Military Reorganization
 

Cnn Story


Fox Story
The fox story is pretty lame, but i thought i would put both links in.

Looks like the realignment of US troops that we've been hearing about for some time is going to happen. Bush announced that 100,000 troops will be shuffled around, in theory, to leave behind the old cold war posture and put us into a better position to respond to the new threat of terrorism.
While this is probably a good thing, it does make me a little nervous in that government has a tendency to prepare the military for the war that it just fought rather than truly have a vision for the future. Since the time i went in the military i've been hearing talk of going to mega-bases. in theory if we close bases around the world and consolidate their functions stateside, it is more cost-effective and we can just send the appropriate force to any hot spot in the world. the only problem is that if we don't already have a hard base, it can be difficult to establish a presence where we need our people to be.

we'll have to see if rumsfeld and the gang can put together a reasonable, functional, and attractive plan to accomplish this.

any thoughts?

This might work: http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...battle_island/

that is the coolest damn thing i've seen. that would be awesome to see that in active service. i would be pretty surprised to see the first one roll out while i'm still in uniform though.

So my peace dividend is in the mail?

"Larger than a city, the Joint Mobile Offshore Base will keep freedom fighters safe in hostile terrain." Crap, you mean we're arming the Taliban again?

I don’t know,.........but that never stopped me before.
I’ve always wondered why we have 170k soldiers in Germany. Who are they going to fight?
I think this partially comes from Rumsfeld’s vision of a more automated force with unmanned aircraft and small surgical strikes.
Maybe they need more troops here to control the populace when their new constitution is applied to us.
Maybe they have visions of just turning offending nations to glass with ICBMs.
I read somewhere the stash of heavy armor and spare parts in Germany had been exhausted in the 2 of the current wars, which was causing problems in Iraq. I wonder if that stash will be recreated?
It would mean a lot of money spent overseas would now be spent here, therefore WalMart would have to build less stores.
Uh,.....I don’t know. :blush:

Ain't it though? Here's another system that they are envisioning.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...ps/print.phtml

Halliburton Has the no bid contract

yeah - i saw the Battle Blimp thing, and i'm not so sure about that one. i don't want battles to be decided by something that belongs over a baseball game.

How about unmanned war?

that is a really cool idea bruce, but remember this - aviators are the ones promoted to top positions in the air force. top air force officers generally set the direction for new R&D projects. pilots do not want to give up control of anything, especially control of the aircraft. more important than control of an aircraft (in a pilot's mind) is the relative superiority to all others. in a world where technicians got to wear the flightsuits and not fighter jocks, there would be fighter jocks curled up in fetal positions crying their eyes out.

It looks like some of the Germans have realized that pulling American troops out of Germany is not a net positive for them.

CNN Story

The redeployment has been an ongoing study since the Clinton administration. When reported back then, there is was this major problem of where to put all these redeployed units. It means whole new facilities for heavy divisions must be built somewhere else including facilities for training. Not an idle task. However the redeployment is necessary if we are to attack Iran. Resources must first be liberated. And that redeployment could not even be completed by 2005 which gives an approximation to a possible Iran invasion.

Simply rechanneling a redeployment would coincide with an Iran invasion and with the manning of new American bases scattered north of Iran. Will the redeployment involve those new bases and other objectives? Insufficient information is currently available. All we have right now is an event that dovetails nicely how manpower must first be released from NATO before it can be deployed elsewhere. Currently, those forces in Europe could not be used to, for example, invade Iraq. Having been released from NATO, they can be used as the president wishes. An Iranian invasion on or after 2005 will most likely occur if George Jr is reelected. He just needs more military freed to execute his agenda.

Sorry, bu I'm too lazy to google which german bases are going to be closed. Doesn't anybody have a good link or something?

Pi - names have been thrown out, but nothing is really solid yet. i think what is out there is just rumor at this point.