They want to protect our "oversea interests". Those jobs they ship to oversea.

I am with you on this one, our overseas bases have served their useful life's and are now expendable. We have troops in too many countries. Let's bring those troops home and the money required to maintain those bases home. There are many small communities, and former bases, that we could bring these troops home to.

No US based Posts, Air Bases, Camps, or Naval bases should be closed!

Agreed. We have far to many interests in overseas areas. And it's high time that europe and the other countries stand on their own. We've been paying other countries to keep bases overseas for no other reason but ot have a toe hold in those areas.

For years, the "Security Analysts", have been saying if we pull out of South Korea, that the North Korea, backed with China, will invade South Korea. Bull@!$%#.

For years, we have held marine reserves in Japan, in fear that if we didn't have troops nearby to help Taiwain, in case the China decided to push military might against it. Bull@!$%#.

For years we kept forces overseas in europe in fear of the "Red Menace". Bull@!$%#.

And now our "Security Analysts", have stated that NOW we have to keep forces in Turkey and nearby middle eastern countries and North Africa, in case of...a rise of muslim extremist countries for fear they'll demolish Israel. Bull@!$%#.

The only people that need to be fired right now is the "Civilian Security Analysts." We're paying these so called anaylists millions of dollars, perhaps even billions of dollars for what? To keep them in a job, while they wave a red herring stating that if we didn't use our military forces to help SUPPORT the free world, that the free world would crumble...

...Bull@!$%#.

We're spending billions of dollars on "What If's". We can not deter someone bent on military conquest, until they proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they are a threat. Sadam Husein proved he was a threat when he invaded Kuwait. But before that it was a lot of saber rattling and talk. Did we take down Sadam before he invaded Kuwait? NO! Our military analysts in the year priors, helped steer our Congress and Presidential elect into arming Iraq with our own hardware. That if we put Sadam Husein in power, then we would have an ally in the middle east.

Guess what happened. War. Our analysts set us on the path to war.

And our analysts are going to do it again. This time we should fire our analysts, and just bring those troops home. Those analysts don't have all the facts. And most of their facts are nothing more than guesswork.

the question is... where are we gong to be attacked first?

it isn't on our soil any more.

so you put forward bases where the threats are. we have a lot of them where there is no threat any more, so easily half of them are going away.

we will end up with strategic, refit/training/manufacturing infrastructure, and no pretty photo-op bases stateside one day or another. which day depends on whether we are going to go broke and ask Greece for financial aid first.

you don't want to go there, then you are going to have to acknowledge that we are going to end up losing 1/3 to 1/2 of our domestic bases. that's just plain as day if you count your billions and don't run out.

swsch, that's the whole point. We are not being attacked, other places are and we are saying it's us being attacked. It's really our companies that are being attacked because they're not in the USA anymore. Half the fortune 500 are more outside the US than in it, if they want an army protecting them 'They' should pay for it, not you and me. Enforce that and you'll see 'Made In America' again. That's why we have and need a govt, to protect our domestic business interests, here ! I could g on forever on this, you get the idea.

"Beware the Military Industrial Complex", Dwight D. Eisenhower

The military industrial complex is destroying this country.

When Bush invaded the Middle East he never raised taxes to pay for the war instead he cut taxes and turned a Federal surplus in to a deficit overnight. When King George wanted to tax the American colonies to pay for the French-Indian war it helped launch the American Revolution. Wars are expensive, we have been in the Middle East for ten years and I don’t see the military accomplishing much of anything other than bankrupting the country.

Yet the military industrial complex persists in wanting to develop and fund Billion dollar weapon systems that even the pentagon doesn’t want and that will never be used and maintaining military bases around the world that are not needed.

It's time we STOPPED BEING THE POLICE MAN OF THE WORLD These foreign countries can defend themselves.

The "stupid, imperialistic military" doesn't determine what gets closed. Our elected civilian officials such as Representatives and Senators do. But you can't have it both ways.....if you want to keep state side bases open then you have to pay.

