Interesting idea. Isn't Venezuela one of the bigger Oil producing countries. If we could get our hands in there, we could solve our energy problem until we find a viable solution for greener fuels.

Reviewing the situation, NATO guarantees that we can attack barely any European targets until we've gathered some power. We either need to establish a power base in a region that's more vulnerable to strikes, or we'll need to work covertly and use diplomacy to destabilize existing alliances. I pretty much agree with Pinkleton in that brute force isn't much of an option. Though Sweden and Finland are both non-Nato, they're not too strong in terms of military and they have quite a lot of resources. Before we target Africa or South America, perhaps initiate an invasion of those two?

Again, just because they are not part of NATO does not mean that they do not have Allies. Before declaring war on them, we have to see if it is economically viable to do so, comparing our army to theirs.

Finland would be an easy take, Sweden not so much.

As far as the war goes...

Those yellow lines actually weren't the U.S., they were Syria's navy moving to engage them pre-emptively. The one battle that actually amounted to anything was one right off the coast of North Carolina:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp24.jpg

Syria was demolished.

Although, the battle of Tel Aviv has been going on for two weeks now with no end in sight. It began like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp23.jpg

And after the American reinforcements showed up it turned into this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp25.jpg

The way I see it, Syria has one battalion left in their capital city, just in case they should lose in Tel Aviv. If they lose, and need to deploy them, that would leave Syria wide open for us to take it. If not, then no because they would still be too powerful. All we would risk is some light worldwide disdain for a while.

Opinions?

It's an interesting idea. It'd give us a power base somewhere where we could actually do something without our forces, as well as a boost in productivity. My only problem with it is that Egypt and a lot of the other countries in that area might not be happy about it, so we'd need to reinforce quickly and build up forces. We'd also need to protect our supply lines, so Navy Ahoy.

Interesting battle, though.

What we don't need is a war like this right now. Too open, and we do not know what was the cause of it. Unless the US is going to pacify both sides, I would say we should keep out of it and watch. It would kill us politically and we would be voted out faster then Sonic the Hedgehog.

This'll be my last post before I finally fall asleep. But, when I increased taxes to 50% and interest rates to 16%, the populace hated me for, like, a week. Because of all of our spending in infrastructure and propaganda, the approval rating heals itself pretty quickly.

If not Syria, Finland would sound like a good starting point. Or maybe the Albania vs. Libya scenario. There's also the option of buying territories off people, or pillaging small island nations for a while.

Just saying.

I vote Finland for proximity; while having a vast, sprawling empire is appealing, contiguous borders are a hell of a lot easier to defend. Once we have a stable power base at home we can think of expanding by sea.

Also, strong votes for having other countries do our dirty work for us :p

I volunteer to be General Advocate of Really Horrific Ideas.
Kinda like this:

What's the situation in Africa? Specifically the nation of Niger.
Niger, historically, has had stability problems and has nice deposits of many nice resources.

I say, that if possible, we send covert agents into Niger to destabilize it. Then we it is nice and ready, send in a 'Peace-keeping' force and seize the nation. And if we get away with this, we start harvesting uranium and set up our own atomic program. And since Niger provides most of the world's uranium, we should be able to create some friends.

If we're going to go all-out on someone, I'd like us to be prepared. We could send in a strike force yes, but who'll defend the homeland? We don't want to be streached out too thin. Let's build up some more, wait for a better target. Preferably one closer to home.

Plus, if one attacks us...perfect excuse to go after them. After all, they attacked us first.