Poll: Would the regime collapse of a nuclear nation warrant a US invasion?

[Darklord Rooke]

13 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Also Syria is a true mess and far different from the countries covered here. 

Syria is only a mess because it was allowed to become so. It started out as a popular uprising against Assad, yes? He's an evil dictator, let's remove him. Then others butted in (just because America doesn't enter doesn't mean no one else will. Do you think people are not opportunistic?)

Turkey wants Assad out because Turkey was a Sunni Government in Syria, similar to how they backed the Brotherhood in Egypt. So now you have them supporting the Rebels. Saudi Arabia wants similarly, so now you have them backing the rebels. America want Assad out probably because they like democracy and that's what the people wanted, but also because it'd tick off Russia, and partly because for other reasons, but that doesn't matter, if they had entered HERE they are so powerful nobody can stand against them. Bullying? Maybe. Decisive and clean outcome? Definitely.

But they didn't. So Russia, who needs Assad because of certain Naval realities in that part of the world (it's not like he likes Assad personally) needs to sure up Assad's Government, and Iran enters with them. Great, now you have countries on either side.

And oh no, now Turkey has shot down a Russian plane. For what? Entering their air space? If Turkey is so concerned about that then why had they illegally entered Greece's airspace hundreds of times over the past year? Oh, because Greece is soft and just complains orally. Fair enough. 

But now you have tensions rising, and Russia will retaliate by bombing all those Turkmen in the north of Syria (which was why Turkey shot down a Russian plane in the first place.) And America who doesn't want to enter Syria because there's no appetite at home for such an action is backing the Kurds, who want to carve out their own state. But the Kurds are viewed by Turkey as terrorists. So now you have Turkey at America's throat for backing the Kurds, and America at this stage is probably wondering why they even let Turkey be a part of Nato.

But America ignores Turkey, which infuriates them, and the Kurds have almost united all of Northern Syria which infuriates them more. So what do Turkey do? LAND INVASION, to get the terrorist Kurds, who want to carve out their own region remember, to BACK OFF. And America want to stay Turkey's friend, so they're finger waving at the Kurds and saying 'maybe you should retreat a little' but otherwise not wanting to get involved.

And oh look, here comes China!

Understand? This is why America goes in early.

[Dark_blade64]

11 minutes ago, Rooke said:

I especially like how China has now entered and everybody's now crying WW3. Well, that wouldn't have happened if America had resolved this early, but if they had everybody would have been crying about how America shouldn't stick their noses into others affairs.

When the actions of a country threatens the stability of others, it becomes 'their affair'.

If they haven't get involved into the whole matter is because they are barking dogs (most countries are). If you only stick to statistics how will you react when things go entirely the opposite way as predicted? Statictically specified or not, is foolish thinking you can always predict the future by looking at some numbers. Could you care to explain why only America should always intervene?

[Darklord Rooke]

6 minutes ago, Dark_blade64 said:

Could you care to explain why only America should always intervene?

Sure.

It's because America is so many more time more powerful than anybody else, that what they say goes. In other words, if they brought their full military might to bear there's not a country in the world that can stand against them especially when fighting away from their home nation (which involves different military realities.) This means PEOPLE HAVE TO LISTEN. It's dictatorial yes, but I prefer that than 8 countries of similar power getting involved and it blowing up into a regional war.

Don't worry, when China becomes a superpower they'll abuse their power more than America have. Observe how they're treating the South East Asian nations. So you'll have an awesome future to look forward to there, yes? 

[Okarin]

"Strength lies not in defense but in attack" --Adolf Hitler.

Those are the words of a madman and an inept leader (also militarily, granted).

Bullying people and countries around isn't the only way to drive your point home. In fact, it's bound to make everybody hate you.

I think you grossly overestimate the possibilities of the American military. Besides you've gone completely offtopic.

The fall of the Soviet Union was far more problematic than some small cloisterous regime, and it was carried out OK. So far the human race has dealt with every crisis that's been thrown at them. There's no reason to think the trend won't continue.