Witchking...the original phrase included "...beware of the political military complex" and was amended to appease political needs. President Bush most certainly backed the Middle East adventures, but remember that the vote was in both houses better than 70%, which represents a plurality that exceeds anything since the vote for declaring war against Japan in 1941. I agree with you...we need to stop being the worldwide law enforcement agency, let's stop funding the UN at 23-25% percent levels, pull back from overseas commitments that are no longer necessary and hot digity-dog let's stop feeding large military contractors that are not sufficiently supervised. But keep in mind, we're able to sit at our keyboards and type all this silly sh*t because someone somewhere is paying a price beyond diamonds that let's us do this. You quoted President Eisenhower...I'll quote George Orwell..."We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." I reiterate...we shouldn't be the policemen of the world, but nothing should stop us from kicking in doors where and when our self-defense is threatened.

OK, deep thinkers, so if they close every overseas base, and trouble breaks out, then what? Put all the men and equipment of commercial flights and boats?

BRAC applied domestically is the way for the Pentagon to get more PUNCH out of their budget, but sadly Congress sees BRAC as only a threat to civilian handouts and a shadow on their re-election chances. Let's close a few bases and save the money, or at least spend it on a bridge that needs fixing.

Why do we need ten U.S. military bases in the U.K. (other than to support their economy)? It's time the U.K. defend themselves instead on relying on the U.S.

People are misunderstanding what overseas bases are for. They've watched too many movies or played too many C&C video games.

Remote bases are for power projection, ground air and surface (naval). Being able to project power into a region allows you to influence and control events in that region. Thus you can defuse wars before they begin, and for the ones that do begin you can limit their damage and contain them. This is part of the new military focus enacted after WWII in hopes of preventing a nuclear WWIII, something that has so far worked. Bush and friends seem to of misunderstood that concept, Iraq should of never happened and Afghanistan should of been much shorter.

Isolationist policy's do not work, that was the lesson both WWI and WWII taught us. Saying "Bring all the troops home", "stay out of other country's business", "don't get involved in other wars", and "close all overseas bases" are all examples of isolationism. Power abhors a vacuum, the moment the USA leaves a region another power will move in. The current list of those powers is rather short, mostly China and Russia (under Putin). What you don't know, because the media has kept it low key, is that both of those countries are accelerating their military growth.

Their military forces aren't capable of putting up a serious challenge to the USA but they don't need to be. Both country's are currently predicting the US population will remove support for overseas operations and this will force the US Military to pull out. Once that happens both China and Russia will use their new military strength to spread their influence over those countries previously protected by the USA.

China specifically is dangerous because not only have they increased their military strength they've also hired Army's of internet posters to spread anti-USA sentiment across the internet. Instead of attack the military head on their attacking the political power base that supports the military and have been doing so for a number of years now.

Pray tell, if we leave Europe, what power will "move in"? If we leave Japan, will China suddenly attack? If we leave South Korea to fend for itself, will the North suddenly swarm across the 38th parallel?

Here's the most important fact: even if they did, it isn't my problem.

Please explain to me the principle upon which you are empowered to take my income by force to provide for the defense of other nations?

Remote bases are for power projection, ground air and surface (naval). Being able to project power into a region allows you to influence and control events in that region.

This is obsolete as our technology changes. These bases had a very important purpose when conventional warfare had meaning, but very soon boots on the ground will be entirely anachronistic.

I do not promote isolationism: closing foreign bases does not equate to isolationism.

Its not our military that is closing the bases. Its our President, cracker head. The military follows his orders.

An addendum to my above comment.

We do need to close some of our overseas bases. Changing world power dynamics have made many of them lose value. Most of the ground bases in Europe can be closed, we no longer really need a point of ground power projection there. East Europe is still a problem, mostly with Russian aggression from Putins desire to restore the former USSR. East Asia is where the next big incident will be, China has been getting more and more aggressive over the past decade. Even going so far as to declare the entire South China Sea as their sovereign territory, a sea lane that is the heaviest traveled in the world and a vital economic connection for every country in that region. The USA disabused them of that nation by planting the USS George Washington and it's accompanying carrier battle group into the middle of the Sea doing "training exercises". Pissed the Chinese off but they stopped threatening the other countries in the region.

OK, deep thinkers, so if they close every overseas base, and trouble breaks out, then what? Put all the men and equipment of commercial flights and boats?

