U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct largescale, prolonged stability opera

[SFC Ollie]

For the last decade, the United States has undertaken extended operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan. As we responsibly draw down from these operations, take steps to protect our Nation’s economic vitality, and protect our interests in a world of accelerating change, we face an inflection point. The changing geopolitical environment and our changing fiscal circumstances merited a reassessment of U.S. defense strategy. Out of this assessment, the Department of Defense (DoD) developed a strategy that transitions our defense enterprise from an emphasis on today’s wars to preparing for future challenges, protects the broad range of U.S. national security interests, advances the Department’s efforts to rebalance and reform, and supports the national security imperative of deficit reduction by reducing defense spending. The resulting strategic guidance provided a set of precepts to guide decisions regarding the size and shape of the force over subsequent budget cycles.

http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120203-027.pdf


This administration must go...............

 

[Salt Jones]

For the last decade, the United States has undertaken extended operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan. As we responsibly draw down from these operations, take steps to protect our Nation’s economic vitality, and protect our interests in a world of accelerating change, we face an inflection point. The changing geopolitical environment and our changing fiscal circumstances merited a reassessment of U.S. defense strategy. Out of this assessment, the Department of Defense (DoD) developed a strategy that transitions our defense enterprise from an emphasis on today’s wars to preparing for future challenges, protects the broad range of U.S. national security interests, advances the Department’s efforts to rebalance and reform, and supports the national security imperative of deficit reduction by reducing defense spending. The resulting strategic guidance provided a set of precepts to guide decisions regarding the size and shape of the force over subsequent budget cycles.

http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120203-027.pdf


This administration must go...............

They aren't going anywhere. Obama will be reelected with ease.

 

[SFC Ollie]

You keep hoping that..............

 

[HUGGY]

U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large‐scale, prolonged stability opera

If the Somalia "blackhawk down" and the Iranian hostage rescues had been planned and executed better war as we have known it over the last thirty years may have been conducted much differently.

We could have "decapitated" Iraq's leaders with probably less than a hundred men.. if we bombed the crap out of key locations then swooped in with special ops and xtra backup extraction teams at the ready. Half of em would probably get killed but that is a damn site better than 5,000 KIA's and 30,000 wounded... Not to mention that Iraq would still have a country to rebuild upon.

Operations like the Bin Laden take out put the fear of Allah in those guys.

 

[SFC Ollie]

And thats the only type of action we might see? No way North Korea will ever attack South Korea. There is no possible way we may find ourselves facing Red China? No way we might be drawn into 2 different wars at the same time even if they are smaller scale than Korea or China would be.....

None of us knows the future.......

 

[whitehall]

Harry Truman said the same thing after he authorized the use of Nuclear Bombs on Japan. The dumb rube from Missouri thought the age of ground warfare was over. Even though Marines sacrificed so much in the Pacific with Uncommon Valor, "give 'em hell Harry" wanted to do away with the Marine Corps. About 5 years later the Marines would save the day in the ground warfare of Korea.

 

[The Gadfly]

U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large‐scale, prolonged stability opera

If the Somalia "blackhawk down" and the Iranian hostage rescues had been planned and executed better war as we have known it over the last thirty years may have been conducted much differently.

We could have "decapitated" Iraq's leaders with probably less than a hundred men.. if we bombed the crap out of key locations then swooped in with special ops and xtra backup extraction teams at the ready. Half of em would probably get killed but that is a damn site better than 5,000 KIA's and 30,000 wounded... Not to mention that Iraq would still have a country to rebuild upon.

Operations like the Bin Laden take out put the fear of Allah in those guys.

Yes, and IF your uncle had been plumbed differently, he might have been your aunt.

Taking the last case first, there is a VERY large difference between the raid on Bin Laden's compound, and a decapitation strike against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. For starters, there's the rather large problem of multiple target locations to be hit, the existence of what was still a reasonably formidable air defense system ( at least with regard to rotary wing aircraft), and the fact that the main target of the operation was constantly on the move. The operational requirements accordingly are orders of magnitude different (as they would be, in for example, a decapitation strike against the current leadership of Iran. If it were doable, it would have been done.

The "Blackhawk Down" mission in Mogadishu would have had a better chance, had the mission commander been given the resources he requested to include a M-1 tank Co. and AC-130 gunship support (both denied by then Clinton SecDef Les Aspin as "too provocative". Even had those resources been in place, intelligence had apparently failed to note the presence of a considerable number of Al-Quaeda operatives in Mogadishu at the time. While the denied resources would certainly have helped, AFTER the mission ran into unanticipated difficulty, it is by no means certain that they would have guaranteed its success.

As for the abortive hostage rescue by OD-D in Iran, while the use of Navy helicopters in place of the aviation unit normally used in conjunction with OD-D might have averted the fatal compromise of the mission at the outset, whether or not the plan in place for the eventualevacuation of the force and the hostages was in fact adequate is not a certainty.

