USA Vs UK.. a war in 2012, who would win?

[callippo]

only about a third of the colonists actually supported the revolution. Another third sided with the British and the rest were pretty ambivalent about it. Of course the version American kids get in their primary education, and I know this because I spent three years in a New York elementary school classroom myself, is that they were all unified against the crown. This total nonsense doesn't get corrected until much later in the US education system, probably not until college.

[Harleyman]

You could argue the the second world war was the end of a European Civil war that had erupted spasmodically for over about 1500 years after the fall of the Roman Empire.

 

Initially the movement of peoples such as the Mongols, the Vikings, the Anglo Saxons, the invasions of southern Europe by the Arabs, Byzantium, The Normans in France Sicily and Britain, The Ottomans. Thirty years war, Hundred years war, the ever changing borders, all culminated, when Germany unified in the late 1800s and challenged France and we ended with the FRranco Prussian war the 1st and 2nd World Wars.

 

I am no fan of the current European project with its overburdening administration, corruption etc, BUT the fact that we now have this structure has prevented further European wars and when the Balkans erupted in the 80s and 90s the conflict did not spread.

 

The population of the US was primarily from people escaping "old" Europe, it is perfectly understandable that these people did not want to be dragged into conflict emanating from the place they had left.

 

One last comment of "July 4th" I find it interesting that the protagonists in the revolutionery war all considered themselves English. Many on the "American" side had fought for the English Crown against the French. I wonder what the world woud look like if A. The English had won, B. We had reached an accomodation with an American "Parliament" acknowleding a British Monarch in the same way Canada and Australia still do.

 

Impossible to imagine. Spain and France owned vast parts of the southwest and southeast and Russia if not actually owning had claim and interests in parts of the northwest.

 

Would the British parliament have been able to control expansion westwards beyond the 13 colonies in the long term?

 

Would Mexico have yielded up their great big chunk of what is today, California, Arizona, Nevada. Texas, Colorado and New Mexico after Mexico had gained independence from Spain and there had been no war beween the Texans (Anglo settlers) and Mexico taken place?

 

Would the Louisiana Purchase have ever happened? Or would France have continued to rule over that huge territory? Would wars between France, Britain ans Spain become inevitable in the decades that followed the failed uprising against the British in the 1770s?

 

How aboout mass immigration from Europe? Much of Canada a few hundred miles north of the border with the USA is largely hostile to human habitation but south of that millions of square miles of territory that was not only habitable but very fertile and a great attraction for Europeans wishing to flee their overpopulated continent. Would they have willingly become subjects of the British Crown ? Big question there !!!

 

Looking at Australia and New Zealand they're a whole different story. The only parts of Australia that are habitable are the coastal areas and New Zealand is small in land area and for those two reasons plus it's great distance from Europe they were not an attraction for mass emigration for Europeans seeking land three hundred years ago.

 

Until a few years after WW2 both those countries were inhabited by people of purely British stock (indigenous excepted of course) and who swore loyalty to the crown just as in the case of Canada (except Quebec) so it was logical that they would have declared war against Germany in 1939 in support of the Mother Country.

 

Semtiments in Quebec were largely against any support or involvement in the war with Germany. After the French defeat at Quebec city in 1759 by British General James Wolf the French-Canadians had more or less if not willingly come to terms with their transtion to British rule but held nothing like the sentimental attachments to the Crown that the rest of Canada did.

[Aleksandr]

The USA would win.

You've accused me of saying silly things recently Halibut, but that really is crass of you! Admittedly, the UK would be vaporised, but we would have killed everyone in the USA with our nuclear arsenal, even if we didn't quite manage to vaporise their entire land mass. There would be nowhere left worth living afterwards, even if some unfortunate American did survive in a bunker. How could that possibly be considered 'winning'? Silly!

[Aleksandr]

The US would win with a decisive submarine launched pre-emptive nuclear strike without the British managing to fire a shot.

 

Of course, I suspect their domestic terrorism problem might suddenly get a lot worse.

I doubt that very much. The Americans would need to know where our Trident subs (and the rest) were if they were to survive. Trident means that the UK doesn't even have to exist for a successful revenge attack, and that would happen automatically because that's the principle of MAD!

