(11-08-2012 10:49 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote:  

(11-08-2012 08:20 PM)UCF08 Wrote:  CLEARLY WE MUST INVADE OR OBAMA IS A MUSLIM APOLOGIST!

Obama's two step strategy in dealing with Iran:

1) apologize (again), and
2) bow on camera to Ahmadinejad.

And then I'll guarantee they drop their nuclear program.

No, they'll drop their program after Obama also subsidizes something.

(11-08-2012 09:52 PM)UCF08 Wrote:  

(11-08-2012 08:50 PM)200yrs2late Wrote:  

(11-08-2012 08:44 PM)UCF08 Wrote:  

(11-08-2012 08:34 PM)200yrs2late Wrote:  

(11-08-2012 08:18 PM)UCF08 Wrote:  You guys really give a sh*t about the shooting down of a drone? You think that would make news?

The only reassuring part of this is that two Iranian pilots couldn't manage to shoot down an unmanned drone.

How do you feel about the Russian subs off the coast recently? I suppose that doesn't concern you at all either?

Not particularly, no. I'd need to know more about it, obviously, but I'm not really concerned with our sovereignty while we sit on enough nukes to destroy all life on earth 3-4x over. Talk softly and carry a big stick, and our number of ICBMs is one hell of a stick.

if simply having nuclear weapons were enough to ward of potential threats then there wouldn't be a need for a standing army or navy.

Looking past the ability to guarantee those ICBMs deployment, and their safeguarding, there isn't really a need for one to protect us from powers like Russia or China or whatever the next evil menace is. But ICBMs do nothing to protect minor interests or to protect us from enemies such as unaffiliated terrorists, so we do need an standing military. Do we need to have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined? I'm going to say, no.

Of course, you weren't being serious, you were just trying to make an argumentum ad absurdum, and a particularly awful one at that.

I was making an oversimplifies statement intended to point out your shortsightedness. Russia has nuclear weapons, so does China and a slew of other countries that aren't particularly fond of the US. Of course there is a need for a standing army, and yes it would be necessary to defend the US against another nuclear country such as Russia and China. It doesn't matter how severe the conflict, I have a hard time believing any country will use nuclear weapons for fear of nuclear retaliation, therefore future wars will be fought conventionally.

You say walk softly and carry a big stick. IMO the US carrier fleet is the biggest stick, not nuclear weapons. Those carriers are the USA and deploy the most advanced military force all over the globe at a moments notice. Make no mistake, the US Navy is the largest deterrent to war. China may have the worlds largest standing army, but has no way to quickly and reliably deploy it. They aren't feared because then have no modern navy.

We had a classified surveillance operation going on and quite frankly it's none of the general public's business. It's a matter of national security and you/we can't handle the truth.

The US military is 50 years ahead of any other country in the world. Defense cuts are okay in small portions. Decommission older ships (the carrier Enterprise has been deactivated and will be decommissioned in a few years when its reactors are offline), become leaner and more efficient (stop stripping equipment and leaving billions in assets in areas like Iraq and Afghanistan when we leave), and make investments in new technologies. It is absolutely necessary to maintain R&D if any cuts are made, and unfortunately R&D is a huge part of military spending.

(11-08-2012 10:07 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-08-2012 09:52 PM)UCF08 Wrote:  Do we need to have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined? I'm going to say, no.

Actually, we don't have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world. There's a graphic making its way around the web that purports to show that, but it's not exactly correct. It includes both combat aircraft carriers and air-capable amphibs for the US but only the former for other countries. Since our carriers are bigger than others, we probably do have more total fleet air capability than the rest of the world, so the graphic is not really misleading even though it is untrue.

As to whether we need more capability than the rest of the world, probably yes. The Eurasian countries are connected by overland trade routes and their navies are mostly for coastal protection, so their air cover comes from shore-based aircraft and they don't need carriers. Because of our location, we are more dependent on sea-borne commerce than any other country in the world. Protecting those interests requires us to be able to provide air cover for the fleet in places far beyond the reach of land-based aircraft. And with one in the yards and one in training on each coast at all times, we really have barely enough carriers to cover the requirements now. What I do think we could do to cut costs is to build some slightly smaller carriers with a mix of CTOL and V/STOL capabilities. A 70-80,000 ton ship could carry enough air power to overwhelm some small nation's air forces, and would cost less to buildand less to operate than the 110,000 ton behemoths.

We don't need the size of military we now have...We need the right size military for today. More staged and ready to go equipment overseas and less troops and the above suggestion by Owl makes sense.

What we have now is being dictated by the Industrial Military Complex...not our actual needs. Anyone that thinks the big IMC manufacturers are not pulling the strings has not been paying attention.

(11-09-2012 07:25 AM)Mr. Peanut Wrote:  We had a classified surveillance operation going on and quite frankly it's none of the general public's business. It's a matter of national security and you/we can't handle the truth.

And you had exactly the same opinion regarding any attempt to get information out of the Bush administration regarding Iraq or Afghanistan, right?

(11-08-2012 08:20 PM)UCF08 Wrote:  CLEARLY WE MUST INVADE OR OBAMA IS A MUSLIM APOLOGIST!

straw man....

(11-09-2012 07:30 AM)200yrs2late Wrote:  The US military is 50 years ahead of any other country in the world. Defense cuts are okay in small portions. Decommission older ships (the carrier Enterprise has been deactivated and will be decommissioned in a few years when its reactors are offline), become leaner and more efficient (stop stripping equipment and leaving billions in assets in areas like Iraq and Afghanistan when we leave), and make investments in new technologies. It is absolutely necessary to maintain R&D if any cuts are made, and unfortunately R&D is a huge part of military spending.

