Superpower status, is it worth it?

[Gen. Volkov]

Beatles, for an answer as to why I did not continue the discussion, I point you to the last statement in Echthelion's post. And I'm pretty sure it's Vengerak, that's his style. If we were to continue it, it would end with me pissed off and probably flaming him because he was nitpicking. Or because he was being critical, because I did not bring up points unrelated to the discussion, I've argued enough with him for quite awhile. It's generally pointless anyway. Neither would concede any points.

Nuke and Volkov: this is a rather technical discussion. To raise a related issue, don't you think that the USA's "superpower" status is perhaps unavoidable, as a legacy? That perhaps if the USA retreated to the ranks of ordinary countries, it would promptly be politically compromised?
Or are you just debating exactly how much military is necessary to adequately guard it...?

I do agree that's it's unavoidable at this point, and a legacy of how history has shaped the US. And indeed I even agree with the second point. I do not know Nuke's views on the matter. I am simply arguing his statement that we could adequately defend ourselves on his proposed budget. The reason it got so technical is because he decided to make it that way. He brought up the machines, and their specs, I was speaking in the broadest sense until that point.

Oh and I agree with your definition up until the last one. To me, that's subjective, and not really true for two of the politcal entities you define as a superpower. And China fails criterion 1, but the USSR does not. Which is why I define it as a superpower. It was just overshadowed by the US during the cold war. There were two superpowers, just one was a bit more powerful than the other. A bit like Rome and Persia towards the end of the Roman Empire. But only a bit.

[The Beatles]

Volkov, the reason I included Criterion 3 stares one in the face where I grew up.

The United States stepped in in both World Wars (after some prodding), which is why we speak Hungarian in Hungary, and not German or Russian. Which is why West Berlin is prosperous today. Which is why countless other things occurred for the better this century. True, she made some cockups in Latin America, but everyone makes some once in a while.

The same is true for the British Empire, and to a lesser extent, Rome (yes, they were very brutal in conquest, but ruled well in peace).

Now you have to look no further than Chechnya or Armenia, or Hungary or Yugoslavia, or indeed Moscow and Siberia -- or your own Poland -- to see that the USSR left a very different sort of legacy. I knew you would say subjective, yet it is as clear to mankind as the difference between the tendency for good and the tendency for evil.

Perhaps the USSR is still a superpower by your definition, but I am not defining a superpower the same way. Please reply, I am genuinely curious as to your feelings on this matter.

~B

[typo-typo]

[Nuclear Raunch]

As far as being invaded goes, no military analyst in their right mind would consider even the remotest possibility that China could successfully invade us. Supplies must travel 6,000 miles of ocean (daunting enough) then consider that water is hunted by the world's most advanced subs, the target country has a huge arsenal of missiles that can be launched by air, land, or sea, the citizens are armed and fiercely patriotic when pushed and you have a recipe for a major disaster. There is no way in hell an invasion could work.

About the subs, the Ohio class uses almost the exact same sensors as the Los Angeles class. Ohio class has a few improvements (since it did come out later) but that's just to improve it's short-medium range performance, they both still top out at 2 convergence zones (70 miles) Despite it's size the Ohio is the quietest boomer in the world, much quieter than most attack subs.

Diesels are only quiet while on battery power, and it's not like they can send out a couple subs and say "go find and kill those Ohio's and report back to me" and expect any kind of results other than laughter. It's worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack. You would literally have better luck hiding an Easter egg in Texas and asking someone to ty to find it. Excuse me, hiding 4 Easter eggs and telling someone to find all 4.

By the way, we have more than just the Los Angeles class subs floating about. We have a couple generations since then, the latest being the Virginia class which is being produced as we speak.

Active sonar has a very short range, and while helicopters work well there's simply to much space to cover for them to be able to catch it all. The range of American sonars and missiles makes it extremely difficult for enemys to contend with.

*Sighs* Nuke, I know all this. Quit lecturing. As I've said repeatedly, this is based on some future scenario where China is on the ups and we have cut our spending. Right now, as I said repeatedly, no one in their right mind would attack us.

Do you even know what a convergence zone is? Because I don't think you do. A convergence zone is a layer of water that reflects back acustic waves and makes it possible for one sun to hide from another.It does so because it's a place where a clold layer of water meets a warm layer of water. It really doesn't have all that much to do with distance unless you are talking vertical distance. The ability to detect ships across convergence zones refers to the ability to pick up a ships acoustic signature past the scattering effect of a convergence layer.

