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 ...
won't quibble over the rest of it, but how do you get four tons of oil from one ton of coal? There must be more to the process than just dumping a ton of coal into the digester.
Oh, that still seems high. Coal is nearly pure carbon. What else do they add?
Here, China begins converting coal to oil: http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=19062002-041015-4320r
Here are some U.S. coal to oil articles: http://www.ultracleanfuels.com/
Keep in mind that this is proven technology. Germany ran its entire war machine (WW2 ships, tanks, electricity plants, fuel-oil home heating, etc.) on coal oil, and South Africa still uses it today (began using it in 1950).
Senator Rick Santorum Pushes Funding For U.S. Coal To Diesel Refinery
China begins converting coal to oil: http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=19062002-041015-4320r
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