When last was a 'crunch time'?Originally Posted by Ken White
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.
Last edited by JMA; 04-18-2012 at 07:21 AM.
I can't remember their stated goal, maybe 2020??Uh, okay. How long will that be after we did that?
Seem like we have some time and don't need to go into the China panic mode...
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.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:
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."
Last edited by Ray; 04-18-2012 at 08:15 AM.
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.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
Yes there were a few thousand of them relocated to other islands by the Brits to make room for the yanks in 1968.
How many of the original population are left (after 45 years)?
45 years ago thoughts of compensation were probably not even considered.
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.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
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!
Last edited by Ray; 04-18-2012 at 05:13 PM.
Bob,
It is not my article that I gave a link to. I am not Murdoch as yet!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!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!
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!
Last edited by Ray; 04-18-2012 at 05:16 PM.
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!
Last edited by Ray; 04-18-2012 at 05:08 PM.
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.
Last edited by Ray; 04-18-2012 at 05:24 PM.
The obvious always bear stating, I guess...
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.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.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...) may certainly do so.
Even if you are most likely wrong...
Last edited by Ken White; 04-18-2012 at 10:24 PM.
Nope. You got that 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...
Around the spring of '43. We're slow starters...
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: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."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...
Good for them if they do it...
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.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.
"We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene
I did because it is ... now.
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.
"We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene
What I'm not sure of is what you're asking...
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...
Last edited by Ken White; 04-18-2012 at 10:27 PM.
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