So, World War 3?

[DrPizza]

No, Obama paid the inspectors to say that there is no hard proof linking Assad to the gas attack.

Has there been proof? I haven't been paying much attention, but from little I know about what's going on over there, the Assad's gov't is on quite the winning streak vs. the rebels. Seemed to me at the time that killing 100 people could be a desperation attempt by the rebels to get the US more actively supporting them.

 

[zinfamous]

I am seeing a trend,

When democrats are in office, nothing gets done.

When republicans are in office, we blow stuff up, invade other nations and overthrow governments. The American way, hell yea.

You have a bizarre interpretation of history.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Russia could win any war. They just have to send a bunch of random people there in cars. The accidents will keep the police busy while a few foot soldiers come in with big guns shooting out vital infrastructure. The foot soliders then move on to the next town in sync with another swarm of random Russian motorists.

In a world about to be ruled by Soviet Russia, accident comes to you!

 

[AmdEmAll]

There might be a bigger picture here, and that is the future of the russian naval bases.

Will putin and russia walk away from those bases peacefully?

The Saudi's offered to protect the base.. they didn't get the greatest response.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...Russia-secret-oil-deal-if-it-drops-Syria.html

http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/19821

Yikes!

 

[master_shake_]

You better look up the word "win" because if you're counting what we've done in Afghanistan, Iraq and the rest of the middle east as wins you have a seriously screwed up concept of what "win" means. Toppling one regime that hates us and breeds terrorists to fight us so that another regime that hates us can take power and breed other terrorists to fight is not in any way, shape or form "winning" a war. All we've done is gotten bogged down getting forces chewed up in a military occupation without a clear objective. And that's why anyone that thinks we're going to win WW3 just by finding the keys to all the aircraft carriers and getting the fighter pilots out of bed is a moron. We have not truly won a war in nearly 70 years. All we've done is toppled a few dictators because we lacked the political will to actually do what was necessary to win. It's hard to make the jump from getting Noriega out of Panama and kicking a few hundred Cubans out of Grenada into the US being capable of winning a World War because those are really the only wins on our resume since 1945 and neither one was even close to being a war.

if that doesn't look like a clear objective to you, than im sorry i can't help you.

:biggrin:

 

[GagHalfrunt]

if that doesn't look like a clear objective to you, than im sorry i can't help you.

:biggrin:

Oooops. My copy of that chart was missing one line and it didn't make sense that way. Now it's perfectly clear. Damn photocopier errors standing in the way of world peace.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

It's debatable on whether they are #2 or #3. They certainly have a much larger stockpile of tanks and such but much of it isn't operable so the true strength is uncertain.

At any rate, dismissing Russia is unwise and if Putin went nuts we could have more than we bargained for.

Again, I think Russia will first try to block this at the UN and if that fails they are likely to make a show of force by moving naval assets and possibly air assets into the region. I'd not worry quite so much about the naval assets but if they moved a few hundred fighters and fighter/bombers into the region things could get complicated real quick.

Then there's the concern about who benefits from any action we make with the likely benefactor being Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliated group that seems best equipped and most effective against the government.

This is not an easy call...


Brian

No, its not debatable, Russia is still very much #2 in terms of military power. They're #5 or 6 in terms of economic power, but their military power is still very much #2. China seems poised to catch up (within a decade maybe?) as they are spending nearly twice as much on their military each year, but then much of that military spending is on Russian equipment and designs, of which Russia is still the worlds leading arms manufacturer...

You're right about everything else though, just erred a tiny bit Russia's military might. China has definitely surpassed them as the #2 world power due to their economic prowess and Russia's fall to where India and Germany are ahead of them, but in a war, advantage goes to Russia.

 

[K1052]

No, its not debatable, Russia is still very much #2 in terms of military power. They're #5 or 6 in terms of economic power, but their military power is still very much #2. China seems poised to catch up (within a decade maybe?) as they are spending nearly twice as much on their military each year, but then much of that military spending is on Russian equipment and designs, of which Russia is still the worlds leading arms manufacturer...

You're right about everything else though, just erred a tiny bit Russia's military might. China has definitely surpassed them as the #2 world power due to their economic prowess and Russia's fall to where India and Germany are ahead of them, but in a war, advantage goes to Russia.

On paper sure...in reality not so much. Russia is still a regional power but recent decades haven't shown that they are capable of any more than that. They hadn't seen a major engagement in 30ish years until Georgia and that, while ultimately successful, exposed deep problems that would have caused the whole operation to unravel against a better organized/equipped opponent.

China has already bought or stolen pretty much everything they're interested in getting from the Russians. Given that there are maybe 3 or 4 countries in the world with native designed (and battle tested) advanced weapons systems if only one will actually sell them to you...that's what you buy.

 

[SSSnail]

And this has what to do with 'WW3' precisely?

One thing can lead to another, you know how shits started in the past.

 

[OverVolt]

IS the petro-dollar at stake?

 

[Doppel]

People need to remember that Russians are bad ass, yes more bad ass than Americans. This is the country that lost 20 million people in WWII, magnitudes more than the Allies combined. Their survivors have been brought up in a crucible of agony and cold. They are crazy and fearless. Literally the entire country is mentally ill. And they do have lots of guns. But, like I said, Russia won't do shit here, because it doesn't matter enough. If this situation came down to their pride and how people perceive their strength, the end result would be incredibly dire, but Russia has not put itself out on the line, and thus has no face to save.

 

[NTMBK]

The worst case scenario I can see is if shit goes down between Israel and Iran. It would just take someone lobbing rockets into Israel as retaliation for western bombing of Syria. There are Iranian troops stationed along the Syria-Israel border, and if Israel gets into a shooting war then we're suddenly talking about a multi-way clusterfuck involving Syria, Iran, Israel, and Hezbollah, with the US probably backing Israel.

 

[Fritzo]

People need to remember that Russians are bad ass, yes more bad ass than Americans. This is the country that lost 20 million people in WWII, magnitudes more than the Allies combined. Their survivors have been brought up in a crucible of agony and cold. They are crazy and fearless. Literally the entire country is mentally ill. And they do have lots of guns. But, like I said, Russia won't do shit here, because it doesn't matter enough. If this situation came down to their pride and how people perceive their strength, the end result would be incredibly dire, but Russia has not put itself out on the line, and thus has no face to save.

Russia doesn't have any money though, so they have some super high tech equipment, but a lot more antiquated equipment, and ground fighting is obsolete. Any kind of conflict between the US and Russia would most likely be through arming 3rd parties rather than a direct conflict.

 

[Fritzo]

if that doesn't look like a clear objective to you, than im sorry i can't help you.

:biggrin:

Got it! Thanks! :awe:

 

[OverVolt]

Got it! Thanks! :awe:

It was so straight forward it went without saying.

 

[z1ggy]

WW3 will never happen in the way we traditionally think of a world war. All of our economies are linked...Especially ours and China's. Unless China literally wants to take over the world, they'd never something like a huge world war happen and the possibility of an economic "partner" like us fall.