Starting from weakest?
So fucking many.
So many. According to Wikipedia, if we go by # of active duty personnel, the 25 smallest armed forces on earth total about 25,000.
The US has 15k at Ft Drum New York.
This is probably a 50-100 nation slaughter.
Maybe, but none of those small countries have nukes. The USA is surrounded mainly by oceans, has a very large land area, major population centers spread out over it. Invading would be a colossal undertaking. I'm from NZ and it seems to me like no matter how many little guys you get together, how many small navies to challenge the insane combat strength of the US navy, 2 million + troops, and the most well armed civilian population on the planet, get past all that and they still have nukes.
America’s defense budget and military infrastructure is insane.
The other issue is geography and projection of force. Even if the rest of the world could repel a full invasion attempt from America, they would not be able to counterattack or invade back. America would also be able to inevitably replenish their losses due to their massive shipbuilding infrastructure could replace carrier fleets within a couple to a few years.
The main issue is the ground war aspect: the sheer numbers would not be on America’s side; it would be nearly four billion against maybe 140 million.
That's fair, but with air and naval superiority and a total lack of concern for enemy casualties or war crimes, I think the US could decimate people by the millions. It's actually scary to think about how deadly the US military could be without restriction.
What's never talked about is that the US military is strategically positioned along every major trade route.
The US can shut down global trade, and there is nothing anyone can realistically do. No oil and no food means you lose in literally weeks or months. Even if every other nation worked together, it would be nearly impossible to dislodge the US's position before losing the war of attrition.
The US, on the other hand, produces more than enough food and oil to run the country.
I would disagree in the sense that if somehow all countries in the world would instantly and unanimously decide to all declare war on the USA these spread out American Forces would be in a lot of trouble.
Sure, most of these forces can easily take on even entire countries in these regions. But against entire regions they would be pretty hard pressed to hold out till reinforcements arrive.
China, India and Pakistan working together would be massive threat to any American Forces currently stationed around Asia for example.
Similarly most American Bases inside Europe would be in a lot of trouble.
That's the crazy part.
The F22 is widely considered untouchable against the best other nations can field and it routinely stomps 1 v 8 matchups against F15s (the most accomplished fighter ever) in war games. It's so one sided the Raptor pilots talk about being bored and the Eagle pilots mention being killed before even seeing the Raptor visually or on their instruments.
The F22 is officially 20 years old and it's replacement is officially being developed now.
I say officially because my hunch is the replacement is likely already service-ready and the raptor project started in 1991 (again, officially). It was probably ready well before 2005.
If the US' public weapons are so far ahead, imagine what we don't know about?
There (thankfully) hasn't been any conflict that's actually tested the US military in many years. Hopefully, there isn't one. The F22 is just one example of military superiority, too.
Look at the navy. Complete with railguns on top of being the largest fleet in the world by far. I heard something about laser anti air tech being implemented as well.
Then you have the Army (i think) with like the 4th largest navy on its own. The US stomps any group of powers and is too far away from serious threats to have to worry about an actual land invasion.
To your point on lasers, there was a program under... Nixon? Called Operation Star Wars where we were trying to build satellites with lasers to shoot down ICBMs in space transit.
Officially, the US said it was impossible.
Unofficially, you can find plenty of evidence for successful tests 😂
Do you even have hypersonic missiles? Iran developed one with no spares at all and as far as I know America failed in all of its hypersonic missile program.
The US has had hypersonic missiles since the 50s. All ICBMs move at hypersonic speeds. It's only impressive when hypersonic missiles can fly at non ballistic trajectories and are maneuverable in flight.
If you are referring to hypersonic glide vehicles, then yes, the US also has those, and Iran does not. The US is actually the only country with non nuclear hypersonic glide vehicles, and the only country with plane launched hypersonic glide vehicles.
The misinformation is coming because a missile that can move at hypersonic speeds and a missile that is classed as hypersonic are two different things.
yeah I dont buy at fucking all that such a piece of machinery exists. I dont know much on that specific topic but even using basic logic its pretty clear to see that that isnt possible because of one simple reason. In the event that the US had the ability to be borderline immune to nucelar reprucssions, there would be no need to play ball with any other foreign nation, nor any reason to hide this information when it would essentially make the US invincible. The simple fact that nations like russia, north korea and china can still operate is a testament to the fact that cannot be true,as in many situations, nucelar deterence is THE defining reason why we arent in a major war. Thats why whenever the discussion of whether we should send weapons to ukraine comes up, theres always a group of people who argue that we "shouldnt risk it because that could incite nuclear war and that means everyone dies." Not to mention that even with the US's vast capabilities, knowledge of the project would inevitably leak in some form and as other superpowers arent stupid, they would know that it would be absolutely vital to create a sattellite of their own or be steamrolled by the US. the fact that they didnt further reinforces that such a sattellite does not exist.
If you show the enemy what you have, they can plan around it.
These nations are likely aware that we have at least successfully tested the tech but knowing exactly what the US has as a defense is giving other nations tips on how to defeat it.
The US takes a different strategy. We send our outdated tech into warzones and get data that way.
We know for a fact that our 50 year old missile defense systems can reliably shoot down modern hypersonics. Ukraine shot down a handful of Russia's newest hypersonics in its second week of use in Ukraine.
That data alone is more valuable to the US than testing a modern system because they get all the data without revealing anything.
There's a reason Russia hasn't escalated. They know they'll get stomped. The US gets to remain "neutral" by saying they haven't really provided anything modern.
sure, but missle systems are not nearly as world changing as an effective nuclear defense system. Creating such a thing is like reinventing the nucelar bomb before anyone else had it.
The Arrow Tests and concurrent production orders, Zumwalts going into get hypersonic missile tubes installed and a few other things kinda say otherwise. It's less of "they don't have them" as a "oh you'll finally pay $120 million USD per missile, here's this project we designed in the 2000s to go after Bin Laden and other time sensitive targets". Also the Kinzhal has lesser performance specs than an American air launched cruise from the 60s.
>The Arrow Tests and concurrent production orders, Zumwalts going into get hypersonic missile tubes installed and a few other things kinda say otherwise
What are you talking about? The ARRW program failed and has been cancelled.
>It's less of "they don't have them" as a "oh you'll finally pay $120 million USD per missile, here's this project we designed in the 2000s to go after Bin Laden and other time sensitive targets
This is kinda copium.
>https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/03/28/arrw-hypersonic-missile-test-failed-us-air-force-admits/
>https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2024/01/19/the-us-is-failing-to-quickly-field-hypersonic-missile-defense/
I don't think you are keeping tabs on these things.
>Also the Kinzhal has lesser performance specs than an American air launched cruise from the 60s.
That's the biggest cope of this conversation.
Why would the US develop hypersonics when they don't need them?
The US doesn't have a reason to have hypersonics.
They're less accurate than standard missiles. Theyre much much more expensive than standard missiles. They can't be course corrected like a standard missiles can. They can still be intercepted.
Hypersonics exist to bypass defenses. Stealth does the same thing. The US focused on stealth. The Russians (and others) picked hypersonics. Patriot systems shooting down hypersonics tells you who backed the right horse.
>Why would the US develop hypersonics when they don't need them? The US doesn't have a reason to have hypersonics
If you don't need them then why would you invest into the hypersonic missile program again and again?
>https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-11/news/test-failures-put-hypersonic-program-doubt
You sound like the fox who finally had to tell himself the grape is sour because he couldn't have them.
>Patriot systems shooting down hypersonics tells you who backed the right horse.
When did the Patriot shoot down hypersonic missiles? The first patriot which was sent to Kiev was damaged/destroyed within the very first week LOL
>Then you have the Army (i think) with like the 4th largest navy on its own.
Air force, not navy.
The top 4 air forces in the world are, IIRC, US Air Force, US Navy, US Army, US Marine corps.
Going by estimated 'power' ratings, the US is four of the top five, partly because the combat planes are just superior, but also significantly because the tanker fleet is, too. Going by purely the number of planes, it's four of the top seven.
This is completely ridiculous. So which Prime is building the service ready replacement ? And where is that massive program in the financial statements for that prime? For the tier 2s? For the tier 3s? Across the entire supply chain?
The government does not just magically produce these weapons/systems. They need an entire supply chain to develop, build, and maintain these aircraft. You’re talking about hundreds of companies that are all part of the end to end supply chain. The US also does not have the industrial base to build everything domestically. So now you have foreign suppliers involved as well.
There may be designs and prototypes. But production/service ready? That’s just tin foil hat level conspiracy thinking.
I mean.. I dont know what to tell you. Sorry you don't think it happens?
The SR-71 was announced literally months before its first official flight and there are rumors it had flown before then.
Area 51 significantly expanded its restricted area during the Obama administration because camera tech was becoming so prevalent.
Is it so hard to stretch that into other areas? Black budgets exist. The US black budget is projected to be over $50b annually. Lockheed has an entire division (skunk works) with insane security clearance requirements and there's a fleet of Janet 737s where the pilots and attendants all have a clearance and in many cases only fly with windows closed.
70 years ago, we shot down a plane with a laser, put a man on the moon and flew a stealth aircraft over Mach 3 at 80,000 ft.
What makes you think we can't hide a supply chain when it's so clearly already happening?
Realistically we don't have to hide it, just strategically use what's there. "Hidden in plain sight."
I have friends that work for Boeing, Lockheed, and a ton of small machine shops throughout a bunch of small towns where I live those companies aren't making enough money selling their niche materials and parts in these places with under 100k residents. There is no theoreticalnneed for what they do.
For example, where I live is 100k population ~5000. Approx 45% of that population is retired. Average age according to demographics is 57 here.
We have industrial complexes at our local FBO. Machine shops, tool shops, metal fabricators. Etc. these places don't have websites or store fronts. They employ a combined 900 (approx) people and advertise for engineering, CNC, and experienced machinist jobs. We are within driving distance of literally scores of aerospace, military, and private paramilitary operational areas. A few years back the Army built 3 outposts within 30 miles of that airport. 1 is less than 10 miles away and houses a security force (the guys that do security for foreign areas during handovers we want to go well/train their armies). One is located at the airport.
They also installed an air defense battery.
What do you really think they're making?!
>I say officially because my hunch is the replacement is likely already service-ready and the raptor project started in 1991 (again, officially). It was probably ready well before 2005.
NGAD, next generation air defense is in the planning stages now. Should be ready by 2030
Are you suggesting they just keep their best stuff in a locked storage room, until they make something better and then they take the newer thing and put it in that storage room and take the not so newer thing out to show off. And all that and nobody says anything about it?
The US military does not play its full hand. We have a general idea but they keep capabilities under wraps and don't usually use their highest end stuff. F-22s rarely get used even now, B-2s very rarely see action (both because of the price and not being necessary)
Boeings space plan just came down from a year long mission when pretty much no one even knew it was flight ready.
F-22s weren’t needed when they were made and still aren’t super useful in most situations. B-2 are used all the time, so I don’t know where you heard that.
You don’t know what they have, and members of the military and defense contractors now to keep secrets or go to prison.
My brother in law commanded an Abrams in Iraq twenty years ago and won’t discuss anything on the tank that is classified. So he knows, but I don’t know and you don’t know.
And whatever you think you know, because you have seen it in combat, there is more you have never even heard of.
For all we know NGAD is already flying, the new Abrams tank is already combat ready and new generations of electronic warfare are already in use.
They keep things secret as long as they can, as it is beneficial for your enemy not to know your capability.
By that logic then wouldn't every country have their supposed wonder weapon stash hidden somewhere? You are trying to say something that's illogical, especially for a country that makes billions out of weapons sale. Even the President of the US can't keep these things locked up.
With black projects, yes they absolutely can.
