Axis Mundi X discussion
Are Our Troops Well Deployed?
We've still got so many in Germany, Japan, and the Phillipines? And why in Britain? We can do with less in Alaska and Hawaii, no? This is all still from WWII. But then again, all my military strategic experience comes from Risk.
Odd dribs and drabs elsewhere. Ex. Italy.
I assume the UK and Germany are kind of holding tanks? Anyway, what should conventional armies do these days? They ain't no more conventional wars to fight. They waste staggering amounts of money buying the wrong weapons and the wrong gear for the right targets.
I wonder what the three in St. Helena do. Play a lot of cards, maybe.
I'm with RA, sort of. What struck me were the areas with very low deployment. I'd feel a bit um.. exposed?... if I were the two guys in Antigua (why on earth do we need people in Antigua, anyway?), or the 10 guys in Oman. Having token people anywhere is rather worrisome to me. If there ever is a reason for them to be there, what else are they but a target? Easily killed? Or possibly even worse, hostages for terrorists?Perhaps there's just a few advisors in these places? Training staff for local armed forces? Nonetheless, something strikes me as very wrong about that.
There are actual bases in Germany, as well at least one military hospital. Lori's right. WWII leftovers. Plus... I'm pretty sure soldiers wounded and en route back home use it the military hospital as a stopover point for medical attention. The UK number seems odd to me as a permanent one, even increased with American staff there to coordinate with British troops and command about their joint operations in the Middle East. I'd buy it as soldiers there temporarily on their way somewhere else, but...
Alaska strikes me as a Cold War leftover, now maintained as a good place to spy on North Koreans. If the North Korean situation could be handled, nearly 40,000 soldiers could come home. But then again, judging by the bases we've maintained after conflicts are long over... maybe not. At least not if McCain wins. He's certainly old enough to remember all of them like they were yesterday!
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Something to consider: We maintain troop levels in certain places, because of that places particular terrain/climate what have you. Ever wonder why so many Military bases are in crappy places? If you train in the worst place, you will bleed less in the real place.
As for those ones and twosies I have no idea. I can assume that these people are manning a surveillance system Radar, computer tracking servers and the like, or perhaps they are, as already stated acting as consultants.
Thinking back a few years, I believe President Bush had intended on closing down many of our over seas bases. This was received with mix reviews.
Take Alaska for instance. The Air force has a commanding presence here; we also have many nuclear missile sites. Couple that with the base station for the star wars program.
Despite popular belief that program has never been shut down. Some postulate that this is the reason China shot down one of its own satellites last year, just a friendly reminder that they have a military presents in space as well.
What I am trying to get at is this. In today’s military it doesn’t really matter where the personnel are stationed. For us anyway. Our logistical capabilities make it irrelevant. However there are certain things that we need to hold close to our chest. Nuclear missile sites and the like. From Alaska we can watch most of Asia without sending anyone over in a plane to do it.
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Great topic DakChar - thanks for bringing this up. Our current deployment does not makes sense is many regards. Most of European deployment is still based on the old Fulda Gap model and is now obsolete. We could and should reduce our European deployment by up to 75%. Europe needs to stand up to it's own defense which it currently cannot do. In fact I believe we are the only NATO country with heavy airlift capability and that cannot be allowed to continue. We should withdraw all combat formations from Korea - 100%. The ROK Army is a solid outfit and is more than able to stand up to any threat that the North can dream up. Besides, Li'l Kimmie is too busy watchi PrOn to do anything else.
Japan should be a phased withdrawal. All signals seem to point out that Japan is ready to stand to it's own defense and is already floating balloons on going nuclear.
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It’s not so much about the need to have them there NB. It’s about having someone close at hand to deal with something/anything. The Marine Corps mission statement is to respond anywhere in the world within 48 hours. It doesn’t need to be a hostile action; The Marine Corps does more world wide humanitarian work then any other branch of service.
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Most true Nick. I'm thinking more in terms of the longterm effect that such deployments have had, especially in SKor and Okinawa where local resentment runs pretty high (mostly the younger gen). I say fine, move em and the locals will find out pretty fast just how much money those troops were pumping into the local economy. I agree - the land of Oz would be a great improvement.
In Europe - it's the same deal plus the fact the host govts have been allowed to get by on the cheap with the American taxpayer funding their defense. Pull em out of West Europe and put em in the old East. Better positioning and the locals would be more than pleased to have us.
Also - it's clear we need to regrow the military overall to close to what it was before it was gutted but that's another thread entirely.
