Future of CM:SF

[Erwin]

"Our only other option, is to find our own young, meanest, baddest, knuckle dragging Pastun MFer and give him all the butter, guns and gold treasure he desires as long as he brings us scalps from this region..."

Unfortunately, that's how we get a Saddam H.

[meade95]

"Our only other option, is to find our own young, meanest, baddest, knuckle dragging Pastun MFer and give him all the butter, guns and gold treasure he desires as long as he brings us scalps from this region..."

Unfortunately, that's how we get a Saddam H.

There are some direct and indirect differences to that analogy - But for the sake of an argument, even if accepted, such decisions / associations sometimes are the best short term solution to the complex realities of the times.....

[Erwin]

Well, yes, when you are desperate etc. I was simply making the point that we have to understand the consequences and be prepared for the blowback.

[LongLeftFlank]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, I'm afraid. Not to drive this interesting thread into a swamp of political debate but the US didn't "create" Saddam, or the Taliban, or OBL, or the Khmer Rouge, or every other evil ruler* who has arisen since 1776, any more than IBM caused the Holocaust. They overwhelmingly created themselves, abetted by craven elites in the societies they preyed upon. Sorry to rant, but I get sick of hearing this stuff from my smug Yankee-bashing countrymen.

* OK, well they did install Somoza and some other jerks in Latin America.....

[Alan8325]

IIRC the idea behind CMSF2 was to create a technologically "even" conventional match between red and blue forces, so that basically leaves China and Russia as possibilites for the "red" side, assuming "blue" is the U.S./NATO.

The Pakistan situation is interesting, but in IMO an entire game based on a conflict there would be a lot like CMSF all over again with a few new units. That may not be a bad thing though because by the time CMSF2 rolls around I may have had my fix for an even match satisfied by CMBN and not mind basically doing CMSF1 over again with all the new evolutions that CMx2 will have taken by then.

[LongLeftFlank]

Agreed. Unless the Indian Army is the sugar daddy of Steves dreams, funding CoPlay development and the India/Pakistan OBs while leaving him creative control, there isnt a viable CMSF module here, much less a CMx3.

But it could be a user-created CMSF campaign. Interesting project....

[dan/california]

War in Pakistan could draw the Chinese in, at least for purposes of a game back story. They have something of an alliance and more less share a border somewhere up there in the Himalayan version of the backside of nowhere.

In a side note, I continue to be amazed at the awfulness of my own typing, maybe that should be in my sig?

[LongLeftFlank]

We can spin any backstory indeed, but if I was the Chinese I'd let the US and India exhaust themselves trying to sort out Pakistan (Afghanistan cubed) and keep angering the Muslim world which I could then court. Why would I fight there?

[dan/california]

They need the oil even worse than the U.S. does? And a game background doesn't need to be perfect.

[dan/california]

A purely rational analysis would indicate The U.S. and China should agree to disagree, and not wreck the world economy over, well anything really. See this article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/13/AR2011011304832.html

People aren't always rational.

[meade95]

I'm not sure there is anyway for China to "court" the Muslims (the jihad fanantic section that is there to be dealt with) though??? - They're already having some of their own problems within their border regions with such elements.

The only true counter it seems to me, against the Muslim Jihadists movement is quasi-freedoms within. That grow and mature. And this, freedoms, China likely wouldn't be offering or they would be helping in areas now. They missed a big opportunity in Iraq, I think, a decision they will look back on with regret. As not only an opportunity missed within shaping the future of a productive Muslim world but also in becoming more than just a regional power....

While these situations are complex. There is nothing more complex than avoiding the obvious....and to me the obvious is, the counter to radical Islam/Jihadists is helping in providing an atmosphere within/throughout the Middle East that allows for the notion of self-worth. With the notion of self-worth spreading within the peoples of those countries, radical Islam with be rejected more often than not. Compoudning even more so with time against them.

It is either that or bombs. And at times the latter is going to needed before the prior can have even a shot at taking root. The world is simply too small any longer to allow radical Islam to go unconfronted, 24/7.

But as for a gameplay backdrop.....I agree, it would make a great backdrop for CMSF-2/3.

[LongLeftFlank]

Well, I guess it was inevitable this thread would get political if we were going to extrapolate current events to a near future backstory, but reeling it back in: I think we agree that it's going to be a stretch to imagine anyone -- China and Russia included -- waging a non-asymetrical war against the US military. Once Uncle Sam sends the heavy armour, they're loaded for bear.

The Russia Fulda Gap thing was the last credible threat, and IMHO any time after about 1981 the Russians would have gotten their arses handed to them there and had to take it nuclear.

