The war in the mid east is about to start..

[Edbert1]

A VERY recent update:

Red Alert: Confusion Before the Storm
There was some major confusion a couple of hours ago. First, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman told the wire services that Israeli troops had entered southern Lebanon. Then IDF officials denied it. Then it was announced that bulldozers had gone in and had been withdrawn. We went from thinking the invasion had begun to that it hadn't to "what in the world is going on?"

Our best guess at the moment is that the bulldozers went in to clear mines and other obstacles prior to the main body of Israeli forces crossing over tonight. Another explanation might be that this was a probe designed to draw Hezbollah fire. The Israelis are clearly worried that Hezbollah has obtained advanced weaponry from Iran via the sea and Syria. They don't seem to be sure what has arrived and what has deployed with Hezbollah forces, but they don't want to push across the border only to have their armor caught in a hail of advanced anti-tank missiles or trapped by advanced anti-tank mines. There also could be an element of psychological warfare in this confusion. Hezbollah knows Israel is coming but doesn't know when -- and Israel wants to rattle its fighters as much as possible.

All of this is possible, but the fact is that major Israeli forces have not crossed the border into Lebanon as of afternoon July 17, local time. The Israelis did announce they were calling up a reserve division over the weekend. Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft are continuing intense operations over Lebanon. More Hezbollah rockets started hitting Israel after daybreak July 17. This obviously creates some urgency for the Israelis. The airstrikes have not succeeded in shutting down rockets that can reach as far as Haifa, and the Israelis have acknowledged that Tel Aviv is at risk as well. Therefore, where we have expected Israel to move as soon as possible, it has not yet committed forces on the ground.

One explanation could be that the Israelis simply are not ready to move yet. Deploying a force suitable for the mission takes time. The call-up of the reserve division by headquarters indicates that this is to be a substantial operation. The Israelis might not want ground forces to go until they are completely ready, and thus are prepared to absorb the additional hours or days of missile attack to make sure the attack is decisive.

A second possible explanation is that although the Israelis have lost any element of strategic surprise -- Hezbollah certainly knows they are coming -- they are hoping for some tactical surprise. The longer they delay, the less certain and more weary Hezbollah becomes. It is not clear, however, whether the advantage tied to any possibility of tactical surprise is worth the incoming missiles.

Third, it could be that the air campaign is not yet complete. Israel, like the United States, likes to shape the battlefield by running extensive air campaigns. There could be too many targets for such a campaign to have run its course yet, or the targets might be more robust than expected. The Israelis could be hunting for the longer-range missiles that Hezbollah has, fearing that an invasion before these are destroyed would invite a launch at Tel Aviv -- something they don't want to see.

Yet another reason for the delay might be something that Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted at July 16, when he said Russians had been negotiating for the release of the three kidnapped Israeli soldiers and that he did not feel the negotiations had been unsuccessful. Israel does want the soldiers returned. But while Hamas might consider releasing the captives in its custody, it is hard to believe Hezbollah would -- not if, after releasing them, Hezbollah would still face attacks.

There is massive diplomacy under way, and Israel is doing well. Not only is the United States lining up with Israel, but the sense at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, was much less hostile to Israel than normal. In addition, both the Saudis and Egyptians have made it clear that they hold Hezbollah responsible for what has happened. Given this, it is not inconceivable that some diplomatic process is actually moving forward.

The problem with that scenario is that any diplomatic settlement to the crisis not only would preserve Hezbollah in some way, but would depend on Hezbollah implementing an agreement. The Israelis see the situation that has erupted in recent days as a rare opportunity to deal with Hezbollah, and they have no trust in diplomatic arrangements or their enforcement by mediators. They do want their soldiers back, but not at the risk of leaving Hezbollah in place.

The fighting is hardly tapering off. Israel's aircraft are ranging over Lebanon, a blockade is in place, and Hezbollah is firing at northern Israel quite effectively. Israel will not willingly leave Hezbollah in place while it has such capabilities. The Israelis might leave all this to airpower, but the fact is that the Israeli army has no confidence in the air force's ability to definitively destroy Hezbollah. The view is that, in the end, they will have to go in on the ground.

