Quote Originally Posted by Ratzel View Post
I suppose we can train for both, but this might make us halfway trained for both instead of highly trained for one? Procurement is even more cut and dry. Do we buy the next generation of tanks, or do we use that money in ways that enhances our nation building capabilities?

Again, this will depend on what our interests and geopolitical needs are? Some claim that our safety will depend on our ability to nation build, or "shrink the Gap." Others claim that the China's looking big and bad, or that Russia's' on the rise.

Is it possible to have a force that can do it all? Is there a way to train the force that makes them just as good at both? For instance: Could a unit going through NTC spend half its time doing COIN, and half its time doing HIC? Maybe they can do HIC at NTC and COIN at home station?
Ratzel, if you are using your armed forces as your primary tool of "statesmanship", you are using the wrong tool. Nation Building and "shrinking the Gap" is a primary mission of State, not defense. Of course I have long felt that we need to look at the "Foreign Policy" budget to include defense spending and allocate from there based on current and projected needs, but that is a different argument. How we structure the equipment and train to use the equipment we buy affects our COIN abilities more then the actual equipment. See Wilf's posts for more on that. Do we need UAV's, Yep. DO we need them at the BCT level, or should they belong only to the AF or Army? That is less clear. Another fallacious argument seems to based the thought that brigades have to be either "heavy" or "Light" or "Stryker". Why can't infantry units have organic armor support? Why does mech infantry have to be organized to be manpower short and receive less training on how to work minus the Bradley’s? See where I am going here? The DOD and the public and even, from time to time, members of this board, try to compartmentalize everything into black and white terms. The truth is that the world is grey. Train better, organize better, from the get go and this argument returns to the smoke and vapor it came from
Reed