But then I've always been an infantry fan, and have no problem with asymetrical warfare. In that case, there are plenty of places Uncle Sam could go and find himself in a Mogadishu type situation.

[Erwin]

LongLeft: It's not about bashing anybody, just that the CIA enabled Saddam to power, in the same way we engineered that corrupt idiot in Afghanistan. At the time I am sure it seemed like a good idea, and/or an easy fix to an intractable problem. It's probably got more to do with corporate interests. As an (expat) Brit we are used to cynically exploiting everybody and installing satraps as is normal for any empire since empires existed. It's just the "circle of life."

PS: "Once Uncle Sam sends the heavy armour..." About as likely as Islamic hordes crossing via Istanbul and overwhelming Europe (as a Brit military guy I knew worried about). Logistics and lines of supply are the issue. Look how stretched everyone is in Iraq and Afghanistan etc. when you consider all the pre-positioned crap we had in Saudi Arabia (a friendly base next door and no ocean to cross).

[LongLeftFlank]

Saddam rose to power the same way Stalin did, by systematically playing off / killing off his rivals within the Ba'ath movement. The fact that the CIA stepped into the shoes of the Brits in trying to prop up the pathetic King Idris, and then was monkeying about afterward didn't suddenly make them the puppet masters. I stand by my point: Saddam made Saddam. And if you want to blame someone else, blame the Iraqi elites and army.

[Erwin]

"blame the Iraqi elites and army..." Well, yes, at the heart of it everything is the fault of the rich - see Wall Street greed.

[LongLeftFlank]

Well, I'll let you have the last word on that.

[meade95]

LongLeft: It's not about bashing anybody, just that the CIA enabled Saddam to power, in the same way we engineered that corrupt idiot in Afghanistan. At the time I am sure it seemed like a good idea, and/or an easy fix to an intractable problem. It's probably got more to do with corporate interests. As an (expat) Brit we are used to cynically exploiting everybody and installing satraps as is normal for any empire since empires existed. It's just the "circle of life."

PS: "Once Uncle Sam sends the heavy armour..." About as likely as Islamic hordes crossing via Istanbul and overwhelming Europe (as a Brit military guy I knew worried about). Logistics and lines of supply are the issue. Look how stretched everyone is in Iraq and Afghanistan etc. when you consider all the pre-positioned crap we had in Saudi Arabia (a friendly base next door and no ocean to cross).

With respect, if you believe Saddam came to power because of (or had anything to do with) the CIA, that just isn't accurate. Saddam came to power via himself, squarly. He was a self made dictator if there ever was one.... The guy was banished from Iraq for a period of his life (sent off to exile in Egypt/Jordan) only to return via his own efforts. Absoutely nothing to do with the U.S.

And that is a long growing fable regarding UBL and the CIA. He was nothing within the mojahedin which with the CIA worked in the 80s. His legend has been greatly exxaggerated in that period.

As for the idea of the US being stretched because of the GWOT. While I'll agree, it is fact that professionals think logistics, logistics, logistics...while the amatuer thinks tactics......I think what the GWOT proved....was it wasn't the US who couldn't fight an effective, prolonged multi-front war.....it was AQ who couldn't.

[hcrof]

I think we agree that it's going to be a stretch to imagine anyone -- China and Russia included -- waging a non-asymetrical war against the US military. Once Uncle Sam sends the heavy armour, they're loaded for bear.

The Russia Fulda Gap thing was the last credible threat, and IMHO any time after about 1981 the Russians would have gotten their arses handed to them there and had to take it nuclear.

I can see where you are coming from but I would argue that an effective military (especially in the Russian or Chinese style) is more about deterrence than actual ability to take on the US single handed. If America was to invade either of those countries they may win (Unlikely IMO because of the aforementioned logistics issues) but they would take such horrific casualties and economic damage as to make such a victory pyrrhic at best. Then the insurgency would start - both those countries are strongly nationalistic and it would take a lot to break their will to fight.

Also, I don't see the US/NATO winning any form of meaningful victory in '81 - It is of course highly speculative but I can just see a bloody stalemate and perhaps the loss of West Germany then. By the mid '80s US combat power really starts to kick off but I would still argue for a stalemate, just one slightly more in the favour of the west.

[vincere]

I think you guys are touching on some fundamental principles of aggression.

Generally, sides are reluctant to fight if it looks like a even'ish fight. But 2 things for SF 2, are that it does happen, and that SF 2 is fiction anyway.

LongLeftFlank: Amen to some common sense about Sadam.

But the US et al are propping up that idiot in Afghanistan and sometimes doing his bidding with a high cost. Problem is who's going to do any better in their cultural arena of tribalism and corruption being the norm.

