Is the US Military able to defend us?

[Jocassee]

Simple question, just what it says on the tin.

Popped into my head after reading this: http://weaponsman.com/?p=29357

The 82nd and 18th elements will jump less, sacrificing currency and proficiency to reduce the negative effect on training (and, naturally, training budgets). So we’ll wind up with more jump accidents, a dry term that often means some guy is dead on the DZ with injuries that defy description, or off to the ICU screaming, with his hipbones in his eye sockets (which is only a slight exaggeration).

Jackson, the chief of the Air Force Reserve and commander of Air Force Reserve Command, will be on post to speak to Fort Bragg leaders, but he did not plan to meet with members of the 440th as of Friday afternoon, several airmen said.

“He has no intention of meeting with the airmen under his command,” one of them said. “That should tell you the level of leadership being demonstrated by him.”

folllowed by

The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies.

It says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy — a wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.”

Obviously, the US military still contains some of the best -- if not *the* best, by virtue of training and experience -- warriors in the world. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with our combat readiness that a few years of focus and appropriate direction of spending could not fix. And yet the constant spate of articles I read about the decline of the military has everything to do with cultural inertia and lack of strategic vision one would expect from an Old World inbred system like the Janissaries. The consistency at which other useless things seem to take priority over the mission of being good at killing people seems to indicate that the branches of the military are like  any other bureaucracy in the Big Government complex.

To return to my original question. Can our military be trusted to defend us against another superpower? I am speaking not of tactical proficiency, but of a seeming inability to grapple with the reality of an existential conflict.

Perhaps our military members can chime in here and tell me if I'm being too doom-ey.

[just Warren]

To answer that question you have to define the threat and the circumstances of the conflict.

[wmenorr67]

If when the time comes the pol-critters stay out of the damn way, the officers tell the NCO's what to do, and then let the NCO's do what has to be done, then yes we can.

The biggest issue right now is that the damn pol-critters are trying to many damn social experiments with the military that I think is going to blow up in their faces.  Once that happens we will be free to actually get back to the business of training to kill the enemy instead of making sure that PVT Snuffy isn't butt hurt because someone said a bad word within his/her earshot.

[just Warren]

There would have to be another superpower. Russia doesn't count anymore. China's navy isn't a big threat.

Maybe if the EU went nuts but that would require Germany AND France AND Britain to all work together towards a common goal so that's not going to happen.

But again what would the actual threat be? We are guarded by two huge oceans, the amount of sea and airlift necessary to put enough troops within reach to cause us an existential crisis does not exist.

[Jocassee]

There would have to be another superpower. Russia doesn't count anymore. China's navy isn't a big threat.

Maybe if the EU went nuts but that would require Germany AND France AND Britain to all work together towards a common goal so that's not going to happen.

But again what would the actual threat be? We are guarded by two huge oceans, the amount of sea and airlift necessary to put enough troops within reach to cause us an existential crisis does not exist.

Based on my admittedly limited understanding, the Chinese could hit us badly if they really wanted to.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Based on my admittedly limited understanding, the Chinese could hit us badly if they really wanted to.

The Chinese real advantage is the ability to absorb losses we won`t


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[Jocassee]

The Chinese real advantage is the ability to absorb losses we won`t


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Bingo. If something drastic were to happen and they took a chunk of say Alaska, Washington, or even BC, they wouldn't even need to hold it for long. Just use it as a bargaining chip. We'd roll in a heartbeat.

[Jocassee]

Hognose was kind enough to reply to my question:

The current military could not defend against a peer competitor without months of Pearl Harbor, Savo Bay, and Task Force Smith style defeats in the air, sea and land regimes. It would probably to take six months to identify who, if anyone, among current general officers has the talent for victorious leadership.

Anybody who says the current suits and uniforms in the E Ring have this under control is blowing smoke up your skirt.

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[bedlamite]

China's navy isn't a big threat.

Not to our navy, but if they really wanted to china could easily use their shipping fleet to disguise an invasion.

[T.O.M.]

The problemas I see it, based on info from friends still in or recently separated, is that senior brass is not made up of military strategists, but political climbers who worked the system for their own advancement.   Guys like Swartzkopf can't make it in the current PC world.  Instead, you get "leaders" up top worried more about the carbon footprint of their armored division than its combat effectiveness.  It's the current version of a problem that seems to have occurred repeatedly through American history.   Civil War (for the North) leadership was ineffective early on.  Same during early WWII.  Let's hope we don't have a reason to look for the next Grant or Patton out there...

[just Warren]

Not to our navy, but if they really wanted to china could easily use their shipping fleet to disguise an invasion.

They'll need weeks if not months worth of ammo, food, fuel and spares and how are they going to keep those flowing across a now very hostile ocean?

They could stage a bunch of stuff disguised as normal commercial traffic but the longer they store the stuff here the greater the risk of detection.

