The inevability of the Mongols

[Fabilius]

Hmm. Good point. But I was thinking more along the lines of a government-sponsered terror campaign... I think such a government might think twice, if they actually believed we would come down on them with nukes. But we wouldn't... at almost any cost... so they are pretty much free from that concern.

Ah... Now that´s totally different, the threat of nukes doesn´t work at a band of men that might be anywhere in the world, while it works against another government.

Still, what would be the effects in the long run of a commonly used weapon of mass destruction. Assuming, USA uses atomic bombs to resolve crisis such as:

Vietnam

Cuba

N.Korea

Iran

I dare say the effects might be the negative of positive if you know what I mean.

 

[rewster]

Yes, I agree. Nuking is a very bad thing. And since we agree so thoroughly, it serves to emphasize the point that we will do just about anything to avoid using it. We basically might as well not have the capability, as the result would be the same.
Imagine a nation that is willing to use the bomb, who invades another country or ten. All of the UN declares war and we'd of course be winning on the ground, but if this nation has ICBMs with nuclear warheads, and we start losing cities... I guarantee everyone in the US is going to stop caring one bit about those poor Central Asian and Middle Eastern nations that the bad guys are invading, and start demanding that we withdraw. I'm pretty sure the rest of the UN nations would do the same, with few exceptions. We would return nukes when we could, but assuming this is some desert nation, we might obliterate all the major cities only to find they've moved themselves into the nations they conquered. Would we then start nuking those cities?

This is an extremely scary possibility, but I don't think it is implausible.

 

[Hermanubis]

Yes, I agree. Nuking is a very bad thing. And since we agree so thoroughly, it serves to emphasize the point that we will do just about anything to avoid using it. We basically might as well not have the capability, as the result would be the same.

Not quite;

Would you imagine that in all the sixty years of the Cold War that The United States and the Soviet Union would not have gone to all out war with one another if not for The Atomic Bomb?
for many years that these weapons were built and maintained not to be used as weapons of war, but deterrent. Thus, their true perpose.

(an argument about the Cold War more then the Modern Geo-Political Situation; still, )

 

[rewster]

Not quite;

Would you imagine that in all the sixty years of the Cold War that The United States and the Soviet Union would not have gone to all out war with one another if not for The Atomic Bomb?
for many years that these weapons were built and maintained not to be used as weapons of war, but deterrent. Thus, their true perpose.

(an argument about the Cold War more then the Modern Geo-Political Situation; still, )

Yeah, you're right. To clarify, the nukes we have do serve a purpose... but only to keep large, developed nations from using them, or any weapon, for that matter, against us, and us against them. How would we use them in a situation where a smaller, more politically unpredictible nation had taken over another, and was using its cities as their own?

 

[Fabilius]

Yeah, you're right. To clarify, the nukes we have do serve a purpose... but only to keep large, developed nations from using them, or any weapon, for that matter, against us, and us against them. How would we use them in a situation where a smaller, more politically unpredictible nation had taken over another, and was using its cities as their own?

Small countries want to live as well.

I´d be more worried about terrorist groups that get their hands on nukes.

But then again I´m not worried at all


Anyways back on subject: Novogorod as capital of Russia,

 

[Keenir]

Anyways back on subject: Novogorod as capital of Russia,

You beat me to it: I was going to say "what does this have to do with Mongols?"

 

[rewster]

Good question.
Speaking of Russia...
Do they not count because they are technically from Northeastern Europe, rather than Central Asia? They did, after all, make incursions into both Europe and China. And I think they made extensive use of cavalry as well. Though I don't know that for sure.
I suppose they don't count because they weren't nomadic. Oh well.

 

[Max Sinister]

OK, you might count the Seljuk Turks as another half "horde" (their empire was big, but far from being as big as the Mongols').

 

[Gladi]

Bright day
Central Asia was a big big breeding ground for barbaric hordes for thousands and thousands of years. Aryans, Sarmatians and other...

 

[Fabilius]

You beat me to it: I was going to say "what does this have to do with Mongols?"

Haha, don´t know what I was thinking myself. Must´ve thought I was commenting on Alternate capitals thread.

 

[monkey]

Its not really proven that the Huns came from Mongolia, they could of just been a bunch of nomads from eastern europe.

 

[rewster]

OK, you might count the Seljuk Turks as another half "horde" (their empire was big, but far from being as big as the Mongols').

If we're going to limit this to empires the size of the Mongols, we're pretty much limited to the British Empire. And it would be a little difficult to describe the British as Central Asian horsemen.

 

[HelloLegend]

Its not really proven that the Huns came from Mongolia, they could of just been a bunch of nomads from eastern europe.

according to some historical sources, the khalka mongols are not the mongols of genghis khan day either, but the huns, the borijin mongols, and the khalka did share turkic family languages, so they are at least lingustically related if not blood related.

 

[rewster]

This is slightly offtopic, but it seems to me that the inevitability of the Mongols is so deeply ingrained in many of us that whenever a "What if the Norse brought horses to Vinland?" or "What if horses survived in the Americas?" thread appears, the end result is a Plains Indians tribe inevitably rising up and conquering the Eastern Woodlands and Mississippian civilizations, and maybe even threatening Mesoamerica.
I wonder why Australia and South America are not prone to this sort of parallelism?

 

[Max Sinister]

South America is farther away from areas with horses, esp. the pampas (where horses are really useful). And Australia is similar.