[kabar]

What is the path to victory after my hypothetical?

How do you define victory? This is what MAD is all about. Anyone who vaporizes five American carriers (assuming they would be together, which is never the case) will suffer massive retaliation, including nuclear weapons. When you cross that line, the dogs of war are set loose and no one is immune from massive destruction.

We have war gamed all kinds of scenarios. War Plan Orange was before the nuclear age and proliferation.

[Jim Noble]

How do you define victory?

That is an excellent question, glad you asked.

Victory, riffing on Angelo Codevilla, means having peace as defined by us, it means a state wherein we do not have to worry about our enemy, while he still has to worry about us. It means that American citizens may freely move about the country, including on aircraft, without being subjected to searches and can enter government buildings, above all the Capitol, without being subjected to security measures.

A less verbose answer is that victory is what we have not had since September 2, 1945, what we no longer plan for or try to achieve, and that which our elites have been taught to deny or to disparage.

Buy the book. You'll be glad you did.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Anyone who vaporizes five American carriers (assuming they would be together, which is never the case) will suffer massive retaliation, including nuclear weapons."

This article makes it sound so easy to destroy one of our Supercarriers and as anyone with any knowledge knows, it's not that easy. If I were an enemy of the United States and wanted to destroy a SuperCarrier, I wouldn't even try it at sea. I would attempt to destroy it in port ala the U.S.S Cole. That plan is also fraught with perils, however I think there would be greater success of that plan than trying to destroy it underway.