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Iran is heating up . . . [W:259]

Again, we are spending more on defense then has ever been spent on defense in recorded history and you can't even get behind a mere $100 billion a year?
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I beg to differ. We are not spending on defense we are spending on conquest.
 
Kane said:
:lamo

No kidding.

The gullible minds of the brainwashed!

Obama is going gonzo militarily, without a doubt.

Misterveritis, give us an amusing source for your "Obama is destroying the military" conspiracy!
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Mis apparently believes that China and Iran are more of a threat then the USSR was and therefore we must spend more against them then we did against the Soviets.

Insane no?
 
The US had a difficult time fighting an asymetric war, but with Iran it would be conventional war. That's what we're good at, they would be wise to consider this. Something else, remember who would be sitting there with land-based defensive systems.

Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man. -- General George S Patton
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obvious Child said:
Insane no?
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Yes.

The U.S. Government is still run by a bunch of crazy Crackers who just put Obama is front to hide their evil deeds. Of course, Obama knows this and plays along. NeoCons pulling the strings still manufacture enemies for the State to kill, and expect Presidents to carry them out. JFK wouldn't play ball, and they killed him. MLK said stop Vietnam, and they killed him too,
 
obvious Child said:
Good luck finding an Indian politician who can think more then a few years ahead. Their political system is even more now centered then ours is. India is content to buy our goods, but aligning itself with the US is something entirely different. We may share some common goals, but India will do what India wants.
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That is true of every nation. But we made great strides with India during the Bush years, and I have hopes the next president will build on that.
 
obvious Child said:
Neither. We should align it with the future needs while maintaining what we need for the current conflicts. That said, we are still spending more on defense then we did when we faced another super power with the weapons capacity to end all life as we know it. Iran is a joke compared to the damage the USSR could inflict. The real threat is still non state actors with access to fissile material.

Since when did numbers confer an advantage in the days of smart weapons?

Again, we are spending more on defense then has ever been spent on defense in recorded history and you can't even get behind a mere $100 billion a year?
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Defense is complicated. We are not going to agree. But no, I do not get behind a 100 billion dollar cut in defense. We should be increasing the size of our Navy and Air Force. We should be increasing the numbers of special operators. We should be increasing the amounts we spend on all facets of intelligence gathering, assessment and sharing.

In the entire history of warfare the edge has gone to the nations that kept a technological advantage. Where that advantage will be found varies from time to time. In some cases it was in the weapons used. In others it was in the use of intelligence. In still others it was in a combination of material, manpower, and strategy.

Do you believe we will have only one national interest threatened at a time? Or will we continue to have a presence in 20 places? I look to the past to see that we have kept forces in being in a large number of places. Or maybe you think we should return to isolationism?

I see both dangers and opportunities for the US. Both require military forces able to project power to any point in the world on short notice.
 
obvious Child said:
Mis apparently believes that China and Iran are more of a threat then the USSR was and therefore we must spend more against them then we did against the Soviets.

Insane no?
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I often wonder why people cannot see the obvious.

Carter is the latest senior Pentagon official to speak against sequestration. His boss, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, has called sequestration a "meat ax" while the nation's highest-ranking military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, has warned that the cuts would be catastrophic, leaving the military with a hollowed-out force.

"Sequester would have devastating effects on our readiness and our workforce and disrupt thousands of contracts and programs," Carter said.

The cuts would be piled on top of the already $500 billion in defense spending cuts set by the White House over the next 10 years as part of a longer-term budget strategy.

Panetta has said the Pentagon is not planning for cuts because the White House's Office of Management and Budget has told them not to until the summer.

"There is not a hell of a lot of planning I can do," because sequestration makes automatic and equally distributed cuts across Department of Defense accounts, using a "meat-ax" approach, he said.

In February, speaking before the House Budget Committee, Panetta said planning could start this summer if Congress had not made a deal on the budget.

In a letter sent in November to Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Panetta said the effects of sequestration would create the smallest ground force since before World War II, the smallest Navy since before World War I, the smallest tactical fighter force in Air Force history and the smallest civilian work force in the history of the Department of Defense.​
Defense official says automatic cuts will cause 'absurdities' – CNN Security Clearance - CNN.com Blogs

Defense covers more that two threats, one from China and one from Iran. Your failure comes from your over simplification. One should make things as simple as possible. But no simpler.
 
American said:
The US had a difficult time fighting an asymetric war, but with Iran it would be conventional war. That's what we're good at, they would be wise to consider this. Something else, remember who would be sitting there with land-based defensive systems.
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Only if you have no plans for an actual regime change. Which would require an occupation. Which would resort in an Iraq like asymmetric war in an area far more mountainous and populated then Iraq.

