Aragorn1: Well that would depend on how you define "invasion". Under the definition "an attempt to land forces on hostile soil for military purposes" the Dieppe raid was an invasion. I am not certain if more troop landings were planned as many aspects of this is shrouded in mystery. I am confident that the objective was not a liberation of France, rather to establish a breachhead, capture some ground and hold it for sufficient time to make the Germans pull troops out of the Russian campaign. I believe this to be closest to the truth as it makes the most sense.

Link: I am honestly SO sorry for forcing you into the offensive like that. It was not my intention to make you defend yourself. On the contrary the whole thing has been me defending myself. As you can see I made a very brief comment regarding the original subject that drew some quite condensed parallels between the world wars and the contemporary conditions that may be similar. I was then accused of not knowing something I consider fundamental knowledge so I felt I had to elaborate. Then I get accused of being to superficial again by you and I simply had to retrace a bit. I also felt that any flaw in argumentation within a strictly historical discussion due to lack of professional training needed to be pointed out. Sort of a "bear with me, I am only an amateur scholar" statement.

I am 100% native Danish. My command of the English language comes more or less exclusively from school. We do start out English classes quite early here. Our own language - Danish - is considered among the most difficult to learn in the world and is very difficult to master (though it is similar to Dutch so you'll pick it up easily). Half of my family originates from Southern Jutland which had been seceded to Prussia after the Second Danish-Borussian war of 1864. As such Danes living in this area were forced into German military sevice during WWI. I had two great-granduncles fighting on the eastern front. Both made it through the hostilities, however one died on the march back. I guess I snapped when someone suggested I did not know about the assasination in Sarajevo.

Thanks for the link, looks like it was one big free for all! Apparently the RAF bombed a couple of their cities by mistake whilst they shot down an American plane and forced many more planes from various countries to land for violating their airspace.

[ 05-30-2005, 01:58 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

Don't sweat it, mad=dog, I may have overreacted a bit. I just felt like I was being told "Dude, you suck at your historical knowledge". You can understand that being a history student makes such a statement even worse ;) Especially since I had an exam about the period 1870 - now just last thursday.

Somehow I feel we both loathe the simplicity with which some people tend to think. That's a good thing, I know, but a decent portion of self-reflection every once in a while is good as well. Not everyone knows the things you and I know, you know ;) I think there's A LOT of biological facts that I might have known once, but now they seem to have been forced from my mind. I can't decide if that's a good thing... :D

Now let's hug and be good friends. I'll build a campfire and you can play the guitar while all of us here will sing "Kumbajah" ;) :D

Ten-four. I'll bring the marshmellows. And I find it hilarious that both of us reacted due to academical pride. With that kind of professional enthusiasm the world can go all bad.
Actually I am writing up a set of papers and a compedium for a thesis summarizing our groups findings over two years atm. A lot of work and the most difficult and annoying part is condensing it down to the core facts. You'd like to become all philosophical, but scientific papers have absolutely zero tolerance towards redundancy. So you can see how these feelings get exagerated on my part.
If you come by Copenhagen make sure to drop by for a cup of mud.

TL, you can always join my camp and hope for a small Meteor to strike. Y2K let me down, Nobody has the guts to fire a WoMD. :D

You got's to be on the right track when a rabid warmongering Noe-con like me is the only one that agrees with'ya. ;)

[ 05-30-2005, 09:56 PM: Message edited by: John D Harris ]

Will there be a WWII? You bet your sweet bippy there will be, ever since we got kicked out of the Garden, or crawled out of the slime (Depending on which camp you are in.) we humans have killed each other and will continue to do so.

But as is was pointed out in an earlier post, at the current time there is nobody that can stand up to the USA. WHEN, not if, a rival nation arises that can threaten the USA in military and economic power, there will be lots of folks killed. The USSR for all it's Military power couldn't stand up to the USA in economic power. Despite what many re-visionists want to say the USA ran the USSR economy into the ground. The USA spent 7-9% of GNP on defense, the USSR spent nearly 30% of GNP on defense. Both countries spent about the same amount of actual money, the USSR spent nearly 1/3 of it's capitability to keep up(some accounts slightly ahead). If the USA needed to spend we could have increased our spending to 1/3, then inorder to keep up the USSR would have had to increase to spending 100%.

