Strykers Part II

[Londoner]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The Capt - first on China and the like, wars between first rates result from either miscalculation, or reckless gambling behavior on the part of one national leadership. It is the former that is worrisome with China. The contingency is (1) declining US deterrence credibility through war weariness (2) political decisions parties and signaling that is emphatically against any additional foreign military entanglements (3) increasing Chinese confidence about getting away with support to anti-US proxies (4) sufficient numbers of other threats on the board that are not being handled to make it look unlikely that an even bigger one would be (5) a Chinese decision that the time is ripe to grab Taiwan once and for all.

I submit this is not a terribly remote contingency, and in fact is dead center of Chinese military planning, present overall strategy, etc. No they would not be looking for trade war - though they are notably building capabilities to handle one. But they might readily believe the US will stay out and let them get away with it. They might also be entirely correct about that. But it is a series ripe for a war of miscalculation (and over credibility fears) like Korea. And if they do get away with it, sequels involving China get far more likely, too.

Your ilk has been peddling this tired argument for decades. Obviously China has an interest in its own sphere of influence, what country doesn't. Even if she decided on "reclaiming" Taiwan, to suggest that emboldened, she'd embark on a grandiose new wave of Imperialism and/or brinkmanship in the nuclear age is at best ambiguous.

The idea that China wants, or is seriously gearing up for a trade war with the West, with the strides she's made towards internationalism (not to mention the reulting benefits) over the last thirty years is plain silly.

Second, on the claim that we don't need extra heavy to deal now, I am told in the same thread that we cannot possible attack Iran because we can't do it. But in fact, 2 armored corps could take Iran in less than a month with minimal losses. 2 extra active heavies would make that a plannable contingency.

You're living in a political vacuum. Heck why not just nuke 'em? No seriously, using your train of thought is this not a viable idea? No Iranian nuclear threat, no expensive deployment/war funded by the US taxpayer, no even more costly occupation, no more troubles in Iraq. You might even be able to argue that civilian deaths wouldn't be any more than a conventional invasion and five-ten year occupation!

I guess your only real problem would be getting your mitts on all that oil and natural gas in a nuclear environment.

On the other hand lets not forget that would take away your AARs and "lessons learnt" for building the next gen of weapons platforms, not to mention the fun factor of you watching all those brave lads in that heavy armour thundering across desert landscapes past burning Iranian armour with a thumbs up.

Oh, guess I've answered my own question. :mad:

It would also dramatically increase deterrence strength for both Iran and the other threats. Right now the threat states believe, rightly or wrongly, that the US is militarily incapable of handling another major conflict. Yes political cost is at the core of that, but force size and composition is also a factor.

Rightly or wrongly? All this as a show of strength? A flexing of muscle? To whom exactly would this make make a jot of difference to? As the Capt affirms, non-state actors are, and will increasingly be the West's foes, you're a dinosaur.

Next as to what you would do after toppling the Iranian government, sure you could do years of security ops as in Iraq. But I submit you do not have to, and that our actions in Iraq include a mass of unforced errors that need not be duplicated. Yes there would be an insurgency in Iran if we invaded it too, no it is not obvious the net enemy faced would be significantly more capable

With a predominately anti Western population which is more than three times the size of Iraqs (in excess of seventy million), I submit you have no idea how significant a factor an insurgency would be. Such a casual dismissal is naive in the extreme.

and it is obvious the Iranian nuclear threat and the whole time on the enemy's side issue, would be gone. Frankly the reason why Iraq is dangerous is that it is preventing seriously addressing Iranian nukes, because in itself it is a diversionary proxy fight (by multiple layers of "hands")......The distinction turns on whether you see counter insurgency as an offensive mission with relatively unrestricted ROEs, or as a hamstrung security matter. I regard the latter approach to protracted war as a mistake. It conceeds the initiative, unnecessarily.

In concrete terms, I mean you first pick (on political grounds, aiming at a viable end-state - not moralizing) a set of enemies to make miserable, and then you break everything they own.

