U.S. Military Can't Even Fight One War Today

Said "ramp up" would require 18-24 months. We may not exactly have that long, in case you are not aware. Sure, we saw a surge joining the military in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait. But are you even aware that none of those who joined at that time were involved? The entire war was all over with before they even finished their training.

Consider if some time next week, the nation of Myopia invaded the NATO member nation of the Dutchy of Grand Fenwick. At a minimum, it is going to take us 18 months to "ramp up" any new Infantry forces to send over beyond what we already have at this time. And for many other units, that "ramp up" time is going to be even longer. We do not just run recruits through boot camp, throw them into combat units, and throw them into the grinder like we did in WWII.

Then you should be able to name at least one single conflict in the entire history of the planet Tera that has been won by air power.

....

...

Well, I am waiting. Can you name a single conflict won that way?

Naw, did not think so.

Such claims have been made since WWII, yet it has never come to pass. Not. A. Single. Time.

You do not win conflicts by air power, you win them with boots on the ground. Period. If what you say is right, then ISIS should have been defeated, because we are killing "large numbers of them", and taking no losses. Well, how well is that going, eh?

Gee, to bad we have already had one. The Invasion of Iraq in many was was not much different then most of the campaigns in WWII, only shorter in duration. The same with the Liberation of Kuwait.

And the biggest problem is, that you are basing our entire defense strategy on what you would do, not even taking into consideration at all what another country may decide to do. Because I can bet you Dollars to Doughnuts that if Kim Jr. Jr. decided that he wanted to take another crack at taking Seoul, we would be sending forces there within 48 hours. And it would be the Korean War II, not unlike much of the fighting we were engaged in in Italy during WWII.

But assuming every nation on the planet will respond in line with how you think it should go is a guarantee failure.

The problem here is that you are trying to force the military to react the way you think and believe it should. However, myself and others look at this from a professional angle, it being or having been our career. And we are taking it dead seriously because of that.

 

Let me ask you.....exactly which War Scenario's are you specifically talking about where we would find ourselves in a bind due to lack of being prepared?

The one I find to be more likely than others would be some Korean Peninsula Conflict as North Korea has Ten's of Thousand's of Artillery pieces along the DMZ that are in range of the South Korean Capital of Seoul.

This is why the U.S. Weapon that North Korea most fears is the B-2 Bomber as if we were alerted that a North Korean attack was imminent....B-2's along with F-22's could come at night....hit them where it most hurts before they could begin retaliatory strikes.

As well the North has dug massive tunnels under the DMZ as they would have their troops enter those tunnels and avoid the DMZ defenses....thus the B-2's and F-22's could bomb and collapse those tunnels.

Anyway one look's at such a war a LOT of people would die.

AA

 

Given the dependence of China's Economy on exports to the U.S. I find it highly unlikely in the extreme that China would allow itself to get into any shooting war with the U.S. and also given the power and capability of our Navy and specifically our Sub Force.....any attempt by the PLN to use PLA carrying ships to Taiwan...would see these either blown out of the water by the USAF or sunk by U.S. Sub's far before they could traverse the more than 1000 mile gap between China and Taiwan.

A shooting war with Russia also is highly unlikely.

So....what war scenarios?

AA

 

[Having never been in the military I can claim no more expertise on the matter than many members of Congress. Still I have one question that I think is salient.

How many Armed Forces anywhere in the world are fully combat ready in peacetime? I've always understood that a nation 'mobilizes' for war whenever war is imminent, but that very few, if any, keep their full force in full readiness in peacetime. I also understand that our nuclear arsenal carried at sea alone could easily destroy the entire world several times over. Do you really think any nation in the world would invade us?

 

What about the Yugoslavian/Serbian/Kosovo/Whatever conflict? AFAIK there were no American ground forces deployed there, and it was as much of a war as Kuwait or Iraq. You guys tend to forget that one because it WAS fought, and won, just about entirely from the air, and so cost us a whole lot less in both money and lives. (And the thing I found so amazing was that we were launching most of the really effective bombers from freakin' MINNESOTA, hey, talk about projecting power)

And as for ISIS it's really going very well. Our AF has just killed Omar the Chechen and he was about the number 2 man in the whole shebang, or close. ISIS is a whole lot bigger than the Serbians were and they're not being nearly so cooperative about trying to fight conventionally but our AF alone is doing quite a good job on them anyway. You're probably right that ground forces are going to be needed at one time or another but I don't see why they should really have to do much and I'm very convinced they don't have to be American.

 

The deployment of large numbers of Troops really has one purpose and that is to HOLD GROUND.

I do not see any war scenario except possibly North Korea where we would want to be HOLDING GROUND.

