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If United Europe Went to War With The U.S.A

M14 Shooter

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The EU would come off second-best in a fight with the United States.

Anyone agree? Disagree?
Discuss.
 
M14 Shooter said:
The EU would come off second-best in a fight with the United States.

Anyone agree? Disagree?
Discuss.

The United States would "win," if that's what you mean. We'd both be considerably worse off and would have no reason to fight each other, so I don't see the point of this question. It's like asking what would happen if Alabama and Mississippi went to war with each other.
 
I think it would depend on the situation. Both sides would pay a huge price.
Clearly, the EU would not stand a chance if it tried to invade the US.
 
Unless of course Russia and China decided to skip merrily into a nuclear sunset.
 
I don't know which victor would rise out of the EU vs US, but I know, categorically, that Spider-man would destroy Superboy.
 
I don't think he was suggesting that there was a chance in blue hell that it would happen, but debating the effectiveness of the European military infrastructure. In my opinion there's a contest to be had but not much. The next generation military designs from Europe don't measure up to the US (Raptor vs. Eurofighter = clean sweep).

I think the greater debate is what is Europe's role in its own defence, being that it's under the wing of the US military and how little it must spend on military development?
 
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If Europe, China and Russia decided to team up on the US, it would inevitably lead to a nuclear war and the destruction of mankind.
 
TimmyBoy said:
If Europe, China and Russia decided to team up on the US, it would inevitably lead to a nuclear war and the destruction of mankind.

That's why they haven't done it.
The "balance of terror" works, but it sure is scary.
 
US vs Russia is like US vs Japan, yesterday's news.
 
The only way a war like this could happen is if one of us develops a defense against all nuclear attacks. If that were to happen, history would quickly revert itself and the wars of old would once again be upon us. We just might actually develop a fool proof defense to nuclear attack some day.
 
George_Washington said:
The only way a war like this could happen is if one of us develops a defense against all nuclear attacks. If that were to happen, history would quickly revert itself and the wars of old would once again be upon us. We just might actually develop a fool proof defense to nuclear attack some day.


The US could easily have a defense against nuclear tipped cruise missles and ICBMs. Reagans Star Wars Strategic Defense Initiative produced "Brilliant Pebbles" which from what I understand could take down Russian ICBMs (even if those ICBMs were armored up to resist lasers and to deploy decoys) as well as take down low flying nuclear tipped cruise missles. The Brilliant Pebbles was upgraded in the 1990s under the Bush Sr. adminstration to take down low flying cruise missles from space. Their were plans to deploy them in space until Clinton got in office and foolishly decided to cancel the program. Any effective, massive anti-missle defense system has to be space based.
 
TimmyBoy said:
The US could easily have a defense against nuclear tipped cruise missles and ICBMs. Reagans Star Wars Strategic Defense Initiative produced "Brilliant Pebbles" which from what I understand could take down Russian ICBMs (even if those ICBMs were armored up to resist lasers and to deploy decoys) as well as take down low flying nuclear tipped cruise missles. The Brilliant Pebbles was upgraded in the 1990s under the Bush Sr. adminstration to take down low flying cruise missles from space. Their were plans to deploy them in space until Clinton got in office and foolishly decided to cancel the program. Any effective, massive anti-missle defense system has to be space based.

Are you talking about that massive waste of money that didn't work at all? Yeah, too bad Clinton axed it. :roll:
 
TimmyBoy said:
The US could easily have a defense against nuclear tipped cruise missles and ICBMs. Reagans Star Wars Strategic Defense Initiative produced "Brilliant Pebbles" which from what I understand could take down Russian ICBMs (even if those ICBMs were armored up to resist lasers and to deploy decoys) as well as take down low flying nuclear tipped cruise missles. The Brilliant Pebbles was upgraded in the 1990s under the Bush Sr. adminstration to take down low flying cruise missles from space. Their were plans to deploy them in space until Clinton got in office and foolishly decided to cancel the program. Any effective, massive anti-missle defense system has to be space based.


ROFL. The Star Wars program's success is a big fat question mark because it required the detonation of a nuclear warhead to power it and the detector was destroyed by it. The Brilliant Pebbles program was scrapped by Clinton because it wasn't very successful..most of the missiles got through because it couldn't tell the difference between a decoy and a real warhead. As it stands, the current program is only 15% successful. It's a colossal waste of money and resources and the fuel switch from liquid to solid fuel in missile technology makes it utterly worthless because the interceptor missiles wouldn't be deployed fast enough.
 
