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The Case for Enhancing US Military Might

Jack Hays

Jack Hays

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This is thoughtful. In an uncertain world our military strength is vital to defend ourselves and the kind of world we want to live in.

The illusion-free case for enhancing U.S. military mightBy Rosa Brooks

Don’t let the title fool you: Eliot A. Cohen’s newest book, “The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force,” isn’t a pro-war polemic. Instead, it’s very much in the “older, sadder, wiser” vein: Once seen as a cheerleader for the George W. Bush administration’s ambitious neo-conservative agenda, Cohen now offers a vision of American power largely stripped of illusion. The United States must enhance its military capabilities and remain engaged in shoring up the international order, he contends in this thoughtful and erudite book — but not because it is infallible. It’s simply that in this messy and uncertain world, there are currently no better alternatives.
Even though Cohen is passionate about a United States that is militarily powerful and internationally engaged, he is also a student of history, and for the most part, he owns up to recent U.S. failures. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States was “unprepared, intellectually and organizationally.” It made “fundamental misjudgments,” and the military adapted only haltingly and intermittently to the new forms of conflict it faced. Ultimately, Cohen concludes, the Iraq War, which he once staunchly supported, was “a mistake.” False intelligence about weapons of mass destruction damaged U.S. credibility, as did the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. More broadly, the war strained civil-military relations, caused tensions with key U.S. allies and left the United States weaker rather than stronger.
Cohen is equally critical of American military and political leaders. Enamored of Special Operations forces and drone strikes, U.S. policymakers have confused tactical success with strategic progress, and the military has failed to invest in “the intellectual infrastructure” of hard power and to develop innovative new ways to bring in vital talent. . . .
 
Except of course the Iraq example shows we have far more force than we need- it is highly mis-balanced to face terrorism and the biggest fail was our POLITICAL leadership. NOT an 'un-enhanced' military.

We are at a crossroads. On the one hand we still need a conventional army as we face a series of 'small war' threats which we treat like large wars. We still have other militaries facing us, though we outnumber them badly.

Where we need to focus is the game changer. Our dominance in conventional forces is unquestioned. Why would anyone attempt to build 13 massive carriers, or thousands of uber tanks? How about super fighter planes? The best any of our potential enemies seem to be capable of doing is building a DEFENSIVE force in an attempt to deter us from using military force in their regions.

Where we seem to need work is the next gen of warfare- cyber. I get a sick feeling thinking about how our hugely expensive aircraft could be hacked right out of the sky. how our vast intel network can be blinded by a relatively simple series of countermeasures and a not all that sophisticated cyber attack.

We face the problems Victorian England faced- all our conventional foes just hunker in the wings and our wars involve the most unsophisticated of enemies defying our attempts to bring 'world order' and peace.

I doubt we do much better because hubris just seems to come with the word PAX put before a major power... :peace
 
notquiteright said:
Except of course the Iraq example shows we have far more force than we need- it is highly mis-balanced to face terrorism and the biggest fail was our POLITICAL leadership. NOT an 'un-enhanced' military.

We are at a crossroads. On the one hand we still need a conventional army as we face a series of 'small war' threats which we treat like large wars. We still have other militaries facing us, though we outnumber them badly.

Where we need to focus is the game changer. Our dominance in conventional forces is unquestioned. Why would anyone attempt to build 13 massive carriers, or thousands of uber tanks? How about super fighter planes? The best any of our potential enemies seem to be capable of doing is building a DEFENSIVE force in an attempt to deter us from using military force in their regions.

Where we seem to need work is the next gen of warfare- cyber. I get a sick feeling thinking about how our hugely expensive aircraft could be hacked right out of the sky. how our vast intel network can be blinded by a relatively simple series of countermeasures and a not all that sophisticated cyber attack.

We face the problems Victorian England faced- all our conventional foes just hunker in the wings and our wars involve the most unsophisticated of enemies defying our attempts to bring 'world order' and peace.

