Thread: An alternative view of the USA & some other countries

Originally Posted by Crocodile

Quite the opposite. The SU might have started the WWIII within a few years and had the war won or made the entire globe inhabitable for large mammals like Homo Sapiens. Think about it this way: will the newly appointed fresh US political command launch the few of the remaining strategic missiles if they know the US itself will not be conquered and the Europe has already been conquered?

Of course they would. But you're insisting upon the fact that USSR wanted to strike first. Your logic is flawless if one accepts this fact but what gave you this idea in the first place? I have not heard of this.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Of course they would. But you're insisting upon the fact that USSR wanted to strike first. Your logic is flawless if one accepts this fact but what gave you this idea in the first place? I have not heard of this.

Let's start with the comparison: what was the focus of the pure assault weapon in the USSR and NATO? The USSR heavily invested in tanks. The main Soviet Army special forces were both airborne - ВДВ and Спецназ. The NATO heavily invested in aircraft carriers. The NATO's main special forces - marines. Start thinking from that point.

Originally Posted by Crocodile

Let's start with the comparison: what was the focus of the pure assault weapon in the USSR and NATO? The USSR heavily invested in tanks. The main Soviet Army special forces were both airborne - ВДВ and Спецназ. The NATO heavily invested in aircraft carriers. The NATO's main special forces - marines. Start thinking from that point.

A little bit thin. Aside from Mexico and Canada all other US borders are naval. US marines were basically the same thing as were the Soviet paratroopers. You don't defend homeland with marines, you know. They had carriers so they could transport their armies (and airfields) overseas.
USSR had the land border with NATO and its tanks, according to the doctrine I've seen were to reach the Atlantic in 48 hours should the war start. This was necessary to neutralize the medium and short range missiles deployed in Europe. And, according to the stats I've seen, US almost all the time had more missiles and warheads than USSR (though it didn't really matter since it was 4x overkill). And USSR was ever the second in the arms race (if you count warheads only).

During the Cold War, the USA started and participated in many more wars than the USSR did!
The USA came across as aggressive, imperialist, expanionist and ultra-capitalist.
The USSR came across as paranoid and insular.

Originally Posted by Hanna

During the Cold War, the USA started and participated in many more wars than the USSR did!
The USA came across as aggressive, imperialist, expanionist and ultra-capitalist.
The USSR came across as paranoid and insular.

USSR and USA had proxy armies and "advisers". But who gave away sold all 75 million of those AK-47s?

Proxies were used in conflicts in Afghanistan, Angola, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Latin America.

The first proxy war in the Cold War was the Greek Civil War, which started almost as soon as World War II ended. The Western-allied Greek government was nearly overthrown by Communist rebels with limited direct aid from Soviet ally or client states in Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria.

I think Cuba just might be different if not for the USSR.

Originally Posted by capecoddah

USSR and USA had proxy armies and "advisers". But who gave away sold all 75 million of those AK-47s?

AFAIK, main exporter of AK was China. Well, isn't the idea of providing cheap reliable and effective weapon to everybody who wants in perfect correspondence with "American Dream"? God made men, but AK-47 made them equal.

I think Cuba just might be different if not for the USSR.

Maybe but USA undoubtedly always had much more influence on Cuba and its fate than USSR anyway. BTW Cuba is not so bad place now. Many people say that it is much better than it was before Castro's revolution.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Maybe but USA undoubtedly always had much more influence on Cuba and its fate than USSR anyway. BTW Cuba is not so bad place now. Many people say that it is much better than it was before Castro's revolution.

Having lived in "North Cuba" (South Florida), I've met people from the Cuban Yacht Club that came to the US on rafts. Something about having to leave a country in such a fashion makes me think things aren't all rosy there. I know people that left during the revolution that hate Castro with every fiber of their being.
They have lovely tourist beaches there, but the locals can't go to them. They have a lot of lovely things the average Cuban never sees but is wonderful window dressing. I can count the number of present Cubans on this board with both hands behind my back (read: no internet). Satellite television is a criminal offense for most people there. Hell, Fidel took his family's farm (his mother never forgave him), and his sister spied for the CIA refusing payment. Cuba si, Castro no.

