USA invades Russia

Leic

Could they defeat and occupy Russia, assuming nuclear weapons don't exist?

AbusesToilets

Defeat, yes. Occupy, no. Assuming they could teleport all the required units over for the shindig.

BoJack Horseman

The USA's own hypothesis I read of last year was that, yes... barely but at vast cost.

But things are fluid.... 2 years from now the answer would be No.

Larbre34

17,000,000 sq kms. Never been achieved in history. Even the Russians don't properly occupy Russia.

If your question is, could a mechanised armed force,comprised of the men and assets that currently make up the US military in its post war order of battle, enter Russia, defeat its standing army and conscripts and functionally occupy its centres of power and strategic bases and sites to effect regime change, then i would suggest it could not.

prinzeugen

NATO could not and likewise the Warsaw Pact could not occupy Western Europe. Lines of supply are too long.

There is a good documentary on YouTube about how a WW3 in Europe might have played out.

USSR invades West Germany. Gets pushed back to halfway across Poland by NATO. Goes nuclear. End.

Its well made using real speeches from world leaders. Need to look for it.

prinzeugen

http://youtu.be/PCblCImmgu8

This is it.. Well worth a watch.

Manach

The Red Storm Rising scenario?

As well, the Russians have a long history of Guerilla war. From the era of the Mongols, resistance to Napoleon and during the Great Patriotic War. So whilst the USA is the first premier military power, its operation against non-state actors has been less than successful.

AbusesToilets

Manach wrote: »

The Red Storm Rising scenario?

As well, the Russians have a long history of Guerilla war. From the era of the Mongols, resistance to Napoleon and during the Great Patriotic War. So whilst the USA is the first premier military power, its operation against non-state actors has been less than successful.

Yes and no. I'd argue that the main failings of the US's COIN operations of late has been on the political side, rather than the military. The network driven model they've developed has proven to be extremely effective at degrading insurgent organistations.

AbusesToilets

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

The USA's own hypothesis I read of last year was that, yes... barely but at vast cost.

But things are fluid.... 2 years from now the answer would be No.

Do you have a link to that?

teddyhead

The US hasnt 'won' a war since 1945 and that was with Russian help and nukes(or at least 'atom bombs'). So the obvious answer is no.
Mindless chanting of 'USA,USA,USA' will only take you so far, militarily. It takes more than that to actually win a war.

BoJack Horseman

AbusesToilets wrote: »

Do you have a link to that?

I wish I could, I've tried.

I remember reading it on the US Naval institute site, a general responding to a question at a congressional hearing.

There was no details outlined, just the response.
I can't find it though.

BoJack Horseman

teddyhead wrote: »

Mindless chanting of 'USA,USA,USA' will only take you so far, militarily.

If that was all they did they could save a lot of money!

Can you elaborate further?

riffmongous

Manach wrote: »

The Red Storm Rising scenario?

As well, the Russians have a long history of Guerilla war. From the era of the Mongols, resistance to Napoleon and during the Great Patriotic War. So whilst the USA is the first premier military power, its operation against non-state actors has been less than successful.

Not just the Russians but all the other ethnic groups would be involved, I doubt the Americans could hold the Caucasus let alone the rest of the country. The question would be if they would need to though, a defeat of central moscow power and guarantees of some sort of independence and support to those who take it could reduce the need to occupy troublesome areas, but at the cost of these areas quickly becoming unstable.

Manic Moran

Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: "Do not go fighting with your land armies in China". It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives.

---

Bernard Montgomery

AbusesToilets

Manic Moran wrote: »

Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: "Do not go fighting with your land armies in China". It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives.

---

Bernard Montgomery

The Mongols didn't seem too phased by such obstacles back in the day :pac:

Jimmy Garlic

The US could only barely keep control in the third world countries they usually pick on. The chances of them successfully invading then holding the largest country in the world are nil. The Russians have displayed that they can take huge casualties and still maintain high morale. Not a hope the US could do the same.

IrishTrajan

Larbre34 wrote: »

17,000,000 sq kms. Never been achieved in history. Even the Russians don't properly occupy Russia.

The Mongols had effectively occupied Russia for about 250 years (their empire was about 6 million km I think).

Larbre34 wrote: »

If your question is, could a mechanised armed force,comprised of the men and assets that currently make up the US military in its post war order of battle, enter Russia, defeat its standing army and conscripts and functionally occupy its centres of power and strategic bases and sites to effect regime change, then i would suggest it could not.

Why couldn't they? 90% of Russia's population lives in the western portion. Of course it would be a bloody, vicious thing and there'd be hundreds of thousands of dead on both sides, but it would be possible methinks (the US has ~6500 MBTs, the EU has ~7700).


Is it ever likely to happen? I doubt it.

IrishTrajan

Jimmy Garlic wrote: »

The US could only barely keep control in the third world countries they usually pick on. The chances of them successfully invading then holding the largest country in the world are nil. The Russians have displayed that they can take huge casualties and still maintain high morale. Not a hope the US could do the same.

If you think the US is going to tie its hands behind its back with RoE like Afghanistan, you're delusional.

If America was trying to occupy Russia, they'd make Grozny look like a fireworks display.

Avatar MIA

Depends, if the US went all Orwellian, Middle East/North Korea zero tolerance dictator style governance it possibly could. But, it would have to be very brutal, and I don't think they'd have the stomach for it.

BoJack Horseman

Jimmy Garlic wrote: »

The Russians have displayed that they can take huge casualties and still maintain high morale. Not a hope the US could do the same.

Not quite.

WW2 was the choice between dying before a german gun, or the gun of their own dictatorship.

A repeat of that slaughter would not occur, the RuA would certainly collapse if they were being also attacked by Putin's new private army.

BoJack Horseman

IrishTrajan wrote: »

Why couldn't they? 90% of Russia's population lives in the western portion. Of course it would be a bloody, vicious thing and there'd be hundreds of thousands of dead on both sides, but it would be possible methinks (the US has ~6500 MBTs, the EU has ~7700).

Those kind of numbers would actually be an irrelevance.

the US-army has only 10 armoured combat brigades, each of which comprise of about 90 MBTs.... and of those 10, only 3 are technically capable of deployment.
So, at most, the maximum tank force brought to bear would be ~1000.
It would take 2-3 years to stand up more formations.

A hypothetical war between Russia & the US would be fought in the sky & on sea....
That fight the US would (eventually) prevail.
After that, Russia's superiority on land would be of much less importance.

Lemming

Bit of a moot discussion; if it eve looked like the USA were to achieve ground dominance, those rather large bullets with inverted triangular yellow and black warning symbols on them would get used. Likewise on the flip-side in the event of an uncontained Russian invasion of Europe.

BoJack Horseman

Lemming wrote: »

Bit of a moot discussion; if it eve looked like the USA were to achieve ground dominance, those rather large bullets with inverted triangular yellow and black warning symbols on them would get used. Likewise on the flip-side in the event of an uncontained Russian invasion of Europe.

Well, the OP asks on the prerequisite of no nukes.

Lemming

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Well, the OP asks on the prerequisite of no nukes.

Ah, so they did. My bad.