2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

[LynahFan]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

I really hope this is true. The problem with a conventional war between nuclear powers is the end game. Unless it's a stalemate, the side that's losing will be tempted to ratchet things up a little higher. Eventually you run out of conventional "higher." And if an opponent uses tactical nuclear weapons in a battlefield situation, do you respond with strategic nuclear bombing of his cities? The "doomsday" decision just gets kicked down the road.

Let's say Crazy Ivan lived up to his name this evening and just started pouring tank columns into Ukraine, didn't stop, crossed into Poland, and was making pretty good time towards the German border. Meanwhile the Russia air force took out NATO's (and whatever the EU's flying circus is) and had air superiority within the first 12 hours. Short of tactical nuclear weapons, what could the west do to halt the attack?

Halt? Probably nothing, but you don't have to win the first battle to win the war.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Meanwhile the Russian air force took out NATO's (and whatever the EU's flying circus is) and had air superiority within the first 12 hours. Short of tactical nuclear weapons, what could the west do to halt the attack?

This is where your scenario falls apart. Why not say what if Russia made an alliance with Godzilla and invaded the West while the creature was terrorising NYC or Tokyo?

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

This is where your scenario falls apart. Why not say what if Russia made an alliance with Godzilla and invaded the West while the creature was terrorising NYC or Tokyo?

Pfft. Obviously Godzilla has a prior alliance with China.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Halt? Probably nothing, but you don't have to win the first battle to win the war.

That doesn't make Angela feel any better, and the Germans have nukes. "Stillstand." "Nyet." "I mean it." "Make me." Now what?

The Russians probably don't believe we'd escalate. "Ze vest ees decadent!"

 

[unofan]

That doesn't make Angela feel any better, and the Germans have nukes. "Stillstand." "Nyet." "I mean it." "Make me." Now what?

Russia getting air superiority is a laughable premise.

And Rover's right. Ukraine's mistake was not joining NATO. Putin has been extremely cautious to avoid any entanglements with the eastern block countries that have since joined up with NATO.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

That doesn't make Angela feel any better, and the Germans have nukes. "Stillstand." "Nyet." "I mean it." "Make me." Now what?

The Russians probably don't believe we'd escalate. "Ze vest ees decadent!"

I don't believe the Germans would escalate, either. Their national psyche is already permanently scarred from the atrocities of 70 years ago; I can't see them making the leap and becoming "that country" again.

 

[walrus]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Something I've thought about the last few days...is it possible that we're seeing the opening shots of World War 3 over the last several weeks/months? I see no way this Russia/Ukraine conflict ends well. I think Putin is too proud to back down. The thing I can't figure out is the Islam/Israel factor. Israel is obviously an ally of the US, but is Islam an ally of anyone? If the worst case were to happen, and this explodes into an all-out world war situation, is it a 3-way war? What does China do?

Really scary stuff to think about.

Welcome to the 50s and 60s, its deja vu all over again

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Russia getting air superiority is a laughable premise.

Against us, yes. Against western Europe? I have a feeling the Luftwaffe aint what it was.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

I don't believe the Germans would escalate, either. Their national psyche is already permanently scarred from the atrocities of 70 years ago; I can't see them making the leap and becoming "that country" again.

There's that, yes. But self-defense is way different.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Welcome to the 50s and 60s, its deja vu all over again

Only for paranoid people dying to relive the Cold War.

Kep no offense but your scenario is nonsense. I'm not sure Russia can even afford to maintain its airforce, let alone turn it into the best flying force the world has ever known, which is what it would need to be to achieve air superiority over NATO. In 12 hours....

Also, I was unaware of Germany having nukes, meaning weapons. IIRC the declared nuclear states are US, UK, France, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and N. Korea with Israel suspected of having the capability but never acknowledging it.

 

[Priceless]

Only for paranoid people dying to relive the Cold War.

Kep no offense but your scenario is nonsense. I'm not sure Russia can even afford to maintain its airforce, let alone turn it into the best flying force the world has ever known, which is what it would need to be to achieve air superiority over NATO. In 12 hours....

Also, I was unaware of Germany having nukes, meaning weapons. IIRC the declared nuclear states are US, UK, France, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and N. Korea with Israel suspected of having the capability but never acknowledging it.

Germany has nukes (as do Belgium, Italy, Greece etc) because we gave them to those countries during the Cold War. Have we ever taken them back?

 

[Craig P.]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

All it takes is one idiot bystander to up the ante by trying to make the conflict "fair" or jumping in because somebody is getting the thit beaten out of them. Then it becomes a runaway reaction.

Sort of like the Balkans 100 years ago.

