World war is no longer possible

1) The major nations of the world are too integrated - economically and even socially to some degree.

2) The only world power with a military industry capable of sustained combat at a tier 1 technology is the US-Germany-Japan military industrial complex. No other nation has the ability to wage a sustained war with losses at a maintained level of technology equivalent to the US.

3) The US Navy is supreme with the ability to isolate from deep water any nation of its choosing. Even Afghanistan (a landlocked nation inland by a thousand miles) was not safe from the US Navy.

There is no possibility of another world war until the US military industrial complex is ended or until Russia gets its act together (China doesn't have the space and has the burden of too many people to wage a successful large-scale war and they know this by their own doctrines).

Gotta disagree with you here. Russia isn't as limp as people in the West think and watch out for India, second largest navy in the world, expanding economy. I think a world war is MORE possible now more than it has been since '45 because the US thinks it can DO IT ALL. Not a good climate imo. Ever play King of the Hill?

We might just wish we were in a Cold War again.

First of all, the Russian military is about as useful as a dog.

I should know....

Russia can barely sieze the republic of Chechnya which it holds on to by sheer brutality. We've killed more than 300,000 civilians and moved another 1.4 million to hold on to that spit of land and that's fighting a poorly equipped insurgency.

To the Contrary America has held onto both Afghanistan and Iraq with less problem and those are areas of many tens of millions.

Chechnya is an area of about 3 million and is mostly just a city.

Russia's military has a broken doctrine and a broken infrastructure and a broken back.

What the USSR focused on (because of their isolation and lack of foreign wars their doctrine did not improve...Russia repaired the military doctrine in 2000 with the renewed assault on Chechnya) was Nuclear war and thus Russia has a very strong Nuclear deterrent.

But a very weak conventional force.

India, like China, is incapable of feeding herself; thus incapable of waging a war.

Stratrf_Rus:

gee why is the media in the first world not talking about the brutality of Russia in chechnya? I would think that they would be most eager to get the truth out about what is going on in Chechnya, that is their job.

Originally posted by denythestatusquo
Stratrf_Rus:

gee why is the media in the first world not talking about the brutality of Russia in chechnya? I would think that they would be most eager to get the truth out about what is going on in Chechnya, that is their job.

It's a complicated issue I don't know how to write it most clearly. The reason revolves around this probably.

The Western Media imagined the end of the USSR as the end of the Russian Empire (which was primarily what the USSR was).

But in order to ensure the security of Nuclear Weapons; Russia was able to get the US to bully the Ukraine and Khazakstan in transferring all control of their Nuclear Weapons to Russia. This is called the "Sovereign State Inheiritor" or whatever (not sure what the West called it).

Russia would inherit all the Nukes.

This caused an unforseen problem.

Without Nuclear Weapons the former Republics have no strength against Russia.

The Soviet Union ended and the Commonwealth of Independent States began at the same time.

This is what the West forgets much.

The three baltic States seceded from the Soviet Union; but the other Republics merely dissolved the Soviet Union and formed the CIS.

The CIS is a loose confederacy where Russia is given Chief-Command of the Military of all the states in the CIS.

Recently (and also ignored by the Western Media) Russia was discussing to put Russian soldiers into various CIS nations to protect their borders.

This was a powerful move because it would put spine into the back of the CIS with Russia as the dominant leader once again.

Because of the chaos of the fall of the Soviet Union the USA allowed the CIS to be formed.

This stunted the departure of the former Soviet Republics from the Russian Empire.

The CIS is not an Empire yet...but Russia is certainly close to reforming it; and if any former Republic with the exception of the Baltic States were to try and legitimately break away from Russian influence; there'd undoubtedly be a war.

Anyway I was trying to establish the background which is too complex to do simply.

My point in answer to your question is this

Western Media made an assumption that Russia now is a "good guy" and the USSR is ended.

Western Governments realized too late that the situation in the former USSR was not democratic.

The later happend because in 1980s CIA reports made 5 possible paths that the USSR might take in the next decade: including civil war and what exactly happend on the surface....the peaceful dissolution of the USSR.

In fact a third possibility they reported was a Hardliner Coup to try and reinstate the Command Economy. This happend first then the peaceful dissolution of the USSR...so the assumption the West made (I believe) was that they guessed right.

What the CIA failed to report upon (and these are classified doccuments so no I don't have a full source to give to you) is another possible option:

A populist coup resulting in a change of who is in power.

The events unfolded as they did because of the consequences of this populist coup.

So the Western Governments assumed a Democratic revolution occurred...

The reality was much different; a power struggle occurred and the only way the people who gained power could do so was to dismantle what was in their way; the Soviet Union.

The new structure is fragile, but they want it to be an Empire.

And so this I think explains why the West doesn't talk about it.

I didn't want to say they simply don't want to piss Russia off; I think it's much more deep than that; I think the West has misundestood until it was too late what really occurred in Russia; and I think the Media has completely misunderstood what happend...

So they don't even bother to make Russia an issue; they've written it off as a Democratic reformation going on.