America vs the rest of the world. What would happen?

[Smitty-48]

How do you convince two marines and a sailor that America can't take on the entire world at the same time?

Trying to convince any American of anything is a fool's errand, Americans as a people are no longer conducive to reason, the country is essentially ruled by myth and superstition now, but in real terms, the US military, despite being colossally expensive, is in as an historically weak state as its been since the interwar years, by population, the Army is smaller than it was in the 1930s, consolidation in the shipbuilding industry means that the Navy no longer has the shipyards to maintain the fleet strength, and in aerospace, everything takes so long to develop now, the mass is collapsing there as well, depite how much money you're spending, your military is actually facing a looming "rust out" crisis on the horizon.

You're richer than the Russians, but you're caught in the same trap as they are, in that, you've been dining out on a huge Cold War arsenal from the 1980's, which is all going to rust out at about the same time, and what you can replace it with, is only going to be a fraction of that, no matter how hi-tech, it's simply not going to have the same critical mass, the US military of the 2030s is going to be tiny by Cold War standards.

[ssu]

You're richer than the Russians, but you're caught in the same trap as they are, in that, you've been dining out on a huge Cold War arsenal from the 1980's, which is all going to rust out at about the same time, and what you can replace it with, is only going to be a fraction of that, no matter how hi-tech, it's simply not going to have the same critical mass, the US military of the 2030s is going to be tiny by Cold War standards.

What I've followed is how old USAF aircraft have become. And the "super-fighters" F-22 & F-35 are simply not there to replace the F-16s and F-15s.

The current US Air Force fleet, whose planes are more than 26 years old on average, is the oldest in USAF history. Many transport aircraft and aerial refueling tankers are more than 40 years old – and under current plans, some may be as many as 70-80 years old before they retire. Since the price for next-generation planes has risen faster than inflation, average aircraft age will climb even if the US military gets every plane it asks for in its future plans.

USAF Chief of Staff said about the reality quite bluntly some time ago:

“The F-15s and F-16s were designed and built in the late ’60s and ’70s. Some of them were produced up until the early ’80s. But they’ve led a pretty hard life of 17 years of combat. So you have to replace them with something, because we were continuing to restrict the airplanes. In the F-15 case, we’ve got the airplane restricted to 1.5 Mach. It was designed to be a 2.5 Mach airplane. We’ve got it limited on maneuvering restrictions because we’ve had tail cracks, fuselage cracks, cracks in the wings. The problem with that is – and Mike Wynne uses this analogy – it’s almost like going to the Indy 500 race practicing all the way up until Memorial Day at 60 miles an hour, and then on game day, accelerating the car out to 200 miles an hour. It’s not the time to be doing that on game day.

So in our training models and in our scenarios, we’re limiting these airplanes because they’re restricted and getting old. So there’s two parts to the recapitalization of the fighter inventory. The first part is the existing stuff is old and it’s getting broke, and it’s getting harder to get it out of depot on time. And our availability rates and our in-commission rates are going down. The ability to generate the sorties on those old airplanes is in the wrong direction.”

[Smitty-48]

The F-22/F-35 situation gets the most press, but F-22/35 is actually a metaphor for the whole US military writ large, very expensive, very high tech, and for the most part very capable, but in terms of large scale warfare, not much mass at all, and as they say, quantity has a quality all on its own, there's just not enough mass to go around, the US military is rapidly shrinking, in order to pay for the expense of all the hi-tech, and the exponentially greater personnel costs as well, which is actually the most expensive line item of them all.

[Viktorthepirate]

The F-22/F-35 situation gets the most press, but F-22/35 is actually a metaphor for the whole US military writ large, very expensive, very high tech, and for the most part very capable, but in terms of large scale warfare, not much mass at all, and as they say, quantity has a quality all on its own, there's just not enough mass to go around, the US military is rapidly shrinking, in order to pay for the expense of all the hi-tech, and the exponentially greater personnel costs as well, which is actually most expensive line item of them all.

Volunteer Militaries are always going to have high personnel costs.

What scenario do we need a lot of mass for?

[Smitty-48]

Volunteer Militaries are always going to have high personnel costs.

America's are amongst the highest in the world, even in terms of volunteer forces, and the idea that you would get them cheaper cause "the draft" is a delusion, the personnel costs don't actually have much to do with the AVF, just another American myth, because even when America had a draft, the troops were expensive, America lavished expenditures on the conscripts in Vietnam in fact.

The American public is not prepared to accept privation, even if you draft them, you couldn't even afford a draft military now, with the expectations Americans would have in terms of throwing money at it, congress would be falling over themselves to "support the troops", just like they were with Vietnam.

You don't actually think that you fought the Vietnam War on the cheap, do you? The most expensive war per soldier America had ever fought, until the Iraq War came along. The draftees who fought in Vietnam, that was no World War Two, they were just as pampered as the Fobbits are now, and just as many of them were Fobbits in Vietnam, probably more actually.

What scenario do we need a lot of mass for?

