Pentagon board says cuts essential

[Kane Starkiller]

It's power will erode anyway with the dual failure of foreign policy in Iraq and a failure of domestic policy with the economic crisis, one way or other and there's nothing you or anyone can do about it.

Being one of the few developed countries with a strong population growth (US population is expected to rise from 305 million today to 439 million in 2050), a large usable territory (compared to Canada majority of which is frozen wasteland or Australia mostly covered in desert), being the only major power native to both Pacific and Atlantic and sitting in the center of transpacific and transatlantic trade US has every predisposition to keep it's status as an undisputed superpower for a forseeable future.
Ecomomic crises come and go, certainly this one is not comparable to the one that happened to Russia in 1998 yet it managed to bounce back.

[Ma Deuce]

The way I see it, if the US is to become more militarly isolationist, it will have to become more economically isolationist as well. That means energy independence first of all, and secondly reversing outsourcing and rebuilding the manufacturing sector, establishing trade parity or perhaps even a tidy surplus. Once this is done, it would be quite feasible for the US to withdraw back to it's traditional sphere of influence in the Americas (this would also mean they'd be able to leverage Russia* or any other of the future "great powers" into abandoning any ambitions they have of courting any country in the Americas as allies). The new military would obviously be smaller, and would have an even smaller budget (the expeditionary nature of the current military is what makes it so expensive) so would probably resemble that of the Eisenhower era, with a piss-weak Army, a relatively strong navy (as in the past, this will be essential if the US is to keep it's sphere of influence to itself, as well as defend any overseas trade routes it still relies on), an air force geared to strategic warfare, and a very large nuclear arsenal.

*If Europe and China are among the new Great Powers, I doubt Russia will be one of their equals, being sandwiched between two far more powerful economies: let's face it, for all their resources, Russia's GDP is still only 40% bigger than Canada or Mexico even after a decade-long economic boom, and their population isn't getting any bigger, so they'll probably be condemned to being either Europe or China's bitch.

[Kane Starkiller]

The trouble is there really is no Europe. There was no Europe during the Iraq war, there was no Europe during the Russia-Georgia conflict and there even wasn't any Europe during the current economic crisis with each country dealing with the crisis with it's own set of economic measures. Every time shit hits the fan EU falls apart and the more Russian power grows the more EU will splinter as witnessed in the Georgian conflict.

As for isolationism currently US has it's back yard under control while at the same time poking all over Eurasia. This keeps China and Russia on the defensive while allowing US to remain on the offensive. Rolling back to American continent would potentially allow Russia or China to clean up their back yard and come over the Atlantic which would then put US on the defensive. I wouldn't like that possibility one bit if I were in charge of US external policy. Besides isolationism itself was not as much about US not meddling in European affairs but about Europe not meddling in American affairs. The current US deployment in Eurasia actually builds upon the real goals of "isolationism" policy by making sure no Eurasian power gets the chance of being powerful enough to make a trip over the Atlantic or Pacific rather than waiting for them to come to America.

[CmdrWilkens]

I've long thought, and still hold, that the single biggest problem with US procurement and plannign is that NOBODY has yet bothered to go back and figure out what we want to be able to do and wht we need to be able to do that.

If one were to, right now, comprise the absolute base level of military the US needs I'd start with this:
- Prevent air or naval intrusion into US space, including enough deterence that any incident will occur far enough away from actual US terriotory as to allow for a second layer of defense
- Ensure security of SLOC vital to US international trade. This principally means having sufficient air/naval power to patrol the Pacific Rim (mostly in SE Asia), the Central and Southern Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the current oil routes from the Middle East.
- Maintain a sufficient ground combat force to engage in initial operations (6-12 months prior to full activation and training of Reserve and Guard formations) against a well equipped major power.
- Maintain a sufficient intervention force to be able to exert limited term influence over small regional powers either to promote US or allied interests in the nation being intervened
- Maintain a sufficient reserve.guard force so as to be able to field within 6 months of activaiton a ground force capable of continued opertions against a well-equipped major power.
- Provide sufficient logistical and support for such operations should they occur in known or treaty obligated hot spots.
- Maintain a credible nuclear deterrent against other nuclear armed nations.


Offhand I'd say that FCS is unneccesarry (though piecemeal updates to things like the HMMWV and the rest of the utility truck fleet could start now), LCS is useless, DDG-1000 is overpriced and doesn't get you anymore bang for the bucks you have to shell out, Virginias were oversold but since it'd be tough to restart Seawolfs I'd rather see what could be done about getting enough of them to replace at least half of the 688 fleet which is getting up there, EFV honestly is overpriced and taking too damn long so axe it, the Osprey is here but I'd rather see it gone and a rotor replacement for the -46s found, AH-1Zulus should be go, LPD-17 is worth it just to bring the fleet age up to par.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I suppose that's true. Still, if you're thinking in terms of cost of human lives, it was bloodier than today.

That's comparing apples and oranges. Back then, no one had weapons of mass destruction, nor was there a possibility that a war might go nuclear within hours or days.

[K. A. Pital]

A multi-polar world wasn't exactly good for Russia the last time it came around, now was it (i.e. pre- and during World War 2)? What makes you so confident, particularly since the technology to counter nuclear delivery systems (like ABM) is advancing quite rapidly as well?

ABM can't counter all means of nuclear weapon delivery. There are still countless ways to kill your enemy with nukes. Besides, ABM isn't easy and only major powers embark on such ventures. Until all of them have such a dense screen that not a single of a thousand nukes will fall through, means of delivery will probably shift towards ones which are non-interceptable or hardly interceptable by ABM.