I agree with this, R&D funding is important, and it helps more than just the military.

(11-09-2012 07:25 AM)Mr. Peanut Wrote:  We had a classified surveillance operation going on and quite frankly it's none of the general public's business. It's a matter of national security and you/we can't handle the truth.

CNN broke the story. Maybe you should be lecturing them.

And, when exactly did they find out about it?

(11-08-2012 09:52 PM)UCF08ulyanovsk31 Wrote:  But ICBMs do nothing to protect minor interests or to protect us from enemies such as unaffiliated terrorists, so we do need an standing military. Do we need to have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined? I'm going to say, no.

The problem is that you've left out the problem of affiliated terrorists, those affiliated with a rogue nation. And if we're going to address that problem, then we probably do need more carriers than the rest of the world.

They don't all need to be 110,000 tons, you can build a pretty capable ship in the 80,000 ton range for a bunch less money (probably $6 billion v. $9 billion today). And if you build that ship with both CTOL and VSTOL capabilities (think Russian Ulyanovsk), then you have greater interoperability with all our allies, which comes in handy on combined operations (like Libya).

The big cost is people, so we
1) Bring troops back from Europe and Japan; that doesn't save much unless we also
2) Convert a bunch of active duty slots to reserve slots at 20-25% the cost, probably actually increasing total head count for less total money; the key to keeping a large military at a low price is keeping much of it at a lowered state of readiness, see Sweden or Switzerland or Israel; swapping 400,000 active duty slots for 800,000 reserve slots saves $40 billion
3) Reform the top-heavy personnel structures; the navy doesn't need more admirals than ships
4) Cut civilian headcount; we don't need more people in the Pentagon than it took to win WWII

As for procurement the big savings is that not every system needs to be cutting edge state of the art, particularly not in an asymmetric warfare context. We don't need Arleigh Burkes on pirate patrol in the IO. Perrys can do the job just as well for less money. Go with Bud Zumwalt's high-low mix philosophy; smaller carriers would be one example. Don't cut R&D.

Oh, and never fight a war we don't intend to win.

(11-09-2012 07:25 AM)Mr. Peanut Wrote:  We had a classified surveillance operation going on and quite frankly it's none of the general public's business. It's a matter of national security and you/we can't handle the truth.

Agreed. The less the pubic knows the better. Vietnam would have gone much differently if it weren't for TV

Really good piece from Greenwald about the incident.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...rones-gulf

I originally thought it said that Iran fired on the International Space Station. That wouldve been something.

Iran is like that scrappy little kid that can't stop talking sh*t. They need to get smacked around some. Maybe if we just bombed out their aging Air Force, radar sites, and shipping missiles; they'd behave.

^ Wow.

I'm just saying if we took out some of their offensive capabilities it may be enough to force some real change there. We're currently strangling their economy, and their constituents are pretty pissed about it. Could be enough to continue the Arab spring there.

Bombing a country only causes their society to strengthen due to an outside enemy.

~

(11-08-2012 08:44 PM)UCF08 Wrote:  

(11-08-2012 08:34 PM)200yrs2late Wrote:  

(11-08-2012 08:18 PM)UCF08 Wrote:  You guys really give a sh*t about the shooting down of a drone? You think that would make news?

The only reassuring part of this is that two Iranian pilots couldn't manage to shoot down an unmanned drone.

How do you feel about the Russian subs off the coast recently? I suppose that doesn't concern you at all either?

Not particularly, no. I'd need to know more about it, obviously, but I'm not really concerned with our sovereignty while we sit on enough nukes to destroy all life on earth 3-4x over. Talk softly and carry a big stick, and our number of ICBMs is one hell of a stick.

Obama wants to cut to 190 missies band 1000 warheads.

(11-08-2012 10:07 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-08-2012 09:52 PM)UCF08 Wrote:  Do we need to have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined? I'm going to say, no.

Actually, we don't have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world. There's a graphic making its way around the web that purports to show that, but it's not exactly correct. It includes both combat aircraft carriers and air-capable amphibs for the US but only the former for other countries. Since our carriers are bigger than others, we probably do have more total fleet air capability than the rest of the world, so the graphic is not really misleading even though it is untrue.

As to whether we need more capability than the rest of the world, probably yes. The Eurasian countries are connected by overland trade routes and their navies are mostly for coastal protection, so their air cover comes from shore-based aircraft and they don't need carriers. Because of our location, we are more dependent on sea-borne commerce than any other country in the world. Protecting those interests requires us to be able to provide air cover for the fleet in places far beyond the reach of land-based aircraft. And with one in the yards and one in training on each coast at all times, we really have barely enough carriers to cover the requirements now. What I do think we could do to cut costs is to build some slightly smaller carriers with a mix of CTOL and V/STOL capabilities. A 70-80,000 ton ship could carry enough air power to overwhelm some small nation's air forces, and would cost less to buildand less to operate than the 110,000 ton behemoths.

People don't realize that takes 11 carriers to keep 3 deployed at all times. The Ford Class will cost $8-9 Billion per ship. We could have built an upgraded Nimitz class at $4 Billion per ship.

We can't build SSBNX, the Fords, CGX and replace the 688's with the present shipbuilding budget. Navy will drop to 260 ships because of mismanagement.