World War III Thread

Bolshevik-: That's different. The U.S. was the only country which had nuclear weapons during WW2. Also, ideas such as mutually assured destruction were not developed at the time.
Everyone realizes that if nuclear war breaks out both sides will be annihilated. Both the United States and Russia have the ability to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike, so even if you strike first you're still going to be annihilated. Even if not the resulting worldwide nuclear winter would kill most of the world's population, including that of the "victor" country.

Bolshevik-: Japan was not defeated so much as contained.

But seriously though, these people are not stupid. They realize that launching a nuclear weapon is assuring both their destruction and the destruction of the enemy. Bombs create 1000 times the explosion then they did during Hiroshima.

Dassault Papillon: I once knew a guy who thought Russia could win a nuclear war and should flex its nuclear muscles.

Is it morally wrong to kill these people just on the off chance that one day they may come to power?

Blackflag: Yes, it'd be morally wrong to kill such a person.

As far as Russia goes, the following strategy should be pursued to defeat it:
-Halt its expansion in Europe
-Annihilate all Russian troops fighting to maintain newly-gained Russian holdings in Eastern Europe. One should aim for the Liberation of Eastern Europe by means of destroying the Russian military outside of Russia.
-Do not invade Russia. But, bomb the *expletive* out of Russia (non-nuclear, of course)
-Cut off as much of Russia's trade as possible

All you need to do is eliminate all of Russia's holdings, weaken Russia's military to the point where it's only capable of barely defending Russia, make life for Russians miserable, and wait for the Russian people/military to overthrow the existing government and sue for peace.

Dassault Papillon: Your plan is overly idealistic.

All successful large scale military operations are combined arms. If you send in an airforce by itself, you are going to be left without an airforce. Also the main advantage Russia has over us is that their primary trade partners are with NATO.

We offer them commercial goods which are useless in a war, but they offer us petroleum, precious medals, lumber, and military equipment

Blackflag: In a WW3 situation it would be difficult to defeat a country without the other country using nuclear weapons as a last resort. Making peace with that country and accepting small gains would probably be the alternative option.

Bump so that the thread doesn't lock.

Here's one (fictional) scenario in which WW3 could start:
In 2018 Xi Jinping is replaced as leader of China by a blatantly nationalistic guy. Let's call him Hong Dengshuan because it sounds Chinese. He makes a speech outlining Chinese foreign policy for the next half decade (or a full decade provided that he got re-elected in 2024), declaring that:
1. China is too small a nation for 1.4/1.5 billion people. It's next to impossible for China to maintain this number of people and have the average citizen become prosperous while having only the resources contained within China. Also, China's environment is worsening and it's becoming increasingly difficult to support a billion and a half people in just China. Furthermore, population density causes crowding.
2. China is facing a shortage of working-age individuals because there are more old people living off *whatever the Chinese equipment to social security is* than ever before and a smaller percentage of people who are young. The solution is not to encourage a higher birthrate because *see no. 1*. They can't just kill off all the old people, so...
3. The best solution for China is to expand its territory to gain access to more resources and more living space for the Chinese people. This will allow for a higher birthrate and for the average Chinese citizen to be much wealthier. Besides, it's about time that China resumes the superpower status that it had about 400 years ago, right?
4. China is superior and it deserves to be the greatest nation in the world because of its inherent superiority therefore no. 3 is justified.

What Hong Dengshuan does not do is say what country it plans on taking resources from. Washington is very concerned about this development, but President Sanders/Trump/Clinton/Carson/Bush/Rubio/Cruz/Biden/*insertnamehere* decides to continue normal relations with China unless China actually does something (after all, words are just words).
Meanwhile, Hong Dengshuan meets with PLA officials in secret and formulates a plan to invade the Western United States, relocate/exterminate the Americans living there, and take the land and resources. After all, the United States is very large, resource-rich, and relatively not dense in population, especially in the Western half of the United States. And of course the Chinese want to retake Taiwan and kick Japan's *expletive* because Japan humiliated them during WWII and because Japan is a little bit too aggressive towards China these days. They also want the whole South China Sea and its resources.

