What is the hardest country to invade?

[siahsargus]

I was thinking about it, and I was wondering out of all non-fictional countries, which would be the hardest to invade? I personally can't decide, after reading multiple articles on the varying strength of different armies and navies.

In order to make sure the invasions are fair, all hypothetical armies have an unlimited supply of 3rd and 4th Generation fighter and bomber Jets, An unlimited Supply of Infantry with any rifle, shotgun, pistol, or otherwise with moderate cost and developed before 1980. The tanks, trucks, and transports are similarly unlimited, and may be any make or model. There must be a realistic distribution of force in your army (EG your army may not be entirely Special Forces or fighter jets, but may be entirely something mundane, like Light Tanks).

I actually have several sub categories.
Costliest invasion (Measure of money lost from destroyed equipment)
Bloodiest invasion (Most casualties - casualties may be from the environment)
Longest Invasion (Invasion that takes the most hypothetical time)

And the "best in show" category: Most difficult invasion.

I wanted to prevent a single line response by making multiple categories. Please fill all the categories.

 

[Thaluikhain]

San Marino, unless you are Italy, an ally, or have conquered Italy.

Otherwise, US, Russia or China anywhere that has a nuclear arsenal, preferrable a second strike capability, such as a SSBN fleet. Not going to happen.

Places like the UK would be shorter to invade, except that you can't, I guess.

 

[Toasty Virus]

It also depends where you invading FROM, so lets say America.

Costliest: I have no idea, I'd say Russia for that.
Bloodiest: China, They have enough people to just throw the masses at your armies.
Longest: China again, or maybe Russia.
Longest: Antartica because theres nobody there

 

[Shirokurou]

Russia, mah boi...

Costliest invasion - Look at the size of the thing... and it's previous records of ruining otherwise perfect win streaks.
Bloodiest invasion - Maybe they'll shed as much blood as you will, but either way, there will be blood.
Longest Invasion - The country is huge... The winters are cold and the mountains... are rough

Most difficult invasion - 1) Nuclear deterrence means you risk having the world destroyed. 2) But even if you have an anti-nuke solution, you'll still have to contend with the legendary Russian battle spirit.

 

[SckizoBoy]

inb4 Russia

Costliest: Russia
Bloodiest: Russia
Longest: Russia
Hardest: Russia

Loathe though I am to admit it, this is mostly true. Currently, I believe Russia can call upon roughly twenty-million personnel under arms. Yeah... good luck trying to crack that nut.

In relative terms though, Switzerland would be a tough ask, because for its size, its army is far stronger than it should be (the only citizen non-conscript army in the west... I think).

 

[snowpuppy]

Longest: me
Hardest: Me
lol
I think america or a place with similar gun laws would be very hard to invade.

 

[JB1528]

The US definitley

Most technologically superior military: USA
Most money spent on National defense: USA
Only way of invasion without involving other nations being a costly coastal attack: USA
Filled with gun-toting nationalist rednecks all waiting for a fight: USA

Seriously the USA would not only be only of the hardest countries to invade, but with over 300 million citizens and an estimated 45% of those citizens who own firearms, your in for a hell of a fight.

 

[USSR]

I don't know much about countries defense systems.
USA or Russia?

I'm not too knowledged about this sort of stuff, so there's my guess.

 

[Richardplex]

United kingdom: We have not been successfully invaded since 1066. Now why would you reset the "Day's since been invaded" machine? That would be mean. /Hope sympathy for the quaint little Country pulls through.

Edit: I corrected it okay, you can stop pointing it out now.

 

[theriddlen]

Costliest: USA (Has the best equipment specialized in destroying high tech weapons and vehicles, which cost a lot)
Bloodiest: China (More men than any other country and communism factor)
Longest: Russia (Unfriendly environment, size of country, fairly high tech army)
Hardest: USA (They continuously have the most advanced and widely adapted in army technology)

 

[Je Suis Ubermonkey]

I think Switzerland. For all categories. Because with their amazing reputation for neutrality I'd expect every other nation on the planet to go "Oh hells no you did NOT just do that!" and side with them. Good luck fighting the whole world whilst invading a mountain range.

This is going without your unlimited army conditions because if you impose them neither side can ever win. Ever. You just get an infinite war of infinite attrition, infinitely.

