The U.S. Empire?

[Gods_Mercenary]

I found this article very intruiging. Please read it if you plan to post, because much of this won't make sense.

Foreign Affairs - The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy - Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press

I want to know what people think about this. I personally don't want to have to threaten nuclear attacks, but if it comes down to the survival of the nation as a superpower, I think we'll have to. Hypothetically the advanced arsenal could act like Great Britain's Navy or ancient Rome's legions, forcing the U,S,'s primacy upon other nations, rendering any war against us unwinnable. There are obviously flaws, as the article points out some of them. I just wanted to hear some different perspectives.

[Kamehameha34]

Yeah, we won't have to worry about North Korea's type-o-dong missiles anymore :)

[Gods_Mercenary]

Noth Korea, even China and Russia would be threatened.

[ByaKya]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary I found this article very intruiging. Please read it if you plan to post, because much of this won't make sense. Foreign Affairs - The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy - Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press I want to know what people think about this. I personally don't want to have to threaten nuclear attacks, but if it comes down to the survival of the nation as a superpower, I think we'll have to. Hypothetically the advanced arsenal could act like Great Britain's Navy or ancient Rome's legions, forcing the U,S,'s primacy upon other nations, rendering any war against us unwinnable. There are obviously flaws, as the article points out some of them. I just wanted to hear some different perspectives.

ROFL. Hows that nuclear factor working out for the US in Iraq?
25,000 dead and wounded, billions upon billions lost, allies have lost respect for us, and enemies no longer fear us.

And no matter what, China and Russia still have their sights set on us because our leaders share your attitude that we SHOULD dominate the planet.
There is no way we can take out either countries entire nuclear weapons arsenal

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary I want to know what people think about this. I personally don't want to have to threaten nuclear attacks, but if it comes down to the survival of the nation as a superpower, I think we'll have to. Hypothetically the advanced arsenal could act like Great Britain's Navy or ancient Rome's legions, forcing the U,S,'s primacy upon other nations, rendering any war against us unwinnable. There are obviously flaws, as the article points out some of them. I just wanted to hear some different perspectives.

US foreign policy is a big problem. The US has been a bully for over a century and the other nations have grown weary of it.

For those who don't know, Foreign Affairs is the official publication of the CFR, THE foreign policy establishment of the United States. Whatever they write is what Washington is considering adopting as policy, whether Democratic or Republican. They are actually considering a first nuclear strike against Russia and/or China :eek: The Washington SuitMonsters think they can win a nuclear war. They would define "winning" as knocking out all of the opponent nation's nuclear capability, thus forestalling retaliation. But they fail to consider many other factors.

Among them: The US imported 17.3 million containers in 2005. Do you think every one was checked for the presence of a nuclear weapon? These could be sitting in undisclosed locations right now, awaiting a detonation order.(no delivery system needed)

The first strike against an opponent would likely have huge unintended consequences on the climate. Would you be willing to have the earth enter an Ice Age as a result of some jerks in Washington thinking they can "win" a nuclear war?

The US would likely be an international pariah. US citizens would be targets in every nation as the planet undergoes a revulsive shudder at the needless horror of a massive first strike with WMD.

It may be likely that other nations would team up to eliminate such a threat to humanity. If US nukes are a deterrent to such international justice, there will be various more surreptitious efforts to wipe out the paranoid aggressor.

Finally, much of the US consumer and industrial goods are manufactured in other nations. Do you think they will not apply sanctions against a nuclear killer? Perhaps fear could force them to act nice for a while, but chaos thoery predicts that you can't keep the system conformed to a plan forever.

A nuclear first strike is tantamount to national suicide. But these eggheads act like it might just be the next great thing...

[Osborn F Enready]

The first step to keeping this nation a super-power, strategically or economicly, is to ISOLATE our foreign policy, except for trade.

