Our Military: How to get it on track or is it already?

You really don't understand MAD do you?
So what, you're going to threaten nukes every time someone does something you don't like? Bullcrap. MAD just keeps the big players (Russia and China) from directly and brazenly attacking your allies, but that means jack if they start an insurgency.
 
So what, you're going to threaten nukes every time someone does something you don't like? Bullcrap. MAD just keeps the big players (Russia and China) from directly and brazenly attacking your allies, but that means jack if they start an insurgency.
Ummm, That was his point actually, that the real worry was proxy and COIN warfare.

What are YOU going to do threaten direct warfare over an insurgency in East BUmfuck?
 

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Ummm, That was his point actually, that the real worry was proxy and COIN warfare.

What are YOU going to do threaten direct warfare over an insurgency in East BUmfuck?

Nope just dump US bonds; see the dollar go down the drain... The conflict between China+Russia+/-India versus the West is and will be an economic one; and in this conflict sadly US and Western corporations are backing China :eek:
 
Ummm, That was his point actually, that the real worry was proxy and COIN warfare.

What are YOU going to do threaten direct warfare over an insurgency in East BUmfuck?
Yep, because a nuke means sh*t to a dictator, because he knows that the nuke's not going to come, because of MAD, whereas an invasion means he's gone, not only from power, but also possibly the land of the living.
 
Some of you may have heard of the Millenium tests where Paul Van Ripen in 5-20 minutes took down multiple ships including carriers. Then in the middle of the tests the ships were relfloated and the games followed a script. This plus the fact the XM8 wasn't adopted or any other new rifle in 10+ years suggest our military may need a rude awakening to allow them to change to the functions of war in the same way Yonkers did in WWZ? Is this a realistic assessment?

The US Military isn't really off track so much as being asked to perform missions it has neither the concepts nor the equipment to properly do.
 
from what I've read in this thread, it seems we don't want to convert too much to COIN warfare, or we'll be unable to face a regular foe with regular armies. So, the big question is how many COIN special trained people do we need? Could we do something simple like convert one of our regular infantry divisions into specialized COIN warfare experts, or is that not enough? If we need more, could we do something else simple like just add one or more divisions of special COIN troopers to the roster (granted, it may be hard to recruit that many more people, and it would add to the military budget)? IMO, we could afford to reduce the regular army a little (not by any huge amounts) so that we can have specialized COIN experts; it does seem to be the main kind of war we'll be fighting in the near future.
As for whether the USA is ready to face another regular military power... it's going to be hard to say until we actually do so. Our equipment performed well enough in Iraq, although they were a minor foe at best. People both laud and condemn our carrier forces, predicting they'll be swamped with missiles or subs (people tend to forget that the USN has a rather good sub force of it's own, whose main goal is ASW); I doubt that it would be that clear cut, simply because naval warfare is so chancy...
 
from what I've read in this thread, it seems we don't want to convert too much to COIN warfare, or we'll be unable to face a regular foe with regular armies. So, the big question is how many COIN special trained people do we need? Could we do something simple like convert one of our regular infantry divisions into specialized COIN warfare experts, or is that not enough? If we need more, could we do something else simple like just add one or more divisions of special COIN troopers to the roster (granted, it may be hard to recruit that many more people, and it would add to the military budget)? IMO, we could afford to reduce the regular army a little (not by any huge amounts) so that we can have specialized COIN experts; it does seem to be the main kind of war we'll be fighting in the near future.
As for whether the USA is ready to face another regular military power... it's going to be hard to say until we actually do so. Our equipment performed well enough in Iraq, although they were a minor foe at best. People both laud and condemn our carrier forces, predicting they'll be swamped with missiles or subs (people tend to forget that the USN has a rather good sub force of it's own, whose main goal is ASW); I doubt that it would be that clear cut, simply because naval warfare is so chancy...
You'd need a lot more than one division to fight COIN, just look at the troop numbers we saw in Afghanistan & Iraq. OTOH, one division which specializes in COIN would be enough to keep COIN doctrine up to date and to keep the knowledge in the system so you don't have to reinvent the wheel every 20 years. Sub-units from that division could then train the other troops before deployment.
 
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