I've written before that they could team up with Mexico (Big Yuan + Big Juan) but that's more of an idea for a war thriller novel then a likely threat.

Right now they are pouring lots of resources into Africa and I believe their economy overall is pretty weak so with those two circumstances in play I don't see how they could afford to launch any sort of attack.

Also they have a better expected value with the potential new route opening up in the Arctic. If they can exploit that, they'll net way more than any invasion could get them. And they don't have to fight a war with Canada, just a treaty will do.

So China as an existential threat doesn't scan for me. Doesn't mean they're not a threat of some sort though.

[roo_ster]

China could lob nukes at us.  Current and prospective leadership would likely be too craven to respond in kind.

China could also destroy all our bases in Guam, Japan, Korea, and Okinawa with the multitude of surface to surface conventional missiles.  Along with those of our allies.

China could not invade and hold any CONUS territory.

[Blakenzy]

The military is (currently) powerless to do anything about the influx of foreign nationals who are rapidly wreaking havoc on the cultural makeup of the US. The military is also incapable of preventing domestic enemies from abusing Government, running lawless and eroding away basic freedoms. And they can do nothing about the financial embezzlement establishment who are enabled by the previously mentioned domestic enemies. So far, those are the only real threats the USA as a nation faces... and Climate Warming Cooling Change of course 

For all other boogeymen, there are Nukes... from orbit.

[French G.]

Our oceanic borders have traditionally given us a few years to purge the peacetime rot and gear up for war.

[RevDisk]

Based on my admittedly limited understanding, the Chinese could hit us badly if they really wanted to.

Sure, economically. They own a good percent of our debt, but not enough to ruin the US. Cause significant disruption? Sure. Cyberwarfare isn't quite a joke, but it's awfully close. They again could cause significant disruption. But crippling US infrastructure completely is the stuff of bad novels. Every second of every day, anything connected to the internet is potentially getting hit by hackers across the entire planet. China could certainly slip in stuff at the chip level. But even the NSA would be challenged to backdoor even a significant percent of equipment via embedded backdoors. Onesies, twosies? Absolutely, happens all the times. Systematic backdooring of most major equipment? It'd require coordination that'd be noticed, and word would leak. It'd be a hundred times larger than the Manhatten Project in total.

Their Navy is extremely limited, our's could sink their entire fleet in days or less. They could sneak in with cargo ships, but even Q ships wouldn't do well against any modern Navy once they discharged their cargo. Suppose they landed even a couple divisions in California through Washington. The US Navy would slam the door behind them, and within couple days to a week they'd have the entire US Army on their doorstep. They could commit wide scale competent terrorism, use nukes as blackmail, etc. But Americans tend to get pretty bloodthirsty in a hurry. There's no way China could hold any part of the continental US.

Other reason is, why would they want to? They're making money hand over fist from us, rapidly modernizing their country. While we're politically stagnating, they're unofficially colonizing tons of countries with people, funding, resource exploitation, etc. Why spend tons of money/resources on something that could/would fail, when your enemy is paying you to advance your own technology and people?

Waiting ten, twenty years and doing nothing different in the current scenario would have the same economic equivalent of landing several divisions while blowing up parts of our infrastructure with clandestine forces. But instead of spending money, we're shoveling it at them as fast as possible.   

[Jamisjockey]

Other reason is, why would they want to? They're making money hand over fist from us, rapidly modernizing their country. While we're politically stagnating, they're unofficially colonizing tons of countries with people, funding, resource exploitation, etc. Why spend tons of money/resources on something that could/would fail, when your enemy is paying you to advance your own technology and people?

All this and a bag of chips.

It's why they haven't invaded Taiwan.  Money.

[TommyGunn]

Based on my admittedly limited understanding, the Chinese could hit us badly if they really wanted to.

RevDisk provided a very good answer if we look at how things are now.  China is building up its navy and if it continues -- and if we continue downsizing ours as Obama has been doing -- in the future (say mid century?) China will become a real threat to us, atleast in the Western Pacific, and possibly throughout the Pacific.

[Hutch]

Our oceanic borders have traditionally given us a few years to purge the peacetime rot and gear up for war.

That tradition ended when our adversaries gained the ability to attack us from their own soil.  I'm afraid any real clash of arms would be over pretty quickly.  The era when we could develop a completely new weapon system after the outbreak (think: F6F) is over. As for leadership, there's no light bird serving now that will be our Eisenhower, commanding our forces in the same war, 3 years into it.

The notion that an incursion by an adversary into the Western Hemisphere would be choked off by the USN presumes that the NCA would order that to be done.  If the PRC were to start a massive sealift to, say, Venezuela to "provide humanitarian relief" from their economic collapse, do you think President Obama (or Sanders, or Clinton) would order PACFLT to even intercept, let alone board, or (heaven forfend) attack a seaborne logistics train?  Nope, nope aaaaaand nope.  Thanks for playing.  I subscribe to Dinesh D'Souza's theory that the abasement and reduction of influence and respect of the USA is Obama's actual goal, not a byproduct of his ineptitude.