You think so? I think it's the opposite, since the means of stopping those weapons is proliferating as well (ABM technology). Although no nation really wants to be the first one to re-open the use of nuclear weapons, once one of them actually does it (even on a small scale), you could see small ones being used tactically.

So defense is proliferating. It's still lacking behind the offense. And seriously, are you saying the proliferation of anti-nuclear defense is a very good thing since it would allow large wars to happen without the threat of nuclear holocaust preventing the hotter heads from starting a war? In that case America, the prime pusher of an all-world encompassing space and sea based ABM around the whole world, should be the first to stop building it's ABM and show others an example

What about the period from 1945-1960, when we had pretty much overwhelming nuclear superiority? Sure, you might have been able to lob what you had at an army, but that's it - and you'd be squashed from the US's nukes in the process.

What of it? I think you valued Europe too much to just allow us crush it like a bug. But then, you also constantly exaggerated our nuclear abilities to build your own, so I guess you also needed us as bogeyman for internal policy goals ("bomber gap" and "missile gap" lies propelling people to power and giving enormous sway over military aquisitions ). And a bogeyman is no longer bogey when you kill his population, right?

Despite all the talk about this being a severe economic crisis, we have yet to reach the point here where it even approaches the severe recessions of the late 1970s and early 1980s, much less a Great Depression. Hell, even Iraq hasn't exactly broken us; Vietnam was much worse in terms of US casualties and damage to morale, and we recovered.

Oh, I'm not talking about your nation breaking down like it did in 1929. I'm talking about your nation losing the perceived role of the "all-wise leader", perceived being the key issue. Your authority even in Europe is shaken dramatically, I'm not even speaking about the Second and Third World which is increasingly defying your will (just a decade earlier it was in complete and utter submission to whatever you proposed, military bases, trade agreements, corporate rape, etc.).

It's not a talk about the collapse of the USA, but about the collapse of your authority as the "sole superpower".

Being one of the few developed countries with a strong population growth (US population is expected to rise from 305 million today to 439 million in 2050)

Population growth can be as much a factor of growth as a factor of poverty and social strife. It depends on the ability to integrate a growing population into industrial economy. The US currently is coping... uh... badly.

a large usable territory (compared to Canada majority of which is frozen wasteland or Australia mostly covered in desert)

Europe, Russia, China, India, Latin America have plenty of usable territory.

being the only major power native to both Pacific and Atlantic and sitting in the center of transpacific and transatlantic trade US has every predisposition to keep it's status as an undisputed superpower for a forseeable future.

"Foreseeable future"? "Superpower"? If the US economy is rivalled in size by other economies, or even surpassed, what would that mean? It's still the "sole superpower"? This can happen in our lifetime.

Ecomomic crises come and go, certainly this one is not comparable to the one that happened to Russia in 1998 yet it managed to bounce back.

Actually, what makes you think that way? The fact that Russia's economy was already pummeled in 1991-1992 and was very small compared to the US, made the crisis more severe. It's a general rule, the smaller is an economy, the heavier would the effects of a crisis be felt. The US economy is large, and thus it can take lots of damage.

But that's not the issue. The issue is the fall from a leadership position, not the destruction of the US or some other nonsense. The fall from a leading position is all to evident - at first the nation loses trust, even from it's partners (that happened to British Empire and late USSR as well). Then it loses the perceived leader status, i.e. it's unquestionable authority on things like economy, social order, trade etc. are first viewed with suspicion, and then outright rejected.

This is also happening and it's happening rapidly. US foreign policy was rebuffed by Europe, and most nations foolish enough to embark on Iraq now left the debacle; the US economic policy that led us to the current crash, was and is under strong criticism from Europe, and Europe in fact is in the process of rebuilding it's bank system along new lines, which includes scrapping the concepts the US is so fond of and which it peddled through the world. The "freetrade" frenzy is dying down, and more and more nations turn to protectionism and government investment in at least some crucial sectors, seeing how the US basically screwed them over. It's more evident in the Third World where leaders take over natural resources, massively raise taxes on foreign corporations exploiting their resources, and so on. The same situation is seen in the Second World.

The US is not collapsing - but it is losing it's perceived status, the trust connected with this status. And the loss of actual superpower status after the perception is lost is not a long way to go. British Empire and the WARPAC dismembered in short timeframes - and it wasn't for a lack of military capability to kick someone in the nuts. A lack of trust was paramount - and in causing the severe economic problems as well.

[Darth Wong]

People inside America don't realize how much the perception of their country has shifted in the outside world over the last decade. As far as they're concerned, "those other countries always hated us". But that just isn't true; they have no idea how many admirers they've had in other countries (particularly first-world countries) in past decades. And they similarly have no idea how much those admirers have come under siege in recent years.

One memory that has always been seared into my mind was watching the Space Shuttle land when I was a kid in school. It wasn't just that the Space Shuttle landed, or that it was the first time a manned space vehicle had ever landed on a runway. It was the sense that America was leading the way for the entire world. I remember my teacher saying something to the effect of "That's the great thing about America. When they set their minds to it, they can accomplish anything." One of the reasons we no longer have that feeling is that America hasn't really done anything in a long time to make people say things like that.

Americans have no perspective outside their own. They certainly can't appreciate the perspective of someone like me, who can remember when the prevailing attitude in Canada was that we should be more like the Americans, and when one of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's big selling points was his close relationship with the American president. No, to them the outside world has "always hated America", because they have never given enough of a shit about the outside world to know anything about its real attitudes. They Google a quote that confirms their opinion and they run with it.