Central and South America are screwed up because of the Spanish and Portuguese. WAY before the Colonies became the USA.

Originally Posted by capecoddah

Having lived in "North Cuba" (South Florida), I've met people from the Cuban Yacht Club that came to the US on rafts. Something about having to leave a country in such a fashion makes me think things aren't all rosy there. I know people that left during the revolution that hate Castro with every fiber of their being.
They have lovely tourist beaches there, but the locals can't go to them. They have a lot of lovely things the average Cuban never sees but is wonderful window dressing. I can count the number of present Cubans on this board with both hands behind my back (read: no internet). Satellite television is a criminal offense for most people there. Hell, Fidel took his family's farm (his mother never forgave him), and his sister spied for the CIA refusing payment. Cuba si, Castro no.

So you listened to Castro's enemies (including US politicians) and did not listen to Castro's friends. You really expect your idea of Cuba to be adequate? According to some sources, before Castro there was a small class of relatively rich people, all the rest were extremely poor. Those formerly rich people are enough to hate but not enough to make noticeable resistance with all US help. Now poor people are still poor but they have relatively good medicine, education, sport etc. According to UN Human Development Index Cuba is about 4-5th place in Latin America, which is not so bad (remember that income is taken into account in this index). Maybe if they were able to sell to USA their cigars, they were 1st?

As for Yacht Club, yes, people always look for better life, especially when they expect some privileges because of the politics. And for those privileges they are ready to say whatever you like to hear. You know, how many people from democratic NATO Turkey moved to Germany? I don't speak about Mexico...

Central and South America are screwed up because of the Spanish and Portuguese. WAY before the Colonies became the USA.

Err... What is "screwed up"?

Spanish and Portuguese Empires provided Latin America with its contemporary population. Now they are no more for a long time. USA is still there, has great influence - political, economical, military - and use it, so USA is responsible for everything happened there in much bigger measure than USSR (which is BTW also no more). There is "white man's burden" and "white man's" responsibility whether you like it or not. Castro did not want USA people to use Cuba as a cheap brothel any more. He can be understood.

PLEASE NOTE: I LIKE lots of things about the USA and I have nothing against American people in general. I just hate the foreign policies of the USA and I don't think decent Americans would support them if they knew how unpopular this really is.
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But here is an "alternative" view of the USA for you.



Somebody posted about this in another part of the forum. The text is about how the USA should pack up their bases in Germany and go home (+ a few other things).
Plus the person who made the video is unhappy about the influence English is having on the German language.

I can't stand these American bases! They have long since served their purpose. But it seems, once a country allows the USA to set up a base, they hang on like a leech.
There are tons of those bases in certain European countries.

Same theme from South Korea:



Same theme from Japan:



And if the USA goes ahead with the war that it seems really keen on against Iran, then Misha Tal from this forum could be killed and many others like him.

Wow! I just took one day off and you guys have brought this discussion to new horizons! For now, I'll just leave a short comment:

Originally Posted by Hanna

..And if the USA goes ahead with the war that it seems really keen on against Iran, then Misha Tal from this forum could be killed and many others like him.

Honestly, I don't think it's a very real possibility. Don't laugh at my naivety. Much before things come down to any military stand-off like that, the Iranian regime will be struggling against it's own people. Only an ill-wisher of the United States might suggest an ambush against Iran. Such a war will have absolutely unpredictable impacts on the entire world. I think it's totally uncalled for, as long as Iranians themselves are against this regime. Attacking Iran will put the United States in the role of the aggressor, and will give the Iranian regime enough excuse for any devilish deed.

And there will be blood. Really. I rue to say this, but it will be a thousand times worse than Iraq.