Name me one example where this ridiculous, ham fisted approach has worked. When will people like you realise occupation/security/counter insurgency cannot be solved by quick fixes, especially ones which involve smashing lots of stuff. If we'd adopted that strategy in N.I. circa 1969 I shudder to think what sort of monster we would've created - my guess is a hate filled wasteland with a great line in young terrorist production.

We have been running Iraq as a security op aimed at national reconciliation through balancing.........it just leads parties to jockey for advantage in the real fight they expect to occur, after we get tired of it all and leave. From their perspective, we refused to pick a winner and left them to have the real war to decide who rules Iraq, after we leave.

About the only sensible thing you've said. Why is this do you think? It's because they know the US hasn't got the stomach for a ten, twenty, thirty year operation, that's why.

I'm convinced you're "Bushes Brain", or more likely the son of.

[ August 15, 2007, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: Londoner ]

[JasonC]

Londoner - so obviously you just don't know anything about how the world really works, etc. We've established that. Now to your particulars.

On China not prepping for trade war, she is, not because they want one but because they fear one might result from a collision over Taiwan, and do not like being constrained in their military freedom of action over Taiwan by it. Examples of doing so include planning a blue water navy to protect oil routes, seeking alliances and bases from Sudan to Burma, autarchy drives in energy investment, stockpiling strategic raw materials etc. None of which means China intends to go nuts tomorrow, just that they are expanding their options along with their income.

As for how ambitious China will get, it will take 50 years to find out, but a decline in the US roles in the world and retreat from active engagement abroad, combined with a 2 fold revaluation of the Yuan and ongoing econ growth, put very few limits on it. If by then China is fully liberalized democratic and "nice", great, whole world better off and a key US policy objective for over 100 years and counting, realized. But that is by no means fated, and great power transitions tend to be accompanied by consider international turmoil, on all past evidence. Oh and as for trade preventing all possible wars, that theory worked really well in 1914, didn't it?

As for dealing with Iran, may I hold you personally responsible for all the carnage Iran causes over the next generation, since men like you have prevented doing anything about it when it would have been easy? I don't want to hear any "we couldn't possibly know" or any "never again"s, and no points for intentions etc. Since your theory is that if only them dang cowboys would simmer down, everything would be fine, and since you will soon get your wish (and frankly, have already over Iran for 3 years, since the US has deferred to an utterly failed EU policy of appeasement in the matter), it is all yours, every rotting corpse.

As for only non-state actors, great powers and political parties are using proxies, and among those are entire states, without which the non states are pipsqueaks none of us would have to worry about. AQ isn't going to get nukes but Iran is, thanks to you and the EU folk who think as you do. We shall see whether they stay there. Personally I think your naive pacifism is a direct ticket to a mideast nuclear exchange.

As for the oil canard, sure that is why the price is double what it was a few years ago, and four times what it was ten years ago. How people can believe this tripe...

As for confusing security ops - which is what UK ran in NI - with counterinsurgency, that is precisely the distinction that is failing politically in Iraq, pretty much. Just police 'em and hope everyone makes nice is what we did for basically 3 of the last four years. They aren't making nice, natch.

It never ceases to amaze, I mean everyone knows that pols with positions barely distinguishable except for personalities in the west, will scratch tooth and nail as though it is the end of the world if they lose a smidgen of political power for about 2 years, and then they turn around and expect the Sunni dead enders who have lost everything and POed everyone with reckless murder campaigns, will just decide to be happy and get along if only in the next police car driven through town, the officer waves and smiles. They aren't going to reconcile. They lose, or the war burns.

As for places and times it was done right, Brits in Malaysia comes to mind, or on the NW frontier, or ruling the mideast in their imperial era. The notion that counter insurgency is militarily doomed (or even hard) is bilgewater and always has been.

It operates on weak political systems and depends on poorly chosen, naive, unpopular political end states aimed at by the targets of an insurgency. Without those own goals, it fails politically. It (virtually) always fails militarily in the short run, taxing only attrition endurance and political will, not military strength. (The virtually is for military own goal cases of epic stupidity, like the French in Nam - and even there the political end state error was the main driver).

Applied to Iran, I know tolerably well what the scale of the insurgency would be. You say an anti-western population; it isn't true. What there is, instead, is an anti-western and anti-modernist minority, approximately a fifth of the population. To first order, the Revolutionary Guard. They'd fight, and they'd fight by guerilla and irregular means after the conventional fight failed.

