Strategic Inertia.
A policy in motion tends to stay in motion.
The shortest distance (to war) between two nations is an outdated policy.
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Strategic Inertia.
A policy in motion tends to stay in motion.
The shortest distance (to war) between two nations is an outdated policy.
There has been some interesting pros and cons on the issue.
What does one make out of this?
Quote:
Reports: US, Philippines building new naval base in Spratlys
A new seaport being built by the Philippine government in the Spratly islands could become the Pentagon's military outpost in the hotly contested South China Sea, according to news reports.
Manila is looking to rebuild the seaport and adjoining runway on Pagasa Island, which part of the chain of islands off the coast of the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam.
The Philippine government claims the effort is strictly designed to support commercial business and tourism to the island.
However local residents say the construction is the first step in creating a mini-naval base for U.S. and Philippine troops.
"It is near the Spratlys and U.S. can always check China’s aggressive campaign claim over Spratlys and maintain its military interest in the Asian region ... these advantages are non-negotiable," Salvador France, head of Pamalakaya, a local advocacy group in the region, told The Philippine Star on Monday.
The installation could also be used as a jumping-off point for counterterrorism operations in the Palawan region of the southern Philippines. The area is home to the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic terror groups with ties to al Qaeda.
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill...e-in-spratlys-
Not much, if you take it in context.
The item in the lead paragraph is correct: the Philippine government is reconditioning a short airstrip and a very small port on one island in the Spratlys. So far there's been no sign of US involvement in the construction. Somehow that gets blown into a US/Philippine military base, solely on the unsupported word of a member of a fringe militant left group that sees US intrusion and a US base in the making literally everywhere.
Those who watch the Philippines closely will recall the case of the GenSan fishing port, which the Philippine left declared to be a US base in the making, on the grounds that the contractor was an American company that had done work for the military. Turned out to be a fishing port.
The stated purpose of the Spratlys facility is to bring tourists out, and the island does have very nice beaches. Of course it's more about staking a claim by establishing a presence.
Military relevance is going to be limited by the size of the place. It's tiny, to say the least.
Read this line:
And look at this picture:Quote:
France also asserts the new facility on Pagasa Island will be the new home for thousands of U.S. Marines scheduled to leave Okinawa within the next two years.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ands_DX0DX.jpg
Where are you going to put "thousands of marines" on that little fleaspeck of an island?
This one:
Is equally absurd, as a quick look at a map will reveal. The Spratly islands are not even remotely close to the ASG heartland.Quote:
The area is home to the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic terror groups with ties to al Qaeda.
It is then ridiculous to revamp the airstrip on the fleaspeck of an island.
Tourists?
With tourist infrastructure on an island that cannot take a 1000 troops?
Tourist infrastructure takes up a lot of space.
Yes, it did. Need not have but it did because the Politicians wanted it that way. Your'e familiar with that...
You might also look at the relative numbers of troops involved and relative degree of effort and expense to include reported casualties by the nominal combatants.We'll never know about then but there was and is now no question that the numerical superiority would have to be countered by something. The nuclear option is certainly one but there are others.Quote:
But I suggest that the US realised then that facing a Chinese army with modern weapons and a logistic system would require the use of nuclear weapons not just to win but to survive.
It had and has been a long held tenet of US military (not foreign...) policy to avoid getting sucked into a land war in Asia -- that in spite of the fact that we helped the British with their mid-19th Century endeavors there, made several minor incursion during that century then went to Peking during the Boxer Rebellion kept a couple of Army and a Marine Regiment in China for many years. Then came Korea, Viet Nam -- all counter to that military policy and as a result of the US foreign policy of the moment; All dictated by US politicians who commit forces and then tie the hands of those forces. Hard to win wars when you're on a leash...Both political decisions based on US domestic politics, as you know -- and I would expect you to be smarter than Osama Bin Laden who foolishly cited the same things and built an er, 'strategy' on that house of cards. That hasn't worked out as he and his crowd expected...Quote:
For example, one bomb in the Lebanon (killing 299) Marines in 1983 sent the US packing.
In 1993 in Mogadishu after 18 dead and 73 wounded the US folded.
Fiendishly cunning? You're reading too much Graham Greene. :DQuote:
...the fiendishly cunning Chinese approach of 'death by a thousand cuts' being amended to 'death by a thousand IEDS' in Afghanistan and the US is already all but defeated.
Defeated? Heh. There was NEVER any question but that we would stay (when we should not have) and leave with yet another politically determined stalemate / defeat -- call it what you will. There was never going to be a win in any of our post WW II foolishness...
However, I suggest you need to rearrange your Goat entrails or tea leaves. The fact that we are still in Afghanistan at this late date, no matter we should not be, totally negates the premise of Lebanon and Mogadishu as defining -- and makes 'defeat' borderline arguable :wry:Heh. Speaking of fiendishly cunning -- fooled you, there is no standard US game plan.Quote:
Ken, I suggest that it is delusional to believe that the US (sleeping giant) will wake up to a real existential threat and defeat it. Those days are past and the potential enemies of the future will be smart enough to understand how to deal with the standard US game plan.
That changes with the wind, as we change Coaches...