In answer to the original question, I trust the military's willingness to defend us.  Otoh, they are not defending us RFN from an invasion across the southern border.  I think the majority of the leadership cadre are a bunch of careerist ass-kissers, and if it comes to blows, the US armed forces will pay dearly in blood for our campaign to make them socially conscious and politically correct.  Everyone draws parallels between the 20th century USA and Rome.  I'm afraid everyone has forgotten about Carthage.

[just Warren]

There's also the fact that China has major divisions internally that could fracture the country if enough stress was applied. Stress like deciding to be militarily aggressive against a very hard target.

They're barely keeping things together as it is, imagine what a full-on war would do to the Party's ability to keep order with so many resources going to towards prosecuting a conflict of that magnitude.   

[KD5NRH]

China could lob nukes at us.  Current and prospective leadership would likely be too craven to respond in kind.

Are you kidding?  Obama would happily join them in lobbing nukes at us while apologizing for not bowing deeply enough.

[Phantom Warrior]

Otoh, they are not defending us RFN from an invasion across the southern border. 

There's this thing, called "civilian control of the military."

[Andiron]

The problemas I see it, based on info from friends still in or recently separated, is that senior brass is not made up of military strategists, but political climbers who worked the system for their own advancement.   Guys like Swartzkopf can't make it in the current PC world.  Instead, you get "leaders" up top worried more about the carbon footprint of their armored division than its combat effectiveness. =

I could tell you boring (yet infuriating) stories about working up for deployment to Afghanistan in Cali.  We had these big towed generators/HVAC units that get hooked up to CoC tents.  They require lots of fuel,  at predictable intervals.  enter jerry cans with shitty funnels.  Fuel, being liquid,  slops about.  Any fuel that slopped about and ended up in the sand, needed to be scooped up, placed in bags,  and turned over to the proper EPA minion in charge.

Un *expletive deleted*ing real.

Added-  off topic,  but the comment made me think

[Hutch]

There's this thing, called "civilian control of the military."

You make my point.  It doesn't matter what they're willing to do, or even what they want to do.  They will have to be tasked (told) with specific orders from POTUS.  I can think of very few circumstances under which the President would take decisive, resolute, and forthright action to decisively engage an enemy, short of them deploying troops on the Continental U.S.  Every other employment of US war power has been a deliberate and calculated effort to embolden our enemies and/or confound our allies.

[RevDisk]

RevDisk provided a very good answer if we look at how things are now.  China is building up its navy and if it continues -- and if we continue downsizing ours as Obama has been doing -- in the future (say mid century?) China will become a real threat to us, atleast in the Western Pacific, and possibly throughout the Pacific.

Yeah, 30 or 40 years from now things, might be very different. No way China is catching up to USN within 20 years. Not happening, and China isn't making the moves politically to get their Navy up to snuff. They really don't need to, aside from prestige gigs. Because we're spending the money to chase pirates and patrol the seaways.

The notion that an incursion by an adversary into the Western Hemisphere would be choked off by the USN presumes that the NCA would order that to be done.  If the PRC were to start a massive sealift to, say, Venezuela to "provide humanitarian relief" from their economic collapse, do you think President Obama (or Sanders, or Clinton) would order PACFLT to even intercept, let alone board, or (heaven forfend) attack a seaborne logistics train?  Nope, nope aaaaaand nope.  Thanks for playing.  I subscribe to Dinesh D'Souza's theory that the abasement and reduction of influence and respect of the USA is Obama's actual goal, not a byproduct of his ineptitude.

Random question, why would we remotely have justification for attacking China providing theoretical aid to Venezuela? Or want to attack even without justification?

Or do you mean, if PRC was occupying Venezuela? Even then, I'm still having difficulty seeing why it would be our problem.

[birdman]

Yeah, 30 or 40 years from now things, might be very different. No way China is catching up to USN within 20 years. Not happening, and China isn't making the moves politically to get their Navy up to snuff. They really don't need to, aside from prestige gigs. Because we're spending the money to chase pirates and patrol the seaways.

I'll take that bet.  Assymmetry has a power all its own.
Go toe to toe? I agree...but they don't have to, nor would have to for the aforementioned scenario.

Random question, why would we remotely have justification for attacking China providing theoretical aid to Venezuela? Or want to attack even without justification?

Or do you mean, if PRC was occupying Venezuela? Even then, I'm still having difficulty seeing why it would be our problem.

I think means the scenario of "don't worry, that fleet is heading to Venezula....oops, typo, we meant LA, the keys are like right next to each other..."