Can United States Conquer the World?

Rex Romanum

Banned
I remember reading something like this somewhere in this forum:
"Canada and Mexico would fall to US forces in a matter of weeks. USN and USAF could easily blocade Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean. US forces in Europe would quickly occupy the national capitals and many key cities, while using the populations as human shields againt regional governments. The same things happened in Japan and South Korea. South America and Africa are tough nut to crack, but sooner or later they will be conquered no matter what. US forces in Middle East would move to occupy Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other minor countries to secure the oil supplies for US forces around the world. Oh, and I forget, Russia, China, and India are get ruined by US nukes. Voila, the entire world get conquered."
What's your opinion? Should this thread get moved into ASB forum?
 
They can barely hold on to Afghanistan with a multi-country coalition spearheaded by some of the top military minds with some of world's best and most revolutionary equipment.

They enacted conscription in Vietnam, conducted it as if it was a real, threatening war to the United States and look how that ended up.

So no. The U.S. could nuke the world and I guess see what happens after that, but conquering the world is not something I think they could accomplsh.
 
I remember reading something like this somewhere in this forum:
"Canada and Mexico would fall to US forces in a matter of weeks. USN and USAF could easily blocade Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean. US forces in Europe would quickly occupy the national capitals and many key cities, while using the populations as human shields againt regional governments. The same things happened in Japan and South Korea. South America and Africa are tough nut to crack, but sooner or later they will be conquered no matter what. US forces in Middle East would move to occupy Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other minor countries to secure the oil supplies for US forces around the world. Oh, and I forget, Russia, China, and India are get ruined by US nukes. Voila, the entire world get conquered."
What's your opinion? Should this thread get moved into ASB forum?

Doing a quickie:
First of all, weeks for Mexico? It is a very armed society. While the government will fall, what prevents the Mexicans from going after the supply lines? What about the large Mexican and latin-American minorities inside the US, many of them have families back home and might actually start a small guerilla war inside the US.

I don't think the US forces can get to Paris from Brussels while occupying Haag, Amsterdam, Brussels, the Ruhr area and many other important cities. The US have no bases in France, AFAIK. How many COMBAT soldiers do the US actually have in western Europe? How large are the STANDING armies of those western European countries? Also remember that France has nukes and no American bases. If the US starts nuking China and Russia and attacking western Europe, the French will most likely launch nukes at the US.

And if the US is nuking people, I do not think the militaries of the western European nations will care about a few civilian hostages or meat shields. They will attack and wipe out the isolated American bases and occupation zones.

How large is the US army in combat personell? 500 000 or so? Finland, that does not have any american bases, AFAIK, has 350 000 men. Sweden, also without bases, have about 60 000 men. Both have modern mechanised forces and air forces (Sweden operated about 100 top-modern Gripen fighters with another 50 in mothball). France has a large army and nukes.

And what prevents Russia and China from launching nukes at the US? Both have warning systems you know.

Entirely ASB.
 
And who lobotomised Americans into wanting to rule the world? Aren't the vast majority of them far too sensible to take on such a thankless job?
 
And who lobotomised Americans into wanting to rule the world? Aren't the vast majority of them far too sensible to take on such a thankless job?

We've never been that sensible before....
Well, Washington was, but we've chosen not to take his excellent advice*. Bailing out Europeans is a thankless job....

* "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

"Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

"Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?"

Source: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
 
It would be impossible for America. Notwithstanding the fact that America isn't really the superpower it's painted to be anymore (certainly not vis-a-vis the world outside of the USSR that it was immediately after WWII), there is also the fact that, although America is the world's biggest naval power, aswell as one of the world's foremost air powers, it is not one of the world's greatest land powers, even given the technological advances it has on many countries (which of course it doesn't have on western Europe, notably the UK, a country which America shares a LOT of military technology).

If we're talking a war of attrition, which undoubtedly it would become, it would most likely end up as - at the very best for the USA - the America's vs the old world. Given the size of the land army that could be raised just by Russia, China and India, and given that most of the Spanish speaking parts of the America's would be in revolt, then frankly the whole concept is laughable.
 
My theory is that the USA can dominate the world, but not physically conquer it, since it simply has not the sized groundforced, nor population numbers needed for just that.

To physically conquer something like a state, of other geographical erea of on the ground, you need groundforces to fysically controll the erea. As even in Iraq and Afghanistan this meant sending in more manpower than was available, the objectives had to be adjusted to deploy local controll only, leaving the rest of the vast landsurface to anyone else. This objective was forced uppon by the means available for the USA, not the resisitance of the opposing forces, as these did not fight an even war against the USA and its allies, but an uneven one, nobody can actually completely controll. (There simply was no regular statecontrolled army to fight against, but a bunch of individuals and sectaric factions in something like an anarchy.)
 
At end of WW2 the US could have done so with ease. Europe's economy was in ruins, Soviets had been bleed white and where totally dependent on US Lend Lease for offensive operations. US had lone access to Atomic Weapons.