Many things are past -- however, the US penchant for not making a big effort or getting things done right unless there's an overarching need to do so has not changed. We, the people; the troops; will avoid doing the hard things unless pushed. Hedonistic I know but there you are. We tend to accept barely adequate most of the time, rising to good enough to get the job done only with the correct impetus and never reach excellence -- no need for it. We're lazy and way too introspective. The Saturday game is more important than anyplace from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. We'd really rather not be bothered. Unless...
Excessive bother of the wrong kind will not invoke a sleeping giant scenario -- you're as dated as Carl and those pundits and think tanks I warned him to eschew. That was then, this is now. No sleeping giant, no fire up the industrial base. Those days are indeed gone. What is not gone is the ability to simply remove the leash IF and when warranted. Not a lot of Troops on the ground required, very few in fact. ;)
We don't do the war among the people thing very well, never have (too selfish and hedonistic...) so insurgencies and the like are to be avoided. OTOH, if one has an infrastructure of any kind and wishes to keep it reasonably intact; if one has population centers, one is well advised to not try to get too cute. We may not be sophisticated or do nuances well but when pushed we can break things far further away and more rapidly and completely than anyone. I do not see that changing significantly in the next 30-40 years.
It should be noted that the "if and when" determination is a US unilateral decision which may come at any time and is somewhat unpredictable as is all US foreign and military policy. All, that is, except for a low to zero tolerance for SIGNIFICANT threats (the degree of significance also being a unilateral US determination...). Your or anyone else's definition of what constitutes such a threat is essentially irrelevant.
It should also be recalled that sometimes the Frog turns over the pot, spilling smelly hot water all over everything and everybody and forcing them to deal with a really pissed off Frog. Same deal with the cutting. Scalpel wielder slips, inadvertently cuts too deep in a sensitive area and then gets cold cocked and the OR gets thoroughly trashed. :D
I doubt that a tourism operation would ever be profitable. It would have to be very small and very expensive, there's very little space and literally everything would have to come in by plane or boat. It's out of the typhoon belt but would get bad weather during the SW monsoon and strong swell from during the NE monsoon. Not an ideal place.
As I said, tourism is a nominal purpose but it's more about establishing some kind of activity to reinforce a claim to the surrounding water.
A little vignette about life on Pagasa...
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul...adise-prison26
I'm sure you could put a couple of patrol planes and a small garrison there and get some military utility out of it but as an actual military base?
This gives a better idea of the scale:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b329/dayuhan/07.jpg
As you can see, the 1.3km airstrip is far longer than the island itself. Seriously, thousands of marines?
Is there any evidence of US involvement or plans for basing beyond comments from one guy, who's associated with a group that has - to put it mildly - little to no credibility?
I am reminded of small island called Diego Gracia.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...iegogarcia.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...IA-DG-BIOT.jpg
It is an atoll and is approximately 1,800 nautical miles (3,300 km) east of the African coast and 1,200 nautical miles (2,200 km) south of the southern tip of India.
The US Navy operates a large naval ship and submarine support base, military air base, communications and space tracking facilities, and an anchorage for pre-positioned military supplies for regional operations aboard Military Sealift Command ships in the lagoon.
It is an atoll occupying approximately 174 square kilometres (67 sq mi), of which 27.19 square kilometres (10 sq mi) is dry land.
Info obtained from Wiki.
Imagine that having a very important base back of nowhere and in just such a small area of land!!
It controls much of US ops in the area and is so important that the local inhabitants have been banished from the atoll.
While one can be deprecating about the US and its reach and aims, I for one, do not underestimate either the US or China and go into complacency and later be awoken with a rude shock.
Every bit of info must be put into the jigsaw and analysed and not sit back and feel it was a day late and a dollar short when it zaps you between the eye.
If you want peace, be prepared for war is what the US is doing! That is what I feel!
Jingoism or pacifism apart, it would be worth seeing how an American reacts when they are on the losing side!
Have we not seen the US reaction here on Iraq and Afghanistan, when anything negative was suggested?
It is all very well to have intellectual goodness overflowing when all things go well. This applies to all nationals of all Nations!
China’s military rise
There are ways to reduce the threat to stability that an emerging superpower poses
http://www.economist.com/node/21552212
I suspect the examples cited are not germane to the final paragraph. US involvement in the Levant and SWA/Afghanistan is at best, adventurism or a display of testosterone (not unlike Grenada and Panama) on the part of some US leaders. To draw conclusions from the engagements of the last 20 odd years about how the US might respond to a perceived existential threat is a mistake because no meaningful basis of analogy exists between the two sorts of cases.
BTW, the earlier appeal to Korea as an esample of US capabilities vis-a-vis PRC is equally a mistake. If memory serves, the principle global concern of the US senior leadership during the Korean conflict was the USSR advancing further in Western Europe. I seem to recall that the US sent as many or more troops to reinforce Europe as were sent to fight on the Korean peninsula.
Yes I am and I am also familiar with the fact that in the main US soldiers will do their duty when called upon to do so with the utmost bravery... your politicians are the pits... in fact if at all possible worse than that.
...but then again... in a democracy you get the government you deserve.
Remember this?
Something got lost somewhere?Quote:
“It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.” - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
Certainly for near normal times. However and fortunately, we still do crunch time fairly well...
