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Originally Posted by richlevy
So after 8 years we have not built up the infrastructure to support our supply chain? That is kind of scary.
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No, we were distracted by Iraq, remember. When we got back to the real problem, Afghanistan, there was even less supply chain. Russia pressured, and bribed, it's former USSR states not to let us use airspace, and the only land line through Pakistan has become unreliable by stepped up Taliban attacks on both sides of the border.
Don't forget there are a hell of a lot more troops to supply now, and they are using a lot more materiel with the increase in fighting.
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Don't the line units get rotated back to the bases?
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As I understand it, the fighting units may sometimes change outposts as the campaign dictates, but they are in the thick of it for the duration of their tour, then rotated home as a unit. I haven't read anything about R&R during their tours.
Counter-insurgent warfare is up close and personal, the units work like sports teams. They have to trust and depend on each other, and you just can't rotate unknown people in and out. They are stretched pretty thin, in most cases, anyway. The current "surge" is manning more outposts, but they are still small units.
Bagram and Kandahar are support and command bases, operating full capacity air traffic, both military and commercial, 24/7.