I'm not a preacher. I'm not an unrealistic pacifist. I don't freak out at the idea of a war. But my crooked political philosophy goes like this: "If someone is screwing up, don't cut in his action. Just let him screw up all the way. If you go all-out against him, you'll make a goddamn martyr out of him. Remember JFK and you'll know what I mean."

I'm sure Obama's America is wise enough to be aware of all that. The most aggressive country in the world is not America. It's a 70-year-old mini-state located a few short steps to our west.

Originally Posted by Misha Tal

Only an ill-wisher of the United States might suggest an ambush against Iran. [...]
I'm sure Obama's America is wise enough to be aware of all that. The most aggressive country in the world is not America. It's a 70-year-old mini-state located a few short steps to our west.

Alright, so what if the mini-state would be paranoid enough and think the present threats from the Iranian government are real and strike first? (After all, they have their own experience of the 1968 war and 1973 war so they know how beneficial it might be to be preemptive.)

Originally Posted by Crocodile

Alright, so what if the mini-state would be paranoid enough and think the present threats from the Iranian government are real and strike first? (After all, they have their own experience of the 1968 war and 1973 war so they know how beneficial it might be to be preemptive.)

Then all the nonsense that Ahmadinejad has blabbered over the years would come true.

Originally Posted by Misha Tal

Then all the nonsense that Ahmadinejad has blabbered over the years would come true.

I'm not sure that is so simple. There's no border between Israel and Iran for the ground forces to fight, so Iran would be limited to employ its vast human resources. The war might look more like the Battle of Britain (Battle of Britain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) where the technology might mean more than the quantity of the fighter jets. So, do you think Iran might be ready to take it to the next level and use the chemical/biological weapons? Or WMDs?

Originally Posted by Misha Tal

Then all the nonsense that Ahmadinejad has blabbered over the years would come true.

I absolutely agree with Misha here.

1) The paratrooper corps is the legacy of the WW2. This branch of arms (or 'kind' as you put it) was created long before US even had any missile silos. They've proven themselves useful and nearly universal. They could attain a wide range of combat tasks, they were swift, they were flexible and everyone in the general staff saw that. But they were not the main fighting force. They merely speaheaded the assault. Their task was always just as simple -- to hold the ground until the main force arrives. The only difference is that they were airborne since USSR had more ground to cover and you could deliver them to any point on the map pretty quickly.

2) Let's be real, despite the fact that Russian military aircraft are probably the best in the world (or at least they were in 1980s), but when things came down to combat co-operation systems and radioelectronic warfare support, US had the upper hand. Thus, air-superiority couldn't be attained quickly enough. In all scenarios of military conflict between NATO and Warzaw Pact you only had hours (if not minutes). We could, probably, destroy all the aircraft carriers quickly enough, but we couldn't establish air-superiority over the US territory itself.

3) About this task of attacking the silos -- I doubt the attack on it would be successful. Think. You should transport a large body of paratroopers over the ocean deep into the US territory (losing 50%-70% to AA fire even before they are deployed). You won't approach undetected and the course of your attack will give the Americans plenty of time to co-ordinate the measures to repel the attack. Now, a Silo is not that 1 missile buried underground. It's a complex of many underground structures (individual missiles are scattered 20-40 km apart to minimize the chances of being all destroyed by a single nuclear hit. It has two command centers and in order to 'neutralize' the silo you should either sabotage every single missile (which is impossible in that short period of time you would have) or find and destroy all command centers (which is also extremely difficult since they are heavily defended and are built to sustain at least one direct nuclear hit. How you you open it to get in?
Now, US missiles were solid-fuel propelled and thus required no time for fueling up. They can be launched within minutes. Any number of paratroopers would have no chance of neutralizing them all within such a short period of time. I'm afraid that the only thing the surviving Soviet paratroopers see at the doors of the US silo command center would be a spectacular launch of the ICBMs.