Volkov: You misread, I know they won't use afterburner on the way over there but they will in dogfights. They will have to travel super slow on the way in because tankers just can't keep up with any modern jet's cruising speed. 20 of our tankers wouldn't be sufficient for that much refueling, there's no way in hell 20 of their tankers would. The point of them being Badgers? They arn't real tankers, they're old bombers that got converted and arn't really that great at it. They don't hold very much fuel at all combined with their own fuel limitations make it all but useless to try to use them for strategic strikes. Like I said, they are useful for topping off a few planes and that's it.

It would just be a matter of prioritizing our cuts. Definately gotta nix most of the surface Navy, most of our tanks etc should be set aside, intel is an extremely vital part of defense, I'd definately keep the satellites, a couple surveillance ships etc... One of the biggest things is the contracts campaign contributors get. If a part costs $10 to make it's not at all out of the ordinary to charge $300 for it, as long as you keep those politicians happy. Trust me, that massive defense budget has absolutely nothing to do with defense. It's the very thing Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address, politicians throwing exorbitant amounts of taxpayers money to defense industries in exchange for a little kickback.
And again, a 90% cut is not a "bare bones defense", it's a healthy, robust, second largest in the world defense budget. Nobody else has a problem surviving with that, why should we? It's not like that's just enough to maintain,it's more than enough to advance as well. People with much less budgets than ours are able to advance, so should we.

I did not misread, you misread what I said. The cruising speed of a modern jet fighter is about 650 mph, or just under mach 1. The cruising speed of a tanker is 550 to 650 mph, depending on type, a Badger bomber conversion would have a cruising speed of 650 mph. So the fighters would not have to slow down. Do you know how much fuel a tanker carries? Quite a bit. Plenty to refuel a flight of fighters, especially if said fighters didn't have to fly across the pacific, but instead took a route over the pole. And Badger's could carry a decent enough bomb load, they aren't horrible at their job, otherwise they wouldn't have been used. And the KC-135 is a conversion as well. 20 of them would be capable of refueling the fighters necessary for the bombers to get through. More than enough.

As too the second part, while alot of that is true, no one is making advancements like we are on less than we are making now. We could still advance on less, but it woudl require massive collaboration like the Europeans, and progress would be alot slower. And that's for tiny little countries anyway. For a nation our size it WOULD be a bare bones defense. So in short, you are wrong. We could spend less, but not a significant amount, not if we wish to remain the world leader and be able to cope with any new threats that may arise. Oh and guess what else goes if we slash the budget? The missiles. Those are expensive as hell to maintain. We lose many of our nukes if we start slashing the budget.

If you knew that an invasion will never work then why'd you mention it? If you knew Ohio class subs have better sensors than Los angeles class then why'd you say the opposite? If you knew that it's virtually impossible to send a couple subs out and tell them to go find 4 subs in the middle of the Pacific Ocean then why did you say they could just go do it? Not trying to be a smart arse, I'm just not sure which of my main points you already knew. The Pacific aint gonna get any smaller, so regardless of how much China improves it's not like they can ever realistically support an army across 6,000 miles of ocean.


You have just defined thermocline. Here's Wiki's defintion of thermocline. A convergence zone is another matter, basically when a sound is made underwater the sound travels in all directions. The sound that travels down starts to bend and eventually comes back up. This is caused by the effect of pressure on sound. Once it comes back up it becomes focused again and then goes back down. I guess from a horizontal view it looks something like a sine wave.

There are also "shadows." That basically means that if you are at such a distance that the sound is on the lower half of the cycle you cannot hear it. Crappy explanation I know, but to give you a better idea a sound can be heard from 90 miles but not from 80 miles. That's because when your 80 miles away from a sound it has not traveled back up to submarine depths but by if it's 90 miles away it has had enough time to travel up. So basically there's rings that you can detect in and rings that you cannot detect in.

Some modern jets cruise at about 650 MPH, some cruise at about 750 MPH, I guess it would depend on the type of jet in question. Mig-29's cruise just 10 knots faster than Badgers, whereas a Mig-31 cruises 60 knots faster. If they stuck with the Mig-29 their tankers could keep up with the jets cruising speed without costing them too much extra fuel.

