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2005-01-24 Home Front: Tech

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Posted by Steve 2005-01-24 9:18:50 AM|| || Front Page|| [12 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 God loves the infantry.

Posted by badanov 2005-01-24 12:58:31 PM|| [http://www.rkka.org] 2005-01-24 12:58:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 The navy and air force are also being forced to make cuts, so the army, mainly the infantry, can have whatever they need or, increasingly, whatever they want

No military expert here but what does htis mean for our ability to stay far ahead of the ChiComs in naval and air power? Don't let China sneak up on us while we're killing the jihadists.

Posted by lex 2005-01-24 1:23:16 PM|| 2005-01-24 1:23:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Unless the Chicoms engage in a crash program of a modern blue water Navy complete with aircraft carriers, most of their naval operations will be littoral in nature, and we are working out the doctrine for this type of naval warfare.

Posted by badanov 2005-01-24 1:25:27 PM|| [http://www.rkka.org] 2005-01-24 1:25:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Would most of that doctrine involve staying over the horizon in various directions, and shooting hellishly accurate boom-things at them, thus wiping out lots of them while our guys kvetch about the occasional stubbed toe?

(.com, your spell check has kvetch in it!!)

Posted by trailing wife 2005-01-24 1:55:50 PM|| 2005-01-24 1:55:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 I hear ya lex & that's a good point. We don't want to get so bogged down in using Iraq/Afghan as the model for future conflicts when it's very likely China will be the next main opponent.

The USMC actually has what's called a LWTC, Littoral Warfare Training Center. As 80% of all the countries in the world have their capital within 200 miles of a major body of water/ocean (or some such stat I've heard.)

Posted by Jarhead 2005-01-24 1:57:09 PM|| 2005-01-24 1:57:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 China is building a blue-water navy. But they have no realistic naval target for the next generation but Taiwan, and they don't need a carrier for that. Don't let that fool you. Many in Peking still recall the last Chinese blue-water Navy which circumnavigated the world.

Posted by Chuck Simmins 2005-01-24 2:11:21 PM|| [http://blog.simmins.org] 2005-01-24 2:11:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Good on 'em!

Posted by Mac Suirtain 2005-01-24 2:17:13 PM|| 2005-01-24 2:17:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Hey Chuck, can you back up that statement? I have never heard that the Chinee Navy (even at its height sometime in the middle of the last MILLENIA) ever circumnavigated the earth. Can you back up this little bit of information?

Posted by Jame Retief 2005-01-24 2:21:46 PM|| 2005-01-24 2:21:46 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 James, while Chinese circumnavigating the globe may well be myth (many records were destroyed), in the fifteenth century China had the largest blue water navy the world had ever seen and certainly explored the Indian ocean.

China's decline and Europe's rise is an interesting study in culture wars with parallels for today with the technocrats on the Right versus the Green/Left 'stability' and change will take us down the road to disaster crowd (ref global warming). Link

Posted by phil_b 2005-01-24 5:30:26 PM|| 2005-01-24 5:30:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 PB: James, while Chinese circumnavigating the globe may well be myth (many records were destroyed), in the fifteenth century China had the largest blue water navy the world had ever seen and certainly explored the Indian ocean.

China's decline and Europe's rise is an interesting study in culture wars

China dismantled its navy because it cost huge sums of money to maintain. (Today's navies are also extremely expensive). What is interesting is how the European powers found a way to pay for their navies, and how a remote island power on the northwestern edge of Europe became the greatest naval power of all, overawing Portugal, Spain and Holland in turn. How did Europe make naval expansion monetarily viable, where the legendarily commerce-minded Chinese empire was unable to?

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-01-24 5:43:35 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-01-24 5:43:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Zhang, arguably Britain's navy never made economic sense. They paid for it becuase they could (after the industrial revolution) and becuase preventing invasion was their over-riding geopolitical concern - security at any cost.

Posted by phil_b 2005-01-24 6:22:31 PM|| 2005-01-24 6:22:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 IIUC the British navy allowed them (an island country of limited manpower, compared to, say Russia or China) to project that power/empire more than a bazillion troops

Posted by Frank G 2005-01-24 6:54:15 PM|| 2005-01-24 6:54:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Spot on Frank G.

A million man army is impressive if your worried mainly about defending your homeland or menacing bordering countries. However, if you've no realistic logistical means to move them or *project* power via naval transpo your military becomes a fairly one dimensional force.

Posted by Jarhead 2005-01-24 7:09:43 PM|| 2005-01-24 7:09:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 How did Europe make naval expansion monetarily viable, where the legendarily commerce-minded Chinese empire was unable to?

I'd have to guess it was related to the vast increase in wealth stemming from the extraction of huge quantities of gold and silver in the New World in the 16c and the vast increase in trade and productive activity that such hard assets financed. Capitalism more than mercantilism.

Posted by lex 2005-01-24 7:49:49 PM|| 2005-01-24 7:49:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 arguably Britain's navy never made economic sense

I disagree. Britain in the 17-18c experienced an extraordinary increase in trade in the caribbean, north america and africa and india. Such trade could never have been possible without secure sea lanes. In that era piracy, including state-directed piracy, very easily and efficiently knocked out of the global maritime commerce game any nation that could not protect its commercial fleets.

Posted by lex 2005-01-24 7:54:14 PM|| 2005-01-24 7:54:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 yes money, equipment , man/woman power is needed.
What should be done when they come home....to a broken household, maybe disabled veteran, and a society who wants nothing to do with them.

Andrea

Posted by Andrea 2005-01-24 8:55:20 PM|| 2005-01-24 8:55:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 What should be done when they come home....to a broken household, maybe disabled veteran, and a society who wants nothing to do with them. Andrea

any examples of that Andrea? Other than the Dem/Antiwar leftists?

Posted by Frank G 2005-01-24 9:02:03 PM|| 2005-01-24 9:02:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 "The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut"

I remember the Dems and some conservatives ready to rip Rumsfeld apart for cancelling these items - and bascially ending the careeers of several generals who tried to backdoor restore them in the Congress.

I wonder if they ever apologized?

Posted by OldSpook 2005-01-24 11:00:29 PM|| 2005-01-24 11:00:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 apologies are for Republicans. The girl couldn't swim... I did make sure that, if she'd lived, her medicare would've covered drowning injuries, so, no harm, no foul

Posted by Teddy Kennedy 2005-01-24 11:05:44 PM|| 2005-01-24 11:05:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 "The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut"

I remember the Dems and some conservatives ready to rip Rumsfeld apart for cancelling these items - and bascially ending the careeers of several generals who tried to backdoor restore them in the Congress.

I wonder if they ever apologized?

Posted by OldSpook 2005-01-24 11:00:29 PM|| 2005-01-24 11:00:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by OldSpook 2005-01-24 11:00:29 PM|| 2005-01-24 11:00:29 PM|| Front Page Top

00:50 Hupoluck Elmaitle6376
00:46 Croth Hupesing4131
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00:45 Tholuck Hupeanter3756
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23:44 BH
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23:28 trailing wife
23:28 OldSpook
23:27 BH
23:12 OldSpook
23:09 OldSpook
23:05 Teddy Kennedy
23:03 OldSpook
23:01 Frank G
23:00 OldSpook
23:00 trailing wife
22:51 trailing wife
22:51 Senator Barbara Boxer
22:50 Frank G
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22:48 Senator Barbara Boxer
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22:40 badanov