Is anyone else concerned about

[birddog]

It's a toss-up between winning the battles and losing the war; and being stuck in a unwinnable quagmire. See Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq.

There’s a significant difference between the current non-state conflicts in Iraq, Afg, Africa, Levant, Western China, etc. and previous conflicts. Anyone that knows wtf is really going on can see the difference.

We’ve taken the battle of radical Islam to other countries to preemptively prevent the battlespace from occurring within our borders. 9/11 is an example of what can happen by not doing so and not having the mindset that comes with acknowledging and accepting the fact that this country and it’s future is at peril. If a single, localized, catastrophic event occurs in this country, it could be the straw that breaks the social bonds that are needed to maintain order in a structured first world country. The Rodney King incident is a taste of what could potentially occur, albeit on a much smaller scale.

The conflicts this country is facing are asymmetric in nature and aren’t a simple matter of defeating a state actor militarily. The enemy is non-state, has no borders, and is well funded. What complicates matters is a number of issues including the fractures in Islamic ideology and our lack of political backbone to take action unilaterally along with the potential to damage the world economy if we pulled out the stops and finished the job once and for all. I’d rather see a dip in the economy today that have to fight the have nots to keep what’s mine in the even of social or military conflict within our borders.

The second aspect of conflict is the escalation of what is a very real and very damaging issue; Cyberwarfare. I work in the field, and without going into detail (and an all expenses paid vacation at Ft. Leavenworth) what I see daily is tantamount to acts of war. And it will continue until the price of continuing the behavior becomes too painful to bear. Our GDP dwarfs every other country. An example is Russia’s GDP which is the size of the state of New York’s GDP. We need to use it to our advantage.

The third aspect of the conflict is securing our borders. I haven’t taken my blood pressure meds yet so I’ll leave it at that.

If I were POTUS I’d issue executive orders to start breaking other people’s sh1t. An example; China has 80+ subs of which 2/3 are operational at any given time. Pull our naval assets out of of the S. China sea and make them disappear one by one until they get the message. I’d suggest taking out their naval aviation assets as well but they have one carrier and it be be hard to fabricate plausible deniability if it sank in their backyard.

We have military assets that are the stuff of science fiction. We need to start breaking it off in a few yasses to let them know we will no longer tolerate being violated.

____________________________________________

Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?
Because if you do, I’ll stop doing it.

 

[Big Green]

Having spent a large part of my military career in the CENTCOM AOR, what’s FUBAR is the western world thinking that what’s acceptable to us is what’s acceptable to them and that what works for us will work for them.

You can turn the whole place into a glass parking lot and whatever’s left will still be nomads living in the desert fighting over who gets to f* the goat next.

Exactly. If we have a reason we have to go in, be swift and concise. Then leave and allow them to keep fighting each other if they want. All these American’s lives wasted for people who can’t figure out how to not kill each other is ridiculous. Western democracies work well for western values. Trying to impose our values on people that don’t have a similar belief structure is not a recipe for success.

BTW, I’d really like to see that glass parking lot over there.

 

[Kar98]

The second aspect of conflict is the escalation of what is a very real and very damaging conflict; Cyberwarfare. I work in the field, and without going into detail (and an all expenses paid vacation at Ft. Leavenworth) what I see daily is tantamount to acts of war. And it will continue until the price of continuing the behavior becomes too painful to bear. Our GDP dwarfs every other country. An example is Russia’s GDP which is the size of the state of New York’s GDP. We need to use it to our advantage.

I see that crap daily. There are cyber attacks against American infrastructure every day, and not just by rogue hackers who do it for the lulz, but professionals with organizations behind them. Prime targets are energy producers, banking and transportation. Telecommunication goes without saying.

 

[birddog]

We’ve been in Afghanistan nearly 2 DECADES. When does it end?

From an intelligence and strategic perspective, having a piece of real estate sitting smack dab between Iran and Pakistan is a goldmine.

 

[Darkpriest667]

From an intelligence and strategic perspective, having a piece of real estate sitting smack dab between Iran and Pakistan is a goldmine.

The price is 136 lives a year and 1195 life changing injuries.. So will you be signing the checks and letters or are you volunteering someone else to ?