Nukes are great weapons to DEFEND in a conflict or to End a conflict. But Nukes are a complete assine weapon to use if one wishes to gain territory or resources. Radioactive fallout kinda puts a damper the use of any territory where nukes have been used, and it kinda defeats the purpose of gaining resources *cough* Oil *cough* If one has to wait a couple of thousand years before radiation levels have droped enough to go drilling. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Hmmm, i think things are more difficult than that.

There has only been two world wars, so in fact they have not been a regular occurance to suggest they will occur again. There have been large scale wars yes, but they tended to be between the Great Powers, which now no longer exist. So, the chances of such a war are remote, especially with the lack of rival superpowers and ideological confrontation. There is also, given the systems of alliances little chance of a war between the lesser world powers that doesn;t involve the US. As John says, a new superpower would ne needed for such an event to occur, and in my view this superpower would have to have an ideology that would be seen to threaten the US. THe most likely candidate is China, but she is only communist in name, however we lack the crystal ball. And the US sees S.E. Asia as an important, an would not be happy to see a country extend a sphere of influence there. But even were this to happen, the nuclear detterant would mean that, like the USSR and the USA, war would be avoided due to MAD.

The point about the USSR, is in view flawed. However it is too early to draw conclusions, from my point of view, given what is known, I beleive that the econmic strain on the Soviet economy, although a strong contributing factor, wasnot the ulitmate cause of the collapse of the USSR, but the change in the ideological nature of the USSR, which removed the ideological basis of the conflict and split the soviet bloc, causing it to split due to not having its binding factor and the uncontrolable unleashing of populist forces that resulted.

On the nukes issue, tactical nukes offer new possibilities on this front. If the leader of a small country developed capabilities and was just power-crazed enough to use them, he could, possibly detroy the leadership of a country, while retaining her resources and allowing the country to be lived in. However, the country would need the military to exploit this so, it is very, very unlikely, even ignoring the problems of a delivery system.

My tip for future conflict is this:

With the fall of the USSR the USA tranfers it ideological confrontation to Islamic fundamentalists, who are seen as a threat to the democracy and the US way of life. THis in turn means there is no clear war, as they are stateless. States may support them openly or in secret, but they cannot truely be defeated. The USA involves herself in wars in small countries all over the Muslim world trying to prevent aid to terrorists. It is largely ineffective as although in the short term the issus in that area is resolved, instability in the region and the world is created and actions alienate others, who join the war against the US.

Well that's my silly theory to add to the pot [img]smile.gif[/img] . Can't forsee what the ending will be to this scenario, as unlike the Cold War, there is no state to fall, and the Fundamentalists shall not abandon there ideology as the USSR did. THe collapse of the USA would seem to be bring a possible end to this ideological conflict...

While it is certainly a side/separate topic, since it was mentioned, the world will grow by approximately 20+ million people this year. That's the population increase I'm referring to, and that's about the size of it, for anyone who is interested. I don't know what the number of deaths due to AIDS in Africa is, but I bet it's quite small compared to this. The number of deaths in Iraq in 3 years and from the Tsunami over the next 2-3 years is peanuts by comparrison.

Just FYI.

A bit of a side note, but it's starting to become apparent that the AIDS problem in the ME is nearly as bad (if not as bad or worse) as it is in Africa for precisely the reasons it got so bad in Africa (Taboos against talking about it, failure to realise it's a threat, etc etc)

<font color = lightgreen>That's why we should just become an empire, moving in and taking over. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

No, the tide of terrorism will never completely abate, but enough people in the Middle East will get tired of being blamed for every nut-case terrorist who does anything anywhere in the world and they will try to put an end to it themsleves.
If you think that Islamic terrorists will topple the US, then by logical extension you probably think that Basque separatists will topple Spain and Quebecois separatists will topple Canada. Right....

Actually, the "war on terrorism" can be won. I have a two-fold strategy devised that would bring about a resaonably successful resolution, but no one in Washington would have the cajones to implement it. Yes, it is extremely drastic, but it would work. No, the details are not being made public at this time.</font>

[ 05-31-2005, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: Azred ]

This ties in wonderfully with an article I was just reading. The quote was referring to the recent US penchant for attributing Islamist thinking to Iranian funding (rather than the Saudi's who do a lot more of it):

It made me chuckle [img]smile.gif[/img]

Azred: Does a PM count as private? [img]graemlins/angel.gif[/img] If no, can you reveal whether its slightly more sensible than the 'nuke the 100 largest Muslim cities' idea?