We are past the need for men on the ground. The world has changed, technology has changed. We can accomplish any real military objective besides occupation via unmanned air-strikes and special operations teams.

This is obsolete as our technology changes. These bases had a very important purpose when conventional warfare had meaning, but very soon boots on the ground will be entirely anachronistic.

I do not promote isolationism: closing foreign bases does not equate to isolationism.

Doesn't work that way. Each form of Military power needs a base of operations for supply and C4I. Surface requires a naval base, Air requires an Airbase and ground requires an Army / Marine base, though Marine can be either Surface or Ground depending on current doctrine. Action in the middle east is impossible with nearby European centered bases to supply and coordinate them.

By removing those bases you restrict the support and supply of both strategic assets and make any sort of military action nearly impossible. Thus decommissioning based in East Asia will enable China to sent out it's fleets and enforce trade control in the region. Other nations nearby will be faced with a choice, become Pro-China (and thus Anti-USA) or face having their economy's crippled by China. China already attempted that when Japan arrested the Chinese fishers for illegally fishing in Japanese waters. China shut off out going rare earth mineral transports to Japan, the Japanese economy requires those to produce it's goods. By doing so China was extorting Japan and trying to force them to allow Chinese fishing in Japanese waters or face having Japan's economy crippled. It was through the intervention of the USA that China backed down.

The primary form of power projection into East Asia is through a carrier battle group, currently the USS George Washington, previously the USS Kitty Hawk. It patrols the region between Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Australia, occasionally going to PI. In order for it to conduct it's mission it needs forward stationed bases for supply, communications and intelligence.

Europe on the other hand is mostly land locked and thus a few air bases can take care of the region. With the UN's power centralized there and the local nations having sufficient ground power to stall / stop any aggression, there is little need for a US ground base and only minimal need for a Naval base. Just one or two navy bases in the region to support any carrier groups that might be needed.

We are past the need for men on the ground. The world has changed, technology has changed. We can accomplish any real military objective besides occupation via unmanned air-strikes and special operations teams.

I'm going to be blunt, so please forgive me.

You have no idea what your talking about, been watching too much TV.

Those tactics are surgical in nature and not for force on force conflict nor for power projection (another term for peace keeping). Neither of those work on invading army's nor on any nation with advanced military capability. Sending drones against China / Russia will have them shot down before they get close.

And finally. you do realize that your argument is an oxymoron right? Drones have limited fuel, they require forward air bases to be deployed from, rearmed, controlled and maintained. By removing foreign bases your removing drones from the table. And while you can remotely control spy drones from the other side of the world, tactical strikes are a different beast. The delay caused from communicating from the other side of the planet is simply too high, you need a control team some were in the region to ensure targets get hit.

And finally, military power projection is a big game of poker where the cards are never called. The USA doesn't want to actually fight big nuclear armed nations, yet we don't want them going around annexing other nations either. So we have a big game where each nation shows they can do something and the USA shows it could "in theory" counter the country's military. If all goes well then nobody actually fights, just makes grand speeches and rattles sabers. If it's played wrong then nations get invaded.

So by removing the teeth from the US Military your sending the signal to all other nations that it's an open season for territory. Your stating that the US will not defend nor "get involved" as large aggressive nations start annexing smaller nations (or forcing them into a puppet state status). Your thus encouraging the formation of a larger Chinese Empire and the restoration of the former USSR. Telling the Saddam's of the world that it's ok to conquer their neighbors, as long as they don't involve the USA.

That by definition is isolationism.

Theo..,

We have a Department of Defense not War. Do you know the difference?

We have a Department of Defense not War. Do you know the difference?

Do you?

Still haven't seen a single concrete argument for closing "all" the foreign bases. Everyone so far has been rather ignorant and used isolationist sentiment only. Every argument thus far boils down to "why should we help others, we should only help ourselves". That idea has proved to not work. You can isolate yourselves all you want, eventually someone is going to come knocking. It's cheaper and more efficient to prevent those someones from ever being in a position to do that knocking.

The "stupid, imperialistic military" doesn't determine what gets closed. Our elected civilian officials such as Representatives and Senators do. But you can't have it both ways.....if you want to keep state side bases open then you have to pay.

Amen.