How does this relate to the dispute about the breakdown of American economic hegemony? Well, let's just say that other countries are desperate to reduce their dependency on the US. They may not be able to, but still, it's a big sea change for people to say "we need to be less vulnerable to the Americans", as if they're a disease. They used to say that America was the rock for us to lean on.

[Patrick Degan]

DDG-1000 is overpriced and doesn't get you anymore bang for the bucks you have to shell out.

Actually, from what Stuart outlined, DDG-1000 is worse than useless.

[RedImperator]

Moreover, the less is the United States capable of holding the world oceans in the grip of it's uber-Navy, the less weight it's words will have on everyone. Couple that to the US' shaken position as a financial "mentor" due to the recent crisis. The world will become more multipolar, world politicians will stop looking behind their shoulder to see what "Uncle Sam" might say about it.

The United States is utterly dependent on freedom of the seas, both to supply critical raw materials and send exports to foreign markets. And until the advent of nuclear weapons, having the "biggest moat in the world" was the cornerstone of our national defense. The Navy might be downsized, but no administration is going to allow another nation to compete with it unless it has no choice, and for the time being it does.

[Guardsman Bass]

A multi-polar world wasn't exactly good for Russia the last time it came around, now was it (i.e. pre- and during World War 2)? What makes you so confident, particularly since the technology to counter nuclear delivery systems (like ABM) is advancing quite rapidly as well?

ABM can't counter all means of nuclear weapon delivery. There are still countless ways to kill your enemy with nukes. Besides, ABM isn't easy and only major powers embark on such ventures. Until all of them have such a dense screen that not a single of a thousand nukes will fall through, means of delivery will probably shift towards ones which are non-interceptable or hardly interceptable by ABM.

Is Israel a major power? I thought they were looking in to the technology. But obviously, Random African Shithole #9 is not going to be using this stuff.

being the only major power native to both Pacific and Atlantic and sitting in the center of transpacific and transatlantic trade US has every predisposition to keep it's status as an undisputed superpower for a forseeable future.

"Foreseeable future"? "Superpower"? If the US economy is rivalled in size by other economies, or even surpassed, what would that mean? It's still the "sole superpower"? This can happen in our lifetime.

I'd question his point about being an "undisputed superpower", but he does have an overall point. In a globalized (or globalizing world), and short of out-and-out government collapse, the US does have advantages, like sitting around and near all the major trade routes by sea (and if Global Warming makes the Northwest Passage viable year-round, then we own half of the land surrounding the Bering Strait). We still have quite a few natural resources, and they generally have the advantage of being in an area that isn't torn by strife or freezing cold.

The "freetrade" frenzy is dying down,

Somebody forgot to tell the Chinese. Or the rest of East Asia for that matter.

But to be serious, those Europeans you mentioned, while still wanting to restructure the banking system, have also been trying to stave off protectionism at all costs. Nobody really wants to go down that road (at least among the bigger economies); can you imagine the disaster if the US were to start going protectionist, like it did the last time a major economic crisis turned its head? I don't think it's likely, since most of the leadership here recognizes the disastrous effect the Smoot-Hawley Tariff had back in the early 1930s, but be careful what you wish for.

and more and more nations turn to protectionism and government investment in at least some crucial sectors, seeing how the US basically screwed them over. It's more evident in the Third World where leaders take over natural resources, massively raise taxes on foreign corporations exploiting their resources, and so on. The same situation is seen in the Second World.

This is nothing new. There was a massive wave of government seizure of petroleum-related property and businesses in the period of 70-40 years ago, starting with Mexico under Cardenas and moving around throughout the Arab World (creating multiple state-owned oil companies).

The US is not collapsing - but it is losing it's perceived status, the trust connected with this status. And the loss of actual superpower status after the perception is lost is not a long way to go. British Empire and the WARPAC dismembered in short timeframes - and it wasn't for a lack of military capability to kick someone in the nuts. A lack of trust was paramount - and in causing the severe economic problems as well.

The British Empire had pretty much lost its "biggest power" status by then for decades (unless you count "decades" as a short time frame), and certainly was not the largest soft-power creature on the block (much less the largest economy).

[K. A. Pital]

Is Israel a major power?

Israel is a war economy (look at how much of it's GDP it spends on the military), part of this war economy is propped by billions of funding from the USA. But that's tangential. Yes, ABM proliferates. That means people will use semiballistics, bombers, submarines, nuclear torpedoes and we're back to round one. If you think that there's really no way around ABM and it would make a country totally safe from nuclear war, then perhaps other nations should be even more wary of the US attempts to achieve a world-spanning, US-controlled ABM, which would then pave the way to fearless strikes against any place, any time if needed.

...the US does have advantages

I never disputed this. I merely noted that the loss of perceived leadership leads to a lack of trust and to a loss of actual leadership. There are pre-requisites of course, some of them require other nations to grow economically and militarily as well, some of them require the US to gut their enormous military expenses and their war machine.

Somebody forgot to tell the Chinese. Or the rest of East Asia for that matter.

Yes, someone did, because China is about as remote from what is championed as possible. It only rents land and industries, and it maintains a tight government grip on transactions running in and out of their industries. Moreover, China is rather eager to attract capital, since it seeks to build industries rather than save eroding industry which is the situation in most of the First and Second World.

But to be serious, those Europeans you mentioned, while still wanting to restructure the banking system, have also been trying to stave off protectionism at all costs.

