ess (phil hunt) :

What would be sensible strategies/weapons for a middle-ranking
country to employ if it thought it is likely to be involved in a war
against the USA or other Western countries, say in the next 10
years?

I think one strategy would be to use large numbers of low cost
cruise missiles (LCCM). The elements of a cruise missile are all
very simple, mature technology, except for the guidance system.
Modern computers are small and cheap, so guidance systems can be
made cheaply.

I would like to thank you for this thread. It has given me some insight on
what is going thru the minds of some of the smaller idiot countries that like
to rattle the cage holding the USA. As a Canadain it is always a wonder to
hear some of the silly ideas about the USA that comes out of the rest of the
world.

Things I have learnt:

1) There are people to this day don't seem to understand that Americans are
not cowards, they just don't like to fight wars. **** they off and they will
fight, they will not be scared off, rather they will hit you with everything
they have got. Why people think otherwise that is beyond me.

2) There are people to this day who think they can make a war too big to
fight. America is BIG, it really is BIG, I mean really, really BIG. When
America goes to war, it does not gear up production to fight, instead it uses
the war to clean out all the old stock it has lying around to make room for
new shiny weapons that it will make later after examining the results of the
old weapons. By the way America hate holding onto old stock, it does not
matter how little you are, they want to use all thier old stock on you to
clean out the inventory. I guess it make the paperwork easyier.

3) There are people to this day who think they can make a war too expensive.
America is rich, it probably is the only country where government people say
"A billion here, a billion there, soon it starts to add up to real money' and
mean it. In other words if you spend a billion dollars making your defense
system, America can afford to spend ten billion tearing it down. Ditto, if
you spent 10 billion.

4) There are people who insist on trying the fight the last war again.
America has a number of think-tanks who's only job if to figure out was went
wrong in the past and how to avoid repeating it and what could go wrong in
the future and how to prevent it. Depending on America to follow your war
plan is dumb.

5) People who have not tried to do advance programming, communication
networks, or operation of multiple mobile units in the middle of the FOG of
war think it is far easyier that it really is. America loves dictators who
try to control thier entire army from thier headquarters.

6) Cheap systems are not cheap. America's kill ratio is so high that cheap
systems have to be bought in quantities that are no longer cheap.

7) Off the shelf items are not harden enough to survive what an weathly
attacker can do to make them fail. Units that are hard to fool are expensive
to bye.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
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