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The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need

Rogue Valley

Rogue Valley

Lead or get out of the way
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The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need

We only pretend to build armed forces to confront the threats we face.

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6/28/20
“Disruptive change” is probably the most rhetorically popular, yet intellectually vacuous, turn of phrase now in use throughout the U.S. defense establishment. What is seen as the blueprint for disruptive change is the National Defense Strategy, or NDS, promulgated by the Trump administration’s first Defense Secretary, James Mattis, and his Marine brother in arms, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford. Together, they passed this ideological tract off as a legitimate strategy based on bona fide strategic thinking to indoctrinate the defense establishment and its bureaucratic and political disciples. Their successors and their successors’ subordinates have unquestioningly and unthinkingly endorsed the stultifying received truths of the document, so much so that any thought of meaningful transformative change within the institution, however much needed, seems frustratingly out of the question in the absence of some jolt to the system.

continued @ the link above
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The article is rather long so I stopped there due to Fair-Use infringement concerns. The article is a good read, and puts forth the argument that the US military
we are currently building is not the military we will need as threats and warfare continue to evolve in the 21st century.
 
Rogue Valley said:
The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need

We only pretend to build armed forces to confront the threats we face.

defense-large.jpg




The article is rather long so I stopped there due to Fair-Use infringement concerns. The article is a good read, and puts forth the argument that the US military
we are currently building is not the military we will need as threats and warfare continue to evolve in the 21st century.
Click to expand...

We need to cut it in half
 
The author's premise, that we should fight the wars of today, and prepare for the wars of tomorrow (rather than fighting the wars of the past), is a good one. Some of his premises are flawed. The United States military is not the appropriate institution to address pandemics or natural disasters, for example. Nor was the NDS he refers to wrong in its findings. In fact, it seems to me that the author is foolish in rejecting the relevance of traditional forms of warfare in the future. Our military should be taking an "all of the above" approach. Certainly, however, it should funnel resources to the most relevant/urgent aspects of national defense.

It was a thought-provoking article and while I disagree with some of the specifics, we absolutely do need to be giving greater focus to the most relevant (and likely) fields of national defense going forward. While a World War Two-style conflict will always be possible in the future (and we should prepare for it), things like cybersecurity or smaller-scale warfare are more ubiquitous and we should adapt on that basis.

We do need to cut the military - in some areas - just as we need to reform it in others and increase spending in yet other areas. Proposals like "cut it in half" are overly simplistic and dangerous.
 
Rogue Valley said:
The Military We Have Vs. The Military We Need

We only pretend to build armed forces to confront the threats we face.

defense-large.jpg




The article is rather long so I stopped there due to Fair-Use infringement concerns. The article is a good read, and puts forth the argument that the US military
we are currently building is not the military we will need as threats and warfare continue to evolve in the 21st century.
Click to expand...

Was it not a long saying the west builds for wars they want to fight, while the soviet union builds for wars they are going to fight?

I think this does hold true, our military puts too little into designing our military for peer or near peer rivals and instead gears towards third world conflicts. The opposite was true during the cold war where we built our military to counter the soviet union.

Today it is not a stretch for anyone to think we are focusing on the wrong priorities, in that if russia is that much of a threat why are we not building our military to combat it, or the same could be said with china, but instead gearing towards warfare in third world nations in the middle east.
 
Blackstone said:
The author's premise, that we should fight the wars of today, and prepare for the wars of tomorrow (rather than fighting the wars of the past), is a good one. Some of his premises are flawed. The United States military is not the appropriate institution to address pandemics or natural disasters, for example. Nor was the NDS he refers to wrong in its findings. In fact, it seems to me that the author is foolish in rejecting the relevance of traditional forms of warfare in the future. Our military should be taking an "all of the above" approach. Certainly, however, it should funnel resources to the most relevant/urgent aspects of national defense.