As it stands, the current program is only 15% successful.
15% successful?
By what standard?
Of all the tests, how many have failed?
And of those failures, how many involved components that were actually being tested, rather than some surrogate system?

and the fuel switch from liquid to solid fuel in missile technology makes it utterly worthless because the interceptor missiles wouldn't be deployed fast enough
I think you have that backwards.
Liquid fuelled rockets take time to fuel; soilids do not.
 
Kelzie said:
Are you talking about that massive waste of money that didn't work at all? Yeah, too bad Clinton axed it. :roll:

Really, the Brilliant Pebbles program is the better option for the Bush Adminstration to pursue in missle defense rather than the hit to kill vehicle, launched from the ground to intercept missles. Such anti-missle programs need to be based in space to be the most effective. The Soviet Union called it the "militarization of space." The Brilliant Pebbles program was cost effective, so thousands could be deployed in space. They did not rely on lasers, due to the fact that the Soviet Union would apply laser resistant armor on their missles. The technology relied on kinetic energy penetrators, similar to ammunition used to punch holes in heavily armored objects. They were extremely small, so Soviet anti-sattellite lasers couldn't destroy or shoot them down while in space. And because they were cheap, you could deploy a whole bunch of them in space and any missle that deployed decoys, their decoys would be less significant. I read a book on Edward Teller, who was one of the scientists that did extensive research into SDI. In his book he states that missle defense is feasible and it is a matter of political will and support. Their are alot of new technologies that make it feasible, some of which are classified, according to him.

But it was Reagan's Star Wars program that forced Gorbachev into Peristroka and Glasnost and into the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
 
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But it was Reagan's Star Wars program that forced Gorbachev into Peristroka and Glasnost and into the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

Well yeah, but not because it worked. It's funny how SDI scared to hell out of the reds when it was like 25 years off.
 
iamjack said:
Well yeah, but not because it worked. It's funny how SDI scared to hell out of the reds when it was like 25 years off.

With the effort that the Reagan Adminstration was putting into this program, I am not so sure it was 25 years off. But, the main problem the Soviet Union was facing, was that it's economy could not keep up with such an extensive military buildup and such a big effort to research into a techonology that would give the US strategic superiority over the Soviet Union. If the technology was successfuly, it would give the US a first strike capability while destroying the Soviet Union's ability to strike back at the US with it's own nuclear arsenal, and that is what scared the Soviet leadership.

The Soviet leadership in the 70s had feared US military potential if a president ever came along that could gain the political support to unleash US economic might into the military sphere. This Soviet nightmare scenario happenned under the Reagan adminstration and SDI symbolized the worst of all Soviet fears. Their economy, which was based on socialism, was inefficient and could not produce the kind of wealth the US economy could to spend on a military buildup and new technologies. So, when confronted with a massive US military buildup, the Reagan Adminstration challenging the Soviet Union on every front in the Third World and an SDI program which threatenned it's nuclear deturrent, Gorbachev, who talked tough to the US on foreign policy, believed deeply in communism, had no choice but to reform the Soviet economy to make it more efficient so that it could produce the wealth necessary to keep up with US military expenditures and efforts to challenge the Soviet Union in the Third World.

These reforms came in Glasnost and Periostrokia. The idea of both these political reforms was first, so that Gorbachev may gain the political support of the intellectual elite of the Soviet Union for his reforms and second, to make the Soviet economy more efficient to produce more wealth for military spending and research into new technologies that would enable them to successfully counter the US SDI program. However, by instituting these reforms, Gorbachev un-intentionally set in motion the destruction of the USSR.
 
Gorbachev is regarded by many russians as a "traitor." Really, their was nothing Gorbachev could do to stop the Soviet Union from collapsing and he never had the intention of breaking up the country he led. He talked very tough to the US when he first came to power and truly believed in socialism and communism.
 
TimmyBoy said:
Really, the Brilliant Pebbles program is the better option for the Bush Adminstration to pursue in missle defense rather than the hit to kill vehicle, launched from the ground to intercept missles. Such anti-missle programs need to be based in space to be the most effective. The Soviet Union called it the "militarization of space." The Brilliant Pebbles program was cost effective, so thousands could be deployed in space. They did not rely on lasers, due to the fact that the Soviet Union would apply laser resistant armor on their missles. The technology relied on kinetic energy penetrators, similar to ammunition used to punch holes in heavily armored objects. They were extremely small, so Soviet anti-sattellite lasers couldn't destroy or shoot them down while in space. And because they were cheap, you could deploy a whole bunch of them in space and any missle that deployed decoys, their decoys would be less significant. I read a book on Edward Teller, who was one of the scientists that did extensive research into SDI. In his book he states that missle defense is feasible and it is a matter of political will and support. Their are alot of new technologies that make it feasible, some of which are classified, according to him.