 

[Berenzen]

2 sets depending on what allies do with the defending nations.

Allies don't support defending nations
Costlest: Russia
Bloodiest: Russia
Longest: Canada or Russia, depending on where the invasion happens, If the invasion happens in eastern Russia, it's russia, otherwise Canada- much more spread out in terms of average pop. dens.
Hardest: Russia

If Allies support the Defending nations it's a toss up between Canada (barring a U.S. Invasion) and Russia in all Categories. I chose Canada as the other option as it really doesn't have a good point to invade from, from the North, East and West you have several thousand kilometers of ocean, and from the South you have the United States. Tack on the very spread apart cities, city proximity to the U.S. border, and various NSA monitoring stations tacked around the natural borders of the country and the sheer amount of allies in the world supporting it, suddenly you have a very long, costly war. Russia is a bit more vulnerable to invasion, due to the fact that it has 2 borders that could be hostile and a third that is a quick jaunt across the Bering strait. But that doesn't mean it would be less difficult to take over, particularly with all of it's NATO allies.

 

[Baradiel]

Either Russia or China. I'd say China for everything, because of the last military stats I remember looking at show them being able to draw up roughly 600 million troops. Even if they weren't trained and given basic weapons, a ground invasion would be devastating for both sides. Plus, they have nuclear weapons, so the potential for MAD would hopefully restrict their use.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

I think all categories lead to Russia winning this in a clean sweep. Look at the size, the terrain, and the population of the fucking thing! It's huge, it's all snowy and it has enough people to just throw waves of fuckers at you until you just give up.

There's some battle during World War 2 between invading German forces and Russian troops where, in one battle, Russia threw about a million soldiers in there all at once, not counting the vast amount of tanks and other support. They won based on both sheer numbers, and because you do not fuck with a pissed off Russian!

 

[loc978]

I'd be tempted to say Switzerland, but that would sort of depend on where you're invading from. If you were invading from northern Italy or Austria, you'd be on pretty good footing for air superiority... unless they ran a counter-bombing campaign on all of your airbases. The Swiss have a lot of hills to hide bases... and snipers.
On the other hand you have Russia, China, the US and Canada... all of which simply have so much space to cover that the invasion would take decades and require massive supply lines.

So...
Costliest and longest: Russia, China, The US, or Canada... take your pick.
Hardest and bloodiest: Switzerland.

 

[Continuity]

USA by a million miles, first they are flanked by the two biggest oceans in the world, the have fucking huge land mass and large population, very technologically advanced, massive military with the largest military budget in the world and most technologically advanced military in the world plus largest and most advanced nuclear capability.

There isn't even a clear second place, even adding all of Europe together is still only a fraction of the difficulty of the US... russia, china and the Bric economies just have too many weaknesses, the have money and man power but corrupt or ineffectual governments and relatively trivial military capability compared to the US.

 

[SillyBear]

The USA, by quite a long stretch. Maybe Russia because it's bigger and has a harsher environment, but I think you'd have more opposition in the USA.

 

[emeraldrafael]

...
Longest: Antartica because theres nobody there

wouldnt that be the shortest then? and isnt Antarctica in some kinda world wide agreement to share? otherwise all the little science outposts there would be killing each other.

OT:

Switzerland and/or Afghanistan. IN all their history, I dont think either has been taken over, or at least thats what i hear from the people who live there that brag about how they're surrounded by mountains.

Now, if you were to mean an invasion which would also lead to you trying to keep the land itself, then I would say either a place like those two above, or the US, just cause a high number of civilians carry guns. There's also this small tidbit I saw a few months ago from a newspaper. America's Army drafts 3% of the country's population. of that 3, only 1% of it makes it training. So you havea lot of rejected trained soldiers, a good number of people who grow up and live hunting and knowing the land, and the gangs that constant fight an urban warfare against each other.

With those three groups by themselves, not working in any organized way, itw ould be hard to occupy the land and keep it.

... but then again, I'm somewhat biased as I live in the US, and have seen a good bit of the gang violence and what it brings.

 

[Gizmo1990]

The uk. As soon as any invading army got to Liverpool every vehicle would be up on bricks within seconds