Our current military readiness

Again what if they simply won't do it? Our dependence on maritime shipping won't disappear just because other nations refuse to do their part.

 

Again, what if they won't do it? IIRC the U.S. back in the early 2000s did propose what they called a "1,000 ship fleet" basically a multinational fleet composed of the vessels of most sea faring nations.

The idea didn't take off. Many nations had little interest in it.

 

Of course they have little interest. Why should they pay for something if someone else will? If they don't do it then they price. And again specifically who will be attacking these ships. If pirates attack a russian oil tanker they can handle it

 

Oil tankers are indeed a major target of pirates. And once again, so the U.S. cuts back dramatically on its navy and other nations do not step up? A blue water navy is not something you simply build overnight. If the U.S. cuts back its Navy dramatically and needs to dramatically expand it then it takes 20-30 years to do so.

As we're finding out right now.

And I guess it escaped your attention that the U.S. Navy is about one half the size it was at the end of the Cold War.

By the way, the Russians do not need a substantial navy because all the areas of great interest to them are accessible by land routes.

 

It needs to be one half the size it is right now. Russia exports oil all over the world. It also needs imports of wheat and other commodities. So does China. If they need to have the sea lanes open they need to step up.

 

Again, if the won't?

 

You've been making this claim for years now. Can you provide some solid numbers of ships, the type of ships and where they would be deployed?

 

Then Russia will starve and China will collapse.

 

It is the mission that needs to change. Protecting our shores....which is the mission every other country has....is the only mission we need. We CERTAINLY do not need 10 CBG's for that

 

Not true at all. The British Navy certainly doesn't have as its mission "protecting the shores of Britain". The are a power projection force. The only reason they operated only two carriers is they can't afford more.

By your line of reasoning the U.S. should get rid of all its nuclear weapons as none of them are meant to "protect" out shores.

And what's so sacred about the shoreline anyway?

 

What is so sacred about the shoreline? Holy cow. What is more important than our actual country where we live? Nuclear weapons prevent an attack on our shores because we can destroy your country if you do. If China and Russia can get by with a tenth of the spending we do then so can we

 

What makes you think Russia and China really spend that little on their military? You really believe those figures they provide the UN and other organizations? Most nations are not like the United States where virtually nothing is secret. Many nations consider their defense budgets to be a state secret.

 

No I believe our CIA which knows EXACTLY what they spend on their military

 

Oh yes, the same CIA that insisted that Iraq had WMDs. And in the decades of the Cold War didn't have a clue how much the Soviets spent on their military.

 

Fine. Russia is spending as much as us. Are you kidding?

 

I doubt that given their economy is so much smaller but

1) During the Cold War, the "official" military budget was for ONLY what they paid their soldiers.
2) The budget for nuclear weapons wasn't included in anything remotely resembling the military budget. IIRC it was listed under "machine parts".
3) I'm a bit of a Cold War historian and I did learn that during the Cold War, ONLY FOUR people in the entire U.S.S.R. actually knew how much they were spending on their military.

In addition

China's economy is much closer to that of the U.S. in size and they certainly can afford to spend plenty on it. And given they've been working hard to build a carrier force (which you can't do overnight) for more than 20 years I find it ridiculous to simply write off the Chinese efforts in building a formidable navy.

 

China's navy is tiny compared to us. They are no threat at all to us by sea. Do you know what ten CBG's can do?

 

We can't deploy ten carrier battle groups overseas at once. We're lucky to get four into a region at the same time.

And another nation doesn't have to "threaten us by sea". They can mass their forces and obtain naval superiority in a local area. For example if the U.S. wanted to threaten Taiwan (a major trading partner of the U.S. as well) a couple of carriers would prevent the U.S. from being able to support Taiwan if all we could bring up was three or four carries to the area.

 

Why should we be threatening Taiwan? Again the mission is protect the US.....that's it. If we are at war we can get ten CBG's in the war.

 

No we cannot. At least two (sometimes three) at any one time are undergoing major repairs/refits. Of the remaining seven or eight, at least four of those cannot be sustained for any kind of prolonged period overseas because ships require maintenance and their crews require training.

And I was raising the possibility of mainland China threatening Taiwan which they've done repeatedly in the past.

 

At war all that goes out the window. I spent ten years in the Navy and I can assure you that if we need everything we got we will put it to sea and make do the best we can which is far more than anyone else can do. I don't care if China blows Taiwan off the map. Not our problem.

 

Actually we need 15 CBG for the U.S. Navy to accomplish its peace time mission.

The U.S. Navy hasn't been able to put a Carrier Battle Group (CBG) to sea in over ten years. The Navy has only been able to put Carrier Strike Groups to sea and in the past eight years only three have been able to be deployed in three of the Navy's five AOR's.

President G.W. Bush (43) was able to put ten CBG too sea in their assigned AOR's. Obama was only able to put three CSG to sea only a few times during his administration.


Carrier Battle Group (CAB)



Carrier Strike Group (CSG)

 

Cut it in half. We don't need it and will be twice as safe

 

So you HATE, HATE, HATE the Taiwanese, but have hundreds of messages sobbing for the Japanese in WW2 and for North Koreans now.
Why do you hate the Chinese, Russians and Taiwanese (and Americans), but love the Japanese and North Koreans?

Either the above is a fact or you truly have zero integrity in what you post as your rule of conduct. Which one is it?

 

Any hate is your own projection. And I have never sobbed in a post. LOL. So your posts are quite full of nonsense. LOL