War Game Theory: Could an old-fashioned war of conquest be stopped without nuclear weapons?

[Paragon Fury]

So I've had an interesting thought floating around in my head the last couple of days after seeing the old intro to Battlefield: 2142 again. The gist of the thought is;

Could a modern day war of conquest, in the vein of say, Ghengis Khan, be successfully stopped without the use of nuclear weapons? Or, even if nuclear weapons were used, would they prevent the aggressors from achieving victory?

We'll discount the smaller players and focus on what are basically the world's 4 major powers;

the United States
Russia
the European Union
China

If one of these 4 powers decided "We'd like to own exactly ALL of this shit over here, and would very much like to not have any of the current inhabitants alive now or in the future" and actually went through with it....would there be a way to stop them without nuclear weapons? Would nuclear weapons even actually be able to be effectively cause them to lose - IE: the "We nuked Russia!....but they just simply relocated to all the lands they already conquered, so all we really accomplished was actually moving them around a bit." I thought about it because it seems that a modern war of this nature is held in check only by the thin desire to be seen as somewhat respectable and the threat of nuclear warfare; in danger of at moment one of the major players deciding "Fuck this noise. Take it all!" or discovering a way to prevent nuclear weapons from being used against them.

A few ground-rules:

- We're taking modern, and near-modern technology into account. No super-futuristic equipment here. Anything fancier than say, Ghost Recon: Future Solider or Endwar isn't in play.

- We're talking absolute, total extermination here. As in, anyone who resists the invading faction is immediately killed as well as anyone basically connected to them by any means - IE: A single man shoots at a solider and the invaders kill everyone in the village or simply burn the entire village down. This essentially means guerrilla warfare is totally out of the question because there will be no one alive to conduct said warfare. The options are essentially "Surrender and die quickly and peacefully and MAYBE get to live if you're useful, or resist and die slowly and painfully". There are no prisoners of war that need to be worried about.

- Economic concerns are a moot issue; the factions are waging war for control - IE: they will be the ones who get to define how the economy works. Any banker or businessman who disagrees or interferes will quickly find themselves and their associates dead and replaced by more sympathetic figures.

So....is there anyone left? Or do a few regions suddenly find their primary language is now American English or Russian?

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

I'm afraid that my problem lies with how the premise is constructed. Wars of conquest generally involve attempting to take over the people as well as the territory because the local population is generally considered a resource.

Genocidal conquests designed to provide only territory and eliminate the local population are insanely rare for just that reason. Those that have taken place (arguably the European/American conquest of North America could be considered as one) occurred against the local populations either piecemeal and not part of a grand planned-from-the-start strategy or have been very small scale in execution. Most nations seem to consider displacement a far easier (and cheaper) means of gaining territory than genocidal tactics.

Plus, engaging in the sort of strategy outlined in the OP will simply stiffen resistance and garner greater levels of support from third parties. I would argue that similar "scorched earth" tactics were used in some cases by the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan (obviously not across the board and against the entire population, but then the logistics and manpower needed make such actions insanely difficult) and the local population was still quite willing to fight back and kept obtaining outside help and material support. Given the nature of international economics, economic factors will ALWAYS have to be considered especially since the local economy in question is attached to greater concerns, even if only politically.

Finally, with the balance of power obtained in a multi-polar world (as created by multiple powerful nation-states), alliances and power blocks tend to look unfavorably on open wars of conquest. It's why nations strongly lean towards gaining as much influence over other nations as possible without having to cross over into military conquest. Once you do, you find a large number of nations alarmed at your actions, feeling threatened by them and ally themselves with other nations to work against the conqueror.

TLDR: I don't see it happening given the nature of the world today. And if it did happen, you would garner a fairly large alliance of nation-states that would be able to support the inevitable resistance movements and militarily break the would-be conqueror's military might without resorting to nuclear weapons. Indeed, the threat of using such weapons on the major cities of the aggressor would be fairly effective in getting them to back down.