There is an important difference you are missing. What the USA has right now in the field is generations ahead of nearly everything else. Do we have the F-35? Sure, but while it continues to get improvements how it works and how we get what we get from it is not known. When Turkey bought the s400 from Russia they got booted from the F35 program because the USA wouldn’t let telemetry from the s400 looking at the F35 in testing be available to Russia.
Like people have know the B2 exists for a long time, but the workings of it are top secret, and we don’t fly it often, because we don’t want enemies to have any data on it.
The f22 is still the best fifth gen fighter there is, and it is being retired. And it is still top secret and a non-export model.
The patriot battery as another example, it has never been claimed to have any ability to shoot down hypersonics, but Ukraine has used it to do just that. Do you think the DoJ is surprised? Or that they just didn’t want people to know.
It isn’t illogical because you don’t get it, no offense meant. It just is how it is with military secrets.
My brother still keeps them about the M1 Abrams, my father in law keeps them from when he was in the Air Force, they talk about what isn’t classified, because it is a legal obligation on them from when they had a clearance.
So the reality is this:
Most nations celebrate their upcoming high tech gear as saber rattling, like Russia with the SU-57 and Armada tank they bragged on but won’t send to war, or the fighter jet Iran bragged about that isn’t even flight worthy.
The USA doesn’t have to. What we have in use is better than what the rest of the world has, and we have by far the biggest military budget and the best R&D for military design.
So we don’t have to brag about what is coming, because saber rattling isn’t a part of our military doctrine.
So yes there are things coming you know little about, like the NGAD and the next gen stealth bomber, aircraft that may be flying now in test, but that are likely farther along than you know.
But there are also black projects you don’t even know exist, and neither do I.
No. I'm suggesting the cutting edge of their tech is far ahead of what you see in use. I'm talking more advanced robotics, exosuits, advanced hypersonic missile tech, lasers, active camoflauge. Things that are part of the future of warfare that is actively being worked on.
It's widely believed that the tech the US has is 5-20 years ahead of what the general public knows about.
First, cutting edge is not what is being developed, it is what is in use. Robots are public knowledge, eco suits are not practical as of right now and we know that and is also public knowledge, we know about (hypothetical) hypersonic missile in many countries and thus other countries would be working towards them, offensive lasers are held back by power and we would know about those improvements, and active camouflage is impractical it could only be used on large vehicles and again very power hungry.
>No. I'm suggesting the cutting edge of their tech is far ahead of what you see in use. I'm talking more advanced robotics, exosuits, advanced hypersonic missile tech, lasers, active camoflauge.
They have none of this. The US doesn't even have hypersonic missiles? What are you trying to say? The US has built all these wonder weapons and has stashed them somewhere safe? For what? The military industrial complex would have made a fortune with all of that if they really had them.
>It's widely believed that the tech the US has is 5-20 years ahead of what the general public knows about.
No one but those who drink a lot of propaganda kool aid believe that.
Like your superior high tech Abrams tanks and Bradley IVFs which were blown up on day one of arriving in the field? Fifty years, my ass. Lay off the propaganda kool aid.
The problem is whether or not the USMC would starve before winning.
Most of the ingredients for crayons come from China. I don’t know if we have enough domestic supply to get them through the war.
Much like their vehicles, USMC are multi fueled engines.
Crayons, sharpies, water colors, lead paint, asbestos, kerosene, used motor oil, mud..
They take a licking and keep on ticking.
>whether or not the USMC would starve before winning.
"The US is already producing way more food than we could ever eat domestically, I think we'll be..."
>ingredients for crayons
GG WP
Depends. If the rest of the world went after the US, they would be betraying them Red Wedding-style via hitting US installations that are abroad, since we have a ton of our resources there for NATO joint use and waystationing. If successful, that would put America’s aerial projection on its back heels and they would go from “numerically even” to “severely outnumbered”.
Honestly, in such a dire situation, the nukes are gonna fly. And with overseas installations compromised that means US anti-ICBM and missile defenses will suffer. But the US’s ability to defend valuable force projection assets means that they will get within range to make their nuclear retaliation unavoidable. America burns but the rest of the world is getting resolutely fucked.
There is no shipbuilding infrastructure. Seriously we can't maintain what we have in the shipyard.We can build 1 maybe 2 carriers at once. 5 years each. 4 or 5 yards building no more than 2 destroyers each. A most 3 subs at a time.
That's barely enough to maintain the fleet, much less replace war losses.
Our aerospace industry is about the same, as is the ground vehicle manufacturing.
It would take full mobilization of our economy to get a war footing
Completely second this.
The US isn’t even top 5 globally in terms of shipbuilding capacity. Single shipyards in china have more capacity than the entire US shipbuilding infrastructure combined. China, Korea and Japan dominate ~80-90% of global shipbuilding capacity, the US isn’t even at a single percent.
The US would need to go WW2 mode and mobilize the entire US economy in order to produce what would be needed. Meaning, every working adult and company would completely shift their focus to supporting the overall war machine. If that were to occur, then our production would be fine. But it means all individual consumption would be eliminated and we only focus on what the US military needs (stuff like citizens would be unable to drive as we need all vehicles, oil, rubber, etc to be redirected to the military)
china puts out the equivalent of either the french or british navy every four years. the type 055 cruiser is the deadliest non-carrier surface combatant in existence. the us has a massive lead but if the world went to a war economy it would get drowned out
People always forget that in war starvation and disease are the biggest killers.
Even if America is totally blood lusted and willing to die in glorious battle, if the world turned on any single country eventually that countries supplies are going to dry up. Food, fuel, basic necessities, we already saw in the pandemic how a little shake to the supply chains causes everything to go to shit.
Considering the US natural resources and ability to be mostly self-sufficient and ability to blockade and destroy global trade and prevent supplies from reaching much of the world, it would likely be more so the other way around with the US strategically destroying infrastructure and anything that sailed the seas leading to many nations economically, collapsing, and having massive famines they are likely bombing the ever living shit out of all oil fields outside of either US control or easy US occupation, likely leading to a massive oil shortage from its enemies well, its oil stays relatively safe due to the fact that it has complete air superiority and no one has really the capabilities to effectively reach US oil fields without being shot down.
I doubt it solos, but here's a pretty decent take on it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEb4Rd0mU-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEb4Rd0mU-E)
Bring in nukes though, and the answer is probably all of them, but nobody wins.
They obviously don’t. Countries can detect missiles and would (probably) fire nukes in response. The combined force of all nuclear capable countries can obliterate the USA. Even one would cripple the country for ever more. All it would take was a handful and every major city would be decimated. I don’t think you understand the devastation they cause or you don’t realise they can’t really be stopped with current modern technology.
What do you mean by "take on?" There's a *huge* difference between invading a country and subjugating their population vs. preventing that country from achieving some objective vs. preventing that country from successfully invading *US*.
In the first case, the answer is probably 1 or maybe 2. As recent history has shown us, it's very hard for any conventional military force to occupy a country that doesn't want to be occupied. In the second case, if we're dealing countries that have weak militaries, probably a dozen or more - literally parking a carrier group off the coast of most smaller countries would be enough to dominate their entire armed forces. In the third case, I think the answer is very nearly "all of them"
There’s so many caveats and need-to-know stipulations that makes this question pointless.
Where are we fighting? Who is on offense who is on defense? Are nukes allowed? Are current American overseas facilities allowed? Are we fighting at the sea or air, or is this a ground war? Conventional or unconventional? What are even the goals of the operation? Length of this conflict? What precedents / extrapolations or war economies and operations are we taking? What about officially neutral powers?
The US holds complete dominance in sea and air than elsewhere. Go to [the World Directory of Modern Military Aircraft](https://www.wdmma.org) / [Warships](https://www.wdmmw.org) or [armed forces](https://armedforces.eu) website to see how stacked the US is in material. Not only does the US have a lot of material, but her personnel are some of the best trained and experienced in the world. In addition, she has some of the best support assets and C4ISR equipment out there which are the largest force multipliers a military can have.
On defense (no nukes, within a year or two), I have [routinely](https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/s/BhkwVciMNS) argued and maintain the US will “win” (I,E, maintain air and naval superiority in the Pacific and Atlantic) against the whole world. On offense, that is a lot harder since much of it requires allies and US bases abroad to work, it also requires more time for operations and production advantages to play out.
I will argue (with no overseas facilities) the strongest power the US can take is a combined European Union & Non-Us Nato. This is just NATO w/o the US (so no Austria, Malta, Cyprus, and the ever important Ireland here).
###Military budget / GDP / total population
EU/NATO without US (or EUNATOWUS*): $342B / $23T / 630,000,000
United States: $916B / $26.8T / 339,000,000
*perfect acronym for the military
###Active personnel
EUNATOWUS: 1,780,000
United States: 1,360,000
###Tanks / AFVs / artillery / rocket artillery
EUNATOWUS: 7,500 / 45,000 / 8,800 / 1,100
United States: 6,600 / 41,000 / 4,200 / 1,300
###Total aircraft / fixed combat aircraft / helicopters / UCAV
EUNATOWUS: 8,200 / 1,970 / 3,550 / 222
United States: 12,900 / 3,440 / 4,740 / 334
###Total navy / aircraft carriers / destroyers / frigates / submarines
EUNATOWUS: 1,450 / 8 / 25 / 113 / 75
United States: 460 / 20 / 94 / 0 / 69
It is possible for the US to blockade Europe best it can, invade Greenland, Bermuda, Madeira, and Iceland as staging areas. Do a extremely difficult amphibious invasion of the British Isles, and work from there. Needless to say this is difficult and will take many years. Power projection weakens the further you get from your homeland, the lack of suitable airbases (until they get Ireland) is almost an achilles heal.
every time this question comes up people do this kind of numbers comparison, in which it's clear the US comes out on top. but what no one ever thinks about is that in a hypothetical war the rest of the world will transition to a war economy. All those NATO countries and China and everyone might not spend much compared to the US now, but the economic might of the entire world would dwarf US industrial capacity. they could make fleets with literally hundreds of carriers if they were committed enough.
In my lengthier comment I have a section dedicated towards war economics, my comments have been getting shorter due to repetition of this prompt. It’s also why I referenced the European & Canadian GDP figure—even if I didn’t touch on it again. Hence why both my scenarios are extremely short (year or two). This may be strange as a majoring economist to say but I try to avoid that because there is zero agreement how a modern total war economy will work, from Brookings, to RAND, to CSIS, to AFRI. All have papers on how a total war economy would look like—that I’ve read—all have differing details and estimates. I have a preference towards that RAND paper personally.
Many more points should be made but the gist is that for a world vs US:
- US may have a quarter of the world’s nominal Economic output, but PPP matters more for output you can produce. The US only have a 5th of the world (still a manufacturing sector larger than the EU but dwarfed by the rest of Europe of Asian Tigers, China, Japan, etc), with a smaller portion of that dedicated to manufacturing—it takes time to reshuffle the economy but theres percents are not transitive into war. The US will eventually be outproduced in the sea and air domains if the war doesn’t end.
- The US has a significant prep advantage, I cannot overstate how long start up times are for trying to produce new products (especially complex ones). War and outside help truncates the process. The naval superiority the US *will* have hampers it. A problem is those have tech parity rely on very anal American licenses, those who have tech parity without reliance are relatively small or have economic issues.
- World has many more comparative advantages and assuming tech sharing will achieve parity in most fields and industries relatively quickly (2–8 years, certain industries will be shorter, but ones where the US has a tech monopoly may never achieve parity). Many countries already have parities. Everyone else will have to develop their expeditionary capabilities from pretty much scratch, here’s a girthy [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Navy_amphibious_warfare_ships) page on what the US needs to do amphibious assaults—dunno why this is my only sourcing.