Well at this point the classic American "fight two theater wars simultaneously" is no longer an option, but I believe the OP is "America v. The World.

[Viktorthepirate]

Volunteer Militaries are always going to have high personnel costs.

America's are amongst the highest in the world, even in terms of volunteer forces, and the idea that you would get them cheaper cause "the draft" is a delusion, the personnel costs don't actually have much to do with the AVF, just another American myth, because even when America had a draft, the troops were expensive, America lavished expenditures on the conscripts in Vietnam in fact.

The American public is not prepared to accept privation, even if you draft them, you couldn't even afford a draft military now, with the expectations Americans would have in terms of throwing money at it, congress would be falling over themselves to "support the troops", just like they were with Vietnam.

You don't actually think that you fought the Vietnam War on the cheap, do you? The most expensive war per soldier America had ever fought, until the Iraq War came along.

What scenario do we need a lot of mass for?

Well at this point the classic American "fight two theater wars simultaneously" is no longer an option, but I believe the OP is "America v. The World.

We'd be fine if it was needed. We lived in the middle of nowhere shitting in WAG BAGs and eating MREs when needed.

The support guys would be the ones who lost the most, but they'd get over it too if required.

And yea, you're right about the second part, the topic is US vs The World. We'd run out of jets and boats pretty quick.

[Smitty-48]

We'd be fine if it was needed. We lived in the middle of nowhere shitting in WAG BAGs and eating MREs when needed.

The support guys would be the ones who lost the most, but they'd get over it too if required.

Totally irrelevant what you think you'd "be fine" with, I know what you'd be fine with, but what I would give you and what the American public would demand on your behalf, two totally different ballgames, this idea you have, that if only the shit would just hit the fan, suddenly American society would re-order itself around privation and sacrifice, I don't find that to be credible.

Historically, pampered societies do not just unpamper themselves and embrace a hard routine, simply because a major war comes along, in reality, even in World War Two, the American soldiers were exponentially more pampered and exepensive than any other troops in the war by a huge margin, even in the biggest war America ever fought, the American public, and so the Congress, were in no way willing to go with the North Vietnamese Army model, the Americans were lavished with expenditures in the World Wars as well.

I mean, you're still paying the personnel costs from World War Two, it's compounding, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, it's all piling on top of itself as you go, the actual defense budget in the US is twice what they state it to be, when you add the legacy costs which are not on the DOD's books.

[Viktorthepirate]

We'd be fine if it was needed. We lived in the middle of nowhere shitting in WAG BAGs and eating MREs when needed.

The support guys would be the ones who lost the most, but they'd get over it too if required.

Totally irrelevant what you think you'd "be fine" with, I know what you'd be fine with, but what I would give you and what the American public would demand on your behalf, two totally different ballgames, this idea you have, that if only the shit would just hit the fan, suddenly American society would re-order itself around privation and sacrifice, I don't find that to be credible.

Historically, pampered societies do not just unpamper themselves and embrace a hard routine, simply because a major war comes along, in reality, even in World War Two, the American soldiers were exponentially more pampered and exepensive than any other troops in the war by a huge margin, even in the biggest war America ever fought, the American public, and so the Congress, were in no way willing to go with the North Vietnamese Army model, the Americans were lavished with expenditures in the World Wars as well.

I mean, you're still paying the personnel costs from World War Two, it's compounding, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, it's all piling on top of itself as you go, the actual defense budget in the US is twice what they state it to be, when you add the legacy costs which are not on the DOD's books.

I think necessity would dictate the circumstances.

In that doomsday scenario I think people would do what is required.

[Smitty-48]

I think necessity would dictate the circumstances.

In that doomsday scenario I think people would do what is required.

Fair enough, but I think the country would implode into a civil war, you're in no position to go to war with the world, the nation is deeply divided and in a state of political disorder, and easily two thirds of the American republican divide would find the whole idea of going to war with the rest of the world to be utterly repugnant and in fact a casus belli to overthrow the government.

You're talking a Vietnam War like schism, scaled up by many many orders of magnitude, and it wouldn't be some sort of "just war" which could be sold to the American people as being a "necessity", and as such, it would incite a mutiny on a national scale.

In the case of such a mind bogglingly stupid and self destructive scenario, I actually think the officers in the US military would be the ones leading the mutiny tbh.

[Martin Hash]

Germany was a total mess after WW1. They had nothing but peaceniks left governing the Weimar Republic, but the culture was the same, so the next generation that came up filled the old militaristic boots, got themselves a leader, supplanted the pussies, and damn near beat everybody else in the Western world. It took about 15 years for German militarists to turn the whole discombobulated mess around but they were working with good raw material.

My guess is about half of America is lost but the other half is still clutching their guns, praying, and saluting the flag. Maybe today's America couldn't defeat the world, but after a dozen years of a purge, perhaps 2030, when things get tough all around, and blowing up the rest of the world seems like a good idea, yeah, I'd bet on America.

p.s. One generation of anti-snowflakedom and it's all fixed.