We should not have done this in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

A small number...196...of U.S. Special Forces, CIA and Special Teams were able to paint target's in Afghanistan that allowed us to kill Ten's of Thousands of the Enemy in the first few weeks.

Sending in large numbers of Ground Forces was a mistake.

And we would have been able to kill Bin Laden if we had not made the mistake of informing the Pakistani Military as far as our intentions around Tora Bora as the Islamists in the Pakistani Military informed both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda as to where we were going to be allowing Bin Laden to slip over the boarder.

AA

 

Its only 50 miles between China and Taiwan.

 

It takes boots on the ground to win wars. The war against ISIS isn't exactly going great-and where there are gains made its because there are boots on the ground to exploit gains made by airstrikes.

In ISIS in particular our airstrikes are token, intended to give the impression that Obama is "fighting terror".

 

might wanna check your gap, you got an extra 0 in there

I doubt china will make a military move before 2025(likely SCS), that is only if their economy continue to rise.

 

What else do you expect from a Rev Wrights follower? Freakin traitorous (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)

 

Their economy is only still okay is because the Chinese "government" freezes the markets whenever things begin to look like they're going downhill.

 

I know that in the 1980's, most of our military was prepared to fight on very short notice. My Infantry Battalion in particular was constantly at 90% readyness or higher, and at least 4 times a year were in a readyness condition to deploy anywhere in the world with 24 hours notice. Where else do you think they got an entire Battalion of Marines who were able to respond to a place like Haiti?

This used to be the norm. Every combat unit rotated through various stages of readyness, but all were essentially combat deployable. When I first joined the Army in 2007, this was the norm also. Because PATRIOT is more maintenance intensive then Infantry, the down times were longer but we were all just 30 days from being able to deploy.

When I left Active Duty in 2012, that was no longer the case. Roughly half of the equipment in my Battery did not even work, and we knew it. No money for parts, no money for exercises. We mostly sat around the motorpool looking at our equipment, knowing it would be months at the soonest before we could get any of it fixed. And I also saw something I have heard of but never witnessed. Equipment that was "Administratively Deadlined". Oh, this stuff worked, but was past due for it's regular maintenance (things like oil changes), so it could not be used. Once again, no money.

And there is no point bringing up nuclear weapons. Those are political weapons, not military ones.

Please tell me where I said American boots on the ground?

However, thanks for bringing up a perfect example, if you knew it or not. Are you not even aware that we had "boots on the ground" in former Yugoslavia? And not just us, but the French and British had ground forces there, as well as the Italians, Norwegians, Greeks, and Germans. In all, over 5 brigades of ground forces were involved in just the Kosovo War alone. And I mean ground forces as in Infantry, not forces supporting the aircraft.

I have absolutely no idea where you are trying to go here, because there were over 50,000 NATO ground troops involved in that conflict.

If you try hard, you might even remember an incident during that conflict that was a big deal at the time. When the NATO forces started to arrive, there were already Russian forces on the ground. And while there were occasional talks to combine the Russian and NATO forces, this never happened.

At one point, General Wesley Clark, NATO Supreme Commander ordered the forces under his command to park their vehicles on a runway, in order to deny it's use to the Russians. Thankfully the ground commander refused, and operations continued. But this incident led to General Clark being relieved of his duties as NATO Commander, and not long afterwards he was retired from the military.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_at_Pristina_airport

So care to try again?

This has always been the case. I am still waiting for anybody to describe a single war in the last 100 years that was won entirely by air power.

 

Airpower may not win wars, but it doesn't lose them either.

Army-heavy approaches that characterized Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were all failures.
Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom were strategically questionable, costly, and did not prevent the emergence of strengthened radical Islamist movements. Because of this failure in strategic success, the services are saddled with aging equipment, declining readiness, and spiraling sustainment costs.

Ground forces are slow to move and even slower to leave. Once deployed they require a great deal of support, and once engaged they have proven very difficult to disengage.

Given our limited resources, it's best to invest in Naval and Airpower.

 

I agree with this. Many are arguing we need thousands of ground troops to contain ISIL, that airstrikes are only achieving minimal goals; as though Afghanistan and Iraq never happened. Magically, this time a sustained ground presence will achieve strategic goals.

Tactically our ground forces did very well, however strategically, as painful as it is to swallow our pride as those who support our Armed Forces...we have to look at our most recent conflicts as strategic failures and minimally not repeat the same mistakes going forward.

 

To me, the biggest problem was withdrawing before the nations were stable.

