Hell no!!!!

We did Lebanon and it wasn't nearly the security issue Gaza is.

This shouldn't require ANY discussion. Just NO!

Id nominate the Indians or the Chinese for that duty. Everyone and their dog would be trying to kill one of our guys. One of Tom Clancy's books had the Vatican's Swiss Guards handle that duty---but I doubt that force is large enough. Besides, as radical as Gaza has become, the Swiss Guards would probably just becomes targets as well. After watching the Chinese and Indians club each other to death in the Himalayas, they seem like they might be the right fit for that part of the world. No real history of supporting either side----and not willing to take too much crap before they respond. An Indian or Chinese force might be considered a reasonable arbiter to monitor the border by the folks in the region----who also represent nuclear powers who tend not to put up with a lot of foolishness.

We've been involved in wars or military operations my entire life. I'm sick of it.

I'd be against the Chinks because it would provide a toehold for them in the middle east. Too close for comfort to Israel. Nix, on the idea. Make it a UN peace keeping force and let those nations that are leaning left to have to take the risks. Palestinians wouldn't take lightly to them either and would be walking targets.

(10-31-2023 05:17 PM)olliebaba Wrote:  I'd be against the Chinks because it would provide a toehold for them in the middle east. Too close for comfort to Israel. Nix, on the idea. Make it a UN peace keeping force and let those nations that are leaning left to have to take the risks. Palestinians wouldn't take lightly to them either and would be walking targets.

As long as we arent part of the UN force on the ground---Im fine. I'd be willing to provide the airborne drone presence--but thats it. I dont want any of our kids on the ground there.

(10-31-2023 04:48 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Id nominate the Indians or the Chinese for that duty. Everyone and their dog would be trying to kill one of our guys. One of Tom Clancy's books had the Vatican's Swiss Guards handle that duty---but I doubt that force is large enough. Besides, as radical as Gaza has become, the Swiss Guards would probably just becomes targets as well. After watching the Chinese and Indians club each other to death in the Himalayas, they seem like they might be the right fit for that part of the world. No real history of supporting either side----and not willing to take too much crap before they respond. An Indian or Chinese force might be considered a reasonable arbiter to monitor the border by the folks in the region----who also represent nuclear powers who tend not to put up with a lot of foolishness.

No Europeans or North Americans. I was thinking Indians and Brazilians.

(10-31-2023 05:01 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  We've been involved in wars or military operations my entire life. I'm sick of it.

“Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Since the beginning of your life..”

Would be Biden Level Stupidity.

(10-31-2023 04:48 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Id nominate the Indians or the Chinese for that duty. Everyone and their dog would be trying to kill one of our guys. One of Tom Clancy's books had the Vatican's Swiss Guards handle that duty---but I doubt that force is large enough. Besides, as radical as Gaza has become, the Swiss Guards would probably just becomes targets as well. After watching the Chinese and Indians club each other to death in the Himalayas, they seem like they might be the right fit for that part of the world. No real history of supporting either side----and not willing to take too much crap before they respond. An Indian or Chinese force might be considered a reasonable arbiter to monitor the border by the folks in the region----who also represent nuclear powers who tend not to put up with a lot of foolishness.

Nope, the Indians would be targets. Despite a Muslim minority population, they are very pro Israel.

(10-31-2023 05:01 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  We've been involved in wars or military operations my entire life. I'm sick of it.

TB4E, I took 10 trips to Brazil in 2017-2018 as part of a strategic plan to grow our business in and around Sao Paulo. Lovely country. Stay far away from the favelas, but cities are walkable and with nice areas to dine/stay.

One deep conversation I had with a local employee of my company was around wars and military. A few things stuck out to me. First, when BZ, AR, and UGY waged war on PGY immediately after our civil war, the soldiers involved in that conflict (the last declared war in BZ), the soldiers that fought and died received land grants ceded from Paraguay. My contact had land from that ceded over 150 years later. That is so very different than how our vets have been treated.
Second, my contact was very educated on the amount of money the US spends on military as part of GDP, compared to BZ, and that BZ has been able to invest in education and infrastructure, vice repeated wars in foreign lands. Understand that South America is a bit of a backwater on the political global spectrum, but interesting comments that made me think. BZ students vying for acceptance in their prestigious "national colleges" have to take their tests in a foreign language to be competitive on a global scale, and the particular paper-producing company with which I was working ensured their management above a certain level was competent in English, making my visits and presentations easy.
Similar to our chilean friends (as for retirement plans) and out brazilian friends (as far as a global economy), we can learn a few things from those countries south of us. As a country, the US needs to limit our young mens' exposure to deadly force in foreign lands without a clear objective with a strategy to WIN. Without that, even as a 13-year Navy vet, my boys sit such events out.