So pick those who want them to lose as the winners, including exiles and internal libs and also internal displaced leaders like Montazeri, and pick the RG group as the faction that loses, and no balancing. Means used - not a 5 year occupation but SF, arming populace, subsidies, agents, return of exiles currently in US, all of them with the USAF at their beck and call. Spend one year breaking all the RG toys and any of them that want to come out, active CI not security. Dismantle the nuke program in the same period.

Worst that happens is the RG tries to take the place back in a civil war, in which the USAF intervenes with impunity whenever they get large. Doesn't result in any nukes. Does result in no sanctuary, and reduced threat to all of Iran's clients around the region.

"But that is horrible". OK, compared to what? "Compared to Bambi munching grass peacefully by the riverside, as the daisies sway in the breeze, and we all sing tra la la, and the sun beams down in a nice warming way..." Well yeah, but sorry that isn't on offer. On offer is the Spiegel interview guy with nuclear weapons within 5 years. With, if you like, a thoroughly pacifist west exercising Interpol due diligence to occasionally catch the odd Tube bomber.

That doesn't end well - but you now own it.

[Sgt Joch]

Originally posted by M1A1TankCommander:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sgt.Joch:

I don't understand why these threads always become a Stryker vs. Armour thread.

Strykers and the Stryker Brigades were never designed as replacements for Armoured units, they are light mobile units which span the gap between light air mobile infantry and heavy armour division.

Strykers and Armour would both have a role to play in a conventional war.

Well, I dont agree with your opinion. As soon as I found out that Strykers were coming, I started reading in Army Times and various other official publications that Armor was going away, decreasing in size. For example, my own Armor unit was disbanded and we became ADA, and later MPs.

When you bring in vehicle like Stryker, other combat vehicle specialties like M1A1 Abrams crew member suffer </font>

[JasonC]

Joch - the army planners who know how to wage war do not want to eliminate heavy. But plenty of other people do - outside the army, lights within it, deployers in the other branches calculating logistics, contractors with replacement system money bags in their eyes, important friends of entrenched congressmen, etc.

That is why if you read the thread and its predecessor instead of an old press release, you will find men first saying "it just supplements heavy, we never meant to replace heavy" when talking to heavy advocates or replying to their criticisms, and then a few pages later they will creep to saying "tanks are dinosaurs", "we will never have to fight another major conventional war", etc.

All of it meant to insinuate that the stryker medium force loadout will end up as the top of a weight and armor chain, with heliborne lights and marines at or below that level, and everything meant to shoot, in the air. The funding rationale is "cut the shipping to move heavy stuff, and the heavy stuff, and fund all my stuff instead". The doctrine rationale is "maneuver razzle dazzle forever, huzzah". The careerist rationale is "men with jump wings get all the top jobs, clear out that heavy army brass overhang between me and the stars and CNN".

It isn't any way to plan a military. But it happens...

[Bradley Dick]

Shinseki was a douchebag.

[Blackhorse]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Joch - the army planners who know how to wage war do not want to eliminate heavy. But plenty of other people do - outside the army, lights within it...

Interesting, but too sweeping a generalization upon which to effectively comment.

Originally posted by JasonC:

That is why if you read the thread and its predecessor instead of an old press release, you will find men first saying "it just supplements heavy, we never meant to replace heavy" when talking to heavy advocates or replying to their criticisms, and then a few pages later they will creep to saying "tanks are dinosaurs", "we will never have to fight another major conventional war", etc.

I can't seem to find that line of argument.

Originally posted by JasonC:

All of it meant to insinuate that the stryker medium force loadout will end up as the top of a weight and armor chain, with heliborne lights and marines at or below that level, and everything meant to shoot, in the air. The funding rationale is "cut the shipping to move heavy stuff, and the heavy stuff, and fund all my stuff instead". The doctrine rationale is "maneuver razzle dazzle forever, huzzah". The careerist rationale is "men with jump wings get all the top jobs, clear out that heavy army brass overhang between me and the stars and CNN".

