A Standing Army for the United Nations?

Why would he be on the front lines if there's no war?

That's exactly the reasoning involved. If there's a personal stake involved, there's a chance of influence towards no war.

edited 6th Jul '11 6:12:01 PM by blueharp

Or you make being a Senator involve a mandatory 4 year contract in the military, so that they can properly know what they are getting the nation into if they declare war or send troops into a warzone..

Of course then you have the quandary of people who are disqualified physically from serving, and that would lead to a ruling that if you attempted to join the military and were physically barred from serving that you could run, which would lead to paying off the MEPS people to purposely disqualify the sons of the wealthy..

Sometimes being fair and equal is a double edged sword.

edited 6th Jul '11 6:13:59 PM by Barkey

I think we had the Starship Troopers discussion already.

You must have missed that thread then.

edited 6th Jul '11 6:29:01 PM by blueharp

Pretty sure we haven't.

Yes, we had some discussion about Starship Troopers in some thread. Can't remember which one, though.

Short of bringing about mandatory two-year conscriptions after graduating High School unless you can't physically hack it (kind of like Switzerland). I'm for it. After the two-year stint is up, you can choose to stay in, of course, or get out and resume your civilian life (be it college or workforce) at 20. Even if you never ever deploy (and I did four years and never went anywhere), you'll pick up some skills (living in barracks is a lot like dorm life and all that), maybe some workplace training in a career field you were already interested in, and all that. Plus, hey - it's two years of paychecks and a decent physical fitness program. Save up that pay and you'll even have some money to last you while you look for work, or whatever.

But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

To Gault, just because we made it doesn't mean it's not natural. Are humans not products of nature? Everything we make is part of nature. Buildings are made of metal, and metal is from nature. It is simply nature with a different direction.

I was always of the opinion that one could not be pro-war in any situation unless you would be willing to pick up a gun and fight in the war you were advocating. Otherwise, you could stuff it...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Think of a one-world-government as something like our current little federation. Which is bigger, the cultural difference between a Californian and a European, or between a Californian and a… Alabaman? Just because we're all part of the same nation doesn't mean we've congealed into a single uniform grey glob.

Look at the difference in firearm ownership by state (heck, by county,) and the difference in firearm regulation. United Earth would probably be less rather than more strict about local matters than the state and federal governments.

From earlier in the thread, emphasis added:

QUOTED FOR TRUTH

Hmm… Since we're assuming world peace in this scenario (no 3rd world, no war or famine) then my usual “guard foreign aid missions” shpiel wouldn't work, so perhaps you would become an adventurer? You know, scientific expeditions into the fiercest jungles of the southern hemisphere and high steppes of the north, gathering rare animals and geological samples. Alternately, if you really like weapons, I'm sure there'll always be a place for gunsmiths, armorers, rangemasters, and ballistic forensics.

I prefer not to think so, see above link.

Right on. Given how argumentive democratic voters are, we don't really need any external force to balance us.

If you have a book that says “value life, cuz' I said so” that's a pretty good motivator. Of course, if you do so without that shove then it speaks all the higher of your moral integrity.

Also, people are so spoiled nowadays. Back before air travel, exploration and colonization took months or years, overland trading was often a matter of decades in mediaeval times. With time dilation, STL would actually be less annoying.

Granted, but unless there's something GAR for people to do, life ain't worth living.

Is it? That reminds me of an old anecdote. During WWII, doctrine in most militaries was to target officers, since that was the lynchpin of their forces, the removal of which would leave them a leaderless and broken rabble. When they shot American officers? AMERICANS WITH GUNS AND NOBODY TO STOP THEM.

I think they'd ideally act as a spearhead force to hold things together until a typical multinational blue helmet mission could be organized, so you'd probably want the biggest force that could fit in a fleet of C-130s and their midair refueling network.

Eric,

Okay, I'm done arguing the political crap; lets worry about the nuts and bolts of the actual hypothetical force in question, assuming that the member states of the UN managed to agree long enough and approved recreating it (since it was tried once already).

If by using C-130's, you mean to have an air-mail delivered force to do whatever it is that they're ordered to do, then you're limited in what you can bring. Very few armored vehicles will fit, let alone survive an airdrop. Better to have larger transport aircraft to land and offload things - but, C-130's are hardy beasts of burden, so there's that to consider as a plus...

I never was Airborne (or even Air Assault - leg on a rope!), but there are significant logistical challenges to sending an entire unit via airmail to a remote location. Even if you manage to air-drop them, you'll have to worry about resupply. An engineer team will have to accompany the initial force, to make a runway so that resupply misiosn can be conducted.

Even better, but far mroe restrictive, is to use a roll-off ship. This restricts you to using a harbor or port, and then you hvae to hoof it to your mission site, though, but you can cram a crap-ton of gear in a suitably large cargo ship and simply do monthly maintenance on the gear on it for anticipation of when that gear is actually needed.

Our hypothetical force would be wise to have both methods available for use - no sense air-dropping troops into an area within easy reach of a port city, and no sense delivering troops and equipment into aport city if the mission site is too far away.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

I don't think you'll need very many heavy armored vehicles to put down an ethnic insurgency when the enemy's mostly armed with machetes and rusting Kalashnikovs. LA Vs will do fine I think. Supplies can be delivered by paradrop, and so can troops and light vehicles.

Places like the DRC are entirely land-locked so a deployment from sea won't work.

What is GAR and why does it make life worth living?

That's kinda bullshit. Nature means Humanity's primal natural nature, and we would have needed to transcend that to build things like skyscrapers is my point. I wrote a bit about that in one of my large posts before.

edited 7th Jul '11 11:56:55 AM by Gault

yey