(10-31-2023 05:01 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  We've been involved in wars or military operations my entire life. I'm sick of it.

think about it in these terms....

if the going rate for an american hostage is 1B

and the US has given ~250B to muh Ukraine pro-democracy KKKomrades

how much is an American life worth in Gaza?

that logic is as sensical as placing any boots in Gaza...

who knows what the crispy whispers in november may 'yield'...

these days?!? ... I rule out nothing in the 'ace frehley/shock me' category from this cast of Gestapo'd Geppettos...

#sickensMyArse

(10-31-2023 08:26 PM)ODUsmitty Wrote:  

(10-31-2023 05:01 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  We've been involved in wars or military operations my entire life. I'm sick of it.

TB4E, I took 10 trips to Brazil in 2017-2018 as part of a strategic plan to grow our business in and around Sao Paulo. Lovely country. Stay far away from the favelas, but cities are walkable and with nice areas to dine/stay.

One deep conversation I had with a local employee of my company was around wars and military. A few things stuck out to me. First, when BZ, AR, and UGY waged war on PGY immediately after our civil war, the soldiers involved in that conflict (the last declared war in BZ), the soldiers that fought and died received land grants ceded from Paraguay. My contact had land from that ceded over 150 years later. That is so very different than how our vets have been treated.
Second, my contact was very educated on the amount of money the US spends on military as part of GDP, compared to BZ, and that BZ has been able to invest in education and infrastructure, vice repeated wars in foreign lands. Understand that South America is a bit of a backwater on the political global spectrum, but interesting comments that made me think. BZ students vying for acceptance in their prestigious "national colleges" have to take their tests in a foreign language to be competitive on a global scale, and the particular paper-producing company with which I was working ensured their management above a certain level was competent in English, making my visits and presentations easy.
Similar to our chilean friends (as for retirement plans) and out brazilian friends (as far as a global economy), we can learn a few things from those countries south of us. As a country, the US needs to limit our young mens' exposure to deadly force in foreign lands without a clear objective with a strategy to WIN. Without that, even as a 13-year Navy vet, my boys sit such events out.

English is the global language of business. Portuguese is the language of Brazil, Portugal and a few former colonies in Africa.

Never fight a war that you don't intend to win. I learned that in Vietnam. Our leaders haven't yet. We're still trying to impose western ways militarily on a part of the world that doesn't want to be western. Meanwhile China is badly outflanking us economically, without a single Chinese soldier incurring so much as a hangnail.

Build the strongest military in the world, able to prosecute successfully JFK's 2-1/2 wars standard, and never have to use it because nobody dares pick a fight with us and we don't go around picking on them.

(11-01-2023 12:36 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Never fight a war that you don't intend to win. I learned that in Vietnam. Our leaders haven't yet. We're still trying to impose western ways militarily on a part of the world that doesn't want to be western. Meanwhile China is badly outflanking us economically, without a single Chinese soldier incurring so much as a hangnail.

Build the strongest military in the world, able to prosecute successfully JFK's 2-1/2 wars standard, and never have to use it because nobody dares pick a fight with us and we don't go around picking on them.

does the US not already have such?

to the latter ... w/o engagement of 'sorts', such practices begin to flatten the curve/bottom line in a capitalist enviro ... therein lies the rub ... there's a reason for muh Ukraine and this conflict happening today ... they simply couldn't do it under the DJT tool of MAGA...

in my lifetime, it's hardly a stretch to state, "it's never enough for the greedy at the cost of many" .... this is (one of many) where congress continually fails to protect the future of this nation...

fwiw, I fully agree with the posit ... it's also (one of many) why I'm adamantly opposed to super PACs and how washtubbytonnage is lobbied w/o real ethical oversight...

oh, wellzy!

This is after the radiation has dissipated?

(11-01-2023 09:35 AM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(11-01-2023 12:36 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Build the strongest military in the world, able to prosecute successfully JFK's 2-1/2 wars standard, and never have to use it because nobody dares pick a fight with us and we don't go around picking on them.

does the US not already have such?

Nope. At least nothing even remotely close to the 2-1/2 war standard.

A large part of the problem is that we have been wasting a large part of our military capacity in wars that we have not fought to win, going back at least to Vietnam. In addition to the lives, limbs, and equipment that we have lost in the MidEast in the last 20 years, our readiness has atrophied because plinking goat herders in pickup trucks is poor training for a peer war. Additionally spending for that effort has come at the expense of maintenance and training that are essential for continued readiness.