 

[oldag]

The price is 136 lives a year and 1195 life changing injuries.. So will you be signing the checks and letters or are you volunteering someone else to ?

You are so right. Let's just pull every bit of our military inside our own borders. Let the rest of the world do what they want. Let the Hitler's, Stalin's, Mullah's, Chinese, Russians, terrorists,etc. run amuck and take over the rest of the world. By golly, we will not sacrifice one single American life.

And after they have done so, they will come for us. And then how many lives - military and civilian - will be lost? Know how many died in WW2?

Serving in the military is a noble thing. But it comes with a risk of dying in combat. Don't want that risk, don't sign up.

In case someone has not figure it out, this is not a perfect world.

 

[Big Green]

Serving in the military is a noble thing. But it comes with a risk of dying in combat. Don't want that risk, don't sign up.

Serving can be noble if the cause is noble. If my son was military age and mentioned joining now I would ask him what he was going to fight for and was his life worth it? I don’t see any noble causes.

 

[Darkpriest667]

You are so right. Let's just pull every bit of our military inside our own borders. Let the rest of the world do what they want. Let the Hitler's, Stalin's, Mullah's, Chinese, Russians, terrorists,etc. run amuck and take over the rest of the world. By golly, we will not sacrifice one single American life.

And after they have done so, they will come for us. And then how many lives - military and civilian - will be lost? Know how many died in WW2?

Serving in the military is a noble thing. But it comes with a risk of dying in combat. Don't want that risk, don't sign up.

In case someone has not figure it out, this is not a perfect world.

If we want to kill these F**ks we can do it with drones from 30,000 feet.. There is absolutely no reason to have men on the ground and you either know that or you're still in 1973.

We could literally have killed saddam and didn't do it.. could have literally killed Bin Laden and didn't do it... We could kill the Mullahs in Iran.. didn't do it..

We have cowardice of leadership that likes to do things that appear to be making moves towards objectives but only cost the lives of the plebeians.

 

[birddog]

Having seen death up close and personal, there’s nothing “noble” about the experience. But it’s an aspect of life that’s necessary if we’re going to protect our country and those we love or otherwise.

I doubt there’s many men and women on this forum that doesn’t understand the concept of protecting those that we care for. And those that are unable to protect themselves from those that would cause them harm. I would rather do it there than here.

 

[oldag]

There is absolutely no reason to have men on the ground and you either know that or you're still in 1973.

You are naive if you think a war can be won with drones.

 

[karlac]

With regard to the mention of the ROE.
If your's do not match precisely your enemies, best to just GTFO ...
BTDT

 

[satx78247]

Still always takes boots on the ground. Guerilla warfare is hard to stop with only air strikes.

oldag,

VERY TRUE. - I have trained & also fought guerrillas OCONUS in 4 different nations. = While US Doctrine says that it takes 200 main-force soldiers to defeat ONE talented/locally-supported guerrilla, in my experience the REAL number is 400+ troops for each guerrilla, who is fighting "on his own ground".

That said, large groups and/or training camps are difficult to conceal & those targets CAN be successfully attacked with air power.
(Had we attacked such troop concentrations/facilities/places in 2010-2016, we would NOT now be facing 20,000 ISIS fighters.)

just my OPINION, satx
USA, Retired

 

[Darkpriest667]

oldag,

VERY TRUE. - I have trained & also fought guerrillas OCONUS in 4 different nations. = While US Doctrine says that it takes 200 main-force soldiers to defeat ONE talented/locally-supported guerrilla, in my experience the REAL number is 400+ troops for each guerrilla, who is fighting "on his own ground".

That said, large groups and/or training camps are difficult to conceal & those targets CAN be successfully attacked with air power.
(Had we attacked such troop concentrations/facilities/places in 2010-2016, we would NOT now be facing 20,000 ISIS fighters.)

just my OPINION, satx
USA, Retired

There is way more than 20k ISIS fighters and they're spread across at least 50 countries, including the one you live in, but lets keep boots in Syria... While we're at it we might as well go to all of north and east Africa.

We should have troops at our borders and ports of entry, but why actually protect the country when you can fight shitty unwinnable conflicts on foreign soil... Because we didn't learn from Vietnam.