It is interesting to note, however, that the United States is being surprisingly relaxed about getting American citizens out of Beirut. Obviously, it can't get everyone out, but unlike other countries, the United States has been slow to move, in spite of the obvious risk of hostage-taking. U.S. Embassy officials in Beirut seem to be acting as if they have more time -- and certainly the United States knows if and when Israel is going to invade.

Our view is this: Israel will not accept the bombardment that is under way. Any cease-fire, from the Israeli point of view, would simply be a postponement of the issue. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government does not have the political freedom for action that a cease-fire requires. There is rare consensus in Israel that Hezbollah must be attacked. If Olmert settles for a diplomatic solution, he will have serious problems in the Knesset.

Therefore, it follows that the most likely explanation for the delay in a ground assault is that the Israelis are going to take some more time in deploying their forces at the border, allow the air campaign to continue for another day or two, accept the civilian casualties from Hezbollah's rockets and strike back some time this week. But with those rockets coming in, they don't have that many days to wait. Israel's government is not fractious. There is no sense of unease about the situation. Therefore, we have to stay with the view that a broader ground attack is likely early this week.

[uvwpvW]

Originally posted by john9001
let me see if i got this right.  1/2 of chinas exports go to the USA so china is going to destroy 1/2 of it's export market with nukes?

oh brother , you need to get into the 21st century.

Aren’t there ANY people here that can follow a discussion? Please read the whole thread.

[Gunston]

uvwpvW

Again you make me work, ok my memory from 5 years ago was wrong (and for some reason biased in favor of the US go figure that, and both the US and Russia have decreased their numbers substantially since that time) but some searching comes up with the following info.

Quote

The five major nuclear powers currently have more than 20,000 nuclear warheads in their arsenals, as shown in the table at right. But this does not include a number of intact Russian nuclear warheads of indeterminate status--possibly as many as 10,000. Of the more than 30,000 intact warheads belonging to the world's eight nuclear weapon states, the vast majority (96 percent) are in U.S. or Russian stockpiles. About 17,500 of these warheads are considered operational. The rest are in reserve or retired and awaiting dismantlement.

We estimate that since 1945, more than 128,000 nuclear warheads have been built worldwide--all but 2 percent of them by the United States (55 percent) and the Soviet Union or Russia (43 percent). Since the Cold War ended, more and more warheads in U.S. and Russian stockpiles are being moved from operational status into various reserve, inactive, or contingency categories. The destruction of warheads is not required under current arms control agreements. For example, the 2002 Moscow Treaty (the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty) contains no verification provisions and completely ignores non-operational and non-strategic warheads. The result is that stockpiles are more opaque and more difficult to describe with precision.

Again my numbers from memory were off but my points are still all valid which is lazy on my part I know but I wasn't really going for specifics (it was like 4:30 in the morning I needed to get to bed) just trying to make broad points about US power  I believe it's safe to say the US could hold it's own in a nuke war to the point of making the concept of MAD apply in the fictional scenario of the US vs the world war.

Anyway this all detracts from the only real point I was trying to make in response to EagleEyes comments. I don't think Iran and Syria are in a postion to push the US out of anywhere. Would you at least concede my accuracy is dead on with that statement UvwpvW?

[Mustaine]

Originally posted by uvwpvW
Not smart enough to figure it out? No surprise.

off topic - you knwo i have never been good at telling people by "personality" on a BBS... but i think i just figuered out who you are by looking closely at you name.

Madman?

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by Mustaine
off topic - you knwo i have never been good at telling people by "personality" on a BBS... but i think i just figuered out who you are by looking closely at you name.

Madman?

That's what I was thinking.

[Gunston]

Now you guys made me go out onto the dis-information super highway and get something to prove my points. I know someone will go and find some leftwing article stating that this one is all wrong and in reality America is feeble and weak but here it is.