I'm most familiar with the Navy, so will provide a few examples from that branch, with the understanding that the others have similar issues. Our submarine fleet is the smallest it has been in some time, and getting smaller, as we are retiring the Los Angeles class years before the expiration of their design service lives, and not replacing them on a 1 to 1 basis. We are down to two shipyards that can build nuke subs, both on the east coast, and thus do not have the capability to regrow numbers. About 30% of that smaller sub fleet is currently unable to get underway because of maintenance and repair backlogs. In my active duty days we had 15 aircraft carriers, each with an air wing of 90-100 aircraft; today we have 11 carriers with air wings of 60 or so. That's roughly a 50% reduction in combat aircraft. Our newest aircraft carrier class, the Fords, cost about $15B each, roughly the cost of a nuke Nimitz ($9B) plus a conventioanally powered Kitty Hawk ($6B), and they have reliability issues with their catapults, arresting gear, weapons lifts--and toilets. We do not have a viable anti-submarine warfare (ASW), naval gunfire support (NGFS), or mine warfare (MIW) capability. We have a bunch of very expensive amphibious ships (one LHA/LHD costs up to $4B) that cannot conduct opposed amphibious landings. So the Marines have gotten rid of their tanks and artillery and are getting out of the amphibious assault mission to chase some expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) concept that looks like a bunch of boy scouts with BB guns.

No, we are not. ready for 2-1/2 wars. Nowhere close.

What do we have to do? At least for the Navy,
1) Grow the fleet. The Navy is planning a fleet in the 300-350 ship range, at an average cost of $2.8B/ship. That is not adequate, particularly considering that the ships the Navy proposes to build do not address the current ASW, NGFS, and MIW shortfalls. We need a return to the 600-ship goal of the 1980s (we got to 594 before the post-Cold-War drawdown). We can do that by adopting ADM Elmo Zumwalt's high/low concept of building some expensive multi-mission ships of the kind that the Navy wants, and fillilng out the numbers with cheaper single-purpose ships to reduce cost/ship to $1.5B.
2) Cut down the amount of time that ships spend on deployment, to make more time for maintenance and training at home. To some extent, growing the numbers will help because 100 deployed ships out of 300 means the average ship is deployed 4 months/year, whereas with 600 ships that deployment time is reduced to 2 months/year, freeing up 2 more months for maintenance and training. Another step that would help is building alliances that can take over some of our current commitments. An alliance with the British Commonwealth would enable transferring some European commitments to the Royal Navy, some Indian Ocean commitments to India, and some WestPac commitments to Australia, India, Malaysia, and Singapore. Finally, we probably need to re-evaluate some commitments to determine whether they should be retained or dropped.
3) Implement more realistic training, and more of it. Between WWI and WWII, the USN engaged in an annual Fleet Problem which involved a major portion of the fleet and which simulated WWII developments like Pearl Harbor and island-hopping. The Royal Navy for years conducted a major SpringTrain exercise out of Gibraltar, the 1982 version of which was given a lot of credit for preparing ships that deployed to the Falklands for that effort. The Brits also have a Perisher course for prospective submarine COs which I think we should adopt for all ship COs and a rigorous FOST (Fleet Office Sea Training) program that all ships must pass before deployment. The first deployment of the Queen Elizabeth was delayed becuse it initially flunked FOST.
4) Increase the number and capacity of shipyards to grow and maintain the fleet (and maintenance is the biggie there). I have proposed adopting some European ship designs, to save money with cheaper designs plus the expectation that some European yards would be willing to build/rehabilitate yards in the USA to build such ships. They usually build 5-10 ships of a class for their own navies, a small order for the USN would be 20 or so, and such runs could generate ROIs that would justify the kinds of investments that the French Naval Group made at Itaguai to build the Riachuelo conventional subs plus a nuke sub or two for the Brazilian navy.
5) And for all branches, never fight a war that you don't intend to win.

Hell no. This administration just loves seeing our young soldiers slaughtered.

(11-01-2023 09:56 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-01-2023 09:35 AM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(11-01-2023 12:36 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Build the strongest military in the world, able to prosecute successfully JFK's 2-1/2 wars standard, and never have to use it because nobody dares pick a fight with us and we don't go around picking on them.

does the US not already have such?

Nope. At least nothing even remotely close to the 2-1/2 war standard.

A large part of the problem is that we have been wasting a large part of our military capacity in wars that we have not fought to win, going back at least to Vietnam. In addition to the lives, limbs, and equipment that we have lost in the MidEast in the last 20 years, our readiness has atrophied because plinking goat herders in pickup trucks is poor training for a peer war. Additionally spending for that effort has come at the expense of maintenance and training that are essential for continued readiness.