You are kidding me, right? Europe is so anal about everyone needing to buy their products and "freetrade" when it comes to other nations - while they themselves maintain and even enforce more and more regulations to save their own eroding industries from outsourcing cheap labour in the Third World. As people said, protectionism isn't when you just "close all trade", it's when you take the necessary step to at least ensure survival and domination of domestic industries in the home market. I believe Europe did exactly that, and will do even more of it in the future.

This is nothing new.

It's relatively new for the new wave of nations which have been all too eager to trust the US.

The British Empire had pretty much lost its "biggest power" status by then for decades (unless you count "decades" as a short time

Decades is a relatively short timeframe still. Kane was talking about "foreseeable future". And as I said, there are pre-requisites for the US to lose it's status (it lost some of it already), but so far it looks like "the stars are right"

[tim31]

How does this relate to the dispute about the breakdown of American economic hegemony? Well, let's just say that other countries are desperate to reduce their dependency on the US. They may not be able to, but still, it's a big sea change for people to say "we need to be less vulnerable to the Americans", as if they're a disease. They used to say that America was the rock for us to lean on.

Regarding the reducing of dependency, the recently(well, a year ago now) elected Australian Labor government said that it would review the previous government's decision to buy 100 F-35s to replace the RAAF's aging Hornet fleet. The new defence minister went to the press saying that we would consider the MiG-29 or the Su-35 instead(!!), but this may be part of a ploy to try and get the F-22, which is what the RAAF really wants.

[Kane Starkiller]

Population growth can be as much a factor of growth as a factor of poverty and social strife. It depends on the ability to integrate a growing population into industrial economy. The US currently is coping... uh... badly.

Really? Are you talking about the current economic crisis or in general? Because generally speaking there is nothing to point to US not being able to integrate it's growing population into the economy, no more than the usual problems afflicting any economy.

Europe, Russia, China, India, Latin America have plenty of usable territory.

Europe and Latin America are not countries. 75% of Russia is above 55th parallel that is to say has the same latitude as Newfoundland or above. China's provinces of Xinjiang, Tibet and Qinghai are basically deserts and comprise 50% of China's territory containing 4% of the population. India is much smaller than US.

"Foreseeable future"? "Superpower"? If the US economy is rivalled in size by other economies, or even surpassed, what would that mean? It's still the "sole superpower"? This can happen in our lifetime.

Japan's economy is two times larger than Russian, in fact Italy rivals Russian economy in size yet no one considers Japan and certainly not Italy to be in the same league as Russia. Of course assuming 10% growth on the part of China in the following decades means it's economy will surpass that of the US but that is an assumption.
But all of this misses the point: territory, geographic location, population growth and a large economy of the US are not remotely matched. The fact that you can stitch something resembling a competition from various attributes of various countries or even politically disunited continents doesn't really change that.

Actually, what makes you think that way? The fact that Russia's economy was already pummeled in 1991-1992 and was very small compared to the US, made the crisis more severe. It's a general rule, the smaller is an economy, the heavier would the effects of a crisis be felt. The US economy is large, and thus it can take lots of damage.

But that's not the issue. The issue is the fall from a leadership position, not the destruction of the US or some other nonsense. The fall from a leading position is all to evident - at first the nation loses trust, even from it's partners (that happened to British Empire and late USSR as well). Then it loses the perceived leader status, i.e. it's unquestionable authority on things like economy, social order, trade etc. are first viewed with suspicion, and then outright rejected.

Is that why the entire world held all night vigils waiting for the election of the new US president? Or why German crowds deliriously greeted Barack Obama in Berlin some time ago? We can all make fun of Bushisms but the fact that the rest of the world still follows American elections more closely that they follow their own speaks clearly on the continued importance and leadership of the US. Everyone is expecting for Obama to "fix the world". That is not how you treat a president of a country that is loosing it's leadership.

This is also happening and it's happening rapidly. US foreign policy was rebuffed by Europe, and most nations foolish enough to embark on Iraq now left the debacle; the US economic policy that led us to the current crash, was and is under strong criticism from Europe, and Europe in fact is in the process of rebuilding it's bank system along new lines, which includes scrapping the concepts the US is so fond of and which it peddled through the world. The "freetrade" frenzy is dying down, and more and more nations turn to protectionism and government investment in at least some crucial sectors, seeing how the US basically screwed them over. It's more evident in the Third World where leaders take over natural resources, massively raise taxes on foreign corporations exploiting their resources, and so on. The same situation is seen in the Second World.

The US is not collapsing - but it is losing it's perceived status, the trust connected with this status. And the loss of actual superpower status after the perception is lost is not a long way to go. British Empire and the WARPAC dismembered in short timeframes - and it wasn't for a lack of military capability to kick someone in the nuts. A lack of trust was paramount - and in causing the severe economic problems as well.

US plans to invade Iraq were opposed by France and Germany, countries which after the fall of Soviet Union didn't wish to see US influence grow even further. Most of European countries: Spain, Portugal, Italy, UK, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and later Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia etc. sided with US. Like I said there really is no Europe.
The current crisis originated in the US but it spilled through the entire world again underscoring the world's dependence on the US, Europe seems to be hit even more badly than the US.
What is true is that nations are seizing power from bussines but that doesn't translate in US loosing it's influence: it is also a nation.

British Empire fell apart because of (1) being battered in two world wars, (2) it's colonies demographic growth which made controlling them that much more difficult and (3) neither US nor USSR wanting to see it's power restored.
Warsaw Pact fell apart precisely because Soviet Union went bankrupt and didn't have the ability to fund it's massive military or it's bases all over the Eastern Europe. Lack of trust didn't really help the Hungarians in 1956 or the Czechoslovakia in 1968.

