"world war three what if" Topic

iwas wondering if north korea china russiaand iran declare war on the usa what other countries would ally with the usa

Well, the aliens who gave us all their technology would be on our side, of course . . .

Can't logically see a Russia/China/North Korea and Iranian Declaration of War…What would be the reason to forge these countries to work together? The Destruction of the US?

Ooooooooooookay…how many other countries are going to go along with that? Not very many…

Not much in the way of conventional fighting I think…this would go nuclear REAL fast…

errr…NATO? The Israelis would be too busy nuking Iran to pay much attention.

There are several scenarios (which would need significant trains of events) that might get China and Russia both antagonistic to the US and cooperating (at least in a limited way). With the nut jobs that are running North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela, it wouldn't be hard to see them piling in just because (or maybe for good cause, depending upon what the scenario is).

Who would side with the US would really depend upon what that scenario was that drove China and Russia to cooperate.

NATO might join the US depending upon Russia's actions.
South Korea would be there (since just about any action by NK would impact them).
Australia, India, Japan, and/or Taiwan might help, but it depends upon what the Chinese do/did.
If Venzuela starts up, Columbia may be forced into things.
Israel's participation would depend upon Iran (that that may also end up including Syria, against the US side).

What about Indonesia, the Phillipines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Pakistan, and all those former Soviet -stans, along with Georgia, Byelorus, and Ukraine? All scenario dependant, of course.

So, how 'bout some more info? What started this war? Why are the parties that are on one side on that side? That'll give you the answers to the original question.

Rob

The nearest I can figure to try to make this set up occur is if you have a stress area around Korea/Japan, with Taiwan heating up.

China would back Korea, Russia would get nervous.

But China and Russia might not be that willing to cooperate, instead you'd have the US and allies getting close to a hideous two front major war.

Iran could be implicated on attacks on US assets going south from Suez on their way to join the Theatre of Operations.

I'd guess this would go nuclear very, very quickly.

John

I can't delete your comments

And I can't PM you about them

But I thought about what I was typing and figured that it wasn't constructive, and that was a bit two faced of me, so I tried to be constructive.

If you want to assign dire motives to that then go ahead, your choice

Fair enough.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone. I think my comment is a very plausible what-if situation given the posed scenario…In which case, allies would be largely irrelevant…

OK, here another possibility: All the NATO forces would get together and launch the devastating operation "hail & query"…

Leaving aside the small issue of politics being supposedly banned on TMP (well outside the Blue Oyster Bar that is) why does Venezuela qualify as nutjobs and why and indeed how would they attack the USA?

Read USS Seawolf and you might have the start of a scenario.

Us stealth boat is captured in Chinese waters a rescue mission goes wrong and an attempt to sabotage the captured sub results in the reactor going critical.

Chain claims it was a deliberate act of aggression tantamount to a nuclear strike

North Korea decides to use the situation to its own advantage and launches a missile against a US ship

The war hots up real fast

The home team

USA
SK
JAPAN
TIWAN

The Visiting side

CHINA
NK
war breaks out in Africa as Chinese supported states restrict fuel Terrorist start attack globally.
more and more states are dragged in as the seek someone to kick…..

Stress between NK and SK
Vietnam and Cina

The chance of the Moon People coming down to offer you a night of undying passion with their Princess is about 1100% more likely to happen than Russia, Chine, North Korea and Iran joining forces to attack the USA.

I can see china stomping on NK for just pushing the US to hard, and messing with the flow of money.

Russia and China have worked together before to try to limit US power, so I can easily see that happening again. NK is just a puppet for the Chinese, so they would be on board, and the Chinese and NK's have shared weapons tech, with the Iranians, so they would work together too.

Venezuela and Cuba would be on board as well.

UK and Australia would be on the US side, as would Japan, the South Koreans, and Israel. Canada probably would too, depending upon the scenario.

The EU is a crap shoot, since many countries don't even like to get involved in issues happening in their own back yard…

I don't think that NK is a puppet of China, not unless you are thinking about Chucky!