In short, an interesting thought experiment, but I don't think very realistic to consider as a possibility.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Absolutely. In fact I'd use biological weapons, and I suspect that will be the way of it in the future. Nukes aren't really weapons as much as the way you start the end of the world. I have no hard time believing in politicians and generals thinking that they could plausibly deny a plague.

tl;dr Nukes are big and scary, weapons from the turn of the last century. In the immortal words of Jack Napier, "Think about the future!"

Biological weapons could be potentially as devastating as any Nuclear Weapon. Only difference is our cities will still stand in the aftermath.

 

[MeatMachine]

- Economic concerns are a moot issue; the factions are waging war for control - IE: they will be the ones who get to define how the economy works. Any banker or businessman who disagrees or interferes will quickly find themselves and their associates dead and replaced by more sympathetic figures.

I'm not sure I understand this notion. Money is just as much an army's resource as food, supplies, and fuel. Total reckless disregard for economics will IMMEDIATELY shut down a nation's ability to wage war, and given that you're talking about a hypothetical modern-day war (a period in history where nations are far more interdependent on cooperative business practices than ever before), a large-scale ultra-violent conquest wouldn't simply not happen... it wouldn't even make sense. I mean, sure, even if the Americans and the Chinese HATE each other, they'd effectively be destroying their own nation by assassinating their economically co-dependent partner. If you REALLY want to go out on a limb and dismiss all that on the notion that one country will simply adopt and absorb another country's wealth through conquest (the spoils of war covering the cost of the war), then... well, that simply would not be the result at all. Again, I cannot imagine that could ever be anything more than completely self-destructive. Dismissing economic concerns from a war at all is like ripping out half the pages of a book and asking how that condenses the narrative.

You've obviously given this topic a lot of thought, so I'm fairly sure the problem here is that I'm confused or misinterpreted exactly what you meant in that quote. Can you elaborate a bit, for clarity?

 

[FalloutJack]

World War One WAS an old-fashioned war of conquest stopped without nuclear weapons. In fact, the Nazi Germany aspect of World War II was a conquest war and was stopped without nuclear weapons. It was only the Japanese who were the target of these things. For these historic reasons, I would say the answer is yes. It's been done. Of course, the main factor is who those that conquer are up against. No matter who they are, they have to compete with whoever is around them, PLUS the US. Now, can THEY stop the US if we went ape-shit? I don't think so. I think that if anyone CAN conquer the world, it's US.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

hmm... hmm. I think they cannot be stopped, iff no prisoners or survivors(civilians and solider alike), blaze every possible obstacle(forest, cities), usage of biological and chemical weapons and usage some really gruesome weapons deemed... too unethical to use.(mainly because civilian casualties associated with them)

Edit: With heavy civilian casualties on the winning side, I presume.

 

[RJ 17]

- We're talking absolute, total extermination here. As in, anyone who resists the invading faction is immediately killed as well as anyone basically connected to them by any means - IE: A single man shoots at a solider and the invaders kill everyone in the village or simply burn the entire village down. This essentially means guerrilla warfare is totally out of the question because there will be no one alive to conduct said warfare. The options are essentially "Surrender and die quickly and peacefully and MAYBE get to live if you're useful, or resist and die slowly and painfully". There are no prisoners of war that need to be worried about.

I fail to see how this would preclude resistance movements from utilizing guerrilla warfare. The entire point of guerrilla warfare is to use ambushes to take out supply lines and such. And more importantly: to not get caught. Unless the invading army is doing a "slash-and-burn-and-salt-the-earth" style attack where they are quite literally just destroying everything in their path with absolute disregard for reclaiming it for their own use, then guerrilla warfare is always an option.

Judging by the "rules" you've established (and how completely unrealistic they are) it seems you're really trying to give an edge to the aggressor. I mean if you're going to make up arbitrary rules that defy the reality of war, then sure, why not? Let's just say that the aggressor manages to pull off a plot that took years of setting up unimaginable amounts of sabotage that utterly cripple the militaries and infrastructures of all the major threats to the aggressors. Upon hitting a button that blows up countless bombs across the world - the results of the sabotage - the superpower then proceeds to just blitzkrieg the entire planet.

