Government Policy and Budget Discussion Thread (no politics)

[Cincydawg]

The Marine Corps is a force of nearly 200,000.  The SEALs (all caps) have a couple hundred.  A Ranger battalion or two might be a couple thousand, so you're kind of mixing up force types and needs.

[Cincydawg]

South Korea could handle an attack from the North on its own.  Our presence there is thought to be a trip wire to PREVENT such an attack.  It has worked since 1953, so I'd be cautious about changing it.  The North might get more adventurous without guaranteed US involvement on Day One.  And of course such a war would be enormously devastating.  Seoul is in long artillery range of the North.

I think the ROK Military is about 600,000 fully mobilized, and our forces there number about 28,000, maybe 4,000 are front line troops, don't know the ratio for sure.

The Second MarDiv is not far away and "on call" (unless they get moved to Guam which then tips over).

[OrangeAfroMan]

It bothers me that we wont/can't just take a step back for a decade and allow the rest of the world to just do what it' would do.  

[FearlessF]

I'd be for bringing the 28,000 person tripwire home.

Can always deploy them if North Korea does something stupid

but, obviously, I'm no expert on this topic

[CWSooner]

I think the reference is to Team America: World Police, a clay-mation movie by the South Park guys (I think).

I saw a cool presentation showing the number of deaths due to warfare not too long ago that makes a compelling case that Pax Americana has been real--and a major benefit to world security (which includes our own). I'll try to dig it up and link it here...

Are you thinking of "The Fallen of World War II"?

[CWSooner]

If North Korea invaded South Korea:
a)  South Korea wouldn't be surprised
b)  wouldn't South Korea have at least a 50/50 chance of winning by itself (including what we have there already) without us intervening with off-site resources?
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We could obviously erase North Korea off the map.  Honestly, I think we'd be doing China a favor.  They could never admit it, but I bet they'd be glad to be rid of that risky ally.

We'd rather prevent a war than make it more likely to happen, even if our ally would have a 50/50 chance to eventually win.
And we are not in the business of erasing countries off the map.  Every country in the world--even the countries that loudly advocate wiping Israel off the map--would abhor our actions.
Nobody has made a serious attempt to wipe countries and peoples out since the end of WWII.  It is not in our interest nor in our national character to be the first country to break that winning streak.
I imagine that there are times when China wishes it hadn't saved North Korea in late 1950.

[CWSooner]

. . . Could we have reached the Iranian government in 1952-53 and made peace between it and the UK regarding oil production, thus making Iran our friend in the middle east? Could that have been a better check on Soviet efforts in the middle east? Probably. Could we have understood the massive problems French colonialism caused in Vietnam, and supported a democratically elected government that represented the people of that country, instead of backing failed regimes? Maybe. . . .

Man, we made a hell of a lot of mistakes in Vietnam.  A lot of them even before the French collapse.
But our mistakes came fast and furious once JFK decided he needed to restore American credibility after he got verbally beaten up by Khrushchev in Vienna in the summer of 1961.  His need combined with McNamara's and the "Whiz Kids'" arrogance, combined with what was on the ground in Vietnam, were a fatal brew.  He escalated our troop numbers from 900 to about 18,000 and colluded in the coup that overthrew Diem.  And then LBJ doubled down and raised our troop levels to over half a million.  Neither of them had a strategy to win.  Both were trying to show American resolve without spreading the war further.  It was crisis resolution that was the goal, not victory.  And if the crisis could have been resolved without the loss of American credibility, even at the cost of the South Vietnamese government, that was acceptable.
William Westmoreland was a disaster as CG of MAC-V at the time the war was being lost.  He shoved the ARVN aside and showed how we Americans do it in his quest for big, main-force battles.  The ARVN, never great, lost credibility with its own people.  And our firepower-heavy tactics ripped up the Vietnamese countryside and killed a lot of innocent civilians.
And yet, after all that, thanks to Operation Linebacker and Linebacker II, we got a marginally acceptable peace agreement in Jan 1973 that might have worked.
Except for Watergate and Nixon's exit from office.  After that, Congress was in no mood to give a Republican president any more support for the Republic of Vietnam, and cut off all assistance.  The ARVN, built largely in our image, needed lots of spare parts, ammunition, and POL, and suddenly it wasn't getting any more.  It was defeated not by the "people's uprising" that the anti-war movement in America had predicted, but by a bigger, better Army with better training and better leadership.  Just like France was beaten in 1940, only after 15 years of war rather than 6 weeks.
I think that Vietnam was a difficult situation at best.  But if we had fought it smarter, it could have been a difficult, expensive win.  We fought it poorly, and it was a difficult, expensive loss that killed a lot of Vietnamese and tore our country apart.

[Cincydawg]

It bothers me that we wont/can't just take a step back for a decade and allow the rest of the world to just do what it' would do. 

I am mostly in agreement, though I tend to think our trip wire troops in ROK have prevented a war from starting.

That might not be true today as much.

I fear the next real war may be very very very asymmetric.

[SFBadger96]

Are you thinking of "The Fallen of World War II"?

Yes, that's it. The part about wartime deaths as a percentage of worldwide population flies by, but it's worth pausing and considering.

Linked again here: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU

[SFBadger96]

Could we just have Seals, Rangers, and Marines?  Have a full navy, have a full air force, but small/elite ground forces only.  Tactical, surgical incisions only, combined with infinite attacks from the air, anywhere on the planet.

No. Small ground forces do small-tactics-related things. They do not, for instance, prevent invasion, nor are they any good at taking large pieces of land. For that, you need lots of people, and heavy equipment. And keep in mind that a large portion of the military isn't a "combat" element, but support. As the military saying goes, "Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics." Or something like that.

[CWSooner]

No. Small ground forces do small-tactics-related things. They do not, for instance, prevent invasion, nor are they any good at taking large pieces of land. For that, you need lots of people, and heavy equipment. And keep in mind that a large portion of the military isn't a "combat" element, but support. As the military saying goes, "Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics." Or something like that.

Heh!  That's what logisticians always say!

Of course, it's true.  It's one reason why the operationally brilliant Germans haven't been able to win the Big Ones.

I think it is "tactics," rather than "strategy," but the point is the same.

[SFBadger96]

You're right--it's tactics, not strategy. Oh well.

[OrangeAfroMan]

No. Small ground forces do small-tactics-related things. They do not, for instance, prevent invasion, nor are they any good at taking large pieces of land. For that, you need lots of people, and heavy equipment. And keep in mind that a large portion of the military isn't a "combat" element, but support. As the military saying goes, "Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics." Or something like that.

Right, I get all that, and they wouldn't be tasked with any of it.
You send them in to snip a bottleneck of some kind - food, an important bridge, an important fuel source, a home base of operations, etc.  Just one sneaky task to retard the opposition's ability to do anything.
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I like the idea of that, coupled with erasing regimes from the sky.  It would replace any need for a bunch of ground troops.
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I'm no expert, just thinking out loud here.  I'd like a much smaller military for many reasons - one of which is fewer Vets coming come with PTSD and offing themselves. 
Among all of the attrocities our country inflicts on subsets of itself, the suicide rate among veterans is the absolute worst.

[CWSooner]

Long but interesting analysis of what Iran might try to do to us in the near future.
Long but interesting analysis of what Iran might try to do to us in the near future.