Posted on 03/06/2009 2:59:24 AM PST by linbiao123
FYI: I have no first hand experience with a real world military or weapons development.
Why does the US have such a large conventional military? A military half the current size would be able to defeat any other country, bomb Iran into the stone age (albeit take twice as long to do so), or fight al qaeda in Afghanistan. Moreover, 'fighting' terrorists is something best done with special forces and spies, with the conventional military providing death from above on demand.
With the exception of a future China, no other nation will have the ability to economically outdo the United States.
Why does the US military insist on having weapon systems designed specifically for itself instead of purchasing 'off the shelf'? What is wrong with letting another country make a proven weapon system and then buying a manufacturing license like Iraq, Iran, India and other countries do with Russia while we stick to designing superiority weapons like the F22 and the next generation attack submarine? The US is designing a future destroyer. So is Britain. Why not buy destroyers from Britain?
We have (had?) an industrial base and can always build more arms and armor if the need arises.
If the concern is protecting American lives from external (terrorist) threats, a new wall on the 2000 mile US-Mexico border would cost ~8 billion (http://www.weneedafence.com/). With 1 watchperson per mile at 40 hour shift (4 shifts for 24/7 surveillance), and $75,000 per person per year (including overhead), nets $600 million in annual salary. If one wants to be more ambitious, tripling the budget would allow a similar border on the Canadian border. Further, sea borders could be patrolled by small surveillance craft, predator UAVs and coast guard patrol boats. To patrol the US sea borders could run in the low tens of billions/year.
Note: I do not think the smaller military would be able to hold all of Iraq. We might have invaded, and then left at least part of the country, or bombed Iraq back to the stone age to halt Saddam's inexorable drive to get nuclear weapons if we had a smaller military.
Incisive observation. What a tool.
That was my impression when I first saw his handle. Thanks for posting it.
Why does the US military insist on having weapon systems designed specifically for itself instead of purchasing 'off the shelf'? What is wrong with letting another country make a proven weapon system and then buying a manufacturing license like Iraq, Iran, India and other countries do with Russia while we stick to designing superiority weapons like the F22 and the next generation attack submarine? The US is designing a future destroyer. So is Britain. Why not buy destroyers from Britain?
We have (had?) an industrial base and can always build more arms and armor if the need arises.
Just my opinion, but -
If we depend on other countries to supply our weapons what happens when they no longer like us? Administrations change, and we could be left in a bind. Obama wants to eliminate several of our modern systems like the F-22. Russia is building a stealth fighter that in many ways equals it, and is more maneuverable with better thrust vectoring.
Yes, we do have an industrial base, but if we quit designing and building our own systems the infrastructure for weapons manufacturing will disappear. It would take years to rebuild from scratch. In WW II car makers produced tanks and Jeeps. With today’s systems it would take years to convert. The simple technology of nearly 70 years ago allowed aircraft manufactures to produce fighters and bombers quickly and in mass. That could not happen today.
The idea that all future wars will be like Iraq and Afghanistan is a false idea. Our military had been long accused of preparing to fight the last war. That is no longer the case. We have to be trained and equipped to fight both conventional and unconventional wars. Russia and China are both modernizing and expanding their military. While relations are better than during the Cold War, they’re hardly friendly.
It won’t be large very much longer. obama will see to it. He intends to replace it with his “security force”.
Disagreed. The generals say they have enough (sometimes more than enough) troops for their respective missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The loudest complaints of troop levels being stretched thin were from liberals who were trying to shroud their anti-war rhetoric in the guise of military responsibility.
The other peoples stuff is designed to blow up our stuff. if we bought it, it would blow it’s self up. Duh..Use logic!
You’re welcome rimorel.
Well written.
First you make a statement and then support that by proving you have no idea what you are talking about.
So many false premises in your first paragraph, there is no point in continuing.
The author of this is probably a member of code pinko.
Lay off the bong newbie...
Sounds like a High School student who’s been educated by the “defense experts” in our public schools.