Considering how unrealistic the "rules" established in your OP are, that scenario is just as feasible.

 

[barbzilla]

I'm going to go ahead and say that nuclear warfare would be ineffective against a proper strategy. The way the art of warfare has shifted is towards asymmetrical warfare (think of the "terrorist" attacks against America, however on a grander scale). How do you destroy something that is neither centralized or easily foreseen?

Say a country like China wanted the US for itself (which is stupid, it is making billions off of us, and they keep buying up our national debt, though in fairness I think Japan now owns more of it than they do), they wouldn't attack us head on. It would be mass suicide. We destroy them before they could even get over here. Instead think of a country like China spending a few billion to train a highly skilled group of assassins, about 25,000 strong. They send them over on official work visas, which we regularly give to Chinese citizens, and they take up employ in menial jobs near major sources of power and wealth. Every night they check in with either a yes or a no (yes meaning they have a clear opportunity at their intended target and no meaning they do not have the opportunity). If they all say yes on the same night, then the plan executes. The next day, the entirety of the US is going to be near full blown chaos.

That will be when they launch an attack against our naval units, allowing them to ease their transit of troops to the US. Within 2-3 days they could have millions of units over here with not much more than our national guard to defend (since our military would be mostly leaderless there wouldn't be a proper response, but you could count on a few commanding officers to take up the charge and lead their men).

By the time we could even organize the nuclear strike against China (of which, the Chinese government would have decentralized to protect the country from just such an attack), the war would be all but over. However I don't think we will see a war like this in our lifetime, because of two major reasons.

1: The other governments would likely step in to intercede, so even if the attacking country was to win, they would still lose in the long run due to trade bans.

2: It is much easier (and likely more cost efficient) to buy a country now than it is to properly invade one.

Note: When I say China or Chinese in this post, I mean a purely theoretical country with the resources that China has. I don't mean to insinuate that China has any ill will towards the US.

 

[mad825]

I don't think so. I think that if anyone CAN conquer the world, it's US.

Well, who didn't expect that answer? So far, the U.S has yet to really win any war that they initiated and the victories were the result of being in one or more coalitions and in some notable cases intervening in the late stages of war when both sides are suffering from strained resources and low troop count due to losses.

Fuck it, the event's of the second gulf invasion war, the U.S were so bad they were main cause of the blue-on-blue attacks. The high-tech gear not helping? How on hell does a bomber bomb a ally convey when the enemy has mere sticks and stones to attack you?

The events of the 20th century shows just how much of a joke the U.S really are.

 

[Areloch]

I'm going to go ahead and say that nuclear warfare would be ineffective against a proper strategy. The way the art of warfare has shifted is towards asymmetrical warfare (think of the "terrorist" attacks against America, however on a grander scale). How do you destroy something that is neither centralized or easily foreseen?

Say a country like China wanted the US for itself (which is stupid, it is making billions off of us, and they keep buying up our national debt, though in fairness I think Japan now owns more of it than they do), they wouldn't attack us head on. It would be mass suicide. We destroy them before they could even get over here. Instead think of a country like China spending a few billion to train a highly skilled group of assassins, about 25,000 strong. They send them over on official work visas, which we regularly give to Chinese citizens, and they take up employ in menial jobs near major sources of power and wealth. Every night they check in with either a yes or a no (yes meaning they have a clear opportunity at their intended target and no meaning they do not have the opportunity). If they all say yes on the same night, then the plan executes. The next day, the entirety of the US is going to be near full blown chaos.

That will be when they launch an attack against our naval units, allowing them to ease their transit of troops to the US. Within 2-3 days they could have millions of units over here with not much more than our national guard to defend (since our military would be mostly leaderless there wouldn't be a proper response, but you could count on a few commanding officers to take up the charge and lead their men).