China prods NK to start war in Korea. US commits along with Japan. Once US is tied up, China goes to grab Tawain. It is a seperate and distinct issue from Korean Conflict. US naval forces in area out of position supporting ops in Korea.
China agrees to give Vietnam control of Spratley Islands for their support. As a major customer of Iranian oil, Iran joins in to support China as a neutral until attacked at sea by US forces (there's money to be made here by Iran [to support struggling economy] similar to way US played the neutral during the Iran/Iraq war).
Russia is involved due to proximity of Pacific ports to Korea. Only need an incident to occur with the US blamed as the agressor to have Russian involved to uphold honor of nation.
If other oil producing nations join opposition side to US, conflict could be over quickly as oil prices explode and US consumer and politicians scream for stability to save failing economy. Nato is deadlocked in debate by EU nations about what to due until oil prices skyrocket, forcing them to stay neutral, besides, the conflict is in Asia not Europe which only is an issue if Russia conducts combat operations in Europe (which could occupy and neutralize US forces based in Europe if they stay passive). (France and others finds money to be made supplying arms and ammunition.)
All nations know that US land forces are streched very thin. Key is to be able to achieve objectives quickly and then sue for peace or cease fire.

kyoteblue, do you own stock in the Blue Fez?

China provoking a war with the US would be against their interests, considering the fact that they own us and our economy already.
Just think of the havoc that a panicked President totally ignorant of economics could do with the bonds that China holds. The unthinkable is no longer unthinkable. Contracts and the Constitution have not bothered him yet. why should bonds?
And, as for Taiwan, why bother? It is already Chinese now in everything but name.

China's interests are much more in the line of propping up the failing United States. They bought us, they own us.

There are no rules. There used to be, but not any more.

I think a lot of people are using "old school" paradigms for US-China relations. You need to remember some history as well, the Chinese despise both NK and Vietnam, and the Chinese Communist Party has never forgiven the Russians for supporting the KMT during the Civil War. NK is a buffer to South Korea and it's US bases. Beyond that North Koreans are pretty much a standing joke to the Chinese, footage of NK's being run over at the border by trains and trucks is a top rating comedy show in the PRC.

You're more likely to see Chinese and US forces working together in the future than working against each other, especially over Iran. It's the Russians that crack the poos in regards to Iran, not China.

"China provoking a war with the US would be against their interests, considering the fact that they own us and our economy already".

Exactly, which is why they will continue to have the NK's tie down the USA, and allies, so they can look like the good guy in the international arena. However, you should note that they continue to support them with food, oil, arms, etc.

If desired, they could have NK start a small skirmish, or minor war, just for fun, while continuing to provide them with oil, food, nuclear fuel (proably comes from Russia, if I recall correctly), missile tech, etc.

Get Iran to threaten to shut down the Straits of Hormuz again (assuming they can get control of their country back from the students to do that). Then have the Russians and Venezuelans threaten to cut off oil to the USA and the EU, and there will be a real issue (no doubt they we wait until Winter to do that, when it is needed more to stave off the cold).

The Chinese can then make a grab for Taiwan, once the US military is stretched further.

If we threaten to intervene, they just cancel our credit line, conduct an even more enhanced cyber war against us, and threaten to launch an EMP bomb over North America, or our carrier task forces, and game over. If you think that is far-fetched, you might want to recall that the Chinese have threatened to nuke Los Angeles, and/or other west coast cities on occasion, e.g. in the last ten years, or so.

I doubt the US would intervene under the present administration to save Taiwan, since our current President won't even make a statement critical of the election, or the leaders in Iran, or in support of the people seeking fair elections there.

"…the Chinese despise both NK and Vietnam…".

I'm happy to concede that, but that doesn't mean they won't use them as pawns on the world chess board. It's a perfect setup if you think about it – get those you despise to work on your behalf, and if they get eliminated, so much the better. If they succeed, you can always eliminate them later, or use them again for another action where you don't want to put your own forces at risk. Ties up Western nations, at little to no real risk to their own forces. Brilliant strategy.

The Chinese are the ones selling Silkworm missiles, and other tech to Iran. Granted the Russians are aiding them too, but the Chinese have provided a considerable amount of arms and info as well.

As for wargaming, Fox Two Reheat, or C21 works for the aerial battles.

Shipwreck, or Harpoon for the naval battles. Shipwreck is probably better for quick, massed actions.

Gaming on land is your choice, but I imagine Fist Full of Tows, or similar rules should work reasonably well.

Not sure what rules you should choose, if you decide on the nuclear option.

You don't get it do you?