So you're for constant bombardment of Iran then?
 
Misterveritis said:
I see both dangers and opportunities for the US. Both require military forces able to project power to any point in the world on short notice.
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I fail to see why we should spend more then we did during the cold war against enemies that can only dream of having the power the USSR did.

You seem to think that the threats we face today are more existential then total annihilation that the USSR threatened. That to me is simply another delusion you have. Why we should spend more now then we did against an enemy that could actually end America is not rational nor reasonable, but most of your posts are neither anyways.

Defense covers more that two threats, one from China and one from Iran. Your failure comes from your over simplification. One should make things as simple as possible. But no simpler.
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You seem to think that the threats we face today are more existential then total annihilation that the USSR threatened. Maybe you don't have a problem with massive government and spending if its in defense.

Your line of thinking is so insane that it might be worth making a poll just to have some fun.

What is more of a threat? "Total Nuclear Annihilation via the Soviets or the threats the US faces today?""
 
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1. We are not putting a larger portion towards defense today than we did during the Cold War. Nor do we need to. Mistaking nominal dollars for relative effort is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

2. It is fully possible to take away Iran's ability to seal the Straits without an invasion.
 
obvious Child said:
I fail to see why we should spend more then we did during the cold war against enemies that can only dream of having the power the USSR did.
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The former Soviet Union still has nuclear weapons. They still have interests that counter our own. We drove them into bankruptcy with stealth technology. During the Cold war we spent roughly how much of our gross domestic product on defense - 7%? 6%?

How much do we spend today?

You seem to think that the threats we face today are more existential then total annihilation that the USSR threatened. That to me is simply another delusion you have. Why we should spend more now then we did against an enemy that could actually end America is not rational nor reasonable, but most of your posts are neither anyways.
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You raise an interesting point. Then we faced a bloc, the Warsaw Pact lead by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There was one really big threat. We had to be in many places to counter it but we understood it and we developed strategies, and tactics to defeat our one big threat.

Now we have many threats. They are more diffuse. Each is less threatening than 30% casualties in a global nuclear war. Which is harder to prepare for and to counter? How many unique threats do we face today? 25? 30? 50?

We stilll have to be ready to fight and win anywhere in the world.

It would be a very worthwhile exercise to imagine the threats we may face in twenty years and then imagine the kinds of forces and training we will need to counter those threats or to fight and to win our nation's battles.

Merely lopping off a hundred billion dollars each year for ten years hardly seems like the adult way of doing business.
 
Misterveritis said:
The former Soviet Union still has nuclear weapons. They still have interests that counter our own. We drove them into bankruptcy with stealth technology. During the Cold war we spent roughly how much of our gross domestic product on defense - 7%? 6%?
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Um no. We drove them into bankruptcy via a number of ways, one of which was Afghanistan. Stealth itself was just a part of it.

How much do we spend today?
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How about you look at the inflation pegged amount of spending rather than percent of economy?

You raise an interesting point. Then we faced a bloc, the Warsaw Pact lead by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There was one really big threat. We had to be in many places to counter it but we understood it and we developed strategies, and tactics to defeat our one big threat.

Now we have many threats. They are more diffuse. Each is less threatening than 30% casualties in a global nuclear war. Which is harder to prepare for and to counter? How many unique threats do we face today? 25? 30? 50?
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Aside from a very unlikely Russian nuclear strike, we do not face an existential threat from our fellow humans. The threat we face are real, but hardly require the kind of spending we did against a threat that could actually end the world.

We stilll have to be ready to fight and win anywhere in the world.
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That doesn't mean we spend more then we did against the Soviets.

It would be a very worthwhile exercise to imagine the threats we may face in twenty years and then imagine the kinds of forces and training we will need to counter those threats or to fight and to win our nation's battles.

Merely lopping off a hundred billion dollars each year for ten years hardly seems like the adult way of doing business.
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By your measure, we shouldn't cut anything. Despite spending more than we did against a threat that could end America. DoD needs to be cut. As does everything else. If we funded every possibility for everything, we would be instantly broke.
 
obvious Child said:
Um no. We drove them into bankruptcy via a number of ways, one of which was Afghanistan. Stealth itself was just a part of it.
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Quibble if you wish. Once they realized we had invalidated the enormous sums they spent on air defense they pretty much gave up. Afghanistan was also a nice touch. Of course they had a losing strategy. And we provided arms to the freedom fighters.