By the time we could even organize the nuclear strike against China (of which, the Chinese government would have decentralized to protect the country from just such an attack), the war would be all but over. However I don't think we will see a war like this in our lifetime, because of two major reasons.

1: The other governments would likely step in to intercede, so even if the attacking country was to win, they would still lose in the long run due to trade bans.

2: It is much easier (and likely more cost efficient) to buy a country now than it is to properly invade one.

Note: When I say China or Chinese in this post, I mean a purely theoretical country with the resources that China has. I don't mean to insinuate that China has any ill will towards the US.

Biggest problem with this hypothetical is your timescale is ludicrously fast.

There's no way you could mobilize an entire naval invasion force AND get it across the pacific to attack in 2 or 3 days. And if it'd take longer than that, the copious amounts of survelience that all first world countries do would note the giant invasion armada WELL in advance of their attack.

Even assuming the crippling operations went off without a hitch, a lot of the military defense infrastructure is insulated from that, so you wouldn't see a total crippling of defensive capabilities. Even if we assume that it was perfect and the US couldn't formulate it's own defense, you could have friendly countries get troops to the US at about the same time as china would arrive, so their invasion still wouldn't get all that far.

At it's worst, the invasion would be utterly stonewalled at the coast. At it's best, it probably wouldn't make it past the Rockies.

But yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize just how good first world military tech is. The amount of wide-scale conventional destruction they can cause would be rather effective on an invading force. Especially if you consider asymmetrical tactics, guerrilla tactics, and so on.

Attempting to invade a modern militarized first world country would be a fools errand at best. That alone makes the idea of a war of conquest unrealistic.

 

[CrystalShadow]

World War One WAS an old-fashioned war of conquest stopped without nuclear weapons. In fact, the Nazi Germany aspect of World War II was a conquest war and was stopped without nuclear weapons. It was only the Japanese who were the target of these things. For these historic reasons, I would say the answer is yes. It's been done. Of course, the main factor is who those that conquer are up against. No matter who they are, they have to compete with whoever is around them, PLUS the US. Now, can THEY stop the US if we went ape-shit? I don't think so. I think that if anyone CAN conquer the world, it's US.

I doubt any individual country could stop the US, but I have to say, as strong as the US is, 'US VS Rest of the world' is not a bet I'd be too happy to take on.

You have at least 5 nuclear powers, China with basically the largest manufacturing base currently in existence (and population to match)
Western Europe, Japan. Australia. The Middle East. Africa.

Between them they have absurd manufacturing capacity, most of the major strategic resources on the planet (Australia supplies a large chunk of the Uranium currently used in the world for instance, especially by western nations), A huge population,
(china alone outnumbers the US about 3 to 1), and considerable technical expertise in many different areas.

The US is powerful, but not that powerful. It'd have to be very careful to avoid pissing off too many other countries at once to pull it off.
Picking the world apart one country at a time...
But, that's essentially where Germany started... And while other countries turned a blind eye initially, sooner or later that causes problems.

If the US pisses off it's current allies, then it'll suffer pretty badly out of it. It's not entirely without resources of it's own, but is that enough to avoid being crippled if foreign trade ceases?
No more middle eastern oil.
No more manufactured goods from china.
No more raw materials from Australia...

No more forward operating bases in allied countries...
There's a lot that'd fall apart pretty quickly if the US loses it's allies overnight.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

US Navys huge fleet surely makes invading America impossible for China/Russia.

And theres an old saying "Good generals study tactics. Great generals study logistics."

If it were US vs the world their armies would be defeated not by the enemy but by the nightmare of bringing supplies to armies in every part of the world, surrounded by angry people guerilla style blowing bridges and attacking convoys.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Nukes would be used the instant the enemy was at risk of taking something too important to lose like a nuke silo or Cheyanne Mountain (I know I can't spell it). Can't let the enemy have control of your nukes or places of such importance and yes I am basing this on World in Conflict which I feel is realistic in it's use of nukes.