I doubt we do much better because hubris just seems to come with the word PAX put before a major power... :peace
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We are in danger of losing air superiority. Most of our ground equipment is worn out. Carrier battle groups are increasingly vulnerable.
 
Jack Hays said:
We are in danger of losing air superiority. Most of our ground equipment is worn out. Carrier battle groups are increasingly vulnerable.
Click to expand...

Opinion mostly. Our air superiority is at risk mainly because we seem hellbent on working flaws into the designs (the electronic hacking through the in the air maintenance systems) We still rule the skies against our enemies- the danger of our more conventional air forces being at risk are slight. Perhaps if all the world's air forces united.... Our ground equipment is being refurbished as we speak, I see the BAE facility rebuilding Paladin SP units every time I drive past Elgin OK. We have many Abram tanks sitting in desert storage simply because they aren't needed. Battle carrier groups are not 'increasingly becoming more vulnerable', THAT debate has been going on since the A bomb tests after WWII.

Fact is no one can stand up to us force on force. Our navy is hugely dominate and hugely expensive- just like Victorian England's navy. our enemy will not because it can not stand up to us out on the desert where our forces are damn near unbeatable. The biggest error would be for us to concentrate shrinking funds on last century's warfare models.

But again you can't reference the 'report' to back your desire to launch a new arm's race. The report is pretty clear, a LACK of proper doctrine and leadership is the problem, not the equipment.... :roll:
 
notquiteright said:
Opinion mostly. Our air superiority is at risk mainly because we seem hellbent on working flaws into the designs (the electronic hacking through the in the air maintenance systems) We still rule the skies against our enemies- the danger of our more conventional air forces being at risk are slight. Perhaps if all the world's air forces united.... Our ground equipment is being refurbished as we speak, I see the BAE facility rebuilding Paladin SP units every time I drive past Elgin OK. We have many Abram tanks sitting in desert storage simply because they aren't needed. Battle carrier groups are not 'increasingly becoming more vulnerable', THAT debate has been going on since the A bomb tests after WWII.

Fact is no one can stand up to us force on force. Our navy is hugely dominate and hugely expensive- just like Victorian England's navy. our enemy will not because it can not stand up to us out on the desert where our forces are damn near unbeatable. The biggest error would be for us to concentrate shrinking funds on last century's warfare models.

But again you can't reference the 'report' to back your desire to launch a new arm's race. The report is pretty clear, a LACK of proper doctrine and leadership is the problem, not the equipment.... :roll:
Click to expand...

". . . So restarting the F-22 production line to make good the fighter aircraft shortfall is not the ideal solution. Arguably the cost of the F-22 has wiped out half of the U.S. fighter fleet even before the Russians or Chinese have had a chance to attack it. Simply due to its cost, what was to be a 750-strong fleet stalled at 187 aircraft; of that number, only 123 are ‘combat-coded.’ After the 63 percent availability figure, that means that there is one modern fighter per every 4.1 million Americans. Of course that is not enough. The U.S. Air Force is considering buying more F-16 and F-15 fighters. That is not a solution either. As General Mike Hostage, former commander of Air Combat Command said,“If you gave me all the money I needed to refurbish the F-15 and the F-16 fleets, they would still become tactically obsolete by the middle of the next decade. Our adversaries are building fleets that will overmatch our legacy fleet, no matter what I do, by the middle of the next decade.”. . .

[FONT=&quot]"Simulation has the Gripen E shooting down the Su-35 at almost the same rate that the F-22 does. The Gripen E is estimated to be able to shoot down 1.6 Su-35s for every Gripen E lost, the F-22 is slightly better at 2.0 Su-35s shot down per F-22 lost. In turn the Su-35 is better than the F-35, shooting down 2.4 F-35s for each Su-35 shot down. The Su-35 slaughters the F-18 Super Hornet at the rate of eight to one, as per General Hostage’s comment. How that comes about is explained by the following graphic of instantaneous turn rate plotted against sustained turn rate: . . . "[/FONT]

American Gripen: The Solution To The F-35 Nightmare | Thai Military ...

https://thaimilitaryandasianregion.wordpress.com/.../american-gripen-the-solution-to-t...


