In the event of...

[Cooch]

Hehehe. Anyone has more to fear from the U.S. government then from anyone else. Because it's the most powerful one on the planet.

In principle, I disagree.

Risk is a combination of the probability of an adverse event and the degree to which it affects us.

It is not the most powerful that we should fear.
It is those who are sufficiently powerful, and belligerent.

An evil man with a club is more dangerous than a good man with a gun.

 

[Feanor]

I don't consider the U.S. government a good man. To extend your point, the "good" U.S. has done far more interventions, coups, and other hostile and usually military activities then most "evil" third world dictatorships.

 

[Chrom]

I don't consider the U.S. government a good man. To extend your point, the "good" U.S. has done far more interventions, coups, and other hostile and usually military activities then most "evil" third world dictatorships.

I would be hard pressed to find 5 other "evil" third would dictatorships which combined done as much interventions and coups as USA. However, USA government, given its power, is certainly by far not as bad as it could be.

 

[swampfox]

A better question would probably be what would happen if the U.S. army somehow lost and the U.S. was invaded/occupied.-

My guess would be high resistence. The U.S. has more guns per household than any other country in the world. The U.S. also has shown historically that it's people are decently nationalistic, expecially in time of crisis.

Nationalism + Guns = :nutkick

While we do have the most guns per household, most are handguns and hunting rifles, and so they wouldn't do all that much against an occupation. You need to remember that the resistance forces in France, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq had (and have) military-grade weapons, not a couple of revolvers.

 

[StevoJH]

While we do have the most guns per household, most are handguns and hunting rifles, and so they wouldn't do all that much against an occupation. You need to remember that the resistance forces in France, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq had (and have) military-grade weapons, not a couple of revolvers.

Hunting rifles kill to you know, the Semi-Auto's are at least as lethal as the full-auto's because someone firing one is more likely to take aim. And the older bolt action rifles wouldn't exactly be useless either (longer range and better accuracy). Hunting rifles are generally designed to have a decent range, and probably a bigger shell then assault rifles.

As people have said, the military strength of the country as such is relatively irrelivent, it is the size of the country that is important, invading the US, Canada or Australia would be like the German invasion of the USSR in WW2. Destined for failure, the distances are so large that even if you managed to occupy the country, you'd never find all of the resistance forces.

 

[chakos]

From an Aussies perspective i would have to say that size most definatelly matters.. That and having a hostile environment that the local population is used to but that an invading power would find alien. Lets not forget that the Russian winter was a far bigger killer of German soldiers than the Russian partisans.

 

[Nick4444]

it would be a co-ordinated strike by th emerging alliance comprised of the PRC, the Russian Federation, and Iran ... the bulk of the force directed against the USA would be from the PRC, with the other two directing their attentions against possible allies

 

[Cius]

I don't think its really feasible now but if it did happen it would be an alliance between China, India, North Korea, Russia, and Iran + a few other minors.

A more feasible situation is a spider game where someone like China uses economics to destroy the US first over a period of years. They might then also create total chaos by trying to hack or break the US finance system (similar to Tom Clancy's debt of Honor) while having a pearl harbor type attack that cripples the US pacific fleet. In Clancy's book he had an "accident" happen during a joint military initiative that disabled carriers.

Any land invasion would have to be carried out through Mexico. Still, its a far fetched scenario with the current standings of the USN.

Things to think about:
China is growing exponentially economically while the USA is facing a debt crises that could cripple the economy if someone managed to produce another sub prime mortgage level financial event.
India and China together have a formidable military.
China is creating partners all over the world. The biggest bank in China just bought a huge chunk of South Africa's biggest bank and this is happening all over the world.
China spends a lot on hiring and training hackers to control the internet.
I think the next world war will be fought on many many plains including sea, land, air, the internet and space (satalite control).

 

[Nick4444]

India's participation would be a question mark.
What we will likely see is a nuclear missile attack on the heart of the nation (Atlantic seaborad from New York City down to Washington, D.C.), from any of the following platforms: Cuba, Venezuela, the Russian Federation, Chinese submarine, or even space, contemporaneous with the disabling of our communication satellites, internet disablement, and television and radio jamming.
One should also expect strategic, surgical strikes against NORAD locations, missile silos, etc.
From Mexico, and internally, I could see the release of biological agents that their own soldiers would have been innoculated against.
Then I can see an incursion of more conventional forces (e.g., troops and tanks) landing in Florida (from their base in the Bahamas), and of course a massive incursion up and down the entirety of the West Coast.
The nuclear attack would also hinder any possible assistance from the European side, and depending on Canadian capabilities at the time, (I don't see Canada as much of a factor in the defense of the USA as an ally) but assuming some assistance could be expected there, perhaps the nuclear seal would be extended along that border.
(BTW, these are the capabilities that I see the PRC trying to develop; Currently, they wouldn't be able to carry this out).

 

[Maverickjag]

bring it on

If the US military were ever defeated. (Which I don't see happening anytime soon.) Then, once the enemy had attempted to occupy the US, they would be killed off by attrition. Judging from history alone, the more oppressive and violent the occupation forces were, the more rebels they would be fighting. That's the American spirit. I may be delusional about that at this point though because I am a soldier so I look at our country a bit differently. In any case, if a massive war doesn't come along soon, our nation is in troulbe. Every major war we have had united our country and motivatedus to rebuild the economy and look out for each other again. We are stagnating.
Were anyone to invade the US, they could not effectively occupy it. There are too many places to go. For example, I'm from Tennessee...there are plenty of woods and mountains where someone could hide while building a partisan force to fight back. I think the only way it could happen is if it was similar to Red Dawn but the whole nation would never be occupied. If it were, there would be places that the invaders would lose control of very quickly. Then they would have to choose to leave the whole nation a bombed out shell or to leave. The more you do, the harder we fight.