I have. I remember reading that during the Vietnam War, there was some kind of agreement between the US and the North Vietnamese. We weren't supposed to fly over. Unfortunately, there were around 40 or so South Vietnamese agents that were still in the DRV when the agreement went into effect. The USAF guys wanted an exception made so they could be extracted. It was not allowed. So we left them there and all were picked up. I am actually not embarrassed by that. I am ashamed. Then there were the 3 Marines we left on Koh Tang Island. I am ashamed about that too. An exagerrated (sic) sense of shame I guess.
Thank you for that. Now I know.
I don't know how to respond to that. I am certain you know about logistics trains, sea and air and how those change with distance over which something is to be supported. You know about American dependence upon air refueling, how carriers can't go swanning off by themselves, that VLS systems can't be reloaded at sea. You know all that stuff and all the rest inside and out. Since you know, the only thing I can conclude is that you delight in faking obtuse.
It was a straight line that was yours to use if you cared to. You did.
Ok. I get it now.
Yes I did note that you mentioned that. But I prefer to judge for myself and if they recognize the importance of conveniently placed island and land bases, I figure they are seeing what has been plainly evident throughout the whole history of sea fighting.
Me too what?
The land area of Pag-asa island is about 0.37 square kilometers. Big difference.
An atoll also has certain natural advantages, as it creates a protected anchorage. Nothing like that at Pag-asa. The cited article claims that
but the term "seaport" is a ridiculous exaggeration. There is neither port nor harbor. Manila is building a small wharf for supply ships.Quote:
Manila is looking to rebuild the seaport and adjoining runway on Pagasa Island
Again, the article reports baseless speculation from a completely untrustworthy source. To jump from there to a "US military base in the Spratlys" is pretty absurd. There's no reliable information to suggest that such a thing is happening or has ever been contemplated.
The US has always been a conglomeration of 'radically different cultures." That is one of our strengths, while for many nations it is indeed a source of weakness. Why? Because of the unique form of governance we possess and the shared belief that to some degree all of those radically different cultures have in that system. Most countries don't have that.
This is what Ray misses as well with his condemnation of our politicians and political structures. Fortunately for America and Americans we are possessed of a system of governance we can believe in and that we believe we possess reasonable control over, even when, especially when, we find little to believe in in the politicians who actually man the system.
While I believe our founders intended the Executive to be far less powerful than under the current system; and the Congress to be far more powerful than under the current system, they intended all to be answerable to an armed and informed populace that felt itself free to express its concerns in print, or in large gatherings, and with the full trust that their vote would come as scheduled and count. It makes for a messy, inefficient system, constantly tripping over various "checks and balances." Nowhere near as efficient as found in places where the populace is largely left out of the equation, or where one small part of government is allowed to dominate over the rest.
Personally I take great comfort in the inefficiency. Because efficiency of government is the enemy of stability of that which is governed. We are learning this Soooooo slowly in Afghanistan, where we swooped in and put in place all manner of highly efficient systems, such as the outrageous (to Afghans and foreigners alike) amount of power vested in the President under their current constitution. Such as US controlled and ran CT operations and prisons. Very efficient, yet horribly destructive of the very stability used to rationalize both. The examples go on and on.
Embrace messy politics. Embrace inefficient COIN that lends to host nation legitimacy and sovereignty rather than robbing from the same. From such inefficiency comes stability. It's a crazy world. Finding that balance of just enough control to keep the country on the road, that's the trick.
I don't know about "always" but Mr. Murray so far has made a persuasive case that when he begins looking at data, around 1960, things like workforce participation, marriage rates, rates of legitimate births (I am not finished yet) etc were quite similar amongst the white population of the US. Since then things have changed, and changed radically. So much so that what it amounts to are radically different sets of primary cultural values. That is not a source of strength, it is more like it is in those other nations you mention, divisive. The shared beliefs are not there anymore which appears to be the main thesis of the book.
Good point. Upon reflection I thought it strange that we supported the creation of a national police force over there. We hate the idea of a national police force and get along just fine with sort of an accidentally coordinated system of local and regional police forces with some national detective agencies to supplement them.
No need to be embarrassed or ashamed. You didn't have anything to do with it and you couldn't have prevented that. Many far worse things tha happened there. If one wishes to be embarrassed or ashamed of anything that occurred in or about Viet Nam, one could start with the fact that the Brothers Kennedy started the totally unnecessary war to boost the US economy and to prove the Democratic Party could be tough on Communism. It was a war in which we had no business and in which there was no real US interest.I'm not the one being obtuse nor am I faking anything. I mentioned Carrier qual only with respect to you and your comment:Quote:
Since you know, the only thing I can conclude is that you delight in faking obtuse.
I said nothing about using carriers to mess with China, in fact I think that would be sorta dumb. That's why I suggested that the nuke boats, SSBN, SSN and particularly the SSGNs. None of which most other nations can really counter and which don't have a refueling problem. Nor would I send Bones, B2s or 52s -- or F15Es for that matter -- anywhere until the Tomahawks had pretty well done in the relevant -- not all, just relevant -- ADA systems.Quote:
"Us airplane drivers keep a close eye on the fuel gauge for when it gets low we have to land, on land to get filled up again. Islands are land. They also form needed bases for for ships to fill up too."
