Who would win? If war broke out tomorrow and the ‘good will’ of nations meant they weren’t going to use nuclear weapons, who would win? Assume every country on the planet was fighting full scale war, and it was NATO vs. the rest of the world.
I would put a few dollars down on the rest of the world (ROTW). Sure, NATO would have the technological edge, but both China and Russia have Balistic Missiles capable of being fired across the globe. Let’s not forget the tactic of human flood that could be used by ROTW, the former USSR, China and Russia could swipe literally a billion men through western europe and win by sheer overwhelment. I think that if ROTW swiped quickly and hardly, western Europe would be a push over. The United States would take one heck of a battering, but it would too would eventually fall to the sheer might of ROTW.
If they weren’t going to use nuclear weapons, having ballistic missiles wouldn’t really amount to much.
China’s human waves do have to GET somewhere to be effective, and it’s a long walk. A war of this sort would take years and years to fight, and in that interim you would have to expect NATO could raise some very large armies. Who knows? After three or four years of war the dynamics will hcnage in unexpected ways.
what would be happening on the North American continent? Of course, Canada is a member of NATO, but what does your scenario envision for Mexico? If they were opponents of the U.S. military as well, a lot of manpower and resources could be tied up there.
Also, do you assume full cooperation between NATO and France? How about the Israelis?
I don’t see the ROTW faring too well… if you look at it, the only countries with a hope of actually attacking NATO early on (which is when it would have to be done, since once NATO is mobilized and gets the large armies going, its pretty much over) are Russia and Mexico. None of the other countries have the infrastructure or materiel to arm and move their armies to the fronts.
Not to mention that the only place where the ROTW comes out ahead is in sheer numbers, which really amounts to army size. NATO rules the air, and no one can dispute that the US pretty much does as it pleases where the seas are concerned.
And then theres economy. The only G7/8 nations not in NATO are Japan and Russia. Which means that the 20 some odd member states of NATO control a good 50% or more of the world’s economy. And a large portion of the ROTWs economy is tied up in Japan, which has no military, and would have to build it up before it could do much. Plus, they wouldn’t be able to get weapons from the US or other NATO members, so the only recourse would be to get stuff from Russia, taxing a weakened industrial sector even more.
I think its pretty cut and dried about who would win.
Who’s attacking who here? Where will the battles be fought? I’m hearing some pretty decent rhetoric from the good ol’ US, but have you guys learned nothing from Vietnam?
The ROTW features many countries that have done little BUT fight wars for the last 50 years. Battle-hardened troops. Armies ready to go. Firmly entrenched natives who will fight with teeth and nail if necessary. I’m not so sure that it would be as cut-and-dried as MilTan, for example, would like to believe.
Putting a man in uniform and handing him a weapon does not make him a soldier. His surviving one, a dozen, or a hundred skirmishes does not make him a veteran.
I believe that the extremely poor showing of the Iraqi army in the Second Gulf War, despite the scads of experience nominally conferred upon them in the First Gulf War, should put paid to the notion of the Third World (and even the Second) being full of “battle-hardened troops”.
Without wishing to take too much away from the thrust of your post - I’m curious. If experience doesn’t do it, what do you need to be a “veteran”?
Are you suggesting that Israeli troops, for example, won’t be a pretty worrying prospect to face?
To address the main point - there’s a lot of difference between attacking a desert where your 'plane can bomb the hell out of everything in sight and attacking a jungle/hill/mountain where you have to get down and dirty one on one.
So what kind of war are we talking about here? War of conquest? Kill everyone on the other team? Repel the invaders and nothing else? What conditions would constitute an end to the conflict?