why you can't invade the United States
Admiral Yamamoto once said that "you cannot invade the United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."

This rings through to be entirely true today, America has a military bigger than any of their Allies or their enemies and could take on a rather large war economy and fight multiple wars at any one time,
Now I'm not contradicting what I said before about the possibility of a total economic collapse that would bring down the US, what I'm going to concentrate on here is an attempted military invasion of the United States and/or North America with it debunking several ideas people have put forward for a possible scenario in the remake of Red Dawn.
Following discussions on IMdB and one or two on my own posts, the scenarios most people paint are ones of which would be a sea borne invasion by the Peoples Republic of China, a Red Dawn type large troop invasion right across the Pacific, the writer of this comment put in a lot of thought into this scenario, but the truth is since the end of World War II the United States has managed to triumph a military buffer far beyond it's border against other potential superpowers, for example the United States Navy has controlled most of the Pacific Ocean for nearly half a century now.
It is the most modern in the world with a variety of attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines, a single one of their 11 Nimitz class aircraft carriers can hold 90 fixed wing aircraft, are about a mile in a length and have a 20 storey infrastructure and a crew of 6,000, and has more air power than most aggressor states have in their entire inventory!

So with these giant machines 'o war patrolling far beyond the American coastlines in the oceans of the world I doubt a force large enough would manage to breach these defences, and even if they did the United States Air Force is big enough to deter any threat that would in turn fighting a war far from home, and apart from that even if the front line F-15's, F-16's, F-18's and F-22's (* sigh) fighters were outmatched there are hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of older fighters lying in the hot air of the Nevada Desert which could be readied and flyable once again in as little as eight days in case the United States come under such an unlikely threat.
I know I have been focusing mostly up to this stage on air and sea power, the United States Army has some 1,473,900 active troops along with some 200,000 Marines, plenty to defend it's ground when organized properly and very well up there with the largest standing armies in the world.
Infiltration is probably the most plausible thing that could bring down or cripple the United States, the failure to respond to a natural disaster in New Orleans in 2005 and responding by sending in armed soldiers to take peoples guns could in one sense show a serious flaw in the way things between the government and the people are run in America, but this is one eventuality the government is surprisingly well prepared for:

There are some 600 FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) camps spread all across the United States, they are guarded 24/7, but are currently are empty of prisoners, yet fully staffed and ready to receive prisoners if martial law is ordered from the high command, another reason for their existence is in case of some mass exodus of illegal aliens crossing the Mexican/US border, which would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention in these camps.
Other related Executive Orders worth noting (from past and present) I have listed below:
Executive Order 10990
Allows the government to take control over all modes of transportation, highways, and seaports.
Executive Order 10995
Allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
Executive Order 10997
Allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels, and minerals.
Executive Order 10998
Allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
Executive Order 10999
Allows the government to take over all modes of transportation.
Executive Order 11000
Allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
Executive Order 11003
Allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
Executive Order 11005
Allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways (notable pieces of infrastructure that could help defend against an invading force) and public storage facilities.
Executive Order 11051
Specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
Executive Order 11310
Grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
They seem to be prepared for it all, however the precision and carrying out of what they are unlawfully authorized to do could have it's initial human error, that being said it is almost impossible in today's militaristic climate to invade North America!
So the new Red Dawn in my mind is going to be a bit of a stretch if they go down the Chinese east invades west in a mass troop deployment manner like in the 1984 original which I also had problems with but nevertheless enjoyed!
* The American super carriers (particularly the Nimitz class) are most definitely an offensive weapon, the geography of the US ensures that a smaller more strategically based Navy could defend their territory (including Hawaii) instead of their current Navy that protects all of their global interests and are also used as a show of power against America's enemies and potential enemies!

This rings through to be entirely true today, America has a military bigger than any of their Allies or their enemies and could take on a rather large war economy and fight multiple wars at any one time,
Now I'm not contradicting what I said before about the possibility of a total economic collapse that would bring down the US, what I'm going to concentrate on here is an attempted military invasion of the United States and/or North America with it debunking several ideas people have put forward for a possible scenario in the remake of Red Dawn.
Following discussions on IMdB and one or two on my own posts, the scenarios most people paint are ones of which would be a sea borne invasion by the Peoples Republic of China, a Red Dawn type large troop invasion right across the Pacific, the writer of this comment put in a lot of thought into this scenario, but the truth is since the end of World War II the United States has managed to triumph a military buffer far beyond it's border against other potential superpowers, for example the United States Navy has controlled most of the Pacific Ocean for nearly half a century now.
It is the most modern in the world with a variety of attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines, a single one of their 11 Nimitz class aircraft carriers can hold 90 fixed wing aircraft, are about a mile in a length and have a 20 storey infrastructure and a crew of 6,000, and has more air power than most aggressor states have in their entire inventory!