Now, about US plans for attacking USSR.
1) In the early 80s US had no stealth technology available to them. They relied on cruise missiles and SRBM launched from nuclear subs (by the way, US had more ballistic missile carriers than Russia at any time).
2) Russian stationary silos are too scattered over large territories to prevent them being destroyed all at once and had several 'spare' command centers.
3) Russia had quite a number of mobile launch sites (refrigerator cars and mobile launchers) so you couldn't get them all in time.

As far as I know, neither side could think up a winning strategy for WW3. Perhaps, we are lucky they couldn't.

And finally, about USSR striking first.
It was US who started the so called nuclear blackmail in 1947. It was US who's changed several war plans for atomic bombardment of the USSR during 1948-1955. We attained parity in nukes by the end of 70s (past Cuban crisis and when a number of treaties were already signed), no I don't think anyone planned to strike first in 1980. Neither USSR, nor USA. Back in 50s maybe, but not in 80s.

Originally Posted by Ramil

They merely speaheaded the assault. Their task was always just as simple -- to hold the ground until the main force arrives.

That's not what the Paratrooper #1 General Margelov had thought:

(http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%...B2%D0%B8%D1%87)

Он категорически отверг установку на удержание захваченного десантом района до подхода наступающих с фронта войск методом жёсткой обороны как пагубную, ибо в этом случае десант будет быстро уничтожен.

It's ok that we have different opinions, after all, neither you nor me had access to the top secret documentation of the Soviet Army.

Apparently, Israelis thought up of something brand-new.
Stuxnet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by Ramil

Apparently, Israelis thought up of something brand-new.
Stuxnet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wow! Never heard of it before. So, is it going to be like another MOO ("An unknown virus has struck the research database destroying X points of research data and it might take years to recover?)

Originally Posted by Crocodile

Wow! Never heard of it before. So, is it going to be like another MOO ("An unknown virus has struck the research database destroying X points of research data and it might take years to recover?)

It's too sophisticated to be just an ordinary virus. It is targeted at 'patterns' of specific instruction sets (though it's difficult to determine the target by reverse-engineering, specialists agree that it was specifically targeted at only some industrial equipment. It used two stolen (!) digital sertificates of known maufacturers (I heard of Realtek Semiconductors) to embed itself into the target machine and finally -- by the number of infected machines, many specialists concluded that target might be not the power plant, but the uranium enrichment facility.
(There are rumors that at least something had happenned there that disrupted the production).

It's a weapon grade, 2nd generation computer virus. It can even kill people. Here's some more:
Stuxnet: война 2.0 / Информационная безопасность / Хабрахабр
e_kaspersky - Торжественная речь по случаю...
Stuxnet сократил количество рабочих центрифуг в Иране

What I don't get is what people like Ahmadinejad actually want from the Israelis...?

That they pack up and leave (where??)
That they commit mass suicide...?
That they scrap their army and wait to be invaded and killed?
That they all convert to Islam (would they be left alone if they did?)

And who wrote that virus that attacked the Iranian nuclear plant? The US or Israel?

I have no issue at all with Iran having nukes - just as long as it's not specifically for a preemptive strike against Israel. For all its faults... I think Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and I hope I don't annoy anyone here too much by saying that.

The other thing i don't quite get is: Why does Iran even care about Israel? Iranians are not Arabs, Israel is nowhere near Iranian territory and it has no interest in invading Iran. So why exactly is it such a big deal to Iran? I think the rhetoric from the Iranian leadership about Israel is very offputting.

And about invasion of Iran:

Anyone who is stupid enough to invade Afghanistan... and greedy enough to invade Iraq... (after having previously supported the exact regimes that they later turned against) .... would probably drool at the thought at "liberating" Iran (including its oil..) .
Unless the American people come to their senses and do something about their rotten politicians I think all the signs are there that thats exactly what they'd like to do after they are done in Iraq and Afghanistan.