This is chock full of sweeping generalizations. Jason has conveniently avoided the Army's BCT endstate with this argument.

Here, once again, is the Army's BCT endstate:

Heavy BCTs (Bradley/Abrams): 20 Active/ 10 Reserve Component

Squads: 36x9-man INF

58 M1 Tanks

90 M2 / 29 M3 Bradleys

16 M109A6 155mm SP Howitzer

36 Javelin

14x120mm Mortar Carrier

Infantry BCTs (Light): 8 Active/23 Reserve Component

Squads: 54x9-man INF / 18x9-man WPN

16 M119 105mm Towed Howitzer

76 Javelin

28 TOW and HMMWV

Mortars:

12x120mm / 8x81mm / 14x60mm

Airborne BCT: 10 Active

Squads: 54x9-man INF / 18x9-man WPN

16 M119 105mm Towed Howitzer

76 Javelin

28 TOW and HMMWV

Mortars:

12x120mm / 8x81mm / 14x60mm

STRYKER BCT: 6 Active/ 1 Reserve Component

81x11-man Inf Sqds / 27x7-man WPN Sqds

307 Strykers, including:

127 Infantry Carrier Vehicles

51 Recon Vehicles

27 Mobile Gun Systems

13 Fire Support Vehicles

9 Engineer Support Vehicles

9 ATGM Strykers

18 M777 155mm Howitzers

121 Javelin

Mortars:

36x120mm/12x81mm/18x60mm

Note: These BCT numbers do not include any of the 17 Aviation Brigades or 56 Support Brigades.

Thus STRYKER BCTS comprise roughly 9% of the Army's total BCT strength. Everyone can draw their own conclusions from that.

[ August 15, 2007, 04:13 PM: Message edited by: Blackhorse ]

[PSY]

Originally posted by Bradley Dick:

Shinseki was a douchebag.

Can you expand on that Bradley?

[JasonC]

Blackhorse - because, as usual, you are flaking for a spending line item and not reading the thread or talking to the people in front of you.

See above before my first comment in this renewal thread. You will find the tanks are obsolete argument from BTS. New ATGMs will make them pointless, you see.

See also the document cited above saying that the M-1 will be phased out in favor of a 20 ton replacement - sometime. A claim repudiated by the man who posted it, but there in 1999.

Go back to the first thread and you will find the tanks are obsolete argument there as well, coupled with maneuverism ra ra.

You yourself not making an argument doesn't mean no one is. You could readily point out to these people that they are wrong and their claims or advice stupid, as a matter not of the current state of planning but of advocacy and military sense.

But you don't. Instead you pretend they do not exist or are not saying what they are saying. Why? Because you are flaking for a line item, not reading a thread or talking to the people in front of you; ergo you only "fire" in one direction. It is flattering, but it is more revealing than flattering.

[JasonC]

"CM:SF shows that no matter what you have for armor, the bad guys can field something that will take it out. We're in a new era of anti-armor warfare and it is making even the heaviest AFVs look like big, expensive coffins."

Can you find the argument that tanks are obsolete now?

This sim is intended as an ad for Strykers, and the designer thinks it will show that the heaviest AFVs are big expensive coffins. In fact it does no such thing - even with dumbed down enemies, the M-1s rock and heavy does better than medium, in the sim as in reality. Credit to BTS for being real enough that still shows through. But the attempt to claim that heavy is technologically obsolete, combined with the attempt to claim that Strkyers are their super cool modern replacement, is the editorial content of the official party line.

If it is nonsense, Blackhorse, are you prepared to tell that not to me, but to BTS?

[Blackhorse]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Blackhorse - because, as usual, you are flaking for a spending line item and not reading the thread or talking to the people in front of you.

See above before my first comment in this renewal thread. You will find the tanks are obsolete argument from BTS. New ATGMs will make them pointless, you see.

See also the document cited above saying that the M-1 will be phased out in favor of a 20 ton replacement - sometime. A claim repudiated by the man who posted it, but there in 1999.

Go back to the first thread and you will find the tanks are obsolete argument there as well, coupled with maneuverism ra ra.

You yourself not making an argument doesn't mean no one is. You could readily point out to these people that they are wrong and their claims or advice stupid, as a matter not of the current state of planning but of advocacy and military sense.

