"Come on, be serious. The US military has so atrophied that it is even suffering from minor logistical problems."
The logistical problems have to do with what? If you saying there have been problem in the Afgan Ops then this is due to the location and has nothing to do with the airlift capability so even having 1000% more aircraft it wouldn't matter. If you give me a specific I can go on because I've worked in logistics the last few years and know a little about it.
"And since you asked for examples (so you could blow me out of the water) how about the fact that in just the Afghan operations there was a sever crisis when it came to the numbers of JDAM munitions after a month! (DOD)"
The JDAM munitions are fairly new and just came on line in 1999. The fact that they were so effective and now proven you can bet they are retrofitting tens of thousands of the older dumb munitions which we have over 20 million bombs in storage. It may be a matter on time but not the money or will right now !
"Or what about the low numbers of cruise missile, botht he Tomahawk and the air launched B-52 version crusie missile? And even when Clinton did that tactical strike against al Queda in 1998 aftre the Embassy bombings there were calls for replenishing the supplies of the Tomahawks."
Bring this further, after Kosovo in 1999 we drew down our conventional cruise missle stock pile pretty low. The exact numbers were classified so it's not public but I do know we ordered 30 per month in 1999 so the numbers should be back over what we need. Again, it's classified but I would suspect we have enough for a good 30 days of sending 50 cruise missles if we had to. I don't think we would need more then 150 on any attack on Iraq?
"Now, if relatively limited operations in Afghanistan can drain the military resources so, what about a drawn out campaign against red China? Bigger landmass plus better defenses than Afghanistan (which only had 1980s stingers while the Chinese have Chzech radar that can track the F-117A). It is just a simple matter of logical progression. The US is just not ready for such a campaign, probably not even for a dug in Iraqi defense. And although we would probaly win the death toll would be prohibitive (especially when you consider most civilians would not stand by and see their sons and daughters killed. ) Think 'nam."
What senerio would have us in a sustained was with China? There aren't any and if Taiwan is on the table it wouldn't be anything in China. We'd use some subs and maybe one battle group to block their war ships but that's about it. As far as Afghanistan being a drain on resources where did you get this from? I think you're mixing the drain on homeland defense with the Afgan war? Heck, we used more troops, supplies, aircraft and logistics in a exercise in Korea last month then we've used in Afghanistan. All this while several other worldwide exercises were going on which still used less then 50% of our total resources !
Finally, you have to look through the clouds when you see some reports out there because the people leaking have an aganda. The Airforce wants more C-17's for airlift so we have an airlift problem, etc. !
And you must be joking if you think the US fulfilling its treaty to defend Taiwan would only require 'a few submarines, and maybe a carrier group.' Did you read my article on the Sunburn missiles and what they were developed for? And do not think about a stealth strike either due to the upgrade chech radars.
It is called assymetrical warfare, and at present the US is not prepared for it.
Actually congress has asserted this fact in the past, and although i agree with you some of this may be a political ploy to get funding for weapons programs, it still remians a reality. The US can not EFFECTIVELY meet its objectives of facing 2 foes at different global regions. That is a fact. And although i love the US military and am in awe of it, i do not blind myself to the fact serious work needs to be done to correct nearly a decade of atrophy.