China

They would sell us all the guns

fyp

You're not backing up your own argument here either, though. You're simply gainsaying another argument. That's no argument in itself. So I'm not sure what we're supposed to take from your post. If you have an argument, go ahead and make it.

It's perfectly and quite clearly on point; however, I think he's getting Iraq mixed up with Afghanistan when he says that the Soviet Union had so much trouble fighting Iraq.

You are correct, sir. My bad.

IMO, it's ridiculous to compare a nation-state (the U.S.) with a political/economic union (the EU) in the first place. A central, unified government makes a huge difference when we're talking about how "powerful" a country is. While the EU treaties and colorful maps and impressive group-statistics give the appearance of unity, the reality is that the EU member states are far from united in many very important ways. Aside from the obvious lack of a common language and nationalism among member-states, just look at the past and ongoing disagreements between EU states regarding the nature and enforcement of their union ties.

As these types of comparisons between the EU and the US get more and more common, we have to remember that EU member-states are still individual members of the international community. They are a team only so far as the benefits of that union bring net gains to each member individually. In the realm of international relations -- and remember that the EU is, by definition, an embodiment of international relations -- the only motivator for action is the acquisition of power by individual states. Each EU member state has the potential of gaining power from its other co-members, and it's not unlikely that this will happen in a substantial enough manner as to cause serious rifts within the EU. This cannot happen to the U.S. That's a big, big difference.

I didn't say his point was unclear, I didn't say I disagreed with it (although I do, in parts), I said it was irrelevant to this discussion.

A minority of apparently 'erroneous' and unsubstantiated European comments on the US invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan has no baring on a discussion regarding the USA vs ROW (as laid out in the thread title), nor does the past failures of the Soviets. The situations are completely different. There is no valid comparison in history that can be made, so attempting to make them in favour of any one argument is pointless. If his comments are not meant to have a baring on this argument, then why make them in the first place? Other than for propaganda, or nationalistic rhetoric, of course.

My introduction of past comments from Europeans and the comparison of U.S. to Soviet military power was not intended to show evidence of who would win a world -vs- U.S. scenario, but to show evidence that others' opinions expressed in doing so underestimate U.S. military power. This is a discussion, not a series of replies to the OP's query.

I agree entirely, a good post imo.

So, given the differences between and consequences of centralised power (USA) and that possessed by a union (ROW), how do you feel this would impact a global war, USA vs ROW, as the OP originally asked..

I think the thing people fail to see that in current wars and battles we are fighting them in a manner to minimize casualties on both sides. If our backs were to the wall there would no longer be any compunction or concern about blowing entire countries off the map and destroying everyone. I think people mistake or cautiousness for weakness.

Make no mistake about it. If and when it were necessary we would Eff somebody up and then some.

we talk about the war of 1812. and theres is no wai u can claim Canada won that as Canada wasnt even a free nation. Ironicly we were fighting over the Ohio valley nao US states and the Part of Canada that wants to leave Canada.

The lack of cohesion of the EU is definitely well worth pointing out. FWIW I England would probably throw its lot in with us than EU if it came to war. For that matter, so would almost everyone else.

You are probably right on that. The "symbiotic relationship" considered.

Its a scame, Baby.

I wasn't making an argument one way or the other, I was saying that to try and compare two countries (or continents, or cities, or anything) by some finite set of criteria and hope to decide that one is generally 'better' is ridiculous - there is no objective definition of a superpower, nor an objective, meaningful way to compare countries overall, and if there were it certainly wouldn't be the ten criteria in that article. There's so many potential points of comparison, to which different people will proscribe completely different levels of importance, and within which people will interpret and rank each country's performance differently, that to think you're going to be able to prove overall superiority by choosing just a few criteria like that is stupid.

For example, the article says that to 'match' the US, China will have to fulfill all 10 of its criteria. So say it surpasses the US on five of them, by the writers judgement the US will still be 'ahead' and thus the only superpower. Any idiot can see, though, that in that scenario the US also falls behind in 5 categories, and thus by the writers judgement is also not the better superpower - so neither the US nor China is as good as the other, as neither has all 10.

Not only that, but there are a multitude of other criteria that the article ignores, including those which America is ahead of and those in which it is behind, that many people would consider far more important than some of those that are listed.

So my point was a) it's completely asinine to think that you can come up with a small set of criteria like that and think they'll prove definitively that one place is 'better' and b) that it's funny to me that when someone tries to do it anyway, and chooses criteria that they aren't necessarily so dominant in but say that they are to prove their dominance, that people believe it enough without thinking about it to reference it.

(and for the record, I wasn't necessarily arguing that Europe is comparable to the US, I was responding to the article's comparison)

is it agreed that when countries go to war it is really just the governments going to war?

This. It certainly isn't far-fetched to believe that EU Countries could be on the opposites sides of a World War.

But, to answer your question, assuming the EU member-states decided to stick together in this hypothetical battle between the entire world and the U.S., the EU's current collaboration could be beneficial to their side as they would be more prepared to work together militarily. I also think it would be beneficial for the EU as a "team" on the side opposite the U.S. to have a sort of group nationalism for the purposes of gaining the support of citizens.

All that said, the U.S. would military would probably still stand a pretty good chance of out-fighting the rest of the world. Our weapons are just unparalleled.

Of course, none of this could happen within our lifetimes. China would never stand for it. If the U.S. were annihilated, China would be left with very little income from exports, and practically no capital (since much of their wealth is held in the form of U.S. Treasury Bonds).

In a sense, but not entirely. I mean, you don't see members of Congress on the battlefield (although many would like to), and one very important aspect of a country's war-making ability is the morale of its troops, which is reflective of public support. Oh, and citizens also end up getting bombed and shot, so there's that to think about, too. So, I think it's best to say that when governments decide to go to war, people end up involved whether they want to be or not.

I'm sure Britain and Ireland would prefer to ally to the US rather than Germany and France. We have way more in common with America than the rest of Europe.

Amen brother. Culturally, it's not even close. There is a obvious reason for that, besides language, and the fact that we are bred to hate our European counterparts (especially the French) after essentially a 1000 years of sustained warfare.

Diplomacy with our Channel neighbours has never been our strongpoint. It still echoes today, just look at the rampant Euroskepticism.

I suggest blowing up the tunnel now as the french are lazy so you would destroy them with the tunnel gone.

lol @ discussing the prospect of a war between europowers and the USA.

it's all about capping the A-Rabs.

Now hasnt the USA gone to **** since this was made

Pretty sure in this scenario like 95% of the world's population ends up dead.

listen mick dundee - we still have a **** ton of nukes and can kill everybody