They are if you're going to use Carrier Battle Groups and surface warships though I'm unsure why you would do that in anything above mid intensity conflict (where they have their uses). In a high intensity fight, the Carrier and surface ships are big fat targets and an impediment until a lot of sanitizing in the objective area has occurred.Quote:
"I still think land bases and islands are as useful to navies and naval power as they ever were."
They always told me the Generals and Admirals prepared for the last war -- no one mentioned that civilian Pilots did so as well. :D
My fellow curmudgeon Bill Sweetman not withstanding, the F35 brings some new capabilities for later phase of operations while the production models of the X-47B as AQ-whatevers, will aid in the initial effort, not least because they'll have twice the range and loiter time of the 18s or 35s -- and even that can and will be extended by by Buddy Tanking refueling from other AQ-whatevers. Then there's the X-37...Do they recognize importance or are they parroting conventional wisdom based on 30-40 year old concepts and capabilities? Good for you arriving at your own judgements; bad for them that they, like some Gen-Gens and Admirals are still looking behind instead of ahead. Both the FlagOs and the punditocracy have a vested interest in as little change as possible; makes 'em look smart. Fortunately, as Ernie King said on 30 December 1941; "When they get in trouble they send for the sons-of-bitches." So we do that and the young SOBs discard the old ways and get with the program. We may not have as much time in the future but we know that and people are thinking...Quote:
... I prefer to judge for myself and if they recognize the importance of conveniently placed island and land bases, I figure they are seeing what has been plainly evident throughout the whole history of sea fighting.
A tongue in cheek reference to old ways; 30-40 year old concepts... ;)Quote:
Me too what?
History can never be more than a 'sorta, maybe' guide, militarily one should not let it cloud thinking or ever dictate what one can or will do. In fact, one should do their best to avoid what went before lest they establish a pattern that can be circumvented. Though it's quite okay to let folks think one is planning on doing that old, tired thing while he or she actually contemplates something entirely different. We do that fairly well..:cool:
Ken:
As far as the importance of land bases and island bases go, you're wrong. The entire history of sea fighting from the time of rafts with spearmen on board has demonstrated the need for bases. The latest tech toys don't change that. Some people fight the last battle, some recognize the fundamentals, and some fall in love with the latest and greatest gimmick and tool and think that changes the fundamentals.
Oh. I thought of something else. In any kind of sea fight with anybody, you are going to have to move supplies with surface ships. I can't think of one where that didn't happen. And when you do that, you have to defend them from air attack. Subs can't do that. You need surface ships or aircraft...which brings us to the need for land bases conveniently located.
As I wrote earlier, that happens. Rarely. And not on this.
I didn't write they generically were unimportant. You do a lot of standing broad jumps at wrong conclusions. I didn't write they were all unnecessary, merely that the ones you've mentioned are not totally critical and that there were workarounds. You might also consider the issue of when which Islands may be a detriment and when they might be beneficial...
In any event, I'll now go a step farther and suggest that for a variety of reasons (not least including who can best cope with time:distance issues and net weapon available numbers) we're better off without that outer perimeter you and John Foster Dulles like. Ducks sitting and all that. Recall that Pearl Harbor was an attack on US Soil and it got a response. An attack on Taiwan or the Philippines will NOT get such a political response -- nor should it.
You may have seen me rail against the FOBs in Afghanistan -- that's a tactically unsound approach that violates the fundamentals of avoiding tieing down force to fixed locations, avoiding tactical repetition and not providing easy targets as well as several others. The Islands you want -- as opposed to all the other places available in the pacific -- are FOBs and they are as dumb as the bases in the 'Stan. Fixed Bases are targets and they severely inhibit the most important fundamental, Maneuver and it's ally, Flexibility.And some learned the fundamentals the hard way and know that some, not all, new tools will not change everything but can and will aid in accomplishing those fundementals and changing, if slightly, the way business is done. :wry:Quote:
Some people fight the last battle, some recognize the fundamentals, and some fall in love with the latest and greatest gimmick and tool and think that changes the fundamentals.
Some also are far too old, experienced and cynical to fall in love with much of anything... :rolleyes:
A lot of new stuff is borderline worthless for warfighting -- but some of it has great merit and applies directly to those fundamentals. Note the subject of my last comment and Google it. Not much new under the sun -- or sea. Nothing I've mentioned is really new except possibly the X-37 which is only kinda new; all those items have been seen and used before and all the current iterations have been in development for years except the X-47B which the Navy is moving big bucks to -- do those stodgy Admirals know something...
As an aside, it is important to realize with fundamentals that one cannot pick and choose those one likes -- you have to take them all, they're part of an inseparable total package...At the risk of sounding Clintonesque, define 'conveniently.'Quote:
Oh. I thought of something else. In any kind of sea fight with anybody, you are going to have to move supplies with surface ships. I can't think of one where that didn't happen. And when you do that, you have to defend them from air attack. Subs can't do that. You need surface ships or aircraft...which brings us to the need for land bases conveniently located.
Define also 'sea fight.' Sub surface, surface, above the surface or way, way, way above the surface... :eek:
You may not think so but the Navy thinks it fights in all those and does so simultaneously. They consider themselves a Sea service. They also have well over 50 year experience at it and that matters a great deal -- plus they have a lot of experience dealing with 'inconvenience'...