Seeing as Brilliant Pebble never got past the research phase, that's a little optimistic of you.

TimmyBoy said:
But it was Reagan's Star Wars program that forced Gorbachev into Peristroka and Glasnost and into the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

And a little simplistic too, I might add.
 
Kelzie said:
Seeing as Brilliant Pebble never got past the research phase, that's a little optimistic of you.



And a little simplistic too, I might add.

It's true, the Soviet Union was having serious economic troubles beforehand. Under Brezhnev they were having problems and they sought an agreement with Carter on nuclear arms to alleviate some of the pressure that continued military competition with US was having on their economy. But the continued expanisionist programs of the Soviet Union and their gains in the Third World helped to bring about the election of Reagan and I believe it was the policies of the Reagan Adminstration that brought about an accelerated collapse of the Soviet Union. I might even argue, that if Reagan never came to power, the Soviet Union might have never collapsed or at least still be around today.
 
TimmyBoy said:
It's true, the Soviet Union was having serious economic troubles beforehand. Under Brezhnev they were having problems and they sought an agreement with Carter on nuclear arms to alleviate some of the pressure that continued military competition with US was having on their economy. But the continued expanisionist programs of the Soviet Union and their gains in the Third World helped to bring about the election of Reagan and I believe it was the policies of the Reagan Adminstration that brought about an accelerated collapse of the Soviet Union. I might even argue, that if Reagan never came to power, the Soviet Union might have never collapsed or at least still be around today.

No way. The Soviet Union had a one way ticket with no stops. Reagan just added a little more speed to the train. Gorbachev's policies also had just as an important of role as Reagan's in ending the Cold War.
 
Kelzie said:
No way. The Soviet Union had a one way ticket with no stops. Reagan just added a little more speed to the train. Gorbachev's policies also had just as an important of role as Reagan's in ending the Cold War.

Gorbachev had to have an incentive to negotiate. The US military buildup, Reagan's policies of challenging the Soviet Union in the Third World and SDI were those incentives, otherwise Gorbachev would have never come to the negotiating table. The Soviet leadership has a long history of not wanting to negotiate, so long as they were building up militarily while the US had extensive cutbacks in our military, why would they want to come to the negotiating table? To give up any advantages that they were achieving against the US?

Gorbachev even went so far as to propose to Reagan to scrap all nuclear weapons in return for a pledge not to continue development on SDI in one of the more infamous summits in Iceland. It was his way of tempting Reagan, showing him what a world would be like without nuclear weapons, tempting Reagan with a legacy of being remembered as the American president who scrapped all nuclear weapons in the world, but for a price. Reagan was wise not to fall for the ploy. Because that is exactly what it was by Gorbachev, it was a ploy and a trick. That was how bad the Soviet Union wanted to do away with SDI. It was playing a major role of bleeding the Soviet Union. It was economic warfare.
 
M14 Shooter said:
The EU would come off second-best in a fight with the United States.

Anyone agree? Disagree?
Discuss.

how so they cant even subdue a rag tag bunch of rag heads in a broken third world nation
I am sure the canadian Un team could do better even
europe has the means
more so then you let on
britain herself has most of the american hardware at her disposal
france has nukes
german engineering is quite high
if europe planned carefully build up and struck first
I dont see America at this time able to do much about it
it would be a drawn out conflict but by no means would be a for gone conclusion that America could win an all out war against Europe

if you were to include china or russia into the equation
America would have little chance for sure
europe would have to have a build up and have a good plan
 
M14 Shooter said:
I think you have that backwards.
Liquid fuelled rockets take time to fuel; soilids do not.

Nope. The current program is based on trying to take out the missiles as they are launched but because most have the solid fuel technology which have a longer burn time it has been assesed that the interceptor missiles could not be launched in time to intercept the target because interception is currently dependant on the shorter burn time of liquid fuel missiles. The American Physical Society has more to say about this in their analysis of the data "Given the results that follow from our assumptions, we conclude that while the boost phase technologies we studied are potentially capable of defending the United States against liquid-propellant ICBMs at certain ranges of interest, at least in the absence of counter-measures, when all factors are considered none of the boost-phase defense concepts studied would be viable for the foreseeable future to defend the nation against even first-generation solid-propellant ICBMs"

http://www.aps.org/public_affairs/popa/reports/nmdexec.pdf
 
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I found this link to Brilliant Pebbles, it is my view, that the best means for missle defense is space based. Basically, the Reagan Adminstration and the Bush Sr. Adminstration were on the right path and on the way to deploying this system. If the Bush Jr. Adminstration is smart, they will resurrect this program. Here is the link:

Brilliant Pebbles


Country: USA
Basing: Space
Status: Terminated


Details

Brilliant Pebbles, the top anti-missile program of the Reagan and the first Bush administrations, was an attempt to deploy a 4,000-satellite constellation in low-Earth orbit that would fire high-velocity, watermelon-sized projectiles at long-range ballistic missiles launched from anywhere in the world. Although the program was eliminated by the Clinton Administration, the concept of Brilliant Pebbles remains among the most effective means of ballistic missile defense.

