Too Fragile to Fight
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In a magisterial analysis of warfare from the Romans to World War II, Cathal Nolan argues that wars between peers or near-peers almost always become bloody contests of attrition, and these have gotten worse over time
Even when they have nuclear weapons?
In what scenario would we have a direct conflict with Russia, after avoiding it for for the entire cold war?
In what scenario would we start shooting at the Chinese, before waging very mutually destructive economic war with them?
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The Russians moving into Cuba almost caused it.
I could imagine the Russians being equally unhappy about the US moving into Ukraine.
I could imagine Mr. Biden starting a war for all kinds of demented reasons. The Russians probably can too. They might think it is better to shoot first.
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@xenon said in Too Fragile to Fight:
In a magisterial analysis of warfare from the Romans to World War II, Cathal Nolan argues that wars between peers or near-peers almost always become bloody contests of attrition, and these have gotten worse over time
Even when they have nuclear weapons?
In what scenario would we have a direct conflict with Russia, after avoiding it for for the entire cold war?
Look out the window. We are currently doing everything but direct conflict, and we're very, very close. We're one Gulf of Tonkin incident away from direct war with Russia. And in a climate in which Poots might just make up a Tonkin incident because he feels like it, or gets insane intelligence that he could crush NATO in a matter of days, or Anonymous might go too far and drag the world into war.
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@xenon said in Too Fragile to Fight:
In a magisterial analysis of warfare from the Romans to World War II, Cathal Nolan argues that wars between peers or near-peers almost always become bloody contests of attrition, and these have gotten worse over time
Even when they have nuclear weapons?
In what scenario would we have a direct conflict with Russia, after avoiding it for for the entire cold war?
In what scenario would we start shooting at the Chinese, before waging very mutually destructive economic war with them?
Just a bit o' history...I knew a guy who was ground crewman in the Air Force during the Cuban Missile Crisis. SAC was at DEFCON 2. He said the nukes were loaded, the planes were fueled and were lined up on the tarmac, aircrew ready to go.
That's how close we came back then.
As the years have gone by, we've learned more about American plans, should we have gone to DEFCON 1. The U.S.S.R. was going to be nuked. So was China. And anybody else that had nukes the U.S considered to be unfriendly.
