Is that I've seen it and heard it all before...
Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Like I said, this is an emotional issue. It is a political issue too. Throw into the mix a economy that is in the tank. DoD will take budget cuts. With the auto industry on the ropes, Congress will be unlikely to want to cut spending for big ticket defense items. So with an overall smaller budget, but with next generation warfighting kit still coming on line, how do we find a balance that allows us to meet the mission before us as well as being able to fight and win our nation's wars?
Nothing new in any of that; we've been there after every war, WW II, Korea, Viet Nam (DS/DS doesn't count; that wasn't a war, it was an FTX with live ammo)
...Today's military laydown is the anomoly, not the norm.
Nah.
...The BIG question that everyone is churning on is what the new norm needs to look like.
True but a tremendous amount of that is pure parochiality -- and your ugly underbelly coming into play.
I simply suggest that it probably looks a lot more like the pre-Cold War model than the current.
True with the caveat as modified by current conditions, domestically and internationally which are quite different from 1946.
During the last drawdown the AC tried to put all of the support into the RC and keep all of the warfighting in the AC. That plan was crushed by the political might of the National Guard, resulting in the Army Reserve becoming pure support and warfighting being split between the RA and the NG. It was a short-sighted plan, and we have been suffering the consequences of it throughout the high-optempo that began with the Bosnia campaign and has not let up.
If you mean the post Viet Nam drawdown and Abrams plan and a volunteer force, you're wrong; if you mean the Post DS/DS 'peace dividend' mini-drawdown initiated by Carl Vuono and Binny Peay, you're correct. That's from the same crowd that brought you the post-1975 "we do the nations big wars" stupidity. They were wrong.

BTW, having been peripherally involved in that as a DAC at the time, I think the 'political might' of that Guard is massive overstatement and obscurational. The thing that killed it was that it was dumb and the Army was arrogant and clumsy about it. It deserved it's death. the lesson in that for today is the Army needs to get its act together and be smart. In that vein respect to all the then mantra of all MCO,

Now is not the time to err in the other direction.
For what it is worth, my boss sees any IW capabilities as being [I]additive[I] to what we need for warfighting. To make things more complex, ask someone what he needs to buy to wage IW, and you get a shrug. It just does not drive big ticket industrial programs.
I think your Boss is correct and the question "What do you need to buy for IW?" is not a smart question at all -- because the answer is 'no hardware of note, simply better training,' which the Army can do without Congressional tinkering (well, sorta...). The downside is that training is expensive and it does not put jobs in multiple districts like the big ticket items do but that's not an insoluble problem. The Army can get pretty much what it wants and needs IF it gets its act together, speaks with one voice and gets realistic about its needs. FCS anyone? Lotta money there. ARH? Whoops...
So, I stand on my original point: We must rebalance the mission and the capabilities between RC and AC, and the RC must be weighted toward warfighting and not required for every little deployment the AC does...
I can agree with that.
...while the AC must be weighted to contend with the day to day missions of a peacetime force (the new messy peace of today and the projected future), while sustaining the ability to respond quickly and decisively to wage traditional combat as well.
That seems like an adjustment from your initial statement Regardless as you now State it, I can agree.

The AC must be a small well trained full spectrum force which can execute most probable missions world wide and requiring a large strategic reserve for a major war.
Throughout GWOT the services called every item they wanted "GWOT" to get it funded; Today they are calling everything "IW" for the same purposes.
Nothing new in that, in the 50s the catchword was "Nuclear." In the 60s it was "Counterinsurgency." in the 70s it was "MCO." Who was it that said there is nothing new under the sun?
They treat it like it was a big game and competition between the services to see who can get their pet rocks funded. This isn't a game, and it would be nice to see "self-less Services" who are a little more focused on the big picture. F-22's are no more IW then SSGNs were GWOT, yet both the Air Force and the Navy made those arguments with a straight face. This is the ugly underbelly of Defense.
Again, there's nothing new; revolt of the Admirals, uncertain trumpets and all that -- and it's not really all that ugly though it is not at all smart. It is however, reality.

I'd also posit that the F-22 and the SSGN are sensible and valuable acquisitions regardless of any posturing. I think you're criticizing a symptom and not the problem -- which is Congress...

Been watching it for 50 plus years; it's amazing that things work as well as they do. I put it down to good people, doing what they can to keep it together. Heck of a way to run a Country -- but it's better than any alternative I've seen.