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2006-01-24 Home Front: WoT
Plan Seeks More Elite Forces to Fortify Military
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Posted by Steve White 2006-01-24 00:22|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Sniff. sniff - GO AIRBORNE, RANGERS, and DELTA.
Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-01-24 01:42||   2006-01-24 01:42|| Front Page Top

#2 As they say 'Deja vu all over again'

For insightful reading of events which have meaning today may I recommend, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian 1866-1891 by Robert M. Utley. The perspective of a small and overtaxed military establishment conducting operations in a demanding environment, physically and politically, while bringing ‘civilization’ to the vastness of the west can be related to the contemporary operations on the world stage today. Of particular note would be chapters three: The Problem of Doctrine, four: The Army, Congress, and the People, and eighteen: Mexican Border Conflicts 1870-81.


Some excerpts:
Chapter 3: The Problem of Doctrine. “Three special conditions set this mission apart from more orthodox military assignments. First, it pitted the army against an enemy who usually could not be clearly identified and differentiated from kinsmen not disposed at the moment to be enemies. Indians could change with bewildering rapidity from friend to foe to neutral, and rarely could one be confidently distinguished from another...Second, Indian service placed the army in opposition to a people that aroused conflicting
emotions... And third, the Indians mission gave the army a foe unconventional both in the techniques and aims of warfare... He fought on his own terms and, except when cornered or when his family was endangered, declined to fight at all unless he enjoyed overwhelming odds...These special conditions of the Indian mission made the U.S. Army not so much a little army as a big police force...for a century the army tried to perform its unconventional mission with conventional organization and methods. The result was an Indian record that contained more failures than successes and a lack of preparedness for conventional war that became painfully evident in 1812, 1846, 1861, and 1898.


Remember there is a force level ceiling mandated by Congress. Someone has to be the personnel bill payer for this. Take too much out of the line for special ops means that conventional forces will be less prepared for the in your face action, ie China. There is no perfect answer.
Posted by Claviling Unomoting8510 2006-01-24 09:35||   2006-01-24 09:35|| Front Page Top

#3 I thought the plan for fighting China was to sink their troop transports crossing the strait to Taiwan, and wipe out their missile capacity? Of course, I s'pose they might choose to start their war somewhere else...
Posted by trailing wife 2006-01-24 13:04||   2006-01-24 13:04|| Front Page Top

#4 If everybody's "elite", then nobody is.
Posted by mojo">mojo  2006-01-24 13:24||   2006-01-24 13:24|| Front Page Top

#5 what if we give them all berets?....oh, wait...
Posted by Gen. Eric Shinseki">Gen. Eric Shinseki  2006-01-24 14:38||   2006-01-24 14:38|| Front Page Top

23:48 Fred
23:42 3dc
23:40 2b
23:35 Alaska Paul
23:17 Sock Puppet O´ Doom
23:11 Desert Blondie
23:09 3dc
23:05 Desert Blondie
23:02 Desert Blondie
23:00 Desert Blondie
23:00 3dc
22:47 Master of Obvious
22:40 Steve White
22:36 ex-lib
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22:14 Omavilet Glereper9991
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22:07 Mike









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