War games: American power moves beyond the mere super

May 3 2003

Stealth drones, GPS-guided smart munitions that hit precisely where aimed; anti-tank bombs that guide themselves; space-relayed data links that allow individual squad leaders to know exactly where American and opposition forces are during battle - the US military rolled out all this advanced technology, and more, in its conquest of Iraq.

The American military is the strongest the world has known, both in absolute terms and relative to other nations; stronger than the Wehrmacht in 1940, stronger than the legions at the height of Roman power.

For years to come, no other nation is likely to rival American might. Which means the global arms race is over, with the US the undisputed heavyweight champion.

Paradoxically, the runaway American victory in the conventional arms race might inspire a new round of proliferation of atomic weapons, because now only a nuclear state - such as, perhaps, North Korea - has any military leverage against the winner.
If it becomes generally believed that possession of even a few nuclear munitions is enough to render North Korea immune from American military force, other nations - Iran is an obvious next candidate - may place renewed emphasis on building them.

The extent of American military superiority has become almost impossible to overstate. The US sent five of its nine supercarrier battle groups to the region for the Iraq assault. A 10th Nimitz-class supercarrier is under construction. No other nation possesses so much as one supercarrier, let alone nine battle groups ringed by cruisers and guarded by nuclear submarines.

Russia has one modern aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, but it has about half the tonnage of an American supercarrier. The former Soviet navy did preliminary work on a supercarrier, but abandoned the project in 1992. Britain and France have a few small aircraft carriers. China decided against building one last year.

Any attempt to build a fleet that threatens the Pentagon's would be pointless, after all, because if another nation fielded a threatening vessel, American attack submarines would simply sink it in the first five minutes of any conflict. (The new Seawolf-class nuclear-powered submarine is essentially the futuristic supersub of The Hunt for Red October made real.) Knowing this, all other nations have conceded the seas to the US.

US air power is undisputed as well, with more advanced fighters and bombers than those of all other nations combined. The US possesses three stealth aircraft (the B-1 and B-2 bombers and the F-117 fighter), with two more (the F-22 and F-35 ) developed and awaiting production funds. No other nation even has a stealth aircraft on the drawing board.

American aerial might is so great that adversaries do not even try to fly. Serbia kept its planes on the ground during the Kosovo conflict of 1999; in recent fighting in Iraq, not one Iraqi fighter rose to oppose US aircraft.

The American lead in ground forces is not uncontested - China has a large standing army - but is large enough that the ground arms race might end, too. The US now possesses about 9000 M1 Abrams tanks, by far the world's strongest armoured force. The Abrams cannon and fire-control system is so extraordinarily accurate that in combat, gunners rarely require more than one shot to destroy an enemy tank.

The American lead in electronics is also huge. Much of the "designating" of targets in the recent Iraq assault was done by advanced electronics on drones such as the Global Hawk, which flies at 60,000 feet, far beyond the range of anti-aircraft weapons. So sophisticated are the sensors and data links that make Global Hawk work that it might take a decade for another nation to field a similar drone and, by then, the US is likely to have leapfrogged ahead to something better.

The US is also working on unmanned, remote-piloted drone fighter planes that will be both relatively low-cost and extremely hard to shoot down, and small drone attack helicopters that will lead troops into
battle.

Further, the US holds an overwhelming lead in military use of space. Not only does the Pentagon command more and better reconnaissance satellites than the rest of the world combined, American forces have begun using space-relayed data in a significant way. Space "assets" will eventually be understood to have been critical to the lightning conquest of Iraq, and the American lead in this will only grow, since the Air Force now has the second-largest space budget in the world, after NASA's.

This huge military lead is partly because of money. Last year, American military spending exceeded that of all other NATO states, Russia, China, Japan, Iraq and North Korea combined, according to the Centre for Defence Information, a non-partisan research group that studies global security. This is another area where all other nations must concede to the US, for no other government can afford to try to catch up.

The runaway advantage has been called by some excessive, yet it yields a perverse positive benefit. Annual global military spending, stated in current dollars, peaked in 1985, at $US1.3 trillion ($A2 trillion), and has been declining since, to $US840 billion in 2002. That is a drop of almost half a trillion dollars in the amount the world spent each year on arms. Other nations accept that the arms race is over.