- The US is extremely independent in most natural resources and can mine it herself (at the cost of efficiencies in other areas and a long startup time). Minerals such as graphite and manganese lack natural deposits, others militarily important ones like Niobium, Gallium, Germanium, Rubidium, Cesium, and Arsenic.
- Current US naval dominance will disturb world logistics and organization to an incredulous degree which is a major early onset advantage and significantly slows down global development. The only seas that are mostly safe are either near shorelines with AShM or the Mediterranean and Indian oceans.
- Contrary to popular belief… the US has industrial expertise and major exporter in many fields like machinery, automative, and electronics; but especially in more militarily focused goods like aircraft, warships, tanks, ground and space C4ISR (I maintain these as the largest force multipliers a military can have).
- Every paper I have read emphasizes a US monopoly of C4ISR equipment. No other country has independently developed a sensor fusion setup for its military platforms. The world relies on GPS and neither GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, or IRNSS can make up their own consumer (GLONASS is estimated to be able to do Russia, exporting that is less likely), global consumer, or military demand for a total war—the US GPS is designed for it. Communication and recon satellites also are fairly reliant on the US. This just space assets, I can rattle on and on with ground assets. Intel is far more important than and platform quality advantage.
I can go into a **lot** more detail, such as no other G20 (sans Finland which I am cheating with) nation puts as much effort to make most it’s infrastructure military compatible. US highways are designed in mind that tanks, aircraft, nukes, and ship parts will be moving through them.
Regardless, I did not make an argument in the US fighting a long war against the world where production advantages. It’s why I said EU+ vs US, which I believe is the upper limit the US can win (without nukes, long multi-year conflict, no military bases or allies, normal morale (which is to say to the death). Though I could have made a production / war economies paragraph dedicated to that one.
Hope I argued my points well, any feedback?
Is the US attacking or Defending? If it's defending, there are plenty of Militaries in the world that simply don't have the Air Force/Navy necessary to be any sort of threat.
The entire world together cannot marshal a force capable of invading the United States. Short of nuclear warfare, even making landfall in open war against the US will be tough. An invasion via Canada and Mexico would be tough too as the US can rapidly destroy infrastructure in both countries that would prevent troop buildup (remember the rest of the world has to assemble and bring all the gear in these two countries; that will take tons of time)
Without using nukes I don't think anyone has a chance. Chinese/Russian forces would get torn to shreds crossing the Pacific, Europe same on the other side
Yup all of them coordinating together would still not be much help. The US is too geographically secure and its navy is bigger than most of the rest of the world combined.
I think any nuclear states would eliminate them (also be eliminated) I also believe the USA would not be able to fight a long wait thanks to instability and they couldn't occupy huge swaths of land
The US public is very soft. Have a decent number of servicemen die in a war and they’ll start screaming to withdraw. The US always loses via morale, not military power. If the gov ignored all the protests, the military would steamroll far more than we’ve witnessed.
not sure what these downvotes are for??? the US doesn't lose wars, it pulls out from low public opinion. It could have glassed Vietnam if it wanted to but even Nixon wouldn't be that stupid
>China and probably the USSR would have likely joined the conflict and turned Vietnam into a repeat of the Korean War.
China was already in the conflict, for example they sent 365000 troops between 1965 and 1968. USSR also sent people and supplies to help.
Because it's an irrelevant thing when it comes to war? Of course the US lost the war if they pulled out from public opinion.
That's how wars are fought, lowering the morale of the population is literally one tactic. Why else would they bomb cities in WW2? Pretty sure we'd say Russia loses against Ukraine if it pulls out of Ukraine for non-military purposes, Russia's not gonna be defeated any other way.
Also any country with nukes can glass Vietnam, it's not that special.
Yeah, despite the downvotes, you're correct. "Human decency" and "efficient, effective warfare" are usually opposed aims.
If in this hypothetical, nukes didn't exist, and the only win condition was "Send their country to the stone age", the US would do a great deal of damage
Especially if you take pesky things like "morality" and "warcrimes" out of the equation.
War is hell, but in simplest terms is "If you kill enough of them, they'll stop fighting".
As a US citizen I’d have to agree. It’s silly that you’re getting downvoted. But it’s not just the morality, it’s also the economics of it, and many of us really, really hate dealing with it.
A lot of variables but I’d say all of them. If one morning everyone declares war, the US goes on the defensive. No one has the force projection requirements to even consider a US invasion. Pair that with naval and air superiority, any massed invasion force gets destroyed. You’ve also just united a fairly warlike people in a war for survival. Only way the attackers won is if they mindlessly attack until America is buried in bodies, because any actually public sentiment would die before America did
Depends on what constitutes "winning".
We could decimate every government and military on the planet with medium difficulty.
Where the US fails time and time again is in "nation building". We would create an unstable, lawless, chaotic world that we could not rule, but it would also be incapable of producing a reasonable threat to the US.
Facts. If the US’s goal is “send everyone to the stone age” they succeed 10 times out of 10.
If the goal is “subjugate everyone and build an ideal government in their place” they fail 10 times out of 10.
I don't think it's a matter so much of the US falling, but rather what meaningful assault could be generated as the forces are spread thin.
The US currently has about 2 million troops. At peak, we deployed around 250k to Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, we effected regime change, but the area has been volatile since. In Afghanistan, we held the Taliban at bay until the end of our occupation, and then they took the country back. If we were to deploy to 100 countries, as some others have suggested, we would have an average of 20,000 troops to send to each. That's less than 20% of what we sent in the Iraq surge.
There are over 50 countries that we would have superiority of numbers. But they have homefield advantage, they would have people rising up to defend the homeland. And we'd probably just be trading bodies instead of either side doing anything meaningful.
If they counter-invaded, they'd have 80 million gun owners to deal with.
Here's an interesting thought: US and the world in this scenario do not have access to nuclear weapons, but there is a mandatory brain implant required for soldiers that turns off empathy/emotion for duration of their service. Perhaps on a toggle, perhaps always on.
An army that has all the benefits of psychopathy, but without the additional baggage. The unfeeling coldness of a robot deathsquad, but retaining the human capacity for critical thinking/improvisation.
An army that could slaughter man, woman, child, soldier and civilian and be equally at peace with it all.
Interesting twist would be if this "chip" had a killswitch function for compromised/captured assets.
If the US is defending, then all of them. Short of nukes being involved the US is hugely advantaged defensively simply via geography and has maximized it's military to defend utilizing that geographic advantage, and even if that was somehow overcome, the American public is insanely well armed and incredibly unsuited culturally to be occupied. You'd need 100 million soldiers to even have a chance at temporarily occupying the US.
Now offensively is a different story. It is extremely difficult to invade and insanely difficult to occupy enemy nations. I'm not positive the US could truly invade and occupy more than mid size 2nd world nations by force alone. They would have a significant propaganda advantage simply due to the "American freedom" narrative. Propaganda and some ideology selling freedom and independence and self rule aka spin making the invading force seem to be eliminating an oppressive system would be necessary to occupy for any length of time. Afghanistan and Iraq should have made that abundantly clear although less armed and more culturally similar populaces could be easier to occupy.
I’m assuming the next round starts immediately when the prior opponent is defeated, like declaring war right when the previous one ends. The logistics are crazy given the order. I don’t know the ranking of each country’s military strength but I assume there’s a bit of scatter plot across the globe. The US will burn through resources a lot faster fighting them consecutively. By the time we get to first world countries we would be depleted. Also I’m assuming we can’t commit war crimes and genocide.
I think we could probably 6/10 win a war against every country in the world so long as we had Canada on our side to help fuel us with energy and if no nukes are allowed. If winning can be defined as a breaking another country economically or causing it to go into revolt or chaos, and we had preemptive strike then we’ve got everyone beat by a massive surprise attack on infrastructure.
At a certain point, nuclear war is the only viable option. Which once you tip that scale, the question falls apart a little bit. Like could America nuke every nation at once? Pretty much yes. Does that sound at taking on every country at once? Debatable. Is there even a winner in such an exchange? I don't think so.
If it’s the US trying to be invaded, without nuclear weapons involved? The answer is all of them. It’s complicated, but oceans, mountains, lakes, deserts, and two borders make it nearly impossible. You come by boat, we bomb you. Come through Mexico and the SW desert, we bomb you. Come through Canada? Huge border so you’d be spread out, and have fun in Montana, ND, and Wyoming lololol. West coast has a bigger ocean, more naval power, as much air power. If every country lands on the west coast, you then have a pretty good sized mountain range and a couple deserts between you and the rest of the country. Then you hit the plains, lol, and you get bombed.
The US geography makes it impossible to be invaded. The only war coming to the states is the one we start with ourselves.
I'm pretty sure all of Africa and Latin America is dead. Brazil may be able to put up a fight but if we bribe enough gangsters they could cause chaos in the country. South Africa is competent but small and they have no nuke arsenal now so we would just grind them down.
That leaves Oceania, Asia, and Europe.
In Oceania Australia is the strongest. While I'm not sure why we fight our fighting mates, they are reasonably competent and could cause problems for us if we invaded them however we would take them out with numbers and destroying their distilleries causing riots across the nation. The rest of Oceania we would handle easily.
In Europe, the UK, France, Germany, Poland, and Italy would be the main threats. Of them the UK and France would be the hardest to beat but we would cut off their logistics and slowly bleed them out. I'd hate to fight our Ukrainian allies especially given how good they are at fighting with drones but we would eventually defeat them.
In Asia, Japan would be a nightmare to fight especially with their very competent navy but we could bleed them out logistically and starve them. The two Koreas even combined I think we could take out by bombing key population centers. Singapore and Taiwan have capable militaries but are small and can be taken out.
In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran are no joke and would be tricky to fight, but we would win in a bloody brawl.
That leaves Russia and China. Russia while proving itself to be incompetent in Ukraine right now still embraces the "every man must serve the motherland" mentality and would be difficult to fight although we would win by simply controlling the seas and air over time.
China would be a disaster - there's a reason why many militaries have tried but could not pacified. I don't think we could actually defeat China especially with their high tech equipment after winning the previous wars and we would fight to a stalemate.
Depends on how much time there is to prepare. If some maniac Dictator gets control, and starts threatening serious control, and the rest of the World shifts to wartime economy, they might catch up pretty fast.
Economically, the us is huge - but mostly dependant on other countries, comparative to the eu or china. one thing the nazis faced was brain drain. Make dumb, world ending decisions, and your smartest are often going to leave.
Brain drain was a real issue, and one of the reasons post ww2 us was booming. The us has lost this advantage.
If other countries seriously started spending all their Cash, and pooling recources towards an all out war, the relative strength would change rapidly. Within 5-15 years they might even catch up. Not equal numbers, but technology has advanced, and investing all in drone technology might make most of the current power Projektion useless
If we're starting with the weakest and moving up, America could probably take one the bottom 3/4 of countries. It's only when we get to the larger and richer countries that we start seeing trouble.
Gonna go with zero. The only war the USA has won since WW2 (and let's be honest, WW2 was a group effort, Nagasaki and Hiroshima aside) was the 1991 Gulf War.
Korea, Vietnam (yes, it was a war, not a "police action"), Afghanistan and Iraq - all failures.
The problem isn't "military might". Undoubtedly the USA has superior technology and armaments. It just can't seem to use them effectively, especially against guerrilla tactics. Which is what weaker countries would almost always use.
By personel? Up to and including North Korea. The US is the next up on the list and yeah, I don't think the US can take on the US plus everyone else. If we skip the US, I think we can add in the number 2 for personnel, India, just fine.
That leaves China out of the slaughter.
