We Asked a Military Expert if All the World's Armies Could Shut Down the US

>somewhere in Washington, DC, there are a bunch of rich men with white hair, white skin, and black hearts screaming and stomping around in their suits because they don't want poor people to have affordable healthcare

Leaving aside the fact that the author assumes that Republicans harbor the most sinister motives possible, while Democrats are purely altruistic; income is not a good predictor of party affiliation, (and vice-versa,) and the same is true for race.[1]

This tirade makes me doubt the value of the article as a whole, though I largely agree with the conclusion.

[1] http://www.people-press.org/2009/05/21/section-1-party-affil...

As an interesting side point, a defence analyst in D.C. once quipped that until very recently (and perhaps even now) China lacked the naval transport capacity to invade Taiwan. The Taiwanese army, standing on the beaches, would always vastly outnumber the number of Chinese infantry the P.R.C. could simultaneously land. Thus Taiwan's strategic imperatives of building anti-shelling and counter-subterfuge capabilities.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tragedy_of_Great_Power_Poli...

One possibility could be intentionally dragging the U.S. into multiple seemingly unrelated wars along several fronts (Iran moves to blockade the Straight of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia bans export of oil to the U.S. and 'dares' them to come take it back, and China shuts off all exports of goods to the U.S., while on their campaign to 'liberate' South Korea). Each of these actions are designed to seriously wound the U.S. economically thus inviting a military response.

While the U.S takes the bait to engage in these 3 conflicts and overextends herself (the U.S. military is built to fight just 1.5-2 wars), a group of sleeper agents who have risen to positions of considerable power in the House and the Senate begin the next phase by obstructing the war effort (denying funding to the troops), and generating significant domestic dissent (raising taxes considerably, while simultaneously cutting spending to subsistence levels (no more food stamps, delay social security checks to make grandma go hungry).

By this point, the country has no access to oil beyond our strategic reserves, the economy is in shambles, rich people are pissed by the 80% war tax, and poor people are pissed because they're not getting anything from it.

Now we enact phase 3 and send in the Canadian Mounties. They'll be greeted with open arms by all Americans.

I stopped reading after that sentence. This article may have a linkbait headline, but its only intention is to get its Republican hating, ultra-liberal agenda across to anyone unlucky enough to see its somewhat intriguing title and click on it. Too much of this stuff has found its way onto Hacker News recently.

That being said, the US is becoming quite a scary country, with how far it has expanded its military power all over the world, and the technological advancements (mass surveillance, drone attacks, future autonomous combat robots, etc), are only going to make this a bigger problem for the world.

The thing is it probably wouldn't be as scary, if everyone else could be assured that the US public has quite a good grip on its own government, and that we can expect them to act pretty rationally and reasonably. Unfortunately, that doesn't really seem to be the case, which amplifies the fear about US becoming too strong. For all we know we're just one president/government away from US starting to act truly evil (although many would say they are already doing that).

  And this is where you meet the second primary problem, which is technology. There are not enough aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare ships in the combined navies of the world to force an entry past the US Navy. There are not enough attack fighters to gain air superiority against the US Air Force.
 This is how amazingly out of balance the military might of the world is today.
"

Smallpox made the first European invasion of North and South America a lot easier.

A few well targeted weaponized viruses with a reasonably long incubation period could greatly reduce our ability to defend ourselves. (The trick would be making sure they didn't spread beyond US borders in an increasingly globalized society)

Ok... now I really want to read that book if it exists.

The best that could happen is that they're nuked during descent causing the whole country to be covered in fallout asteroid dust.

It's an interesting article with a needlessly polemic intro.