All unduly bellicose, the Chinese, hopefully, will be smarter than we are likely to be and none of this is likely to be problematical for a good many years if ever. You worry too much... :wry:
Bob,
Great comment, with a caveat. On one hand I totally agree with this:
On the other hand I'm reminded of the <a href="http://www.informationdissemination.net/2012/04/this-is-obscene.html">F-35 program</a> along with any number of other boondoggles and plenty of example of waste personally witnessed by me.Quote:
Personally I take great comfort in the inefficiency. Because efficiency of government is the enemy of stability of that which is governed.
Anyway, the gist of your comment seems to be that the US needs more federalism.
Where did you get that idea from?Quote:
This is what Ray misses as well with his condemnation of our politicians and political structures.
In fact, I am throughout stating that the US rules and will rule the waves.
It is some of you who are being defeatist.
Philippine Navy renamed Naval Station Pag-Asa in the Kalayaan Islands in the province of Palawan as Naval Station Emilio Liwanag.Quote:
The land area of Pag-asa island is about 0.37 square kilometers. Big difference.
An atoll also has certain natural advantages, as it creates a protected anchorage. Nothing like that at Pag-asa.
The airstrip takes C 130.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_inwdIe1giW...land+group.jpg
If Kennedys are to be blamed, one could start with John Foster Dulles.Quote:
No need to be embarrassed or ashamed. You didn't have anything to do with it and you couldn't have prevented that. Many far worse things tha happened there. If one wishes to be embarrassed or ashamed of anything that occurred in or about Viet Nam, one could start with the fact that the Brothers Kennedy started the totally unnecessary war to boost the US economy and to prove the Democratic Party could be tough on Communism. It was a war in which we had no business and in which there was no real US interest.
Indeed, comparisons makes things appear to have 'big difference'.Quote:
The land area of Pag-asa island is about 0.37 square kilometers. Big difference.
One wonders if Diego Gracia would be worth having, if one could get, say, Mauritius or Seychelles! Diego Gracia in comparison would very inadequate.
The whole issue of anything military is threat and need based and one has to make good with whatever one gets and optimise its 'tactical/ strategic throw'.
I would not know if is a ridiculous exaggeration. I take it that whoever has claimed so, is aware of what he is stating. Suffice it to say that there is a port.Quote:
but the term "seaport" is a ridiculous exaggeration. There is neither port nor harbor.
Everything that is stated from articles, papers etc to you is rubbished as 'untrustworthy source'. What would be a 'trustworthy source' for you?Quote:
Again, the article reports baseless speculation from a completely untrustworthy source. To jump from there to a "US military base in the Spratlys" is pretty absurd.
Ken,
A nuclear submarine is noisier than a submarine working on batteries.Quote:
They are if you're going to use Carrier Battle Groups and surface warships though I'm unsure why you would do that in anything above mid intensity conflict (where they have their uses). In a high intensity fight, the Carrier and surface ships are big fat targets and an impediment until a lot of sanitizing in the objective area has occurred.
The pumps are noisy, then there is the steam noise, and the electric plant puts out a "hum".
This can be detected by any good sonar system. Even the quietest of nuclear submarine makes more noise than a conventional submarine.
And then there is 'environmental fatigue' and so to believe that a nuclear submarine can continue endlessly is not quite correct.
Supplies also have to be given enroute.
Bases just cannot be avoided.
US is refurbishing the submarine base at Guam.
CBGs may be good targets, but then they have their weapon systems that also protect them and are complementary
It's protection hinges on detecting, tracking, engaging and destroying threats before they pose a danger. .
Be it CBG or nuclear submarines, the danger is always there. Just because we cannot observe a submarine unlike a CBG, it does not mean that it is near invincible.
Hi carl,
Yes, I heard that guy on a talk show the other night, have not read his book but seems worthwhile.
Check this out from the Harvard Business Review
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/04/ther...ible_hand.html
finally admitting that Adam Smith's Invisible Hand Theory was nothing but a bunch of RPI propaganda, there is no such thing and never has been any such thing. China is not burdened by such economic nonsense so they are free to make deals that benefit China not some imaginary Invisible idea:D
So to get back to the thread China understands that Military power comes from Economic power.
When last was a 'crunch time'?
Will the next enemy allow you the time to get the Henry Ford style human and industrial production lines into operation?
This was the game plan I was speaking of. As observed by von Schell in 1930 during his time at Fort Benning. Sorry if I was not too clear on that.
There is no population on Diego Garcia to upset ... so no 'yankee go home' demonstrations... no billions in aid to the basket case island... just peace.
The yanks wouldn't be there it was not fit for purpose. Its the USian politicians that are the cretins... among the military there are some pretty smart guys.
I can't remember their stated goal, maybe 2020??
Quote:
Seem like we have some time and don't need to go into the China panic mode... :D
Yes, in true Commie fashion they will wait as long as possible before they use the military in a direct manner, more likley they will try to control us economically by using their "Rare Earth Policy" at least that is my non-expert opinion.
There was indigenous population who were evicted from the island.
I thought this was fairly well known.
