Game Changer

For those of you who don't know GEN Campbell, he's one of those guys who thinks about military capability first and politics second. Doesn't matter what party holds the reins, he's there to write and implement DoD strategy. I'd chance to guess he's a frontrunner for appointment as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When he talks ... I shut up and take notes.

Generals: Two-war strategy in jeopardy under sequester By Blake Neff, “DEFCON Hill” Blog (The Hill), April 10, 2014

The U.S. military's goal of being able to fight two wars at the same time is in jeopardy due to the continued specter of sequestration, top commanders from all four Defense Department branches said Thursday. "If we continue to go down [in strength] too fast, we will not be able to respond accordingly to different nations in the world," Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John Campbell said.

In the past, the military's stated goal was to be able to fight and win two separate major wars at the same time. In 2012, this goal was rolled back to being able to win one major war while fighting a holding action in another until additional forces were available to achieve victory. If the sequester returns in the 2016 budget, however, the commanders warned even that goal could be unachievable.

Did you ever wonder who the next aggressor was going to be? Is Russia going to gobble up all of the Ukraine? Is China going to take the entirety of the Far East? The two-war deterrent strategy was the big stick we humped for decades. It was an assurance we weren't going to get our butts kicked while our back was turned, but Obama's seemingly done gone and dropped it.

Now a feint in one place ... can lead to a land grab in another. Anyone remember how fast we got into it with Iraq when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait? That's an unlikely scenario in another year. If somebody grabs and holds a strategic resource ... the rules of the game are gonna be re-written by an emerging world power (maybe two).

It doesn't really take a lot of imagination to see this as the first real step in America stepping down from superpower status. It might not be fair to lay this at the feet of Obama (it sure feels good). In fact, his wimpy international stance on everything may be exactly what keeps us out of a real war with significant casualties.

I think the best way to avoid the threat of having to face a multi-pronged war is for the Amerikan government to stop being such dicks to the rest of the world.

The current paradigm of CONQUER, SUBDUE, OPPRESS only works for so long. Force begets force, and ill-intentioned action comes back to destroy those who partake in it. What the Amerikan government is now experiences is the effect of karma in action. For too long it sowed the seeds of discord and force and violence across the world, and did so through unsustainable levels of spending.

Now, the government is going to reap the consequences of its karma. And, unfortunately, so will a lot of poor individuals who failed to speak up and take a stand against this bloated Amerikan war machine.

reply to post by JonButtonIII


Do you really believe the Military machine will just lay down and die? No way to much money to be made.

with 7 carrier groups loads of nukes space weapons and a 500 billion budget and laser weapon's things are really looking bad

it could be curtains need to spend more money must spend more

reply to post by Skorpy


The current administration's love of money is only eclipsed by their hatred of the military.

Since when is Ukraine and Russia YOUR business? Go home and stay home America, does us all a favour. You have enough resources to take care of your own. Leave the world be, it was doing fine without you.
P.s. I'm not attacking the Op but the guy in the article.
Peace.

ScientiaFortisDefendit
reply to post by Skorpy

 

The current administration's love of money is only eclipsed by their hatred of the military.

You know, since the start of ww2, I think the US millitary budget has seen far to much love.

I think the companies that build all those toys for us, would not think twice of creating and propagating a state of constant war.

That these companies do the height of evil, and drape themselves in the flag and earn their profits off the death and pain of our best and brightest children.

All to feed the unquenchable beast that is a war economy.

What would they do to keep earning those huge budgets?

Lobby Congress, Sure, they do that.

Do they also manipulate geo-politics to ensure constant war as an end result?

Probably.

reply to post by Snarl


IMO it's time the US took a breather. Things were actually better back during the cold war stalemate than now during the neocon inspired attempt at US global domination.

Really our military spending (among other things) is driving us down the same bankruptcy path as the old Soviet Union. We better hope that when no one will lend us any more money and we can't keep spending so much on the military that the rest of the world forgives us for some of the crap things we've done over the last 10+ years.

Time to put America back together, we're crumbling here.

Bassago
reply to post by Snarl

 

IMO it's time the US took a breather. Things were actually better back during the cold war stalemate than now during the neocon inspired attempt at US global domination.

Really our military spending (among other things) is driving us down the same bankruptcy path as the old Soviet Union. We better hope that when no one will lend us any more money and we can't keep spending so much on the military that the rest of the world forgives us for some of the crap things we've done over the last 10+ years.

Time to put America back together, we're crumbling here.

Yep, despite being out of the cold war we are at record spending for Military...

Makes no sense, the only people it benefits is the companies that build the tools of war.

We are told that in order to keep jobs, We have to keep building tanks?

Army says thanks but no tanks, congress says yes.

So we build, WHY?

because we need to defend?

no.

Because we need to attack?

No.

Why?

Because the company that builds the tanks will start firing people if Congress wont give them money...


Meanwhile, CUT education, CUT welfare, CUT Social Security, etc.

WE vote people in who directly vote against the interest of the people.