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Yeah - 30k marines knocking on the door to NWFP PakiWaki would most definitely pucker a buttload of turbans.
the numbers vary from year to year. but only about 10% of the military is meant for combat. the rest are logistics or some sort of support. the guy manning a radar station in greenland will be of no use redeployed to afghanistan.and there are roughly 170,000,000 people in pakistan. versus 30k marines its a fair fight. but i'm not interested in fair fights. that's why we still have B-52s.
and it never makes the papers, but we've got a neat little war going on in the phillipines. as well as advisors running around ethiopia, columbia, kenya, and a dozen other countries.
that's right Varmint - those other theatres only make the news when one of the good guys commits a war crime by wearing the red cross symbol. I couldn't believe my frikkin eyes when CNN tried all day to smear the Columbian rescue operation with that garbage.
hilarious. hezbollah uses red cross ambulances to transport weapons and troops, CNN has no opinion. but a good guy does it, and they pitch a little bitch fit.rumsfeld came in after a decade of really brutal military cuts. ask any airforce guy about that "peace dividend" bullcrap. he had a choice between rebuilding as is. or trying to skip a generation of technology, and putting all the money into r&d. that way we'd be ahead in twenty years when robots and laser weapons will be very real.
seemed like a good plan. then 9/11 happened.
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I think we should be the next, great, governmental think tank. Just consult with us and we'll tell you mofos how to run the universe, thank you very much. Heeeee....
DakChar - for what it's worth, we would be a marked improvement over what's been going on for the last 20 years.
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The 30k in S. Korea is a complete operating unit Varmint. I didn’t really say send them into Pakistan either, I said Afghanistan. And 30k sitting on the Pak/afghan boarder would make a huge impact. Of that 30k I will agree that maybe 8-9k are actual combat units. More then enough to close the door tight.
The real equation is for every combat personnel there will be 3 support personnel.
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I call it the lawn dart election.
On election day one guy will go up to the top of a really tall building. Throw lawn dart. Repeat until it hits someone (and that someone lives of course). That someone is the new elected official for what ever seat is open.
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Nick - anything involving lawn darts has the NB Seal of Approval.
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I started a long post on the posture of American troops around the world, but decided that this image says it all:America...
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nick.fair enough. all my information is 15-20 years out of date. from what i hear many logistics functions have been taken over by contractors. everything from cooking, to fueling, to loading bombs is now done by the likes of haliburton. wish i'd bought stock.
really changes the ratios.
and if you all like lawn darts, look up something called a "flechette" round.
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And yes many support functions are now ran by private contractors. Like the gear issue... ciff... I don't think that is right, at any rate all the gear issue is through them. We still maintain a unit level supply, but it is no longer a one stop shop. They changed over in 99-2000 time frame. Big mistake IMO. But nobody asked me so.
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Here's a little gristle to chew on. I saw this last week and it's gotten scant coverage except for the blogosphere ::: feigns surprise:::This is a quote from Obama during a speech he gave just this month:
"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
This is quite a startling statement. Especially given the problems associated with Blackwater - this would compound it 100 fold. This is an especially dangerous idea.
We simply need to get our military back to where it was before it was eviscerated during the 90s
From that same interview:"I mean, we still have a national security apparatus on the civilian side in the way the State Department is structured and [Agency for International Development] and all these various agencies. That hearkens back to the Cold War. And we need that wing of our national security apparatus to carry its weight. When we talk about reinventing our military, we should reinvent that apparatus as well. We need to be able to deploy teams that combine agricultural specialists and engineers and linguists and cultural specialists who are prepared to go into some of the most dangerous areas alongside our military."
I don't think he's talking about Blackwater-type organizations. He's talking about government officials who serve in war zones, but don't carry guns.
link to the transcript of his speech:
http://www.militarytimes.com/news/200...
Thanks Dave - he's not. However, he's talking about "reinventing" our military. This is exactly what we don't need. We currently have, hands down, the finest military the world has ever seen. Why would we want to reinvent it? The problem is, we don't have enough of it. Where I see that kind of structure leading to is using our military for humanitarian causes, rather than causes of true national security. Notice, many of the same people who want us out of Iraq, want us to unilaterally go in to the Sudan.
Iraq wasn't supposed to be about nation building but that's what it turned into. I don't want to see our armed forces turned into Nation Builders Inc. That is not their job. And what I took from that speech, is reinventing the military to be just that.