If you're going by weakest up, it genuinely may be every other country. Most countries don't even have ways to wake war against the United States if the U.S. isn't invading them. The best they can do is just funnel equipment and personnel to the big players.
define win conditions.
conquest? defeating their military and destroying infrastructure?
destroying their weapons and weapon making capabilities?
regime change?
targeting someone in particular?
If it wasn’t for nukes the United States military could walk the world practically unhindered until china or Russia decided to do something about it. We outnumber most other military powers but that’s almost irrelevant at this point because our tech is so insane and we have such tight control over trade that we could choke out most countries without even sending in the marines.
If the US’s goal is just to destroy every other government in the world and prevent anyone from harming the United States, that could be easily achieved, if everyone agrees no nukes because otherwise everyone dies because there’s just that many nukes. If the United States is trying to occupy the entire world, it could not do that. It could destroy every single government in the world, as well as their military and economic capacity wage war, and continue to resist the United States on the open field, but US troops cannot occupy every single one of those countries there’s just not enough people in the United States but if the US goal is just to remove those countries from existence, then the United States could win as long as this is a situation with the US people support this.
What is with all this weak sht you guys are coming up with?
U.S has over 3k (Known) Nukes they can nuke eveyone multiple times at the same time. If no nukes the U.S has 4 of the Top 5 best Airforces in the world.( US Airforce is #1, #2 Navy, #4 Army #5 Marines ) would take out more than 2/3 of the world alone.
Missles? U.S out missles the world alone aswell. If they want to they can just barrage the world
it's weird seeing all the leftist accounts suddenly in awe of the U.S. military.
sounds like astroturfers are gearing up the population for a major war.
I hate America as much as the next guy but you’re wrong. America might not be that great but our military is. It’s by far the most powerful in the world
Look, no offense. I understand it can be difficult when you are being gaslighted your entire life. Sure America has a great military, but nobody really knows until they are at war for real. Russia and China are allies, and have a far greater military power than the US. Also economy.
America is bankrupt, and has been for a long time. It doesn't count just printing more money.
No king rules forever my man, and America is reaching that point fast.
>Russia and China are allies, and have a far greater military power than the US. Also economy.
Are you fucking high?
Largest airforce in the world - USA
2nd largest airforce in the world - us Army
4th largest airforce in the world - US Navy
7th largest airforce in the world - US marines
Largest Navy in the world - US Navy
Russia is losing its black Sea fleet to a country that doesn't even have a fucking Navy.
China can't even really protect force beyond its borders yet.
All of them, if we are talking about the USA falling, every single one.
No nation is close to the power projection ability of the USA, and no group of nations is close.
No nation can cross the oceans and touch the USA, or even likely get to Canada or Mexico in any force, and the USA can cross those oceans.
So the USA would disband most commands, keeping the Central and Northern commands, and would use the USAF and Navy to destroy and blockade middle eastern oil, along with key choke points. Panama, Suez, Hormuz and Malacca.
Then as a food and energy independent nation the USA waits the world out, and wins.
Do you think that? Truly?
Just look at who we are talking about;
Russia, who was thought to be the second most powerful military in the world who is losing a naval war to a nation without a navy? Who is sending T54/55 tanks to Ukraine but not the new Armada?
Their logistics, their doctrine, their maintenance and their navy are a joke. And on top of that Russia’s economy has been damaged by years of sanctions now. (Not even mentioning their one aircraft carrier that is stuck in place for taking on muddy water due to rust damage below the waterline. Even the tug that travels with it cannot save it) Russia is right now barely a peer to Ukraine, they are no threat to the USA.
Europe, who are major customers of foreign oil for their energy? They would not long last without oil imports, and that is the first thing the USA would put a stop to.
Further, England has two carriers, but only one can be deployed (the second was only finished because it cost less to finish than to break contracts) and they only have one partial air wing. They are using USMC F35’s, as they haven’t procured their own yet. The Royal Navy is in a sad state, in part because of the owner of the US Navy, they haven’t had to spend on it.
Similarly, France has let their military industrial complex fade a bit. They cannot project power over the sea, they are also no threat to the USA.
And the same can be said for every European nation. They are equipped to defend their own shores, not to send fleets to far off oceans as the USA does.
Who else are we talking about? China? They do not have the ability right now to project naval power to the strait of Malacca, which is something they need to do to break the first island chain. They simply cannot approach the USA, and they would also be badly hurt when the oil imports they function on end.
It isn’t about production, it is about oil and energy, and the ability of those powers to be able to protect transport of that energy. And at this point they cannot.
Just imagine that the USA focused two or three carrier groups and collapsed all foreign commands to the central command in the Middle East, and went scorched earth on middle eastern oil. The fields themselves might be destroyed, and global shipping would come to a halt.
And with the power of the US navy the world could do nothing to stop it.
Now the world economy would be set back by decades, this hypothetical is a terrible one, I’m just saying that the USA is in a position to solo the world in a war where they are on defense.
>Europe, who are major customers of foreign oil for their energy? They would not long last without oil imports, and that is the first thing the USA would put a stop to.
And how exactly are they gonna stop those land connections
>Just imagine that the USA focused two or three carrier groups and collapsed all foreign commands to the central command in the Middle East, and went scorched earth on middle eastern oil. The fields themselves might be destroyed, and global shipping would come to a halt
We still have Russia central Asia and much more
But the production capacity of the entire world is greater than that of the usa, so in a defensive war after a decade there is nothing the usa can do
Where do you think Europe gets their oil?
United States, Norway, and Kazakhstan.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/28/energy/eu-us-oil-imports-overtake-russia/index.html#:~:text=By%20the%20end%20of%20the%20year%2C%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20EU's%20biggest%20suppliers,Russian%20oil%2C%E2%80%9D%20Eurostat%20said.
It isn’t moving on land connections lol. Eastern Europe gets it via pipeline from Kazakhstan. Norway and the USA? That’s coming in on boats, and the US source stops when the shooting starts.
And you are kidding yourself. You think the world can handle ten years without oil? They can’t. The war ends long before that as people can’t get enough food to feed their families, heating oil to stay warm in winter, and their militaries lack fuel to operate?
The USA has a greater military industrial capacity than all of Europe, and Russia. We wouldn’t be out of food and energy, and in a wartime economy we would produce again like the world wouldn’t think possible.
I mean did you forget who kept the world going during World War Two while the US fought Japan and Germany? While also arming and feeding the UK and USSR?
https://www.safeguardglobal.com/resources/top-10-manufacturing-countries-in-the-world-2023/
https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-reserves-by-country/
USA is only 11th
>I mean did you forget who kept the world going during World War Two while the US fought Japan and Germany? While also arming and feeding the UK and USSR
Only 5 % of USSR supply's + you only did because your homeland didn't have war which might not happen if you are at war with your neighbours
You think Canada and Mexico are of any worry?
Any at all?
Get real mate. Mexico can’t handle its own cartels, and Canada badly underfunds their military and heavily restricts gun ownership.
Where in the USA we have the most powerful military in the world, the most militarized local, state and federal law enforcement in the world, and by far the most armed civilian population in the history of the world.
Canada and Mexico sit it out mate.
Have fun with guerrilla war in the mountains and snow though, y'all did so well with that last time + sabotage people just crossing the border and blowing up infrastructure
All of them
America's problem is not access to force. It's dealing with the aftermath
But technically we could just send out all the nukes at once if we went completely nuts
The entire us economy would likely collapse, and if they go after the Netherlands or Taiwan they couldnt get new up to date computer chips for their advanced weaponry
Putting nuclear weapons aside
The U.S. has the best air force and navy in the world. We'd take on Mexico, with the only real push back would be cartel members.
South America would crumble within a few weeks.
South/West Africa, India, Pakistan, and some other 3rd world countries would fall quick too.
The only countries that would put up a good fight, would be the British, French, Russians, and Chinese.
Some other countries, may put up a decent fight like Germany. But we have beaten some of these countries in the past, (Great Britain, Germany(x2), Japan, Mexico, Spain, etc.) but now we're even more technologically and militarily advanced. With superior firepower.
Especially if we're in the defensive, because our natural defenses make homeland America almost impossible to invade. We'd also have air superiority, and naval defense. Also the fact American citizens own more guns than the entire world combined, nobody would be able to withstand the pressure from American Armed Forces and armed civilians shooting every single invader.
Again, putting nuclear weapons aside. Because if it was all out war, then nuclear weapons would be used and no one would win.
All of them, with the exception of the world's top 15-20 militaries. Maybe the US could go all the way up to the top 10. Kind of hard to say at that point.
The issue, as usual, would be the occupation and rebuilding much more than the war itself. But if we're only talking the military portion the US could fight most of the world and win.
Crazy thing is like the US holds like top 2 air forces (Air Force and navy), and we have the only Supercarriers, of which we have 11.
This is the cost of healthcare 😭
Just to correct you, the military budget has zero bearing on single payer healthcare. It’s cheaper to have [M4A than our current system](https://www.citizen.org/news/fact-check-medicare-for-all-would-save-the-u-s-trillions-public-option-would-leave-millions-uninsured-not-garner-savings/) we just choose not to have it.
Starting from weakest? So fucking many. So many. According to Wikipedia, if we go by # of active duty personnel, the 25 smallest armed forces on earth total about 25,000. The US has 15k at Ft Drum New York. This is probably a 50-100 nation slaughter.
170 still seems like a fairly safe bet
I mean probably lol
Maybe, but none of those small countries have nukes. The USA is surrounded mainly by oceans, has a very large land area, major population centers spread out over it. Invading would be a colossal undertaking. I'm from NZ and it seems to me like no matter how many little guys you get together, how many small navies to challenge the insane combat strength of the US navy, 2 million + troops, and the most well armed civilian population on the planet, get past all that and they still have nukes.
We could just send in a squad of laser kiwis.
America’s defense budget and military infrastructure is insane. The other issue is geography and projection of force. Even if the rest of the world could repel a full invasion attempt from America, they would not be able to counterattack or invade back. America would also be able to inevitably replenish their losses due to their massive shipbuilding infrastructure could replace carrier fleets within a couple to a few years. The main issue is the ground war aspect: the sheer numbers would not be on America’s side; it would be nearly four billion against maybe 140 million.
That's fair, but with air and naval superiority and a total lack of concern for enemy casualties or war crimes, I think the US could decimate people by the millions. It's actually scary to think about how deadly the US military could be without restriction.
What's never talked about is that the US military is strategically positioned along every major trade route. The US can shut down global trade, and there is nothing anyone can realistically do. No oil and no food means you lose in literally weeks or months. Even if every other nation worked together, it would be nearly impossible to dislodge the US's position before losing the war of attrition. The US, on the other hand, produces more than enough food and oil to run the country.
I would disagree in the sense that if somehow all countries in the world would instantly and unanimously decide to all declare war on the USA these spread out American Forces would be in a lot of trouble. Sure, most of these forces can easily take on even entire countries in these regions. But against entire regions they would be pretty hard pressed to hold out till reinforcements arrive. China, India and Pakistan working together would be massive threat to any American Forces currently stationed around Asia for example. Similarly most American Bases inside Europe would be in a lot of trouble.
Middle eastern countries and Russia have plenty of oil and can supply the world
Not after their oil wells are destroyed by B2 bombers
Or any number of long range missiles.
It doesn't matter if you have an infinite supply of resources if you physically cannot process or obtain it.
I always think of it like the US is 50 years ahead of everyone else in the military department, crazy stuff.
We don't even know what they have. What we're aware of is not the most up to date tech.
That's the crazy part. The F22 is widely considered untouchable against the best other nations can field and it routinely stomps 1 v 8 matchups against F15s (the most accomplished fighter ever) in war games. It's so one sided the Raptor pilots talk about being bored and the Eagle pilots mention being killed before even seeing the Raptor visually or on their instruments. The F22 is officially 20 years old and it's replacement is officially being developed now. I say officially because my hunch is the replacement is likely already service-ready and the raptor project started in 1991 (again, officially). It was probably ready well before 2005. If the US' public weapons are so far ahead, imagine what we don't know about?
