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How could America be invaded?
Topic Started: Nov 16 2012, 01:01 AM (995 Views)
Yorick
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Anyway, with the "Red Dawn" remake being released soon, I've been thinking about an invasion America flick myself.

The remake changed the main villains to the North Koreans in post-production (the film was further delayed by a year because of it and the editing cost $1 mil) instead of the Chinese as to not annoy such a lucrative market.

Screw that. My idea has a Sino-Iranian force invading America ten years into the future. Everything above the Platte River and west of the Rocky Mountains and the Rio Grande is controlled by the enemy. In the middle of the flick, it is revealed that brave a Canadian force halted the invaders at the Mississippi River in a fierce and blood pitched battle in a 21st century version of the Schlieffen Plan. Washington has been nuked and lowly cabinet secretary (if which I haven't decided yet) is now the president. Allied North Korea is keeping South Korea and Japan busy.

The film also feature guerrilla warriors like "Red Dawn" but it is an ensemble drama set across America where various characters in occupied Oregon, devastated Washington and battered Texas (a pitched battle between a ragtag Texas militia defending against an invasion in the Lone Star state) fight on to protect their homeland and keep hope alive.

I know that an invasion of America by terrestrial forces, even in a grim future for the country, is highly unlikely to the point of impossible but that is why we have suspension of disbelief.

What I need is for you guys to give me a couple of reasons why the American military has been weakened and the details of what drove the invading force to launch such a risky maneuver.

So far, I have that China is one of the world fastest growing economies and world players but a bubble is about to pop. They are running out of natural resources to mine and farmland to raze to continue growing and the increasing male population is starting to batter their growth too. America has lots of farmland and a lot of fossil fuels. And Iran is just fed up with America stepping on its nuclear ambitions and wants to put it in its place. (I might throw in something about religious fundamentalism in the country.)

America is in a brutal recession and is downsizing the military, notably the navy, whose patrolling of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans usually keeps potential invaders at bay. Maybe there's an earlier pandemic that weakens America like that video game "Homefront" did?

What plausible military tactics would a Sino-Iranian force take to invade us? Should Mexico be used as a doorway?
Edited by Yorick, Nov 16 2012, 11:08 PM.
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T.Neo
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How about this: Obama's second term doesn't go too well vis a vis stuff like the economy. The democratic party becomes hugely unpopular due to this, essentially removing them from the relevant political sphere. The far-right republicans gain power inxorably till a Rick Santorum or Rick Perry-type candidate gets elected. As a whole the US has becomes far more conservative and religiously fundamentalist. Things deteriorate till the US is essentially practicing an unofficial form of apartheid on women, gays and ethnic minorities. The economy suffers further and poverty and crime rates rise dramatically, but America remains militarily strong due to a modus operandi for supporting the military-industrial complex. Hawkish foreign policy leads to some pretty awful wars (Iran, etc) further draining the economy, spreading out the armed forces and leading to an increasing worldwide view of America as a paraiah state.

Essentially, America falls to their own species of taliban.

Meanwhile, standard of living and political freedoms in China have been slowly improving. Their military strength improves out of a concern of US foreign policy in the region. Eventually the decision is taken, either by China alone or by the international community, to intervene.

The Chinese manage to disrupt US forces to the point where they reach the upper hand, due to the current US military technology being optimised for asymmetric warfare abroad rather than repelling a symmetric force from US shores, and being optimised for filling the pockets of military contractors rather than battlefield effectiveness. Naval and air warfare devolves to battles between armor that become increasingly fragmented until China and allies reach a stalemate war against an insurgency.

During this, a nuclear exhange takes place. Either side could strike first, with China likely being more heavily hit due to the US' likely higher number of warheads, and China's generally higher population density. This would solidify notions of hatred among the Chinese occupiers, though their official mission may be one of liberation.

Due to this, and the increasing difficulty of dealing with the US insurgency, occupation of the US by China and its allies becomes increasingly brutal.

Now you can get to the actual story. Don't follow teenagers. Teenages are overrated and Red Dawn has already done it. Follow older people- they're really just teenagers that have traded pimples for wrinkles.

The organisers of this particular insurgency movement could be the Vietnam veterans of the future- Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, using their knowledge of getting their asses kicked by insurgents, to kick ass as insurgents.

This story enables you to weave some pretty interesting analogies to things like the war in Iraq, and also enables some other plausibilities- like why the Chinese can't simply adopt a primary anti-insurgency method of napalm-ing towns in order to deal with the insurgency.
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dialforthedevil
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Yeah I really like T. Neo's idea, would be great to see how all the different little factions in the US interact. I can imagine some of the really extreme Neo-Nazis thriving in this sort of environment.

But also please oh please cover the idea that perhaps these American freedom fighters in many ways are not so different to the brutality of the Chinese. Make things grey on grey, we don't need any more: FIGHT THE EVIL OPPRESSOR STORIES!!! I want to see something more... twisted...
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lamna
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The USA sounds more likely to be the one that uses nuclear weapons first, China has numerical superiority and they are No First Use, plus it looks like they have the international community behind them in that scenario.

So the USA, facing vastly superior armour in some kind of bottle-neck decided that it should use a tactical nuclear weapon.

Either China thinks this is a first strike and retaliates, or the USA gets away with it, and uses more tactical nuclear weapons, or decides to go for a limited strategic attack on Shanghai or Qingdao.

The China decides that it has no option other than to attack all American nuclear sites, and America thinks that China's going for an attack on the civilian population, so launches an attack on Chinese cities, so China has to respond, fade to Vera Lynn singing We'll Meet Again.
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Here is my advice, don't go for analogue. That's always clunky and your political beliefs get mixed up in it, and it can ruin a piece even for people who share your beliefs. Go for applicability. It's not the Iraq War with America being Iraq and China being America.

But it is an invasion of a nation run by a dictatorship, by one that is well-meaning, but it's still invading.

Check out this video for a better explanation.
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