Here's a idea. Tell Germany to take their whopping 4900 "fighting" troops home from Afgahistan and pull our 50K troops out of Germany. Get all US forces out of Japan and supply the troops in South Korea directly.

Good grief, the ignorance of military strategy, particularly the concept of prestocked, operational forward mobilization bases, demonstrated on this thread is pathetic. But go ahead and blather away; it's harmless..... and good for a laugh.

If everything is withdrawn to the US then the inevitable war will be in the US and I'd rather avoid that. Recall that Cuban missile bit?

Those of you calling for the closure of all our overseas military bases obviously have no understanding of concepts like pre-positioning, power projection, maintaining a presence to influence events, strategic deterrence, etc. While some of our overseas bases have definitely lost their usefulness, there are still many base that have very important purposes and should definitely not be closed. I think that Panetta is correct that there needs to be another round of base closures and consolidation and think that this should include both overseas and US bases. We need to make sure we do not end up with a hollow force, as has happened in the past, but the world has changed and with it our basing needs have also changed. We need to restructure to meet the new demands on our military and the new focus of our overseas forces from a strategic perspective.

The start of "Demilitarizing the United States of America", maybe that was the name of Mr. Obama's thesis. Nah, a highly "reliable" CongressWOman (NO) Reid's source says it was something about "World Nuclear Disarmament".

Here you guys go,

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/china-summons-us-diplomat-over-south-china-sea-remark-1.184902

China building a base in the center of the south china sea ... who would of thought huh.

We do have 11 US bases that can be deployed anywhere there is water. They are called aircraft carriers. We can just move them where needed and they can be replenished on the move.

sheep,

Not that simple. Those carriers need supply bases, especially during combat operations. Those bases are then supplied via other bases in a long chain from the USA to wherever the combat operation is taken place.

US Bases are not placed willy nilly around the globe. Their all strategically located to accomplish objectives. Those objectives sometimes change though it's very important to remember it's very expensive to close a base only to be forced to reopen it later.

As far as bases to close, lets close the ones in kosovo, as well as a few of the cold war bases in Europe. We have a bases in the Azores Islands and Spain that the UN could step up to the plate and occupy not to mention the numerous bases in England and Germany. If the host countries don't want us to close those bases then they need to foot the bill.

The marines have 10 troop bases and 2 airstations in Japan alone and have 17 bases in the U.S.A..

The airforce has 5 bases in England 2 in spain 3 in italy and 3 in japan not to mention they have 71 bases in the U.S.A.

The navy has 4 in italy and 5 in japan and one in of all places brazil. They also have 57 bases in the U.S.A

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_bases

Check out the link and see for yourself if you don't believe me.

JS in SD,

The UN needs to be pressured into stepping up to the plate and do the duties they where created for in the first place. And the member countries of the UN need to start funding their fair share of the UN. As it is now the U.S.A. is footing the majority of the UN's bill. Also those member countries need to send a good number of troops to support their comitment to the UN and quit looking to the U.S.A. for the lions share of troops. We supply 90,000 troops for the ISAF and the next largest contributer is England with 9,500 troops. They are one tenth of what we commit. Check out this link for all member countries totals and don't get pissed and punch your monitor when you see how we are over 68% of the troop force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISAF_troop_number_statistics

During this time of fast travel, I agree, we don't need oversea bases. What was the count?? 200 +? But then our generals and military brass wouldn't have reasons for their vacations. And because the american public agrees to closures overseas it would mean the military budget would get cut. But if they say they are closing domestic, we all complain and they don't see budget cuts. It the same old, same old.

As a soldier of 28yrs that has slept in 31 different countries only a few are worth taking a vacation to. People get places fast, equipment does not. The budget is already getting cut, whether thru base closures or not. From what I've seen, everyone complains not matter what the budget is, what is open, and where the troops are positioned.

irate Ken

The US base in Germany is not there to defend Germany, is that what you think it is for, really???? Where do they always send the wounded first aafter combat? To Germany, easy to reach, good hospital, then when able it is a flight home. Do you think they can ship every wounded guy staight to a US hospital? Ando do think the plane will last long if they need to fly home to re-arm after every sortie?

