TML:

You're doing fine--much better than .500--and even if you were just putting up subjects, this is the kind of conversation I tune in for. (I was kind of hoping BruceR was going to weigh in on the whole "lighter and leaner" trend in RMA--especially with the perspective gained in the recent Canadian exercise in that direction.)

The real separation of professionals from amateurs, however, is the former's focus on logistics, and especially the perennial limiting factor: strategic lift. For example, tanks are absolutely the hardest things to move, and devilishly hard to support once they arrive. Iraq was a special case, in that we already had significant number of assets in theater, and a nearly perfect scenario for offloading the Maritime Preposition Shipping (MPS)--and the Army equivalent (APS). And we still had a tough time keeping them in supply once they got rolling. Strategy Page didn't address any of that.

I'm not up on all the procurement plans, but they probably ought to center around demobilizing most of the heavy armor assets (keeping just enough to populate training units and the prepositioning squadrons)--and transforming the rest into a lighter more mobile force that relies on air-delivered precision munitions for much of its firepower. From what I've seen (mostly press releases out of the SecDef's office), the basic thrust of his plans look pretty reasonable. Especially when compared to some of the naysayers (e.g., White, McCaffrey), who seem to be stuck somewhere around the '80s and looking to fight the Fulda Gap scenario.

TML: Your alegbra seems fine, I'll concede it'd be cheaper to use a nuke if you want to obliterate a city, but I think you're setting up false utility. Nuclear weapons are never going to be just another tool in the tool kit for the American military. There will be and should be an extreme reluctance to use nuclear weapons above and beyond normal military calculations. Like it or not the rest of the world has largely made up its mind about nuclear weapons and judged them beyond use. America could certainly decide that the RotW's opinion should have no effect on military decisions, but I think a realist would have to admit that world opinion, however slight, does play a role especially in relation to expedtionary warfare. Nuclear weapons seem more like an insurance policy, and as I said before it is possible to argue that the cost of these weapons are analagous to 'insurance premiums' in case America ever is threatened existentially.

Cecil Turner - You're too kind.

cynical joe - This explains some of the freaking out about recent proposals for new rounds of tactical mini-nukes for use as bunker busters. I would expect that US funding and deploying such weapons would be a good secondary marker to determine how much general world opinion plays in these issues.

TML: I think you have mistaken the new Taiwan/China policy as coming from the state department, but actually Kristol is berating the WH for the policy change and the dangerous signals it sends. I think Marshall at TPM has some stuff on this too.

cynical joe - Split the difference, James Moriarty is under NSC, Doug Paal is under State. I'll update the note.

TML: Wasn't Paal under NSC in the first Bush admin? I wondering how much 'state' is in him. He seems very connected to the WH side of things.

TM

I agree with your more often than not, more importantly whether I do or not I always learn something. Which is also true for Bruce and most of the contributors here.

What I was trying to get at was the importance of renewing the military/civilian conversation. The aims of the armed forces are subordinated to civilian intentions by constitutional design. The growing disconnect between the military and the larger society is dangerous all around.

And I completely agree with your purpose there.

I'll tell you what, Hank, I don't think a disconnect between the military and the larger American society is anything to lose sleep over. We've seen much worse at several points in our history.

The thing to be concerned about is the possibility that the public will start to buy into the idea that people in uniform are dramatically more competent than civilian officials. It's a defensible idea in certain situations, and some of those are highly visible right now, but it is at the high end of a very slippery slope.

cecil, I cannot agree. The trick is getting there firstest with the mostest, not firstest with the leastest. Without the Abrams, the US Army would still be 40 Km's short of Baghdad, the casualties swould be in the thousands and Bush would be under impeachment. No what has to be done is finding a way to get the heavies there faster. There is no point in rushing to get your a$$ whipped. Armored cars are armored cars. I doesn't matter how much you gold plate them the remain death traps. LAV's (armored cars) are for scouting for armies that cannot afford UAV's. They are a classic example of re-fighting the last ( sort of..WW1) War. A good start would be putting wings back on the Army. Let them fecelop their own lift and stop wasting money on whirly birds( another example of gold plated death traps. IIRC about 25% of the KIA's in Iraq are from Choppers being shot down. The Johnson administration crashed and burned because 10 casualties a day was to much for America to stomach. I don't think the bar is anywhere near that high today and I don't see it being raised. Maybe a WMD attack on NY that kills a few hundred thousand will do it. But I think all a sucessfull WMD event will do is force the current administration to respond in kind. While I think World opinion will get over that, it will take a while. Since this is exactly what the current plan is trying to avoid, it will be seen as a failure by the administration. That will give the surrender crowd (Dean) the upper hand. And by the time they figure out that religous fanatics don't take prisoners (except to do a Pearl job on them), it will be to late. Just picture the Taliban ruling everything except China. Scary, huh! And if the Democrats gain power that is what will happen. They will think they can cut a deal with the nutbags, right up until the blade bites their neck. Vietnam was our one allowable loss. We have to run the table from here on out.
919

ableiter,

Care to float a proposal for getting the heavies there faster? MPS/APA is the best thing going, and it's got some obvious limitations (e.g., each squadron only loads an armored battalion, and it requires a friendly, well-equipped port in close proximity). Fast sealift . . . isn't very fast. And there are lots of places without accessible ports (e.g., Afghanistan) where it just isn't practicable to deploy lots of armor--unless you want to fly them in one at a time--and you really don't want to do it that way. Obviously we (and just about everyone else) have a lot more tanks than we're ever likely to deploy. And armor assets on the wrong side of the ocean (or somewhere in Europe) aren't very useful.