The US military reinforces its pre-eminence by going into combat. Rightly or wrongly, the US fights often; each fight becomes a learning opportunity for troops and a test of technology. No other military currently has the real-world experience of the US.

There is also the high quality in education and motivation of its personnel. This lead has grown as the US has integrated women into most combat roles, doubling the talent base on which recruiters can draw.
The American edge does not render its forces invincible: the expensive Apache attack helicopter, for example, fared poorly against routine small-arms fire in Iraq. More important, overwhelming power hardly ensures that the US will get its way in world affairs. Force is just one aspect of international relations, while experience has shown that military power can solve only military problems, not political ones.

North Korea now stares into the barrel of the strongest military ever assembled, and yet may be able to defy the US, owing to nuclear deterrence.

As the global arms race ends with the US so far ahead, no other nation even tries to be America's rival, the result may be a world in which Washington has historically unparalleled power, but often cannot use it.

Oh and I will concede Uvwpvw that this article validates your point that nuclear deterrence cannot be overlooked. But also it confirms that the US is the most powerful country the world has ever known.

[Kurt]

Originally posted by WhiteHawk
The war in the mid east is about to start... [/B]

Did you just step off of a space ship from Alpha Centauri?  The war in the middle east has been going on for nearly 2000 years.  

And it will go for 2000 more.

[john9001]

Originally posted by uvwpvW
Aren’t there ANY people here that can follow a discussion? Please read the whole thread.

i read the whole thread, you said that china could destroy USA with nukes, i said why, it makes no sense for them the destroy the USA.

you sound like a 3rd grade kid on the playground , " my daddy can beat up your daddy".

what you don't get is , why would your daddy want to beat up my daddy.



and yes, uvmpvW turned upside down is "Madman" also known as a "agent provocateur" or "troll"

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by john9001
i read the whole thread, you said that china could destroy USA with nukes, i said why, it makes no sense for them the destroy the USA.

you sound like a 3rd grade kid on the playground , " my daddy can beat up your daddy".

what you don't get is , why would your daddy want to beat up my daddy.



and yes, uvmpvW turned upside down is "Madman" also known as a "agent provocateur" or "troll"

Which is what I've been asking Madman but he is back pedaling.

[Thrawn]

Gunston, I would be surprised if anyone were to argue that the US isn't the predominant military power.  But what happens if you train up the best football team in the world and the competition turns out to be a chess match.

When all you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

[uvwpvW]

Gunston, that article you posted is full of factual errors and national ego-stroking, but it was a fun read nonetheless. Thanks for posting it.

“The American military is the strongest the world has known, both in absolute terms and relative to other nations; stronger than the Wehrmacht in 1940, stronger than the legions at the height of Roman power.”

This is the author’s argument. In the rest of his article he tries to support that statement. However as I will show you it is not only false, but the author himself actually proves it false.


“The extent of American military superiority has become almost impossible to overstate. The US sent five of its nine supercarrier battle groups to the region for the Iraq assault. A 10th Nimitz-class supercarrier is under construction. No other nation possesses so much as one supercarrier, let alone nine battle groups ringed by cruisers and guarded by nuclear submarines.”

This is his only correct assertion on US military superiority. At sea the USN is unchallenged in its might.


“Any attempt to build a fleet that threatens the Pentagon's would be pointless, after all, because if another nation fielded a threatening vessel, American attack submarines would simply sink it in the first five minutes of any conflict. (The new Seawolf-class nuclear-powered submarine is essentially the futuristic supersub of The Hunt for Red October made real.) Knowing this, all other nations have conceded the seas to the US.”

Here he starts his national ego-stroking in earnest. Clearly it would be pointless to build a fleet that rivals the USN. What would be the point? Invade the US mainland? No. The fact remains that America needs its huge navy because it is always an ocean away from where the action is. While the US needs several carrier battle groups to effect military power in for example the Middle-East, Europe, Russia and China can simply march their armies there if they so wished.