So with these giant machines 'o war patrolling far beyond the American coastlines in the oceans of the world I doubt a force large enough would manage to breach these defences, and even if they did the United States Air Force is big enough to deter any threat that would in turn fighting a war far from home, and apart from that even if the front line F-15's, F-16's, F-18's and F-22's (* sigh) fighters were outmatched there are hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of older fighters lying in the hot air of the Nevada Desert which could be readied and flyable once again in as little as eight days in case the United States come under such an unlikely threat.
I know I have been focusing mostly up to this stage on air and sea power, the United States Army has some 1,473,900 active troops along with some 200,000 Marines, plenty to defend it's ground when organized properly and very well up there with the largest standing armies in the world.
Infiltration is probably the most plausible thing that could bring down or cripple the United States, the failure to respond to a natural disaster in New Orleans in 2005 and responding by sending in armed soldiers to take peoples guns could in one sense show a serious flaw in the way things between the government and the people are run in America, but this is one eventuality the government is surprisingly well prepared for:

There are some 600 FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) camps spread all across the United States, they are guarded 24/7, but are currently are empty of prisoners, yet fully staffed and ready to receive prisoners if martial law is ordered from the high command, another reason for their existence is in case of some mass exodus of illegal aliens crossing the Mexican/US border, which would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention in these camps.
Other related Executive Orders worth noting (from past and present) I have listed below:
Executive Order 10990
Allows the government to take control over all modes of transportation, highways, and seaports.
Executive Order 10995
Allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
Executive Order 10997
Allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels, and minerals.
Executive Order 10998
Allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
Executive Order 10999
Allows the government to take over all modes of transportation.
Executive Order 11000
Allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
Executive Order 11003
Allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
Executive Order 11005
Allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways (notable pieces of infrastructure that could help defend against an invading force) and public storage facilities.
Executive Order 11051
Specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
Executive Order 11310
Grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
They seem to be prepared for it all, however the precision and carrying out of what they are unlawfully authorized to do could have it's initial human error, that being said it is almost impossible in today's militaristic climate to invade North America!
So the new Red Dawn in my mind is going to be a bit of a stretch if they go down the Chinese east invades west in a mass troop deployment manner like in the 1984 original which I also had problems with but nevertheless enjoyed!
* The American super carriers (particularly the Nimitz class) are most definitely an offensive weapon, the geography of the US ensures that a smaller more strategically based Navy could defend their territory (including Hawaii) instead of their current Navy that protects all of their global interests and are also used as a show of power against America's enemies and potential enemies!
Labels: cold war, pacific war, red dawn, united states, us army, us navy, usaf

