Airpower is decisive, but it cannot take and hold ground. Period.
The PAVN survived the Linebacker campaigns to conquer South Vietnam. Had the U.S. Army rolled north to engage the PAVN, it would have been a different story.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Posted on 04/20/2006 4:32:49 PM PDT by neverdem
--snip--
Budgets reflected this love affair with aerial killing. Since Gen. Huba's first exposition in the early 1990s, 70 percent of defense investments, more than $1.3 trillion, have gone into shock and awe, delivered by Air Force and Navy aircraft and missiles.
The Army got 16 percent. Thus, we come today to an amazingly perverse strategic circumstance. We have more first-line fighter aircraft costing $50 million to $400 million per copy than we have Army and Marine infantry squads, costing less than $100,000 each.
Since Gen. Huba's experiments began, we have achieved a "kill ratio" in aerial combat of 257 to one over enemy air...
--snip--
So here we are trying to find a way to rid Iran of its nuclear weapons and the only warfighting tool in the tool box is shock and awe. Simply put, there is no ground option. We have too few soldiers to fight the wars we have, much less take on another enemy. Even if we had the ground forces, without an aerial maneuver option we could never hope to reach Iran's nuclear facilities by a ground invasion. So we'll blow them all up with bombs. Right.
I'm quite sure that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prays daily for a dose of shock and awe. It would be a badge of honor to have survived a fruitless aerial killing campaign only to resume serious work on building a bomb with the full support of the morally aggrieved Iranian people.
In time, of course, we could add an aerial maneuver tool to the toolbox, a capability that would give the president at least one option for the future other than aerial assault. But the plan now is to reduce, not increase, the size of the Army and Marine Corps.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
"The Army got 16 percent."
That does sound kind of low for the Army.
"than we have Army and Marine infantry squads, costing less than $100,000 each."
Can anyone translate that for me?
Just remember...no airplane or missile can ever take or hold ground. Only the Soldier (or Marine) with a rifle can do that. Soldier wins wars.
This guy obviously doesn't know that air power is the key to winning any fight. Without it, you can have as many "squads" of marines or army that you want and you will not win. Germany found that out in WWII and it has been demonstrated over and over again since then. The only think wrong with our armed forces is that fact Clinton and other Dem presidents have weakened them to the point of absurdity. Clinton almost destroyed our B-52 capability. Air power is where it's at.
We need to spend a lot more on our Ground Forces and add to our Air and Sea Power!
An interesting little factoid from my research paper from US Air Force Air War College.
A squad is what? 13 men? Somehow that 100K figure seems low when you figure the total cost invested. Salary alone would be north of $100,000.
What is even more rediclious is the plan to slow down massivly the acquisition of the F-22 (they planned for 200, now they are only going to get 60 or less), and even possibly scrap the F-35 program. They also want to shelve the F-117 and some of the B-2 bombers.
I hope one of the modern guys can give us some figures.
Surely the training for one infantryman exceeds $100,000.
He may have meant total personal gear for an average squad.
Without enough knowledge to know, for sure, that we are spending too little on Army battle divisions, particularly Army manpower, the truth is that if the military capital investment strategy is wrong, then you can blame the U.S. Congress more than the defense department.
Congress hates to raise military pay and benefits and is not particularly fond of an extremely large number of active U.S. Army divisions.
But, just let the defense contractors dangle in front of the Congressional defense and appropriations committees a few lucrative, multi-year, multi-billion dollar "defense" contracts, to employ thousands of workers in their state, and you won't have to ask them twice to add the "need" for that contract to the budget.
Does that mean that all the "technology" is wasted? No. But, some of it is and to the extent that some of it is waste, the reasons are political and reside in the U.S. Congress.
The best process would be one where the only vote that Congress had was one vote on the entire defense budget - and the only itemization would be in the broad categories of human resources, training, facilities, aircraft acquisition and maintenance, naval equipment acquisition and maintenance, air force equipment acquisition and maintenance, army equipment acquisition and maintenance, supplies, material, energy, and operations. If there was an active military engagement like Iraq, you could have a separate one line item for that engagement.
That way generals could offer their budget advice to the President based on actual military strategic concerns and not have to worry about how to pad the budget with some goodies that Congress wants in order for the generals to get some of what they want.
Of course, the generals themselves, in retirement, sometimes become the lobbyists for the defense contractors, and come back to the Pentagon to sell the latest and greatest to their old buddies. You would need some "defense" against the abuses and wrong strategic decisions that can result from too much favoritism in the "old boy network".
Airpower is decisive, but it cannot take and hold ground. Period.
The PAVN survived the Linebacker campaigns to conquer South Vietnam. Had the U.S. Army rolled north to engage the PAVN, it would have been a different story.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Don't confuse the author with facts. He's on a roll.
"Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
Why don't you read the whole article? Yes, he wants ground forces to temporarily take over and completely decommission Iran's known nuclear facilities because you can't be sure by using conventional munitions from the air.
Retired Maj. Gen Robert H. Scales is a former commander of the Army War College.
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