The USN is so huge because America finds herself at a geographical disadvantage in any form of military posturing. Having to cross an ocean is a great disadvantage if you want to conduct offensive military action. The US is getting exceedingly proficient at it though.


”US air power is undisputed as well, with more advanced fighters and bombers than those of all other nations combined. The US possesses three stealth aircraft (the B-1 and B-2 bombers and the F-117 fighter), with two more (the F-22 and F-35 ) developed and awaiting production funds. No other nation even has a stealth aircraft on the drawing board.

Here he continues stroking. While no one would question the might of the USAF it is by no means as dominant as the USN. Both the EU and Russia have comparable fighter forces both in numbers and quality. The Europeans already field front aspect stealth fighters (Eurofighter, Gripen and Rafale) having rejected the need for full aspect stealth in their interceptors. Whether that was a wise decision remains to be seen. Both Russia and China have full aspect stealth fighters on the drawing board and perhaps in prototype stages of development.

The only true advantage the USAF has over its European and Russian counterparts is in air-mobility, which in my opinion is far more important than mere fighter strength in today’s geopolitical situation. Ironically the author fails to mention this advantage.


“The US now possesses about 9000 M1 Abrams tanks, by far the world's strongest armoured force. The Abrams cannon and fire-control system is so extraordinarily accurate that in combat, gunners rarely require more than one shot to destroy an enemy tank.”

Here the author gets his facts wrong. Russia still has the world’s number one land force. As of 2005 the Russian Army fielded 21,820 tanks, 25,975 armored vehicles 17,376 artillery units (more than half of which are self-propelled), ~12,000 anti-aircraft guns and 2,670 SAM systems. No other nation can match Russia’s offensive ground capabilities on the Eurasian landmass.


“Further, the US holds an overwhelming lead in military use of space. Not only does the Pentagon command more and better reconnaissance satellites than the rest of the world combined, American forces have begun using space-relayed data in a significant way. Space "assets" will eventually be understood to have been critical to the lightning conquest of Iraq, and the American lead in this will only grow, since the Air Force now has the second-largest space budget in the world, after NASA's.”

This is an exaggeration. Historically it was the Soviets that had the undisputed lead in orbital photography spy satellites, while the US held the advantage in electronic eavesdropping. Today I would think the US has the advantage in both, but it is by no means overwhelming. In addition to the US the following countries have spy satellites in orbit: Europe (Germany, France, and Britain to be specific), Russia, China, India, Israel … and perhaps most surprisingly, Iran (launched two satellites in 2005).


”This huge military lead is partly because of money. Last year, American military spending exceeded that of all other NATO states, Russia, China, Japan, Iraq and North Korea combined, according to the Centre for Defence Information, a non-partisan research group that studies global security. This is another area where all other nations must concede to the US, for no other government can afford to try to catch up.”

While this assertion is basically sound his conclusion is not. The EU in particular could easily afford to match US defense spending. However they don’t need to, so they don’t. As I explained earlier America’s geographical disadvantage requires the US to deploy a huge navy. The USN is by far the biggest spender of the three main branches of the US Armed Forces. Additionally the US likes to buy expensively; paying much more for a slight advantage does save lives, but the overall increase in capabilities is not so great. What the US can offer in $$$, other nations (China and Russia in particular) can match in blood.


”The runaway advantage has been called by some excessive, yet it yields a perverse positive benefit. Annual global military spending, stated in current dollars, peaked in 1985, at $US1.3 trillion ($A2 trillion), and has been declining since, to $US840 billion in 2002. That is a drop of almost half a trillion dollars in the amount the world spent each year on arms. Other nations accept that the arms race is over.”

The arms race ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Other nations were quick to reorganize their militaries and reduce annual spending. Perhaps it is time America accepts that the arms race is over? Surely the American people have more pressing needs for the money.


”The US military reinforces its pre-eminence by going into combat. Rightly or wrongly, the US fights often; each fight becomes a learning opportunity for troops and a test of technology. No other military currently has the real-world experience of the US.”