[LongLeftFlank]

Now if we're trying to stretch our capable minds here and figure out what possible Black Swan events might lead us to Big Armies going toe to toe within 5 years, there is the brave new world of nuclear proliferation abetted by Wikileaks type sites who are happy to put all the "how tos" online.

The basic principles of how to assemble a crude Hiroshima-size fission bomb have been widely known since at least the 1970s, and anyone with enough money can source the fissile material. IIUC (I read Tom Clancy like everyone else), the key limiting step is the trigger mechanism... all the charges must go off exactly at once to create the critical mass and ignite the chain reaction.

As "high tech" manufacturing goes global in search of low-cost labour, unstable regimes and even the likes of AQ are starting to find it in their power to fabricate suitable control devices. No longer do you need a corps of MIT- and Cambridge-trained scientists to reverse engineer the concepts.

A leading indicator is the lethal EFP (Explosively Formed Penetrator) technology now finding its way into insurgent IEDs in A-stan and elsewhere. IIUC, EFPs require a certain level of precision machining to create the convex metal discs. That technology is now widely available in the Third World, and so the floodgates have been opened.

And that kind of proliferation may "force the hand" of terrified but well-armed nations -- like India in the example I cited above -- and perhaps drag superpowers into conflict who never intended it to go so far, so fast. WWI redux.

[Alan8325]

Well, I guess it was inevitable this thread would get political if we were going to extrapolate current events to a near future backstory, but reeling it back in: I think we agree that it's going to be a stretch to imagine anyone -- China and Russia included -- waging a non-asymetrical war against the US military. Once Uncle Sam sends the heavy armour, they're loaded for bear.

The Russia Fulda Gap thing was the last credible threat, and IMHO any time after about 1981 the Russians would have gotten their arses handed to them there and had to take it nuclear.

But then I've always been an infantry fan, and have no problem with asymetrical warfare. In that case, there are plenty of places Uncle Sam could go and find himself in a Mogadishu type situation.

If it can go from roughly even in 81 to vastly uneven a few years later, why can't it concievably go from vastly uneven to even in a few years? China is modernernizing their military fairly rapidly and have the economy to sustain it. Of course, CMSF2 should and likely will be limited to existing military equipment and OBs, both currently deployed (at the time of CMSF2 development) and scheduled for deployment in the near future. That said, if it's still conventionally uneven at the time there's only so much room to stretch.

[LongLeftFlank]

Valid point, so let's take conventional military parity with China as assumed (e.g. they can field knock-off M1s and IFVs equivalent to the Bradley, and nice precision arty, and neutralize our airpower so it's all even-steven. Oh, and even split infantry squads like the white boys do ).

Are we invading their country, or are they invading ours, in your backstory case? And why would we/they do that? Do the Chinese want California (or in my case, BC) that badly? Are those sinister Chinese hordes actually still breeding like rabbits and in need of lebensraum?

Or are we putatively fighting in a third country (Siberia? Iran?) for some kind of must-have scarce 'strategic resource' that (a) we/they can't just substitute some other input for instead of fighting WWIII over it, and ( somehow can't be less competitively obtained on spot from Australia, Brazil, Africa or the freekin' ocean floor? And don't say Oil.

Sorry about the sarcasm. I blame the nice Chilean Malbec. I'm actually interested in what you might come up with.

[Alan8325]

Well, I personally don't find the back story particularly important as long as everything on my computer screen is realistic, such as the TO&Es, environments, weapon effects, etc. Keep in mind that in CMSF a scenario designer could pit the U.S. Marines against the Dutch Army backed up by Syrian Uncons if he wants to. And then make a campaign out of it.

CMSF2 could possibly have a back story that does not pit the U.S. Army against the Chinese Army head-to-head at all, but still include both, even if not in the beginning but through modules later. The original back story, like some people have said, could be China and/or the U.S. getting involved in a third country, like Korea. The U.S. and China would probably not realistically confront eachother convetionally head-on in that case, but the two beasts are certainly in the same game and a scenario designer could make his own wild campaign with them while CMSF2 successfully satisfies it's goal of providing more even Red and Blue sides.

[LongLeftFlank]

Agreed. The ashes of North Korea would be my choice for a game that includes US and Chinese forces, personally.

[Alan8325]

I'm not sure what the various factions in the game with all modules included would amount to in that case. Maybe:

-U.S. Army

-U.S. Marines

-Chinese Army

-Chinese Marines

-North Korean forces

-South Korean forces

-NATO forces and allies (Japan?, Australia?)

-Russian forces

-Various unconventional forces (North and South Korean nationalists, Chinese nationalists, Western Chinese Islamists, special forces, private contractor combatants)

Those are the possibilities I can think of at the moment but how their inclusion would distribute among the the original game and modules would vary widely depending on the back story.