As far as the fuel a tanker carries, I actually have a pretty good idea. To give you an idea of why I keep saying their tankers are nowhere near as capable as ours I just checked the plane specs on Wiki, our tankers carry about 200,000 lbs worth of fuel. The Badger has a maximum take-off weight of 174,000 lbs. Not their load, the entire plane. So like I keep saying, they can hold enough fuel to top off a couple tanks and that's it. To help clarify just how crappy Badgers are at it, the SU-30 actually holds just about as much fuel as a Badger.

I must be missing something here, why would they need less fuel by going over the pole? It's a much greater distance and the cold weather really screws them up...

I've forgotten just how overboard our nuclear weaponry has gone, but if I remember right I think we could blow the world up 7 times over or something like that. So yeah, if we lose half of our nukes we'd be in a huge danger of only being able to blow the world up 3.5 times.

What's wrong with not advancing faster than any other nation in the world? Is it a case of our life depends on us being 10X as strong as anybody else? Nonsense, it is a case of our self-esteem depends on us being 10X stronger than anyone else. That's why people get all happy and proud when they see a "shock and awe" campaign. It's well known in psychology that people love feeling superior. I have always felt that the American love for being 30 years ahead of any other military is merely an extension of this.

[The Beatles]

I personally feel that while there is merit in the "shock and awe" tactics, they are merely used to bolster public opinion about a service that would otherwise -- and even so -- be regarded as useless and a burden.

Beyond the non-military value of a modern army, which I outlined two pages earlier, the USA is in fact in the world's spotlight and cannot voluntarily disappear from there. So yes, in a very real sense for the time being the USA must advance faster than other nations, merely in order to survive and maintain its current socioeconomic standards.

[Gen. Volkov]

If you knew that an invasion will never work then why'd you mention it? If you knew Ohio class subs have better sensors than Los angeles class then why'd you say the opposite? If you knew that it's virtually impossible to send a couple subs out and tell them to go find 4 subs in the middle of the Pacific Ocean then why did you say they could just go do it? Not trying to be a smart arse, I'm just not sure which of my main points you already knew. The Pacific aint gonna get any smaller, so regardless of how much China improves it's not like they can ever realistically support an army across 6,000 miles of ocean.

Because this is HYPOTHETICAL. And I never said Ohio class subs have better sensors that Los Angeles class. What the 688i has is better than the Ohio class, but the Ohio class does have some improvements over the original Los Angeles class. But that was not my point, I have NEVER said that ANY army could have ANY hope of invading us right now. This entire conversation has been based on that. Or at least I thought so.

You have just defined thermocline. Here's Wiki's defintion of thermocline. A convergence zone is another matter, basically when a sound is made underwater the sound travels in all directions. The sound that travels down starts to bend and eventually comes back up. This is caused by the effect of pressure on sound. Once it comes back up it becomes focused again and then goes back down. I guess from a horizontal view it looks something like a sine wave.

There are also "shadows." That basically means that if you are at such a distance that the sound is on the lower half of the cycle you cannot hear it. Crappy explanation I know, but to give you a better idea a sound can be heard from 90 miles but not from 80 miles. That's because when your 80 miles away from a sound it has not traveled back up to submarine depths but by if it's 90 miles away it has had enough time to travel up. So basically there's rings that you can detect in and rings that you cannot detect in.

I know what a thermocline is. A convergence zone as I described it is not a thermocline.
"Brooks A Rowlett provides an explanation of the convergence zone. "One of the big discoveries post WWII was a much better understanding of the acoustic and refractive properties of the ocean. The 'layer', where the temperature changed from the surface temperature curve to the deep-water temperature curve became well known in WWII, where after a certain angle, the acoustic energy transmitted would reflect from the layer so that a submarine, could in effect, hide 'under the layer"
http://jproc.ca/sari/asd_mod.html
_That's_ what a convergence zone is.

Some modern jets cruise at about 650 MPH, some cruise at about 750 MPH, I guess it would depend on the type of jet in question. Mig-29's cruise just 10 knots faster than Badgers, whereas a Mig-31 cruises 60 knots faster. If they stuck with the Mig-29 their tankers could keep up with the jets cruising speed without costing them too much extra fuel.

Considering 750 MPH is over the speed of sound at altitude, just under it at sea level, and the F-22 is currently the only jet that can cruise at faster than the speed of sound without eating tons of fuel, I somehow doubt your info. Almost all modern jets cruise at below the speed of sound. Not alot under it, but definitely under it. You waste too much fuel otherwise. So all the planes would have no trouble pacing the Badger.