In the early 1980s, scientists Edward Teller, Lowell Wood, and Gregory Canavan began gaming out a new missile defense concept known as “Smart Rocks” at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Smart Rocks involved deploying thousands of tiny rocket-propelled canisters in orbit, each capable of ramming itself into an incoming ballistic missile. Following their initial war games, Teller, Wood, and Canavan successfully persuaded President Ronald Reagan that a robust constellation of Smart Rocks interceptors would provide a strong defense against nuclear attack.

On March 23, 1983, Reagan announced his bold vision for an impenetrable missile defense shield that would render nuclear warheads impotent and obsolete: “I call upon the scientific community in this country, who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace.” From the very beginning, Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) viewed space-based weapons such as X-ray lasers, chemical lasers, particle-beam weapons, and kinetic kill vehicles as the best way to destroy large numbers of incoming Soviet warheads.

Smart Rocks was upgraded in 1988 and renamed “Brilliant Pebbles.” In addition to eliminating incoming nuclear warheads, each component of the 4,000-satellite constellation was designed to protect U.S. space-based assets, attack its Soviet counterparts, or sacrifice itself in a one-time spy mission. The interceptor satellites would be controlled from the ground, but would also have the ability to communicate among themselves and attack their targets autonomously. At a projected cost of $11 billion for the first 1,000 interceptors, Brilliant Pebbles presented a cost-efficient means of countering the Soviet menace.

Brilliant Pebbles made significant progress between 1988 and 1990, and received enthusiastic support from the Bush I Administration. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney referred to Brilliant Pebbles as the White House’s “number one project,” and the program received generous funding even as other SDI initiatives were phased out. In March 1990, George Monahan, Director of SDI, announced that Brilliant Pebbles would be the first-deployed U.S. missile defense system. His successor, Henry F. Cooper, streamlined the Brilliant Pebbles contractor team to two companies, TRW-Hughes and Martin Marietta, and lobbied aggressively on Capitol Hill for more funding and support.

In 1991, following several years of inner turmoil, the Soviet Union imploded. Despite the end of the Cold War, Brilliant Pebbles remained an essential part of the U.S. missile defense architecture. That same year, computer simulations demonstrated that, if it had been deployed during the Persian Gulf War, Brilliant Pebbles would have shot down every Scud missile launched by Saddam Hussein, including the salvo attack on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Following the Middle East crisis, Brilliant Pebbles was enhanced to give its interceptors the ability to swoop down into the atmosphere, thus improving its overall effectiveness against Scuds and cruise missiles.

In 1993, however, the Clinton Administration delivered a severe blow to U.S. missile defense by systematically eliminating Brilliant Pebbles through a series of budget cuts. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin stated his objective as “taking the star out of Star Wars.” The Administration did more than just that: it slashed missile defense funding across the board and replaced SDI with the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). Yet the technology itself would continue to be tested, for a short time: one year later, NASA launched a deep-space probe known as “Clementine,” which had been built using first-generation Brilliant Pebbles technology. Clementine successfully mapped the entire surface of the Moon. The mission, which cost $80 million, effectively “space qualified” Brilliant Pebbles’ hardware. All the same, no steps were taken by the Clinton Administration to resurrect the program.

Brilliant Pebbles remained on the shelf and out of the public eye until 2002, when President George W. Bush withdrew the U.S. from the 1972 ABM Treaty. At first, many believed that Bush II planned to resurrect Brilliant Pebbles, which had been the focus of his father’s anti-missile program. Instead, the Missile Defense Agency (BMDO’s successor) concentrated its efforts on “hit-to-kill” ground-based defenses, such as the 20 interceptors that will be deployed at Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in late 2004. Little attention was paid to space-based defenses, although MDA’s Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE), scheduled for launch in the summer of 2004, recently shifted the national debate back to Brilliant Pebbles-like interceptors.

In any event, the concept of Brilliant Pebbles remains among the most efficient and cost-effective means of defending the U.S. against nuclear, chemical, and biological warheads.

http://www.missilethreat.com/systems/bp_usa.html
 
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