
We Asked a Military Expert if All the World's Armies Could Shut Down the US - ptwobrussell
http://www.vice.com/read/we-asked-a-military-expert-if-the-whole-world-could-conquer-the-united-states
======
nickff
The first paragraph of this article makes this author's political tendencies
eminently clear:

> _somewhere in Washington, DC, there are a bunch of rich men with white hair,
> white skin, and black hearts screaming and stomping around in their suits
> because they don 't want poor people to have affordable healthcare_

Leaving aside the fact that the author assumes that Republicans harbor the
most sinister motives possible, while Democrats are purely altruistic; income
is not a good predictor of party affiliation, (and vice-versa,) and the same
is true for race.[1]

This tirade makes me doubt the value of the article as a whole, though I
largely agree with the conclusion.

[1] [http://www.people-press.org/2009/05/21/section-1-party-
affil...](http://www.people-press.org/2009/05/21/section-1-party-affiliation-
and-composition/)

~~~
lsc
>income is not a good predictor of party affiliation, (and vice-versa,) and
the same is true for race.[1]

Huh. Your referenced link[1] seems to disagree with you; it seems to support
the assessment that the Republicans are both richer and whiter than the
Democrats, by a fairly large margin.

See the section under:

"GOP Continues to Lag in Racial & Ethnic Diversity"

and on income, it says:

"Party identification is strongly linked to family income levels – people in
the highest income households are roughly twice-as-likely as those in the
lowest income households to say they are Republicans."

[1][http://www.people-press.org/2009/05/21/section-1-party-
affil...](http://www.people-press.org/2009/05/21/section-1-party-affiliation-
and-composition/)

~~~
nickff
In the highest income quintile, 35% of respondents are independent, 32%
republican, and 30% democratic. I said that high income is not a good
predictor of party affiliation. If you are in the top income quintile, you are
almost equally likely to be independent, republican or democratic; how is
income predictive of party affiliation?

~~~
lsc
I was responding to:

>Leaving aside the fact that the author assumes that Republicans harbor the
most sinister motives possible, while Democrats are purely altruistic; income
is not a good predictor of party affiliation, (and vice-versa,) and the same
is true for race

From the link:

"Democrats continue to have a wide advantage among those with incomes in the
lowest quintile (under $20,000 in 2009 dollars). In 2009, 42% of lower income
Americans consider themselves Democrats – virtually unchanged in recent years
– while just 15% are Republicans, down slightly from 19% four years ago. But
in the next income level up (those earning between $20,000 and $40,000 in 2009
dollars) the GOP’s decline has been particularly sharp. In 2004, the Democrats
held a 13-point edge within this income group (38% vs. 25% Republican). Today,
that has opened up to a 24-point lead (40% vs. 16%) as Republican
identification has dropped off by 9 points."

But let's address your statement from your most recent comment:

>If you are in the top income quintile, you are almost equally likely to be
independent, republican or democratic; how is income predictive of party
affiliation?

If you are in the bottom quintile, you are not quite three times as likely to
be a democrat than a republican, and the next quintile up, again, you are more
than twice as likely to be a democrat than a republican.

That's still saying that someone who is very rich is much more likely to be a
republican (even if they still only have a 50% chance) than someone who is
very poor.

~~~
_delirium
Does the income-politics relationship remain if you look only within
ethnic/racial groups? Overall, poor people are more Democratic than rich
people, but the racial makeups of those income groups are also considerably
different: people making over $100k are much more likely to be white than
people making under $20k are.

It's possible the answer is still yes, but it'd be interesting to see a
breakdown.

~~~
lsc
It would certainly be interesting to see numbers; there is certainly a
perception among the left that the republican 'base' is poor and white. I
don't know how that meshes with reality

------
JumpCrisscross
John Mearsheimer called it the "stopping power of water," i.e. that "large
bodies of water limit the power projection abilities of militaries and thus
naturally divide up powers in the globe" [1]. It is a centre-point of his
theory of great power politics, which I see more and more explicitly driving
foreign and military policy in the U.S., NATO, and China.

As an interesting side point, a defence analyst in D.C. once quipped that
until very recently (and perhaps even now) China lacked the naval transport
capacity to invade Taiwan. The Taiwanese army, standing on the beaches, would
always vastly outnumber the number of Chinese infantry the P.R.C. could
simultaneously land. Thus Taiwan's strategic imperatives of building anti-
shelling and counter-subterfuge capabilities.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tragedy_of_Great_Power_Poli...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tragedy_of_Great_Power_Politics#The_stopping_power_of_water)

~~~
zmjones
Mearsheimer is an embarrassment to social science.

------
DevX101
Conquering the U.S. today would require an unconventional & asymmetric
approach.

One possibility could be intentionally dragging the U.S. into multiple
seemingly unrelated wars along several fronts (Iran moves to blockade the
Straight of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia bans export of oil to the U.S. and 'dares'
them to come take it back, and China shuts off all exports of goods to the
U.S., while on their campaign to 'liberate' South Korea). Each of these
actions are designed to seriously wound the U.S. economically thus inviting a
military response.