There was about the same political will in 1945 for such a stunt than there is today, which is to say none at all.

Could the US take over the world today? Not in a single campaign and not without giving all sorts of warning signs. Also the US would be require to use pre-1945 methods to deal with partisans, IE what are commonly called war crimes today.

US could take Canada and Mexico very quickly. Mexico would require effort to hold as its population is large, all sorts of weapons in hands of military, police and drug gangs. Then years spent attempting to do something useful with economy. It would 10 years to digest Mexico and that assumes ruthless use of force and crushing resistance in first few years.

As noted above this would freak the rest of the planet and before the US could move elsewhere the rest of the world would have time to respond. Central and South America would be next but its the work of another generation to take them over and integrate them, with mounds of dead and rivers of blood.

So 30 year or so down the line the US could have taken over all of North and South America but even the peacenic Euro's would have to awoken to the threat of this Evil-American Empire.

By this point the resource advantage would be firmly with the US but multiple powers have nukes and odds are the conquest of South America would have scene local use of them by Brazil and Argentina at least. No way to predict how the next step of such a campaign would play out. I tend to think the result is world being slagged down personally.

The idea is ASB land, its born of either silly fan boy thoughts or people who think the US is an evil power and don't really understand how the nation ticks. The time for such a path to be gone down was in the 19th century. Where its possible for an ever expanding US blob to just eat the entire new world; not likely but certainly possible. After the US stopped expanding and other states in the New World adapted their own national identities this idea has no real chance. Especially as for man states in the New World their national identity is some form or part, "We are Not Americans and we are not going to be."
 

Riain

Banned
There probably isn't an armed force of any country that the US couldn't beat in a stand up fight. But I think that if the US did start to really go nuts coalitions would start to form that could start looking at going toe to toe under certain conditions, and this is the first step down the road to a US defeat in stand up battle.
 
Nope. It's the 21st Century now, if they tried by the time they proceeded to launch large-scale wars across North America Russia, France, and the UK will turn the USA to green glass. The end.
 
At end of WW2 the US could have done so with ease. Europe's economy was in ruins, Soviets had been bleed white and where totally dependent on US Lend Lease for offensive operations. US had lone access to Atomic Weapons.

There was about the same political will in 1945 for such a stunt than there is today, which is to say none at all.

Could the US take over the world today? Not in a single campaign and not without giving all sorts of warning signs. Also the US would be require to use pre-1945 methods to deal with partisans, IE what are commonly called war crimes today.

US could take Canada and Mexico very quickly. Mexico would require effort to hold as its population is large, all sorts of weapons in hands of military, police and drug gangs. Then years spent attempting to do something useful with economy. It would 10 years to digest Mexico and that assumes ruthless use of force and crushing resistance in first few years.

As noted above this would freak the rest of the planet and before the US could move elsewhere the rest of the world would have time to respond. Central and South America would be next but its the work of another generation to take them over and integrate them, with mounds of dead and rivers of blood.

So 30 year or so down the line the US could have taken over all of North and South America but even the peacenic Euro's would have to awoken to the threat of this Evil-American Empire.

By this point the resource advantage would be firmly with the US but multiple powers have nukes and odds are the conquest of South America would have scene local use of them by Brazil and Argentina at least. No way to predict how the next step of such a campaign would play out. I tend to think the result is world being slagged down personally.

The idea is ASB land, its born of either silly fan boy thoughts or people who think the US is an evil power and don't really understand how the nation ticks. The time for such a path to be gone down was in the 19th century. Where its possible for an ever expanding US blob to just eat the entire new world; not likely but certainly possible. After the US stopped expanding and other states in the New World adapted their own national identities this idea has no real chance. Especially as for man states in the New World their national identity is some form or part, "We are Not Americans and we are not going to be."

I'm not so sure. At the end of WWII the USA was in the best position, sure, but all the same there's still a hell of a lot of Russians for the USA to defeat and I'm pretty sure that if they tried for world domination the other Allies would not exactly just sit back and take it, either.

How much patience would the US masses have for trying occupy all of Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and Africa at the same time?
 
We're more sneaky about conquering the world, doing so through gradual assimilation than outright conquest. Before the world knows it, they will all be Americans. :D
 
Nope. It's the 21st Century now, if they tried by the time they proceeded to launch large-scale wars across North America Russia, France, and the UK will turn the USA to green glass. The end.

If you think all these other countries will start a nuclear war that will lead to their own obliteration if the US tries to conquer Mexico and Canada, you're very naive.

Who cares if it's the 21st Century? Russia ground Georgia into the ground in the 21st Century and nobody did anything to stop it.
 

Riain

Banned
We're more sneaky about conquering the world, doing so through gradual assimilation than outright conquest. Before the world knows it, they will all be Americans. :D

"Would you like fries with that?" has already conquered the world. I mean, what the fuck is a fry? It looks and tastes like a measly, soggy chip.
 
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