Civil 2.0

Military action is something the west is going to try harder and

harder to avoid. The image of America as a modern colonial power is one they seem keep to avoid.

ps: I really need to buy a mouse and disable this pad!

To no avail, I would add.

I would actually say Egypt, or potentially Somalia. But those would be many years coming

Egypt would be a great country to go to war with. Drop a couple of nasty chemical (or nuclear or biological if you're that way inclined) things into the Nile and you've pretty much won. More difficult if you want to win and look like the good guys, certainly, but a good starter nation for the less morally inclined conquest enthusiast.

I personally think the next US target will have a small population and tiny military, with good access for a naval assult and no oil (in order to provide evidence that the US doesn't attack only countries that have plenty of black stuff). Basically look for a small island with political unrest and a bastard of a leader where the Yanks can win an easy victory and look heroic.

@Octavious Cuba?

I'm surprised no one has said Iran.

Although they probably won't go to war directly. US-backed Israeli air strikes though. By the end of 2012.

Breaking News: US Troops Parachute Into Vatican City

Right after the breaking news that the Pope had oil, I would imagine.

Spain. Madrid won't do anything about those Canary Island terrorists.

Plus, the world is sick of them beating everyone at sports.

@Riphen - I like that target! Finally, legal Cuban cigars because we owned the joint! Of course, they'd taste like shit cause the EPA and the FDA would get their fingers into it, no longer allowing them to be rolled on a virgin's thighs and altering the content of the soil the tobacco is grown in...

Sorry, just me adding a little humor to it.

Once the US owned Cuba, where would they find virgins on whose thighs to roll the cigars anyway? ;-)

And those damn soldiers would probably end up trampling and or burning the fields, confusing tobacco for poppy. ;-)

i first want to define "war" before i take this bet. i for my purposes define it as such:

A military action directly against a government and it's armed forces, with the express purpose of defeating them. Military action here meaning the involvement of regular troops of one country against another's. With more than just air strikes.

If you want to challenge me on that we can have that debate but let me make my prediction first.

Let's go thru the regions:

-North America. Not going to happen. Not even with Cuba. Chances are low.
-South America. Possibly helping Colombia if war breaks out with Venezuela? Maybe. But their relations are improving too, so the chances are higher but still low.
-SSA - every military action we take in SSA is usually some kind of UN peacekeeping/humanitarian type of thing. Not predicting any real wars fought by the US in this regions for at least a century.
-Europe. Nope. Yugoslavia's not going to blow up again, we're too scared to fight Russia, and Belarus is not worth fighting over. Chances in SSA and Europe are exceedingly low.
-Middle East. Now we're talking. We could potentially go to war with:
-Libya (and I mean for real... like invading... if Gadhafi just won't die in a bomb, that is. Not likely but more likely than anything I've said so far)
-Egypt. This would have to be in a few years if they really go off the deep end and we start hating them. Enough is currently uncertain about the future that I have to say it's possible.
-Iraq is done, Iran we won't invade... too much like Iraq. Just not going to happen unless they straight up attack someone in the region. Chance is there but lower even than Venezuela and Cuba imo.
-Syria? yeah I don't know I doubt that as well. Libya and Egypt then I think are the most likely as it stands. In the unlikely event that SA boils over you bet we'd at least be involved and maybe via mission creep get into a war. But the chance of that I think is low.

-South Asia. Pakistan/India. I doubt it very much. They are very much too "established" for us to just fight a war with them willy-nilly like we would with some backwater. Some serious shit would have to happen for us to actually fight anyone in this region. Very low chance.
-East Asia.
-China. Much as you guys love to fantasize about it I put our chance of shooting war with China at about 1% for the next 50 years. It's feasible but not likely at all. There is as it stands no reason that outweighs the problems that would come with war. I just don't see it.
-NK. Maybe. Just maybe if the regime falls from inside we would probably have troops in there. If you want to call that a war, then we'd be involved I bet. It's also probably the one way we'll end up fighting China if we do, barring a nutjob Taiwan invasion or someshit.
-Burma? Idk. Almost certainly not... just throwing it out there. I really doubt it anyway.

So that about sums it up I think.

Most likely candidates:

-Libya (mission creep involving ground invasion)
-Egypt (regime changes via elections not to our liking, relations deteriorate. Maybe 5% chance in next 10-20 years)
-North Korea - if Kim dies and there is an internal power struggle and things get out of hand, it is feasible that we would go in with SK. I give this a 3% in the next 20 years. Of that 3% I give it a 25% that China gets involved and of that a 40-50% that we fight China over it.

There you go. That's what I think.

Honorable mention to Venezuela/Colombia war.

So essentially a 0.35% chance that the Korean War of the 50s is reenacted. I'm scared.

yeah.. again i'm not saying its likely.

i personally dont think even the most likely scenarios are all that likely.

whats more likely is that some totally unthinkable country will end up being totally against us and we will go to war with them.

the unforeseen, then, is what i foresee.