Think the Chinese haven't been ticked off with North Korea testing bombs and firing off missiles? Wonder why the Chinese were happy to up the sanction regime including stop and inspects? Do you really think China wants an uncontrollable state on its border, with a loose cannon approach to diplomacy and a pocket full of rockets and warheads?

What's in it for China? As recent events have shown China doesn't really have as much influence over the NK as folk thought, which in and of itself is something of a loss of face.

They sold North Korea Silkworm missiles? Wow, tremble and be very afraid. Bit like saying that the US sold Japan F-86 Sabres or Starfighters, hardly cutting edge technology is it?

The bit I really like is Venezuela and Cuba would be in it too.
How exactly? Worried that the Cubans will sucker you with a few more boatloads of freed criminals and released lunatics? I think you'll find there's enough to go around in Miami already.

What's Venezuela going to do? Cut off their oil shipments? What and watch the economy tank? they can hardly threaten the US with their navy or airforce.

Still you will be able to rely on Colombia, your last stalwart ally in the region when the massed Sino-Cuban-Venezuelan onslaught takes shape. If you're lucky they'll drop cocaine prices.

:-)

China could stop NK's bad behavior tomorrow.

All they have to do is cut off the oil, food, and other aid they provide.

I imagine they won't do that, based upon the last 20 years of their actions.

And in doing so watch as a veritable human tide of starving North Koreans hits their border. China and indeed South Koreas whole balancing act is predicated on avoiding the largest single humanitarian crisis since the Second World War. And in the event their regime starts crumbling, think the current NK leadership would be adverse to some nuke enhanced gotterdammerung?

Maybe you should try looking at things from China's point of view.

Doug's right Top Gun Ace. The scenario you're presenting is really out there. I know that this is a hypothetical, but your starting point is so close to impossible it's not funny. You need to stop looking at the world as "us vs. them", it doesn't work that way anymore mate.

If China can't get North Korea to stop testing missles – and they have tried a fair few times – by what logic can they all of a sudden get them to start WW3? Doug nailed it, if they do that all hell breaks lose for China.

Take some time to read up on recent history of east Asian relations, just avoid the book Dragon Strike, it's almost as far fetched as your original hypothesis.

If you really want to game the US v. China, then look at creating a low level conflict somewhere like the Sudan. Chinese PLA disguised as "security contractors" fighting a UN peace keeping force. That's more close to reality than WW3.

And stop it with the Spratleys and Taiwan, neither of those are worth war with the US and all parties know that.

Sounds like one way you could do this would be to set up a national diplomacy/production level game that dropped into a board game when sides clash.

Let the gamers think the unthinable as lets face it we do that in games where real folks wouldn't.

Imagine you have a cabal of business and media moguls with links to old Cold War apparatchiks, the courts and soldiers who resent the current US President.

They stahe a coup of the sort that was alleged as the Businesss Plot, the President is removed from power and the previous administration's VP is brought in as a "strong-man leader".

To cement his position he starts making aggressive noises abroad, against Iran and North Korea.

Those noises see both look to their defence and Iran to China for aid and China makes overtures to North Korea, wanting to tone it down a bit there as it is too close to home.

Mean while in the CIS, resurgent pride that is couple with an eye of the might of the Soviet Union, if maybe not the Communist State, starts to build up its Far East assets, thinking that the time is coming to make good use of the resources of the Eastern parts of Siberia, and that it may need to protect them.

The US gets worried, and wearns them off too big a build up in an unstable region.

There is your tension. Lots of things could move that to war.

As to rules. Not sure about what to use for the high level stuff, but Cold War Commander for the battlefield.

I suspect the best way to game this is tiddly winks or snakes and ladders and for the diplomatic aspect poker. For the love of God please spare us the mental image of strip poker.

BTW – I wouldn't assume the UK would back the USA automatically.

The Americans have used up an awful lot of goodwill i nthe past decade.

IT would depend on the scenario. Any possible hint that the USA had been asking for trouble (like pushing China's buttons once too often) and I suspect you're on your own.

And that would mean no Diego Garcia or UK bases.

Yeah, no one these days wants to wake up and discover they are .

I wouldn't automatically count on Australia's support either. Whatever the white paper may posit, declaring war on your single biggest purchaser of iron ore might not go down too well. Th past 10 years of growth were mostly on the back of the Chinese market.