But you don't. Instead you pretend they do not exist or are not saying what they are saying. Why? Because you are flaking for a line item, not reading a thread or talking to the people in front of you; ergo you only "fire" in one direction. It is flattering, but it is more revealing than flattering.

Yeah ok...

Anyway, your first point was, in fact,interesting. It would have been worth commenting on if you had been more specific and had not lumped every single light infantryman into the argument.

[ August 15, 2007, 04:30 PM: Message edited by: Blackhorse ]

[James Bailey]

Originally posted by Blackhorse:

STRYKER BCT: 6 Active/ 1 Reserve Component

81x11-man Inf Sqds / 27x7-man WPN Sqds

307 Strykers, including:

127 Infantry Carrier Vehicles

51 Recon Vehicles

27 Mobile Gun Systems

13 Fire Support Vehicles

9 Engineer Support Vehicles

9 ATGM Strykers

18 M777 155mm Howitzers

121 Javelin

Mortars:

36x120mm/12x81mm/18x60mm

[/QB]

Good post Chris and nice summary of the BCT TO&Es - I enjoyed reading these. I can see why the SBCTs in Iraq is in such demand. That is a lot of rolling thunder.

Do you have any info on the logistical requirements of a deployed SBCT? How does it compare to a HBCT and IBCT?

[M1A1TC]

"In October 1999 Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki annunced that the Army will develop two technology-enhanced, fast-deployable and lethal brigades at Fort Lewis WA using knowledge gained by Force XXI experiments and off-the-shelf technology available from the private sector. Additionally, heavy tracked vehicles like armored personnel carriers and tanks would be replaced out by lighter, faster, more fuel-efficient wheeled vehicles"

This says it all.

[JonS]

Originally posted by M1A1TankCommander:

This says it all.

No, this says it all:

HBCT: 30 (38%)

IBCT: 31 (40%)

A/B BCT: 10 (13%)

SBCT: 7 (9%)

[Londoner]

My my Mr C, I've never "seen" you so animated, how novel!

Originally posted by JasonC:

Londoner - so obviously you just don't know anything about how the world really works, etc. We've established that. Now to your particulars.

That's amazingly insightful of your sir. Your liberal application of bastardised Clausewitzian Realpolitik doesn't exactly fill me with confidence either.

On China not prepping for trade war, she is, not because they want one but because they fear one might result from a collision over Taiwan, and do not like being constrained in their military freedom of action over Taiwan by it. Examples of doing so include planning a blue water navy to protect oil routes, seeking alliances and bases from Sudan to Burma, autarchy drives in energy investment, stockpiling strategic raw materials etc. None of which means China intends to go nuts tomorrow, just that they are expanding their options along with their income.

Oh so now we're not suggesting such a venture is central to Chinese foreign policy or in your rather garbled words - "not a terribly remote contingency", it's merely an "option". IIRC the US in the not too distant past made contingency plans for every concievable war, even one with the U.K.!

As for how ambitious China will get, it will take 50 years to find out, but a decline in the US roles in the world and retreat from active engagement abroad, combined with a 2 fold revaluation of the Yuan and ongoing econ growth, put very few limits on it. If by then China is fully liberalized democratic and "nice", great, whole world better off and a key US policy objective for over 100 years and counting, realized.

And there is real (if admittedly slow) progress is there not? So shock horror, the red menace isn't such an imminent threat as you first suggested?

But that is by no means fated, and great power transitions tend to be accompanied by consider international turmoil, on all past evidence. Oh and as for trade preventing all possible wars, that theory worked really well in 1914, didn't it?

Fairly useless reference. You can't compare global trade in 1914 to the ever increasing interdependence we see today.

As for dealing with Iran, may I hold you personally responsible for all the carnage Iran causes over the next generation, since men like you have prevented doing anything about it when it would have been easy? I don't want to hear any "we couldn't possibly know" or any "never again"s, and no points for intentions etc. Since your theory is that if only them dang cowboys would simmer down, everything would be fine, and since you will soon get your wish (and frankly, have already over Iran for 3 years, since the US has deferred to an utterly failed EU policy of appeasement in the matter), it is all yours, every rotting corpse.

