his unwillingness to use it.)
I think the problem a non-nuclear WW III scenario is that for a “WW 2.1” style war, you’d need countries that are industrialized, technologically advanced, international “power houses,” but almost all the powerful, technologically advanced, “Major” countries (i.e. The U.S., U.K., Russia, China, France, India, Israel, etc.) have nukes, and thus are deterred from attacking each other. (M.A.D., and all that)
Most of the industrialized but non-nuclear “secondary” powers are allied with a superpower already, who’d probably do a lot of the fighting in place of the secondary power anyway, if the situation was bad enough. For example, say Indonesia decides to attack Australia. Now, if Australia was left all by herself for some reason, she could probably defeat Indonesia in time. But if Australia calls up it’s “big brother” the U.S., we’d probably send over a carrier group or two to break Jakarta over Uncle Sam’s knee, within a matter of weeks. Like taking “a shotgun to a knife fight.”
Realistically, the only “Major: Conventional” war scenario I could see would be something like a “Falklands II,” with a politically “isolated” major power going to war against an unaffiliated semi-industrial power.
Or, perhaps, a much more unlikely scenario causing NEW powers to emerge…say, some sort of Neo-Fascist “Axis” arises between Nigeria and South Africa, begins to swallow up most of Africa, and Kenya and Egypt ally with each other against the Axis. But hell, even then, the rest of the world would more than likely intervene militarily long before things ever got that bad.
Let’s get one thing straight. There is never going to be another war like WW2, unless all the nukes were somehow neutralized.
The biggest problem is the fact that nobody except for Russia, China or the US(Maybe a united Europe pooling their resources) have the Infrastructure to fight a prolonged war. To fight a prolonged war, both sides would need militaries roughly equivlent to each others at the start, or some way to buy enough time to bring theirs up to speed before the enemy trashes their industry. An overwhelming Navy and/or Airforce would do the trick here.
Again, the biggest problem is the nuke factor. Eventually, if one side gets too close to defeat and no settlement is reached, it’s not unthinkable that the losing side will figure it’s better to use it’s nukes or lose them. At that point, unless the nukes for that side have been destroyed or neutralized, well…
There are those who believe that the only reason that WW3 didn’t happen sometime during the 1950’s-1960’s was because both sides had the bomb, and thus niether side was crazy enough to want to have another war. They got around it, though, by fighting little proxy wars all over(Vietnam, Afganistan, etc) where only one side was directly invovled in the fighting, while the other side would help out the opposition.
Hitler was gassed? missed this one in all my history lessons…
I believe it was mustard gas, when he was a solider in WWI. However, I could be wrong…
Apologies, you’re right, both of you.
Ignore the stupid pleb, what I failed to take into account was that I haven’t actually done Hilter in WW I in my History 
The flaw in the ‘wars can never happen in the nuclear age’ argument is that it assumes that wars are planned. In reality, major wars are often the result of catastrophic errors in judgement, or an escalation of events that grow beyond the control of the powers involved.
Hitler gambled that he could take Poland and keep Britain out of the war. The Japanese gambled that they could smash the U.S. fleet and keep the U.S. out of their interests in the far east. Argentina gambled that Britain would have no stomach for a long-distance war to protect a small island thousands of miles away. Saddam gambled that he could invade Kuwait without retaliation from the world.
I do believe that a war between major nuclear powers is unlikely, but I don’t think it’s impossible. All it takes is a crisis, and a leader with more balls than brains who is willing to roll the dice.
An example of how that could possibly happen would be if at some point China decided to invade Taiwan. Again, they would be invaded with the mistaken belief that the U.S. would not fight them to save Taiwan. If that goes wrong, and both forces become committed, then who knows? If a Chinese attack sank a carrier and 7,000 sailors were lost, the U.S. could respond by launching a major attack against a strategic target in mainland China. That in turn could cause a tactical nuclear retaliation, etc.
It’s highly unlikely, but possible.
While I agree with the above post on how wars are usually unintended, I do have a give a caveat: the example of a chinese invasion of Taiwan would quite likely NOT result in a US intervention, simply because it would not be necessary. Taiwan is entirely capable of defending itself against a Chinese invasion force. There’s a very good article from the fall 2000 issue of international security about it at http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/pdf/isec_25_02_51_0.pdf.