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

Voop

I actually have an answer for this. The wars you're thinking of (Mad) are not the fullness of what they can do. The question the OP states is if the nation in question went full-on conquest. Not attempting to police a country, not looking for terrorists, not protecting one country for another, but an actual middle finger to one and all. This country went on a massive rage-fest because of a bunch of terrorists. That's chickenfeed compared to what the OP asked for. Picture if you will, a scenario of the United States planning an attack on everyone that trusts it, and then - overnight, it seems - turning evil. Please do not take any of this personally.

Spoiler: Being Evil

The United States has outposts and influence all over the place. You laugh, other people joke, and there's plenty of trust for this country. Imagine what it would be like if we secretly well-armed every base we've got, had every person of reasonable fighting age trained for battle, and went on Red Alert suddenly. Well, the first thing is that Mexico and Canada might fold immediately, both of them on the grounds of not wanting to get bulldozed. The Mexicans might even be eager for it if it means we have to improve conditions and welcome all immigrants. And why not? If alot of people from the US go into battle, there's alot of jobs that need to be done if they don't want to enlist themselves. It would actually balance out.

So, one whole major continent may fall easily if the cards are played right. Meanwhile, the other major powers would have to deal with anything internal from outposts and embasseys, and then face the same issues the US did to fight in all of its wars overseas: Having to cross the oceans to mount any sort of an offensive...ASSUMING the sudden jump to Red Alert on our end did not begin with a massive air strike and bombing of places we know to be best-suited for first counterstrike. We have all of the knowledge at our fingertips. Remember, we were good old jolly US, the nice policemen of the world, so you trusted us. We could go anywhere we want and carpet-bomb the hell out of any defenses we don't like, then take what we want in resources.

Yes, resources. Everyone talks about how Americans complain about First World Problems while there are so many others in the world who are in real shit. And it's true! If we steal the bread from your mouths, how do you feed an army? Russia is personally strong, but it's still in bad shape. The only reason it hasn't collapsed is because it's seen worse, but we could put it back there by stealing stuff around it. China has a very powerful military, but good god the state of its environment and the quality of its products... These two would fail under their own weight if we put a whole bunch of different pressures on them.

Remember, this is the Evil Conquering America. It also means in this case that we have abandoned all of our morals. Shocking though it may be, we actually have a moral fiber. Like, if we carpet-bombed every city and base in the EU and picked it clean of everything useable - Food, Fuel, Medicine, etc. - and then FLUSHED the people in droves towards the major powers... (Obviously, a huge battle between us and the EU ensues during this time.) Well, results may vary. If It's winter in Russia, they might have alot of frozen people. As for China, assuming they accept refugees, it might be too much for their nation to withstand. China has the largest military because China has a population that has to be seen to be believed! They've tried some pretty extreme measures to keep the population in line, and usually they all fail! It might all collapse.

A massive resource war is what some people believe will create a moment in history where everyone fights over all that is left in the world for survival. If we were to be the chums that we are to the world while setting up all of our plans, our contengencies, and our secret plans in order to take from the world that which it needs to live or at least operate in a modern existence, whole populations and countries would falter or at least be delayed until new resources can replace them. It doesn't matter HOW it gets done, only that it's done. An Evil United States bent on world conquest knows you all, has been watching you for years, and is in the best position to kill, destroy, and then move on in to inherit the world.

Now then, you two, as we all know the US is actually quite decent. Mad, you may think that we're not capable, but then who has the best stuff? Crystal, you have numerous good points of course about warfare, but the scenario I had in mind assumes that we here know exactly what you've said and holds strategic meetings long in advanced to deal with that. Frankly, if it isn't us, it isn't any power at all in the world.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Snip

Voop

I actually have an answer for this. The wars you're thinking of (Mad) are not the fullness of what they can do. The question the OP states is if the nation in question went full-on conquest. Not attempting to police a country, not looking for terrorists, not protecting one country for another, but an actual middle finger to one and all. This country went on a massive rage-fest because of a bunch of terrorists. That's chickenfeed compared to what the OP asked for. Picture if you will, a scenario of the United States planning an attack on everyone that trusts it, and then - overnight, it seems - turning evil. Please do not take any of this personally.

