03-04-2003, 07:46 AM
First of all, let's please leave conversation about morals and justifications out of this.
I'm interested in the logistic and other hard isues on this question.
I've been following the developments of the world situation very closely lately, same as many other here I'm sure. It's beginning to look like there is a real chance (small, but it doesn't look that impossible anymore), that US will have to face to wars at once, possibly with quite little military support. One in Iraq, and another infinitely harder one in North Korea.
Now, I've read about the status of US military along the years, and I remember reading in late nineties articles stating that (because of certain policies) US forces were no longer able to fight two fullscale wars at once. Yet this might be exactly what will happen. (Iraq presumably won't be that hard, but it's a fullscale deployment nonetheless)
What do you think would happen? What if North Korea does something drastic (let's say it's not a nuclear attack) before US attacks Iraq? What if it happens in the middle of the Iraq war? What if it happens just after Saddam Hussein is deposed, and a potential anarchy sets into Iraq? (ie. totalitarian system collapses into a civil war)
To me this seems to be probably the most dangerous time in my lifetime (during the cold war, even before Glasnost MAD somehow soothed fears + the US and Soviet leadership were mostly pretty "reasonable", even if sometimes slightly senile). Even if we rule out Nukes (I think NK is much more likely to use WMDs than Iraq, or any other country for that matter), I see some very bleak futures. Even a smallscale collapse of the US is not out of the question. Not meaning that it would be defeated, but that the demands required by two simultaneous fullscale wars would require sacrifices from the American public that they have not given at least since Vietnam, and perhaps since WW2. Will the economy be able to handle it? Probably not that well. Will the public tolerate such? etc. Many many very intriguing and frightening outcomes.
We truly live in interesting times.
I'm interested in the logistic and other hard isues on this question.
I've been following the developments of the world situation very closely lately, same as many other here I'm sure. It's beginning to look like there is a real chance (small, but it doesn't look that impossible anymore), that US will have to face to wars at once, possibly with quite little military support. One in Iraq, and another infinitely harder one in North Korea.
Now, I've read about the status of US military along the years, and I remember reading in late nineties articles stating that (because of certain policies) US forces were no longer able to fight two fullscale wars at once. Yet this might be exactly what will happen. (Iraq presumably won't be that hard, but it's a fullscale deployment nonetheless)
What do you think would happen? What if North Korea does something drastic (let's say it's not a nuclear attack) before US attacks Iraq? What if it happens in the middle of the Iraq war? What if it happens just after Saddam Hussein is deposed, and a potential anarchy sets into Iraq? (ie. totalitarian system collapses into a civil war)
To me this seems to be probably the most dangerous time in my lifetime (during the cold war, even before Glasnost MAD somehow soothed fears + the US and Soviet leadership were mostly pretty "reasonable", even if sometimes slightly senile). Even if we rule out Nukes (I think NK is much more likely to use WMDs than Iraq, or any other country for that matter), I see some very bleak futures. Even a smallscale collapse of the US is not out of the question. Not meaning that it would be defeated, but that the demands required by two simultaneous fullscale wars would require sacrifices from the American public that they have not given at least since Vietnam, and perhaps since WW2. Will the economy be able to handle it? Probably not that well. Will the public tolerate such? etc. Many many very intriguing and frightening outcomes.
We truly live in interesting times.