Nov 27, 2016 - No matter how bad the F-35 is, it is going to be built because the U.S. Air Force needs something to replace its worn-out fighters. That appears to be the fallback position in Lockheed Martin’s marketing plan for the F-35. ... The solution to the F-35 nightmare first flew in 2008.
 
Jack Hays said:
. . . So restarting the F-22 production line to make good the fighter aircraft shortfall is not the ideal solution. Arguably the cost of the F-22 has wiped out half of the U.S. fighter fleet even before the Russians or Chinese have had a chance to attack it. Simply due to its cost, what was to be a 750-strong fleet stalled at 187 aircraft

Again you ignore the very report you started this thread with. Our LEADERSHIP and DOCTRINE needs work. You want to do the same ol' crap of throwing money at the problem.

The new battle ground is the cyber one- and this is from an old Grunt who used 20 round mags and had 3 smokes in his c-rat... :roll:

Germany tried U-boats to beat the British navy, Russia proxy wars to wear us down, and now cyber warfare.

No weapon system is our 'savior', the lump ontop a few shoulders are. You can have a dozen different 'EX-Spurts' claim 2 dozen different results. fact is we so out gun or enemies (and one weapon system vs another isn't how wars go) that conventional big force on force is not probable in the forseeable future.

But nice to see you have dropped the other BS to concentrate on ONE weapon system as 'proof' we need to spend billions to 'defend' a gap we don't have.

Again the report you cite doesn't say we need more weapons it says we need DOCTRINE and LEADERSHIP overhauls... YOUR OWN OP!!!!! :peace
Click to expand...
 
notquiteright said:
Jack Hays said:
. . . So restarting the F-22 production line to make good the fighter aircraft shortfall is not the ideal solution. Arguably the cost of the F-22 has wiped out half of the U.S. fighter fleet even before the Russians or Chinese have had a chance to attack it. Simply due to its cost, what was to be a 750-strong fleet stalled at 187 aircraft

Again you ignore the very report you started this thread with. Our LEADERSHIP and DOCTRINE needs work. You want to do the same ol' crap of throwing money at the problem.

The new battle ground is the cyber one- and this is from an old Grunt who used 20 round mags and had 3 smokes in his c-rat... :roll:

Germany tried U-boats to beat the British navy, Russia proxy wars to wear us down, and now cyber warfare.

No weapon system is our 'savior', the lump ontop a few shoulders are. You can have a dozen different 'EX-Spurts' claim 2 dozen different results. fact is we so out gun or enemies (and one weapon system vs another isn't how wars go) that conventional big force on force is not probable in the forseeable future.

But nice to see you have dropped the other BS to concentrate on ONE weapon system as 'proof' we need to spend billions to 'defend' a gap we don't have.

Again the report you cite doesn't say we need more weapons it says we need DOCTRINE and LEADERSHIP overhauls... YOUR OWN OP!!!!! :peace
Click to expand...

It's not a report. It's a book, and the OP is a book review. In the first paragraph one finds this sentence.

The United States must enhance its military capabilities and remain engaged in shoring up the international order, he contends in this thoughtful and erudite book — but not because it is infallible. It’s simply that in this messy and uncertain world, there are currently no better alternatives.
Click to expand...
 
How much military is enough? Start by answering that question.
 
Jack Hays said:
[FONT=&]". . . So restarting the F-22 production line to make good the fighter aircraft shortfall is not the ideal solution. Arguably the cost of the F-22 has wiped out half of the U.S. fighter fleet even before the Russians or Chinese have had a chance to attack it. Simply due to its cost, what was to be a 750-strong fleet stalled at 187 aircraft; of that number, only [/FONT]123[FONT=&] are ‘combat-coded.’ After the 63 percent availability figure, that means that there is one modern fighter per every 4.1 million Americans. Of course that is not enough. The U.S. Air Force is [/FONT]considering[FONT=&] buying more F-16 and F-15 fighters. That is not a solution either. As General [/FONT]Mike Hostage[FONT=&], former commander of Air Combat Command said,“If you gave me all the money I needed to refurbish the F-15 and the F-16 fleets, they would still become tactically obsolete by the middle of the next decade. Our adversaries are building fleets that will overmatch our legacy fleet, no matter what I do, by the middle of the next decade.”. . .