It was a thought-provoking article and while I disagree with some of the specifics, we absolutely do need to be giving greater focus to the most relevant (and likely) fields of national defense going forward. While a World War Two-style conflict will always be possible in the future (and we should prepare for it), things like cybersecurity or smaller-scale warfare are more ubiquitous and we should adapt on that basis.

We do need to cut the military - in some areas - just as we need to reform it in others and increase spending in yet other areas. Proposals like "cut it in half" are overly simplistic and dangerous.
Click to expand...

On the bolded yes we should prepare for the wars of tomorrow, china is a rising power, and russia militarily can near rival it's peak of soviet power, but warfare changes, russia even though still using some soviet doctrine has radically modified it, while china is behind them they have immense manpower at their disposal and is still progressing on warfare tech. The militry must adapt to these new doctrines rather than hide in a middle east third world warfare mentality.
 
Blackstone said:
The author's premise, that we should fight the wars of today, and prepare for the wars of tomorrow (rather than fighting the wars of the past), is a good one. Some of his premises are flawed. The United States military is not the appropriate institution to address pandemics or natural disasters, for example. Nor was the NDS he refers to wrong in its findings. In fact, it seems to me that the author is foolish in rejecting the relevance of traditional forms of warfare in the future. Our military should be taking an "all of the above" approach. Certainly, however, it should funnel resources to the most relevant/urgent aspects of national defense.

It was a thought-provoking article and while I disagree with some of the specifics, we absolutely do need to be giving greater focus to the most relevant (and likely) fields of national defense going forward. While a World War Two-style conflict will always be possible in the future (and we should prepare for it), things like cybersecurity or smaller-scale warfare are more ubiquitous and we should adapt on that basis.

We do need to cut the military - in some areas - just as we need to reform it in others and increase spending in yet other areas. Proposals like "cut it in half" are overly simplistic and dangerous.
Click to expand...

The bully's of the world will ravage the weak when they realize the U.S. doesn't have the might or the will to prevent them from doing so. The idealist view that we can reason with China, Russia and others is childish. Just like he bully in school, he picks on he weak. He steers clear of the strong. Cutting he defense budget to make those who hate America happy is a bad idea. Restructuring the way the military responds and fights is smart use of money and of manpower.
 
My point exactly. We certainly ought to be funneling resources to fighting and countering nonconventional warfare. (Imagine if China weaponized and released COVID, or a worse virus, to destroy the U.S. economy?) Conflict between hostiles and the United States is neither restricted to traditional battlefields nor even to nation-states. That said, we cannot ignore the ongoing need or abandon our preparedness to fight a conventional war on a conventional front. (Not merely defending our coastlines, either.) How that looks and what that requires is best assessed by the strategy of our military and its civilian authorities, not by the social goals of idiots who think that climate change is the greatest threat that the U.S. military faces.

An obvious imminent example of the need for conventional forces is the necessity of a military solution to the threat posed by the North Korean regime. Eliminating the Kim dynasty, the North Korean military threat to South Korea, and the North's nuclear capabilities sooner, not later, ought to be goals of this (or any) administration and doing so while successfully deterring Red China from interfering will require a very consistent, visible and resolute show of force on multiple fronts.
 
As I recall some years back, the Army wanted to stop production of the Abrams, but congressional influence regarding jobs at home insisted that production remain.

So, it's complicated. West Point delivers men defending the status quo, a sad fact.
 
the military is a business for profit and always have been historically, stop pretending like its anything else

and well USA definitely needs to adapt to the cyber warfare reality
 
Dayton3 said:
How so?
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We would no longer be involved in foreign wars not on our soil. Cut our military in half and we would be so powerful no one could ever invade us
 
Dayton3 said:
So you openly admit that cutting the U.S. military in half would make the U.S weaker
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No. It would make us much much stronger. As long as we change the mission
 
Dayton3 said:
That would be national suicide.
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National suicide is a slow process, and it's been going on for years at least. Our elected representatives voted in unison to urinate on the 4th Amendment by way of the patriot act. They renew it every few years.
 
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