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?

lookout123 wrote:

Cnn Story



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/science/military/2003/4/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:

lookout123 wrote:

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.

Ain't it though? Here's another system that they are envisioning.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/military/2002/3/return_of_battle_blimps/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.

Its true, our current system of military bases overseas more reflects a cold war stance than it does the current world reality. We really only need our base in Turkey overseas. A mega-base in say, Florida, would mean only about a 6 hour difference in deployment of troops to the Middle East, for example. In the First Gulf War we were avle to deploy troops straight from Germany, now apparently, we can't do this, thanks to George Jr.'s heavy handed tactics this time around, so what's the point?

Brue also has a good comment. A military base means beaucoup bucks for local economies. Why not have our troops spend their dollars in the US economy versus in some foreign nation? I would bet, too, that we must be paying foreign governments something for the use of the land on which are bases are now situated, so there would be a savings there, as well.

I see Kerry has already started playing politics with this...

Griff wrote:

I see Kerry has already started playing politics with this...

yeah - i saw that. it was his speech to the vfw.

marichiko wrote:

We really only need our base in Turkey overseas. A mega-base in say, Florida, would mean only about a 6 hour difference in deployment of troops to the Middle East, for example.

yes, we can get the troops there fairly quickly but the equipment and supplies would have to go by ship and some port near the action. That can take weeks or in cases of large deployments, months. :(

I imagine it would all depend on the type of engagement being fought. And no matter where your base is, doesn't everything ultimately have to come from stateside anyhow?

Looks like they over sold the Stryker as well.

marichiko wrote:

I imagine it would all depend on the type of engagement being fought. And no matter where your base is, doesn't everything ultimately have to come from stateside anyhow?

Sure, but the difference is response time. The US has equipment and spare parts stashed all over the world to cut that time down. Maybe the best solution is not sending our soldiers all over the world. :)

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

Sure, but the difference is response time. The US has equipment and spare parts stashed all over the world to cut that time down. Maybe the best solution is not sending our soldiers all over the world. :)

Oh, pooh! You're no fun. ;)