Draw Down

[Fisherking]

ACIN

I didn’t refer to them as wars more because of how few troops are there.

Wars are fought with armies and army groups. When you have something less than a division in one place and not much over a corps in the other they just don’t rise to that level of intensity.

It was not to denigrate the fact that their is combat I was just trying to get you to understand how very small our armed forces are.

Another way to think of it is that in an intense war situation our whole military including marines, reserves, and national guard could cover a line 75 miles long with no back up.

We are involved in low intensity combat ATM so they stretch one division that covers 5 miles to cover hundreds of miles and we still don’t have the men to do the job even with all the high tech stuff.

It comes down to needing that man on the ground...and we don’t have them.

This by its self leads to more casualties, military and civilian. A few men are a lot jumpier than a bunch. There is courage in numbers. Jumpy men make more mistakes and everyone pays for that.

You can tell there is not enough command and control too. Youtube Videos of tanks running over cars, the pows abused. All of that points to not enough people doing too big a job.

The military can’t order enough troops to do the job, only the politicians can, and they won’t because the people won’t stand for it and they won’t get reelected.

The graft and corruption is in the system because Congress and the POTUS put it there. That was past of course but the ones now won’t get rid of it. Campaign Contributions!

Anyone working for the government or military can tell you about it but only the elected officials can do anything to change it. So it is just a circle.

We need honest men working for the people and if any of them are elected, I don’t know them.

[Fisherking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...ry_deployments

According to this, we have more personnel in Germany than we do in Iraq right now. Do we need 58,000ish troops in Germany to repel a Russian invasion?

Considering that almost all of it is Air Force Airlift Command and Military Hospitals and Headquarters units what would you say.

Is it cheaper to fly from New York or Seattle than it is from Germany and do we ship all the injured to the states direct?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Considering that almost all of it is Air Force Airlift Command and Military Hospitals and Headquarters units what would you say.

Is it cheaper to fly from New York or Seattle than it is from Germany and do we ship all the injured to the states direct?

The fact that we need a super base in a foreign country so we can ship troops and material to more foreign nations that are even further away from us tells me that we have an empire. Empires crumbled under their own weight sooner or later, and I would rather minimize the damage.

We do not need an army that can properly fight a foreign conflict because we don't need to fight these conflicts. Afghanistan and Iraq show improvement, but at what cost? I know MRD can and has told me of the good that is being done by people like him. But the local people are still resistant and not 100% supportive, which makes this conflict liable to reach another 3 years on top of the nearly 10 years it has been.

I do not believe we need to invade countries and build them up to support democracy anymore. We see now how large majority Muslim countries such as Tunisia and Egypt are being rocked by internal cries for democracy. Sooner or later, the public will demand more from its government and our job as the promoter of democracy is to send food when the government cuts it off, provide proxies when the government tries to censor the internet, and send troops only when the public has demanded for external forces to help with the regime change, no sooner.

[a completely inoffensive name]

ACIN

I didn’t refer to them as wars more because of how few troops are there.

Wars are fought with armies and army groups. When you have something less than a division in one place and not much over a corps in the other they just don’t rise to that level of intensity.

It was not to denigrate the fact that their is combat I was just trying to get you to understand how very small our armed forces are.

Another way to think of it is that in an intense war situation our whole military including marines, reserves, and national guard could cover a line 75 miles long with no back up.

We are involved in low intensity combat ATM so they stretch one division that covers 5 miles to cover hundreds of miles and we still don’t have the men to do the job even with all the high tech stuff.

It comes down to needing that man on the ground...and we don’t have them.

This by its self leads to more casualties, military and civilian. A few men are a lot jumpier than a bunch. There is courage in numbers. Jumpy men make more mistakes and everyone pays for that.

You can tell there is not enough command and control too. Youtube Videos of tanks running over cars, the pows abused. All of that points to not enough people doing too big a job.

The military can’t order enough troops to do the job, only the politicians can, and they won’t because the people won’t stand for it and they won’t get reelected.

The graft and corruption is in the system because Congress and the POTUS put it there. That was past of course but the ones now won’t get rid of it. Campaign Contributions!

Anyone working for the government or military can tell you about it but only the elected officials can do anything to change it. So it is just a circle.