[/FONT][FONT="][U]"Simulation has the Gripen E shooting down the Su-35 at almost the same rate that the F-22 does. The Gripen E is estimated to be able to shoot down 1.6 Su-35s for every Gripen E lost, the F-22 is slightly better at 2.0 Su-35s shot down per F-22 lost. In turn the Su-35 is better than the F-35, shooting down 2.4 F-35s for each Su-35 shot down. The Su-35 slaughters the F-18 Super Hornet at the rate of eight to one, as per General Hostage’s comment. How that comes about is explained by the following graphic of instantaneous turn rate plotted against sustained turn rate: . . . "[/U][/FONT][/COLOR]
[/U]
[B][URL="https://thaimilitaryandasianregion.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/american-gripen-the-solution-to-the-f-35-nightmare/"]American Gripen: The Solution To The F-35 Nightmare | Thai Military ...[/URL][/B]

https://thaimilitaryandasianregion.wordpress.com/.../american-gripen-the-solution-to-t...


Nov 27, 2016 - No matter how bad the F-35 is, it is going to be built because the U.S. Air Force needs something to replace its worn-out fighters. That appears to be the fallback position in Lockheed Martin’s marketing plan for the F-35. ... The solution to the F-35 nightmare first flew in 2008.
Click to expand...


This is quite worrisome. Air superiority is one of the most important key factors for success in any military engagements.

I have no need nor desire to go back to earlier years when the US military aircraft were only slightly better than their opponents.
 
Jack Hays said:
Has the American Military Fallen Behind? | National News | US News

www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-05-02/has-the-american-military-fallen-behind


May 2, 2016 - The Russians and Chinese have rapidly expanded their military .... A country with 10 percent of the world's military capacity in 2016 is vastly more powerful than a .... Dow 20,000: Does It Matter, and What Happens Next?
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You aren't answering the question. How much military is enough? It is rather telling that you aren't willing to set a limit.
 
Jack Hays said:
That's because it's a stupid question.
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I bet you could set limitations to welfare, education, health care, etc. but military...nah. So where is the discussion? You support an unlimited build up of militarization.
 
CriticalThought said:
I bet you could set limitations to welfare, education, health care, etc. but military...nah. So where is the discussion? You support an unlimited build up of militarization.
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Actually, no. Limits on welfare, education, heath care, etc. would also be stupid questions. All are contingent, and the answers require specific contexts.
 
Jack Hays said:
Actually, no. Limits on welfare, education, heath care, etc. would also be stupid questions. All are contingent, and the answers require specific contexts.
Click to expand...

Not having air superiority means a far greater casualty rate both in the air and on the ground.

So the question becomes, what limits to casualty rates do you want to endure?
Isn't it really better to spend the money on the better equipment?
I certainly think so.
 
So an S 35 which is a modernized S27 is now at a 33% kill rate to the F22 in simulations, (does the US have the performance stats for the S35? Did India let the US look at theirs?

Overall the article looks like it was written by an industry lobbyist with the intent of having the US start a new fighter jet series as the US would never use a different countries design.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
So an S 35 which is a modernized S27 is now at a 33% kill rate to the F22 in simulations, (does the US have the performance stats for the S35? Did India let the US look at theirs?

Overall the article looks like it was written by an industry lobbyist with the intent of having the US start a new fighter jet series as the US would never use a different countries design.
Click to expand...

The fighter simulations are not sponsored by any corporate entity.
 
Jack Hays said:
The fighter simulations are not sponsored by any corporate entity.
Click to expand...