[K. A. Pital]

Are you talking about the current economic crisis or in general?

The current crisis and then some time before. The crisis is not some overnight magic bullshit thing. It was prepared and it's foundations were laid by the US policy, especially the weak social integration of the bulk of working people to the benefits of growth, while at the same time vying for outsourcing cheap labour from everywhere. This is why parts of the US are unique (compared to the First World nations) in ghetto and poverty situations.

Europe and Latin America are not countries.

Nonetheless, confederacies and pan-national organizations exist here and there. A new great power may not be a single nation, and in fact need not be.

The fact that you can stitch something resembling a competition from various attributes of various countries or even politically disunited continents doesn't really change that.

So? The USSR had at peak an economy ~1/3 of the US, and still it's geopolitical dominance was widespread enough to be considered a superpower. And geopolitical dominance is important, and even if it is tied to all other factors, by no means it's defined as an easy influence formula. A lot of factors come into play. The desire to be more independent from US will is one of them.

Why did you suddely balk at my inclusion of confederacy-type bodies? The Shanghai Cooperation Organization? EU? They might not have the same cultural unity as the United States, but what if they get together well enough to enact a single line of foreign policy? Shouldn't their influence rival that of the US? Why not?

Is that why the entire world held all night vigils waiting for the election of the new US president?

Sorry, but only obsessed foreigners had sleepless nights over that as I see it. I certainly don't remember people around me having any sleepless nights, sure, they cheered Obama when they knew about it in the evening, morning or even week-after election news, but that's all. No "night vigils".

Or why German crowds deliriously greeted Barack Obama in Berlin some time ago?

Why would they not, the Obama figure accumulated a lot of sympathy in the foreign world by trying to adress it directly, and promising a better US foreign policy. Shouldn't that merit as something that Obama has accomplished, rather than the United States? Oh, and lately Bush was booed and met with huge protestor crowds anywhere he went.

Everyone is expecting for Obama to "fix the world".

Who is this "everyone" and why I do not know him? Americans are expecting Obama to fix America. As for others, they expect Obama not to "fix the world", but to stop the US policy of "do as we say, or we fuck you over". I certainly don't know about Obama Messiah Cults here, and frankly the whole Obama Messiah thing that you insinuate is "real" sounds like a steaming load of crap to me.

And why isn't that "how you treat a president ... losing position"? Gorbachov, reviled in Russia, was at his age hailed around the world.

Most of European countries: Spain, Portugal, Italy, UK, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and later Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia etc. sided with US.

You mean their weak-willed governments did. Spain and Portugal went out of the Iraq debacle and even the UK cosiders leaving the thing. And since when did Eastern Europe's opinion even weigh as much as Western Europe anyway? A bunch of losers upheld a war of agression and now they aren't sure why the hell they did it (the US had some good calls after 9/11 to "crush terrorists", and a lot of people went with it).

The current crisis originated in the US but it spilled through the entire world again underscoring the world's dependence on the US, Europe seems to be hit even more badly than the US.

I don't know about that. Largest banks and retail networks fail in the US. No bank failures or large retail network failures have been observed here in Russia so far. Even with the supermassive drop in oil prices. Europe did have bank collapses, but they were caused by ripples from the US crisis since capital movement is largely interconnected. The whole result though seems to move China and Europe at least to think more about becoming less dependent on US cycles', US currency and US advice most of all.

What is true is that nations are seizing power from bussines but that doesn't translate in US loosing it's influence: it is also a nation.

Um... if you own like 40-60% of a nation's industrial resources say through corporations, that's influence. Then, this nation suddenly nationalizes resources and tells you to stuff it. I guess this counts as the US losing influence. So what if the US is a nation? What's that point supposed to prove, that it's influence is completely independent from the foreign assets it's corporations have? It's corporate overtake of various national resources is a long-known method of keeping others on a tight leash (and when that fails, war ).

Lack of trust didn't really help the Hungarians in 1956 or the Czechoslovakia in 1968.

It was limited to those places, frankly. Other WARPAC nations joined in crushing the "weaker links in the chain".

[Surlethe]

I've long thought, and still hold, that the single biggest problem with US procurement and plannign is that NOBODY has yet bothered to go back and figure out what we want to be able to do and wht we need to be able to do that.

I'm curious what motivates your assessment of what we want to be able to do and what we need to be able to do that. In particular ...

If one were to, right now, comprise the absolute base level of military the US needs I'd start with this:
- Prevent air or naval intrusion into US space, including enough deterence that any incident will occur far enough away from actual US terriotory as to allow for a second layer of defense

This seems straightforward.

- Ensure security of SLOC vital to US international trade. This principally means having sufficient air/naval power to patrol the Pacific Rim (mostly in SE Asia), the Central and Southern Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the current oil routes from the Middle East.

And this.

- Maintain a sufficient ground combat force to engage in initial operations (6-12 months prior to full activation and training of Reserve and Guard formations) against a well equipped major power.

Why this?

- Maintain a sufficient intervention force to be able to exert limited term influence over small regional powers either to promote US or allied interests in the nation being intervened

Why do we need to be able to do that?

- Maintain a sufficient reserve.guard force so as to be able to field within 6 months of activaiton a ground force capable of continued opertions against a well-equipped major power.

This seems more reasonable, but I still must ask: why?

- Provide sufficient logistical and support for such operations should they occur in known or treaty obligated hot spots.