Special Operations forces are extremely good at what they do; they are NOT magic, nor do they always succeed, even with the best planning. Failures do happen, in varying degrees. Complicating such operations by a scale too large, and/or requiring too much timing/coordination with supporting forces is, and has been, a recipe for disaster-ask the SEALs tasked with taking Padilla Airfield in Panama.

 

[The Gadfly]

For the last decade, the United States has undertaken extended operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan. As we responsibly draw down from these operations, take steps to protect our Nation’s economic vitality, and protect our interests in a world of accelerating change, we face an inflection point. The changing geopolitical environment and our changing fiscal circumstances merited a reassessment of U.S. defense strategy. Out of this assessment, the Department of Defense (DoD) developed a strategy that transitions our defense enterprise from an emphasis on today’s wars to preparing for future challenges, protects the broad range of U.S. national security interests, advances the Department’s efforts to rebalance and reform, and supports the national security imperative of deficit reduction by reducing defense spending. The resulting strategic guidance provided a set of precepts to guide decisions regarding the size and shape of the force over subsequent budget cycles.

http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120203-027.pdf


This administration must go...............

This crap is what happens, when you take a civilian "community activist" and make him Commander-in-Chief. It's the perennial problem with armchair commandos; give them a military force capable of doing a lot with a little, add a dose of wishful thinking that has zero grounding in practical experience, and they eventually convince themselves the military can do anything, with nothing. You mark my words; if this incompetent doofus gets four more years, he will make Johnson and McNamara look like geniuses sooner or later!

 

[HUGGY]

U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large‐scale, prolonged stability opera

If the Somalia "blackhawk down" and the Iranian hostage rescues had been planned and executed better war as we have known it over the last thirty years may have been conducted much differently.

We could have "decapitated" Iraq's leaders with probably less than a hundred men.. if we bombed the crap out of key locations then swooped in with special ops and xtra backup extraction teams at the ready. Half of em would probably get killed but that is a damn site better than 5,000 KIA's and 30,000 wounded... Not to mention that Iraq would still have a country to rebuild upon.

Operations like the Bin Laden take out put the fear of Allah in those guys.

Yes, and IF your uncle had been plumbed differently, he might have been your aunt.

Taking the last case first, there is a VERY large difference between the raid on Bin Laden's compound, and a decapitation strike against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. For starters, there's the rather large problem of multiple target locations to be hit, the existence of what was still a reasonably formidable air defense system ( at least with regard to rotary wing aircraft), and the fact that the main target of the operation was constantly on the move. The operational requirements accordingly are orders of magnitude different (as they would be, in for example, a decapitation strike against the current leadership of Iran. If it were doable, it would have been done.

The "Blackhawk Down" mission in Mogadishu would have had a better chance, had the mission commander been given the resources he requested to include a M-1 tank Co. and AC-130 gunship support (both denied by then Clinton SecDef Les Aspin as "too provocative". Even had those resources been in place, intelligence had apparently failed to note the presence of a considerable number of Al-Quaeda operatives in Mogadishu at the time. While the denied resources would certainly have helped, AFTER the mission ran into unanticipated difficulty, it is by no means certain that they would have guaranteed its success.

As for the abortive hostage rescue by OD-D in Iran, while the use of Navy helicopters in place of the aviation unit normally used in conjunction with OD-D might have averted the fatal compromise of the mission at the outset, whether or not the plan in place for the eventualevacuation of the force and the hostages was in fact adequate is not a certainty.

Special Operations forces are extremely good at what they do; they are NOT magic, nor do they always succeed, even with the best planning. Failures do happen, in varying degrees. Complicating such operations by a scale too large, and/or requiring too much timing/coordination with supporting forces is, and has been, a recipe for disaster-ask the SEALs tasked with taking Padilla Airfield in Panama.

You have a good point about Iraq. They were pretty heavily fortified with many escape routes for Saddam. Probably a bad example.

Somallia was doable especially with a couple of C-130s blazing fire from those G E gattling guns. The Iran hostage situation was poor planning what with not accounting for sand storms. Carter was/is a pussbag. If he had any nads to go with his smarts he should have gone in there as if his whole political future depended on it. Fuck world opinion. I think to the victor goes the spoils. Obama proved that in Pakistan. Imagine what would have happened if that mission had failed. Obama took a huge risk.

 

[Dr Grump]

Cut taxes - cut the fat - cut, cut ,cut is the Conservative mantra...




































Unless you talk about the military...





Then its "this admin must go".

Get the fuck outta here. What makes the military so fucking special...

You will never fight a war like you did in WWII. Your country has enough nukes to blow the world up 10 times over....

 

[del]

good.

it's about fucking time

 

[SFC Ollie]

Cut taxes - cut the fat - cut, cut ,cut is the Conservative mantra...




Unless you talk about the military...





Then its "this admin must go".

Get the fuck outta here. What makes the military so fucking special...

You will never fight a war like you did in WWII. Your country has enough nukes to blow the world up 10 times over....

STFU, you have no dog in this hunt..........