Posted on 07/04/2005 8:09:04 PM PDT by Righty_McRight
WASHINGTON, July 4 - The Pentagon's most senior planners are challenging the longstanding strategy that requires the armed forces to be prepared to fight two major wars at a time. Instead, they are weighing whether to shape the military to mount one conventional campaign while devoting more resources to defending American territory and antiterrorism efforts.
The consideration of these profound changes are at the center of the current top-to-bottom review of Pentagon strategy, as ordered by Congress every four years, and will determine the future size of the military as well as the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars in new weapons.
The intense debate reflects a growing recognition that the current burden of maintaining forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the other demands of the global campaign against terrorism, may force a change in the assumptions that have been the foundation of all military planning.
The concern that the concentration of troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan was limiting the Pentagon's ability to deal with other potential armed conflicts was underscored by Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a classified risk assessment to Congress this spring. But the current review is the first by the Pentagon in decades to seriously question the wisdom of the two-war strategy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Didn't Germany invest in one big army with a heavy focus on homeland security (Gestapo)? It was their inability to fight a 2-front war that killed them.
The military is not a police force. We just need to increase the conventional military to free up National Guard for its traditional role. We had 26 divisions, Clinton cut that to 10, why not build it up to 16 regular divisions. China is going to hit Taiwan within a couple of years and it is about time that we start getting ready for it.
I'm not really interested in a return to the Draft, but using national servicemen to staff a homeguard, to replace the state NGs on anti terrorist duty, and to stand on the borders and entry points might not be a bad idea.The legislation could be sunsetted and it could also contain restrictions that these troops could only be deployed to American territory.The fact that the majority of any home guard would be national service men would prevent any nefarious aims at using the force as a repressive army.
"I'm not really interested in a return to the Draft"
Who is? Let's face it however, if the sh*t really hits the fan with China or some other significant power, we are absolutely going to have to have a draft. It may not be the same sort of draft as during Vietnam, the Korean War or WWII, but there will have to be a draft nonetheless. We need to start talking about this reality so that it doesn't come as a shock when it happens.
Best sort of draft would be to draft the current members of the mainstream media. Any other form of draft would just lead to the media causing vietnam era protests.
Anyways, I wonder what ya'll think. From the article:
An official designation of a counterterrorism role and a shift to a strategy that focuses on domestic defense would have a huge impact on the size and composition of the military. In a nutshell, strategies that order the military to be prepared for two wars would argue for more high-technology weapons, in particular warplanes. An emphasis on one war and counterterrorism duties would require lighter, more agile forces - perhaps fewer troops, but more Special Operations units - and a range of other needs, such as intelligence, language and communications specialists.
"The war in Iraq requires a very large ground-force presence," said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a policy research center in Arlington, Va. "War with China or North Korea or Iran, the other countries mentioned in the major review scenarios, would require a much more capable Navy and Air Force." Mr. Thompson added that "what we need for conventional victory is different from what we need for fighting insurgents, and fighting insurgents has relatively little connection to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. We can't afford it all." The Pentagon's sweeping study, called the Quadrennial Defense Review, is not due to be completed until early next year, when it will be submitted to Congress with the administration's annual budget request. Yet debate over the review cannot ignore the mounting costs of the war in Iraq, approximately $5 billion a month.
The current military strategy is known by a numerical label, 1-4-2-1, with the first number representing the defense of American territory. That is followed by numbers representing the ability to deter hostilities in four critical areas of the world, and to swiftly defeat two adversaries in near-simultaneous major combat operations The final number stands for a requirement that the military retain the capability, at the same time, to decisively defeat one of those two adversaries, which would include capturing a capital and toppling a government. "We have 1-4-2-1 now, and we are going to look at that," said Ryan Henry, who serves as principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy. Asked where the military's heavy commitment to the fight against terrorism fits into the current strategy formula, Mr. Henry said, "It wasn't there when they came up with 1-4-2-1." If a new strategy emerges from the review, he said, it might be "something that doesn't have any numbers at all." After years of saying American forces were sufficient for a two-war strategy, "we've come to the realization that we're not," said another Defense Department official involved in the deliberations, who was granted anonymity because he could not otherwise discuss the talks, which are classified. "It's coming to grips with reality." Senior leaders are trying to develop strategies that will do a better job of addressing the requirements of antiterrorism and domestic defense, while acknowledging that future American wars will most likely be irregular - against urban guerrillas and insurgents - rather than conventional.
Ping.
What good is homeland security when you have no homeland?
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The Pentagon's most senior planners are challenging the longstanding strategy that requires the armed forces to be prepared to fight two major wars at a time. Instead, they are weighing whether to shape the military to mount one conventional campaign while devoting more resources to defending American territory and antiterrorism efforts.
What happens when we are fighting the islamic forces in the ME (one theater) and N. Korea opens up another on the Korean penninsula (2nd theater)?
...and then, in the midst of that, what happens if China decides to take Taiwan and elsewhere?
This is craziness to have talk like this in the face of what we see going on around us with our own eyes.
China needs oil...and they are building the economic, political, and military clout to get it...there is nothing new under the sun.
As CHINA continues to build militarily unabatted and with growing rapidity.What happens when we are fighting the islamic forces in the ME (one theater) and N. Korea opens up another on the Korean penninsula (2nd theater)?
...and then, in the midst of that, what happens if China decides to take Taiwan and elsewhere?
This is craziness to have talk like this in the face of what we see going on around us with our own eyes.
China needs oil...and they are building the economic, political, and military clout to get it...there is nothing new under the sun.
Which means full mobilization of Japanese military.
I would start now if I were them.
When fully mobilized, I think they may field one million troops eventually. That is the system they built. We will see if it will work as they intended.
Germany was in
a world in which enemies
equal or larger
could wage war with them.
Today, the United States
is the only state
that can project force
of really serious size
any where on Earth.
But we are stuck with
small and medium threats from
dozens of sources.
Sounds like we should change,
and sounds like German was
a whole different case.
OHHH I got better suggestion let try another train explosion LOL!
All of this handwringing over *conventional* military power and deployment bores me.
We have non-conventional means to handle emergencies. So long as we maintain enough nukes to blast the planet until our nuclear bomb production is back online at full speed (a few thousand nukes should suffice), then there is no true emergency that we can't handle.
For any non-emergency, our conventional military is more than adequate to smash.
China has massive coal reserves, almost the size of the U.S. coal reserves. Once China revalues their Yuan, the PLA will come under pressure to reduce oil imports.
That pressure should tip China to liquifying coal into coal oil (which every diesel engine on every cargo ship, warship, diesel-electric train, et al can burn with no mechanical or electronic modifications).
Coal oil fueled the entire German military machine during WW2; it also powered South Africa through its Apartheid sanctions (SA still runs one giant coal oil refinery today).
One ton of coal (cost: $60) makes 4 tons of coal oil...a very favorable economic comparison to unrefined crude oil at $60 per barrel.
...And China isn't burdened by silly "enviornmental" restrictions on burning smelly coal oil in diesel engines. They'll laugh at our high oil costs once they make the switch to coal oil.
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