We need honest men working for the people and if any of them are elected, I don’t know them.

I am quoting your post for the truth that is in the statement I bolded.

EDIT: Also, I just want to say that the fact that they won't order more troops because they know the public is against it should tell us something right there about these conflicts.

[Xiahou]

We tear families apart and then push them to the corner when they come home. America doesn't feel this war like it should, and that is a problem Americans I don't think truly know what it's like to be AT WAR. Save for those poor ol'boys we send because they wanted to go to college or were drawn into due to lack of job prospects.

This statement is without any basis in reality. We have a volunteer force. And our force is a cross section of America, not "poor ol'boys". I wouldn't make such wide generalizations that cast aspersions on why they serve.

PJ presented some lovely charts and data which you basically ignored because they didn't follow your storyline. I guess that's fine if you started this thread just to preach instead of debate.

[Centurion1]

the military is a career path and often a family tradition...... the military doesnt recruit convicts anymore.

[Tellos Athenaios]

@Xiahou: not really. If you take PJ's numbers for it, the fact emerges that about 1 in every 100 people in the USA is either reservist or on active duty, with about 1 in 200 people on active duty. Russia is even worse, but China has a positively tiny army considering its size (if you assume the USA army to be normal sized).

[Strike For The South]

This statement is without any basis in reality. We have a volunteer force. And our force is a cross section of America, not "poor ol'boys". I wouldn't make such wide generalizations that cast aspersions on why they serve.

PJ presented some lovely charts and data which you basically ignored because they didn't follow your storyline. I guess that's fine if you started this thread just to preach instead of debate.

I did on post 7

Are my posts filled with indignation? Yes it's just more fun that way

[PlusPlayer1]

nvm

[Furunculus]

Comparing us on the simple scale of boots is once again archaic. See the gulf wars.

he didn't, i direct your attention to the green line on the graph.

while america does spend a lot on defence he is right to note the (attempted) reforms of rumsfeld and gates, along with the following question:
"The question I think we need to be asking ourselves is "can we get more 'bang' out of our $700 Billion investment?"

[Slyspy]

As far as I can tell those graphs show two things. They show military expenditure against GDP. Am I right in thinking that in general GDP has generally increased, thus meaning that military expenditure comes from a larger pot? Likewise with military service as a percentage of the population. I might be reading the graph wrong though.

[lars573]

the military doesnt recruit convicts anymore.

If you bet on that you'd have lost. As the US is one of the only nations I've heard that still offers a green unifrom in lieu of a neon orange one.

[drone]

Sorry for the delay, I got caught in a 4 hour, 6 mile commute through snow and abandoned vehicles to get to a house without power last night.

There are many ways to pay for a war, you can take the easy way out and borrow more or you can prep the economic for war status, to make the American public less resistive to conflicts, Congress chooses one of the other since the second half of the 20th century.

And therein lies the problem.

Let us be honest here about we got ourselves into here. We got attacked, and declared a War on Terror. We then invaded Afghanistan, and two years later, Iraq. What does everyone say when we talk about Iraq and Afghanistan. We call it the Iraq War. We call it the War in Afghanistan. No one says Operation Iraqi Freedom anymore. The public recognizes what these "conflicts" are. Prolonged wars against insurgents. Merely pointing out the fact that Congress worked around having to make it official does not revoke the reality of the situation.

We did not declare a war on terror, Bush 43 told Congress we were starting one. Congress loves this fact, because it allows people to think we are in a war, without them being responsible for it. Full-blown CYA. Afghanistan and Iraq started out as "operations", for political reasons, given the OK by men and women too scared of the political consequences to defend their constitutional powers. I know it's a war, you know it's a war, and the soldiers know full well it's a war. But the government doesn't think it's a war, because it's not. Hence the shenanigans.

EDIT: Are we to start calling the Vietnam War, what it really was under your definitions, the "Vietnam conflict/engagement"?

I was always fond of "police action". We didn't declare war for that one, and look how well it turned out. After a couple more of these involvements, maybe we will realize why Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 is not in Article 2.

[Centurion1]

you bet on that you'd have lost. As the US is one of the only nations I've heard that still offers a green unifrom in lieu of a neon orange one.

ex cons are not cons.

and its only because of the shortage of manpower available in country right now. and its still a negligible number