In OIF, the 1st MarDiv had a much lighter force structure, including lots of "death traps." They didn't stall. I submit the force could be lightened further yet (though for the record, I support retaining a number of tanks).

Concur that the Army's attempt to use helicopters as a maneuver element (apparently confusing them with cavalry horses) is flawed doctrine. But Apaches are the near-perfect CAS machine, and I expect them to eventually figure that out. Also concur that Dean's defense strategy makes him an unsuitable candidate--but also makes it very unlikely he'll get elected.

The Queen's report must be taken with at least a modicum of salt considering CDA's reputation as a shill for the defence industry in Canada. General Dynamics Canada and General Dynamics Land Systems Canada are sponsoring CDA's 20th Annual Conference, have contributed to Paul Martin's campaign and are extensively involved with the LAV contract.

In addition, they received a $198 million contract in June 2002 to upgrade the surveillance systems for the Aurora fleet.

Maybe they are right, however, it would be interesting to see an audited review of their data and assumptions.

Bruce: I heard something on the radio, here in Vancouver that of the 12billion budget, that 4.5billion was spent at NHDQ! Is this possible? Of the 55-60,000 CF members (or whatever the amount is) how many are actually guys with guns?

cynical joe - I don't know Paal's resume nor do I care much. If he's tasked to State, he's State's responsibility. His official bio is here.

Joseph Britt - Please give me an example of a previous era where the military voting habits were so out of step with the general public of the US. I'd really like to know because I worry about it.

Cecil Turner - How much does airlift cost per pound on a tank? I have no idea but given that figure I might have something novel to say.

TML:

Sorry, no clue on cost. But the heaviest transports (C-5/C-17) can carry one tank each. And they (the heavy transports) are already overtasked. When the 173rd airlifted into Northern Iraq, they took in a handful of Abramses. AFAIK that's the only recent employment of airlifted tanks, and that was shuttling in theater, not strategic deployment.

TML, voting habits in the military are not dramatically out of step with those of the general public. Officers appear to vote heavily Republican, not surprising when one considers how unpopular Bill Clinton's personality and policies toward the military were. Enlisted personnel seem to vote Republican by a much smaller margin; they include many blacks and Hispanics, traditional Democratic constituencies, but a high proportion of enlisted personnel still tend to hail from rural areas in states that have trended Republican in the South and West. Also -- and I am only making an observation here -- the military as a matter of policy discourages people without a high school education from enlisting at all, and when such people do vote they tend to support Democrats.

When was there a greater difference? In the military of the interwar period, which was deeply conservative though not partisan Republican. In the later years of the Civil War, when a close election turned into a landslide for Lincoln because of the votes of Union Army soldiers. At the close of the Revolution, when Continental Army officers tended to be much stronger supporters of a vigorous central government than the public at large (they had among other reasons the specific grievance that Congress did not always pay them).

In each case the differences in civilian and military perspectives on politics dissipated over time, though they never disappeared completely, and the differences we see today probably will as well. There are a number of issues that Democratic politicians can use to appeal to voters in uniform, and the Democrats' greatest liability with these voters -- Bill Clinton -- is gone now.

In short I don't think this is anything to worry about. Of course, if one were really concerned about the military becoming too conservative the obvious solution would also solve the problem Bruce writes about today. Simply incorporate the Canadian military into its American counterpart. Canadian taxpayers would be spared some of the costs of maintaining duplicative training, procurement and administrative systems; Canadian officers, especially those in the Navy and Air Force would have far greater scope for their ambitions than they can have now; both militaries would gain from easier access to the strengths of the other. And, the incoming Canadian personnel would be less likely to vote Republican. Maybe.

I have always wondered at the people who wrote earlier this year about America becoming an empire and beginning this process by taking over Iraq. As if we would start an empire that way, with a country halfway around the world, mostly desert and full of Arabs! Even George Bush has more sense than that. I realize the same Canadians who do not want to pay for the military they have now will be grossly offended at this idea even being mentioned; they could hold demonstrations and teach-ins, and cause other commotion. But meanwhile the United States will be sizing up a far richer and more desirable place to begin an empire than Iraq, coopting the men with the guns first.

You understand I'm just kidding about this, Bruce, right?

Cecil Turner - I calculated out the number to about $14M per M1 per rush deployment. Rush deployment being defined as deliverable inside a day. That assumes a short ton of 2000lb/ton is used for tanks and that the tank with stuff will weigh 70 tons. This isn't realistic prior to about 2020 and relies on the concept of pre-positioning equipment and also requires a normal military runway at the delivery point.

So before I completely embarass myself by going off the deep end, how insanely expensive is this figure?

...pause...

Aha! Got a viable figure 1 million pounds of wheat costs 2.9 million by air to Afghanistan. This makes conventional air transport about $3 per pound and an M1 transport about $420,000 over the same distance.

Obviously, this is a niche capability, but the ability to drop ship tanks into say, Kurdish Iraq, would have significantly changed the situation in the recent invasion. Would a column of 100 tanks coming down from the north have been worth $1.4B just in transport costs? I'd like to hear from the professionals on that one. Would Saddam's deployment strategy have to have changed knowing that we could do such a thing? That's useful too.