Are we vulnerable to an invasion?

With so much of our military focus on the Mid East right now, are we vulnerable to an invasion. I've read in past threads the China presence in both ends of the Panama Canal, as well as the huge cargo facility in the Bahamas. Recently they've been testing their submarine capabilities, and even discontinued a fighter as it was not up to the strength they desired. Is it conceivable that it could actualy happen?

Honestly, if we were invaded, a lot of America would fight back. It would be chaos, but a lot of hand to hand would go on.

And I would be one of those that fought back. Could it possibly happen though? An all out invasion? Are we able to defend our coastlines, and borders?

Originally posted by Huria86
Honestly, if we were invaded, a lot of America would fight back. It would be chaos, but a lot of hand to hand would go on.

Agreed.
It would rip the whole country about.

LOL!!

No.

All aside from the substantial armament we have at home, no other nation has the ability to project power halfway across the world. We're putting some strain on our capacity in carrying out the much smaller jobs af Afghanistan and Iraq. And invasion of the US would take orders of magnitude more capacity.

YES ! YES ! VERY VURNEABLES my dears

All out invasion? Not possible. Take over of one or two large towns is possible though. But it would be a matter of hours untill most of our planes were coming back to attack.

To be honest everyone, 9/11 has shown us that anything is possible. Think about it, for years we have prided ourselves on being non destructable, No one can hurt us on our own soil, well Osama prooved that wrong. I truely feel people need to wake up from the dream world we have been living in and realise that if China were to take us on, it would be an invasion and alot of lives would be lost.

Also i do agree, i would be fighting myself to protect our sacred soil, but as history has shown, nothing is invinceble, and superpowers do fall over time. Its just reality, ship happens and we move on.

I personally hope my 3 year old never see's the day that foreigners try to take our soil, but I will never be ignorant enough to say that it "could" not happen, because it sure as hell could.

That's precisely what I'm saying Justmytype. My little one is 2-1/2, and I couldn't share your feelings any more clearly.
Let's pray that it doesn't happen, but I must say that China is the one power out there that really does make me feel unsettled.

Originally posted by x_y_no
LOL!!

No.

All aside from the substantial armament we have at home, no other nation has the ability to project power halfway across the world. We're putting some strain on our capacity in carrying out the much smaller jobs af Afghanistan and Iraq. And invasion of the US would take orders of magnitude more capacity.

LOL!

Yes.

China has the ability to project power halfway across the world and they do have the magnitude and capacity to carry out such a task. Americans have to wake up and realize that they are no longer the only super power in the world and that every empire falls.

Originally posted by Justmytype
To be honest everyone, 9/11 has shown us that anything is possible. Think about it, for years we have prided ourselves on being non destructable, No one can hurt us on our own soil, well Osama prooved that wrong.

osama proved that the US can be attacked...no one has ever said the US could never be attacked...the thread title is "are we vulnerable to invasion"...i don't believe we are. it would take a massive build up of troops which wouldn't go undetected...besides the military, there'd be millions of americans taking up arms and fighting if anyone tried to invade this country.

enomus

All American pride put to the side. You said; Are we vunerable?? Hell yeah, go do the math. North Korea alone out mans us and "China" hate to say this but actually is more technologically advanced then we are. Stop being ignorant and letting your pride stand in your way. We are not invincible and with our troops all 480,000 of them scattered, we are very much vunerable.

Originally posted by Killak420

LOL!

Yes.

China has the ability to project power halfway across the world and they do have the magnitude and capacity to carry out such a task. Americans have to wake up and realize that they are no longer the only super power in the world and that every empire falls.

No they don't. Not in any sense that even approaches what would be needed to stage an invasion of the US from across the Pacific. They wouldn't even get out of the China Sea agaist our navy as things stand right now. Yes, they could hit us with ICBMs (and that's power projection of a sort), but they don't have the military infrastructure to stage an invasion across an ocean.

I'm not saying it could "never happen". China could certainly develop the capacity over a couple of decades if they chose to. But I rather doubt that this is the direction their imperial plans would be directed, assuming they have them. Far more con venient targets to their south and west.

Justmytype - You and I see very much eye to eye. I do so hope that the American people, and the leadership see that the threat is very real. Chinas Army I believe to have numbers in the millions. Hand to hand combat - I shudder to think about that.

Im all set. I have a nasty Chihuaha that I have trained to attack anybody who smells like curry. (this is a tasteless joke, but I couldnt help it )

Really though, we are who we are today because of our geographical location. We are only attackable from the air or sea. Our geographical nieghbors are simply not a threat (friends even). We are relativly isolated. Now, today thats not alot of protection due to technology and such. But as our fledgling country was developing our geographical situation was as responsible as anything else for our security.

Now having said that, how are we attackable in any large scale way? It would have to be an air or sea invasion, even if they decided to land in Mexico or Canada first, they would have to cross oceans to do it.

Now lets break down why another country would have a difficult time doing this:

One, its not much a debate to say the US owns the sky's. Hate the US or love the US, this is a simple fact. Im not talking about fighter planes by themselves, Im talking about the whole package. You simply cant get any aircraft anywhere near the US without the US knowing about it loooong before hand. Then factor in our fighters and you can all but rule out any air threats (other than missles). So, we wont be seeing any forgiegn paratroopers raiding Idaho anytime soon.

Now as for the sea's, no way. The US tracks any vessal of size 100% of the time always. You think for one second a vessal large enough to cary anything that resembles a fighting force could get within a 100 miles of the US without us knowing about is silly. You guys know that we have microphones lining the floor of the entire Atlantic and Pacific that monitor ALL shipping traffic right? Not to mention satilite, aircraft and good old fashioned radar.

The point of my post is this: The only two ways of moving an invasion sized force on the US would be futile. Now, I am only talking about invasion sized forces. I say this knowing full well that our Army and Marines are busy elswhere. Its our Air national guard, Coast Guard and Navy that protect these shores and we are just fine.

So, could ANY force make landfall? Yes I would speculate. But it would have to be done in such small increments you could hardly call it an invasion. Lets face it: Anything smaller than a large fishing vessal may have a chance. But how many of these boats would be required to constitute an invasion? Heck, the LA PD has many thousands of officers alone that could handle a few boat loads of "Invaders". Heck, id rather see the Marines coming at me than some of those wacky LAPD's..

Another fact is that at any given time, the MAJORITY of our military is home. Thats right. On leave, in office or logistics positions. Dont forget these guys have guns too. We have like a million strong and only 15% of that is on Iraq.

Im going to run down to my local Post Office at lunch today and ask them this question....See how the real "heat" would handle an invasion

So, large scale stuff isnt viable. But, as has been proven: Its the out of the box, small scale stuff that we need to worry about.

Sure we are out manned but thats population. They can bring their army over here, but Americans that would fight if forced DO out number their army.

Invasion, no really our location is pretty much safe in the world, for a ground invasion, but a nuclear attack I think we are more vulnearble about that.

But only if other major nuclear countries join together against US.

skippytjc:

Thanks for putting in some more detail the point I was trying to make. Well explained.

Some people need to know the difference between an invasion and an occupation. China could invade the US, sign a peace treaty which grants the PRC some type of monetary gain, and leave. Similar to the French and Germans with the Versailles Treaty.

Americans will protect America? With what guns?

The vast majority of Americans are anti-guns and are for more stricter gun laws so there goes a ready loaded American society. Don't forget that the main reason why America won the Revolutionary War was because of the already loaded gun society.

China can easily take on America in the next 15-20 years. But first an economic war must be fought against the United States before a true war and that is already being done via EU.