I'm most familiar with the Navy, so will provide a few examples from that branch, with the understanding that the others have similar issues. Our submarine fleet is the smallest it has been in some time, and getting smaller, as we are retiring the Los Angeles class years before the expiration of their design service lives, and not replacing them on a 1 to 1 basis. We are down to two shipyards that can build nuke subs, both on the east coast, and thus do not have the capability to regrow numbers. About 30% of that smaller sub fleet is currently unable to get underway because of maintenance and repair backlogs. In my active duty days we had 15 aircraft carriers, each with an air wing of 90-100 aircraft; today we have 11 carriers with air wings of 60 or so. That's roughly a 50% reduction in combat aircraft. Our newest aircraft carrier class, the Fords, cost about $15B each, roughly the cost of a nuke Nimitz ($9B) plus a conventioanally powered Kitty Hawk ($6B), and they have reliability issues with their catapults, arresting gear, weapons lifts--and toilets. We do not have a viable anti-submarine warfare (ASW), naval gunfire support (NGFS), or mine warfare (MIW) capability. We have a bunch of very expensive amphibious ships (one LHA/LHD costs up to $4B) that cannot conduct opposed amphibious landings. So the Marines have gotten rid of their tanks and artillery and are getting out of the amphibious assault mission to chase some expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) concept that looks like a bunch of boy scouts with BB guns.

No, we are not. ready for 2-1/2 wars. Nowhere close.

What do we have to do? At least for the Navy,
1) Grow the fleet. The Navy is planning a fleet in the 300-350 ship range, at an average cost of $2.8B/ship. That is not adequate, particularly considering that the ships the Navy proposes to build do not address the current ASW, NGFS, and MIW shortfalls. We need a return to the 600-ship goal of the 1980s (we got to 594 before the post-Cold-War drawdown). We can do that by adopting ADM Elmo Zumwalt's high/low concept of building some expensive multi-mission ships of the kind that the Navy wants, and fillilng out the numbers with cheaper single-purpose ships to reduce cost/ship to $1.5B.
2) Cut down the amount of time that ships spend on deployment, to make more time for maintenance and training at home. To some extent, growing the numbers will help because 100 deployed ships out of 300 means the average ship is deployed 4 months/year, whereas with 600 ships that deployment time is reduced to 2 months/year, freeing up 2 more months for maintenance and training. Another step that would help is building alliances that can take over some of our current commitments. An alliance with the British Commonwealth would enable transferring some European commitments to the Royal Navy, some Indian Ocean commitments to India, and some WestPac commitments to Australia, India, Malaysia, and Singapore. Finally, we probably need to re-evaluate some commitments to determine whether they should be retained or dropped.
3) Implement more realistic training, and more of it. Between WWI and WWII, the USN engaged in an annual Fleet Problem which involved a major portion of the fleet and which simulated WWII developments like Pearl Harbor and island-hopping. The Royal Navy for years conducted a major SpringTrain exercise out of Gibraltar, the 1982 version of which was given a lot of credit for preparing ships that deployed to the Falklands for that effort. The Brits also have a Perisher course for prospective submarine COs which I think we should adopt for all ship COs and a rigorous FOST (Fleet Office Sea Training) program that all ships must pass before deployment. The first deployment of the Queen Elizabeth was delayed becuse it initially flunked FOST.
4) Increase the number and capacity of shipyards to grow and maintain the fleet (and maintenance is the biggie there). I have proposed adopting some European ship designs, to save money with cheaper designs plus the expectation that some European yards would be willing to build/rehabilitate yards in the USA to build such ships. They usually build 5-10 ships of a class for their own navies, a small order for the USN would be 20 or so, and such runs could generate ROIs that would justify the kinds of investments that the French Naval Group made at Itaguai to build the Riachuelo conventional subs plus a nuke sub or two for the Brazilian navy.
5) And for all branches, never fight a war that you don't intend to win.

thanks for the ‘wish list’ … I couldn’t agree with all the above more than reiterate what you chose to omit in my OP…

other things HAVE to change for that to have a chance to be realized … I see nothing indicating that having any chance in today’s ‘operations’ in washtubbytonnage…

it’s why I’ve consistently stated we’ve involved ourselves in zero sum warfare since the ‘deuce’ and pined for more folk like yourself holding positions of political influence … that’s the reality of my lifetime and your gen … it all lends to Ike’s warning, sir.

#sigh

(10-31-2023 06:26 PM)otown Wrote:  

(10-31-2023 04:48 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Id nominate the Indians or the Chinese for that duty. Everyone and their dog would be trying to kill one of our guys. One of Tom Clancy's books had the Vatican's Swiss Guards handle that duty---but I doubt that force is large enough. Besides, as radical as Gaza has become, the Swiss Guards would probably just becomes targets as well. After watching the Chinese and Indians club each other to death in the Himalayas, they seem like they might be the right fit for that part of the world. No real history of supporting either side----and not willing to take too much crap before they respond. An Indian or Chinese force might be considered a reasonable arbiter to monitor the border by the folks in the region----who also represent nuclear powers who tend not to put up with a lot of foolishness.

Nope, the Indians would be targets. Despite a Muslim minority population, they are very pro Israel.

Those were just my two off the top of my head suggestions. Im not all that picky about who performs that thankless job as long as it isnt the US.