Posted on 02/08/2006 8:15:08 AM PST by hedgetrimmer
Do you mean that Ronald Reagan was wrong when he forced foreign manufacturers to move production into US?
I didn't think so. If Kosovo truly represented a threat to the U.S. you can be damn sure the place would be a smoking hole in the ground right now. "Minimizing collateral damage" is a military term that only came into existence when the U.S. started waging these half-@ssed wars against third-rate countries.
Here's an interesting point about the cruise missile "shortage" in Kosovo, though . . .
The U.S. didn't run out of cruise missiles in 1999 because of Kosovo, either. It was running out of them because Y2K-related issues with some types of these weapons systems was making the previous generation obsolete anyway. In fact, my cynical side wonders if one of the untold reasons behind the U.S. military involvement in Kosovo was that the "war" provided a perfect means of cheap disposal for munitions like this -- with Kosovo and Serbia basically serving as dumping grounds for guided missiles, depleted-uranium munitions, etc. You may laugh at this, but there was a damn good reason why the U.S. went to great lengths to commit ZERO ground forces to the military effort over there.
Really? So why the bombing of tiny Serbia took three months and only after Russians persuaded Serbs to compromise, the NATO was able to take over Kosovo (to cheat Serbs later).
No nonsense, just fact. We cannot depend on foerign sources for everything we consume. An embargo or blocade of goods entering the US from foreign sources could hamper our ability to survive.
Seeing you are a good Democrat (your tagline) I understand your educational needs have not been met by liberal instructors in the lessons of supply and demand economics and how a good economic infrastructure enhances national security.
There is a big difference between isolationism and national security. America needs to be first for our own protection.
Funny you should mention that. There was an article posted here today about U.S. Predator strikes against al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan, and one point they made was that a "soldier-less battlefield" is much closer to reality than most people think.
What are you smoking?? Or was you refering to the navy of a country like afghanistan or Somalia?
Between the surveillance capabilities of military satellites and the use of tactical nuclear weapons against naval targets, that 45-minute figure may even be on the high side.
bump
I understand your point. For a major conflict, there will likely be intense fighting for the first few weeks. Then we, and quite likely our adversary, would be scrambling for resupply of expensive, complicated ordinances. Who can resupply the most effectively will win the conflict. Once the cruise missles are gone and the GPS guided bombs run low, there will be a significant pause. What comes after that is anyones guess.
It will be easier going back to living in caves than accomplishing what you think we should do.
We can revert back to the 3rd world standard of living as well. In fact, we can go backwards a lot faster than we can progress.
Lets just drop everyones income by 50%, yours included, and see how long you can maintain your standard of living and personal security blanket........
Baloney. They assumed the war would be short because every government had convinced their citizens of their own military superiority. Anyone who believed in "push-button" warfare in 1914 or 1940 -- when something as commonplace these days as radar hadn't even been used in any military campaign -- was reading too many science-fiction novels.
Predicting the future of warfare is a tricky business at best, claiming to know that future wars will be short and not require the ability to resupply and manufacture is idiocy.
That's why any U.S. military campaign against China would certainly include several elements that would utterly destroy this industrial capacity. The catastrophic destruction of the Three Gorges Dam (using a nuclear warhead if necessary) and the shut-down of the entire Chinese electrical grid would probably occur within the first four hours of the start of any major conflict between these two countries.
Great idea! It would lower costs, increase profits and made American workers more competitive.
Any mention of Kosovo -- or even Iraq -- in the context of a long-term threat to our military capabilities is downright silly.
How do you occupy, without troops on the ground?
So you think China would not use it's nukes on the US should the US use nukes on China? Everyone loses in a nuke war, everyone the idea is to win not lose.
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