Another overstatement. While the US certainly has the most experience in destroying 3rd world armies from the air, the US sorely lacks the training and experience in low-intensity conflicts; a deficiency that has become embarrassingly apparent in the last three years. Several nations have more experience in the fighting terrorism and insurgency. France and Russia have to be mentioned, but if one nation stands out from the rest it have to be Israel.


”There is also the high quality in education and motivation of its personnel. This lead has grown as the US has integrated women into most combat roles, doubling the talent base on which recruiters can draw.”

About time the US joined the rest of the world in allowing women to serve. In Russia women have served since before WWII, and in the western world women have served for decades. The USN submarine service still is a men-only club. Hardly the hallmarks of an enlightened society.



And here, as I said, the author finally proves himself wrong:

”North Korea now stares into the barrel of the strongest military ever assembled, and yet may be able to defy the US, owing to nuclear deterrence.

As the global arms race ends with the US so far ahead, no other nation even tries to be America's rival, the result may be a world in which Washington has historically unparalleled power, but often cannot use it.”

Nuclear weapons are the great equalizer. When a starving 3rd world country like North-Korea can be practically immune to US invasion, and can even force concessions from the US at the negotiating table, how can anyone say the US has the same world power that the Roman Empire once had? No nation or groups of nations could hope to stand against the might of Rome’s legions. Now every two-bit dictator with a 60 year-old technology fission-bomb is untouchable, and four nations possess the power to outright destroy America if they were so insanely inclined. No, America does not match up to Rome’s world power … and I believe no nation ever will.

America’s Armed Forces are indeed the most powerful this world has ever seen. However in the face of nuclear deterrent they are rendered impotent, just like their main adversary during the Cold War.

[lukster]

"Here he continues stroking. While no one would question the might of the USAF it is by no means as dominant as the USN. Both the EU and Russia have comparable fighter forces both in numbers and quality. The Europeans already field front aspect stealth fighters (Eurofighter, Gripen and Rafale) having rejected the need for full aspect stealth in their interceptors. Whether that was a wise decision remains to be seen. Both Russia and China have full aspect stealth fighters on the drawing board and perhaps in prototype stages of development."

I disagree with you on numbers of aircraft.

http://www.globalfirepower.com/list_aircraft.asp

[Neubob]

Originally posted by uvwpvW
Nations that currently can destroy America in a matter of minutes: Russia, China, France and The United Kingdom.

Does France possess intercontinental missile technology sufficient to do the job? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I'm just curious.

Confrontationally, however, I would like to say that none of the aforementioned have the ability to strike without themselves being 'wiped out in minutes'--therefore the list is pretty much useless. Whether they have the will to commit suicide in that fashion is another matter.

Any wars involving these or other technologically and socially modern nations are most likely to stay conventional, at least for the forseable future. I believe it is in the matter of conventional war, not nuclear, that the guy who started this exchange was trying to make a point.

[Gunston]

uvwpvW

As I stated I concede the nuclear deterrent component, not because it is a direct threat to the US necessarily but because obviously the US needs to tread lightly so as not to provoke a rouge state like N. Korea or Iran to do something erratic like launch against a neighboring country that is allied with the US (Israel, Japan etc).

While I don’t want to attack your statements as being false (like I said I consider it the disinformation super highway) would you please clarify if your statements are opinion and/or conjecture or do they represent verifiable facts, and if so please provide sources.

Again not attacking you or your statements but the article seems to support my beliefs and understanding on the subject. To counter all I have is your statement that it is full of factual errors.

 Also while numerical strength (such as Russia’s number of tanks is important) I think it was shown in the Gulf War that  smaller number of superior weapons (US vs. Soviet era T-72 or T-80 tanks for example) can overcome that superiority of numbers.

[uvwpvW]

Those numbers include transport and utility aircraft and helicopters. I specifically isolated fighter aircraft. I also noted the USAF’s dominance in air-mobility (transport planes and helicopters in Simpletonese).