Is it possible to invade the us

Russia says military deployments on its territory are an internal matter and it denies any aggressive intentions, while accusing the U. Similar tensions erupted in the spring when the U. The crisis eased after U. Putin declined. The U. An offensive is unlikely as Russian troops would face public resistance in Kyiv and other cities, but there is a plan to respond to provocations from Ukraine, another official said.

With the West preparing fresh sanctions against Belarus over what it sees as a manufactured migration crisis, President Alexander Lukashenko threatened Thursday to shut down a key pipeline carrying Russian gas to the EU if Poland closes their border. Following the meeting, the three European members criticized Belarusian authorities in a joint statement with Security Council members Norway, U.

Meanwhile, U. Belarus is part of the same security context, the official said. Russia has orchestrated the migrant crisis between Belarus and Poland and the Baltic states — Lithuania and Latvia share a border with Belarus — to try to destabilize the region, two U.

While U. The information U. Ukraine and Russia have been in conflict since Putin responded to the Ukrainian revolution that ousted the pro-Moscow president by seizing Crimea. Russia also backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in a war that has killed more than 13, people.

The most important reason no one can conquer Afghanistan is because any invader has to completely subdue the population. The whole population. And these people are as diverse as it gets. Even after 20 years in the country, many Americans wouldn't pick up on the fact that one of those ethnic groups I just mentioned is actually a rice dish.

Put aside Taliban or Mujaheddin loyalty for a moment and imagine the life of a regular Afghan man. Their clan, their tribe, their unit, their sheikh, their ethnicity, their religion, maybe their provincial or central government?

And when you do take into account their loyalties to extremist groups, you have to factor in the group, that unit, and the shadow government.

That's 12 potential loyalties right there. Imagine trying to subdue 34 million of them, because you have to if you invade Afghanistan. Defeating those people in pitched battles didn't work, ask the British. Massacring them also didn't work, ask the Soviets. The American nation-building strategy isn't coming along either.

Did your invading army plan on fighting one billion people? Because that is what is likely to happen invading China. The most populous country in the world now boasts 1.

For the uninitiated or bad at math or both , that means they have almost the entire population of the United States plus a billion. Having written these wargaming posts for a few years now, I know that many will ask me to consider that this doesn't mean China has a skilled or fearsome force of ground troops and that all they've ever tactically perfected on a modern battlefield is human-wave attacks.

While these one billion Chinese people likely don't have a their own arms, it wouldn't take long for the planned central bureaucracy to start handing out weapons to form a unified front against an invader.

There's an old US military saying: If it's stupid and it works, it isn't stupid. It may sound like a throwing a few million soldiers at an invader is stupid, but it's quite the human wave and it will likely work. So even if the numbers of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir are repeated, and it takes 10 Chinese divisions to repel one Marine Division, the Marines will need to send 25 divisions just to establish a beachhead. The fun doesn't stop just because the invader made it ashore.

China is as massive as the United States, with a diverse climate and diverse geographical features. It's surrounded by extreme weather and oceans on all sides, so invaders will have to be prepared for the impassable Gobi Desert and the jungles of Southeast Asia, not to mention the mountainous, snowy Himalayan regions which will make air support difficult.

If invading troops aren't massacred along the way by bands of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, then they still get to contend with a variety of tropical diseases, along with the diseases that come from overpopulation and pollution. This is just in fighting a conventional war. The Chinese are the masters of ripping off foreign technology, so an invading army would have to assume that the country they're invading will also have all the technological prowess of the United States — and with its million-plus person manpower assuming they didn't die in a human wave and strong economy, they're ready to grind on for a long time.

This is probably the only entry on the list many readers didn't predict. But on its own, India is a formidable place to invade. To the north and east lay harsh Himalayan mountain passes. Dry deserts makes up roughly half of India's northwest regions. In the southwest, India is wet and tropical, limiting the best places to land an ocean-born invasion force. That is, if you ever get to land an invasion force on the subcontinent. Part of India's major naval strategy is to flood her territorial waters with enough submarines to sink both enemy warships and enemy landing craft while strangling sea lanes of enemy shipping.

This tactic has been in place for a long time, since before China's foreign policy went from one of "peaceful rise" to "crouching tiger. Since the British left India in , they've had to deal with Pakistan on a few occasions and even went to war with China once before. Ever since, China and Pakistan have only grown closer, so India's entire defense strategy has to be predicated on the idea of fighting a war on two fronts — and they're ready for it.

Fighting in India is not a small matter, as any Indian general will probably tell you. The height of the Himalayan mountains makes air support very difficult, even impossible at times. India can't rely exclusively on one benefactor, meaning it can't just choose to be closer to the USA or Russia.

India cares about Pakistan and China and will accept any tech or gear that helps them win that war. As such, their near-limitless manpower, religious fervor, and billion-plus population would make them a formidable opponent on any front. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options. Get the Insider App. Click here to learn more. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.

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