Of course, to accomplish this China would have to vamp up its armed forces considerably (they're doing that right now), build up greater power projection capabilities (they're building up their navy and they're establishing naval bases in the South China Sea now), develop a strategy to overwhelm US forces in the Pacific and East Asia, and build up its cyberwarfare, missile, and drone capabilities. Pretty much they must do all the things that they're doing now. It benefits them that the U.S. military is devoting much of its resources towards fixing a crappy fighter jet, that its navy relies too much on aircraft carriers which can be fairly easily destroyed with anti-carrier missiles and not enough on submarines, and that it hasn't upgraded its tank force in over 15 years (the Chinese purchase hundreds if not thousands of T-14s from Mother Rossiya).
Speaking of which, in 2016, in the face of increasing tensions and sanctions between NATO and Russia, Russia jumps in bed with China. China supplies Russia with tons of needed goods and Russia becomes China's biggest military supplier. The CSTO is absorbed into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (AKA the Shanghai Pact). Russian and Chinese leaders meet in secret in order to plan a Russo-Chinese world order. They formulate a plan: Russia will invade Eastern Europe and China will begin confronting US forces and US-Aligned militaries in East Asia and the Pacific and begin the Invasion of the United States. They also get Iran and North Korea to join the Shanghai Powers. India and Pakistan, though hating the United States, drop out of the SCO because they don't want to be entangled in what they know will be a world war. The U.S. responds to all this by boosting its military forces and increasing military spending but it still hopes that war won't happen and efforts are made to negotiate with the Shanghai Powers.
In 2024 Hong Dengshuan guy wins re-election and Vladimir Putin begins his second term in a row.
In 2025, after years of planning Russian forces pour into Eastern Europe. A few days later, after months of having heated up its threats towards Taiwan, China invades Taiwan. The U.S. declares war first on Russia (to fulfill its NATO obligations) and then on China (it had vowed to protect Taiwan in the event of Chinese aggression). Poof. WW3.

Dassault Papillon: Interesting fiction, but an invasion of the Western United States would be ludicrous, I hope you know that.

Also, the T-14 is not exactly a tank. It is a heavily armored tracked vehicle, with the capability of being heavily modified to make it multi purpose. That is why its actual name is called the Universal Combat Platform, since it serves as a platform for multiple combat weapons, and the carrying of infantry. The production designation in Russia is T-14 for the universal combat platform equipped with a 120 mm cannon modification.

Weapons that it can be outfitted with include an AA gun, machine gun, 120 mm cannon, and a 40mm autocannon, but these things can not be paired together based on the design (with the exception of the machine gun)

You can consider it a tank when it is modified with the 120 mm cannon, but when it is hosting infantry, some might call it an Infantry Fighting Vehicle. It and the Puma IFV probably need to create a new military vehicle designation, since they don't really fit into just one category.

What does interest me about the UCB being modifiable with a 120mm cannon, is that it creates a new concept never seen before of Armored Infantry. Previously we only had mechanized infantry, which travels into combat in IFVs and APCs, and Motorized Infantry, which travels in regular military trucks and the better APC's.

Armored infantry interests me, because it has the potential to completely revolutionize mechanized warfare.

Couple corrections. It uses a 30mm autocannon.

Blackflag: Ludicrous? It's not an outcome that anybody is considering (therefore it's highly unlikely to happen), but if China could achieve military superiority over the United States they could gain a ton of resources and living space by doing this.

Dassault Papillon: Well China actually has plenty of living space. The reason China was so successful, was because all that land they held was room for another farmer. Mao Zedongs idea was to promote a baby boom just to maximize use of all of China's many resources.

They still have infinite resources anywhere west of Fuangzhou, The real difficulty is making the system more efficient.