... God damn.. the Chinese ARE smarter than us.

 

[Renegade]

You are so right. Let's just pull every bit of our military inside our own borders. Let the rest of the world do what they want. Let the Hitler's, Stalin's, Mullah's, Chinese, Russians, terrorists,etc. run amuck and take over the rest of the world. By golly, we will not sacrifice one single American life.

Fortunately our choice is not deploy everywhere or deploy nowhere.

 

[satx78247]

NV did not hold enemy positions. They fought a guerrilla/insurgent war. VC lived in tunnels in the jungle. There was no possible way we could bomb them to victory.

ISIS does not concentrate enemy fighters in one place. They live among the population. That is why after 15+ years there are still hundreds of thousands of them. There was no possible way we could bomb them to victory.

If they would fight like imperial Japan or the Nazis, with uniforms, lines of demarcation and an Order Of battle, we could destroy them in a few weeks. They know that. Everyone knows that. Nobody will ever fight the US like that again.

They have been fighting for thousands of years, and will still be there after we have run out of bombs, planes and jet fuel.

Renegade,

Pardon me for asking but have YOU fought guerrillas OR are you repeating what you read in a book?? = These ISIS criminals are not even one percent of the quality of the well-trained/dedicated/locally-supported warriors that "Mister Charlie" was during the war in SE Asia OR even the criminals/KILLERS of Sendoro Luminoso are.
ISIS fighters are mostly (in 2018) poorly trained/only semi-disciplined & often fight only for $$$$$$$$.

ISIS has & still does congregate together, sometimes make open "road marches" in vehicles & often even flying their flags. = Such groups are called, "targets of opportunity" for airstrikes/armed drones.
(Since the war in Afghanistan began, US forces have destroyed THOUSANDS of BETTER guerrilla fighters there, than 99.9% of ISIS troops are & KILLED more than 80% of their "leadership".)

yours, satx

 

[birddog]

The price is 136 lives a year and 1195 life changing injuries.. So will you be signing the checks and letters or are you volunteering someone else to ?

The concept of “The fallacy of irrelevance” is important to understand when debating the merits of a topic of discussion.

 

[Renegade]

Renegade,
Pardon me for asking but have YOU fought guerrillas OR are you repeating what you read in a book??

Former CIA, served all over the world.

Our current policies are why we have not won a war with a lasting peace since 1945.

 

[Renegade]

ISIS has & still does congregate together,

Not in any quantity that matters and could be "easily be targeted for massive strikes from the air, that will make even the "shock & awe" strikes of Desert Storm look puny & ineffective by comparison."

LOL.

 

[satx78247]

There is way more than 20k ISIS fighters and they're spread across at least 50 countries, including the one you live in, but lets keep boots in Syria... While we're at it we might as well go to all of north and east Africa.

We should have troops at our borders and ports of entry, but why actually protect the country when you can fight shitty unwinnable conflicts on foreign soil... Because we didn't learn from Vietnam.


... God damn.. the Chinese ARE smarter than us.

Darkpriest667,

Pardon me for pointing out that we are NOT talking about every guerrilla in the World here but rather the ISIS fighters who are left in Syria/Iraq. = The best estimates of remaining ISIS fighters in that one area is, as I said earlier, number about 20,000 - 25,000.

Also, you are WRONG. - Many of us DID learn from the war against Charlie/NVA/ChiComs in RVN. - The young soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines of RVN are now SENIOR leaders or (like me) long retired. - The remaining leaders, who fought in RVN, have not forgotten those hard-learned lessons. = The "tuition" for that education was paid in rivers of BLOOD.

yours, satx

 

[satx78247]

Not in any quantity that matters and could be "easily be targeted for massive strikes from the air, that will make even the "shock & awe" strikes of Desert Storm look puny & ineffective by comparison."

LOL.

Renegade,

As little as a week ago, Japanese news crews took several videos of large ISIS truck convoys in Syria, so you are wrong, in at least that case.
I also suspect that you, as a former CIA officer, know how many terrorist training camps that we have known about for years & have not hit for "political reasons".
(We now have a POTUS who "has a pair", unlike the cowardly-lion ODUMBO that was in office from 20JAN09-20JAN16.)

yours, satx