Do you think there will ever be another war like WWII?

[srm79]

Its possible, but Nuclear Weapons will complicate things. I do not think they will stop war completely as countries with WMDs have been attacked and defeated without using their weapons even when they had the chance.

Hey? Which countries do you mean?

In the Gulf War Iraq had substantial Chemical Weapon stockpiles and had the ability to attack Coalition troops with them. He didn't do this due to what substantially boiled down to MAD, except only for him as the US would still be there to end his ass. I'll admit I cannot recall a direct conflict with Nuclear Powers who had ICBMs, but the Gulf War provides an example of countries holding back their full power for reasons of keeping the conflict from escalating.

Ever since the earliest days of the Cold War (I'm old enough to remember the last decade or so of it clearly), it has been the stated position of the US that it will respond to the use of WMD's against US troops or territory will be met with the use of WMD's. Officially, the only ones that the US has are the nukes, and he wasn't quite crazy enough to test their mettle on that front.

During the Cold War (and to this day presumably) large scale exercises and simulations were constantly run - often known as "war games". They always came to the same conclusion, regardless of how much the opening steps were varied or scenarios varied. Any conflict that broke out, localised or regional, that brought two nuclear armed powers into combat with each other would always end with the worst case scenario: Strategic Nuclear Exchange.

These were born from the anxiety surrounding various "proxy wars" (Viet Nam being the most well known of the Cold War era probably) where the possibility of escalation, while remote, was always possible when two nuclear armed super powers have dick-waving competitions.

The fact that most nuclear armed powers have no real desire to winding up being reduced to glass themselves means that for the moment the likelihood of a war on that sort of scale seems fairly remote. Should the Iranians turn out to have some in the near future, all bets are off though...

 

[Meight08]

I doubt any side would actually use nukes on the enemy´s territory, but i wonder what would happen when a side uses them on their own soil.

 

[Hazzard]

Oh Boy, Please tell me that people who cannot function in society without the governments assistance are any less of a person then you and that you have not used any government institutions ever. This includes public schools, government healthcare and money from the government.

Some people are compared to you and me are idiots, they won't be able to get a job or live a normal life. Have a heart man. Also I get money for being a student because I don't have time to work. Am I less worthy?

I'm honestly not saying students and people who need support from the state are less worthy, but you can find most barely controlled barbarians in counsel houses, I have been attacked by them before and my life was made hell for 3 hours every week for nearly a year at school. And I'm pretty sure the boys that did it qualified as "uncontrolled barbarians"

Not sure if you were telling me or the person I was quoting where to find barbarians, but what you are referring to would be closer to savages than barbarians I think in how I am referring to them.

I was referring to barbarians in the figurative "an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, warlike, insensitive person." not the literal "a person who is perceived to be uncivilized."

I hope that makes sense ^.^

I was referring to barbarians in the same sense you were, as mentioned above I have had rather bad experiences with people who I think meet your criteria for being a barbarian and eventually I had to be moved into another lesson he was so bad.

 

[pppppppppppppppppp]

I don't think a WW3 would happen. Yeah history repeats itself but WW2 was seriously fucked up and soooooo many people died. Why would the world want to make that mistake again?

You do realize that was the same mentality people had coming out of WW1, or "The Great War" as they called it. They never wanted a war of that magnitude to happen again...and then they had one anyway.

I do think though that nukes complicate things a bit. It's like if two people were locked in a fistfight for an hour, then someone hands both of them rocket launchers. They won't fire on each other, but they can't simply ignore their new firepower and return to fist fighting. Of course, the analogy falls apart when one of them is completely irrational or has a death wish, which some countries with nuclear power do at this point.

 

[DugMachine]

I don't think a WW3 would happen. Yeah history repeats itself but WW2 was seriously fucked up and soooooo many people died. Why would the world want to make that mistake again?

You do realize that was the same mentality people had coming out of WW1, or "The Great War" as they called it. They never wanted a war of that magnitude to happen again...and then they had one anyway.

I do think though that nukes complicate things a bit. It's like if two people were locked in a fistfight for an hour, then someone hands both of them rocket launchers. They won't fire on each other, but they can't simply ignore their new firepower and return to fist fighting. Of course, the analogy falls apart when one of them is completely irrational or has a death wish, which some countries with nuclear power do at this point.

If you go back a few posts somebody told me the same thing and yeah I didn't quite think of that. Hence the "we're fucked"

 

[Lt._nefarious]

There will probably be another large scale war but I doubt it will be for the same reasons or last as long when you consider all of Europe and America are allied and most forces wouldn't stand much of a chance...

 

[RedDeadFred]

No. Mutually assured destruction kind puts a stop world wars.

