“A forward posture is necessary for our security.”
If it is ‘necessary’ then that means if we don’t do it then we are all doomed. It also means we must force others to take on our military as a necessity to our defense.
I don’t believe for a second that being forward located is a necessity. It is not even great to have.
We placed our forces in Europe and Asia to provide us a quick strike nuclear capability. The F-111s at Lakenheath to the B-52s in Thailand, but we have missiles that can deliver nukes faster and with less risk and cost. The Cold War generals used scare tactics to get any and every nuclear weapon and delivery vehicle they could, with incredible overlap in capabilities. But, we paid for it all. Gotta have the aircraft even though we finally built the missiles that were supposed to replace the aircraft, even though the Navy also built the subs, but, hey, we’ve always had the aircraft so we can’t do without them now. No way, can’t cut the military budget, we might get attacked!
Any ground forces overseas were too few to stop an attack. Hell, every grunt in Germany knew they would be sacrificed only to delay a Soviet ground advance by a few hours or days at best.
Who exactly are these forward bases supposed to be attacking anyway? What enemy is such a threat as to necessitate us maintaining overseas bases? We’ve been in South Korea for 60+ years. Why can’t the South Koreans have built their forces already? 60 years and we are still there. The book 1984, “We’ve always been at war with North Korea.”
We don’t need to waste our money, our labor, our lives on a military past one that can defeat any attacker to our shores.
So, D-Day wasn’t necessary to establish a presence on the European mainland?
A forward base is an already established forward fighting position.
You fight your war without one that you have to establish yourself, and I’ll fight my war with forward troops already established, and we’ll see who gets farther, faster, with less loss of life and less delay.
Don’t you think it was beneficial having Kuwait offer itself as a forward staging area rather than having to fight our way onshore?
You want to cede Asia, the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand to the ChiComs. No thanks.
OMG. No. Having a strong military does not mean that we have to force others to attack us. And weakening our military will not ensure that others stop attacking us. It doesn’t work that way!