I can see it now now, 10 men pinned down by enemy firs in say Iraq, we are low on Ammo, Don't worry, we just called, they are shipping some from Florida in the morning, be here next Wednesday after 5.

If you can only envision a military that fought WWII, will you still consider the defense arrangements established in WWII. President Obama does see the benefit of a sea-based mobile force with the capability of striking a training or staging are of terrorists, but the land invasion of countries like Iraq are beset with the problems of occupation and developing counter-insurgency. The big phantasy is war with China, and that has been advised against by every military leader since WWII. China doesn't need to fight a war against us, just call in her TBills for payment.

Logistics is a major problem for a mobile force, but with the capability of air transportation, that is handled better than land based depots that are easy targets for missiles and guerrila attacks.

@Edward: do you understand anything about logistics? At all? Just STFU.

There should be no problems or objections for closing overseas bases. Many of the countries they are in can easily defend themselves if they devoted the same percent of their economy on their military as the US does.

They don't need to; they need to protect their own borders, and for that they are very well equipped.

Who's going to attack the Czech Republic? Or Poland?

Trim the US overseas presence and bring it back home.

The last thing the economy needs is domestic base closures.

They don't need to; they need to protect their own borders, and for that they are very well equipped.

Do their not. No country (other then USA) can current fight off either China or Russia right now, same as it was many decades ago. When the USSR collapsed many European nations took that as a signal to disarm and reduce their forces, same with the USA. Thus even though the Russians lost military strength so did everyone else (this is a good thing). China on the other hand has slowly been growing it's strength, their leadership played the long game and had the patience to actually see it through. First they grew their economy and technology levels, they did this my lying to foreign investors (American / European businessmen) and getting that investment into China and stealing whatever technology came over with it. Now that they've achieved parity with most other nations they've moved on to strengthening their military.

A big game changer is the internet. Democratic nations must answer to their populace, even the might of the US Military is nothing if it's population doesn't want to use it. This exposes a vulnerability that could be exploited. For what is the sword without the arm to wield it, and what is the arm without a brain to tell it to swing? By using internet posters to spread dissent and attempt to encourage the population to reduce support for the use of military options, the Chinese can eventually defeat the US Military without firing a single round. Get the US Military out of East Asia and they could then control the region and the ridiculous level of economic activity present there.

Guys (gals) China has been at war with the USA for years now. Their not sending ships and bombs their sending internet soldiers. Their attack the USA's most vulnerable weakness, the sheer ignorance and stupidity of it's population.

@dls,
There is no "phantasy war", it's happening right now. There have already been military engagements and activities related to the conflict. China's been posturing and positioning themselves for the better part of the last decade.

Here's food for thought, Japan and South Korea were 45m away from signing a mutual defense agreement. Election pressures in South Korea had the current President cancel the plans to sign it. It's up for revaluation after their parliament elections. Two countries that HATE each other, absolutely loath each other and have been fighting for the better part of 5,000 years (no sh!t their fight goes back that far) were that close to agreeing to help each other against China.

That conflict ended when Japan, armed with western weapons, conquered South Korea and proceeded to colonize it. They burned South Korean history "books", burned libraries, kill local leaders, murdered most of their monarchy (regicide) and forbade them from speaking the Korean language. They used Korean men as front line bullet catchers (they didn't even have weapons) in their military and Korean women as sex slaves for their Army. They butchered and beat the Koreans in their efforts to create a "new Japan". And ever since the USA forced Japan (part of the peace agreement after WWII) to leave Korea the Koreans have hated Japan deeply

And they were willing to sign a mutual defense agreement .....

Because the only people the Koreans hate / fear more then the Japanese are the Chinese who also attempted to invade Korea. Though the Chinese only succeeded in taking half the peninsula and have since let it run itself into the ground.

stop that damned thinking !! you make too much sense !! somebodies got to be big brother and we is he !!

Maybe as I think about it you are all right with you small thinking ideas. Maybe the best thing that could happen would be to have to fight an enemy on the shores of NC, or SC, while they bombed Miami from the air, maybe if America actually fought a war that destroyed lives and homes in America, it would change the way people don't think.

And who is going to be doing this? WTF are you talking about?

And who is going to be doing this? WTF are you talking about?

That is a bad question. The proper one is who isn't going to be doing that.