While the U.S takes the bait to engage in these 3 conflicts and overextends
herself (the U.S. military is built to fight just 1.5-2 wars), a group of
sleeper agents who have risen to positions of considerable power in the House
and the Senate begin the next phase by obstructing the war effort (denying
funding to the troops), and generating significant domestic dissent (raising
taxes considerably, while simultaneously cutting spending to subsistence
levels (no more food stamps, delay social security checks to make grandma go
hungry).

By this point, the country has no access to oil beyond our strategic reserves,
the economy is in shambles, rich people are pissed by the 80% war tax, and
poor people are pissed because they're not getting anything from it.

Now we enact phase 3 and send in the Canadian Mounties. They'll be greeted
with open arms by all Americans.

~~~
bane
> the U.S. military is built to fight just 1.5-2 wars

While technically true, I think WWII showed that the U.S. economy can ramp up
very quickly to military sizes that far outpace the current military
composition and makeup. If you count the European and Pacific theaters of WWII
as "2 wars" then compare the numbers involved to say, the Iraq and Afghan
wars...I think the comparison will explain itself.

~~~
gte910h
We have no steel industry anymore.

I'm not sure this is still true of the US, perhaps china could do this now

------
downandout
_Right now, somewhere in Washington, DC, there are a bunch of rich men with
white hair, white skin, and black hearts screaming and stomping around in
their suits because they don 't want poor people to have affordable
healthcare._

I stopped reading after that sentence. This article may have a linkbait
headline, but its only intention is to get its Republican hating, ultra-
liberal agenda across to anyone unlucky enough to see its somewhat intriguing
title and click on it. Too much of this stuff has found its way onto Hacker
News recently.

~~~
sliverstorm
In the absence of good tech news, HN usually starts to veer political.
Politics is the HN "slow news Tuesday".

~~~
diminoten
This article isn't political, the part he is referencing is satire at best, or
irrelevant at worst.

Read the article.

~~~
sliverstorm
I lump political satire in with politics.

~~~
diminoten
I wouldn't, for the same reason I wouldn't lump Jon Stewart in with news
reporters.

One's just trying to make you laugh, the other has a point.

~~~
sliverstorm
Jon Stewart isn't a news reporter, but I'd still lump him in with "news".
Satire has limited meaning when taken outside the scope of its source
material.

~~~
diminoten
That's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that the saitre is
meant to make you laugh, whereas political commentary is meant to express a
view.

One may do the other, but to lump them together is a grave mistake.

~~~
sliverstorm
It sounds like you are under the illusion that political satire has no agenda.

~~~
diminoten
Again, that's all well and good, but it _still_ doesn't change the fact that
the satire is meant to make you laugh, whereas political commentary is meant
to express a view.

~~~
sliverstorm
_satire is meant to make you laugh_

... and also to express a view.

If you understand that, I don't understand how you can view satire as purely
entertainment and completely a-political.

------
salient
Maybe not shut down, but I imagine if the US did something truly bad (nuking
an innocent country?), and there would be strong worldwide outrage to the
point that everyone would boycott - or even riot - against American companies
abroad, that would be pretty bad for US, and I assume/hope something they're
not willing to risk.

That being said, the US is becoming quite a scary country, with how far it has
expanded its military power all over the world, and the technological
advancements (mass surveillance, drone attacks, future autonomous combat
robots, etc), are only going to make this a bigger problem for the world.

The thing is it probably wouldn't be as scary, if everyone else could be
assured that the US public has quite a good grip on its own government, and
that we can expect them to act pretty rationally and reasonably.
Unfortunately, that doesn't really seem to be the case, which amplifies the
fear about US becoming too strong. For all we know we're just one
president/government away from US starting to act truly evil (although many
would say they are already doing that).

~~~
Zigurd
What really keeps this from happening on a small scale is that the rest of the
planet really is under US control.

If your spy agency and military leadership has a "cooperative" relationship
with the US that your government isn't willing to end based on Snowden's
revelations, then the freedom you have is all the freedom the US is
comfortable with you having.

Unless you live under US economic sanctions in a government run by a dictator,
your government is a vassal of the US.

With the possible exception of Iceland. So there are 200,000 people total who
are not governed by a US vassal or a maligned and sanctioned dictator.

~~~
eru
What about China?

~~~
Zigurd
Good question.

------
Whitespace
Very interesting. I wonder what the numbers are when the analyst from Jane's
says:

    
    
      And this is where you meet the second primary problem, which is technology. There are not enough aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare ships in the combined navies of the world to force an entry past the US Navy. There are not enough attack fighters to gain air superiority against the US Air Force.  This is how amazingly out of balance the military might of the world is today. "

~~~
taspeotis
I found a pretty reasonable table of the count of various military bits and
pieces by country on Wikipedia [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_level_of_m...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_level_of_military_equipment)

~~~
antihero
It does amaze me that a colossal nation such as China, with all the
manufacturing resources at its disposal, has only one carrier. It almost feels
like they haven't even bothered.

