How large would a military have to be to simultaneously wage war?

How large would a military have to be to simultaneously fight a war against (2015) Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran? All four countries are working together. How large a military must one have to be able to successfully defeat this Alliance? In terms of size, how many troops, ships, and planes would be required to pursue such a massive war?
 
Depends on the objective, location, and scale of the war. A life-and-death struggle encompassing the entire Eurasian landmass nation states is quite a different beast from a proxy-war in Tajikistan or naval skirmish in the Northern Pacific.
 
Then it's a largely irrelevant discussion, because whichever side that starts losing is going to yank out the nukes and it doesn't matter how large the respective armies are then.
 
Work out the strength of those militaries combined and then X by 3 Artillery X by 4 and Tanks X by 5

That's the numbers you need for certain victory

Sea power is more difficult depending on mission

Of course this assumes peer forces and equipment etc - i.e. a Type 59 is not an Abrams M1A2
 
Then it's a largely irrelevant discussion, because whichever side that starts losing is going to yank out the nukes and it doesn't matter how large the respective armies are then.

Or to put it another way about as big as the current US military (given its current assets) that is why all the four above mentioned powers are obsessed with modernising or acquiring their nuclear arsenals.
 
Or to put it another way about as big as the current US military (given its current assets) that is why all the four above mentioned powers are obsessed with modernising or acquiring their nuclear arsenals.

But they tailor their defense policy in preparation for all of America's might coming down on them, not on whatever fraction we could spare while also taking on three other countries.
 
Offensively? It's a lost cause.

Defensively? Any state in the Americas is going to be fine, since only China has a decent blue-water navy, and that's not saying much.
 
But they tailor their defense policy in preparation for all of America's might coming down on them, not on whatever fraction we could spare while also taking on three other countries.

Nope the United States could interdict offensive operations by all four powers simultaneously. The US military is not actually built for conquest...something it has proven again recently but it does have tremendous long range destructive capacity without requiring recourse to nuclear weapons.

It lacks perhaps the means to occupy the home territories of the four OP powers with any great degree of effectiveness but only through the possession of nuclear weapons do all of them combined have the power to prevent purely destructive operations. It is worth noting however that even a relatively small number of deployable nuclear warheads of which only a relatively small percentage might reach their targets can inflict many times the damage required to render any military operation politically unpalatable. Then again if any of the OP powers were to risk using their nuclear weapons ( and Iran is yet to gain any capacity and NK's is minuscule and unreliable) they would suffer a counter strike sufficient to destroy any regime.

Hence all four powers work to avoid provoking a US armed response when pursuing their foreign policy.

To engage in a war of aggression you must be able to

1: survive the damage that will be inflicted upon you politically

2: Be able to overcome any potential adversary's efforts to prevent your operations

3: be able to exert effective control over the territories you subsequently acquire.

Currently all powers can effectively checkmate each other at 1 on the defensive because no current leadership can currently present to their people and regime structures a sufficient cause to risk the damage a major conflict would entail. As leaders typically like power and are not prepared to lose it willingly none of them are prepared to authorise such a war as envisaged.

While the US can destroy anyone's (everyone's) military anywhere this only becomes practical outside the territories of each of the nuclear powers as on home soil would constitute an existential threat (literally regimes would fall without their militaries) at which point the use of nuclear weapons becomes a no worse than any other case option. The US could physically survive a nuclear strike by China and perhaps Russia but any leadership would expect to be ousted in the aftermath.

Russia and China could expect to retain a great many physical assets post a US nuclear strike but any regime that invited or even merely suffered such a strike would be most likely dead. If they were not dead then they would have lost the means to continue effective control over their territories.
 

I'm a little confused as to what this has to do with my post. I wasn't commenting on whether or not the US as it stands could take all four listed countries, I was just saying that they wouldn't make plans for war against the US on the assumption that we're also fighting three other countries.
 
I'm a little confused as to what this has to do with my post. I wasn't commenting on whether or not the US as it stands could take all four listed countries, I was just saying that they wouldn't make plans for war against the US on the assumption that we're also fighting three other countries.
Well, the OP calls for cooperation among the Eurasian powers, so in this scenario they probably have made plans working with that assumption.
 
Any US warplan would focus on containment and disruption, not conquest.

The US armed forces circa 1988-90 with equipment updated for 2015 seems to be a logical size.

The Soviet Union +allies was a much bigger threat than present day Russa-China-Iran-N Korea
 
How large would a military have to be to simultaneously fight a war against (2015) Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran? All four countries are working together. How large a military must one have to be able to successfully defeat this Alliance? In terms of size, how many troops, ships, and planes would be required to pursue such a massive war?

Today ? Impossible, even for the americans. With allies in the picture, certainly but, it would be almost a total disaster and we are not ready for that. A little patience will do more; Vladimir is cooling down, the Ayatolla is sensing is limits
and the Chineses enjoy the show from North Korea. What ?! You don't think peace would come from that ? Who would have the most of such occurence, WW 3 would be the last one, all economies flattened. Gerard.
 
I'm a little confused as to what this has to do with my post. I wasn't commenting on whether or not the US as it stands could take all four listed countries, I was just saying that they wouldn't make plans for war against the US on the assumption that we're also fighting three other countries.

Well if by they you mean the planning staffs maybe not but it has likely been set as a problem to some junior officers or even some officers on the senior promotions track.

That aside you can otherwise decide the post is in the 'way too much information' category and study it anyway :D
 
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