You and your ilk have suggested the USA curl up and go into isolation, leaving the rest of the world to it's own business. That will result in WWIII, no question about it. Too many aggressive nations with enough military power to conquer their neighbors, some of them with nuclear weapons. They refrain from this conquering not out of some moral sense of justice but out of the rational fear that doing the conquering would have the USA getting involved. Remove that fear and you have nothing left to check the aggression of these nations. This eventually leads to those nations annexing all weaker nations and growing into empires. Eventually with enough strength to cross both the Pacific and Atlantic and naturalizing the only nation left with enough might to defeat them.

Germany planned exactly that. Even so far as to attempt to recruit Mexico to keep the US Military busy and prevent them from sending forces into Europe. Japan's original goal was to engage the pacific forces and prevent the USA from bringing them into the European theater. This worked though not nearly as well as they had hoped.

Just try to imagine the USA fighting a defensive war against two other super powers who had conquered all the other nations of the world.

Power abhors a vacuum, and say what you want about the USA. At least we don't go around committing regicide, instilling puppet governments, enslaving and conscripting local populations and conquering countries. Last I checked Mexico and Canada are still free nations even though the USA has more then enough strength to wipe out both of their military's. You don't see USA appointees running the Mexican nor the Canadian governments. You did see Russian appointees running the Ukraine, Poland and every other eastern bloc country. And lets not get started with what the Chinese are capable of, they conquered all their neighbors so long ago that people don't even remember them.

Actually we have already lost several 10's or 100's of thousands of education jobs. Where have you been? The republicans across the country have eliminated one million govt jobs in the last 3 1/2 years, none in the military which has increased. Do a little research for any state in the country, especially Wisc or Minn.

kensolar

Stop being stupid. He's not talking about teachers he's talking about government administrators. Teachers are paid by the states, we're talking federal agencies. Many of which have enlarged bureaucratic departments that exist for no other reason then someone needed a promotion and thus created their new job.

It's NOT political, George H.W. Bush closed the most bases. Your political commentary is as childish as it is misinformed.

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Democrat_vs_Republican

... and that means communities had better start thinking the unthinkable NOW. what do you do if Rolling Fat Pig Joint Operations Center closes, and its 2500 staff go away?

a bunch will.

cities that are one-employer military had better start planning for it... everywhere. if you don't see RFPjoint gone, excellent. if you do, you have a contingency plan to put into effect.

A similar event happened here, the air force base was moved to a bigger city. Now our bad part of town is the former housing area for the base.

The problem is level of government receipts; when the rich keep getting tax avoidance loop holes, the revenue will keep dropping; however, the wealthy corporations rely on government tax expenditures, loopholes and profitable contracts for expensive weapon systems that don't work in modern warfare, so government receipts will only drop to the level where the working poor can gain the minimum income to eat. Greece is a good example of what happens when the government can't tax the rich.

We need to have the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share of taxes, and not shelter their taxable income in offshore havens.

The Marines are a great bunch; the problem is the occupation afterwards. Terrorism, like the drug wars, are not enemies that can be combatted with territorial invasion, except by strikes that take out their training or organizing camps, and diplomatic arrangements that support local operations to monitor and contain them.

Thank you for your service to our nation, and the sacrifice or your grandfather for our country.

Vietnam Vet 5th Special Forces, 3rd Mobile Strike Force

Sounds good and let's go broke doing it.

The decline of every empire was caused by military spending induced bankrupcy. The bankrupcy of military spending brought down the British Empire and the Soviet Union.

The mantra of conservative business is lean and mean; why do Republicans want a military that is fat and political? Military spending is not related to security but to profitable fat cat corporations that contribute to congressional re-elections; or providing congressmen with jobs after they get voted out.

Panetta: It's LEAN AND MEAN, and forget the corporate cronies of the neoCon TP Republicans.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/5/26/214938.shtml

liberal heros and chiefs...

I will take Palin over hillary anyday or any other leftwinger she is as not dumb as some.

If the agenda of the neoCon is war with China, keep in mind it has been the conservatives who sold America out to China for low wages. China is not our enemy, although there are war hawks in China like in America who relish war above good sense. All China has to do to defeat the US is call in their TBills. As far as the credibility of Chinagate goes, it doesn't reflect the position of the conservative US Chamber of Commerce. I'll give you Palin. President Obama is the most competent Comander in Chief I've known.