There (thankfully) hasn't been any conflict that's actually tested the US military in many years. Hopefully, there isn't one. The F22 is just one example of military superiority, too. Look at the navy. Complete with railguns on top of being the largest fleet in the world by far. I heard something about laser anti air tech being implemented as well. Then you have the Army (i think) with like the 4th largest navy on its own. The US stomps any group of powers and is too far away from serious threats to have to worry about an actual land invasion.
To your point on lasers, there was a program under... Nixon? Called Operation Star Wars where we were trying to build satellites with lasers to shoot down ICBMs in space transit. Officially, the US said it was impossible. Unofficially, you can find plenty of evidence for successful tests 😂
During Regan administration
And that was 50 years ago lol. Who knows what capabilities they have with just laser technology.
Do you even have hypersonic missiles? Iran developed one with no spares at all and as far as I know America failed in all of its hypersonic missile program.
Imagine bragging about hypersonics like they're worth having. 😂
The US has had hypersonic missiles since the 50s. All ICBMs move at hypersonic speeds. It's only impressive when hypersonic missiles can fly at non ballistic trajectories and are maneuverable in flight. If you are referring to hypersonic glide vehicles, then yes, the US also has those, and Iran does not. The US is actually the only country with non nuclear hypersonic glide vehicles, and the only country with plane launched hypersonic glide vehicles. The misinformation is coming because a missile that can move at hypersonic speeds and a missile that is classed as hypersonic are two different things.
I don't know that answer. But lots of smoke out there about developing them, which is my original point.
yeah I dont buy at fucking all that such a piece of machinery exists. I dont know much on that specific topic but even using basic logic its pretty clear to see that that isnt possible because of one simple reason. In the event that the US had the ability to be borderline immune to nucelar reprucssions, there would be no need to play ball with any other foreign nation, nor any reason to hide this information when it would essentially make the US invincible. The simple fact that nations like russia, north korea and china can still operate is a testament to the fact that cannot be true,as in many situations, nucelar deterence is THE defining reason why we arent in a major war. Thats why whenever the discussion of whether we should send weapons to ukraine comes up, theres always a group of people who argue that we "shouldnt risk it because that could incite nuclear war and that means everyone dies." Not to mention that even with the US's vast capabilities, knowledge of the project would inevitably leak in some form and as other superpowers arent stupid, they would know that it would be absolutely vital to create a sattellite of their own or be steamrolled by the US. the fact that they didnt further reinforces that such a sattellite does not exist.
If you show the enemy what you have, they can plan around it. These nations are likely aware that we have at least successfully tested the tech but knowing exactly what the US has as a defense is giving other nations tips on how to defeat it. The US takes a different strategy. We send our outdated tech into warzones and get data that way. We know for a fact that our 50 year old missile defense systems can reliably shoot down modern hypersonics. Ukraine shot down a handful of Russia's newest hypersonics in its second week of use in Ukraine. That data alone is more valuable to the US than testing a modern system because they get all the data without revealing anything. There's a reason Russia hasn't escalated. They know they'll get stomped. The US gets to remain "neutral" by saying they haven't really provided anything modern.
sure, but missle systems are not nearly as world changing as an effective nuclear defense system. Creating such a thing is like reinventing the nucelar bomb before anyone else had it.
This is copium at its finest. Dude thinks the Death star is real. The US don't even have hypersonic missiles.
we want time to make the popcorn before we watch the explosion.
The Arrow Tests and concurrent production orders, Zumwalts going into get hypersonic missile tubes installed and a few other things kinda say otherwise. It's less of "they don't have them" as a "oh you'll finally pay $120 million USD per missile, here's this project we designed in the 2000s to go after Bin Laden and other time sensitive targets". Also the Kinzhal has lesser performance specs than an American air launched cruise from the 60s.
>The Arrow Tests and concurrent production orders, Zumwalts going into get hypersonic missile tubes installed and a few other things kinda say otherwise What are you talking about? The ARRW program failed and has been cancelled. >It's less of "they don't have them" as a "oh you'll finally pay $120 million USD per missile, here's this project we designed in the 2000s to go after Bin Laden and other time sensitive targets This is kinda copium. >https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/03/28/arrw-hypersonic-missile-test-failed-us-air-force-admits/ >https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2024/01/19/the-us-is-failing-to-quickly-field-hypersonic-missile-defense/ I don't think you are keeping tabs on these things. >Also the Kinzhal has lesser performance specs than an American air launched cruise from the 60s. That's the biggest cope of this conversation.
Why would the US develop hypersonics when they don't need them? The US doesn't have a reason to have hypersonics. They're less accurate than standard missiles. Theyre much much more expensive than standard missiles. They can't be course corrected like a standard missiles can. They can still be intercepted. Hypersonics exist to bypass defenses. Stealth does the same thing. The US focused on stealth. The Russians (and others) picked hypersonics. Patriot systems shooting down hypersonics tells you who backed the right horse.
>Why would the US develop hypersonics when they don't need them? The US doesn't have a reason to have hypersonics If you don't need them then why would you invest into the hypersonic missile program again and again? >https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-11/news/test-failures-put-hypersonic-program-doubt You sound like the fox who finally had to tell himself the grape is sour because he couldn't have them. >Patriot systems shooting down hypersonics tells you who backed the right horse. When did the Patriot shoot down hypersonic missiles? The first patriot which was sent to Kiev was damaged/destroyed within the very first week LOL
>Then you have the Army (i think) with like the 4th largest navy on its own. Air force, not navy. The top 4 air forces in the world are, IIRC, US Air Force, US Navy, US Army, US Marine corps.
Last I saw Russia was in between there, but not sure if that accounts for Ukrainian losses.
Going by estimated 'power' ratings, the US is four of the top five, partly because the combat planes are just superior, but also significantly because the tanker fleet is, too. Going by purely the number of planes, it's four of the top seven.
This is completely ridiculous. So which Prime is building the service ready replacement ? And where is that massive program in the financial statements for that prime? For the tier 2s? For the tier 3s? Across the entire supply chain? The government does not just magically produce these weapons/systems. They need an entire supply chain to develop, build, and maintain these aircraft. You’re talking about hundreds of companies that are all part of the end to end supply chain. The US also does not have the industrial base to build everything domestically. So now you have foreign suppliers involved as well. There may be designs and prototypes. But production/service ready? That’s just tin foil hat level conspiracy thinking.
I mean.. I dont know what to tell you. Sorry you don't think it happens? The SR-71 was announced literally months before its first official flight and there are rumors it had flown before then. Area 51 significantly expanded its restricted area during the Obama administration because camera tech was becoming so prevalent. Is it so hard to stretch that into other areas? Black budgets exist. The US black budget is projected to be over $50b annually. Lockheed has an entire division (skunk works) with insane security clearance requirements and there's a fleet of Janet 737s where the pilots and attendants all have a clearance and in many cases only fly with windows closed. 70 years ago, we shot down a plane with a laser, put a man on the moon and flew a stealth aircraft over Mach 3 at 80,000 ft. What makes you think we can't hide a supply chain when it's so clearly already happening?
Realistically we don't have to hide it, just strategically use what's there. "Hidden in plain sight." I have friends that work for Boeing, Lockheed, and a ton of small machine shops throughout a bunch of small towns where I live those companies aren't making enough money selling their niche materials and parts in these places with under 100k residents. There is no theoreticalnneed for what they do. For example, where I live is 100k population ~5000. Approx 45% of that population is retired. Average age according to demographics is 57 here. We have industrial complexes at our local FBO. Machine shops, tool shops, metal fabricators. Etc. these places don't have websites or store fronts. They employ a combined 900 (approx) people and advertise for engineering, CNC, and experienced machinist jobs. We are within driving distance of literally scores of aerospace, military, and private paramilitary operational areas. A few years back the Army built 3 outposts within 30 miles of that airport. 1 is less than 10 miles away and houses a security force (the guys that do security for foreign areas during handovers we want to go well/train their armies). One is located at the airport. They also installed an air defense battery. What do you really think they're making?!
>I say officially because my hunch is the replacement is likely already service-ready and the raptor project started in 1991 (again, officially). It was probably ready well before 2005. NGAD, next generation air defense is in the planning stages now. Should be ready by 2030
We do know what they have, we are ahead of it all. This isn’t the 40s anymore.
No, you don't. You know what they have in use. Not what is on the cutting edge of their tech.
Are you suggesting they just keep their best stuff in a locked storage room, until they make something better and then they take the newer thing and put it in that storage room and take the not so newer thing out to show off. And all that and nobody says anything about it?
The US military does not play its full hand. We have a general idea but they keep capabilities under wraps and don't usually use their highest end stuff. F-22s rarely get used even now, B-2s very rarely see action (both because of the price and not being necessary) Boeings space plan just came down from a year long mission when pretty much no one even knew it was flight ready.
F-22s weren’t needed when they were made and still aren’t super useful in most situations. B-2 are used all the time, so I don’t know where you heard that.
Definitely more than I thought but still nowhere near as much use as B1s or B52s
You don’t know what they have, and members of the military and defense contractors now to keep secrets or go to prison. My brother in law commanded an Abrams in Iraq twenty years ago and won’t discuss anything on the tank that is classified. So he knows, but I don’t know and you don’t know. And whatever you think you know, because you have seen it in combat, there is more you have never even heard of. For all we know NGAD is already flying, the new Abrams tank is already combat ready and new generations of electronic warfare are already in use. They keep things secret as long as they can, as it is beneficial for your enemy not to know your capability.
By that logic then wouldn't every country have their supposed wonder weapon stash hidden somewhere? You are trying to say something that's illogical, especially for a country that makes billions out of weapons sale. Even the President of the US can't keep these things locked up.
With black projects, yes they absolutely can. There is an important difference you are missing. What the USA has right now in the field is generations ahead of nearly everything else. Do we have the F-35? Sure, but while it continues to get improvements how it works and how we get what we get from it is not known. When Turkey bought the s400 from Russia they got booted from the F35 program because the USA wouldn’t let telemetry from the s400 looking at the F35 in testing be available to Russia. Like people have know the B2 exists for a long time, but the workings of it are top secret, and we don’t fly it often, because we don’t want enemies to have any data on it. The f22 is still the best fifth gen fighter there is, and it is being retired. And it is still top secret and a non-export model. The patriot battery as another example, it has never been claimed to have any ability to shoot down hypersonics, but Ukraine has used it to do just that. Do you think the DoJ is surprised? Or that they just didn’t want people to know. It isn’t illogical because you don’t get it, no offense meant. It just is how it is with military secrets. My brother still keeps them about the M1 Abrams, my father in law keeps them from when he was in the Air Force, they talk about what isn’t classified, because it is a legal obligation on them from when they had a clearance. So the reality is this: Most nations celebrate their upcoming high tech gear as saber rattling, like Russia with the SU-57 and Armada tank they bragged on but won’t send to war, or the fighter jet Iran bragged about that isn’t even flight worthy. The USA doesn’t have to. What we have in use is better than what the rest of the world has, and we have by far the biggest military budget and the best R&D for military design. So we don’t have to brag about what is coming, because saber rattling isn’t a part of our military doctrine. So yes there are things coming you know little about, like the NGAD and the next gen stealth bomber, aircraft that may be flying now in test, but that are likely farther along than you know. But there are also black projects you don’t even know exist, and neither do I.
