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Post by Lord Bismarcus on Jun 18, 2008 18:09:05 GMT -5
Yeah but have they ever fought in a real war? At least Canada has.
Size != Viability
Iraq is the perfect example. Saddam had the 4th largest army on the planet, and all it was actually good for was doing parades.
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Post by justin credible on Jun 18, 2008 18:16:17 GMT -5
ELITE REPUBLICAN GUARD.
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Post by Lord Bismarcus on Jun 18, 2008 18:24:37 GMT -5
Lol
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Post by Sugarbutt on Jun 18, 2008 19:40:07 GMT -5
Don't Start, Yoho. Dubai is coasting along on its oil money. actually, their surviving on their neighbor's oil money and making a play to become the financial, tourist (and in the case of Abu Dhabi) the academic and cultural center of the entire region from the Mediterranean to the China sea. Certainly they can fail. Heck, they did fall apart in the oil price bust of the 90s, but I think it would be a mistake to think they're being completely short sighted.
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Post by Lord Bismarcus on Jun 18, 2008 21:12:15 GMT -5
No, not really.
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Post by Dancin' Dan the Doo-Dah Man on Jun 19, 2008 0:27:59 GMT -5
You both have a point. Biz is correct to say that their armies are often reasonably modern in terms of equipment but are rather inept with perhaps the odd competent unit here and there. None of them would have much of a chance against a well-equipped and well-trained army from a European or Commonwealth nation, and they would simply melt away in the face of an American expeditionary force, just like the Iraqi Army largely did in 2003. It was either ditch your uniform and go home, surrender en masse or die. Even if the U.S. had to invade Iran right now we'd end up kicking the Iranians around. The problem would come, again, not in direct combat against inferior Iranian troops but rather during any occupation attempt. Technology can compensate for numbers, but it's better at doing so during intense combat than during a sustained counter-insurgency.
So most of the armies in the Middle East, except for the ones in the tinier states, would provide the building blocks for a postwar insurgency...unless we applied the lessons of the current war and find a way to co-opt the remnants of their military immediately, instead of disbanding them, fighting them for four years and then trying to co-opt them in pieces.
But those F-16's, F-15's, F-4's and F-14's would do them no more good than their MiG 29's and Su-27's did in 2003. Without competent pilots to fly them they're just meat in a target drone for the USAF's entertainment.
But getting to the larger question, yeah, I read a book by a guy that said that he hopes that the world gets things moving in the right direction in the Middle East before their oil runs out or becomes less irrelevant due to improved energy technology, or else the rest of the world just isn't going to give enough of a shit to make the effort.
And as far as building big buildings, the oil is gonna keep the current generation in $$$ to the end of their lives and probably their kids too, and they apparently don't think any further than that. Also they don't have the economic sense God gave polar bears either, or they'd be trying to diversify their economy beyond pumping $$$ out of the ground in liquid form.
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Post by pinkard on Jun 19, 2008 7:37:25 GMT -5
Yeah, but they don't have Kraft Dinner to fuel it.
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Post by Lord Bismarcus on Jun 19, 2008 8:47:50 GMT -5
Roman Showers!
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