Vietnam Vet 5th Special Forces, Detachment B36, 3rd Mobile Strike Force

retiredcoastguard, the rise of China as a world power was all but inevitable given their population alone. Once industrialized, there is no way they could not become a superpower. Yet we still have a military that is five times their size.

Lastly, China would have absolutely nothing to gain from a war with (or even decline of) the US. I know you people run on fear and fear alone, but China simply is not a treat as you envision them.

engEsg theUs has a total of 1.3 million. china has 2.25 million.

China does not have to go to war with us.. They already own us thru debt.

All we have to do to ruin china is quit buying their crap and start businesses here to make the same stuff. that will destroy the chinese economy.

thomas, number of men is meaningless. Know how many bombs it takes to kill 2.25 million soldiers? If they are clustered in bases one per base will do.

By "size" I mean the ability to disrupt another nation. A drone is worth 50 troops. A guided missile 100s.

China is our largest debt owner, but they still own only 8% of our debt.

thomas, number of men is meaningless. Know how many bombs it takes to kill 2.25 million soldiers? If they are clustered in bases one per base will do.

By "size" I mean the ability to disrupt another nation. A drone is worth 50 troops. A guided missile 100s.

China is our largest debt owner, but they still own only 8% of our debt.

HORRIBLY HORRIBLY F*CKING WRONG.

That is not how nukes work, not before, not now and not ever. Would take dozens of nukes to take out a small city, hundreds to take out a large one. And even then large amounts of the population and infrastructure would survive intact, concrete has a way of channeling and reflecting most of the destructive power of a nuke.

You don't know the basic concepts of warfare only what you learned from playing too much C&C or starcraft.

He''s a free lesson. There are two levels of symmetric warfare (force on force warfare), tactical and strategic. Airstrikes / nukes / carriers / satellites are all examples of strategic assets. They are used to weaken and devastate a enemy force, they can not win you a war nor can they hold territory. Tactical assets are troops / tanks / supply convoys / ect. They are used to actually fight force on force, their used to gain and hold ground and to ultimately force your enemy to surrender. Asymmetric warfare (SoF / guerrilla) on the other hand is something that you can never win if your on the offensive. Asymmetric can never be used to win an war not on your own territory, it requires support of the locals to debilitate an opponents supply lines and prevent the use of their tactical assets.

When war is conduction from on nation on another it's not one big battle where each side is clicking "build marine", stop thinking that. It's a series of objectives that both sides engage in attempting to accomplish. The ultimate goal is for one nation to force another to succumb and surrender to the will of the victor. This means political and economical objectives may be reached by non-military assets. This includes cyber-warfare and propaganda-warfare (the people paying Eng and friends to post on here).

By those measures China could destroy pretty much any other nation in the world except the USA and Russia.

If people haven't been keeping up, China no longer needs foreign investment. They've already reached the saturation point, they've already achieved technical parity with most western nations. They are not a democratic country where the politicians must keep the people happy. They are an authoritarian nation where the Military answers to a small circle of leaders who are appointed in their government. Should citizens protest their governments actions they are thrown into jail or killed. Thus China can do whatever it damn well pleases and nobody will stop them.

Or did everyone here miss the point where they declared the entire South China Sea as their sovereign territory. You people may not keep up with international news but I do, specifically East Asian news. Right now every other nation in the region is frightened that China will turn imperialistic and attempt to annex them. Vietnam, yes THAT Vietnam, even went so far as to ask the USA for assistance when China was leaning on them.

And then you have Taiwan. Next thing you know posters like Eng (and his coworkers) will be saying that we should let Taiwan fall. That their freedom is none of our business and that China bombing them back into the stone age would be ok.

Wrong ending; I believe it said "The meek shall inherit the earth".

Yeeeeeah, Riiiiight.

Ask Kuwait how well that worked when Iraq came tapping at the door.

Kuwait had a military, and didn't do much plowing in their sandy beach.

That's a start. And bring our troops back from overseas bases. We can employ theme here as police, border guards, firemen, etc for a fraction of the cost. The money will go back into local economies, and these people can do some actual good for the US.