How about you look at the inflation pegged amount of spending rather than percent of economy?
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That is one reasonable way to measure. I view defense spending as an insurance policy. I know that no matter how much I have I will need to spend a certain amount to transfer some of my risks to a third party. The nation transfers a great deal of its risk to a professional, all volunteer force. Now if you want to go back to conscription to lower costs I might support you.
 
I see the situation almost identical to it was in Germany in the early 1930s. A huge population, poor, with a huge chip in their shoulder, claiming everyone is picking on them, declaring some self superiority (for the Middle East it is religion) - and blaming all their problems on Jews and others, such as gays, for which they have the goal of eliminating all those from their country (which is done in most Islamic countries) -with it beyond where Germany was at with the vow to totally genocide Israel - and the greater danger to the whole world given the existence of nuclear weapons.

In the early 30s, Britain and France had overwhelming military power by comparison so saw Germany as no threat - and instead then appeased thinking if they were fair to Germany they all could be buddies.

I see President Obama as America's Neville Chamberlain. He declared "peace in our time" and Obama declared "Arab Spring."

A core belief of radical Islam is that they should and will be a worldwide war of mass death and destruction, but that Islam will ultimately win it.
 
obvious Child said:
By your measure, we shouldn't cut anything. Despite spending more than we did against a threat that could end America. DoD needs to be cut. As does everything else. If we funded every possibility for everything, we would be instantly broke.
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I think that cutting needs a time out. We can take a year and bring the best minds together to imagine the threats we will face in twenty years. Then we can figure out what forces are required to meet that threat, prioritize them and then figure out what it will cost to have the appropriate force. Maybe the cost will go down. maybe it will stay the same. And maybe it will rise.

We won't know until we do the exercise.
 
Misterveritis said:
Quibble if you wish. Once they realized we had invalidated the enormous sums they spent on air defense they pretty much gave up. Afghanistan was also a nice touch. Of course they had a losing strategy. And we provided arms to the freedom fighters.
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Stealth did not bankrupt the Soviets. And frankly, we got close to being bankrupt ourselves. What is more amusing is we likely could have just gotten the USSR to destroy itself by NOT treating all Communist nations as a monolith. Simple divided and conquer would have done the job cheaper. If anything, the lesson from the Cold war is never treat your enemies as a monolithic bloc. Every group has its own desires and needs and can be broken from the group by catering to those needs. Break enough of them off and your enemies cohesion collapses and you win.

That is one reasonable way to measure. I view defense spending as an insurance policy. I know that no matter how much I have I will need to spend a certain amount to transfer some of my risks to a third party. The nation transfers a great deal of its risk to a professional, all volunteer force. Now if you want to go back to conscription to lower costs I might support you.
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A draft is a terrible and great idea at the same time. It keeps the Elites from using it capaciously and instills some form of discipline. At the same time a draft force will never be as good as a professional force.

We won't know until we do the exercise.
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But history shows this exercise will never end.
 
Misterveritis said:
I think that cutting needs a time out. We can take a year and bring the best minds together to imagine the threats we will face in twenty years. Then we can figure out what forces are required to meet that threat, prioritize them and then figure out what it will cost to have the appropriate force. Maybe the cost will go down. maybe it will stay the same. And maybe it will rise.

We won't know until we do the exercise.
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I think that is the direction we are going toward. I have heard though I have no immediate source to cite that we are in the process of shifting from the Two-Front Traditional War orientation back again toward small short deployment scenarios with special Ops and Drones being the leading edge of the sword with less standing infantry.
 
obvious Child said:
Stealth did not bankrupt the Soviets.
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In my opinion it was a major factor. It is possibly the largest factor. They knew there was no way they could ever catch up. They had spent many hundreds of billions of rubles to develop sophisticated air defenses that were incapable of detecting our first generation stealth systems.

And frankly, we got close to being bankrupt ourselves.
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Really? Nonsense. I like you better when you stay a bit closer to the facts. :)

What is more amusing is we likely could have just gotten the USSR to destroy itself by NOT treating all Communist nations as a monolith. Simple divided and conquer would have done the job cheaper. If anything, the lesson from the Cold war is never treat your enemies as a monolithic bloc. Every group has its own desires and needs and can be broken from the group by catering to those needs. Break enough of them off and your enemies cohesion collapses and you win.
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I love hindsight. It is very nearly always perfect. It is one of the reasons for my long, enduring interest in history. I agree with your insights. They should be our starting point for the coming war with Islam. Like the Soviet Union and the Communist world Islam is not monolithic.
 