6 Comments:
At August 16, 2009 4:39 AM ,
Anonymous said...
Good observations and points.
I loved Red Dawn too. My friends and i played that in our pretend world of guns/army/special ops as kids.
I wasnt aware of the 600 Fema Detention camps currently staffed and ready for something likely not coming anytime soon.
Sounds like an enormous waste of money.
Also sounds like something the republicans will start bleating as Proof Obama will start sending white evangelical midwestern women and children to soon.
What about the new F35 Joint strike fighter? is that coming soon?
You're right. the US perimeter forces are too strong, too high tech, too varied, for any navy or air assault to weaken enough to slip through a flotilla of troop ships across either ocean to anything in our hemisphere.
Unless some new underwater technology was developed to bypass our undersea sensors and subs.
But they'd have to be some really big ships to bring significant troops to our shores undersea.
Then as the wise and knowledgeable Japanese Admiral noted, our populace through its cultural history enjoying its gun privileges would be nearly impossible to pacify without carpet bombing or Nuclear/Chemical/Biological warfare.
Although one might also note that benefit of having that deterrent for an invasion over and above our military might not outweigh the number of people killed every year by accidental shooting, or gun crimes annually, mostly the innocent and not a small number of children.
And this affects all races and classes, not just poor inner city crime ridden locations.
One needs to understand the mentality behind it.
The mentality is that people are often Eager, Very Eager to pull a trigger on another human being and just looking for an excuse.
Many people are completely desensitized to Killing another person merely because they perceive that person to have wronged them somehow.
Then because that mentality is rampant, Power hungry politicians use that power by stoking fear and anger with fraud and lies as their Ace card to influence politics. They puff up some false reasoning that isnt happening and has no true basis to pretend there is just and Noble cause to execute people who in fact are working to the advantage of all.
Much of the articles on this type of subject are about Theoretical scenarios.
Well one scenario of the potential abuse of this power could be a second American Civil war.
Right now we have a rising minority population of African, Asian, Latino americans and a dwindling Caucasion population.
As the years go by, the White majority is starting to lose their positions of 99% of Power and wealth in this country and that causes their politicians Mostly republicans to start stoking white fear of everyone and everything that doesnt add to value for whites.
Notice in Civilized nations that dont have the Gun mentality we have, they have far less racism and very few instances of Heavily armed militias with ties to supremacy groups and obvious hate agendas.
The US is impenetrable to outside invasions for the moment, but aside from the ramifications we are now seeing from having an incredibly well armed civilian populace, theres really no credible foreign threat to invade at this time.
At this time, we should be working FAR harder since 9-11 to do better at securing our borders from illegals, deporting those here illegally, keeping dangerous products from entering our ports and trade entry points from Foods, to household goods to building products and toxic weaponized products.
And reversing the increase in Work Visas as well.
I think some protectionism is just common sense not antagonistic. We are a target. Most other countries have very strict allowances for those same cautionary topics.
At August 16, 2009 6:59 AM ,
Anonymous said...
I'd like to see the list of executive orders updated with the President who issued each order.
At August 16, 2009 10:37 AM ,
Anonymous said...
I love how americans never consider the possibility of a united European army lol. Europe as a continent (Russia not included) has about 10 times more soldiers then america and it has some of the strongest navies in the world, Europe also has many nuclear attack submarines, the french navy alone could fire 40 nuclear missiles at the united states and it would be over before you knew it. Also, you speak of modern material but you should look at the contractors who build this material, most of them are european, even General Dynamics has joint projects with european contractors.
Obviously the likelyhood of a european invasion of the united states is about 0% specially now Bush is gone. Also we cannot yet really speak of a united european army (although there are about 70k soldiers in EUFOR taskforces available within 24 hours when needed). The likelyhood of an invasion of the United States mainland will always be about 0% because it's obviously a really large country and it would be strategically almost impossible to control it all.
Anyways, what i would really like to say is this; Do not underestimate other countries/unions. America might have the biggest militairy budget but that does absolutly not mean that you also have the biggest most modern army in the world.
Also, do not overestimate your own militia, all those americans with guns are completely unorganised, they dont take orders from anyone and thus they are completely useless in the defence of your country. the national guard is your last line of defence against any invasion and they will not last very long.
At August 16, 2009 9:26 PM ,
Sven Ortmann said...
Sounds like a lot of scaremonger talking point of tin foil hat people to me.
Just an example:
"Executive Order 10995
Allows the government to seize and control the communication media."
Not at all.
http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-10995.htm
An executive order couldn't do what you claimed it does anyway - even a law with that content would likely be ineffective due to the constitution (constitution > law > EO).
@2nd anonymous:
http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/index.html
At September 22, 2009 7:07 PM ,
Anonymous said...
to the person who stated about American's not considering a European threat, is because we don't exactly have strong enemies with Europe. America was born from Europe and we relate to them more than countries like from Asia. If Europe ever did take out America its going to have a fun time taking on Asia and at that point it would be hopelessly lost for Europe. Even as strong as Europe is, It wouldn't be able to take on two continents. And yes the countries of asia would have no problem invading Europe after we left, And yes countries of Asia would do that. Oh and you Underestimate our civilian militias. I've been in one and believe me, I know how well we can organize, not to mention how much firepower militias really do have in their arsenal. Don't underestimate those who prepare. Militias that are formed now without any invasion are going to be the most well organized and prepared. Militias that come after an invasion will look to the older militias to organize and prepare.
At January 31, 2010 12:41 PM ,
Anonymous said...
A joined Euro army....like NATO?
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