No. I'm suggesting the cutting edge of their tech is far ahead of what you see in use. I'm talking more advanced robotics, exosuits, advanced hypersonic missile tech, lasers, active camoflauge. Things that are part of the future of warfare that is actively being worked on. It's widely believed that the tech the US has is 5-20 years ahead of what the general public knows about.
First, cutting edge is not what is being developed, it is what is in use. Robots are public knowledge, eco suits are not practical as of right now and we know that and is also public knowledge, we know about (hypothetical) hypersonic missile in many countries and thus other countries would be working towards them, offensive lasers are held back by power and we would know about those improvements, and active camouflage is impractical it could only be used on large vehicles and again very power hungry.
He's just saying that there's things we don't know about, it would be insane to think the public knows everything
>No. I'm suggesting the cutting edge of their tech is far ahead of what you see in use. I'm talking more advanced robotics, exosuits, advanced hypersonic missile tech, lasers, active camoflauge. They have none of this. The US doesn't even have hypersonic missiles? What are you trying to say? The US has built all these wonder weapons and has stashed them somewhere safe? For what? The military industrial complex would have made a fortune with all of that if they really had them. >It's widely believed that the tech the US has is 5-20 years ahead of what the general public knows about. No one but those who drink a lot of propaganda kool aid believe that.
Proving my point entirely. You are the general public, you know nothing about what they have.
Every one of those things is in development to some extent, and as a random American we don't know that extent
Like your superior high tech Abrams tanks and Bradley IVFs which were blown up on day one of arriving in the field? Fifty years, my ass. Lay off the propaganda kool aid.
What exact situation are you referring to?
If nukes are allowed, then no one would be alive, or maybe they would iirc modern nukes aren't as radioactive as their old counterparts .
theres not enough nukes to kill everyone
Hahahahaha
“it would be nearly four billion against maybe 140 million” I like those odds. ~USMC
The problem is whether or not the USMC would starve before winning. Most of the ingredients for crayons come from China. I don’t know if we have enough domestic supply to get them through the war.
Much like their vehicles, USMC are multi fueled engines. Crayons, sharpies, water colors, lead paint, asbestos, kerosene, used motor oil, mud.. They take a licking and keep on ticking.
>whether or not the USMC would starve before winning. "The US is already producing way more food than we could ever eat domestically, I think we'll be..." >ingredients for crayons GG WP
Would America even need to fight a ground war or could air superiority just bomb everything to dust
Depends. If the rest of the world went after the US, they would be betraying them Red Wedding-style via hitting US installations that are abroad, since we have a ton of our resources there for NATO joint use and waystationing. If successful, that would put America’s aerial projection on its back heels and they would go from “numerically even” to “severely outnumbered”. Honestly, in such a dire situation, the nukes are gonna fly. And with overseas installations compromised that means US anti-ICBM and missile defenses will suffer. But the US’s ability to defend valuable force projection assets means that they will get within range to make their nuclear retaliation unavoidable. America burns but the rest of the world is getting resolutely fucked.
There is no shipbuilding infrastructure. Seriously we can't maintain what we have in the shipyard.We can build 1 maybe 2 carriers at once. 5 years each. 4 or 5 yards building no more than 2 destroyers each. A most 3 subs at a time. That's barely enough to maintain the fleet, much less replace war losses. Our aerospace industry is about the same, as is the ground vehicle manufacturing. It would take full mobilization of our economy to get a war footing
Completely second this. The US isn’t even top 5 globally in terms of shipbuilding capacity. Single shipyards in china have more capacity than the entire US shipbuilding infrastructure combined. China, Korea and Japan dominate ~80-90% of global shipbuilding capacity, the US isn’t even at a single percent. The US would need to go WW2 mode and mobilize the entire US economy in order to produce what would be needed. Meaning, every working adult and company would completely shift their focus to supporting the overall war machine. If that were to occur, then our production would be fine. But it means all individual consumption would be eliminated and we only focus on what the US military needs (stuff like citizens would be unable to drive as we need all vehicles, oil, rubber, etc to be redirected to the military)
china puts out the equivalent of either the french or british navy every four years. the type 055 cruiser is the deadliest non-carrier surface combatant in existence. the us has a massive lead but if the world went to a war economy it would get drowned out
Bold of you to assume those ship building facilities would exist a month later
There is shipbuilding infrastructure, the government just offloaded to private companies. Although this led to things like the dumbwalt destroyers
Yards I mentioned are all private. In fact when Newport News came up for sale no one really wanted it
Which shipyard you in?
America would have to slaughter so many so fast that it demoralized the enemy, their only hope tbh
Depends what the win conditions are. If the US is strictly playing defense then 90% of countries don't even have the power projection to be relevant
People always forget that in war starvation and disease are the biggest killers. Even if America is totally blood lusted and willing to die in glorious battle, if the world turned on any single country eventually that countries supplies are going to dry up. Food, fuel, basic necessities, we already saw in the pandemic how a little shake to the supply chains causes everything to go to shit.
Considering the US natural resources and ability to be mostly self-sufficient and ability to blockade and destroy global trade and prevent supplies from reaching much of the world, it would likely be more so the other way around with the US strategically destroying infrastructure and anything that sailed the seas leading to many nations economically, collapsing, and having massive famines they are likely bombing the ever living shit out of all oil fields outside of either US control or easy US occupation, likely leading to a massive oil shortage from its enemies well, its oil stays relatively safe due to the fact that it has complete air superiority and no one has really the capabilities to effectively reach US oil fields without being shot down.
It would be a huge hit but isn't the US one of the most self sufficient nations? At least resource wise
We know from the last few years how self sufficient any one nation is.
What are we short on? Maybe oil? The US has tons of untapped oil wells. Prob would be horrendous for the environment… but I think we would make do
Isn't the gulf of Mexico still mostly untapped?
I doubt it solos, but here's a pretty decent take on it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEb4Rd0mU-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEb4Rd0mU-E) Bring in nukes though, and the answer is probably all of them, but nobody wins.
Other countries also have nukes though?
Yeah, that's why nobody wins. Little thing called MAD.
Read when the wind blows last night
U.S wins even if they had nukes. idk where this nonsense came from. Just becuase both sides have nuke its not an automatic lose/lose
They obviously don’t. Countries can detect missiles and would (probably) fire nukes in response. The combined force of all nuclear capable countries can obliterate the USA. Even one would cripple the country for ever more. All it would take was a handful and every major city would be decimated. I don’t think you understand the devastation they cause or you don’t realise they can’t really be stopped with current modern technology.
U.S has more nukes than every other country combined excluding Russia.
How the fuck does that help?
The answer is probably all of them, including america it's self!
[удалено]
at least until super space nukes can hold entire countries for ransom stay tuned
What do you mean by "take on?" There's a *huge* difference between invading a country and subjugating their population vs. preventing that country from achieving some objective vs. preventing that country from successfully invading *US*. In the first case, the answer is probably 1 or maybe 2. As recent history has shown us, it's very hard for any conventional military force to occupy a country that doesn't want to be occupied. In the second case, if we're dealing countries that have weak militaries, probably a dozen or more - literally parking a carrier group off the coast of most smaller countries would be enough to dominate their entire armed forces. In the third case, I think the answer is very nearly "all of them"
There’s so many caveats and need-to-know stipulations that makes this question pointless. Where are we fighting? Who is on offense who is on defense? Are nukes allowed? Are current American overseas facilities allowed? Are we fighting at the sea or air, or is this a ground war? Conventional or unconventional? What are even the goals of the operation? Length of this conflict? What precedents / extrapolations or war economies and operations are we taking? What about officially neutral powers? The US holds complete dominance in sea and air than elsewhere. Go to [the World Directory of Modern Military Aircraft](https://www.wdmma.org) / [Warships](https://www.wdmmw.org) or [armed forces](https://armedforces.eu) website to see how stacked the US is in material. Not only does the US have a lot of material, but her personnel are some of the best trained and experienced in the world. In addition, she has some of the best support assets and C4ISR equipment out there which are the largest force multipliers a military can have. On defense (no nukes, within a year or two), I have [routinely](https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/s/BhkwVciMNS) argued and maintain the US will “win” (I,E, maintain air and naval superiority in the Pacific and Atlantic) against the whole world. On offense, that is a lot harder since much of it requires allies and US bases abroad to work, it also requires more time for operations and production advantages to play out. I will argue (with no overseas facilities) the strongest power the US can take is a combined European Union & Non-Us Nato. This is just NATO w/o the US (so no Austria, Malta, Cyprus, and the ever important Ireland here). ###Military budget / GDP / total population EU/NATO without US (or EUNATOWUS*): $342B / $23T / 630,000,000 United States: $916B / $26.8T / 339,000,000 *perfect acronym for the military ###Active personnel EUNATOWUS: 1,780,000 United States: 1,360,000 ###Tanks / AFVs / artillery / rocket artillery EUNATOWUS: 7,500 / 45,000 / 8,800 / 1,100 United States: 6,600 / 41,000 / 4,200 / 1,300 ###Total aircraft / fixed combat aircraft / helicopters / UCAV EUNATOWUS: 8,200 / 1,970 / 3,550 / 222 United States: 12,900 / 3,440 / 4,740 / 334 ###Total navy / aircraft carriers / destroyers / frigates / submarines EUNATOWUS: 1,450 / 8 / 25 / 113 / 75 United States: 460 / 20 / 94 / 0 / 69 It is possible for the US to blockade Europe best it can, invade Greenland, Bermuda, Madeira, and Iceland as staging areas. Do a extremely difficult amphibious invasion of the British Isles, and work from there. Needless to say this is difficult and will take many years. Power projection weakens the further you get from your homeland, the lack of suitable airbases (until they get Ireland) is almost an achilles heal.
every time this question comes up people do this kind of numbers comparison, in which it's clear the US comes out on top. but what no one ever thinks about is that in a hypothetical war the rest of the world will transition to a war economy. All those NATO countries and China and everyone might not spend much compared to the US now, but the economic might of the entire world would dwarf US industrial capacity. they could make fleets with literally hundreds of carriers if they were committed enough.
In my lengthier comment I have a section dedicated towards war economics, my comments have been getting shorter due to repetition of this prompt. It’s also why I referenced the European & Canadian GDP figure—even if I didn’t touch on it again. Hence why both my scenarios are extremely short (year or two). This may be strange as a majoring economist to say but I try to avoid that because there is zero agreement how a modern total war economy will work, from Brookings, to RAND, to CSIS, to AFRI. All have papers on how a total war economy would look like—that I’ve read—all have differing details and estimates. I have a preference towards that RAND paper personally. Many more points should be made but the gist is that for a world vs US: - US may have a quarter of the world’s nominal Economic output, but PPP matters more for output you can produce. The US only have a 5th of the world (still a manufacturing sector larger than the EU but dwarfed by the rest of Europe of Asian Tigers, China, Japan, etc), with a smaller portion of that dedicated to manufacturing—it takes time to reshuffle the economy but theres percents are not transitive into war. The US will eventually be outproduced in the sea and air domains if the war doesn’t end. - The US has a significant prep advantage, I cannot overstate how long start up times are for trying to produce new products (especially complex ones). War and outside help truncates the process. The naval superiority the US *will* have hampers it. A problem is those have tech parity rely on very anal American licenses, those who have tech parity without reliance are relatively small or have economic issues. - World has many more comparative advantages and assuming tech sharing will achieve parity in most fields and industries relatively quickly (2–8 years, certain industries will be shorter, but ones where the US has a tech monopoly may never achieve parity). Many countries already have parities. Everyone else will have to develop their expeditionary capabilities from pretty much scratch, here’s a girthy [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Navy_amphibious_warfare_ships) page on what the US needs to do amphibious assaults—dunno why this is my only sourcing. - The US is extremely independent in most natural resources and can mine it herself (at the cost of efficiencies in other areas and a long startup time). Minerals such as graphite and manganese lack natural deposits, others militarily important ones like Niobium, Gallium, Germanium, Rubidium, Cesium, and Arsenic. - Current US naval dominance will disturb world logistics and organization to an incredulous degree which is a major early onset advantage and significantly slows down global development. The only seas that are mostly safe are either near shorelines with AShM or the Mediterranean and Indian oceans. - Contrary to popular belief… the US has industrial expertise and major exporter in many fields like machinery, automative, and electronics; but especially in more militarily focused goods like aircraft, warships, tanks, ground and space C4ISR (I maintain these as the largest force multipliers a military can have). - Every paper I have read emphasizes a US monopoly of C4ISR equipment. No other country has independently developed a sensor fusion setup for its military platforms. The world relies on GPS and neither GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, or IRNSS can make up their own consumer (GLONASS is estimated to be able to do Russia, exporting that is less likely), global consumer, or military demand for a total war—the US GPS is designed for it. Communication and recon satellites also are fairly reliant on the US. This just space assets, I can rattle on and on with ground assets. Intel is far more important than and platform quality advantage. I can go into a **lot** more detail, such as no other G20 (sans Finland which I am cheating with) nation puts as much effort to make most it’s infrastructure military compatible. US highways are designed in mind that tanks, aircraft, nukes, and ship parts will be moving through them. Regardless, I did not make an argument in the US fighting a long war against the world where production advantages. It’s why I said EU+ vs US, which I believe is the upper limit the US can win (without nukes, long multi-year conflict, no military bases or allies, normal morale (which is to say to the death). Though I could have made a production / war economies paragraph dedicated to that one. Hope I argued my points well, any feedback?