To summarize the article: China lacks the ability to rig up an amphibious invasion fleet quickly and secretly. Thus, Taiwan would have warning before an invasion. Given the relatively small size of the Chinese amphibious capability and the size of Taiwan’s army, it would be possible for them to distribute their military along the coast in such a way that in no place on the coast could China achieve a beachhead. And even if China did achieve a beachhead, it’s fleet is too small to support it properly - taiwan could reinforce it’s forces faster than china could, and the beachhead would be destroyed.
China would also be unable to achieve air superiority - this part is more detailed, and so I suggest you read the article to get a decent explanation, but basically even a surprise airstrike would, in a best-case scenario for China, destroy only half of taiwan’s air force. This would leave 300 fighters, more than enough to maintain air dominance over Taiwan. For the same reasons this and an amphibious assault would fail, an airlift of Chinese troops would also fail - no air superiority, and no ability to reinforce a beachhead faster than the Taiwanese could.
This is a bit of a hijack, I suppose, and I think I may have said this before, but I just wanted to point out that since Taiwan could repel a chinese assault on its own, it’s entirely possible the US would choose to stay uninvolved.
Of course, Taiwan would be unable to keep China from taking the smaller islands it owns that are closer to the mainland, and would also find it very difficult to break a Chinese blockade, so those situations might concievably escalate to US involvement.
So, long story short - a US-China war over taiwan is unlikely, at least as things stand now. Read the article, it’s really good.
Actually, I was going to point that out, and use it to point out why it is that U.S. strategy is to arm countries like South Korea and Taiwan to the point where they are capable of defending themselves without U.S. assistance.
The reason is precisely to avoid the kind of wishful thinking that leads to wars - as long as these countries MUST rely on the U.S. for defense, some opportunist despot may read the political winds of the day and decide the U.S. doesn’t have the will to come to the country’s defense. This is a rather unstable situation. So, U.S. policy has been to ensure that these countries are capable of defending themselves (and in the case of South Korea, the U.S. has maintained a ‘tripwire’ of front-line troops to make it a certainty that the U.S. would become involved should North Korea invade South Korea).
Considering the Bush Administration was floating the idea of using “limited” nukes in Iraq just a few months ago, :eek: I wouldn’t rule out the option of a nuclear WWIII.
As long as the United States armed forces lead the world in military technology , then the likely hood of nukes being used increases.
As the old sayin goes , you are not gonna take a knife to a gun fight.
Its pretty much the reason that the push for the missile shield is going apace. With Russia , and to a lesser extent China , the current missile shield works handily.
Take someone like kadaffi or Chirac , and they may decide to gamble that the US wont take out tripoli or paris , for sinking a carrier with a nuke, then your gonna want a more flexible response and defence.
Declan
You mean you actually bought that crap? No one in the Administration was ever seriously considering using nukes in Iraq, however they wanted the Iraqis to think otherwise. It’s simply a case of psychological warfare, if you make the other guy think that you’re crazier than he is, he just might back down without a fight.
"Current missile shield"? To what, exactly, are you referring?
I agree with ** Antonius Block ** - there isn’t any missile shield deployed by the US capable of stopping an ICBM. And even then, the proposed shield wouldn’t work against Russia, though it would blunt an attack by the Chinese -IIRC the plan calls for 60 interceptors, while China only has a couple dozen missiles capable of hitting the US, Russia has hundreds of missles that could strike the US.
LOL
Poor choice of words on my part , the minuteman 2 and 3 icbms , and the peacemakers
The Trident D-5 fleet
While there is no standing sac force any more , packages can be uploaded to several varieties of tactical and strategic bombers , as the pal software/hardware is still in place.
That shield
It works on a basis of a mass assault heading towards the US , the US fires back.
The only problem is that sheild does not work , should someone decide that he is gonna gamble that the American govt , is not going to vapourize an equivalent target , in retribution.
Declan
A couple of points
There is no shield deployed , it was bargained away in the start 1 or 2 negotiations , leaving only testing and one defended target , in both countries.
The US dropped the idea ,while the soviets put theirs around moscow.
Second
It wont stop russia now , but have you seen them planning on introducing any new classes of ICBMS , since the SS-18. Sooner or later , their fleet of ICBMS is going to get old enough to have to be mothballed ,then destroyed.
Third , the shield(newest one) was never meant to stop the russians , see my original post about the current missile shield ,thats whats keeping the russians sleeping soundly , knowing the states is not gonna launch on them ,and they are not gonna launch on the states.
Declan