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!

the bigger picture of 'Red Dawn'

The 1984 movie Red Dawn wastes little time in getting into the action, less than 10 minutes in Soviet paratroopers land in a football field in Colorado and once there begin to hit vital targets like Mr. Cheesedale a high school teacher and the high school and it's students in general.

Yes a small town in Colorado would was a major focus of Soviet airborne operations!

Later into the movie when the Wolverine resistance fighters (named after their local football team) rendezvous with a downed F-15 pilot whom tells them a lot of what has happened in the world.

Russian proxy forces from Cuba and Mexico (which had a revolution) with sabotage forces disabled American ICBM sites followed by the Cuban and Nicaraguan armies marching into the midlands, covered by a massive Soviet assault of commuter planes flying right over the Bering Strait towards Colorado.

We (the audience) must take it for granted that the US radar operators can't tell the difference between a flock of pigeons and a full scale aerial assault!

Europe are shown to stay out of the war (since they "never" help America with in it's wars), except England that is, Red China sides with the United States (go figure) which results in (hinted) mass nuclear strikes that killed 400 billion of them.



It's not solid but then again this is a movie and we (the audience) are supposed to see it from the point of view of the teen resistance fighters (the Wolverines).

But would a Soviet and Cuban force really put that much attention to a single town in Colorado, what strategic importance does that have?

I wouldn't mind but the huge force (which consisted of tanks obviously carried in their backpacks) nearly had their operation foiled by a single UH-1 Huey army helicopter which observed and fired on them all afternoon and for half of the night!



Not only that but communism is obviously such a malignant disease that it slowly just absorbs places and people, for example a re-education camp (built in a drive in theater) is built nearly instantly in that town, do the Soviets really dislike what was going on in Calumet, Colorado that much that they sacrifice so many resources only to be defeated by six teenage resistance fighters?

Who are freedom fighters and remain freedom fighters by having a defacto leader!

Director John Milius stated he was inspired by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980 and the resistance put up by the Mujahideen (then known by the Reagan Administration as freedom fighters), his inspiration really shows in the movie.



That all being said I doubt any American at the time doubted how real a war like this could have been!

why a remake of Red Dawn wouldn't work today

Red Dawn the 1984 movie set during the height of the Cold War, set during the time when the United States and the Soviet Union were waiting for the feared nuclear exchange.

So when a movie came out about Soviet Paratroopers landing in a small town in Colorado and taking it over along with several other parts of America it was believable.

As the movie progresses a group of teenagers from a local high school retreat up into the hills and lead a guerilla offensive against the occupying Russian and Cuban forces calling themselves the Wolverines.



While the first hour of the movie has little direction apart from what we saw and that was Soviet paratroopers landing in the middle of a football field in the Wolverines local high school!

But about an hour into the movie a downed F-15 pilot who joins with the Wolverines explains how a handful of nuclear strikes against main points of communication were carried out, destroying Kansas City and Washington DC and destroying ICBM bases in Montana and the Dakotas.

At the same time Cuban and Nicaraguan troops march through the border as this is happening up south and the Soviets crossed the Bering Strait disguised as commuter planes (as they done in Afghanistan in real life back in 1980).

This then results in a conventional war fought across the midlands since each side doesn't want to use nuclear weapons, the plot was simple for the time and I doubt there was anybody at the time who doubted that what was shown in the movie was possible.

Director John Milius was inspired to some degree by the Afghan insurgency in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion.

That fact is another reason why remaking Red Dawn in a post 9/11 world is a terrible idea!

The Soviets are gone and are now a capitalist society, Afghanistan of course is occupied, yeah by the US itself and the Taliban are the ones running to the hills!

And what exactly does post 9/11 world mean, Arab terrorists as the bad guys?

Remember The Siege, a film where Arab terrorists simply make constant attacks in New York resulting in the declaration of martial law.

As stupid as it think a Red Dawn version of that, how would it work, its just a stupid prospect, and the ruining of a classic that that was made in a time that was relevant to the story!