For those who think we no longer need a Navy...

I never liked this "take from peter to pay paul" mentality the DoD has Increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps by taking from the Navy and Air Force doesnt make sense. Why not keep the Navy and Air Force at its current size while also increasing the Army anc Corps? Considering how much is being spent on the Iraqi war the extra 100 thousand (not sure of exact number) or so active duty servicemen would be pocket change.
 
Interesting. My son just mentioned last night that he thinks China is our number 2 issue after Iraq.
 
As an online buddy of mine so eloquently stated...

"Upon seeing this, I imagine it must be impossible to get a needle up the sphincter of the Taiwanese even using a sledgehammer..."

A bit........ crude, but probably accurate.
 
I am totally and completely offended.

But to further the discussion, the Navy no longer has a fighter. Our battle groups will have to depend mostly on you SWOs to defend us.
 
Thomas Barnett, in Pentagon's New Map, would disagree with the statement that China is a military threat. According to him it wants globalization too much to want to fight a war with the U.S. China has become part of the Core countries which embrace and benefit from globalization, and our grand strategy should not be based around a war with a military near-peer. There is some danger of it leaving the core, and he better explains the issue here.

If you have the time this excerpt from his book is a very good read.
17) CHINA Running lots of races against itself in terms of reducing the unprofitable state-run enterprises while not triggering too much unemployment, plus dealing with all that growth in energy demand and accompanying pollution, plus coming pension crisis as population ages. • New generation of leaders looks suspiciously like unimaginative technocrats—big question if they are up to task. • If none of those macro pressures trigger internal instability, there is always the fear that the Communist party won't go quietly into the night in terms of allowing more political freedoms and that at some point, economic freedom won't be enough for the masses. Right now the CCP is very corrupt and mostly a parasite on the country, but it still calls the big shots in Beijing. • Army seems to be getting more disassociated from society and reality, focusing ever more myopically on countering U.S. threat to their ability to threaten Taiwan, which remains the one flash point that could matter. • And then there's AIDS.​
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There seems to be two sides to this, both with very valid arguments and both very polarized. My question is why do they need aircraft carriers which they seem hell bent on obtaining? 21st century brinksmanship? Will Hillary become the 21st century DDE?
 
USNA69 said:
There seems to be two sides to this, both with very valid arguments and both very polarized. My question is why do they need aircraft carriers which they seem hell bent on obtaining? 21st century brinksmanship? Will Hillary become the 21st century DDE?
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That's a good point about the carriers.

As we all know I'm a die-hard conservative, but to play devil's advocate:

Why does the U.S. need aircraft carriers, and why should we deny them to other countries. The Chinese probably want them to diminish our ability to coerce them. If they have a more equal force to us then our ability to tell them what to do with the explicit or implicit threat of military force is vastly diminished, if not eliminated. That's not to say peaceful relations will cease to exist, but it will be peer or near-peer relations rather than a David and Goliath relationship.
 
There are a lot better ways to diminish coercion. An aircraft carrier is an offensive tactical weapon, pure and simple.
 
USNA69 said:
There are a lot better ways to diminish coercion. An aircraft carrier is an offensive tactical weapon, pure and simple.
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Let's say the USS Enterprise and Nimitz decide to take a jaunt over to around, say, Taiwan. Now, how is the Chinese military going to counter that threat?

A ballistic missile is also an offensive tactical weapon, yet the best way to counter an ICBM threat is to deploy ICBMs.
 
TacticalNuke said:
A ballistic missile is also an offensive tactical weapon, yet the best way to counter an ICBM threat is to deploy ICBMs.
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A ballistic missile is a strategic weapon not a tactical weapon. The whole purpose of these weapons is deterrence. If an ICBM is ever launched with nuclear warheads it has failed its mission.
 
As China's economy emerges and their standard of living increases, their own citizens will absorb more and more of the products for which they now depend on the world market. When this happens, stand by.
 
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•" Army seems to be getting more disassociated from society and reality, focusing ever more myopically on countering U.S. threat to their ability to threaten Taiwan, which remains the one flash point that could matter." •

The ChiCom military has evolved over the last 20 years as a totally independent entity that functions in spite of the political leadership. Indeed, most of the CCP live in fear of the Generals. The economy's wealth development has been almost completely subjugated and rolled into the coffers of the military. Even though the standard of living is growing for a relatively small number of Chinese citizens, they still have no control over their government, and, their government has little control over the Generals. This kind of lack of accountablilty makes me very nervous. China is the next "problem" that we face. I believe that they are as big a "problem" as Radical Islam. Where Radical Islam is ***** slapping us with guerrilla tactics, China could spank us badly with convential confrontations given the current and future state of their military technology. I think they are just waiting for us to bury our heads in the sand again, hold up our peace signs, and once again disassemble our military before they strike. I am more concerned about them then I was about the Soviets. Ivan had a conscience of sorts; the Chinese have none.
 
New Chinese Ballistic Missile Sub Detected

http://www.military.com/forums/0,15240,141687,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl

A commercial satellite image appears to have led to revelation of details of the new Chinese nuclear-propelled ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) of the Jin or Type 094 class. The new submarine was initially photographed by the commercial Quickbird satellite in late 2006 and the image was available on the Google Earth web site. Coupled with later satellite photography, the submarine was identified by Hans M. Kristensen, Director, Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C.

The Type 094 submarine has long been expected by Western analysts and intelligence experts. China has previously constructed only a single SSBN, the Xia or Project 092 submarine, launched in 1983. That submarine has twice test fired the JL-1 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), but is not considered an operational submarine. The improved JL-2 SLBM will probably arm the Type 094 submarine, with that missile expected to become operational between 2007 and 2010, according to U.S. officials....
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