Perhaps building such ships would actually harm their international relations
because it could be seen as a precursor to aggression.

~~~
2jgi7
Carriers are a relic that have very little to do with modern warfighting.

~~~
njharman
Except they've been used in most every modern war / police engagement /
embargo. Only the most land locked areas or conflicts were neither side (not
any interested allies) had a carrier.

------
ChuckMcM
It wouldn't require an army, it would only require that Millenials go into
public service and vote. That is one of the cool things about our
institutions, they are designed that way.

------
bcx
I wonder if the author's point would hold, if biological weapons were used by
the attacker.

Smallpox made the first European invasion of North and South America a lot
easier.

A few well targeted weaponized viruses with a reasonably long incubation
period could greatly reduce our ability to defend ourselves. (The trick would
be making sure they didn't spread beyond US borders in an increasingly
globalized society)

------
viraptor
This started with an interesting idea "We need boots on the ground on the
White House lawns." but for some reason moved to analysing the foreign
military forces. I understand that there are quite a few people in the US at
the moment who love their right to own/carry a gun exactly so that they can
oppose the government. (I assume there's at least one book/movie with this
plot, but don't know any) Isn't the best course of action for anyone outside
to pretty much start a civil war? Instant deployment of armed men across the
whole country with no need for oversea transport, perfect knowledge of local
area, spread too thin to act against in a centralised way. Then convince the
neighbouring countries that they'll either support the upraising or they'll
have a tyranny based military policed country that will have to closely
control their whole population for the next decades to make sure there's no
more anti-government action.

Ok... now I really want to read that book if it exists.

~~~
moocowduckquack
_Isn 't the best course of action for anyone outside to pretty much start a
civil war?_

Or just wait around a while, by the looks of things.

~~~
viraptor
Do you really believe it could happen? I mean a real upraising and a civil
war? The way it's going now I think the US is past the time when it was
possible to trigger. I mean they can do terrible things one at the time
forever and most people won't care. (They don't at the moment) Noting major
and sudden will be allowed to happen.

~~~
moocowduckquack
All it takes is bad timing at this point, all the ingredients are there. Major
and sudden things happen without permission all the time, the belief in any
group of humans excercising omnipotency over stuff like that is just the
golden wall in action. As in, it is much, much easier to make most people
think you are in control, than it is to actually be in control. And most of
the time it sort of counts as the same thing. Sometimes it is even more
important. For instance, one thing you can count on in almost any civil war is
that as soon as one occurs, a bunch of surprised but experienced blaggers will
pretend that this is what they wanted all along and will rapidly seize power.

------
middleclick
Article aside, this concept of automatically playing videos on page load is
really really annoying.

------
Cardeck1
A nuclear war would end us all. There are no winners in this scenario. If you
think a country would stand a chance, you clearly do not know the nuclear
capabilities of today. One thing I hate though is the "we are invincible, nr.1
etc" attitude of some americans on vice.com. I don't understand why they keep
going with that mentality. It's ridiculous...

~~~
EpicEng
Idiots exist in every culture and creed, US citizens are no exception.

------
Glyptodon
I think it'd be easy if you could spend around 15 years (or less if you have
plenty of rockets lying around): Just tow a few dozen asteroids into orbit and
threaten to drop them on San Francisco or DC if the US does not bow down.

The best that could happen is that they're nuked during descent causing the
whole country to be covered in fallout asteroid dust.

~~~
stormcrowsx
Bad idea, US could shoot up their own rocket and that rock your threatening
with is now falling on you instead.

------
nostromo
I'd recommend skipping the intro and skip right to the Q&A.

It's an interesting article with a needlessly polemic intro.

------
diminoten
Since realistically this conversation never gets off the ground due to the
nuclear threat, are there any other countries in the world which have a
similarly redundant and "unbeatable" nuclear arsenal?

~~~
mpyne
The U.K. and France both have SSBNs. Russia did, and are at least building
more, but I'm not sure if their SSBN fleet continued operating after the Cold
War ended. China is developing an SSBN fleet if they haven't already (and they
do have other nukes).

I think ICBM capability is the big question. Russia undoubtedly has it, and
it's fair to say China probably does to. I'm not sure if the U.K. or France
ever bothered to develop ballistic missiles to mate with their warheads but
France at least could rather easily do it with their existing spacelift
infrastructure.

------
ptwobrussell
I thought it was disappointing that no mention of a distributed denial of
service attack or a cyber warfare angle was really developed in the story.

~~~
mpyne
FTA: "The solution for the invading world armies would be to negate the
importance of geography and technology. This means not relying on armies and
navies and air forces but instead targeting the US in the space and _cyber_
domains."

------
mpyne
The mission statement of CYBERCOM in a nutshell is contained in this article:
"By defeating US satellites _and attacking US networks_ , one bypasses
geography and eliminates technology, both that of the military and within the
industrial base that is at the core of that military might. "