Fisher said:
I think that is the direction we are going toward. I have heard though I have no immediate source to cite that we are in the process of shifting from the Two-Front Traditional War orientation back again toward small short deployment scenarios with special Ops and Drones being the leading edge of the sword with less standing infantry.
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Team Obama decided that was one way of saving 500 billion over ten years. They declared the world was safe from two wars in two different areas. We went from two and a half wars to barely one war.

The world remains a dangerous place.
 
Misterveritis said:
In my opinion it was a major factor. It is possibly the largest factor. They knew there was no way they could ever catch up. They had spent many hundreds of billions of rubles to develop sophisticated air defenses that were incapable of detecting our first generation stealth systems.
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By the time we had stealth aircraft in a prototype stage, the USSR was already collapsing within. Afghanistan is really what did them in.

Really? Nonsense. I like you better when you stay a bit closer to the facts. :)
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Same for you. Actually, I don't really like you period though. Just being honest.

I love hindsight. It is very nearly always perfect. It is one of the reasons for my long, enduring interest in history. I agree with your insights. They should be our starting point for the coming war with Islam. Like the Soviet Union and the Communist world Islam is not monolithic.
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Except that so many Republicans treat Islam as a monolith.
 
obvious Child said:
By the time we had stealth aircraft in a prototype stage, the USSR was already collapsing within. Afghanistan is really what did them in.
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Funny how no one noticed or predicted that at the time, isn't it? We shall agree to disagree.

Same for you. Actually, I don't really like you period though. Just being honest.
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My what a coincidence. I feel the same. What a connection. it is almost as if we are brothers.
 
I've read somewhere that the USSR really thought we had all that James Bond movie technology and they spent a fortune trying to create it for themselves.
 
Kane said:
Yes.

The U.S. Government is still run by a bunch of crazy Crackers who just put Obama is front to hide their evil deeds. Of course, Obama knows this and plays along. NeoCons pulling the strings still manufacture enemies for the State to kill, and expect Presidents to carry them out. JFK wouldn't play ball, and they killed him. MLK said stop Vietnam, and they killed him too,
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Voltaire X said:
Dismantling our military? Please...

Obama has increased defense spending every year he's been in office.
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Kane said:
:lamo

No kidding.

The gullible minds of the brainwashed!

Obama is going gonzo militarily, without a doubt.

Misterveritis, give us an amusing source for your "Obama is destroying the military" conspiracy!
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Kane said:
Washington really wants to weaken Pakistan by putting puppets like Afghanistans Karzai in the govmnt and by destablizing it with drones and militants.

The Pakistan threat of "nukes and terrorists" like the mantra for Iran is a phony cover story the U.S, uses, because they want a puppet installed there as well, so Western multinationals can assume control over the oil.
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Misterveritis said:
I think that cutting needs a time out. We can take a year and bring the best minds together to imagine the threats we will face in twenty years. Then we can figure out what forces are required to meet that threat, prioritize them and then figure out what it will cost to have the appropriate force. Maybe the cost will go down. maybe it will stay the same. And maybe it will rise.

We won't know until we do the exercise.
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That is what we mean by "dittohead." Just being a zombified "yes" man for the establishment/defense industry megaphone Rush and all those carbon-copy Republican sound-a-like talking heads.They create a enemy for your bloated Pentagon, nevermind your 3rd world Iraq and Afghanistan are basically defenseless!

We are all poor but spend hundreds of billions on B-2 bombers and tons of waste. Does that compute that Mr. "Conservative"?
 
Kane said:
That is what we mean by "dittohead." Just being a zombified "yes" man for the establishment/defense industry megaphone Rush and all those carbon-copy Republican sound-a-like talking heads.They create a enemy for your bloated Pentagon, nevermind your 3rd world Iraq and Afghanistan are basically defenseless!

We are all poor but spend hundreds of billions on B-2 bombers and tons of waste. Does that compute that Mr. "Conservative"?
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Western Oil companies have already pulled out of Iran.. and China has quit the South Pars project.

No matter what happens, nobody is going to "steal" Iran's oil.
 
It never surprises me how all the Republicans on EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE BOARD, refuse to indentify their Party affiliation, or political lean, like the ones posting on this thread.

It also never surprises me how said Republicans NEVER admit
their "Republic" has become a dictatorship, although they continually describe the particulars of policy which constitute a fascist type oligarchy going on in their own country.

They are displaying a type of mind blindess, eh?
 
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