Declaring war on the Chinese would also be a really nice way to offside all those developing nations with increasing economic ties with China. Not really the smartest of moves all up.

Australia would be very hard pressed to want to declare war with China. We aren't members of any diplomatic/defence bloc like the EU, NATO or NAFTA even so no one really has our backs except for the USA. Our most valued "grouping" is with the UN and then ASEAN, and I'd dare say that we would pretty much try and match the diplomatic stance of ASEAN in the lack of any UN mandate – we learnt our lesson about that in Iraq.

The only other treaty we value is ANZUS, and it's likely that even then we'd think twice. Until recently over 60% of Australian's felt the US was a greater threat to world peace than the Chinese!

With Iran, they would first look to Russia before China. The Chinese are end customers of Iran's energy, but the Russians are still Iran's major sponsor. China isn't Iran's biggest customer either as I suspect most Iranian oil first goes to Europe and the US first, need to check on that.

"Sounds like one way you could do this would be to set up a national diplomacy/production level game that dropped into a board game when sides clash."

It is easy enough to set this sort of thing up as some sort of committee game, either an unstructured one or something like a matrix game. The main thing is to give each major power sensible objectives, resources and constraints – at which point you rapidly discover that the scenario outlined by the OP just isn't going to happen….

How well it works partly depends on how many players you've got an how much time. I played in something very similar a few years back (big umpire moderate global geo-political discussion game). IIRC the Chinese 'won' by manipulating global currency markets and short selling.

Would Russia/ Cis vs China be a more plausible scenario ?

Fighting over oil in Kazakhstan as per the 'West Wing' scenario? Yes.

Yeah it is, especially over the 'Stans. It would all be fairly low level stuff though, and mostly over all the pipes between the two nations.

It would make for some good low level scenarios though. Sabotage missions etc

Phil

I've been reading a lot about WW1 lately, and just to play devil's advocate, alot of the economic arguments strike me of the same arguments in the "The great Illusion" by Norman Angell. It was published in 1910 and said that war in Europe was obsolete… Then there was 1914.

Not sure what rules you should choose, if you decide on the nuclear option.

Tractics

Actually, I expect to see the island of Formosa get re-absorbed into the PRC. Both PRC and Taiwan RoC think they're China's legit government, and the only thing that's kept them apart has been the 7th Fleet.

The US washed it's hands of the RoC government and told China 'if you want it, it's Yours!' in 1950. Then the Russians pushed the Koreans, and since the US thought that all commies were the same, they told PRC, 'if you want Formosa, you're going to have to go through the 7th fleet.'

=====
The OP scenario is really unlikely, China doesn't like either the Russians or the DPRK (DPRK due to stability/sanity, Russians due to Imperialist attitudes). Iran and Russia *might* work together, but I wouldn't bet on that. Both sides remember the Russian involvement in Afghanistan.

@Martin: Most of the militaries in Europe were on a 'launch-on-warning' footing, which is not the case now.

Economics indicates that declaring War on your biggest trading partner is a quick way to financial suicide, so China is *very* unlikely to do anything to destroy US trade w/ China. In fact, China does enough trade with the US that there's a good possibility of the PRC coming in as a US ally if someone actually started actions that would impede US/China trade.

@ Lion in the Stars : I'm just playing Devil's advocate here, but arn't ICBMs on a in the air in less than a hour footing? And was not one of Brabra Tuchman's main arguments that none of the powers wanted the war, but it happed anyways because of breakdowns in the political/military decision cycle.

I have met very few people who can always act in their best interests under pressure. To give a sweaping generalisation that NO goverment will always act rationally is as dangerous as if everybody was using Nixon's madman theory (Personally I think that the North Korea has mastered above all else)

Wow the name of a former British prime minister is now regarded as a word deserving automatic expungment!

Benjamin Disr[SNIP]
Gladst[SNIP]
Pal[SNIP]stone
Winston [SNIP]
[SNIP] Attlee

This could make the 19thC and WW2 boards really fun. I wonder if it only applies to British premiers?

Charles De [SNIP]
Nap[Snip]arte

[SNIP] Wilberforce. The cruellest cut of all.

I rather like the ring to [SNIP] The Younger though.

And don't get all snippy about it, young man. :-)

@Martin: I haven't read Touchman, but that was the consensus in my PoliSci/International Relations class.

