Posted on 03/22/2014 5:15:15 AM PDT by wetphoenix
There’s an old saying in the military that we’re always training for the last war, so fixated on the lessons of our most recent conflict that we’re blind to the emerging threat.
For years, that last war was the Cold War, and the emerging threat was the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan. Slowly, painfully, eventually, the military reoriented itself. The result? After more than two decades of post Cold War re-alignment, the military is less prepared than it has been in generations for a confrontation with Russia. No one in Washington is calling for the U.S. to go to war over Crimea and there are plenty of reasons why, at this point, military intervention could be a dangerous and foolhardy course. But if circumstances change and political leaders start looking to the military or the bargaining power that comes from a credible threat of force, they will find their options severely limited.
Over the course of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq soldiers and marines have trained for maneuvering and fighting in small units over the landscape of the Middle East. Counter-insurgency (“COIN”) doctrine, which stresses engagement with local civilian populations and tactics for fighting loosely organized forces employing light weapons, has become the military’s new bible. It’s about as far away as you can get from the principles used in the Cold War. According to retired General David Deptula, who served as the Air Force’s top intelligence officer, “we’ve been focused on the far left end of the spectrum of operations,” by which he means the protracted, low-intensity conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, he says, “if we want to maintain superpower status we need to be prepared to succeed across the full range of operations, not just the left end of it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Send in the fags and transgenders in the first wave and we’ll be good to go. The Russian’s will be laughing so hard it’ll make it easy to take em out with a real fighting force.
well zer0 has thinned out general officers to the point where many are now just toadies for the POSOTUS. the rest are laying low ‘til the creep leaves office in January 2017.
of course the toadies may not allow zer0 to leave office in 2017.
yes....Putin knows how to handle Pussy Riot.
There will be no Cold War 2.0 however there will be a Dark Ages 2.0.
Rome 2.0 is collapsing before our eyes and the would will descend into chaos.
Obama is already totally engaged in his war on America.
I see it coming as clear as day. Nations will default on their massive debt, social structures will collapse, people will be largely on their own. It’s going to be ugly, and it’s going to last a long, long time.
Maybe we can use obamaphones to fight Cold War 2? Welfare is where all that money is going.
The generals at the Pentagon are ready for the next fabulous pillow fight.
Correction: Cold War 4. And they weren’t ready for 2 & 3 either...
imho
Meanwhile we have frittered American manufacturing away, to China.
Bring back American manufacturing.
If you want war, prepare for peace.
This time we need to let the rest of the world fight its own cold war. We did the heavy work on the last one and we don’t owe the world a thing. Put our defense money into strategic defense, downsize our army and foreign deployments and see to our own hemisphere.
“This time we need to let the rest of the world fight its own cold war. We did the heavy work on the last one and we don’t owe the world a thing. Put our defense money into strategic defense, downsize our army and foreign deployments and see to our own hemisphere.”
I agree, with the exception that we absolutely MUST maintain our nuclear deterrent. A robust deterrent, at least as large as our present force, but more modern.
Agreed
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