[xzins]

As I understand the AMT concept, we will not need forward staging areas like Kuwait for GWII and Saudi for GWI.

Instead it will be a ground attack force launched directly from a seaboard carrier into the heart of an enemy nation.

It indicates we need air superiority for it to work.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

So the Marines and Navy fight all the wars. Maybe they will let the Army take back Homeland Defense. What will the Air Force do for a living?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

In the year 2020 a Middle East dictator attacked and occupied an oil-rich neighboring state.

We may have won the War On Terror by 2020. I hope we have. There shouldn't be any aggressive dictators in the Middle East by 2020. Just some benevolent despots in the Gulf.

Oil probably won't be near as valuable then as it is now.

The whole concept of the nation-state is beginning to unravel in much of the world. Most of the boundaries in the Middle East were drawn up in London and Paris. The people on one side of the line are pretty much like the people on the other, until you get to Iran. I would expect by 2020 an Arab Union, much along the lines of the EU, uniting the entire Arabian Peninsula plus Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.

[Poohbah]

Name a plausible scenario where the US would not be able to quickly gain air superiority.

[Paul Ross]

It indicates we need air superiority for it to work.

Not just superiority, but complete annhilation of the enemy's air defenses. With the number of shoulder-fired SAM devices out there, hiding among civilian zones, that annhilation may not be practically achievable. Once the heavy defenses are neutralized, then the locals merely pop away at ANYTHING that flies as it will then be one of ours.