As for only non-state actors, great powers and political parties are using proxies, and among those are entire states, without which the non states are pipsqueaks none of us would have to worry about. AQ isn't going to get nukes but Iran is, thanks to you and the EU folk who think as you do. We shall see whether they stay there. Personally I think your naive pacifism is a direct ticket to a mideast nuclear exchange.

I certainly wouldn't label myself a pacifist however in contrast to your good self I heartily understand why you'd make such utterances. Of course Iran's nuclear capability is an increasingly worrying issue, arguing that the only way of dealing with it is a prompt invasion and occupation is frankly thick headed.

As for the oil canard, sure that is why the price is double what it was a few years ago, and four times what it was ten years ago.

Which wasn't the US intention now was it! The Bush administration obviously did not intend or forsee a medium term destabilisation of the region. I imagine they thought they'd be saying job done by the summer/fall of 2007, handing over the keys to an effective Iraqi government.

As for confusing security ops - which is what UK ran in NI - with counterinsurgency, that is precisely the distinction that is failing politically in Iraq, pretty much. Just police 'em and hope everyone makes nice is what we did for basically 3 of the last four years. They aren't making nice, natch.

It never ceases to amaze, I mean everyone knows that pols with positions barely distinguishable except for personalities in the west, will scratch tooth and nail as though it is the end of the world if they lose a smidgen of political power for about 2 years, and then they turn around and expect the Sunni dead enders who have lost everything and POed everyone with reckless murder campaigns, will just decide to be happy and get along if only in the next police car driven through town, the officer waves and smiles. They aren't going to reconcile. They lose, or the war burns.

I heartily agree. Aside from the fact that there were particularly bitter periods in the Irish troubles that most commentators would refer to as a counter insurgency (with not dissimilar issues that we're seeing in Iraq today, ableit on a much smaller scale), waving, giving kids sweets and donning berets will not solve current problems. At the risk of sounding like an arrogant Westerner, in my humble opinion I don't think the Middle East is ready for democracy. Secular government simply will not work IMHO, even in 2007. Christ, only 10-15 percent of western literature has been translated into Arabic! The cult of the strongman still holds sway, even in moderate circles. The niave idea that we can go in, kick ass, chew bubble gum and give Muslims the gift of democracy is utterly stupid and not a little bit arrogant.

It operates on weak political systems and depends on poorly chosen, naive, unpopular political end states aimed at by the targets of an insurgency. Without those own goals, it fails politically. It (virtually) always fails militarily in the short run, taxing only attrition endurance and political will, not military strength.

Here lies the rub. This is why all the might in the world will never work against a determined, motivated counter insurgency that has at least a modicum of popular support. Can you not take off those blinkers and see this? Long term change is never going to be decided by how many damned M1s you deploy!

Applied to Iran, I know tolerably well what the scale of the insurgency would be. You say an anti-western population; it isn't true. What there is, instead, is an anti-western and anti-modernist minority, approximately a fifth of the population. To first order, the Revolutionary Guard. They'd fight, and they'd fight by guerilla and irregular means after the conventional fight failed.

This is what your lot said about Iraq, that fragmented, wretched place now stands on the cusp of civil war.

So pick those who want them to lose as the winners, including exiles and internal libs and also internal displaced leaders like Montazeri, and pick the RG group as the faction that loses, and no balancing. Means used - not a 5 year occupation but SF, arming populace, subsidies, agents, return of exiles currently in US, all of them with the USAF at their beck and call. Spend one year breaking all the RG toys and any of them that want to come out, active CI not security. Dismantle the nuke program in the same period.

Erm, exiles, arming the populace (how many AK47s did you recently declare as "lost" btw?), subsidies, agents, USAF at their beck n call, all this doesn't sound too different from strategies used in Iraq. After four years the numbers of effective Iraqi combat units is what 2-3 Battalions no?

Worst that happens is the RG tries to take the place back in a civil war, in which the USAF intervenes with impunity whenever they get large. Doesn't result in any nukes. Does result in no sanctuary, and reduced threat to all of Iran's clients around the region.

