Article

2006-12-16 Home Front: WoT

Rumsfeld: 'I worry we are in a gathering storm'

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by KBK 2006-12-16 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Winston Churchill he isn't but I'll readily concede Rumsfeld's moral authority to cite him.

Set aside World War I and set aside World War II. Think more of the Cold War.

At any given moment during the Cold War, which lasted 50 years, you couldnt say if you were winning or losing.

I debate this because of the incredible technological superiority that America (specifically) has always enjoyed and freely contributed to the fray. In Sir John Hackett's book, "The Third World War" (the non-fiction version), he accurately predicted a 10:1 kill ratio in NATO versus Soviet jet aircraft dogfights. We always had an advantage, despite Stalin's "quantity has a quality all its own" attitude. Lack of education in both our politicians and the general population was responsible for any perceived weakness.

Think of the faces of the Cold War when Euro-communism was in vogue, and people were demonstrating by the millions against the United States, not against the Soviet Union. And yet, over time, people found the will - both political parties and Western European countries - to persist in a way that ultimately led to victory.

Here again I dispute his version only because it seems like dumb luck prevailed in how even European opinion finally militated to an anti-communist position.

Of course, it wasn't dumb luck. It was America's military-industrial complex doing what it does best. Namely, evolving an entire suite of war-fighting technology that few, if any, nations on this earth could duplicate. For the nonce, we'll gloss over how our constitutional freedoms of religion, speech and right to bear arms had anything to do with this.

There are people in the world who are determined to destabilize modern Muslim regimes and re-establish a caliphate across the globe ...

A little too much an admixture of the old Religion of Peace [spit] Kool-Aid for my tastes, but Rumsfeld has to toe certain lines I don't.

Theyre deadly. Theyre not going to surrender. Theyre going to have to be captured or killed.

Here the man is spot on. No catch and release, no quarantine, no isolationism will suffice. Incarcerate or kill. Guess which is more expensive in the long run?

Theyre going to have to be dissuaded; people are going to have to be dissuaded from supporting them, from financing them and assisting in their recruitment, providing havens for them.

And from all indications, this will not happen without massive death tolls. exJAG summarised this with breathtaking clarity in the "Let the Muslims fight it out" thread with her observation that:

Our unwillingness to kill 40,000 in one night of bombing, is, in large part, why the need to arises more often. All this "enlightened, humane" stuff overlooks the fact that mass casualties are the point. By eliminating it, we remove the enemy's disincentive to make war.

So, it appears they'll have to nuke us out of the illusion that wars can be won without really hurting anyone.

Were in an environment where we have to fight and win a war where the enemy is in countries we are not at war with.

One of the very few and correct Vietnam analogies.

That is a very complicated thing to do.

Unfortunately, too complex for the vast majority of American voters and other decision-makers involved in this life-and-death struggle with the the most pathological enemy we have faced since the Soviets (excepting, maybe, the Chinese communists).

PS: Great graphic!

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2006-12-16 03:22|| 2006-12-16 03:22|| Front Page Top

#2 The modern world is just too nuanced for simple old-fashioned patriotism and common sense.

Posted by gromgoru 2006-12-16 06:14|| 2006-12-16 06:14|| Front Page Top

#3 If you ask me my view, NO ONE DID! THEY WERE ONLY LOOKING FOR YOUR SOLUTIONS! it is that the military cant lose, but the military cant win alone. YES IT CAN, TURN IT LOSE! It requires political solutions. Theyve got to have reconciliation. They simply have to take a series of steps that theyve not yet sufficiently taken. Set aside World War I and set aside World War II. Think more of the Cold War.

Yep, we've got it. Anyone living outside the beltway is a marooooon. His "I told you so you dumb a**es" book will no doubt, be out soon. When will he go away?

Posted by Besoeker 2006-12-16 07:36|| 2006-12-16 07:36|| Front Page Top

#4 he accurately predicted a 10:1 kill ratio in NATO versus Soviet jet aircraft dogfights.

This fiction falls apart when the enemy has 20 aircraft to your one. Then a 10-1 victory is a sure defeat.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2006-12-16 08:33|| 2006-12-16 08:33|| Front Page Top

#5
Napoleon Bonaparte - An army of lions commanded by a deer will never be an army of lions.

You can have all the men and all the weapons, but if you do not have the will to use them, it is for naught.

