re: If the entire world attacked the USA...

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If the entire world attacked the USA...

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... And we had 1 year advance warning. No nukes or WMD allowed by anyone. Who wins?

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The world. Maybe not easily, but the sheer numbers of soldiers fighting against us would be too much to overcome IMO.

We'd hold them off for a while, but you're talking about a world able to fill armies from a pool of six and a half BILLION people versus a country fielding an army from about 300 million.

Think about it in terms of the old "How many 8 year olds could you beat up at one time?" discussion. Sure, we'd dominate on individual bases, even larger scale ones...but eventually "the world" would be too much to handle and we'd lose.

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The world. Maybe not easily, but the sheer numbers of soldiers fighting against us would be too much to overcome IMO.

We'd hold them off for a while, but you're talking about a world able to fill armies from a pool of six and a half BILLION people versus a country fielding an army from about 300 million.

Think about it in terms of the old "How many 8 year olds could you beat up at one time?" discussion. Sure, we'd dominate on individual bases, even larger scale ones...but eventually "the world" would be too much to handle and we'd lose.

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Yeah, it matters how long the war would last and what is meant by winning. The US could never "win" the war in terms of taking over the whole world, that's silly. So I guess "winning" for the US in this situation is just outlasting the war and still holding our territory. And that depends on how long the war lasts and how united/committed the rest of the world is.

Assuming the rest of the world was completely united, working together, and cutting the US off economically... could we defend our borders for 1 year? Sure. 5 years? Maybe. 25 years? No way. If we're talking about the the entire rest of the world pooling their man-power, economic power, military power, and, perhaps most importantly, natural resources, of course they would outlast us.

In a purely conventional war with 1 year notice we win in a land slide. The geographic isolation we have other then Mexico is very difficult to overcome for even a world combined force. Our Navy and Airforce or dominant and will keep the invasion off our shores.

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Are you forgetting that our entire northern border would also be under assault? They won't just be coming up from Mexico.

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On the last page I discussed what an invasion from Canada would run into. Here it is again for your convenience...

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That leaves only the land invasion option. But even here there is that nasty matter of having the vast majority of the world's resources on the wrong side of two huge oceans. but for the sake of argument, let's ignore that fact and look only at what a force invading the US would face. If they come down from Canada, there is the matter of a short campaign season lasting about from early May until perhaps October at best before freezing temps and frequent blizzards will hamper logistics (there's that word again). There is also the matter of what invasion routes this army would take as they come south. Looking at a map of the US, you see an invasion force coming from Canada would on the western flank face the Rockies and the Mississippi rivers that would be issues that had to be dealt with. The Rockies would naturally split a army moving south and being on there defense would allow American Forces to have safe harbor from which to launch counter attacks an ever stretching flank as the invasion force moves south. Of course the world would have to have a separate force west of the Rockies to move down the Pacific coast. But even here they would have to move first through the formidable barrier of the northwest's rain forests and Cascade Range before moving south and still having to deal with the Sierra Nevada Range and the deserts below. Of course by then they would have a logistics (ding ding) train well over 1,000 miles long. And let's not forget about those American forces that could strike from the Rockies all along that long line.

Back on the east side of the Rockies the going would be pretty easy all the way down to the Gulf... Or at least that's what they would think until they actually tried. You see, it is in this area the "world" army would run into things like the 1st Cavalry Division, 1st Infantry Division, and on and on. In other words, in the central part of the continent, they would run into the meat of the US Army's maneuver divisions. And while the world army is beating it's head against this force, the US Air Force will be overhead raining down hell fire itself. So, in short, what looked to be the best and easiest invasion rout (between the Rockies and the Mississippi, in reality will be where the "world army" would be bled white.

But what about east of the Mississippi? Well here the problem they will run into will be rivers.... Lots of rivers. first just to get into the country they will have to cross barriers like the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. Then as they move south they will be confronted by a series of rivers that will all favor the defending Americans. Each river crossing will require them to build up men and material. A river crossing is a huger undertaking almost akin to a miniature D-day. There will have to be things like assembly areas for troops, supply depots (aka logistics) and what all these things amount to is what we use to call a "target rich environment". These "world army" build-ups will be hammered from the air while river crossing points are held by both regular forces (army, marine, and National Guard)as well as irregular forces (think Wolverines!) The world army would become bogged down and bled white before they could cross the Ohio River.

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Are you forgetting that our entire northern border would also be under assault? They won't just be coming up from Mexico.

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I didn't forget I just discounted the risk and possibility of a successful stage and launch from there. Hadn't read them before my response but Darth's comments confirm it.

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Can someone please explain how they will build up the forces enough in Canada or Mexico to be able to attack us?

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Simply put... they can't That's why I started my description of an invasion from Canada by saying

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But even here there is that nasty matter of having the vast majority of the world's resources on the wrong side of two huge oceans. but for the sake of argument, let's ignore that fact and look only at what a force invading the US would face.

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Would we just watch ship after ship bring soldiers and weapons to support an invasion against us?

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Negative. In fact, once we saw an invasion fleet beginning to assemble (and yes, we'd see them before they even left their port) our Navy would eviscerate them.

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Simply put... they can't That's why I started my description of an invasion from Canada by saying

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I know and we agree. I am asking the ones who say its possible to explain it

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In fact, once we saw an invasion fleet beginning to assemble (and yes, we'd see them before they even left their port) our Navy would eviscerate them.

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We are given notice that the world is going to war with us in a year (declaring war essentially) from that point forward we would see any troop movements as a sign of aggression...bye bye world troops.

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Well, we are giving them a year to prepare this party.

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I thought they were giving us a year

Don't we have a good idea where every missile, bomb, plane, etc is made? I think we would use drones to take those facilities out.

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I was assuming that the southern boarder had maybe a very little chance of a surreptitious build up that could be done over time. The northern boarder no way. And you are right, we would never allow that knowingly. A premptive strike would surely happen, we wouldn't just let them build up across our boarder unfettered.

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An invasion coming from the south would run into the almost the same problems I described facing an invasion from Canada. The only exceptions would be this invasion would not be hampered by winter weather. But also, this invasion route would be limited to west of the Mississippi. Another drawback would be limited deep water port facilities in Mexico that are likewise close to the border. There would be very long and winding land-based logistics trains similar to what was seen in WWII with the famous Red Ball Express that connected the advancing Allied armies with the increasingly distant French beaches. Now if this "world army" moved up and captured places like Houston in the east and Los Angles in the west, they would have deep water ports to support their separate (due to the Rockies) drives north. Of course that still leaves the matter of crossing the Mississippi river....