Treaty-obligated I can understand, but what about the others? Why should we intervene in such hotspots?

- Maintain a credible nuclear deterrent against other nuclear armed nations.

And this one is "no duh".

[Guardsman Bass]

- Maintain a sufficient ground combat force to engage in initial operations (6-12 months prior to full activation and training of Reserve and Guard formations) against a well equipped major power.

Why this?

This is probably in part because of treaty obligations, like if the North Koreans lost their heads and suddenly invaded South Korea head-on (although the South Korean military is strong enough that they could probably fight the North to a standstill, and then some - and if you wanted to get out of that neck of the woods, you could always sell the South Koreans actual nuclear warheads so they could pound the shit out of the North if they ever did the above).

Stuart mentioned in one thread that we can't simply do a "pissant army" to "full-strong army" anymore, because all of the neat modern equipment inherent to conventional war as it is takes longer to build, and can't be built in as large quantities as quickly because of the need for all manner of electronic components. Of course, you might be able to get around this by having a small standing force in terms of manpower, fully equipped training facilities (in case you needed to expand and mobilize), and a large enough stockpile of equipment which you update on occasion.

- Maintain a sufficient reserve.guard force so as to be able to field within 6 months of activaiton a ground force capable of continued opertions against a well-equipped major power.

This seems more reasonable, but I still must ask: why?

You could couple this with a small standing force and the aforementioned training facilities/weapons stockpiles. If you ended up in a war where not intervening would lead to very undesirable outcomes, then you could activate the Reserve, and use it while bringing the training facilities on-line and slowly switching out the reservists with new-trained active force guys/conscripts-if-necessary. It would take a while, and the whole process would act as a check on using the army willy-nilly, since you'd have to activate the reservists en-masse (not exactly popular), then struggle to bring in more active force troops (or use conscription, which is not popular with either the public or the military).

[Crayz9000]

A multi-polar world wasn't exactly good for Russia the last time it came around, now was it (i.e. pre- and during World War 2)? What makes you so confident, particularly since the technology to counter nuclear delivery systems (like ABM) is advancing quite rapidly as well?

ABM can't counter all means of nuclear weapon delivery. There are still countless ways to kill your enemy with nukes. Besides, ABM isn't easy and only major powers embark on such ventures. Until all of them have such a dense screen that not a single of a thousand nukes will fall through, means of delivery will probably shift towards ones which are non-interceptable or hardly interceptable by ABM.

Yeah, like... the Valkyrie. 1960s technology and we're only becoming marginally capable of intercepting it today.

McNamara should have been sodomized with a rusty telephone pole, sideways.

[MKSheppard]

NAME THIS COUNTRY:

709,000 regular (active duty) service personnel in 8 divisions.
293,000 reserve troops
20 combat wings with 2,000 combat aircraft
232 strategic bombers
13 strategic ballistic missile submarines with 3,114 nuclear warheads on 232 missiles
500 ICBMs with 1,950 warheads

Four aircraft carriers, 121 surface combat ships and submarines, plus all the support bases, shipyards and logistical assets needed to

sustain such a naval force.

Is this country Russia? . . . No

China ? . . . No

Great Britain ? . . . Wrong Again

USA? . . . Hardly

Give Up?

These are the US forces that have been scrapped since 1992.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

NAME THIS COUNTRY:

709,000 regular (active duty) service personnel in 8 divisions.
293,000 reserve troops
20 combat wings with 2,000 combat aircraft
232 strategic bombers
13 strategic ballistic missile submarines with 3,114 nuclear warheads on 232 missiles
500 ICBMs with 1,950 warheads

Four aircraft carriers, 121 surface combat ships and submarines, plus all the support bases, shipyards and logistical assets needed to

sustain such a naval force.

Is this country Russia? . . . No

China ? . . . No

Great Britain ? . . . Wrong Again

USA? . . . Hardly

Give Up?

These are the US forces that have been scrapped since 1992.

You could easily be a world power just by giving all that to some country...

[K. A. Pital]

That's around the same as what we scrapped, Shep So you aren't alone in the scrapping business. In fact, our Navy lost more probably (we aimed for a 1400 ship Navy, now we have probably less than a third of that)

Yeah, like... the Valkyrie.

I'm sure there are more modern ideas. Hypersonic test vehicles are a precursor to what could be. Better ALCMs as well, since the need to launch from beyond OTH warning means range will probably never cease to exist.

[Ace Pace]

- Maintain a sufficient ground combat force to engage in initial operations (6-12 months prior to full activation and training of Reserve and Guard formations) against a well equipped major power.

Why this?

This is probably in part because of treaty obligations, like if the North Koreans lost their heads and suddenly invaded South Korea head-on (although the South Korean military is strong enough that they could probably fight the North to a standstill, and then some - and if you wanted to get out of that neck of the woods, you could always sell the South Koreans actual nuclear warheads so they could pound the shit out of the North if they ever did the above).

Stuart mentioned in one thread that we can't simply do a "pissant army" to "full-strong army" anymore, because all of the neat modern equipment inherent to conventional war as it is takes longer to build, and can't be built in as large quantities as quickly because of the need for all manner of electronic components. Of course, you might be able to get around this by having a small standing force in terms of manpower, fully equipped training facilities (in case you needed to expand and mobilize), and a large enough stockpile of equipment which you update on occasion.

- Maintain a sufficient reserve.guard force so as to be able to field within 6 months of activaiton a ground force capable of continued opertions against a well-equipped major power.

This seems more reasonable, but I still must ask: why?

