In an attempt to bolster their military cred among conservative voters, many of the Republican candidates at last Tuesday’s debate in Milwaukee tried to outdo one another in supporting the Defense Department. None of the candidates gave much more than superficial examples of how they’d strengthen the military, but there was one specific concept about which most were energetic: the need for an increase in spending. It would seem obvious that the nation’s military apparatus would be stronger if Congress increased the Department of Defense (DoD)’s budget. Counterintuitively, however, unless significant reforms are implemented, increasing the budget might actually degrade our ability to secure American interests.…
But the military’s declining effectiveness isn’t primarily a factor of shrinking budgets. It is how the DoD mismanages the money it does have. There are two major ways this mismanagement has manifested itself in recent years.
First is the sometimes spectacular failure of DoD’s acquisition systems. Each Service has been egregiously guilty of mismanagement and outright failure to produce new and effective warfighting technology.…
However, as bad as the financial mismanagement has been, there is a second major failure that continues to hamper America’s national defense capabilities: bloated military overhead and archaic organizational structures.…The US is focused on building an offensive forces as an empire must. The potential adversaries of the US named in military policy are Russia and China, both of which spend a fraction of what the US does. But their focus is defensive, countering each expensive iteration toward offense that the US makes. An offense has to win. A defense just has to deter by making it too costly to attack to be worthwhile trying. So Russia ad China need to spend much less to accomplish their objective of deterrence. They just need to spend smarter.
The National Interest
Increasing U.S. Defense Spending: When Addition is Subtraction
Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, US Army (ret)
3 comments:
Conventional armies between major power-blocks nowadays cannot take on each other on offensive campaigns, they are not built up for that. Anyway at some point we are looking as tactical nuking scenario and is a different scenario were no one really wins (well, maybe the side who avoids fighting on it's own country, that's what USA is always playing with).
USA doesn't even have the capability to invade Iran as much as Matt wants to (God know why or for what reason,, but is not operational in any case). And current armies are not equipped for occupation anyway, neither is the people mentally, there is no better demonstration than the last 15 years which are a joke when it comes to results. They simply don't have plans, just tough talking.
Basically the West is not in a mindset for annihilation neither permanent occupation, neither has the (real) resources for it (human and capital). So is all big tough talking and posturing, but ultimately amounts to nothing. I believe that the Chinese are in general more ruthless, but they don't have the need to invade anything (same goes for Russia), just to defend themselves and have bigger fish to fry than starting useless wars around the globe. Any other small countries are not in a position for any sort of long and widespread conflict, and the appetite for that conflict by the population is very low anyway.
P.S: US Army hasn't won a real war with troops since 1945, and even back then was mostly a work of the Soviet Union.
The problem with the armchair generals is that they hardly comprehend the relative value of life, you cannot win wars if you are not willing to risk as much as your enemy. All you are going to achieve is a long grind and making things worse in the end for no gain.
I'm not anti American [people] but the American state is affecting my life in many ways I don't agree with, I don't live there and I want the State to stop doing things that directly or indirectly make my life worse and more insecure. The leaders of my country of my birth and my current of residence slavishly follow US policy and I despise them for it.
I don't wish to insult the hosts and users of this this website but the USA has built up so much national pride and fervour, I don't know any other countries that market jingoism with such fervour, other than Russia and North Korea. The school system is an exercise in nationalistic brain washing and revisionist history, (I know because I've seen the TV show smarter than a 5th grader). Almost all TV shows, sports events and all forms of commercial marketing play to the nationalistic theme. It takes a very brave man with, clear, rational and independent thinking to speak out against the flag waving masses.
In Britain for example they also like a bit of flag waving and jingoism for the queen. But from my observations, there is much more objectivity in history classes. Maybe not elite private schools which might glorify the imperial past more. I do think more people realise what happens if you get a little too happy with the flag waving..... millions of your children get sent over the top of the trench into withering machine gun fire. Most of us can still remember an ageing relative missing a body part.
I can appreciate National pride and concern for fellow citizens defending your own state, I object to glorifying war and despise the easy acceptance of terms like "warrior", as if it will make a fearful foot soldiers death any more glamorous and thrilling.
TV shows and newstainment can make some people relish the thought of an armchair seat at the massacre of another nations citizens. Bogus patriotism and a misguided educational policy gives them the intellectual capacity to justify it.
Military campaigns aren't what they used to be:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa
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