A sound economy is essential for a strong nation. The military knows it, but has to pander to the TP Republican war hawks who don't give a damn about America so long as they can milk the federal coffers for corporate welfare.

Yes and no. Weapons projects tend to be incredibly inefficient money wise. Soldiers on the other hand spend money, bases require maintenance and hire locals to do the job. Of all the things the defense department spends money on, bases and personal tend to inject the same amount of money back into the economy. Soldiers pay tax's, eat at local restaurants and shop on the local economy (PX/BX sucks most of the time).

As for those planes, your obviously ignorant of air requirements. Yes the F-22 is way overkill, it and the F-35 have been victims of "over specifications" and pork projects. F-18's are a decent workhorse plane but their incapable of strategic strikes, not against anything resembling an advanced nation. The F15/16's have been dated for a long time, even the Koreans have been thinking about upgrading their fleet (K15's are copied F15's produced by the Korean corporations).

A new generation fighter / bomber is needed, it just doesn't need everything and the kitchen sink thrown in. Their constantly throwing in new "must have" features which causes the cost to rapidly escalate.

Also you do not plan your requirements around what your fighting "now", you don't even plan your requirements around what you may fight "now", instead you must plan around what you may fight years from now. The whole point of a deterrent is that you don't use it. If your only making what you plan on using now then you don't have a deterrent.

It's the social conservatives that want to stop contraception, and it is the religious who embrace the be fruitful and multiply agenda of over-population.

Retired: aren't you living off government socialist retirement? Why do conservatives who feel they deserve government retirement against others having the same even when they pay for it? It's like the TP being against Obamacare, but demanding health care from the government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uAuuQnh90s&feature=related

Retired: aren't you living off government socialist retirement?

Not , at all. I earned everything i have as you should.

retiredcoastguard - You really say dumb things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uAuuQnh90s&feature=related

But , you're the Pro...

Congressional Republicans know we can’t skimp on national defense, and they’ve offered Obama an alternative set of cuts from other parts of the budget. Obama has ignored their proposal. Either he gets his tax increases or the defense sequester goes forward. And in cities and towns all across America, companies like Lockheed, Raytheon and Pratt & Whitney are bracing themselves and trying to prepare their employees for the worst.

Hope your brother made it through ok. My son went into the Navy, but if he would have joined the Coast Guard he might have stayed in. I tried to talk my grandson into the Air Force or Coast Guard because he likes flying; the Coast Guard would probably have given him a better opportunity to become a pilot.

I lived in Alaska for over 20 years before coming to the lower forty eight, and have tremendous respect for the courage and dedication of the Coast Guard who take on horrendous rescue missions of fishing boats.

Hope your brother made it through ok

He did and thank you again. He did not retire though. VFWs ( of which i am not) get a special respect from me anyways. I joined in 79 viet nam was over carter was president and times are lot like today .

David was a load master and flew a lot of places over half of the Air force does not fly at all and My other brother Lonnie was in the Army and i have family that served in the Marines and the Navy too.

less than one % of the people living in this country even serve according to the Navy times and people in this country want to cut the military benefits. Keep cutting and some day we will have to bring back the draft and very few will Re Enlist.

I lived in Alaska for over 20 years

I did a Al-pac there visited Juneau , Dutch harbor , Kodiak , adack the biggest seas i ever saw were there beautiful country saw some glaciers too.

Good point. Take a look at the former Ft. Ord in California. I was there as a Specialist in 1995 when Clinton opened the Cal State campus and seated in the audience as a First Sergeant when they finally got around to knocking down some of the houses in 2008. In 1995 I also had to do a detail in a former barracks moving bed frames. Now in 2012, after 17+ years there are still miles and miles of vacant barracks and dilapadated warehouses. That former barracks that I walked through in 1995 still has a chain and padlock on the front door. Local planners and environmentalists are still sparring over land use. There is new housing for the Naval Postgraduate School and Defense Language Institute, but it is neighboring abandoned 1950s-1960s track housing where the bums and rodents live. Cal State has a campus, but they decided to convert a lot of the former military buildings. Military base design does not convert well to the civilian market. You need to bulldoze a lot and start from scratch.