Army Troops Forced Back Into Service

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Vympel
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Post by Vympel »

Of those 1.4 million active and reserve units, only 140 grand are in Iraq. Quick math says thats only 10%. So out of all of the US military only one in ten are in theater. That doesn't scream, draft. Rather that scream; redeploy other troops in non-critical missions. Like Europe.
Not really the best way to look at it:

Link

I think that's a better measure. Anyway, it's no secret the Army is definitely stretched. Don't know if they can redeploy to deal with it though.
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Stuart Mackey
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Post by Stuart Mackey »

Knife wrote:snip

The military doesn't want conscripts. The Congress doesn't want conscripts. The people don't want conscripsts. The draft is dead.
And I think your will find that that is true of every nation who has abolished the draft.
It does have one slightly humourus outcome: Its possibly the only time you will see the government accountants and the armed forces agree on something :)
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Post by Mr Bean »

Elfdart wrote:
If it's just a political ploy, why are draft boards being organized?
--Skip to the end to avoid Bean's ranting

(Engage Ranting Bean mode)
Once agian because I keep hearing this draft bullshit from everyone except memebers of the military
WERE IN F@#$ING HELL DO YOU THINK WE WOULD GET THE NESSARY, ARMS, CLOTHING, HOUSING, AND INSTRUCTORS FOR EVEN FOURTY PERCENT MANPOWER JUMP, LET ALONE A BLOODY !@#$!@$ 200-500% ONE?
FUCKING WAKY LAND?


As for Mr Ned Lebow "A military manpower expert and professor of goverment" little statement about the nessisty of the draft let me bold something he said
"The government is in a bit of a box," Lebow says. "They can hold reservists on active duty longer, and risk antagonizing that whole section of America that has family members who join the Reserves.They can try to pay soldiers more, but it's not clear that works
Just an intresting lead in to what he says

But anyway Mr Lebow goes on to start by comparing this war to Vietnam and then to Afghanastan and say that were lost both(Though it was brought up eariler last week that in the past six months more military service memebers died in traffic accidents in Washington DC alone than in all of Afghanstan)
----------------------
End Rant
Now then all that aside three simple problems with the draft

1.Material, Armering, Armoring and Training these new drafteese would be a tremedous undertaking and as the papers love to gleefuly point out, we have enough problems with the force we have right now

2. Effictly useless in Iraq, alot of poorly trained, moderalty armed troops in Iraq are ineffictive at best, right now we need highly trained folks who will not piss off the natives(As has already been pointed out there have been next to none of active duity military personel invovled in any of the problems in Iraq)
Having more people who don't want to be there is not effective in any way shape or form as the battle nowadays is twofold, intel and hearts and minds
Niether of which a ton of drafteese would help us with

3. Agian, Lack of Arms(M16 production has slowed alot because of the expetant replacement just down the line)
To quote someone while doing a bad Russian Accent
The man with the rifle shoots, the man without the rifle follows, the man with the rifle falls, the man without, picks up the rifle and keeps shooting

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Knife
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Post by Knife »

Vympel wrote:
Of those 1.4 million active and reserve units, only 140 grand are in Iraq. Quick math says thats only 10%. So out of all of the US military only one in ten are in theater. That doesn't scream, draft. Rather that scream; redeploy other troops in non-critical missions. Like Europe.
Not really the best way to look at it:

Link

I think that's a better measure. Anyway, it's no secret the Army is definitely stretched. Don't know if they can redeploy to deal with it though.
From the same site;

North Korea, estimate total force- 700,000

South Korea; estimate total force- 560,000

American troops in Korea- 37,000

*Disclaimer* While the 560 grand + 37 grand of Americans seem to still be out done by sheer weight of NoK troops, the diparity of equipment and training makes it so an advantage too South Korea that it ain't funny. Plus if the Americans pulled out of Korea, it would probably force the South Koreans to increase their military. Perhaps not to 700,000 but still enough to deal with North Korea.

A large part of the 3rd Marine Division is in Japan (and Korea) along with (total) ~40,000 US troops (about 20 grand are the Marines). We are trying to stop the Japanese from doing what?

The 560 thousand Koreans are more than enough for the North, those 37 grand and the remaining 10 or so thousand in the area are doing what?

In Germany, roughly 65,000 troops are stationed. Now granted, I don't know how many of those are redeployed to Iraq right now, but still????? 65 tousand troops to stop what?

Put simply, America still has its troops deployed to fight the cold war. Redeploying our troops to where our current security need are, is easy except if you are talking real politik.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Post by Knife »

Mr Bean wrote:snip
Basically the argument of all concripts, there isn't enough time nor money not space to train the masses for the incredibly technical and demanding job of being a ground pounder. Let alone other, more intellectually demanding jobs of the other services.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Post by Mr Bean »

Basically the argument of all concripts, there isn't enough time nor money not space to train the masses for the incredibly technical and demanding job of being a ground pounder. Let alone other, more intellectually demanding jobs of the other services.
Not to mention training in all the new gear grunts keep getting handed for communications and navigation which is an extra few weeks to months(From pounder to tanker in complexity) it takes to learn them

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Post by PainRack »

Knife wrote: *Disclaimer* While the 560 grand + 37 grand of Americans seem to still be out done by sheer weight of NoK troops, the diparity of equipment and training makes it so an advantage too South Korea that it ain't funny. Plus if the Americans pulled out of Korea, it would probably force the South Koreans to increase their military. Perhaps not to 700,000 but still enough to deal with North Korea.

