Let me guess. The end result will be.....Viva la Legion!Originally Posted by AdamG
Let me guess. The end result will be.....Viva la Legion!
"Pick up a rifle and you change instantly from a subject to a citizen." - Jeff Cooper
Or more Franco-PMCs.
Wages are the cause?
Not solely a French problem, but IISS in comparing defence spending have a pie chart of defence spending, which shows that Western Europe spends 55% and the USA 20% on personnel. Point to ponder.
davidbfpo
Cross Reference
See in this same section, France's Livre Blanc
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=5591
for the French policy and strategy behind this RIF.
You have choice of French or English.
Maybe it will work - if the French public allows deadwood to be removed. Last time that happened was the 1789 Revolution (just joking).
Vive la Legion - non !
Vive le 1er régiment d'infanterie de marine !
http://www.defense.gouv.fr/terre/dec...erie_de_marine
See the little guy in the avatar (left) cheering his regiment. Non ? No imagination.
Thing is, that against the three or four potential "real" global enemies a war has become impossible, thanks to the nukes. What stays are second- and third-rate enemies and proxy wars. If after the end of the Cold War we've seen the big failure to adapt, it is caused by (i) the absence of a worthy enemy, and (ii) the inability of the political leadership to reshape the forces. (Economy and budgets might well do it for them in the next couple of years).
It is the dark side of the American Empire that from the very beginning it relied much more on armed actions than, say, the British Empire. Once you start to live by the sword...
As long as a war with China is seen as a possibility and a justification for the current force levels, costs will not go down.
If that Chinese war were ruled out, forces could easily be cut two thirds. And in the case of the Euro-Armies - they are, as is the whole continent, just fossilized and do not exist for any other reason than that they were always there.
Somebody mentioned something along the lines of minimal forces, but designed to be expanded in case of war. Total mobilisation it's called I guess.
I have my doubts - with things moving as slowly as they do these days. I doubt that you could churn out F-22s as fast as P-51s, even with a "total war" economy.
Prolonged war is dead, at least between nuclear armed powers. Short spurts of violence yes. But for that you just have to work with what's at hand; sometimes maybe with what's in theatre for the lack of time to re-enforce.
Food for thought:
Civilians and military experts expected in 1919-1938 that the next major European war (if there would be any) would be all about poison gas warfare. Poison gas bombing against civilians, millions of civilian deaths...and Germany was militarily impotent at that time, till about 1937 at the very least.
(Almost) no poison gas was used in WW2.
I believe that this "there will be no war between nuclear powers" is ideology.
A (kind of) war between nuclear powers on the terrain of a third nation already happened; Russian fighter pilots flew over Korea and fought against U.S. fighter pilots. The intensity of this was greater than the Kosovo Air War.
Never say never, you'll be caught unprepared if you do.
The threat of nuclear arms didn't make us save our conventional forces in the Cold War, why should that be a good idea today?
Our potential challengers are just not ready to strike us within few years, but it might happen in 5-10 years.
That's why the ability to expand military power quickly and launch that project with little lag is so important.
Very true...
Good comment and good question.Never say never, you'll be caught unprepared if you do.
The threat of nuclear arms didn't make us save our conventional forces in the Cold War, why should that be a good idea today?
Korea is a bad example. I wouldn't speak of "nuclear powers" till about the late 1960's. But that's not the point.
You're German, right? Clausewitz talked about war as "die Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln". You have to ask: what could be so drastic as to cause a direct war among the 3-4 major powers? And: what could realisticly be achieved by such a war? I'm about the opposite of a peacenik, but I fail to come up with an answer.
And the argument with WW1 and 2 is flawed, since there was no qualitative leap ahead in "Bedrohungspotential" during the 1920's and 30's. Despite airpower and Panzerwaffe - just new toys.
The ability to annihilate whole chunks of land by automated systems (from about the late 1960's) was such a qualitative leap in Bedrohungspotential. And that leap made old lessons at least suspect. As long as MAD works between the major powers, conventional forces play only third fiddle.
Did conventional forces change anything during the Cold War? Tactical nukes would just have made them chared skeletons. And it was the nuclear options that kept Ivan from sunbathing on La Côte d'Argent, not the NATO Panzer Divisions.
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