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re: your #11:

Seeing Rumsfeld's initiatives - and reading what other experts infer from his intentions - I believe Rummy is striving to remake the "boots" portion of our military along the lines of British Imperial forces. The UK policy during their empire was to have a small, highly trained professional army, and a large (large enough to take on the next two closest competitors...) Navy. I partially agree with this premise, with following qualifiers:

In the sense that we are a maritime nation, we should have dominant naval power along similar lines as the UK. Right now we sit at around 300-odd combatants, centered around 12 Carrier Battlegroups. I believe we should have at least 450 major surface combatants, plus a significant number of "small water Navy" vessels. Among the 450, 2 additional CBG's for a total of 14.

The above number is more a broad estimate (not arbitrary)... considering deployment stresses, increased alertness, our current & projected responsibilities, having 14 carriers is actually a bare-bones number. Let's look at our current areas of interest/conflict, along with number of carrier groups in parens projected for each:

Atlantic Ocean (2)
Mediterranean (1)
Indian Ocean* (2)
*=includes Horn of Africa/Persian Gulf/Arabian Sea/Red Sea/East Indies choke points such as Molucca Straits, a HUGE area.

Japan/Korea/Far East (2)
Eastern Pacific (1)

That counts for 8 Carrier groups, out of a total of 12. Though a good rule of thumb for proper maintenance is having 1/3rd of your force inport getting serviced/repaired (and it looks like we have that with above), we are neglecting other trouble spots (Caribbean) or escalating operations in current spheres (recently 3-4 CAG's in Persian Gulf for the war). When we give to Peter - as in the increased forces in the gulf during the war - we take from Paul... the effects being decreased maintenance, increased stress on our crews (which can and does decrease the retention rate for sailors). We're bare-assed tight, and one significant naval setback away from some deep hurt.

And yes, the Caribbean IS - or damned well should be! - an area of concern. Since Jimmy Gimme-my-Nobel-to-show-up-George Carter gave away the Panama Canal, CHICOM interests have effectively taken over control of both ends of that strategic point. Nor it is a coincidence, IMO, that shortly after the Red Chinese pounced on that foolishly undefended morsel, we've seen increased leftist insurgent movements in Columbia & Peru, plus an outright socialist government in Venezuela whose president (Chavez) has possibly sent funds to Al-Qaeda whilst screwing his country.

Ok, what about the Army? So far, my comments have been maritime (which befits my experience - I'm a 25 year recently retired Vet; Navy & Coast Guard) in nature. Well, the Army is impacted by this as well. Without command of the sea, no other service could operate outside CONUS. Coming back to my initial comments (Rummy reorg along lines of British experience...) - we must have an army capable of bearing heavy warfare loads (Hammer & Anvil)... and we must simultaneously expand and hone our SOF capabilities (Point of the Spear). Rummy's got the latter down pretty good; but he's playing a dangerous game, imho, if he thinks future opponents are going to roll over like the Baathists did. Outside of the Middle East (where everything is nice and flat, long sight lines), most other areas where we might be expected to fight in the near future offer significant challenges that won't be so easily overcome by our SOF/Air Force/Tech edges. At some point, we will need to have more conventional, high powered, line formations to win these wars.

Juan
CGVet58

Panama Canal, CHICOM interests have effectively taken over control of both ends of that strategic point. Nor it is a coincidence, IMO, that shortly after the Red Chinese pounced on that foolishly undefended morsel, we've seen increased leftist insurgent movements in Columbia & Peru, plus an outright socialist government in Venezuela whose president (Chavez) has possibly sent funds to Al-Qaeda whilst screwing his country.

Thanks for your clear and thought provoking comments. I've been very concerned about the Canal give-away. The ChiComs are notorious for waiting years and years to make their move - in the meantime the U.S. sleeps or forgets that the enemy is at our gate.

There are 2 retired SpecOps guys living in my condo bldg. Fascinating to talk to them. One still has contact with some troop members in Iraq and he passes on some interesting info. from the inside. In short - don't believe what you read in the media - but then we already knew that. I love talking to him - he hates the Clintoooons as much as I do!!

BTW - love your tag line - LOL