So neat and tidy. You've got it all figured out.

"But that is horrible". OK, compared to what? "Compared to Bambi munching grass peacefully by the riverside, as the daisies sway in the breeze, and we all sing tra la la, and the sun beams down in a nice warming way..." Well yeah, but sorry that isn't on offer. On offer is the Spiegel interview guy with nuclear weapons within 5 years. With, if you like, a thoroughly pacifist west exercising Interpol due diligence to occasionally catch the odd Tube bomber.

That doesn't end well - but you now own it.

Haha and I suppose your offering is going to return Bambi to her grass munching fields, or at the very least offer her a resettlement program. After we blast and occupy Iran (and whoever comes into your scopes next), apart from a couple of loose ends the "War on Terror", state sponsored or otherwise, is all over.

I'll take my chances and hold fire for the moment thanks JC.

[JasonC]

Err, JonS, the Stryker brigades are individually twice the size of the others (count the vehicles), so it is more like a fifth of the force. And the comments M1A1 highlights, along with those I quoted earlier in the thread, demonstrate the existence of a party that does not want to stop there, but to go further and eventually get rid of the heavy category completely. You can argue this is a bad thing. You can argue the stated army plan is sound, and does not include this. But you cannot deny it is being advocated by some Stryker supporters, without palpable falsehood.

Blackhorse - if you directed your comments toward those making claims you say are wrong, your credibility would increase. Since instead you direct your comments against anyone saying anything that might be construed as critical of the Stryker program, whether you claim to agree with what they are saying on this or that point or not, and refrain from the slightest criticism of those who praise the Stryker program, even when they are directly maintaining propositions you say are false - you lack such credibility, and appear to be just spinning.

[JasonC]

Londoner - well you will get all your wishes, and we will see all the consequences, which you will own.

I think the chance is about 50% that China grabs Taiwan within the next ten years. I also think the chance is at least 80% that we do nothing, if they do - which is why it is so likely.

Taiwan would voluntarily reunite with China if China were a democracy. The actual issue at stake over Taiwan is not Taiwan, but whether China democratizes and civilizes as it strengthens, or instead seeks to maintain an authoritarian government that freely uses force against enemies foreign and domestic. It kinda matters for the next two generations or so, which they choose.

Before WW I, men said exactly the same thing about the unthinkability of war between such intertwined trading partners. It wasn't true then either. It would be fair to say it would be bad, but the inference from "bad" to "can't happen" can be left to the HappyThought people who just know nobody would ever give atom bombs to Joe Stalin, etc. In other words, every outbreak of HappyThought of that variety in the last century has killed several million people.

As for Iran, I notice you call it worrying but offer absolutely nothing on the subject.

As for my solution for Iran being just like Iraq, no, my solution for Iran does not include the US army driving around it for 4 years trying to provide even handed security for mass murderers and their victims, alike.

As for teetering on the edge of civil war, the whole point is to push either one bodily over the edge and into the chasm, with a rocket strapped on back. It is called picking a bloody winner and getting on with it. Wars are not prevented by HappyThought, they are won and they are lost.

No, we don't have to be there to stop it, if we aren't trying to stop it. No, we don't have to be there to fight it - the wonderful thing about the "civil" in "civil war" is two sides show up voluntarily. And we can hurt one of them like hell, whenever we find it expedient to do so.

If that still isn't obvious enough, neither place is conspicuous for its political unity. Well, run with it...

[JonS]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Err, JonS, the Stryker brigades are individually twice the size of the others (count the vehicles), so it is more like a fifth of the force.

Which is still half the size of the objective heavy force.

And the comments M1A1 highlights, along with those I quoted earlier in the thread, demonstrate the existence of a party that does not want to stop there, but to go further and eventually get rid of the heavy category completely. You can argue this is a bad thing. You can argue the stated army plan is sound, and does not include this. But you cannot deny it is being advocated by some Stryker supporters, without palpable falsehood.

Uh ... so what? There are people who say there are German tanks on Mars, others that say the 9/11 was a US Govt conspiracy, and yet others that say Al Qaeda is a threat to the US.

People can say whatever they want.