<font color = lightgreen>Yes. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] </font>

<font color = lightgreen>Whoever came up with the "nuke the largest 100 Muslim cities" have to walk around with only a loincloth and a sign saying "I am stupid, pity me".
Yes, I am much more reasonable than that. Nuking cities in desert regions would send tons of radioactive dust into the stratosphere; this, of course, is not a good thing.</font>

Well thanks a lot! I just laughed so much at your reason that I had a coughing fit! [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[ 05-31-2005, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

Not folowing my logic, in which the key to the struggle is ideology. In this case they are bnot ideologically oppossed and have clear objectives. Islamic terrorist see the US as a direct threat to their way of life, and vice vera, as with the USSR and the USA. Only with the elimintation of the powerbase of one ideology would the hypothetical conflict end. As islamic extremism does not have this clear base, and attempts to destroy it country by country would ahve the effect of strengthing support for the extremists, the USA is more likely to colapse than the extremists.

I don't believe that their will be a World conflict again in the same way, warfare has changed once again, in the same way there are no longer frequent conflict between several rival European powers. I am not saying there shall not be conflict, but I believe it will take a new shape, one which i cannot predict.

<font color = lightgreen>Yes. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] </font>

Quote:

Originally posted by shamrock_uk: If no, can you reveal whether its slightly more sensible than the 'nuke the 100 largest Muslim cities' idea?

<font color = lightgreen>Whoever came up with the "nuke the largest 100 Muslim cities" have to walk around with only a loincloth and a sign saying "I am stupid, pity me".
Yes, I am much more reasonable than that. Nuking cities in desert regions would send tons of radioactive dust into the stratosphere; this, of course, is not a good thing.</font> </font>[/QUOTE]I got a solution!!! There is now a conventional bomb with the power of a nuclear device, not sure which type though. We could use this, then no nasty fallout :D . And we could all...ummm...wear gas masks and use an umbrella for a while, a sweep the dust up after. Yeah...that would work.

[ 05-31-2005, 05:25 PM: Message edited by: Aragorn1 ]

Given that population increase, the number of deaths likely to arise from a 'conventional' world war would have no significant impact on the world population, and would therefore be entirely ineffective at addressing the population crisis facing the world.

For a war to have a noticeable impact on the world population, you would need a monstrous nuclear/biological/whatever holocaust to wipe out a few billion people

<font color = lightgreen>You must mean those ridiculously-named MOABs. Yes, they are more powerful than the slightly older BLU-25s and have explosive capacaties in the kiloton range. Still nasty, but definitely non-radioactive.

**********

I still disagree with the assessment that terrorists will defeat a nation. That has never happened in the history of the world...well, with the exception of the Hashishim (the Assassins) toppling the Selmud (?) dynasty.
Anyway, there aren't many old terrorists, and I doubt that the middle-aged ones can continue to recruit impressionable youngsters in numbers sufficient to carry on the struggle in the years to come. After a while, no one will want to listen to anything they have to say, especially since recent developments show that some "Islamic" terrorists think it is okay to kill Muslims who ally with Westerners. They will cut themselves off from their own supporters with an attitude like that.</font>

I have to agree. Terrorism, after all, kills a very very small number of people in the grand scheme of things. The notion that it could ever bring down a government like Britain or the US is implausable IMO.

Having watched some Chechen jihadi recruiting videos though I'm thinking we're very lucky that terrorism in the Middle-East is so comparatively primitive!

Nothing breeds radical Islam as much as a lack of political expression - in country after country within the last 30 years you see clampdowns followed within a couple of years by the rapid ascent of Islamism. Give it 50 years for a modicum of political freedom to exist in the Middle-East and it will lose its momentum.

[ 06-01-2005, 04:19 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

Hasn't happened in China, when was the last time you heard about muslim fanatics attacking the part of Kashmir that China owns, or of radical Islam in China, they clamp the vise down so hard that there is NO wiggle room for them to develope their particular brand of loathing for all things non-islamic (or at the very least they are so busy trying to survive their oppression that dying in jihad is a non-issue).

Ah, well I'm a Middle-East man, can't say I've looked much at the Chinese Muslim issue. They do get treated like crap there though, and if I'm not mistaken they have their own brand of Chinese Islam which has been suitably modified by the state.

For details of Islamic extremists from China, see here for a random example.

Frontline also have a video report on the Uigher Muslim's that you can watch here.

[ 06-01-2005, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

Yep, the Uighers are the ones I was thinking of, thanks Sham