You could couple this with a small standing force and the aforementioned training facilities/weapons stockpiles. If you ended up in a war where not intervening would lead to very undesirable outcomes, then you could activate the Reserve, and use it while bringing the training facilities on-line and slowly switching out the reservists with new-trained active force guys/conscripts-if-necessary. It would take a while, and the whole process would act as a check on using the army willy-nilly, since you'd have to activate the reservists en-masse (not exactly popular), then struggle to bring in more active force troops (or use conscription, which is not popular with either the public or the military).

I think what he's asking if why should the U.S. care about that. The answer to which is economic ties. Aslong as the U.S. is an import reliant nation (for raw material and energy) it needs to be capable of securing these ties.

[Shroom Man 777]

Starkiller is basing America's continued existence as absolute dominant superpower based on Obama's popularity. But, the thing is, it's only Obama who is popular. It can be argued that the outcries of jubilation at Obama's victory was that the great man had triumphed despite the ineptitude of the American nation and the American people, from the POV of the foreign folks. They're celebrating Obama, not America. What happens if Obama loses to Palin in 2012? What if Obama totally doesn't follow through on any of his promises? What if the damage done to America can't be resolved by Obama because, gasp, the assholes were right and he doesn't have enough experience since he wasn't a POW who got his plane shot down in Da Nang? A single man, no matter his pigmentation, can't change geopolitical trends and stuff, no matter how many Germans cheer for him.

[Dahak]

I wouldn't say that the Germans in Berlin were cheering the USA. They were cheering the Non-Bush i.e. Obama, who managed to get the Non-Americans to hope that the next President might be a bit more reasonable, a bit more intelligent and sees the world more along European lines, as well as doing away with the things extremely disagreeable here like the war or Guantanamo.
Anti-Americanism and negative stereotypes still enjoy popularity here. Obama might change that in times to come, but as Shroom said, it was about Obama, not the USA.

[CmdrWilkens]

I've long thought, and still hold, that the single biggest problem with US procurement and plannign is that NOBODY has yet bothered to go back and figure out what we want to be able to do and wht we need to be able to do that.

I'm curious what motivates your assessment of what we want to be able to do and what we need to be able to do that. In particular ...

- Maintain a sufficient ground combat force to engage in initial operations (6-12 months prior to full activation and training of Reserve and Guard formations) against a well equipped major power.

Why this?

Its unlikely we would ever be invaded and its also unlikely that we would be called into a treaty obligated (or a UN sanctioned) major conflict. That being said unlikely doesn't mean it isn't wise to plan for enough ground troops to be able to engage in a stand up fight, the end fo teh Cold War still gave us Op Desert Strom which was a conflict nobody was looking for yet one which our economic interests (and UN mandate) set us on a course to fight. It was also a case where the US Army was actually out manned (we were 7th in size at the time against Iraq as the 4th largest). The main point being that a credible ground component to intervene in a major conflict where economic or treaty interests are at stake is neccessarry, the hotspot one could easily point out is South Korea.

That being said I don't think a lot of our overseas bases are truly neccesarry, if we are intervening we should have heavy port facilities from the locals and if we don't have local support then what the hell are we doing there in the first place. Naval bases abroad might be the one exception I woudl make on that but its largely because I imagine it easier to maintain the Pacific and Indian SLOC with the ability to base non-nuclear ships out of SE Asia and Diego.

- Maintain a sufficient intervention force to be able to exert limited term influence over small regional powers either to promote US or allied interests in the nation being intervened

Why do we need to be able to do that?

The end part of that quote was an acknolwedgement of what the US has historically done. I'm thinking in terms of Panama and Grenada rather than large interventions. I think if the US wants to be a recognized leader even in its traditional sphere of influence it needs a force capable of rapidly responding and intervening in low-intensity conflicts to help stabalize the situation. I think even if we singled the Marines out for this task 3 Divisions is more than we need and the number of MEUs on patrol at any given time shouldn't need to be that great.

- Maintain a sufficient reserve.guard force so as to be able to field within 6 months of activaiton a ground force capable of continued opertions against a well-equipped major power.

This seems more reasonable, but I still must ask: why?

Same reason why the active component should be able to fight for the first 6 months. I think it foolish not to plan for the idea that either circumstance or treaty will require the US to mount a large scalle attack or defense against a major power.

- Provide sufficient logistical and support for such operations should they occur in known or treaty obligated hot spots.

Treaty-obligated I can understand, but what about the others? Why should we intervene in such hotspots?

Mostly with that I am again refering to issues with the US sphere in the Western Hemisphere, we should have the resources to support peacekeeping or other operations within the Caribbean and Latin America.


Admittedly its not a huge drawdown from where we are now but I think it does a couple key things to reduce size and cost. Our amphibious forces are larger than they need to be hut still too small for a full blown amphibious invasion so I'd rather cut down than scale up, our Army is caught between trying to fight the current conflict for which it is ill equipped and preparing for the next where it may be ill preparred so I'd rather see the Army refocus on mechanized warfare but with no more than 10 active divisions but a slightly larger reserve establishment, the Navy is honestly okay except that none of its current programs were smart enough to take incremental approachs, and the AF needs to stick with Air Superiority/Nuclear Deterrent/Logistics as the core missions.

[Kane Starkiller]

The current crisis and then some time before. The crisis is not some overnight magic bullshit thing. It was prepared and it's foundations were laid by the US policy, especially the weak social integration of the bulk of working people to the benefits of growth, while at the same time vying for outsourcing cheap labour from everywhere. This is why parts of the US are unique (compared to the First World nations) in ghetto and poverty situations.