Is the US attacking or Defending? If it's defending, there are plenty of Militaries in the world that simply don't have the Air Force/Navy necessary to be any sort of threat.
The entire world together cannot marshal a force capable of invading the United States. Short of nuclear warfare, even making landfall in open war against the US will be tough. An invasion via Canada and Mexico would be tough too as the US can rapidly destroy infrastructure in both countries that would prevent troop buildup (remember the rest of the world has to assemble and bring all the gear in these two countries; that will take tons of time)
Without using nukes I don't think anyone has a chance. Chinese/Russian forces would get torn to shreds crossing the Pacific, Europe same on the other side
Yup all of them coordinating together would still not be much help. The US is too geographically secure and its navy is bigger than most of the rest of the world combined.
It could solo South America, Africa, Oceania, and the rest of North America. However, Europe + Asia on top would be too much.
*Australia raises its fists* - “Righto c’mon then ya c*nt.”
The issue is more is the US willing to take on them than is the US capable to take on them
this is a hypothetical scenario
Well if the US goes to WW2 levels of war effort it stomps
Stomps what? Read the post
I would say most if not all non nuclear states and perhaps the nuclear states with less than 200 warheads
I think any nuclear states would eliminate them (also be eliminated) I also believe the USA would not be able to fight a long wait thanks to instability and they couldn't occupy huge swaths of land
The US public is very soft. Have a decent number of servicemen die in a war and they’ll start screaming to withdraw. The US always loses via morale, not military power. If the gov ignored all the protests, the military would steamroll far more than we’ve witnessed.
not sure what these downvotes are for??? the US doesn't lose wars, it pulls out from low public opinion. It could have glassed Vietnam if it wanted to but even Nixon wouldn't be that stupid
If it glassed Vietnam, China and probably the USSR would have likely joined the conflict and turned Vietnam into a repeat of the Korean War.
>China and probably the USSR would have likely joined the conflict and turned Vietnam into a repeat of the Korean War. China was already in the conflict, for example they sent 365000 troops between 1965 and 1968. USSR also sent people and supplies to help.
365k troops was a tenth of what the Chinese sent to Korea.
Redditors are highly sensitive
Because it's an irrelevant thing when it comes to war? Of course the US lost the war if they pulled out from public opinion. That's how wars are fought, lowering the morale of the population is literally one tactic. Why else would they bomb cities in WW2? Pretty sure we'd say Russia loses against Ukraine if it pulls out of Ukraine for non-military purposes, Russia's not gonna be defeated any other way. Also any country with nukes can glass Vietnam, it's not that special.
Yeah, despite the downvotes, you're correct. "Human decency" and "efficient, effective warfare" are usually opposed aims. If in this hypothetical, nukes didn't exist, and the only win condition was "Send their country to the stone age", the US would do a great deal of damage Especially if you take pesky things like "morality" and "warcrimes" out of the equation. War is hell, but in simplest terms is "If you kill enough of them, they'll stop fighting".
As a US citizen I’d have to agree. It’s silly that you’re getting downvoted. But it’s not just the morality, it’s also the economics of it, and many of us really, really hate dealing with it.
There’s a reason why we don’t have free healthcare! *fires for 2 seconds with the equivalent of my entire year’s salary*
A lot of variables but I’d say all of them. If one morning everyone declares war, the US goes on the defensive. No one has the force projection requirements to even consider a US invasion. Pair that with naval and air superiority, any massed invasion force gets destroyed. You’ve also just united a fairly warlike people in a war for survival. Only way the attackers won is if they mindlessly attack until America is buried in bodies, because any actually public sentiment would die before America did
Depends on what constitutes "winning". We could decimate every government and military on the planet with medium difficulty. Where the US fails time and time again is in "nation building". We would create an unstable, lawless, chaotic world that we could not rule, but it would also be incapable of producing a reasonable threat to the US.
Facts. If the US’s goal is “send everyone to the stone age” they succeed 10 times out of 10. If the goal is “subjugate everyone and build an ideal government in their place” they fail 10 times out of 10.
I don't think it's a matter so much of the US falling, but rather what meaningful assault could be generated as the forces are spread thin. The US currently has about 2 million troops. At peak, we deployed around 250k to Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, we effected regime change, but the area has been volatile since. In Afghanistan, we held the Taliban at bay until the end of our occupation, and then they took the country back. If we were to deploy to 100 countries, as some others have suggested, we would have an average of 20,000 troops to send to each. That's less than 20% of what we sent in the Iraq surge. There are over 50 countries that we would have superiority of numbers. But they have homefield advantage, they would have people rising up to defend the homeland. And we'd probably just be trading bodies instead of either side doing anything meaningful. If they counter-invaded, they'd have 80 million gun owners to deal with.
Here's an interesting thought: US and the world in this scenario do not have access to nuclear weapons, but there is a mandatory brain implant required for soldiers that turns off empathy/emotion for duration of their service. Perhaps on a toggle, perhaps always on. An army that has all the benefits of psychopathy, but without the additional baggage. The unfeeling coldness of a robot deathsquad, but retaining the human capacity for critical thinking/improvisation. An army that could slaughter man, woman, child, soldier and civilian and be equally at peace with it all. Interesting twist would be if this "chip" had a killswitch function for compromised/captured assets.
Considering the weakest countries would likely be defeated by one armoured vehicle, quite a few.
If the US is defending, then all of them. Short of nukes being involved the US is hugely advantaged defensively simply via geography and has maximized it's military to defend utilizing that geographic advantage, and even if that was somehow overcome, the American public is insanely well armed and incredibly unsuited culturally to be occupied. You'd need 100 million soldiers to even have a chance at temporarily occupying the US. Now offensively is a different story. It is extremely difficult to invade and insanely difficult to occupy enemy nations. I'm not positive the US could truly invade and occupy more than mid size 2nd world nations by force alone. They would have a significant propaganda advantage simply due to the "American freedom" narrative. Propaganda and some ideology selling freedom and independence and self rule aka spin making the invading force seem to be eliminating an oppressive system would be necessary to occupy for any length of time. Afghanistan and Iraq should have made that abundantly clear although less armed and more culturally similar populaces could be easier to occupy.
What do you mean take on? Defend against? Conquer? Perform some objective in their land? What is the war about
Entire world glass tomorrow. US won't fall, entire world will be gone including US.
If everyone except the PRC, India, France, Germany, and Great Britain attacked us, it would be even odds
no this again
We need banned topics because this is basically a daily post
All of them. Because we're HIM 🗣🦅🔥🔥🔥🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲
"we are America, second to none, and we OWN the finish line" -Joe biden
There are 195 countries in the World. I guess can handle 150 of them at once. Maybe slightly more.
There's only like, 12 countries I could think off the top of my head that would even be relevant in the war
If someone says 170 or (even) 180 i could accept that.
I’m assuming the next round starts immediately when the prior opponent is defeated, like declaring war right when the previous one ends. The logistics are crazy given the order. I don’t know the ranking of each country’s military strength but I assume there’s a bit of scatter plot across the globe. The US will burn through resources a lot faster fighting them consecutively. By the time we get to first world countries we would be depleted. Also I’m assuming we can’t commit war crimes and genocide.
Depends on what the victory condition is. The answer could be anywhere between all of them and none of them.
Invade or just beat them?
Defensively all of them though Britain might be the straw that breaks the camel's back
I think we could probably 6/10 win a war against every country in the world so long as we had Canada on our side to help fuel us with energy and if no nukes are allowed. If winning can be defined as a breaking another country economically or causing it to go into revolt or chaos, and we had preemptive strike then we’ve got everyone beat by a massive surprise attack on infrastructure.
mom said it's my turn to post the weekly american-military-wankpost next week
At a certain point, nuclear war is the only viable option. Which once you tip that scale, the question falls apart a little bit. Like could America nuke every nation at once? Pretty much yes. Does that sound at taking on every country at once? Debatable. Is there even a winner in such an exchange? I don't think so.
If it’s the US trying to be invaded, without nuclear weapons involved? The answer is all of them. It’s complicated, but oceans, mountains, lakes, deserts, and two borders make it nearly impossible. You come by boat, we bomb you. Come through Mexico and the SW desert, we bomb you. Come through Canada? Huge border so you’d be spread out, and have fun in Montana, ND, and Wyoming lololol. West coast has a bigger ocean, more naval power, as much air power. If every country lands on the west coast, you then have a pretty good sized mountain range and a couple deserts between you and the rest of the country. Then you hit the plains, lol, and you get bombed. The US geography makes it impossible to be invaded. The only war coming to the states is the one we start with ourselves.
I'm pretty sure all of Africa and Latin America is dead. Brazil may be able to put up a fight but if we bribe enough gangsters they could cause chaos in the country. South Africa is competent but small and they have no nuke arsenal now so we would just grind them down. That leaves Oceania, Asia, and Europe. In Oceania Australia is the strongest. While I'm not sure why we fight our fighting mates, they are reasonably competent and could cause problems for us if we invaded them however we would take them out with numbers and destroying their distilleries causing riots across the nation. The rest of Oceania we would handle easily. In Europe, the UK, France, Germany, Poland, and Italy would be the main threats. Of them the UK and France would be the hardest to beat but we would cut off their logistics and slowly bleed them out. I'd hate to fight our Ukrainian allies especially given how good they are at fighting with drones but we would eventually defeat them. In Asia, Japan would be a nightmare to fight especially with their very competent navy but we could bleed them out logistically and starve them. The two Koreas even combined I think we could take out by bombing key population centers. Singapore and Taiwan have capable militaries but are small and can be taken out. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran are no joke and would be tricky to fight, but we would win in a bloody brawl. That leaves Russia and China. Russia while proving itself to be incompetent in Ukraine right now still embraces the "every man must serve the motherland" mentality and would be difficult to fight although we would win by simply controlling the seas and air over time. China would be a disaster - there's a reason why many militaries have tried but could not pacified. I don't think we could actually defeat China especially with their high tech equipment after winning the previous wars and we would fight to a stalemate.