Over the last 50 years, we have several examples of what a sustained military presence can do. And as long as the military acts in a responsible manner as a partner and not a dictator, the outcome is a stable government that continues a friendly alliance with their former occupiers. And in the other, when forces are pulled out to soon anarchy, chaos, civil war, and strife that lasts for years if not decades.

So once again, was the failure military, or political? The decision to pull our forces out before the nation was stable was a political one. And one that the military strongly opposed and warned would lead to disaster. Meanwhile, the politicans stated that no such disaster would happen.

Which one has been proven correct?

 

I agree with you. The last Huey leaving the fallen embassy in Saigon is a fitting image of a failed strategy in abandoning a cause. The strategic goal was to fight the advancement of Communism, and in the end, this was not acheived as South Vietnam fell under Communist control.

The strategic goal in Iraq was to oust Saddam and the Baathist regime, which was accomplished, and to replace the former regime with one that is stable and could be considered an ally to the West. Prior to accomplishing the latter part of this strategic goal, the U.S. troop presence withdrew effectively leaving Iraq unable to govern itself or secure itself adequately. To accomplish stability would require a long-term investment in the form of a ground troop presence. Good, bad or indifferently America elected a political regime that was not interested in sustaining a long-term troop presence on the ground. It was the equivalent to the fall of Saigon, though perhaps not as dramatic.

In simplistic terms, strategically we're not finishing what we started.

Perhaps if the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 was better explained to the American people that this would involve a long-term commitment of forces, there woundn't have been so much dissent from the citizenry to end the campaign and withdraw military forces.

President Obama was elected, in part, to end the war in Iraq. Doing so proved to be strategic error, but in fairness that's what he was elected to do. Colin Powell did state, that it is vital to have strong public support to accomplish a strategic military goal...if you don't, well, we have images like the fall of Saigon and airstrikes against ISIL. Both examples of a failure in achieving a strategic goal.

 

Mexico started invading the CONUS back during the early 1970's and now have an occupation force in America over 15 million strong.

Los Angeles has been under enemy occupation for over thirty years now. The body count surpasses both wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But I digress.

On paper the Army's 82nd Airborne is suppose to be able to put boots on the ground in a combat zone any place in the world with in 24 hours. At least on paper they are suppose to be able to do that.

The 82nd is extremely a light combat force and have to be quickly reinforced and that would be a Marine MEU that is suppose to already be at sea and able to reinforce the 82nd within 24 to 72 hours.

The Army's Stryker Brigade is the Army's next light response combat unit. Within 17 days there should be 2 combat brigades (Army and Marine) deployed and on the ground and in their TAOR. Well on paper that's how it's suppose to work.

1962 was an exciting time for a 12 year old. The Cuban Missile Crises. "Hey Rat ! grab your bike and check out all of the Nike missiles that are sticking out of their underground bunkers pointing towards the sky." About 1 1/2 miles from my house in Manhattan Beach there was a Nike SAM battery in Plya Del Rey.

But 60 miles to the south there was Camp Pendleton and the 1st Mar. Div. In less than 72 hours Camp Pendleton was a ghost town. The entire 1st Mar Div was at sea headed towards Cuba. On the east coast, the entire 2nd. Mar Div was also at sea.

It just wasn't the Marines, on the west coast from Fort MacArthur, Fort Ord and Fort Lewis troops, tanks, artillery, trucks were all on trains headed east.

What was able to be done back in 61 couldn't be accomplished today.

Nine years later I already done my West-Pac tour of duty and was a short timer assigned to the 5th MAB at Pendleton. One day just before noon chow the entire artillery battalion was called to formation. One 105 artillery battery was told to pack their (*)(*)(*)(*) and be ready to move out at 0-Dark Thirty. ( that's between 2400 hrs to 30 minutes before dawn.) Artillery FO teams, NGF spot teams and FAC teams were formed and we were told to be ready to move out at 0200 hrs. with field marching pack and one extra set of utilities.

At 0200 hrs. we boarded 6X's and proceeded from Camp Las Pulgas to the north end of Pendleton where the grunts were billeted at Camp San Mateo. Each team was attached to a rifle company and around dawn we boarded 6X's and busses and exited Camp Pendelton through the San Onofre gate. Some trucks went south on I-5 towards San Diego Naval Base while the rest of the convoy headed north on I-5. The busses exit I-5 and entered MCAS El Toro while the remaning trucks headed towards the Long Beach Naval Station to be loaded on an LSD.

We sat around on the tarmac at El Toro for about an hour when six Air Force C-141's landed. We boarded the C-141's and took off and less than 30 minutes later we landed on the air strip on San Clemente Island. 30 minutes later an Essex class aircraft carrier that was converted to an LPH came around the point just a couple of miles off shore. Then Marine CH-46's and CH-53's appeared and transported us to the ship.

