Posted on 03/03/2014 7:25:48 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
I’ve read all the comments and have some thoughts.
Swarming and drone (UAV) technologies could take the place of some of the today’s active missiles, rockets, operators and surveillance. Transport or protection for manned embassies and bases or boots on the ground obviously involves some vehicles, technologies and materials.
Unless law-abiding Americans are stripped of their guns, I believe that few of today’s entities would choose to physically “invade” within the next generation, unless after killing many people with nuclear devices.
We must think about the types of threats now possible. In my opinion, the worst predictable attack a successful EMP trigger (nuke at altitude) over Kansas would be enough to send America back to the 1600s. Damage would be little to nothing of infrastructure, while people without other recourse could easily be rounded up and put to work for their new masters.
If history should teach us anything, it's that we always tend to fund, train and organize our military around fighting the last war and/ or the aftermath of it instead of looking forward to growing threats. If Bacevich is brilliant, as you attest, he should acknowledge this. I suspect his grief and guilt projection onto an administration that was less than adroit in such matters, no matter how just and honorable the effort may have been, and signing on to Obama "smart power" as a sufficient way of military power projection is clouding his thought process.
Your right. You can’t just wave a magic wand and create an armored brigade. Sure you can buy the gear. But gear and bodies does not an armored brigade make.
It doesn’t matter a whit what size the US thinks its forces should be. It matters what Russia and China thinks the size of our military should be.
And it’s obvious what their answer is.
Alot of truth there. It's like playing hands of poker. You have to have skill and luck. On any given hand, skill alone won't do.
Yep. Napoleon was quoted as asking that about a prospective general: “But is he lucky?”
I saw this guy on Book-TV about 4 years ago. If I recall correctly, he is ex-military and much of his distaste for the “Long War” (unending war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan) is because his son, who was deployed over there in the military, was killed in action.
I bought his book, and he makes some very common sense arguments for getting out of a battle with no foreseeable ending...
Still, he comes across as a man who believes his family and his country had been deeply wronged by the Bush Administration, which he regarded as the Imperial Precidency... and he gave warning about the profligacy of Big Government. I am sure if he felt betrayed before, he feels even more betrayed by 0bama.
Most of the division, corps, and higher commanders of World War II would not have survived in today’s environment. They all made mistakes, including as General Officers, but they persevered and became effective commanders.
When I turned over my company in Vietnam, my battalion commander told me: “You can love the Army all you want, it’s never going to love you back.”
Look again at what Bacevich wrote. His first paragraph argues for the same point you are making.
I can’t explain his support for Obama. I never talked politics with him. I also can’t explain my in-laws support for the Democrat party.
I don’t know the whole story about Camp Doha. I realized early in my career that when somebody died or was seriously injured in peacetime that the first line supervisor would be fired. The second line supervisor would be fired and the third line supervisor would be retired. The Navy is the same way. If your ship runs aground, you get fired. You could be the Captain of the ship and be sound asleep when the ship runs aground. It doesn’t matter. You get fired. It’s not always fair, but it sends a message about how important some things are. Bacevich is brilliant and was a great warrior. It appears that he was unlucky (coupled with some mistakes) and he took responsibility and the Army lost a great leader. You can rail against your luck all you want. It just is. Somewhere, there’s a former artillery Soldier whose actions with a heater had a tremendous effect on today’s Army.
Andrew J. Bacevich apparently wrote this on March 2, 2014, just a day ago?
Andrew is a real special kind of STUPID!!!
Does not Desert Storm provide a lesson that the least expensive way to conduct a war, both in term of blood and dollars, is to go in overwhelmingly strong by every measure, do the job, get it over with and go home? If it is not war the politicians want, do not send the armed forces. These “sort of” wars are too danged expensive.
There are other agencies that are better equipped to conduct “nation building”.
Send FEMA
If so, you would know that he is best known as a CounterCoin, or, opposed to counter-insurgency as a military strategy. Or, opposed to the top Coindinista, David Petraeus.
Also he is known as a foreign policy Realist, as in opposed to NeoCon Republicans and Liberal Interventionist Democrats. But most careerists, such as those from the military and State Dept, are Realists. ,
I did, and I do agree with his assertion on that point. I just don’t agree with his conclusions and his tacit approval that Obama is tuned into the American psyche and doing it right. I completely agree with your conclusion on luck and the responsibilities taken. Experienced it play out many times, both ways for and against me, and others. Just comes with the territory.
Apparently, you seem to think you know exactly what he is and is not with all those acronyms and descriptions that seem to fit what you are trying to tell me - I don’t know. I’m not a power General.
I simply think that he’s hopelessly lost in grief.
IOW, I have no idea in hell what you just said.
As Rumsfeld said: “”You go to war with the army you have-—not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
When the next war comes along the US Army might have to take some casualties.
Counter-insurgency vs counterterror is a major issue and how that played out in Iraq and Afghanistan. So if you have an interest just google Bacevich counter insurgency.
Foreign policy doctrine is also a major issue so you might want search Bacevich Realist.
In the GOP there are Realists, NeoCons, and Isolationists while in the dem party there are Realists, Liberal Interventionists, and antiwar pacifists.
Isolationists republicans and antiwar dems don't have much influence on foreign policy but the Realists, Liberal Interventionists and NeoCons do.
For example, most recently there was the question of applying more sanctions on Iran before the negotiations played out. Those in favor were the liberal interventionists led by Sen Menendez and NeoCons led by Sen Kirk. The Realists opposed the additional sanctions and they were led by Sens Feinstein(D) and Corker(R). Additionally, the isolationist Randy Paul opposed the additional sanctions. The antiwarriors were also opposed.
And lose.
There was a massive historic religious structure that dominated the Liri Valley’s Gustav Line in Italy called the Abby of Monte Cassino in Feb of 1944. The Allies believed that it was being used by the Germans as an observation post. It was targeted for destruction and became the most heavily bombed point target in the HISTORY of warfare and was turned into completely flattened rubble by sucessive waves of heavy and medium bomber attacks which dropped over 1400 tons of bombs on it.
Tough German paratroopers swarmed into the rubble and were able to use it as a much better defensive fortress than the standing structure had been. Between 17 January and 18 May, Monte Cassino and the Gustav defences were assaulted four times by Allied troops, the last involving twenty divisions attacking along a twenty-mile front. The German defenders were finally driven from their positions, but at a high cost. They inflicted enormous casualties upon the troops of the 5th and 8th Armies.
The city of Caen in Normandy was rubbleized in the same manner as Monte Cassino, but SS units such as the Liebstandarte and Hitler Jugend divisions made the British pay an enormous cost in armor and infantry and stopped them cold for a month when Caen was scheduled to be captured on D-Day+1. Most of Okinowa was completely leveled during the fighting there in 1945, but no Japanese unit ever surrenderered and fighting only ceased when most of their 32nd army had been annihalated.
There will never been a substitute for infantry, in combination with other supporting arms, to close with and destroy a tenacious enemy when he is dug in and determined to fight. I would rather have too many ready to do this awful task rather than too few when the time comes for it.
There should have never been two Battle of Fallujah's.
Too many loved ones have gotten killed because we didn't have the will to utilize the weapons in our inventory. The threat of “Your cicadas will chirp from the ground,” would be a better policy.
“There should have never been two Battle of Fallujah’s”.
Well ya got me there on that one. The Marines and Airborne troops just about had the job in hand when they were ordered to pull out by Bush. For a great first hand account of the 2nd fight read SSG David Bellavia’s harrowing House to House. I get all the more angered as I realize that all that added suffering was completely unnecessary.
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