@ thucy
the wars in both iraq and afghanistan fall outside your definition of war, as we are not fighting another governments uniformed armed forces in either country.
whoo peacetime!

-the US already funds the columbian military and brutal paramilitary, as well as US contractors like "xe services" (blackwater)
research 'plan columbia'

-What is SSA?

-I dont understand your logic, that a multimillion dollar bombing campaign (which btw requires "boots on the ground" to paint targets) isnt a war. Its bombs. I mean, can you imagine any conceivable scenario in which the US was bombed, and people didnt call it war? Shit it was war after 9-11 and we werent even attacked by a foreign state!

how about for the purposes of this thread, we define war as an openly declared state of organized conflict. Thats pretty much what war means de facto, if not in a dictionary.

btw the US is already fighting in pakistan
http://www.thenation.com/blog/156765/not-so-secret-anymore-us-war-pakistan

Its just straight up propaganda that america is reticent, reluctant to go to war. always forced, always have to save the world, or promote "freedom" somewhere.
No america is the pissed off coked out kid in high school who walks through the hall everyday with a scowl, looking for someone to punch.

Yemen has to be #1

The cables also confirm aspects of a Nation story from November 2009, "The Secret US War in Pakistan," which detailed offensive combat operations by JSOC in Pakistan. In response to the Nation story, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell called it "conspiratorial" and explicitly denied that US special operations forces were doing anything other than "training" in Pakistan.

Conspiracy theory accusations again.
sigh.

oh I forgot yemen damn.

US is fighting in yemen too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8429843.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/world/middleeast/28yemen.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-opens-third-front-of-war-yemen-2009-12
http://www.google.com/search?q=US+yemen+war&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/28/us-widens-terror-war-to-y_n_404738.html

BAM

SSA is Sub-Saharan Africa

thanks.

honestly it doesnt matter what you define as war. its not like im denying our violent and military activities.

i was just providing my definition for the purposes of this thread so you know what im excluding.

because if you have an all inclusive defintion that includes like army guerilla groups or whatever then thats just boring because that happens every day.

and iraq and afghanistan are occupations that have followed invasions; they are very much wars.

i also want to point out that i am not promoting the idea that america is reluctant to be violent. we are hawkish as hell.

that however does not mean we are going to get into a big shooting war anytime soon.

there will always be the hawks but an anomaly like 2003 doesnt happen all that often and is even less likely now that 2003 is in our recent memory.

I agree with Thucy's definition of war.

There's been serious talk of a NATO ground invasion of Libya. So I don't think that scenario is unlikely at all. They've been throwing this idea around for a while. There's absolutely no end game there, and their cowardly air strikes, coordinated with the anti-black rebels are not going to work. Either they launch an invasion, or they quit with their tail between their legs. A glorious defeat of NATO, in my view. Hope the alliance never recovers.

I think a war with Russia is possible. They were close in 2008. If the Georgians do something stupid again like annihilating Ossetian cities it's not out of the question. Russia's position is more secure now with sane governments in Poland and Ukraine now. Russia, unlike China, doesn't back down once provoked. And NATO, after licking its wounds from its failures, needs an excuse to continue its existence. Before it was Yugoslavia, now that all their puppet Yugoslav breakway states are NATO lackeys, they need a new enemy. Belarus isn't going to happen because Belarus doesn't bother anybody and unlike Libya, is well equipped at taking care of insurgents.

War with China is unlikely at this point, at least between the US and China. A more likely scenario is a regional war and possible US involvement. China has become more assertive in southeast Asia, for example. It could be a sign of more tension to come, especially if Japan ever becomes serious about getting out from under the US security blanket.

North Korea seems to always be a possibility. We're itching for the North to fire the first shot. All sorts of provocative acts have been done by the South, and then blamed on the North. But I don't think the North will bite. They continue to act very prudently in the face of aggression.

Iran is not going to happen. Iran to America is like that ally we treat like an enemy. They share America's interests more than they compete. They help us with Afghanistan. They're thrilled with the situation in Iraq. They helped us in Yugoslavia. They helped us with the Contras in the 1980s. They might shout about Israel and send money to Hamas, but we don't really care.

The Venezuela situation is a possibility. We have a large number of military bases in Colombia. We basically control the Colombian government. Farc leaders are sent to America and put on trial in kangaroo courts. We helped them "liberate" mercenaries from Farc control. If Colombia starts violating the sovereignty of its neighbors again, militarization is very possible. Depends on how reckless the Colombian government gets. Santos seems less belligerent towards Venezuela than Uribe, mainly I think because Colombia is dependent on Venezuela for trade.

My real list for the next war -
Libya - 70%
North Korea - 15%
Russia - 10%
Venezuela - 3%
All others, less than 1%

Libya more than likely, Obama's 60 days are almost up, after that he has to ask Congress to continue his campaign there.