Although we did come pretty close to war during the Cuban Missile Crisis despite that fact.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

There's a good chance that there will be another World War. But in our lifetimes? Incredibly unlikely.

 

[The White Hunter]

If you take modern tech into account, NO, why? Nukes... When you have a Nation like the USA with something like 80% of its Nuclear arsenal on board submarines that can go anywhere there is an ocean or sea connected to an ocean there really is no way we could have actual first world nation states going to war on that scale in modern times.

Well, only about half, but the point is valid.

They invade us and they will lose millions upon millions of troops both if they try a sea or air landing, and their economy will come to a screeching halt, as the people who buy everything they make is suddenly tearing them apart. And if somehow they DO win, the US has mobile ICBM platforms in the form of submarines stationed all around the world for that very occasion, at best they will win a pyrrhic victory before the majority of their nation is turned into radioactive dust.

SLBMs, shorter ranged that ICBMs, but that's a quibble.

Their manpower and equipment would only be useful in land battles, they could make a good run of taking asia and europe, but they would have serious problems moving any of it to the Americas.

Asia or Europe would be beyond them, sending large forces beyond your own borders is no easy task at the best of times, even with land boundaries.

China? Yaaaaay.

The Chinese have to get through Russia and have a border with them, which makes them get far unscathed unlikely. Not to mention the nuclear capacity on submarines from a significant number of NATO countries like the UK or USA.

I don't think China would be dumb enough to march into that meat grinder.

OT: Nah, I don't think it will, I think we've reached a point where that kind of carnage has no place in warfare and diplomacy is become more and more prevalent, in rare cases military intervention in recent years has (mostly) been brief and effective, leaving countries to settle their own disputes while prioritizing the protection of civilian life.

Hence our intervention in Libya, though the lack of it in Syria perplexes me.

Also, no idea what;s going on with the Afghans, we really need to either end that noise or give up.

 

[The White Hunter]

Nuclear weapons, as mentioned, change things too much.

Since WW2, we've had some 70 odd years in which major powers were afraid to directly attack each other, because it would have turned nuclear. This is historically rather unusual.

I don't really believe in mutually assured destruction because it only applies when all parties involved don't want to die/cause the apocalypse. You put those weapons in the hands of say, Religious Extremist, that don't care if they live or die and suddenly you have a real big problem.

OT: I actually do believe, in my life time, that if China continues to grow it will become imperialistic and attempt to invade the U.S.

They conceivably could win just based on the man power they have alone.

China cannot invade. MAD still applies. If they sent a land army half the size of our population, we'd nuke them. It would be the only way to stop the swarm.

China would have to somehow deal with the Russians at some point, history teaches us that this is incredibly difficult and like pissing into the wind. More of you? Better equipped? Actually EQUIPPED? The russians don't care. They'll just burn everything and salt the ground out of spite.

 

[HardkorSB]

I realize this has probably been a thread here numerous times, but so has every other thread ever.

Anyway, I'm currently watching Saving Private Ryan on television. But what keeps fascinating me is comparing the technology they are using and imagining how the battles in the film would play out with our modern technology- jets, drones, squad radios, helicopters, etc.

My opinion is that there will not be another conflict on that scale because of, of course, nukes, but more than that the level of computer technology we use makes the world so much tighter and integrated that it would be almost impossible to get to that point politically, but also that fighting such a war would entail missile strikes instead of mass troop movements.


I'm currently most of the way through a military history degree so this question is interesting to me. So the question is do you think there will ever be another conventional war on the scale WWII was? Why or why not?

These days, wars occur in the field of economy.
You don't invade a country, you buy it out or have them owe you debt (or buy out their debt).

 

[Laughing Man]

No, a war on the scale of WW2 will never occur again. In fact the chances of a war even with nuclear weapons is rather slim. Any future wars will be fought through social political influence. Electronic warfare designed to disrupt and destroy a nations monetary and infrastructure systems. The economic downturn has shown that the devaluation of a countries monetary system can have a much greater effect on the country as a whole.

Destroying a countries buildings and killing it's people is no longer the way to win a war. In fact if you look at it in direct comparison to you'll find that the destruction and killing of people and buildings within the cities was seen as a winner by those involved during WW2. If you tried that concept today you would lose through the negative effect generated by the media to your actions.

 

[Meight08]

I realize this has probably been a thread here numerous times, but so has every other thread ever.

Anyway, I'm currently watching Saving Private Ryan on television. But what keeps fascinating me is comparing the technology they are using and imagining how the battles in the film would play out with our modern technology- jets, drones, squad radios, helicopters, etc.