The indigenous people of Diego Gracia are Chagossians.Quote:
Diego Garcia: Exiles Still Barred
The Americans had asked the British, their long-time allies, who still had colonies in the region, to find an uninhabited island for their base.
There was just one problem -- there were inhabitants on Diego Garcia and they have been living there for more than 200 years. Correspondent Christiane Amanpour reports.
But the British didn't see that as a problem. They simply moved all the inhabitants 1,200 miles away to other tropical islands, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
Back then when the island was a British colony, Marcel Moulinie managed the coconut plantation. He was ordered to ship the people out.
"Total evacuation. They wanted no indigenous people there," says Moulinie.
"When the final time came and the ships were chartered, they weren't allowed to take anything with them except a suitcase of their clothes. The ships were small and they could take nothing else, no furniture, nothing."
The people of Diego Garcia say they left paradise and landed in hell when they were dumped here in the urban slums of Mauritius. They had brought no possessions and as islanders who had lived off fishing and farming they had no real professional skills.
No one helped them resettle or pay for the homes they lost. They were forced to become squatters in a foreign land.
Before the final evacuation, the British had cut off the ships carrying food and medicine to Diego Garcia.
More at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-558378.htm
They are illiterates and hardly the Yankee go home types.
No compensation has been paid either!
I wonder if to be ready for all contingencies would be a 'panic mode'. I am of the belief that the US is hardly a nation that goes into a panic mode. Whatever one has seen so far is that the US makes others go into a panic mode! ;) :)Quote:
Quote:
Seem like we have some time and don't need to go into the China panic mode...
If one goes back in time to the Cold War days and the creation of NATO, would the creation of NATO and creating US Bases in Europe and elsewhere be taken to have been a 'Soviet panic mode'.
It is being ready for all eventualities and nothing more. It is good for all that nothing happened to justify that readiness.
Would MAD be taken to be a 'panic mode'?
The Chinese are a patient people. They do not take hasty actions. Each action they take is well thought out and planned over the years.
Take their shift from Mao Communism to capitalism. It has been comparatively seamless. There was nothing knee jerk about it and it was contemplated even when Mao was alive!
Take the 'Peaceful Rise'. That put all off guard. They used that period to become reckonable economically and also militarily.
They are now ready to a great extent and so they are flexing their muscle and testing the waters to see the reaction. Having seen how the wind blows, they will take further actions to neutralise the effects that they have observed with a wee bit of muscle flexing.
What is happening in the South China Sea, reminds me of the Chinese game of 'Go' or weiqi. It is a "board game of surrounding."
Ray,
The US looked out into the Pacific at the turn of the last century for "ports" and found them. Mostly already staked out by a fading Spanish empire. The fact that the US Flag flies over American Samoa, Oahu, and Guam is no accident. Those, along with Manila, were, and are, the best deep water protected anchorages in the region. That was in the age of coaling stations, but such anchorages remain important. Certainly Diego Garcia falls in that same category. The airfields on Guam, Clark in the Philippines, and Diego Garcia all have served to launch and recover countless B-52 (and B-29s and 17s for the first two) sorties.
This Little rock you are talking about might make a good coast guard station, to handle a couple of small law enforcement vessels, a few helos and the occasional C-130; but is physically incapable of being what the author of your article is attempting to make it out to be.
Trust me, if there was a viable island in the Spratleys, it would have been occupied and developed long ago. The French, Spanish, Dutch and English would have fought over it; the US and Japan would have fought over it; and so on and so on. Such is the nature of strategic key terrain. Singapore is such a place.
The Spratleys are one of many places in the world where national spheres of influence overlap. Often this happens in places long occupied by long suffering people always at the crossroads of competition between larger neighbors. (The fate of Poland, Afghanistan, the Levant, etc). Sometimes it happens in the global commons. The Caribbean was such a place once; until Britain agreed to dedicate its maritime power to the support of America's Monroe Doctrine. Britain saw that play as being in their interest, as they leveraged the US to keep European competitors from gaining advantages in that hemisphere. The US saw it in her advantage as well, as it put to rest decades of fighting with Britain and allowed our commercial fleet to leverage the protection of the Royal Navy. A win-win based on shared interests.
China seeks to do as the US did; but I doubt we will play the role of Britain on this, as we are far less pragmatic than the Brits in being able to set past grievances aside to take advantage of current opportunities. We are more apt to side with some little guy and get sucked into a fight that is not our own. Very American, that. Better we help all the parties involved get to some compromised position that they all can live with, but these are not nations that are very good at multilateral agreements, so that is unlikely.
Thank you, that's what I've been trying to say.
The cited source belongs to a group that is constantly and incessantly pushing the idea that the US is trying to establish permanent military bases in the Philippines and will stop at nothing to achieve that goal. Everything and anything gets twisted into that agenda.
Link to article on how China may be helping North Korea with missile technology that would allow them to reach the USA.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/po...rea_with_icbms
I thought you had said quite categorically that Diego Gracia was uninhabited.
How come that you now claim that, yes a few thousands were there?
It was inhabited as anyone who knew about Diego Gracia would know and of that, there is no doubt. One should not be categorical to push a point! One should check and then comment.
Once again you are wrong. Compensation was considered. It must be remembered that it is not so far into history when this happened and there would have been a stink, if the 'i' s were not dotted and 't' s not crossed. Days of colonial requirement to unilaterally shift labour to other parts of the world was long over.