[Harleyman]

You've accused me of saying silly things recently Halibut, but that really is crass of you! Admittedly, the UK would be vaporised, but we would have killed everyone in the USA with our nuclear arsenal, even if we didn't quite manage to vaporise their entire land mass. There would be nowhere left worth living afterwards, even if some unfortunate American did survive in a bunker. How could that possibly be considered 'winning'? Silly!

 

Wot over 300 million people?

You would have to have enough nukes to destroy New York, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle plus being able to hit every military facility capable of retaliating in a land mass of around 7,500,000 square miles and that wouldn't be enough either because every US nuclear sub at sea would be alerted to retaliate with maximum force.

 

All the US would need to do is knock out London, Birmingham and Manchester and the nuclear sub base or two in Scotland then it would be all over

 

After that the US Seventh and Fifth fleets would sail for Britain with thousands of military personnel and loads of killer equipment picked up from Japan, South Korea. Hawaii and the middle east and sail up the Solent without so much as an ink wad fired at them in defence There might be a few aerial skirmishs between the US navy and any RAF fighters that escaped destruction but the US could take the losses whereas the RAF not.

 

This time though the GIs wouldn't be giving out Hershey bars, chewing gum and nylons

[Harleyman]

I doubt that very much. The Americans would need to know where our Trident subs (and the rest) were if they were to survive. Trident means that the UK doesn't even have to exist for a successful revenge attack, and that would happen automatically because that's the principle of MAD!

 

In a worse case scenario the US has probably got nuclear missiles located in Japan and south Korea and anyway it wouldn't take much to blast a small island into oblivion so cease your foolish prattle.

 

The US can out nuke you any time. Na ! Ne ! Na ! Na ! Na ! Na !

[Aleksandr]

Wot over 300 million people?

You would have to have enough nukes to destroy New York, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle plus being able to hit every military facility capable of retaliating in a land mass of around 7,500,000 square miles and that wouldn't be enough either because every US nuclear sub at sea would be alerted to retaliate with maximum force.

 

All the US would need to do is knock out London, Birmingham and Manchester and the nuclear sub base or two in Scotland then it would be all over

 

After that the US Seventh and Fifth fleets would sail for Britain with thousands of military personnel and loads of killer equipment picked up from Japan, South Korea. Hawaii and the middle east and sail up the Solent without so much as an ink wad fired at them in defence There might be a few aerial skirmishs between the US navy and any RAF fighters that escaped destruction but the US could take the losses whereas the RAF not.

 

This time though the GIs wouldn't be giving out Hershey bars, chewing gum and nylons

Read what I wrote! Yes, we have plenty of nukes, and more than enough to destroy all your major cities. Certainly enough to make them uninhabitable. Being able to destroy all your military is irrelevant though, because as I clearly stated, our response would be largely or entirely retrospective, i.e. after the UK no longer existed. Also, what's the point of attacking our sub base? We only ever have one Trident sub there at a time. The others are out there, somewhere, and you don't know where! I didn't say the UK would win, I said that neither side would win. It's called mutually assured destruction.

[Aleksandr]

In a worse case scenario the US has probably got nuclear missiles located in Japan and south Korea and anyway it wouldn't take much to blast a small island into oblivion so cease your foolish prattle.

 

The US can out nuke you any time. Na ! Ne ! Na ! Na ! Na ! Na !

Silly Yank! My scenario accepted that the UK would be vaporised. That means destroyed, and possibly within a few minutes. Our response would be retrospective. That means after the event, by the way, from Trident subs hidden where you can't find them. You would all die too! Read, if you can!

[Aleksandr]

In a worse case scenario the US has probably got nuclear missiles located in Japan and south Korea and anyway it wouldn't take much to blast a small island into oblivion so cease your foolish prattle.

 

The US can out nuke you any time. Na ! Ne ! Na ! Na ! Na ! Na !

There's nothing advantageous about overkill, because EVERYONE dies! I'm really sorry that you can't understand that.

[Rupert_Baehr]

Well, the US could probably starve the UK into submission within a few days.

 

Stop Mickey D's, Domino's and KFC and half of Sheffield would starve.