A large part of the 3rd Marine Division is in Japan (and Korea) along with (total) ~40,000 US troops (about 20 grand are the Marines). We are trying to stop the Japanese from doing what?

The 560 thousand Koreans are more than enough for the North, those 37 grand and the remaining 10 or so thousand in the area are doing what?

In Germany, roughly 65,000 troops are stationed. Now granted, I don't know how many of those are redeployed to Iraq right now, but still????? 65 tousand troops to stop what?

Put simply, America still has its troops deployed to fight the cold war. Redeploying our troops to where our current security need are, is easy except if you are talking real politik.
The problem with redeploying the soldiers from Japan and South Korea is this.

Those troops essentially fill in the gap in the Pacific Ocean between Guam and Diego Garcia. Everytime the US holds an exercise in the region with friendly forces, they're rotating forces out from Kadena, Osan and Futenma. They're out there fulfilling confidence duties, showing the flag to friendly nations the existence of the US security presence, and these exercises ARE important. Not only are these exercises beneficial to mutual ties, they also enhance friendly countries ability to cooperate with US forces in mutual commands like Iraq. They are also neccesary to fight the War on Terror, like in Phillipines and south Thailand.

Furthermore, air and naval assets in these areas are stretched, as they were involved in supporting both Enduring Freedom and the build-up to the Iraqi conflict, and they haven't been given the time to properly rest yet.
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Post by Knife »

Those troops essentially fill in the gap in the Pacific Ocean between Guam and Diego Garcia. Everytime the US holds an exercise in the region with friendly forces, they're rotating forces out from Kadena, Osan and Futenma. They're out there fulfilling confidence duties, showing the flag to friendly nations the existence of the US security presence, and these exercises ARE important. Not only are these exercises beneficial to mutual ties, they also enhance friendly countries ability to cooperate with US forces in mutual commands like Iraq. They are also neccesary to fight the War on Terror, like in Phillipines and south Thailand.
I'm not saying we should scrap every forward base we have, the the level of staffing those bases are, is laughable high. ~45,000 troops in the Japan/Korea area is way too many. South Korea and Japan are more than able to defend themselves at this point. Maintaining a couple of bases over there as forward bases is still smart, just not at that level. Same with Europe.
Furthermore, air and naval assets in these areas are stretched, as they were involved in supporting both Enduring Freedom and the build-up to the Iraqi conflict, and they haven't been given the time to properly rest yet.
This is actually irrelevant in the overall scheme. All deployment scheduals get fucked up durring combat operations. It takes a couple years for the wrinkles in the system to settle down. In fact, while shit is still screwed up, is a good time to move commands around (not necessarily now but while the deployment schedual is off) and redeploy troops to where they are actually needed.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Post by PainRack »

Knife wrote: I'm not saying we should scrap every forward base we have, the the level of staffing those bases are, is laughable high. ~45,000 troops in the Japan/Korea area is way too many. South Korea and Japan are more than able to defend themselves at this point. Maintaining a couple of bases over there as forward bases is still smart, just not at that level. Same with Europe.
Except they aren't just forward bases anymore. Those bases essentially form the response team for the US throughout the whole of East Asia, and is a vital air/naval bridge for the US West Coast to the Middle East.

They aren't stragetically situated to do that, but at the moment, that's what they do. Link the US West Coast to Central Command.

The Iraqi situation may dictate that troops be shifted from other theatres to there, but doing so will degrade the neccesary operational readiness of those theatres.
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Post by Son of the Suns »

Hmmm the South Koreans obviously don't feel they have enough troops. Every male in South Korea is still forced into service for some time after they become an adult.

Besides, our forces there guarantee one thing. If North Korea invades it will involve Americans, and we will have to retaliate.
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Post by Knife »

Son of the Suns wrote:Hmmm the South Koreans obviously don't feel they have enough troops. Every male in South Korea is still forced into service for some time after they become an adult.

Besides, our forces there guarantee one thing. If North Korea invades it will involve Americans, and we will have to retaliate.
At this point in history, though, that would be insane. While the vaunted North Korean artillery would pound quite a few pieces of nice landscaping and alot of civillians would get caught up in it, the North has about 0% chance of invading and defeating the South even with out US involvment.

They don't have the raw numbers nor the equiptment to defeat the South. Nor the food, nor the leadership, nor the....
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Post by Admiral Valdemar »

"We may have to go in [to North Korea] and smack them around a little until they learn that if the name of your nation includes a cardinal direction, you're not big enough to rumble with the U.S."
-Ben "Greasnin" Platt, SA.com
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Post by Vympel »

Admiral Valdemar wrote:"We may have to go in [to North Korea] and smack them around a little until they learn that if the name of your nation includes a cardinal direction, you're not big enough to rumble with the U.S."
-Ben "Greasnin" Platt, SA.com
"North Vietnam" handily disproves that. :lol:
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