Mauritius was paid to accept the Deigo Gracians. Mauritius accepted them but did not consider that the payment was in anyway to rehabilitate them.
A case was filed in Britain and the British Government offered £1.25m to the surviving Chagossians. They were expected to withdraw the case and and sign a "full and final" document renouncing any right of return to the island.
Some signed and some amongst them who were totally illiterate claimed that they had been tricked into signing!
The issue will drag on and when all Diego Gracians are dead, people will forget that there were people who inhabited the island and that it was never inhabited!
Human memory is short!
Bob,
It is not my article that I gave a link to. I am not Murdoch as yet! :)Quote:
This Little rock you are talking about might make a good coast guard station, to handle a couple of small law enforcement vessels, a few helos and the occasional C-130; but is physically incapable of being what the author of your article is attempting to make it out to be.
Trust me, if there was a viable island in the Spratleys, it would have been occupied and developed long ago.
China feels CNN, BBC and the western media is nothing but propaganda, twisting the truth and mangling it to suit the western purpose. Perceptions!
When there is a requirement and when there is nothing available, even a little rock (as you put it) will do. Given the size of Diego Gracia, it too is a little rock or atoll. It is again perceptions.
And
Your perception!Quote:
This is what Ray misses as well with his condemnation of our politicians and political structures.
And I have been batting all along for US and its actions! :eek:
Trust me, when strategic interests are at stake, even the impossible become possible. Or else, why should India be on the Siachen Glacier that is so expensive an operation and the environment claims lives, if not claimed by the weapons?!
C 130 cannot land and helicopters are few and far between! And yet India is there!
Pakistan just a few days back lost over 100 men, not at the mountain top, but at a Base!
If India does not sit on those impossible heights, then it will become the continuation of China into Pakistan! And other areas with India will become vulnerable to China's designs!
Kwajalein Atoll
The island is about 1.2 square miles (3.1 km)
The U.S. Army has an installation at Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA).
Every atoll and every island has its value.
Iran dug into the mountain to build its reactors! Some would think that is crazy!
Necessity is the Mother of Invention!
One wonders what some would feel about that.
Should the US do nothing? And feel that all things are bright and beautiful and things will work out?
Or should US undertake to frustrate China in her designs to indicate enough is enough?
There was a reference that the US mucks in to fight the 'little guys' battle'.
Is it out of compassion that the US tailors her foreign policy or is it because there is a 'convergence of interest' that US fights 'the little guys' battle'?
There are no friends or enemies. There are only common national interests.
Of course and I didn't write or even imply endlessly -- long enough with adequate supplies on board to do the job, though, is a capability. The number available is a factor and it is in our favor.Yes, and that's a political commitment to reassure the Pacific Rim and a time distance saving effort. Both those factors are beneficial but not critical.Quote:
US is refurbishing the submarine base at Guam.
Nothing is invincible; any system can be defeated. Most of us are well aware of that and the Nuke boats -- as India will discover -- have their own problems. Still, on balance, they are the inevitable future of sea warfare in major conflicts for the next forty years or so, barring an unseen or not openly known and revolutionary discovery.Quote:
CBGs may be good targets... Just because we cannot observe a submarine unlike a CBG, it does not mean that it is near invincible.
The surface stuff is all necessary, certainly for less than total warfare but also for later stages of major conflicts and for operations outside the primary sea battlespace. Bases are also necessary, no question. Those things are not at issue; the issue is one of where things are located and when they are used. Thus it is not a question of needs and capabilities, simply one of employment.
All you say is correct, is well known to most including me and does not change my assessment -- or, I suspect, that of the US Navy. You and others who wish to make China a threat that it is not (to the US, not necessarily true for closer neighbors to the Middle Kingdom... :wry:) may certainly do so.
Even if you are most likely wrong... ;)
The action in question is the war and US involvement therein, not the political stupidity that allowed -- allowed, not caused -- that war.
You can go back further and blame Truman and Dean Acheson for not supporting the OSS / Ho Chi Minh overtures for US support and for aiding France in their effort to 'retake' Indo China. Certainly Dulles and the Eisenhower administration also bear some blame for the political debacle that was Viet Nam. However, they, on the advice of Matthew Ridgeway, then Army Chief of Staff, ruled out any direct combat commitment of US forces.
The Kennedy's (I use the plural because Bobby was the brain and driving force...) committed to combat action -- so they, for the US, essentially started the war. Lyndon Johnson of course initiated the major commitment so he gets some blame, a bunch in fact, and Nixon's flawed withdrawal plan was not error free to say the least -- but make no mistake, the Kennedy's started the war we all know and love...
Actually, we started the mobilization effort in September of '39, got far more serious in November of '40 but it was the mid '43 before we got totally serious.Note the last time, it took us almost four years to really get involved -- some would say it was really the winter of 1944 before we got up to speed. So no, I doubt anyone thinks even a fourth or fifth that time will be available in the future. I personally suspect that a week or two is probably the most time we'll have, thus my earlier comment:Quote:
Will the next enemy allow you the time to get the Henry Ford style human and industrial production lines into operation?