We need to back out to the edges of Iraq, secure the Iraqi border, and let the Iraqi police settle the problems in Iraq. After that, we need to pull our troops home, re-deploy 75% of our "foreign stationed" troops home(from our foreign based troops that are in 160 out of 190 countries, acting as unpaid security), and re-equip, re-train, and deploy them to the U.S. border to act in our intrests, and to the cause they were created for, DEFENSE.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Quote by: ByaKya ROFL. Hows that nuclear factor working out for the US in Iraq? 25,000 dead and wounded, billions upon billions lost, allies have lost respect for us, and enemies no longer fear us. And no matter what, China and Russia still have their sights set on us because our leaders share your attitude that we SHOULD dominate the planet. There is no way we can take out either countries entire nuclear weapons arsenal

Iraq was a mistake. Anyway, we haven't achieved nuclear supremacy yet. In my U.S. our conventional troops would never be used except in the rarest of circumstances. Only the special forces and the threat of total destruction would be needed to keep governments that value their lives

Did you read the article? Russia as a whole is in decay. We are disposing of their weapons for them. They can't afford to maintain their weapons, much less improve them. They have most of their weapons in missile silos, easy targets. Our SSN's track their few, outdated submarines constantly. China is worse, they have all their missiles in silos, almost all of which we know of. The only way they could hide their arsenal is to make dummy silos, but they could never make enough to exhaust The U.S.'s missiles. And, as for the few missiles that would undoubtedly get few, that's what the new missile defense systems are for. While they could by no means take the waves of missiles coming from a fully armed russia, the few that survive a pre-emptive strike would be textbook cases. Obviously this attack is a huge risk, and I'm not saying we should do it or that it's right.

Of course, one of the flaws is, I get the impression that some governments really would test us until the use of a nuke was necessary, an undesirable thing.

[pikatore]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary some governments really would test us until the use of a nuke was necessary, an undesirable thing.

Your definition of 'necessary'? you run out of other options? when in the history of the United States has all options against another country been exhausted and rendered worthless? Hiroshima and Nagasaki come to mind, of course. Was thier bombing 'necessary'? Was it something that 'had' to be done?

It seems that either the governments that 'test' the US are utter geniuses to cause the US to run out of options other than to nuke them to ash, or the US is rather trigger happy.

NOTHING should solicit the use of such a powerful and devastating weapon other than as an answer to the party stupid enough to use it in the first place. thats an opinion drawn from the theory of mutally assured destruction.

In today's world, if the US, or any other country were to nuke someone else, that would most likely be the beginning of the end.

[Gods_Mercenary]

To Patrick Henry, What I'm suggesting is that nations in western europe and elsewhere would be forced to trade with us, the prospect of a Nuclear holocaust is a very persuasive thing.

As to the Nuclear war, I'm suggesting that it wouldn't be necassary. The other countries have their spy sattelites, The U.S. may even flaunt its arsenal. They would realize how vulnerable they are. We wouldn't be blatant in our threatening, at first it would be barely implied.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Quote by: pikatore Your definition of 'necessary'? you run out of other options? when in the history of the United States has all options against another country been exhausted and rendered worthless? Hiroshima and Nagasaki come to mind, of course. Was thier bombing 'necessary'? Was it something that 'had' to be done? It seems that either the governments that 'test' the US are utter geniuses to cause the US to run out of options other than to nuke them to ash, or the US is rather trigger happy. NOTHING should solicit the use of such a powerful and devastating weapon other than as an answer to the party stupid enough to use it in the first place. thats an opinion drawn from the theory of mutally assured destruction. In today's world, if the US, or any other country were to nuke someone else, that would most likely be the beginning of the end.

I would say the nuking Hiroshima an Nagasaki was necessary. Saving over a million American lives and likely countless more Japanese is a worthy reason, no?

The theory of MAD only works when both parties are assured destruction, in the article, it is not.

And I agree that a large scale nuclear war, perhaps followed by a brief period of U.S. dominance would be the beginning of a series of wars to end all wars.

[RickSp]

With all due respects, I think the authors are nuts. They sound like throw-backs to the Eisenhower years when generals talked about fighting and winning nuclear wars.

Nuclear weapons are useful only for the suicidal and the crazy. Talk about a madman's update of the "burn the village to save it" canard, except that this is on a global scale. Using nukes would involve killing huge numbers of civilians and making vast areas uninhabitable for generations. The blather about using "tactical nuke bunker busters" is almost funny. To use them effectively would require intel far more accurate than we clearly have. Lacking this we fall back to just dropping more an more megatonnage, murdering more and more civilians.