By dawn the next morning went up to the flight deck and during the night we were joined by a LSD a LST and three destroyers, a Battalion Landing Team (BLT) has been formed and was at sea headed west. Today a BLT is called a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit.) This was all accomplished in less than 48 hours.

 

Whose fault is it if you're working with a $600,000,000/year budget and can't fight even a single war? Wanna throw more money at the problem? Sounds to me like we're dealing with the same situation we have with our public schools.

 

For those right wingers who live under the delusion that our military is weak, why don't you enlist (or re-enlist) and show them how it's done. Go ahead tough guys, show them your stuff.

 

How many plywood decoy tanks did we destroy ?

Re: Omar the Chechen.

With Omar the #2 ISIS leader out of the way, who's #2 today ?

How many times has the #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, etc. etc. Al Qaeda top leadership been killed during the past going on 15 years ?

By 2006 eight of the top ten leaders of Al Qaeda on 9-11-01 were either killed or captured including the Mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during the Bush administration. #1. OBL and #10. were killed during the Obama administration.

By 2008 Al Qaeda was hiding in Northern Pakistan but mostly were in check in Yemen and on the Horn of Africa unable to conduct terrorist operations outside of those areas.

But while Obama was telling the American people that Al Qaeda was being decimated and was on the run, Al Qaeda was actually expanding it's bases of operation all over the Middle East and were growing in size. Today Al Qaeda is larger, more powerful and more dangerous than it was on 9-11-01 or in 2008.

You kill Al Qaeda's or ISIS #2 leader there's a new #2 leader to take his place. That new #2 leader might be smarter and more dangerous than the old #2 leader.

 

The wars against America's enemies gives troops a noble purpose. Training has a renewed focus, sacrifices are appreciated by a largely grateful nation. During wartime, Congress is generous, job security is not an issue. After 13 years of war, we're facing a drawdown in troop strength and the all-volunteer military is entering an era of uncertainty.

It's important to know that the mission matters more to the military than it does to the civilian, A civilian can psychologically move on much easier, because there is nothing psychologically invested.

Is morale low...

Yes it is, however this is a normal period of adjustment drawing down after fighting any sort of sustained conflict.

Post-Vietnam war, our military went through the same sort of adjustment period consisting of low morale and reduced military readiness.

This too shall pass.

 

Wesley Clark Anther idiot lefty at the wheel-I first heard about that incident from this radio show...
http://www.kfiam640.com/media/podcast-dark-secret-place-darksecretplace/

 

Speak of the devil...

GENERAL SAYS ARMY AT HIGH RISK IN WAR AGAINST CHINA, RUSSIA

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army's top general says military forces on the ground face a high level of risk if the United States gets into a large-scale conflict against a power such as Russia or China. Testifying Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley says years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, constrained budgets and troop cuts have had a cumulative effect on the service.

Milley says the Army is ready to fight the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations. But what Milley describes as a "great power war" against one or two of four countries - China, Russia, Iran and North Korea - would pose greater challenges.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-03-16-13-29-14

A few days back a high ranking Marine said we were losing in Afghanistan to terrorists.

We have long term military problems-and a POTUS focused on short term political solutions.

 

POTUS who is also the CnCof the military tells Congress how much of your and my money he needs to fund the military. Congress appropriates the $600,000,000 and the CnC is suppose to see that the money goes to the right people and make sure that the military is properly funded, trained, equip and maintained and can fight. That's a lot of responsibility for even a competent CnC so it helps if there's competent civilians appointed in the Pentagon to over see that it's all done. It would help if the Secretary of the Air Force knew what an A-10 Warthog was instead of being appointed as Secretary of the Air Force because she knows how to say yes when Valerie Jarrett issue orders for a new liberal social engineering experiment to be initiated.

Did you know that the U.S. Navy has more admirals than ships ?

Lets not forget Obama's PC going green orders. We can't allow the military to contribute to global warming so instead of paying $2.88 per gallon of JP fuel to fly those aircraft, lets pay $150. per gallon for politically correct green fuel.

Pentagon paid $150 per gallon for green jet fuel: report -> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...id-150-gallon-green-jet-fuel-report/?page=all

What about PC green bullets ? You guessed right, Obama said "Make it so."

 

Gen. Wesley Clark, the Army's liberal general who almost started WW lll

Even CnC Clinton had no choice but to fire Clark's ass.

Re: Bryan Suits, smart move KFI made bringing back the Dark Secret Place. It seems to have gotten popular with decent ratings that every Monday morning on the Bill Hadel Show is Military Monday with Bryan Suits at 8:00 A.M.