[sanahtlig]

6 minutes ago, Okarin said:

The fall of the Soviet Union was far more problematic than some small cloisterous regime, and it was carried out OK. So far the human race has dealt with every crisis that's been thrown at them. There's no reason to think the trend won't continue.

The premise here is that the collapse is violent (as it likely would be).  In addition, the nations being discussed include one that has known connections with "terrorists" (Pakistan) and one whose populace has been brainwashed to hate the world and told that their enemies must be purified in a nuclear firestorm (North Korea).

[Dark_blade64]

37 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Sure.

It's because America is so many more time more powerful than anybody else, that what they say goes. In other words, if they brought their full military might to bear there's not a country in the world that can stand against them especially when fighting away from their home nation (which involves different military realities.) This means PEOPLE HAVE TO LISTEN. It's dictatorial yes, but I prefer that than 8 countries of similar power getting involved and it blowing up into a regional war.

Don't worry, when China becomes a superpower they'll abuse their power more than America have. Observe how they're treating the South East Asian nations. So you'll have an awesome future to look forward to there, yes? 

So long they did manage to stay alive (no tell when a army could start crumbling right into in-front their eyes.) 

You say, but can you dictacte that with a hundred percent certainity it will happen? Politics are playing their political games like usual, then there is the dumb people following behind their logic like mud soldiers, they do say it'll always comes to blood, just need the right excuse to convince million of people so they start swarming like horde of flies directly into your palm. FREE CANNON FODDER

[Darklord Rooke]

11 minutes ago, Okarin said:

"Strength lies not in defense but in attack" --Adolf Hitler.

Those are the words of a madman and an inept leader (also militarily, granted).

Those words didn't originate with him.

Also, Adolf Hitler was a man for the working people. Germany was being crippled under the debt they were being forced to pay back to Europe, and Hitler was the one who banded together the people to lead them out of it. Unemployment plummeted under him, for example. He didn't want to bully people, but ultimately there was not much he could do to get his country out of that debt without HOORAY ANOTHER WAR. (I should point out that people pointed to Hitler's actions as to why Greece SHOULDN'T be made to pay back the debt they've recently incurred.)

He was also a Marxist, a very very KEEN Marxist, who may have paid a little too much attention to the rants Marx and Engels used to go on about Jewish people. His was a "Nationalist" socialism after all.

EDIT: Engels pretty much verged on saying the Jewish people should be left behind, so to speak. They weren't nice to the Jews.

11 minutes ago, Okarin said:

I think you grossly overestimate the possibilities of the American military. Besides you've gone completely offtopic.

I don't. I think you grossly overestimate the military capabilities of most of Europe. Here's a hint, the UK is probably the mightiest country in Europe militarily speaking. 30 years ago they SHOULD have lost a war to Argentina. 

11 minutes ago, Okarin said:

The fall of the Soviet Union was far more problematic than some small cloisterous regime, and it was carried out OK. 

I believe I said that most of the time America wouldn't need to because most of the time countries aren't lead by extremists. Russia was never an extremist nation, and in fact I quite like Russia. Quite a lot, actually.

11 minutes ago, Okarin said:

So far the human race has dealt with every crisis that's been thrown at them. There's no reason to think the trend won't continue.

I should point out that the human race HAS dealt with every crisis, true. And they used to do it by being a lot more invasion-happy, so ...

[Darklord Rooke]

1 minute ago, Dark_blade64 said:

You say, but can you dictacte that with a hundred percent certainity it will happen? Politics playing their political games, the dumb people following behind their logic like mud soldiers, they do say it'll always comes to blood, just need the right excuse to convince million of people so they start swarming like horde of flies directly into your palm. FREE CANNON FODDER

Oh please ... warfare isn't determined much by ground troops anymore. Who needs cannon fodder  

[Dark_blade64]

Just now, Rooke said:

Oh please ... warfare isn't determined much by ground troops anymore. Who needs cannon fodder  

Don't understimate the power of cannon fodder, it's a vital strategy.... In strategy games.