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And, I'm sorry but, if we had actually spent some time nation building in Afghanistan after acheiving the toppling of the Soviet Union perhaps we might have avoided the current situation there.
What did we do after WW2 in Germany and Japan? Nation building. Sorry, but blowing shit up is only half the mission.
If can't address global issues on several fronts, then we will never be successful. Absolutely the military should be strong and efficient... but all those other areas need to be addressed as well, or the job is pointless.
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DakChar - I think you've entirely missed my point. I don't want our military to be in the business of nation building. Should we help rebuild if we go into a country? In most cases yes. Is that the job of the military? Not as I see it. We carried out the Marshall Plan without the need for a whole new beuacracy. We have everything at our disposal already to do the job. We just need the efficient leadership to get it done. If what Wolfy sez is true, then that's even more to my point. Nation building, where there's never truly been one is a tough mission. The same applies to Afghanistan. What happened after WWII was different. We weren't so much nation building as rebuilding. That's quite different.
And by the way, if you don't like how the reconstruction is going in Afghanistan, try taking it up with our NATO allies -that was what they committed too since most refused to send combat troops.
I agree with your last sentiment though, we certainly do need to address such things, and the Iraq model is a poor example. We need to do much better. However, is this a matter of national security? After all, that was how this was proposed? There may be a case, but it hasn't been fleshed out adequately. And, I don't see how we're well served by creating a whole new beauracracy that is just as "well funded" as our military. That's a lot of money. I suppose if we eliminated the Dept of Health and Human Services we could swing it. Or, perhaps that's what HHS should become. hmmmm....a possibility. My biggest fear is that once you've created and funded such a beast, it will need justify it's being and it's cash flow. It will need a mission. That's where things get awfully muddled.
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Perhaps you should go work for the Obama campaign, make sure they are doing things right. ; )
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LOL! Not to worry - that's just DakChar indulging her whimsical muse again.
p.s.i was wrong. it wasn't nick who was proposing invading pakistan. it was obama....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
heh heh....yeah I remember that. Sure, Iraq war is illegal...but going into PakiWakiland is just peachy! ugh.
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I would like to add that if we have solid intelligence I would be in favor of a strike into Pakistan, even commit some ground forces to it. The Pakistani government is in no passion to deal with these things effectively. Give them the warning ‘hey this is what were are about to do in oh… 5 min” Jump in Jump out.
Nick agree, but this one's a tough sell. Put it this way, a Republican administration would have zero backing to undertake a mission in which we have no recognized international mandate (other than our own survival), where as the Dems would go in with no qualms ala Somalia and most likely commit ourselves to a true clusterfuck. But most of all, it's logistics. NWPF is a true bumfuck waiting to happen for the grunts. Now, I've no problem hitting them hard...damn we should have been Arc Lighting that shit hole from day one until now....Buffs running 24/7. AlQ and Taliban are in deep with the locals...too bad for the locals - sleep with dogs, die with fleas. That's the rub. There's times we've gotten good humintel and theres others where we've been sold a bag of goods. As long as the locals are playing the fence I'd be cautious about sending in a strike force. Other than that I don't know. We will have to deal with PakiWaki at some point. Saud too. However, Iran comes first. Folks who don't see it coming is sleepwalking.
Considering current global concerns, and the fact that we have been holding onto the end of a tigers tail since the end of WW2... are our troops actually deployed in a way that makes sense?
Afghanistan, 19,500
Africa, 2,400
Alaska, 17,989
Antigua, 2
Australia, 126
Bahrain, 2,333
Belgium, 1,367
Cairo, 29
Colombia, 7
Diego Garcia, 311
Ecuador, 13
Germany, 63,958
Greece, 386
Greece, 562
Greenland, 138
Guam, 3,315
Guantanamo Bay, 1,457
Hawaii, 35,810
Iraq, 170,000
Italy, 11,693
Jakarta,, 19
Japan, 48,844
Kenya, 153
Kuwait, 10
Malaysia, 10
Marshall Islands, 26
Netherlands, 444
Netherlands Antilles, 10
New Zealand, 12
Norway, 23
Oman, 10
Philippines, 20,798
Portugal, 864
Puerto Rico, 769
Qatar, 158
Russia, 18
Saint Helena, 3
Sinai Desert, 500
Singapore, 115
South Korea, 26,477
Spain, 1,268
Sweden, 23
Thailand, 1,113
The contiguous United States, 1,868,215
Transients, 47,391
Turkey, 1,365
United Arab Emirates, 37
United Kingdom, 10,967
TOTAL, 2,361,038