Spoiler: Being Evil

The United States has outposts and influence all over the place. You laugh, other people joke, and there's plenty of trust for this country. Imagine what it would be like if we secretly well-armed every base we've got, had every person of reasonable fighting age trained for battle, and went on Red Alert suddenly. Well, the first thing is that Mexico and Canada might fold immediately, both of them on the grounds of not wanting to get bulldozed. The Mexicans might even be eager for it if it means we have to improve conditions and welcome all immigrants. And why not? If alot of people from the US go into battle, there's alot of jobs that need to be done if they don't want to enlist themselves. It would actually balance out.

So, one whole major continent may fall easily if the cards are played right. Meanwhile, the other major powers would have to deal with anything internal from outposts and embasseys, and then face the same issues the US did to fight in all of its wars overseas: Having to cross the oceans to mount any sort of an offensive...ASSUMING the sudden jump to Red Alert on our end did not begin with a massive air strike and bombing of places we know to be best-suited for first counterstrike. We have all of the knowledge at our fingertips. Remember, we were good old jolly US, the nice policemen of the world, so you trusted us. We could go anywhere we want and carpet-bomb the hell out of any defenses we don't like, then take what we want in resources.

Yes, resources. Everyone talks about how Americans complain about First World Problems while there are so many others in the world who are in real shit. And it's true! If we steal the bread from your mouths, how do you feed an army? Russia is personally strong, but it's still in bad shape. The only reason it hasn't collapsed is because it's seen worse, but we could put it back there by stealing stuff around it. China has a very powerful military, but good god the state of its environment and the quality of its products... These two would fail under their own weight if we put a whole bunch of different pressures on them.

Remember, this is the Evil Conquering America. It also means in this case that we have abandoned all of our morals. Shocking though it may be, we actually have a moral fiber. Like, if we carpet-bombed every city and base in the EU and picked it clean of everything useable - Food, Fuel, Medicine, etc. - and then FLUSHED the people in droves towards the major powers... (Obviously, a huge battle between us and the EU ensues during this time.) Well, results may vary. If It's winter in Russia, they might have alot of frozen people. As for China, assuming they accept refugees, it might be too much for their nation to withstand. China has the largest military because China has a population that has to be seen to be believed! They've tried some pretty extreme measures to keep the population in line, and usually they all fail! It might all collapse.

A massive resource war is what some people believe will create a moment in history where everyone fights over all that is left in the world for survival. If we were to be the chums that we are to the world while setting up all of our plans, our contengencies, and our secret plans in order to take from the world that which it needs to live or at least operate in a modern existence, whole populations and countries would falter or at least be delayed until new resources can replace them. It doesn't matter HOW it gets done, only that it's done. An Evil United States bent on world conquest knows you all, has been watching you for years, and is in the best position to kill, destroy, and then move on in to inherit the world.

Now then, you two, as we all know the US is actually quite decent. Mad, you may think that we're not capable, but then who has the best stuff? Crystal, you have numerous good points of course about warfare, but the scenario I had in mind assumes that we here know exactly what you've said and holds strategic meetings long in advanced to deal with that. Frankly, if it isn't us, it isn't any power at all in the world.

That's a semi-plausible scenario. But you'd have to do an instant surgical strike on everyone all at once to not get fucked over by that in the long run. Or hope nothing much happens.

Does the US really have enough resources to do that? Remember a lot of the countries that would pose the biggest threat are out of direct range of attack by US forces unless they are using bases located within or near these countries.

Do you actually think you could move enough US forces into the UK (for instance) ahead of time to not raise any suspicions at all?

Unless you start nuking half the planet your options here seem a bit... Improbable.

And while the US does likely know many of it's allies defenses, they also know exactly where US forces within their borders would be operating from.

One slip-up in timing, or staging, and that kind of plan falls apart.
Let's say you manage to do it to one country.
Attack them from within without warning.