My opinion is that there will not be another conflict on that scale because of, of course, nukes, but more than that the level of computer technology we use makes the world so much tighter and integrated that it would be almost impossible to get to that point politically, but also that fighting such a war would entail missile strikes instead of mass troop movements.


I'm currently most of the way through a military history degree so this question is interesting to me. So the question is do you think there will ever be another conventional war on the scale WWII was? Why or why not?

These days, wars occur in the field of economy.
You don't invade a country, you buy it out or have them owe you debt (or buy out their debt).

Untill a country is so deep in debt to a specific country that invading said country is actually cheaper than paying off the debt.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

In terms of foreign policy, China is much less militaristic than the U.S.
How many full scale invasions has China mounted recently? none.
How many drone attacks has China conducted? none

If anything, looking at the sabre rattling American politicians do(and looking at some of the responses , it looks like their propaganda has gotten to several members of the Escapists) , the US is much more likely to invade China or Russia.
Their solution to every foreign affairs problems is war. Everywhere else the Arab Spring happened peacefully but as soon as America's enemies get involved, western politicians seize the chance to get votes by arming rebels they know nothing about forgetting everything they learned during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

 

[gh0ti]

A whole bunch of reasons.

Nukes are part of the answer - Mutually Assured Destruction is no joke. But even take those off the table and a global, total war seems hugely unlikely.

Even without nuclear weapons, early strikes by modern powers have the capacity to completely cripple infrastructure. You have to remember in WW2, air forces had to carpet bomb entire districts to have a chance of hitting a tank factory hard enough to put it out of business. These days, a cruise missile can be fired from a thousand miles away and pinpoint a specific room. There's no way industry could continue to function at a feasible level during a prolonged major conflict.

Another reason is that it's just too damn expensive to fight a global war. How much does a fully-loaded aircraft carrier cost these days? Billions. None of the world's great powers could afford to lose one in combat. It would break the economy (even further) trying to replace them. Even if you could make good your losses, there's no way war on this scale could ever be profitable, so why would we risk it?

 

[Scarim Coral]

Err would a World War count if it was against alien invader? Sure I would thing an alien encounter would be a peaceful one but there is an off chance that alien race may invade the planet.

 

[Carnagath]

Of course there will be, it's only a matter of time. We've been having a false sense of economic prosperity in the last 50 years, while most countries on the planet owe untold amounts of money to other countries, corporations and private interests. It's all gonna come crashing down, it has already obviously started. I don't see any way for the global economy to get better, only worse, since we are depending on resources that are becoming more scarce by the minute, while global wealth is concentrated in the hands of a select few who do not reinvest it, but instead use it to destroy even more regions in the world, control resources and basically buy entire countries for a loaf of bread. Yep, surely that can't go wrong. The moment when the US are forced to default, alienating investors worldwide, will in my opinion be the moment that will trigger worldwide destabilization and violence. We're extremely close to that point.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Its possible, but Nuclear Weapons will complicate things. I do not think they will stop war completely as countries with WMDs have been attacked and defeated without using their weapons even when they had the chance. It depends on the country. From a conventional stance the war would most likely be much faster and be far more mechanized then previous conflicts.

I think that there's one aspect you all haven't noticed yet. The reason china won't ever attack the US is because destroying us would cripple their economy and then cause a world wide economic crash. The existence of a world-wide interconnected business network has made a major war between any two large powers a ridiculous notion. China's naval build-up is not to threaten the US, it's to threaten Southeast asia and India into compliance.

The only real large power wars are going to be resource and land wars between India, Pakistan, and China. Those wars will just really be small scale, like they've been in the past.

 

[Dimitriov]

I don't think it's likely... but it could happen. If it does then I suspect it will start with the small players and escalate. Certainly the U.S. isn't going to start a war with China (or vice versa) because it would basically be a double suicide pact.


But look at the Middle East.

Can I imagine the Syria situation leading to a war that involved countries like Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia? Sadly yes, it's plausible. And such a conflict would definitely draw in other world powers.

I would hope that even in such an eventuality there wouldn't be nuclear strikes... at the very least I think it is reasonable that they would have to be very short range, as any long range ballistic missiles could *probably* be knocked down before getting very far.

And any of the nations in that region that do have nukes should have fairly small stockpiles (ie. can't afford to waste any if they did, God forbid, decide to launch them).

Anyway, I don't think it's likely, but I do think it remains a possibility.

 

[Old Father Eternity]

"Far too civilized" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M
Some of our methods of solving conflicts/backstabbing/waging war may have become more civilized but we are still massive bastards.
But yeah, while it is not too far from the realm of reality it is unlikely, due to the economy factors and the quite guaranteed use of WMD's because if such a large scale war were to actually happen, to quote "Why do we even have wmd's if we can't get to use em."