As far as the fuel a tanker carries, I actually have a pretty good idea. To give you an idea of why I keep saying their tankers are nowhere near as capable as ours I just checked the plane specs on Wiki, our tankers carry about 200,000 lbs worth of fuel. The Badger has a maximum take-off weight of 174,000 lbs. Not their load, the entire plane. So like I keep saying, they can hold enough fuel to top off a couple tanks and that's it. To help clarify just how crappy Badgers are at it, the SU-30 actually holds just about as much fuel as a Badger.

I must be missing something here, why would they need less fuel by going over the pole? It's a much greater distance and the cold weather really screws them up...

Ok, that is pretty crappy. Only around 80,000 pounds of fuel all up. But still enough, considering a fighter will only hold about 19,000 pounds of fuel internally. But dismissing the badgers, why not just retrofit some civilian planes to be tankers? That's all the KC-135 and KC-10 are. I'll concede the point that Badgers might not be enough to cut it, but I will not concede the point that tankers flying with them would not be a way to do it.

Oh and the pole thing, it's actually a shorter distance than a straight line across the pacific, because the world is round. It's not exactly across the pole, what it is, is, they fly up from Manchuria, across alaska and across Canada to the US, which is a shorter distance than a straight shot across the pacific. The cold weather isn't really a factor as they fly high enough that's damn cold all the time anyway.

I've forgotten just how overboard our nuclear weaponry has gone, but if I remember right I think we could blow the world up 7 times over or something like that. So yeah, if we lose half of our nukes we'd be in a huge danger of only being able to blow the world up 3.5 times. rolleyes.gif

Not destroy the world, just remove the crust. And I'm not talking half here, more like 90%

Volkov, the reason I included Criterion 3 stares one in the face where I grew up.

The United States stepped in in both World Wars (after some prodding), which is why we speak Hungarian in Hungary, and not German or Russian. Which is why West Berlin is prosperous today. Which is why countless other things occurred for the better this century. True, she made some cockups in Latin America, but everyone makes some once in a while.

The same is true for the British Empire, and to a lesser extent, Rome (yes, they were very brutal in conquest, but ruled well in peace).

Now you have to look no further than Chechnya or Armenia, or Hungary or Yugoslavia, or indeed Moscow and Siberia -- or your own Poland -- to see that the USSR left a very different sort of legacy. I knew you would say subjective, yet it is as clear to mankind as the difference between the tendency for good and the tendency for evil.

Perhaps the USSR is still a superpower by your definition, but I am not defining a superpower the same way. Please reply, I am genuinely curious as to your feelings on this matter.

~B

My feelings are that the definition of superpower is objective, not subjective. Good and evil are relative terms. And the US has left it's own trail of failed tries. Cuba, Vietnam, the hash we're making of Iraq, and the hash we made of Korea, true we've had successes, and capitalism has proven to be the better system for creating wealth, but while the USSR was still a going concern, the living conditions weren't anywhere near as bad as they are right now in those countries. Imagine how the US would be if we collapsed like the Soviet Union did. Actually imagine the state of the world if the single largest economy in it collapsed. The last time it caused the Great Depression. But that's beside the point. Point is, while the USSR was around, it was a superpower because it controlled vast amounts of land, had a mighty army, and no one dared challenge it except the only other superpower, the US.

[The Beatles]

That's your definition of superpower. Not mine.

The external definition btw only applies to the USA and the USSR, as calling empires prior to the XX. century superpowers would be an anachronism.

That discussion sealed then.

[Gen. Volkov]

OK. Glad that's settled then. Little confusing word choice there though Beatles, as anachronism means "something old-fashioned or out of date". But I get the point. Though Rome could still be considered one by my definition.

[The Beatles]

anachronism: "The utilization of an event, a person, an object, language in a time when that event, person, or object was not in existence."

[Gen. Volkov]

Yes, but it generally means that in the context of something from the past being in the future. At least in colloquial terms.

[The Beatles]

No, precisely the reverse. At any rate, from the usage I've seen. Never mind though, it could go either way.

[Gen. Volkov]

Well in all the places I've seen it used, it meant what I said, such as the SCA(Society for Creative Anachronisms) where they stage mock swordfights and have blacksmiths that can make armor and weapons that are period accurate. But I suppose it could go either way, as you said. Beside all that, calling the Roman Empire a superpower is a bit inaccurate I guess.