I've become increasingly convinced that the great predominance of the USA can't last long if current trends continue. India and China are going to surpass the USA in numerous categories in the very near future. The USA hasn't any grand secrets to forcably hold onto "Greatest Nation in the World" status indefinitely. That said, can anyone invade and conquer the USA now? Other than scenarios leading to Nuclear Holocaust, no there is no clear threat to the USA being overrun and conquered by an outside force. The USA has the advantage of an absolutely wonderful location. In the foreseeable future, it can only be conquered from within and the world at large vastly overestimates the likelihood of that happening.

Can the USA lose a war on a neutral playing field (nobody's homefield advantage)? Well, lets take our top two contenders: Russia and the People's Republic of China. Both of those nations might or might not beat the USA on the field of battle. Both have larger militaries that the USA and both tend to be underrated. The USA would the odds stacked in its favor against either one. One of the truly terrifying scenarios would be if India, China and Russia actually managed to join together into a strong alliance. I don't think anyone could beat them. I also think there is too much mutual hostility between the three nations to make that possible, and especially w/o China, the very presence of China makes India and Russia alone far less of a threat to the world.

Can the USA lose? Its already happened, albeit we were not beaten militarily. Vietnam beat us and a loss is a loss at the end of the day.

Both have larger militaries that the USA and both tend to be underrated. The USA would the odds stacked in its favor against either one. One of the truly terrifying scenarios would be if India, China and Russia actually managed to join together into a strong alliance. I don't think anyone could beat them. I also think there is too much mutual hostility between the three nations to make that possible, and especially w/o China, the very presence of China makes India and Russia alone far less of a threat to the world.

Sure that would be a nice little aliance, but again all 3 of those countries combined could not attack the United States. I mean this thread is just silly, even if China,India and Russia joined together our navy would still be able to keep them away from our shores. I think our economy is larger than those 3 combined (il check later) and just its stupid.


Btw if you mean 40 years by the very near future, yes China poses as an economic threat.

usa is friend and one of our biggest trading parter. war is not likely except those japenese right winginst's strategy to use usa to fight us. i think they want us both to go bankrupt

There's an old rodeo saying in Texas, "there ain't no horse that can't be rode and there ain't no rider that can't be throwed."

I think the US could be defeated with a Wordwide conflict but I wouldn't want to be one of the unfortunates that makes it out alive, anywhere.

Originally Posted by Genghis_Kan

USA is the strongest nation in the world. It has got a power economy, industrial and armed force. It dominates the world economy. Just out of interest is there actually any way in defeating the US in a strategy scale. I mean a country/alliance which can defeat the US and replace it as world no.1. Personally I still could not think of any way in defeating the US. I wanna hear wts yr opinion on this.

PS I am not anti-american

The US will never allow any power to get a military edge that could be used to knock them out. However, judging from history, the US do tolerate other powers to be on par with them. Then and only then, does a power to defeat the US ECONOMICALLY. They could just get more and more influence in the world market (maybe also win a couple of locally limited wars, like the US has done numerous times) and I doubt the US would risk a war that could destroy them, even if their economic influence in the world is rapidly fading.

Another, less likely scenario would be the political disintegration of the USA. This would only be possible if there's going to be a major enegy crisis that knocks out communications and transport.

Originally Posted by Forrest_Gump

We're already at war, and losing. For some time now China has engaged in open Economic warfare with the US, and due mostly do the US's own citizens (with the help of a few large corporations), we are are losing. When the eventual military confrontation happens, the US will have already lost before the first shot is fired.

Liberal rubbish. you don't even begin to have a clue about the scope of international trade and the development of civilization. We are not at economic war with China. We are a big customer of theirs and they will become a bigger and bigger customer of ours as time goes by and their economy improves. All the Chinese want to do is make money and sell their sh*t all over the world. They haven't got some world-domination agenda, man. They are too busy for anything like that. They have too many issues collectively within their own borders to even begin engaging in such a pogrom. Do you even have the slightest idea what's going on in China right now? have you been there to see it first hand? I doubt it. if you actually knew anything about it you would NEVER make statements like that.

Please think before you make a choice of words next time. "Open economic war" God that doesn't even make sense.

Originally Posted by achinese

usa is friend and one of our biggest trading parter. war is not likely except those japenese right winginst's strategy to use usa to fight us. i think they want us both to go bankrupt

Exactly. Thank you for posting that aChinese. I have made sereral such posts here recently. This is absolutely correct.

See Forest Gump? I am not kidding about this. your standpoint is baseless and is obviously created and fed by the liberal American media which continues to leach cretinous, false made-up garbage to the gullible populace whom, while well intentioned, does not readily have an alternative and accurate source of information.

I agree. Whoever might replace the US as the biggest world player will do so by acceding to new markets, possibly avoiding economic "war".

I find it interesting that no one has bothered to offer a definition of the word "defeat". If we mean an invasion and destruction of the government of the US, then no, there probably isn't any state or group of states that could realistically undertake such a task. Maybe Russia if they deploy enough nukes, but even that's a stretch.

There are, however, many different scenarios where the US can be dealt a defeat. It all depends on the level of conflict you describe.

I'm becoming more and more disappointed with the tendency to oversimplify the nature of warfare and the complexities of national security that seems to permeate this forum. Hopefully I can live up to my name and provide some insight beyond the simplistic analysis I see so much of here.

Originally Posted by Insight

Hopefully I can live up to my name and provide some insight beyond the simplistic analysis I see so much of here.

Watch out everyone, he's taking off the gloves. J/k Insight, we still love you.

Lets see, so far we've been going for over 200 years, been through 10 or so major wars, suffered a few depressions, many recessions, and each time we've bounced back stronger than ever. We're here to stay. We can't even be beaten by our own country trying to meiosis its ass. We learn from our mistakes and misfortunes (to an extent), but we aren't invincible. That's why we form leagues (NATO, UN, et al) with other nations, so we can help eachother out in times of need. As long as we keep what little friends we have, we'll keep truckin' for a good long while. Until those unfriendly martians visit.