US is not the first and certainly not the last country to experience an economic crisis. The trouble is every crisis in US sends shockwaves around the world unlike Asian economic crisis of 1997 or Russian crisis of 1998 because US economy is so large and important. So neither US nor capitalist system itself is unique in undergoing crises. Secondly population below poverty line in US us 12% compared to, say, Germany 11%. Ghettos in US are result of racial segregation in case of blacks or immigration pressure in the case of Hispanics. Neither represents a large fraction of the population and you'll notice the other First World nations do have a problem with it just look at France and it's muslim population. Or, looking at the wood be competitors, China with it's Tibetan or Uyghur population and 800 million of piss poor peasants who didn't see a dime out of Chinese economic growth. Or Russia's Caucasus region.

Nonetheless, confederacies and pan-national organizations exist here and there. A new great power may not be a single nation, and in fact need not be.

And neither show any kind of cohesion necessary to be a serious military, political or even economic force.

So? The USSR had at peak an economy ~1/3 of the US, and still it's geopolitical dominance was widespread enough to be considered a superpower. And geopolitical dominance is important, and even if it is tied to all other factors, by no means it's defined as an easy influence formula. A lot of factors come into play. The desire to be more independent from US will is one of them.

All countries strive to be more independent. Are you saying there was a time countries prefered to be under US influence than be independent? Obviously many factors determine whether a country is a superpower, that is my point. Looking at the combination of factors US is far above any would be competitor.
The current resentment towards US stems mostly from the fact that after 1990s feel good end of cold war era countries suddenly realized just how powerful US has become with USSR gone. They'll try to check US power but the trouble is those countries have many issues amongst themselves and US can easily exploit those differences.
For example Germany and France don't want Ukraine joining NATO since it would only enhance US power in Europe but at the same time have no wish to see Ukraine getting back to Russian control. They'd rather see Ukraine as their buffer than Russian buffer.

Why did you suddely balk at my inclusion of confederacy-type bodies? The Shanghai Cooperation Organization? EU? They might not have the same cultural unity as the United States, but what if they get together well enough to enact a single line of foreign policy? Shouldn't their influence rival that of the US? Why not?

Where was China when Russia recognized South Ossetia? Where was EU unity when it was time to decide whether to go to Iraq war or respond to Russian-Georgian conflict or even how to deal with the economic crisis? And these are all relatively minor things, what would happen when shit really hit the fan? Every nation for itself.

Sorry, but only obsessed foreigners had sleepless nights over that as I see it. I certainly don't remember people around me having any sleepless nights, sure, they cheered Obama when they knew about it in the evening, morning or even week-after election news, but that's all. No "night vigils".

Obviously that was an exaggeration on my part but the point remains: who would follow Russian or Chinese or French elections with such scrutiny?

Why would they not, the Obama figure accumulated a lot of sympathy in the foreign world by trying to adress it directly, and promising a better US foreign policy. Shouldn't that merit as something that Obama has accomplished, rather than the United States? Oh, and lately Bush was booed and met with huge protestor crowds anywhere he went.

What exactly has Obama accomplished? Are you saying that he would still generate such publicity if he was running for president of Mexico? As for Bush neing booed that is another sign of American power and influence: you can love them or hate them but you can't be indifferent.

You mean their weak-willed governments did. Spain and Portugal went out of the Iraq debacle and even the UK cosiders leaving the thing. And since when did Eastern Europe's opinion even weigh as much as Western Europe anyway? A bunch of losers upheld a war of agression and now they aren't sure why the hell they did it (the US had some good calls after 9/11 to "crush terrorists", and a lot of people went with it).

Why are they weak willed simply because they sided with US over France, Germany and Russia? If they sided with the other side then they wouldn't be weak willed? Eastern Europe obviously doesn't carry much weight nor did I say it does. I merely said that they chose to follow US instead of France and Germany. They didn't do it because they were crazy about war in Iraq but because Europe dominated by German-French alliance collaborating with the Russians wasn't at all appealing to the rest of Europe and especially East for obvious historic reasons.

I don't know about that. Largest banks and retail networks fail in the US. No bank failures or large retail network failures have been observed here in Russia so far. Even with the supermassive drop in oil prices. Europe did have bank collapses, but they were caused by ripples from the US crisis since capital movement is largely interconnected. The whole result though seems to move China and Europe at least to think more about becoming less dependent on US cycles', US currency and US advice most of all.

The crisis originated in US and is spreading from there. If you remember back when US was cutting it's interest rates months ago EU did nothing only now are they following the lead when the main force of the crisis hit them. China was projected to maintain it's large growth but now even officials are cutting down projected growth to 9% and probably even lower. Russian stock market lost 50% of it's value since May and it is still too soon to feel the full effects of the drop in oil prices.

Um... if you own like 40-60% of a nation's industrial resources say through corporations, that's influence. Then, this nation suddenly nationalizes resources and tells you to stuff it. I guess this counts as the US losing influence. So what if the US is a nation? What's that point supposed to prove, that it's influence is completely independent from the foreign assets it's corporations have? It's corporate overtake of various national resources is a long-known method of keeping others on a tight leash (and when that fails, war ).

The point that current nationalization is a response to economic crisis and US is doing it just like everyone else. When you nationalize your industry you cut off the foreign influence but also foreign capital. So it really works both ways.

It was limited to those places, frankly. Other WARPAC nations joined in crushing the "weaker links in the chain".

Because of fear not trust.