Who was it sponsored by?

The US military, by a person getting ready to retire to a nice job at say Boeing?

Overall the question is

What should the role of the US military be, and it should be funded to that level. If it is to allow the US to dominate the world then it needs to spend about double current levels. If it is be about protecting territorial US from foreign attacks and invasions, then it could be cut by 50% at the least

As it stands the US military has at least triple the capability of the next largest military. If that does not make the territorial US safe enough nothing will. The only reason to make it stronger is to dominate the world, to promote US interests world wide, to be the imperial power it revolted against
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Who was it sponsored by?

The US military, by a person getting ready to retire to a nice job at say Boeing?

Overall the question is

What should the role of the US military be, and it should be funded to that level. If it is to allow the US to dominate the world then it needs to spend about double current levels. If it is be about protecting territorial US from foreign attacks and invasions, then it could be cut by 50% at the least

As it stands the US military has at least triple the capability of the next largest military. If that does not make the territorial US safe enough nothing will. The only reason to make it stronger is to dominate the world, to promote US interests world wide, to be the imperial power it revolted against
Click to expand...

From the OP:

As Leon Trotsky is said to have remarked, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” If we take that seriously, the United States needs to be engaged in the ongoing project of shoring up the international order it helped create, and it needs to accept that there may be times when political leaders will conclude, “however reluctantly, that violence is the least bad policy choice.”
 
Jack Hays said:
From the OP:

As Leon Trotsky is said to have remarked, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” If we take that seriously, the United States needs to be engaged in the ongoing project of shoring up the international order it helped create, and it needs to accept that there may be times when political leaders will conclude, “however reluctantly, that violence is the least bad policy choice.”
Click to expand...


And the International order the USA helped create includes around 18 of the 20 largest economies in the world. Those 18 spend probably 90% of what the world spends militarily. How much more is needed.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
And the International order the USA helped create includes around 18 of the 20 largest economies in the world. Those 18 spend probably 90% of what the world spends militarily. How much more is needed.
Click to expand...

We don't have what we need, and most of our allies are in even worse shape.
 
Jack Hays said:
We don't have what we need, and most of our allies are in even worse shape.
Click to expand...

How much more is needed

Western Europe has 4 times the budget of Russia. More men, better tanks and better jets.

China has a lot of men but few 1st rate types of equipment. It might barely have the capability of invading Taiwan.

How much more does the USA and it's allies require
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
How much more is needed

Western Europe has 4 times the budget of Russia. More men, better tanks and better jets.

China has a lot of men but few 1st rate types of equipment. It might barely have the capability of invading Taiwan.

How much more does the USA and it's allies require
Click to expand...

Europe has almost zero logistics reach and only rudimentary battle space intel capability.

China's inventory is upgrading rapidly.
 
Jack Hays said:
notquiteright said:
It's not a report. It's a book, and the OP is a book review. In the first paragraph one finds this sentence. The United States must enhance its military capabilities and remain engaged in shoring up the international order, he contends in this thoughtful and erudite book — but not because it is infallible. It’s simply that in this messy and uncertain world, there are currently no better alternatives.
Click to expand...

Yeah you are repeating yourself. I don't see the term enhance to mean a massive build-up. More like a change of doctrine to face both a major force on force as well as the terrorist conflicts. I don't advocate turning carriers into Carnival Cruise Ships, but a serious reflection on our strength vs the world.

Now when it comes to what a General claims about our vs potential enemy's abilities, i am old enough to remember all the 'gaps' we had with the dreaded Roosians. Turns out most of that dread was more fear of the dark than an actual threat. And good to boost defense spending.

I hope and the good general don't mind if i see this as another attempt to gin up the defense industry. We have now been full circle- from vague claims about a messy world to 'in danger of losing air superiority' with worn out ground equipment, and vulnerable carriers to a general claiming our fighters are ace makers for the other team back to it's a messy world.

But as the good book says...it was DOCTRINE and LEADERSHIP that needed enhancing.... :peace
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