If word gets out that that's happened, unless you can spin it in a way that makes it seem like an isolated thing, you'll suddenly find a lot of scrutiny being directed at what precisely is taking place in US operated bases.
What kind of forces are stationed there, what would happen if they were mobilised.
Likely targets that would be within reach?

The US might be able to do that to a handful of countries, but are you seriously suggesting it could coordinate a worldwide surprise attack with sufficient force to take on everyone?

It seems wildly over-optimistic, especially given the US's actual track record in fighting much smaller wars where it's blatantly obvious they have a massive advantage, and still struggles to get a decisive victory.

As for what would be required to Assault the US, that applies to many of the countries it would be fighting against as well. It goes both ways.

Screw up that initial attack, and you've basically lost. That's a lot of pressure on a single point of failure.

Don't get me wrong, I agree if anyone can do it right now it would be the US, but... How likely is it that they'd actually succeed?
It seems to rest on some extremely improbable events, and an assumption about military superiority that seems a little questionable.
No individual country could resist, that much is certain, but... Fighting individual countries isn't likely to be the situation this would lead to.

 

[Albino Boo]

Modern armies have big logistic needs. You need a lot of fuel and spare parts to keep 1000s of armoured vehicles going. They have one major vulnerability and that is their logistical tail. A 70 ton tank is loses its usefulness if can't move and a multiple rocket launcher is useless without rockets. You use air power to destroy bridges, rail and road junctions and fuel and ammunition dumps. You crater major roads to create traffic jams and then you come back 2 hours later and hit the jams. Basicly, you starve the frontline units of supplies and you reduce their combat power. You then use your own manoeuvrability of ground forces to cut off and destroy the enemy's armored units. Why do you think Nato forces spent so much money on air forces during the cold war. Nato doctrine since the mid 60s was to fight a conventional war if possible. The plan was to use ground forces to trade space for time allowing Nato airpower to smash soviet logistics. If you look at the first gulf war, coalition airpower smashed Iraqi logistics. This allowed the smaller coalition ground forces to concentrate firepower to roll up Iraqi ground forces.

 

[Squilookle]

World War One WAS an old-fashioned war of conquest stopped without nuclear weapons. In fact, the Nazi Germany aspect of World War II was a conquest war and was stopped without nuclear weapons. It was only the Japanese who were the target of these things. For these historic reasons, I would say the answer is yes. It's been done.

You're forgetting one major thing: both those wars existed before the invention of the Nuclear Bomb. The first country to make it practical immediately used them on multiple targets on its biggest enemy. You really think Germany wouldn't have used a Nuke if it had one in 1918? or 1944? So for all intents and purposes, a total war between nuclear capable countries has NOT been done before.

 

[barbzilla]

snipped for length

No, I didn't forget it. I'm mainly going on a worst case scenario with like minded leaders and officials, which is virtually impossible to pull off, but the point is they could do massive damage upsetting the country's ability to respond before the invading country even starts the attack in earnest.

Either way, I agree with you. It is utterly ludicrous for any 1st world country to invade another 1st world country for land ownership at this point. Now we all struggle over a virtual economy based more on fossil fuels than gold at this point.

(Note: The 3 day time scale is assuming they were already mobilized on the night of the strike, but stationed near units needing to be destroyed. Though it is still unlikely provided we have even a semi working government at that point.)

 

[Ariseishirou]

Oh easily. All you have to do under threat of invasion from one of the "Major powers" you listed is convince one of the other "major powers" that said power is gaining an unfair advantage by taking what you have. Then they fight a grinding proxy war with one another for about a decade until they've both sunk enough money and time into it that their own populace votes whoever was in favor of it out of power. If you "won" the proxy war, you carry on as before (only now perhaps under a military regime), if you "lost" you revolt against the leader the "winner" installed when said major power no longer gives a shit and easily overthrow him because, as I said, they no longer give a shit and won't support him against your revolt.

Evidence for my position? The entire latter half of the 20th century right on into the start of the 21st.