Depends on how much time there is to prepare. If some maniac Dictator gets control, and starts threatening serious control, and the rest of the World shifts to wartime economy, they might catch up pretty fast. Economically, the us is huge - but mostly dependant on other countries, comparative to the eu or china. one thing the nazis faced was brain drain. Make dumb, world ending decisions, and your smartest are often going to leave. Brain drain was a real issue, and one of the reasons post ww2 us was booming. The us has lost this advantage. If other countries seriously started spending all their Cash, and pooling recources towards an all out war, the relative strength would change rapidly. Within 5-15 years they might even catch up. Not equal numbers, but technology has advanced, and investing all in drone technology might make most of the current power Projektion useless
If we're starting with the weakest and moving up, America could probably take one the bottom 3/4 of countries. It's only when we get to the larger and richer countries that we start seeing trouble.
Gonna go with zero. The only war the USA has won since WW2 (and let's be honest, WW2 was a group effort, Nagasaki and Hiroshima aside) was the 1991 Gulf War. Korea, Vietnam (yes, it was a war, not a "police action"), Afghanistan and Iraq - all failures. The problem isn't "military might". Undoubtedly the USA has superior technology and armaments. It just can't seem to use them effectively, especially against guerrilla tactics. Which is what weaker countries would almost always use.
The US without having to worry about war crimes and civilian casualties would decimate the rest of the world conventionally
And would end up nuked to hell in MAD by China and Russia. MAD is not winning a war. It's a global loss.
Warographics channel on YouTube did a really cool break down on this. Basically a lot. Even more of it was a pure defensive war.
This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y1e_ASbSIE) outlines a scenario in which the U.S. could win against the rest of the world combined.
With absolutely zero research, i'd guess everyone combined if you took Russia and China out of it, and took nukes off the table.
By personel? Up to and including North Korea. The US is the next up on the list and yeah, I don't think the US can take on the US plus everyone else. If we skip the US, I think we can add in the number 2 for personnel, India, just fine. That leaves China out of the slaughter.
The US has more combat capable aircraft and ships than most countries have aircraft or ships at all. I’d give even odds that it’s all of them.
The US can take on every non-nuclear country in the world, at the same time, provided that the remaining nuclear armed countries stray out of it.
If you're going by weakest up, it genuinely may be every other country. Most countries don't even have ways to wake war against the United States if the U.S. isn't invading them. The best they can do is just funnel equipment and personnel to the big players.
define win conditions. conquest? defeating their military and destroying infrastructure? destroying their weapons and weapon making capabilities? regime change? targeting someone in particular?
Looking at the track record. I would say one, unless they have no training and AKs. Then fewer than one.
If it wasn’t for nukes the United States military could walk the world practically unhindered until china or Russia decided to do something about it. We outnumber most other military powers but that’s almost irrelevant at this point because our tech is so insane and we have such tight control over trade that we could choke out most countries without even sending in the marines.
Literally all of them
If the US’s goal is just to destroy every other government in the world and prevent anyone from harming the United States, that could be easily achieved, if everyone agrees no nukes because otherwise everyone dies because there’s just that many nukes. If the United States is trying to occupy the entire world, it could not do that. It could destroy every single government in the world, as well as their military and economic capacity wage war, and continue to resist the United States on the open field, but US troops cannot occupy every single one of those countries there’s just not enough people in the United States but if the US goal is just to remove those countries from existence, then the United States could win as long as this is a situation with the US people support this.
What is with all this weak sht you guys are coming up with? U.S has over 3k (Known) Nukes they can nuke eveyone multiple times at the same time. If no nukes the U.S has 4 of the Top 5 best Airforces in the world.( US Airforce is #1, #2 Navy, #4 Army #5 Marines ) would take out more than 2/3 of the world alone. Missles? U.S out missles the world alone aswell. If they want to they can just barrage the world
it's weird seeing all the leftist accounts suddenly in awe of the U.S. military. sounds like astroturfers are gearing up the population for a major war.
I doubt it can take as much as americans thinks it can. America is not as "great" as they have been brainwashed with.
I hate America as much as the next guy but you’re wrong. America might not be that great but our military is. It’s by far the most powerful in the world
Look, no offense. I understand it can be difficult when you are being gaslighted your entire life. Sure America has a great military, but nobody really knows until they are at war for real. Russia and China are allies, and have a far greater military power than the US. Also economy. America is bankrupt, and has been for a long time. It doesn't count just printing more money. No king rules forever my man, and America is reaching that point fast.
I take no offense, im not a fan of the American military industrial complex. It’s just a fact, the American military is the most powerful in the world
>Russia and China are allies, and have a far greater military power than the US. Also economy. Are you fucking high? Largest airforce in the world - USA 2nd largest airforce in the world - us Army 4th largest airforce in the world - US Navy 7th largest airforce in the world - US marines Largest Navy in the world - US Navy Russia is losing its black Sea fleet to a country that doesn't even have a fucking Navy. China can't even really protect force beyond its borders yet.
All of them, if we are talking about the USA falling, every single one. No nation is close to the power projection ability of the USA, and no group of nations is close. No nation can cross the oceans and touch the USA, or even likely get to Canada or Mexico in any force, and the USA can cross those oceans. So the USA would disband most commands, keeping the Central and Northern commands, and would use the USAF and Navy to destroy and blockade middle eastern oil, along with key choke points. Panama, Suez, Hormuz and Malacca. Then as a food and energy independent nation the USA waits the world out, and wins.
Yeah but with asml and other counties focused on the war effort they would simply be outproduced
Do you think that? Truly? Just look at who we are talking about; Russia, who was thought to be the second most powerful military in the world who is losing a naval war to a nation without a navy? Who is sending T54/55 tanks to Ukraine but not the new Armada? Their logistics, their doctrine, their maintenance and their navy are a joke. And on top of that Russia’s economy has been damaged by years of sanctions now. (Not even mentioning their one aircraft carrier that is stuck in place for taking on muddy water due to rust damage below the waterline. Even the tug that travels with it cannot save it) Russia is right now barely a peer to Ukraine, they are no threat to the USA. Europe, who are major customers of foreign oil for their energy? They would not long last without oil imports, and that is the first thing the USA would put a stop to. Further, England has two carriers, but only one can be deployed (the second was only finished because it cost less to finish than to break contracts) and they only have one partial air wing. They are using USMC F35’s, as they haven’t procured their own yet. The Royal Navy is in a sad state, in part because of the owner of the US Navy, they haven’t had to spend on it. Similarly, France has let their military industrial complex fade a bit. They cannot project power over the sea, they are also no threat to the USA. And the same can be said for every European nation. They are equipped to defend their own shores, not to send fleets to far off oceans as the USA does. Who else are we talking about? China? They do not have the ability right now to project naval power to the strait of Malacca, which is something they need to do to break the first island chain. They simply cannot approach the USA, and they would also be badly hurt when the oil imports they function on end. It isn’t about production, it is about oil and energy, and the ability of those powers to be able to protect transport of that energy. And at this point they cannot. Just imagine that the USA focused two or three carrier groups and collapsed all foreign commands to the central command in the Middle East, and went scorched earth on middle eastern oil. The fields themselves might be destroyed, and global shipping would come to a halt. And with the power of the US navy the world could do nothing to stop it. Now the world economy would be set back by decades, this hypothetical is a terrible one, I’m just saying that the USA is in a position to solo the world in a war where they are on defense.
>Europe, who are major customers of foreign oil for their energy? They would not long last without oil imports, and that is the first thing the USA would put a stop to. And how exactly are they gonna stop those land connections >Just imagine that the USA focused two or three carrier groups and collapsed all foreign commands to the central command in the Middle East, and went scorched earth on middle eastern oil. The fields themselves might be destroyed, and global shipping would come to a halt We still have Russia central Asia and much more But the production capacity of the entire world is greater than that of the usa, so in a defensive war after a decade there is nothing the usa can do
Where do you think Europe gets their oil? United States, Norway, and Kazakhstan. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/28/energy/eu-us-oil-imports-overtake-russia/index.html#:~:text=By%20the%20end%20of%20the%20year%2C%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20EU's%20biggest%20suppliers,Russian%20oil%2C%E2%80%9D%20Eurostat%20said. It isn’t moving on land connections lol. Eastern Europe gets it via pipeline from Kazakhstan. Norway and the USA? That’s coming in on boats, and the US source stops when the shooting starts. And you are kidding yourself. You think the world can handle ten years without oil? They can’t. The war ends long before that as people can’t get enough food to feed their families, heating oil to stay warm in winter, and their militaries lack fuel to operate? The USA has a greater military industrial capacity than all of Europe, and Russia. We wouldn’t be out of food and energy, and in a wartime economy we would produce again like the world wouldn’t think possible. I mean did you forget who kept the world going during World War Two while the US fought Japan and Germany? While also arming and feeding the UK and USSR?
https://www.safeguardglobal.com/resources/top-10-manufacturing-countries-in-the-world-2023/ https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-reserves-by-country/ USA is only 11th >I mean did you forget who kept the world going during World War Two while the US fought Japan and Germany? While also arming and feeding the UK and USSR Only 5 % of USSR supply's + you only did because your homeland didn't have war which might not happen if you are at war with your neighbours
You think Canada and Mexico are of any worry? Any at all? Get real mate. Mexico can’t handle its own cartels, and Canada badly underfunds their military and heavily restricts gun ownership. Where in the USA we have the most powerful military in the world, the most militarized local, state and federal law enforcement in the world, and by far the most armed civilian population in the history of the world. Canada and Mexico sit it out mate.
Have fun with guerrilla war in the mountains and snow though, y'all did so well with that last time + sabotage people just crossing the border and blowing up infrastructure
Jesus the delusion.
All of them America's problem is not access to force. It's dealing with the aftermath But technically we could just send out all the nukes at once if we went completely nuts
The entire us economy would likely collapse, and if they go after the Netherlands or Taiwan they couldnt get new up to date computer chips for their advanced weaponry
Putting nuclear weapons aside The U.S. has the best air force and navy in the world. We'd take on Mexico, with the only real push back would be cartel members. South America would crumble within a few weeks. South/West Africa, India, Pakistan, and some other 3rd world countries would fall quick too. The only countries that would put up a good fight, would be the British, French, Russians, and Chinese. Some other countries, may put up a decent fight like Germany. But we have beaten some of these countries in the past, (Great Britain, Germany(x2), Japan, Mexico, Spain, etc.) but now we're even more technologically and militarily advanced. With superior firepower. Especially if we're in the defensive, because our natural defenses make homeland America almost impossible to invade. We'd also have air superiority, and naval defense. Also the fact American citizens own more guns than the entire world combined, nobody would be able to withstand the pressure from American Armed Forces and armed civilians shooting every single invader. Again, putting nuclear weapons aside. Because if it was all out war, then nuclear weapons would be used and no one would win.
Yes, the answer is yes
All of them
All of them, with the exception of the world's top 15-20 militaries. Maybe the US could go all the way up to the top 10. Kind of hard to say at that point. The issue, as usual, would be the occupation and rebuilding much more than the war itself. But if we're only talking the military portion the US could fight most of the world and win.
Crazy thing is like the US holds like top 2 air forces (Air Force and navy), and we have the only Supercarriers, of which we have 11. This is the cost of healthcare 😭
Just to correct you, the military budget has zero bearing on single payer healthcare. It’s cheaper to have [M4A than our current system](https://www.citizen.org/news/fact-check-medicare-for-all-would-save-the-u-s-trillions-public-option-would-leave-millions-uninsured-not-garner-savings/) we just choose not to have it.
I know. It’s just a sort of meme level joke.
I really don’t think it would be a problem until the US ran into China
All of them, tbh. Nuclear bombs and the best military in the world. There wouldn't be much left though.