[M1A1TC]

Regardless of statistical numbers, my Armor battalion was disbanded and changed over. Thats all the proof I need that heavy armor numbers are decreasing

http://www.bright.net/~gkoby/index.htm

[JonS]

Originally posted by M1A1TankCommander:

Regardless of statistical numbers, my Armor battalion was disbanded and changed over. Thats all the proof I need that heavy armor numbers are decreasing

Boo hoo.

Overall Army numbers decreased markedly during the 90's. Same thing happened to the Navy, same thing happened to the Air Force. Have a wake if you wish but, regardless of your bn getting the axe, heavy forces are still slated to make up 40% of the US Army.

[JasonC]

JonS - well yes, but this site is run by the people who developed the game we play that has us here talking to each other, and they are your martian conspirators, by analogy. Which someone might perhaps notice...

[M1A1TC]

Damn man, you have no compassion

[Michael Dorosh]

Democracy is inevitable, for China or anyone else. The Commies couldn't keep up their doddering old system of lies and mutual misery, and eventually China's hard-liners will go the way of Brezhnev and Stalin, too. I mean, they have to. I certainly don't want to see any of my friends "over there" fighting a billion Chinese over the right to make toxic kiddie toys and import chopsticks.

[pamak1970]

Since there were political comments,i will respond and if moderators feel they should lock this thread ,so be it.....

I don't want to hear any "we couldn't possibly know" or any "never again"s, and no points for intentions etc. Since your theory is that if only them dang cowboys would simmer down, everything would be fine, and since you will soon get your wish (and frankly, have already over Iran for 3 years, since the US has deferred to an utterly failed EU policy of appeasement in the matter), it is all yours, every rotting corpse.

That is actually something you can say about Iraq.

With thousands of rotting corpses of innoccent civilians so far and no prediction for ending of violence for the near future.

As to Iran threat, i do not agree with all this rhetoric.

Iran is much more afraid of US policies and should be.

It was a US interfierence ,undermining a democratic gopvernment and establishing the Shah dictatorship during the coldwar, it was US government that helped Saddam attacking Iran,it was the US aggression against Iraq that makes Iran even more insecure,

it is the US policy of letting other countries in the region having nuclear weapons like Pakistan and Israel ,and it is the US policy of letting Israel bomb the **** out of Lebanon, delaying an immediate ceasefire, cause it refused an exchange of the abducted Israel soldiers with Arab prisoners.

By the way, Israel itself did not have problem to take the initiative and release hundreds of Arab prisoners trying to support Abbass during the inner-Palestinian confrontation .

As Martin van creveld (who is Israelian) has said, Iranians would be crazy if they were not developing deterance through WMD.

At the same time,Iran would be crazy if they were surrendering operational control of a strategic asset like a WMD to any terrorist organization risking massive retaliation .

The possibility and likehood of thousands of innocent victims by such an Iranian action ,is certainly less likely than other types of dangers which are ignored completely.

At the top of the list is a new campaign and start of a new war lasting for many years

If someone wants Iran without WMD ,then he must address the problem seeing the big picture working towards a nuclear free region.

Unfortunately that is not so easy, since Pakistan for example will point India, India will point China ,China will point Russia and so on.

This is actually the spirit of NPT.

It does not mention only the responsibility of states members to restrict themselves from aquiring nuclear weapons.

It also mentions the responsibility of states that already posses nuclear weapons to get involved in procedures for ultimately eliminating them.

P.S i forgot to mention of course the US support for providing the Shah regime in Iran with nuclear technology .

See for example

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3983-2005Mar26.html

google for details and verification of the context.....

[ August 15, 2007, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[JonS]

Originally posted by M1A1TankCommander:

Damn man, you have no compassion

Oh, I do at the micro level. My unit got the shaft in the 90's, going from Fd Arty, to VLLAD (Mistral), to infantry. It sucks.

At the macro level my point is that not much has changed - heavy is still a major part of the US Army, and the SBCTs are not a threat to that.

[JonS]

Originally posted by JasonC:

JonS - well yes, but this site is run by the people who developed the game we play that has us here talking to each other, and they are your martian conspirators, by analogy. Which someone might perhaps notice...

Perhaps. But they aren't setting policy.