Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
So you don't the think the USN's force structure is unsuitable for keeping the oceans free. They have done pretty well over the last 70 years so I think I'll defer to their judgment as to what works.
That's an assertion. Prove it.
(Obviously, you can't. That would require parallel universe experiments as evidence, and those don't exist. This, of course, means that the assertion is unfounded.)
I might as well say the UN has kept maritime trade safe. That's about as impossible to prove.


I understand the high regard you have for American ideals but even we don't go so far as to protect an enemy's commerce from third party attack.
Well, this kinda ridicules the whole assertion of protecting global maritime trade even for countries such as China, doesn't it?


Always feels good to thump the Americans for a mistake.
It was no mistake. it was an attempt to murder two Iranian aircrews and went wrong, killing much more and other Iranians instead.


Saying you are neutral don't make you neutral. Your attitude has been a common one expressed by anti-Americans since I was a little boy. I still remember seeing "Yankee go home!" painted on walls.
I'm about as harsh on the Bundeswehr, but the Bundeswehr is less active and thus offers less opportunities for exposing its failures.
Plus the Bundeswehr hasn't such an inflated sense of self-importance.


You should probably remember that the USN has waxed and waned in size depending upon the threat.
That's rather "depending on the degree of DoD and Congress procurement incompetence".


Forward basing has been used by navies since forever. It is not a newly created bureaucratic stratagem dreamed up by the Navy to further its' interests. Also if I remember correctly some of those big carriers were not rotated home. They were home based abroad, as were some subs. That cuts down on the number of ships needed but makes sure they are in position quick.
Even the RN has never based such a large percentage of its ships in distant waters, nor were said waters ever very distant to English crown territories as is for example the Persian Gulf from CONUS.


The Navy having so high a percentage of the world's combatant tonnage is more a matter or their weakness than our strength. And why shouldn't they be weak? We and the RN having been keeping things in order more or less for the last 200 years or so.
I get it, you surely bought into those talking points / myths.


Your whole thinking here is illogical. There's no reason to assume the USN size as fixed, thus no reason to explain its relative size with the other's small size.

The USN is so large because of
- political inertia
- bureaucratic behaviour

It's much bigger than required for land attack AND bullying AND defeating other navies combined. It's really politics and bureaucratic behaviour that explain its size.



DoD. I always thought the Navy was part of our defenses. I don't see how you could have a Dept. of Defense without a navy part.
I was clearly hinting at the navy not being part of national defense. It's part of national strategic offense, not national defense.



Oops, I forgot. Cuba crisis. Unilateral naval embargo (after deploying own nukes to Turkey was apparently totally OK).
Maybe some people have an idea why a so terribly self-contradictory and unreliable global maritime shipping protector ain't no global maritime shipping protector, but a threat to global maritime shipping.
I for one cannot remember so terribly many naval peacetime embargoes that were neither permitted by the UN nor unilaterally staged by the U.S..



Besides; that "anti-Americanism" thing is lame in discussions. Sounds a lot like "the terrorists hate our freedom" BS.
I won't call it an ad hominem attack for being contra a country is not in itself bad (although I'd rather say I'm anti-U.S. policies than anti-American).
After all, certain countries in the world deserve the pushback they receive because they torture, kidnap, assassinate, invade other countries in wars of aggression, bomb other countries at will, support evil dictators, threatened the world with nuclear holocaust for decades ... well, you get the point.