[sanahtlig]

6 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Oh please ... warfare isn't determined much by ground troops anymore. Who needs cannon fodder  

In the wargame linked in the OP, it was determined that 100,000 ground troops would be required--just to secure the nuclear weapons.  Securing the weapons would take these troops nearly 2 months, and 200,000 additional troops would be required if stabilizing the country was also part of the mission.

[Okarin]

I'll bypass the discussion about Hitler as it isn't interesting, it was only there for the quote and the attitude it shows.

You talk about UK's military... UK, that country has a saying that goes, "they have a military fit to win every last war they fought".

Of course European armies aren't powerful because Europeans aren't bent on war nor geopolitics. We prefer to be left alone (even when it comes to importing videogames, we're the last ones to get the goodies). We have experienced war enough to want to get away from it, hence the creation of the European Union, to avoid another continental war.

Russia and China are far better contenders.

I think that if Best Korea and Pakistan's regimes fall, then all the better. Those aren't zones as unstable (and critical) as the Middle East. Arguably the fall of Saddam Hussein made the zone unstable as would the fall of Assad. In the case of the nuke regimes, the next government could only be better. I mention again the example of Kazakhstan. Why wouldn't they play Game of Thrones and smuggle their nukes to some shady organization? They didn't, they chose the sensible way. And Kazakhstan's government is not a first-rate one.

There's a certain logic to power and you can't get very far bullying around.

[Clephas]

If it were Pakistan or N Korea, I'd say yes...  China and India would be hopeless to impossible.  We'd just have to resign ourselves to checking everything that goes through an airport with a Geiger counter. 

[sanahtlig]

24 minutes ago, Okarin said:

I think that if Best Korea and Pakistan's regimes fall, then all the better. Those aren't zones as unstable (and critical) as the Middle East. Arguably the fall of Saddam Hussein made the zone unstable as would the fall of Assad. In the case of the nuke regimes, the next government could only be better.

You make a very important assumption that a violent regime collapse will be immediately succeeded by a functional new regime.  That's a dubious assumption at best.

10 minutes ago, Clephas said:

If it were Pakistan or N Korea, I'd say yes...  China and India would be hopeless to impossible.  We'd just have to resign ourselves to checking everything that goes through an airport with a Geiger counter. 

I mentioned China and India as example nations that the US would rely on to stabilize the situation if the US did not get involved.  India and China are fairly stable nations that wouldn't be likely to spectacularly collapse as described in the premise.

[Okarin]

14 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

You make a very important assumption that a violent regime collapse will be immediately lead to a new functional regime.  That's a dubious assumption at best.

Explain how the collapse would be in your view. No one is gonna overthrow those regimes from inside, they'll only give way to something else. The most possible outcome, however, is continuation of status quo. As long as you don't go storming countries.

Disarming China and India is laughable. They have had nuclear potential for decades and haven't shown any trace of misconduct. And like Rooke says, they aren't truly extremist countries led by madmen. I think Chinese are very cunning.

North Korea could still be a somewhat-Marxist state, but optimized (like Vietnam), or it could be an autocracy (but more moderate) like some ex-Soviet republics. Maybe the change will come naturally. There's a limit on how mad and evil people, and leaders, can be.

[sanahtlig]

13 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Explain how the collapse would be in your view. No one is gonna overthrow those regimes from inside, they'll only give way to something else.

I don't understand why you're so confident of this, especially after the military coup in Turkey.  The potential for a North Korean regime collapse is a source of great concern to the US.  The current leader does not have as strong a grasp of the reins of control as his predecessor.  Some may cheer the notion of North Korean regime collapse, but it would likely not be a cheerful matter in practice.  I know less about Pakistan, but there's a tension between the secularists and Islamists and this could explode into conflict.