Timelines for deploying Nukes of any kind depend entirely on the actions of the NCA. There is a certain minimum time from word go to missiles leaving the tube as well.

@Lion in the Stars,

Don't forget that it took a month to go from the assassination of the Archduke to the first shots of a hot war. There were many times where "cool heads" might have prevented the war, but the orders to mobilse back then are as irevokeable then as missiles are now.

Shure, you could agree to simultaniously detenate missiles in the air, but would you take the chance that the other won't once you have both have taken the decision to wipe a the other country off the map?

It's the same problem as there was stopping the trains (where according to Gen Joffre's calculations the loss of a day for mobilasiation was 25km of front), just more explosive and a smaller decision cycle.

was wondering if north korea china russiaand iran declare war on the usa what other countries would ally with the usa

Given that China and Russia have real reasons to fight each other instead of the mostly theoretical reasons to fight the USA I think the better question is which side does the US pick?

I'm also unclear how this doesn't turn into a nuclear exchange immediately, rendering the question of allies a moot point? Neither Russia nor China (forget Iran and North Korea) could mount a serious attack on US soil without ICBM's.

If the war starts with Russia/China invading other countries and the US intervening then obviously those countries and their immediate friends would be our allies.

-Will

Actually, I hadn't remembered that. Nonetheless, I think the events may have been happening faster than the power-that-be of the time could react.

Decision cycles have really sped up since 1989, and are orders of magnitude faster than in 1914.

What was that short story called? 'The First Cup of Coffee War,' I think. When you can have an entire battle (from detection of attack to counter-strike) take place in less time than it takes for a cup of coffee to get cold, you're talking modern decision cycles.

I don't know if operational missiles (as opposed to test shots) have range safety packages (ie, are able to be blown up in-flight). From all the published (unclassified) literature I've read, they do NOT have that capability. Once the bird leaves the tube, that's it. It's the reason presidents are willing to fly bombers someplace. Even after the bomber flies into someone else's airspace, as long as they aren't within a hundred miles or so of the target, the bombers can still be called back. Missiles don't have that ominous impact of 'aluminum overcast,' they just have the earth-shattering kaboom at their arrival.

Again, stepping well away from Blue Fez territory:
I just don't see that group of countries working together to attack the US. The DPRK is probably going to implode within the next 5 years. Hopefully Iran settles down (personally, I'd just abruptly recognize them, give them everything they're talking about, and watch the government collapse). China owns too much of the US for them to want to destroy it. I don't think Putin wants to completely go back to the Cold War, he just wants to go back to when the Russian bear dominated half the world's politics. Starting a real fight with the US would not accomplish that goal, but a war of words might.

@Lion in the Stars,

As for operational missiles, I know that the lit. is silent on range safty packages, but I assume that the states that do have ICBM would find it advantageous to have a "safety" incase of accidental launch of a sigle missle.

Ferthermore, it's not just the decision cycle that has shrunk, but also the media cycle. If we look at recent actions in the last 10 years, "cooler heads" can and will be portraied by some media as cowards. Once that label sticks, that person has no credibility anymore, and thus no power to stop a Train wreck.

Think it would be better to go for a load of war between different states, rather than two big blocks.

The US trying to subdue to the whole islamic world (or atleast the Arab/Persian/Pakistan bit) – you can come up with a senario easily enoughm making it whoever's fault. While China tries to invade Taiwan and have North Korea invade South Korea which could bring in The US Paciffic fleet and Japan, then have the non-ethnic parts of China trying to break off and conflict with Russia and India (who could also be having ago with Pakistan). You can then throw in all the cenral Asian republics. Also Vietnam and China get have a bash at each other.

At the same time of have some mad liberals try and sort out sub-Sarahan Africa with the UK and French armies (and maybe Soth Africans), while The Argentines try and take back the Fauklands. French navy can have an arguement with Canada. Iceland can have a non shooting war with the Uk as well, throw in some other non-shooting Scandinavians if you like.

The Balkens can go mental at this point which will give the germans something to do. While Colombia and Venezuela can have a bash at each other, while Chile and Argentina can also do the same.

That would be my WW3 for wargame purposes. Daft as our leaders are, I don't think their that daft (atleast at the momment).

Why I would use 15mm QRF and Peter Pig with Force on Force rules with some special house rules. Purely small platoon action.