Posted by Procopius2k 2006-12-16 09:20|| 2006-12-16 09:20|| Front Page Top

#6 Yes, democraticization hasn't worked in the Middle East. Yes, someone is to blame. Yes, I will point the finger...at the stinking Muslim herd who refuse to join the civilized world.

We write off broken lawn-mowers and washing machines; why not write off broken societies. I am all for occupying the Strait of Hormuz and making it a Muslim free zone. Yes, I have had a few beers already.

Posted by Sneaze Shaiting3550 2006-12-16 14:33|| 2006-12-16 14:33|| Front Page Top

#7 Zenster:

I think we'll like 2007 better than this stinking year. In the last week, the media sums up the year. Other than Evangeline Lilly, I can't think of anything good; even "Curb Your Enthusiasm" started to blow. 2006 Sucks!

Posted by Sneaze Shaiting3550 2006-12-16 14:38|| 2006-12-16 14:38|| Front Page Top

#8 Glad you fun boys weren't around in December 1864. You certainly wouldn't add much to the year end party at the White House.

I received orders to move against Colonel Thomas Harris, who was said to be encamped at the town of Florida, some twenty-five miles south of were we then wereHarris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the sake of being near water. The hills on either side of the creek extended to a considerable height, possibly more than a hundred feet. As we approached the brow of the hill from which was expected we could see Harris camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on. When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there and the marks of recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. I never forgot that lesson. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant

Do people comprehend that the only source of a 'good' year that the enemy has is in what happens internal to the politics of their enemy? They must rely upon others for their victory. They are dependent upon others to supply their means of operation. They are unable to create nothing much other than with the limited means to inflict casualties upon us less than we lose every month on our highways. They are bleeding their manpower in the tens of thousands. Their network of finance becomes subject to exposure and attack everyday. They can not win a war of attrition or of time. They are in a desperate gamble hoping that the imagery of America as portrayed in the popular media is correct, which you disprove everyday here. Their hand is weak and only appears strong because of their bluff and the bluff provided by literally their agents in the MSM. And those in the MSM are suffering only second to the enemy as their credibility reaches new lows everyday. They are losing the monopoly once enjoyed over the flow of information. It's broken. The truth is being spoken to power. This technology is making it possible. Your voices are part of that long battle yet to be completed.

So quit worrying about what the enemy is up to and just make sure that the enemy worries about what we're up to.

Posted by Procopius2k 2006-12-16 16:04|| 2006-12-16 16:04|| Front Page Top

#9 This fiction falls apart when the enemy has 20 aircraft to your one.

Redneck Jim, have your read "Deep Black"? If you have, then you know that the Soviets used every trick in the book to inflate their military inventory in the eyes of the West. Post Cold War investigations have routinely shown that the Soviet armaments were fewer in number or of such mediocre quality that their ability to overwhelm through sheer numbers was pretty much a fiction all along. While the Soviets has many more ground troops, large numbers of them were conscripted political prisoners who served only as construction crews. Additionally, huge numbers of troops were stationed on the eastern front with China and where America had some 8,000 troops supporting our air wings the Soviets had over 500,000 doing the same task.

Finally, Soviet C³ was entirely different from ours and, to this day, remains highly dependent upon command based decision making instead of relying on troop level skill. We're talking about a military where simple topological maps were considered classified information. The Soviet threat was way overstated throughout its history. The biggest threat they posed was ideological, as the persistence of communism and socialism proves to this very day.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2006-12-16 17:05|| 2006-12-16 17:05|| Front Page Top

#10 RJ: Agreed; doesn't matter what the kill ratio is, when you're out of airplanes and the other guy still has some, you are pretty much Phuqued.
feel free to insert the weapon of your choice for 'airplane'. I think in the final analysis, 'attrition' will beat 'technology' any day.

Posted by USN,Ret 2006-12-16 20:06|| 2006-12-16 20:06|| Front Page Top

15:14 Old Patriot
23:37 Frank G
23:30 Frank G
23:27 RD
23:25 Frank G
23:16 Frank G
23:04 Skidmark
22:57 Frank G
22:22 gorb
22:19 Elmeremp Spise5329
22:17 Elmeremp Spise5329
22:16 PBMcL
22:11 gorb
22:10 RD
22:10 Dunno
22:09 gorb
22:08 gorb
21:46 BA
21:44 Redneck Jim
21:42 Redneck Jim
21:31 Redneck Jim
21:26 Nimble Spemble
21:15 BA
21:02 BA