How would the regime collapse?  I imagine a scenario similar to Syria, where Islamic radical groups purportedly seized control of chemical weapons and used them.

[solidbatman]

oh good, another fuwanovel geo-political discussion

 

stick to porn games 

[Okarin]

Not like Syria. In Syria there are lots of factions, as the zone is a crucible of cultures and different peoples. Best Korea is monolithic. As far as I know the country is in the hands of the military (aside from the Kim). Should the Kim be brushed away, the military could opt for some transformation of the economy and opening up the country to the rest of the world. Like what happened in Vietnam (I already pointed out this).

In short, you're comparing apples to oranges. Every country is a specific case.

But if worst comes to worst, India and China should handle the situation.

[sanahtlig]

2 hours ago, Okarin said:

But if worst comes to worst, India and China should handle the situation.

India invading by ground to confiscate the nuclear weapons of its arch-enemy.  What could go wrong?

Quote

Like what happened in Vietnam

That was by no means a quick transition, and wouldn't have been even without US military intervention.  If one of the sides had nuclear weapons, that could've been a catastrophe.

[Okarin]

1 hour ago, sanahtlig said:

1- India invading by ground to confiscate the nuclear weapons of its arch-enemy.  What could go wrong?

2- That was by no means a quick transition, and wouldn't have been even without US military intervention.  If one of the sides had nuclear weapons, that could've been a catastrophe.

1- Didn't you assume regime collapse and chaos? If there's general chaos, an occupation from a nearby power to settle the situation can be conceivable. Oh right, I forgot the only country with rights to occupy is the USA, they call it "pacifying" or something.

2- Again mixing things up. The nuclear weapons won't suddenly be launched because there's a crisis. Nothing would be accomplished with that. Power isn't always about what you may win, but about what you may lose too.

Vietnam fixed their economy because pure communism doesn't work (the same for China too). They were intelligent, unlike the brainwashed North Koreans and their tyrannical regime, and opened up to the world. The Communist Party still holds power undivided, though. Here's an example that communism can be reasonable at times.

[sanahtlig]

4 hours ago, Okarin said:

1- Didn't you assume regime collapse and chaos? If there's general chaos, an occupation from a nearby power to settle the situation can be conceivable. Oh right, I forgot the only country with rights to occupy is the USA, they call it "pacifying" or something.

Regime collapse doesn't mean that military posts are abandoned.  It just means the government is no longer in control and central military command may be disabled.  Regional commanders are more likely to be acting independently.

The US has the overwhelming power, especially air power, to conduct shock and awe tactics, striking before the enemy has a chance to react in several places simultaneously.  If India invaded, the Pakistani military would see them coming and would have a chance to react.  If the US invaded, they might be caught flat-footed.  Even if they weren't, they'd be less likely to reflexively launch at India as their world came crashing down around them.

4 hours ago, Okarin said:

2- Again mixing things up. The nuclear weapons won't suddenly be launched because there's a crisis. Nothing would be accomplished with that. Power isn't always about what you may win, but about what you may lose too.

MAD only works on actors who have something to lose and have the presence of mind to realize this.  Do you think Hitler would've hesitated to launch nukes, if he had them, as the Russians closed in on his bunker?  Chaos opens up possibilities that a stable regime wouldn't contemplate.

[Okarin]

You seem to have a deep misunderstanding of nuclear weapons. I have been saying constantly that they are the supreme disuasion weapon. But no more than that. Getting exterminated but somehow dealing some heavy damage seems stupid to me, they're still wiped out. Army men aren't suicidal. Besides, I thought that the scenario was smuggling a nuke to some terrorist.

Kim Jong Un, Islamic extremists or the illuminati may seem like dangerous madmen, but if they aren't stupid they'll negotiate -or coerce- their asses out of danger. Not press the red button and see the world burn, since it would mean their surest demise.

There's a good reason no nuke has been used outside of tests since WW2.