What makes this insanity even more absurd is that it ignores the realities of today. The US military is being weakened and possibly crippled not by countries with nuclear weapons but by insurgents with IEDs. We may have made MAD obsolete but still have no means to counter a handfull of men and boys with RPGs. And as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the greatest risk of nuclear attack on the US is probably by a terrorist cell smuggling in a stolen bomb. If a terrorist took out New York or Los Angelos with nuke, what good would our vaunted nuclear arsenal do us then?

It would be a particularly sick irony if the imperialists solved global warmer by triggering a nuclear winter.

[Gods_Mercenary]

I think the author was citing possibilities, not desirable outcomes.

[Osborn F Enready]

They are discussing ways to maintain empire, when it really shouldn't be kept at all.

[Gods_Mercenary]

I disagree, the high points of human cultural achievment have been attained when the world was dominated by a military superpower.

Hellenistic culture, Rome, Persia, the Caliphates, 19th century Britain, all achieved great things and got us to where we are today.

I would not want to achieve that through Nuclear weapons nor would I necessarily like to see it during my lifetime.

[Osborn F Enready]

Gods Mercenary said: I disagree, the high points of human cultural achievment have been attained when the world was dominated by a military superpower.

That is said as if EVERY achievement was beneficial, when they clearly all were not. Military provides national security, which I am fine with as long as security entails DEFENSE. Over the last 100+ years, the U.S. has been using a pro-active foreign policy, that is hinged on the idea of empire. It is a bad idea, and a GUARANTEED way to lose our super power status, economic might, and military superiority.

Gods Mercenary said: Hellenistic culture, Rome, Persia, the Caliphates, 19th century Britain, all achieved great things and got us to where we are today.

I don't deny it. I also don't support any of them, their underpinnings, or any idea of empire by force.

Gods Mercenary said: I would not want to achieve that through Nuclear weapons nor would I necessarily like to see it during my lifetime.

I think the clock is running, as we speak. We are nearing the edges of world war, yet again, thanks to this idiot in charge of the largest, most powerful military in the world, and the only loser is sure to be us, and the market overall.

In the U.S., we must return to a isolationist foreign policy except in trade, if we wish to keep our place in the global position of diplomacy and trade.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Obviously empires are not beneficial to all or even most of the contemporary people. But the advances are why we are able to debate over many miles instead of dying at thirty after ruining our bodies pulling farm equipment.

[Osborn F Enready]

In the long run, we may ask if that was better, or not.

[Gods_Mercenary]

I suppose that's a topic for another thread.

[G. Adams]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary I disagree, the high points of human cultural achievment have been attained when the world was dominated by a military superpower. Hellenistic culture, Rome, Persia, the Caliphates, 19th century Britain, all achieved great things and got us to where we are today. I would not want to achieve that through Nuclear weapons nor would I necessarily like to see it during my lifetime.

These particular eras are, with the exception of Greece, examples of domestic stability which best allow growth. Importantly, they are also examples of large free markets (internally, and relatively). They were times of oppurtunity's for individuals to make there mark upon the world.

In todays world however we do not need empires to create that stability which allows the individual to flourish. A multitude of sovereign nations whose governments exist to protect the civil liberties of its citizens would best provide those conditions.

Moreover, it would provide those conditions for the greatest numbers. Within an empire, the resources and wealth flow towards the home state, at the expense of the colonies/"spokes". Show me how individuals in the spoke states benefitted from the British Empire? The US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have all improved because of freedom, not in spite of it.

Another point...If we have a multitude of sovereign states, the collapse of of one will not devestate everyone else. However, when the empire crumbles, as it always does, everyone is hit badly, some worse than others.

[Gods_Mercenary]

I agree, but the western culture we are living in today that values freedom and the enlightenment will someday crumble, and we'll be in the same boat. Either way, if the U.S. collapsed today, the entire world would be devestated exactly as if an empire had fallen.

Alas, if history tells us one thing, it's that everything good must come to an end.