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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. Long who wrote (31881)	6/8/2002 6:29:06 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

the military is trying to retool to fight terrorists. I am convinced that the only reason we fought in Afghanistan the way we did was because Tenet was in the "xcom" meetings described by Woodward, and convinced Bush that he had teams in place with the Northern Alliance that could do the job with Airpower. If not for this, Tommy Franks, as Commander for the area, would have been put in charge of planning, and we would have fought it conventionally, massing troops to take the place over. I read an email from a "Special Forces" NCO who participated in the Afghanistan operation, (on Hackworths site), and he stated that there was no one in the Florida HQ with any expertise in Special Forces. They had a Seal Commander at the Florida HQ who insisted on putting Seal Teams in. They were not trained for that type of operation.

To: D. Long who wrote (31881)	6/8/2002 7:15:04 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi D. Long; Re: "The overmatch value when compared to the threats the US faces in the next decade research cycle, IMO, doesn't justify it." The next decade research cycle will be for weapons that are deployable into what at least 25 years from now? Twenty five years doesn't seem like very long when looking into the future, but that's because the future doesn't have any events yet. To put it into perspective, over the past 25 years the Soviet Union completely reversed its course. Who knows what happens over the next 25 years. We have absolutely no idea who our enemies will be by then. The Israelis are calling the Europeans antisemitic near fascists. What if they're right and we have to put down Germany again? The Arab haters are saying that eventually we're going to have to put down the Arab world. What if the Arab world pulls an economic miracle (like parts of SE asia) and becomes a mass of developed powers by then? The Russian experiment with Democracy hasn't been glaringly successful, what if they decide to go fascist? And it's not like we're on terribly good terms with the Chinese or even the Indians. The global economy is kind of unsteady right now, and I doubt if things will improve over the next decade. It took only 10 years after 1929 for the liberal, democratic and industrialized world to turn into a furball. Will it be different this time? I hope so, but it's not the duty of the military to rely on hope. Does anyone really want to argue that the morality of the world is higher now than it was in 1929? I guess in some ways it is. In the event of any real war with a real enemy, or even in the event of a rise in hostilities that would require us to insert a permanent military force in places that need it, we will find that we simply cannot win quickly. Re: "They are, IMO, learning from Desert Storm." (1) Desert Storm wasn't against a developed nation. (2) Desert Storm was 10 years ago, do you really think it took the military that long to figure out what they wanted? In fact, our artillery was considered a show piece of Desert Storm. (3) Instead of working to figure out how we can improve our advantage in the wars that we already have overwhelming advantages in, it would behoove us instead to look at how to decrease our disadvantages in the wars we have fought where we did not have overwhelming advantages (Vietnam). Right now the military is deathly afraid of going into Iraq largely because of the fear of an extended guerilla conflict. Artillery has proven itself over and over to be useful against guerillas. (4) Desert Storm was a great example of modern conflict in that we were allowed a peaceful interlude of 6 months to build up our forces. Rather than being a rare event, this is a fairly common event. The Indians and Pakistanis have had plenty of time to get their assets up to the front line. The Falklands campaign took many months. The French and Germans went through a false war until 1940. In WW1, the various sides had time to get their hardware to the front. Our various crises with the Russians all gave us plenty of time to move heavy stuff around. It's human nature to "threat" before "fight", and it is during the "threat" time that the military has the opportunity to move the heavy goods in. The wars we need to improve are the ones that we are now frightened of fighting. What will get us will be the same sort of BS wars that have bogged down the Israelis. We're just lucky as hell that we got to fight in Afghanistan, where there's support for our side on the ground, instead of a country where we're hated on the ground. And that would include nearly all the potential battlefields the military is undoubtedly thinking about over the near term. Re: "Are you trying to tell me Bilow that we need a rapid shot, heavy hitting artillery piece... for killing civilians? Hell, vintage WWI museum pieces could be dragged out for that. That's a rather bad argument for a new weapon." You're right, I'm wrong, and I retract the argument. What was I thinking? -- Carl