"Excessive bother of the wrong kind will not invoke a sleeping giant scenario -- you're as dated as Carl and those pundits and think tanks I warned him to eschew. That was then, this is now. No sleeping giant, no fire up the industrial base. Those days are indeed gone. What is not gone is the ability to simply remove the leash IF and when warranted. Not a lot of Troops on the ground required, very few in fact."
Note that I do not include any of our subsequent wars or interventions as crunches. None were, all were minimum effort soirees essentially aimed at US domestic politics and not at any serious effort in international affairs. They are minimum efforts and they also produced far less than even good, much less optimum, results. One gets what one pays for...
The US political establishment will only provide maximum reaction to what it perceives as a maximum threat, lesser threats we'll attempt to disrupt or channelize with the least possible effort. As you know, politicians assess both threats and effort differently than do military people.
Regardless, we have considerable capability that is rarely displayed and even more rarely understood and we have not since WW II allowed more than a small fraction of that to be used; the Armed Forces have been kept on a very short leash and other nations have actually been handled relatively gently. Thus my 'remove the leash' comment above.I understood. In those days, we did tend to have long term plans. Among other things we've lost here, it seems that ability has also fallen to political expediency thus my also earlier comment that "there is no standard US game plan."Quote:
This was the game plan I was speaking of. As observed by von Schell in 1930 during his time at Fort Benning. Sorry if I was not too clear on that.
Sadly... :(
Lesse, we did that in 1969, so say they're fifty years behind us in that. Figure maybe half that for most other things, that means they're about 25 years from catch-up time. You and I will both be gone. Well, you may not be, I hope not -- but I certainly will be. So now you know why I'm not worried. ;)
Neither is the Abn MSG kid of mine who's way younger than bofus. He stays abreast of all that stuff and sees stuff we don't; he says "No worries at this time."I'm sure they will do both those things. Doubt they'll succeed economically though they will almost certainly do a little harm. As for the other, they likely will think and plan that way but mayhap like their USSR predecessor, that'll become OBE. We'll have to wait and see.Quote:
Yes, in true Commie fashion they will wait as long as possible before they use the military in a direct manner, more likley they will try to control us economically by using their "Rare Earth Policy" at least that is my non-expert opinion.
Slap:
I will look at that but to my mind Adam Smith has stood the test of time and the closer polities come to letting the people decide for themselves how and where to spend their money, that is what the invisible hand is all about, the better they do. Red China has done as well as it has because it has let a few of its people spend their money and direct their efforts as they like, not because they have been directed how to do so by the wise men in the Party. They don't do any better than our "wise men" do.
You should read the book if you can. The RPI I was talking about is not only differentiated by money, they also are differentiated by very, extremely, insular lives. They go to the same schools, shop at the same stores, read the same newspapers and magazines and live in the same neighborhoods. The problem with that is they only know about themselves and from that make conclusions about the rest of the Americans, which they know nothing about. That is why so many of them really believe that $5 gallon gas is good for everybody.
Are you sure that's true? It takes a long time to get production lines built and up to speed, even back then. In mid-43 everything was already in place and beginning to ramp up. We were already totally serious. The Navy checked the Japanese with ships that were almost all launched before the start of the war. The services knew war with Japan was coming and built up as best they could early. We were better men then than we are now but even then we couldn't turn it on all that fast.
I think ( ??? ) you said what I said.
Yes, it takes a long time to get production line up to speed -- 1939/1940 to 1943/1944 is three to five years anyway you count the start and end.
Yes, by 1943 everything was in place and totally serious. Before that things were coalescing and production was ramping up and most everyone was getting more serious by the day -- but it was 1943 before the Draft picked up almost everyone, the WPB controlled civilian employment in war industries, rationing was extended to most items and the services had learned that incompetent commanders had to be rapidly relieved and uniformly did that. All the efforts of many people from 1939 until then culminated in a reasonably good and serious effort by most Americans and the Nation by late 1943.
Not so on the Navy, a lot of the pre-war ships were lost for some good and bad reasons. The Navy was very slow in getting ready for WW II. In fact, the Maritime Adminsitration with its 1936 shipbuilding standardization and building plan was ahead of the Navy and helped the Navy get their late 1939 plan going and that only because it became obvious there was going to be a war and Franklin was adamant that we be involved. The only big class building and arriving prior to the war that fought heavily in the Pacific was the Gleaves Class and they weren't the best destroyers around, That 1939 plan saw the Fletchers, Clevelands, Baltimores, South Dakotas and Essexes but they didn't start arriving in the fleet until mid 1942 as didThe Atlantas and the Independence class CVLs (which FDR had to browbeat the Navy into ordering; then as now, they wanted BIG Carriers -- more people, thus bigger budget slice...). Most of the program didn't hit the fleet until '44. The Navy effectively won in the Pacific with those 1939 Program ships while most of the pre-war ships were assigned to the Atlantic Fleet where the combat was far less demanding. Also note the Navy and the Marines knew war with Japan was coming and prepared for it as best they could -- and that only seriously after 1939 and even then slowly. The Army OTOH did not want war with Japan and tried to ignore the Pacific...
You're correct that we didn't turn it on all that fast and that we couldn't even do that well today -- except for aircraft and some other stuff; certainly not for ships, tanks, artillery and the like, though...