Our current conventional forces are only 60% of the level when I was in the service. (NOT in the “conventional” forces)(46350)
“I have to take a shower - I’ll check back later”
I have more guns than I can use at once. That doesn't mean I have more guns than I need. Different situations require different tools, things break, and things go wrong.
If I thought I could design and make a better gun than anybody else, I would.
The point of a fight is to win, unless there's some bizarre neurosis going on. The conspicuous ability to win or, at the worst, to make winning intolerably expensive for the other guy often makes fighting unnecessary.
Further, we are more blessed than too many of us recognize in having a military that is thoroughly committed to serving rather than ruling. Few consider how amazing that is.
In gratitude for that comparatively selfless service it seems to me reasonable that we do what can be done to make the service doable, to make success not only possible but likely. Servants get fretful and fractious when set to making bricks without straw. A fretful and fractious military is not something I'd like to contend with.
Unfortunately the Dear Leader, who seems content to lead from the rear, doesn't get this and is now threatening to make one's own privately held health insurance (as long as we are permitted to have such a thing) pay for injuries sustained in the military service of the US. This is one of the many things the Dear Leader simply does not get.
I was injured on duty as a volunteer deputy. I had to pay for my own medical care. I'm here to tell you that pretty much knocked the stuffing out of my respect for the community I was serving. Think about it.
And think about getting some first hand experience in putting your life on the line for others. You'll find it illuminating.
Yep, should we be invaded, probably have enemy armies already here, we would need to form conventional lines of defense, air force could not bomb our own people, and maintain support.
Let me guess, you are worried that the military might force out the truth about the ineligibility of the One to be President and you realize that his idea of created civilian “brown shirts” to counter the military is the only way that totalitarianism can be imposed so you have been dispatched to this forum to raise the issue in the name of the Obamalution.
China is in a world of hurt because Japan invested heavily in its military.
The US, though a military power prior to 7-Dec-1941, is reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the fact that the Philippines have been overrun quickly by the Japanese with huge US causalities.
If the US had more FAST and BIG battleships as well as FAST and BIG Aircraft carriers, the US Navy could deal better with the superior Japanese fleet.
Though Japan at this point has more aircraft carriers in the Pacific at this time than the US, the lost about 1/2 their fleet of carriers at Midway when they were bush-wacked... This just happened a few months earlier...
Now the US was trying to halt the Japanese advance at Guadalcanal. The Japanese were close to cutting off shipping to Australia -- which would have also cut off supplying China...
Guadalcanal had many battles where the US casualities were unacceptably high -- because the US was ill prepared and ill equipped.
In perhaps the most important battle of Guadalcanal, the battleships Washington and South Dakota held off a Japanese task force.
Basically, the US could ill afford to have lost that battle as it would have meant that the Japanese would have control of the seas around Guadalcanal.
At this time, Japan was raping, plundering, and pillaging China.
The US was trying to help China fight the Japanese. The US was trying to help Great Britian and Communist Russia fight off Nazi Germany (and Italy).
The US had a two ocean war with not enough ships, men, aircraft, tanks or supplies.
But the economic might of the US was just starting to gear up for this war.
By the time the IOWA class battleships entered the war, the new FAST ATTACK CARRIERS, and lots of planes, tanks, and supplies, Japan was in a free-fall and Nazi Germany was in retreat on the Russian front and had lost North Africa.
Playing catch up in war means places get overrun and a vicious enemy (such as Communists or Nazis or Imperial Japanese) will torture/rape/pillage the CIVILIAN population that is overrun.
But then maybe you don't care about people being killed, tortured, sexually brutuallized, or having their homes destroyed and being taken off to concentration camps...
Maybe you read about conditions in concentration camps in Germany or Japan in World War II to understand the WHY of the US Military today.
Why does a small country like Israel have a large military?
I think it has something to do with the murder/slaughter of 5 million Jewish people in World War II.
I guess you don't have eyes to see what Communism/Nazism/Terrorism has done to the world -- making it a dangerous place...
Oh, about August 1942 -- by November 1942 Winston Churchill called it the "End of the Beginning"...
and no responses to any of the posts..smells to me of drive-by troll..
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