100 years ago, Austria was spoiling for a war in the Balkans to gain hegemony over Serbia and Germany was spoiling for a fight with both France (because they thought they could win) and Russia (because Russia was going to be impregnable when they finished a military overhaul in about five years).

And for all of that, I suspect it still might have been averted if Germany had caught on a little faster that they had no realistic hope of keeping Britain neutral.

At least for the time being, Putin is coming off like a bully who's pushing Ukraine around because he can but has no real interest in engaging anyone with real teeth; on the other side, there's nobody set to take a stand over Ukraine the way Russia was set to take a stand over Serbia in 1914. I really don't see any echoes of the start of WW1 here.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

The key to WW1 was miscalculation. Hopefully with modern intel the main would-be belligerents know a lot more about each other, and more importantly they know that everyone else knows.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Only for paranoid people dying to relive the Cold War.

Kep no offense but your scenario is nonsense.

None taken, it's not meant to be realistic, it's meant as a thought experiment about how a conventional war could get dirty despite everybody's initial desire to keep it clean. As far as air superiority is concerned, the folks at the war colleges and NDU seem to always be saying the Russians could mount a great early air campaign, but they'd be screwed by attrition because they just don't have an effective infrastructure to repair and replace material. But, in the period before the US brought our air power into the war they'd probably blow away what little Europe could come up with. That's not meant as a paean to Russian air, it's meant as an evaluation of what NATO forces minus coordination with the US military look like.

There's at least one guy with actual knowledge about this on the forum; his opinion would trump all of ours.

If we're just talking likelihood, presumably the best bet is a mistake causes one power to believe the other has launched against it.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

There's at least one guy with actual knowledge about this on the forum; his opinion would trump all of ours.

If you mean me, I have to plead ignorance. I'm reasonably knowledgeable about the capabilities of individual aircraft, but theater-level capabilities, force structures, etc. are way out of my league. Someone stratospherically above my pay grade decides what objectives to defend, someone far above my pay grade decides how much $$$ we have to devote to those resources, someone well above my pay grade decides what type of assets we can develop for that price and what capabilities they need to have, and then finally people like me can roll up our sleeves and design the actual Thing. Asking me about theater-level defense strategy would be like asking a fuel pump engineer at GM about interstate infrastructure policy.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

If you mean me, I have to plead ignorance.

Yes, I mean you.

Put it this way: none of us know, but at least you might have read something of value about it because of your interests.

But I take your point.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

The key to WW1 was miscalculation. Hopefully with modern intel the main would-be belligerents know a lot more about each other, and more importantly they know that everyone else knows.

I'm not sure it would have helped on the Central Powers side. I think the miscalculations were things that would be every bit as likely to happen today if the same circumstances arose. Look no farther than how the U.S. bungled Iraq for a counterpart to how Germany bungled their war planning—in their case, taking a plan that was drawn up to bring their entire army to bear on France, then splitting off a big fraction, something like 1/4 to 1/3 to the eastern front, and still thinking it would work. And as far as Germany's misreading of Britain's likelihood of staying neutral, I think there are plenty of modern-day situations where we have a hard time getting a bead on what an individual country is going to do in an exceptional situation.

Maybe it would have helped on the western side, where Britain would have more clearly communicated their position to Germany, who I don't think would have started the war or egged Austria-Hungary on if they had known where the British would come down.

 

[joecct]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

I'm not sure it would have helped on the Central Powers side. I think the miscalculations were things that would be every bit as likely to happen today if the same circumstances arose. Look no farther than how the U.S. bungled Iraq for a counterpart to how Germany bungled their war planning—in their case, taking a plan that was drawn up to bring their entire army to bear on France, then splitting off a big fraction, something like 1/4 to 1/3 to the eastern front, and still thinking it would work. And as far as Germany's misreading of Britain's likelihood of staying neutral, I think there are plenty of modern-day situations where we have a hard time getting a bead on what an individual country is going to do in an exceptional situation.

Maybe it would have helped on the western side, where Britain would have more clearly communicated their position to Germany, who I don't think would have started the war or egged Austria-Hungary on if they had known where the British would come down.

Barbara Tuchman in her seminal work "The Guns of August" cites that the Kaiser wanted to throw the whole weight of the German Army against Russia then deal with France after the Russians were knocked out. Von Moltke convinced the Kaiser that the attack on France was in full motion and nothing could be done to reverse the flow. Post war analysis showed that it was possible to move the entire German Army from the border with Belgium to the Eastern Front in a matter of days, but VM wanted to stick to the Plan.

 

[burd]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

The key to WW1 was miscalculation. Hopefully with modern intel the main would-be belligerents know a lot more about each other, and more importantly they know that everyone else knows.

Is 2003 intel considered modern?

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2nd Term Part VIII - The Thin Red Line

Tea Party LOLs.