quote:
Originally posted by Instar:
"But I do Believe that some Nuclear arsenal should be kept; just for the sake that responsible scientists can actually develop fusion power."
Huh? Just a point, but generally you dont need nuclear weapons to build fusion power.
just check the site
www.iter.org for current fusion research. The science has been worked out. Now they are working on building the first test plant. (A project which the US feels isn't worth major investing so after years of being part of ITER they withdrew because $350mil is too much to pay for fusion power apparantly)
quote:
On that point, I would rather have nuclear arms than not. The unholy triad of megadeath weapons is too widespread. Fear of retaliation prevents attack. Biochemical attack must therefore equal nuclear retaliation.
This point can be argued, though I tend to agree with you. By keeping a stockpile of weaps of mass destruction you ensure that other countries won't use them against you because then you would use them against them. On the other hand it also makes it easier for smaller non nation organizations (read terrorists) to get their hands on one or the materials to make one. If a terrorist uses a weap of mass destruction they probably won't leave a return address that can be hit back with another weap of mass destruction. Also what happens if a nation like Iraq (not to focus on Iraq to much or anything) etc... gets a nuke and goes ahead and invades Kuwait or other again and says if you intervene we nuke you?
quote:
As for the armed forces, I would maintain them, if not slightly augment them. SpecFor is good, but they're only good in certain situations. China, for example, has an army of millions (literally), so we need to at least maintain a decent armored, cavalry, infantry, air, and other forces, even though a war with China is not very likely.
US Pop 288 mil
Europe Pop 727 mil (all European Coutries)
Added together = A little over 1 billion
China Pop 1.386 billion Standing Army about 300mil
So... ermm... there is no way here a conventional army could defeat those numbers if the US stood alone. Standing Army larger than whole US population and all. IF you throw in ALL of Europe... then there would be a chance utilizing modern technology that is better than Chinas to offset numerical superiority.
And of course... ask yourself how long the US and modern Europe democracies would be willing to take in the mass of casualties in such a conflict. In short I am saying short of weaps of mass destruction the US + Europe would have slim chances of actually winning a conventional engagement against China. There is no point in even looking at China as a guideline for military size. For China Nukes are the only line of defense. For other forms of conflict we already know that the US and other European power countries have militaries that can in conventional warfare win. Easily. The problem is these countries know that as well. They don't fight conventional warfares against these nations anymore. They do Guerrilla ops etc. How do you counter this? Vietnam and Russias Afgan shows it isn't with massive conventional forces. That just leads to massive conventional losses. The US had the right idea this time around. Support native dissident military forces while using your own specforces to find and lock in targets for modern smart weapons. It isn't perfect. But it is better than having say 100k in losses for your country and then pulling out and really changing nothing.
For future military engagement you have to realize that western democracies Dislike War and HATE wartime casualties. Especially with Mass Media covering it live right into our living rooms. We don't even like the enemies casualties, but that can be tolerated for short periods of time. Conventional forces should be kept in some number but not on the scale of refighting WW2, which is generally what we are looking at. There are only two types of modern wars anymore. All out wars, which will eventually lead to Nukes as one side or another realizes it can't win any other way and both sides realize this so avoid these wars, or specops and guerrilla wars.
That is the thinking behind my military policy of maintaining military arsenal of weaps of mass destruction and reduction of conventional military forces while expanding air and specops forces. Keep in mind I don't want to disband the conventional forces. Sometimes you need them. For the crazies that think they can challenge in conventional warfare like Sadam. But you don't need the massive sizes currently held by the US. Right now it is just a military industrial complex thing for supporting the economy. Gee... I think Nazi Germany used the same thing to support its economy.