The Historical problem with conquering the world is once you set about that it becomes its own driving necessity. The need for more blood and treasure to shore up a broader defensive barrier to any possible threat consumes everything. The end result is a thin line of defense surrounding the enemies conquered. Eventually it implodes and is destroyed from within and without.

All because of greed and power. Greed knows no bounds… personal, international or otherwise.

The world probably does't have to do much to "defeat" America. Just stand back and watch US fall.

A huge portion of the US military budget goes to maintaining all the bases overseas....id cut a bunch of them and strategically move others to where they think the next conflict will be.

I remember when Clinton and Rumsfeld both wanted smaller militaries. Rumsfeld wanted something that was more maneuverable.

Personally id rather us be equipped for one war then spend the extra money on education so we find new ways to avoid future wars.

The founding fathers would roll in their graves...

What they envisioned for their country was a strong national defense.

What we have instead is the most expensive offensive military force
in the history of the world.

We don't defend...we invade.

It's about time we stopped calling military expenditures defense spending.

Well the military was trotting this we can no longer fight to wars back in the early 1990's. And they trot it out everytime they face budget cuts. It is one of those theories that has never carried any real truth. The fighting wars concept is expected to be done while at the same time maintaining our defense of the US and other allies. It also envisions no allies fighting on our side. What it ignores is the current military reality on the ground. Let us look at potential conflicts.

A Russian invasion of Europe. The EU fields an active duty force of 1.5 million vs Russia's 766,000. If you throw in reserves your talkiing another 5 million for the EU and 2 million for Russia. The EU fields 6,500 main battle tanks and 2043 combat aircraft vs Russia with 2,500 MBTs and around a 1000 combat aircraft. This does include NATO members Turkey, Canada and Norway who add in significant levels of military power. Of course the addition of US forces would make things easier and quicker for NATO/EU but, they could hold on their own.

Iran - Iran is kind of limited in what it can do. It try and invade one of the smaller gulf states, close the straights or just lauch air and ground attacks. The GGC states could handle this almost on their own. They could not invade Iran but they could hold Iran in place. Not to mention Israel would be covertly backing the Arab states.

North Korea - South Korea could stop an invasion by the North on its own at this point. With the assistance of US forces already in Korea they could hold the north to molobize their huge reserves and then adavance North.

China - conflcit with China would either come in Korea or in the Pacific states. China lack of strategic lift, removes any chance of invading a nation but, could take some islands belonging to an Asian state. This of course would bring Japan, Australia/NZ and ASEAN against them. Without the US this would be and ugly fight at sea but, with just the US Pacific fleet China would be contained.

So here we have 4 major conflicts contained just by US allies and US forces already in the area. And 95% of US active force still at home along with Reserves and National Guard.

Look I know how the Pentagon works. I helped write some very creative papers in the early 90's that showed how we were about lose the ability to fight two wars at the same time to keep congress from making cuts, it did not work. You just have to kind of ignore the fact that your enemies have gotten so weak. No more Task Forces Smith, no more Kasserine Pass were the mattras we trotted out to scare congress into backing off some of those cuts.

Well first off

The US proved beyond doubt she couldn't fight two war simultaneously with Iraq and Afghanistan, had she been fighting two regional powers she be utterly bankrupt

Ok Iraq and Afghanistan was NOT conventional wars to which the US is really geared up for, and much of the time in Iraq and Afghanistan they was all fighting amongst themselves in the middle of a civil war, the US should have just left as soon as the job was done same with Afghanistan,

But let's be honest building a military to fight two simultaneous wars is a big fat lie

It's just a deterrent, the US military is larger than the next 19 or so military's combined

She has allies across the globe who would have there backs so again what is the need for such a vast army that has never been used in full strength since WWII

The US really should have downsized years ago and funnelled more funding into Research & Development, with a capable enough force to fight and win one war fast,

Run away military industrial complex is to blame here and gen Campbell is one of them

Having always been drawn to military history, especially grand strategy, I have to say that I am slightly disappointed with this plan. Of course being able to fight two major wars simultaneously would require a very strong military, and I see no problems with the idea of building such a force, on the off chance that two major wars did break out...but I would be appalled at any hint of the US getting involved in two major conflicts if there was a way out. So as long as they do not purposefully seek two major wars, and are only preparing to be ready just in case two wars MUST be fought simultaneously, I can understand.

A part of me believes that fighting two major wars, especially against superpowers, is impossible. Well it is possible, but winning both or either of those conflicts seems impossible under such conditions. Two major wars at the same time is even worse than fighting a single war on two fronts, which more often than not ends disastrously, as history has shown us. Germany lost two world wars because of this very thing.

Granted, the US fought on multiple fronts during WWII and was victorious, but it was a difficult undertaking that required an unprecedented cooperation on the home front, which may not be possible in this day and age as the population is much more divided in their sentiments. One didn't see very many anti-war activists during WWII, and the nation got behind the war effort mainly because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, followed by Germany's declaration of war on the United States. So widespread support from home, which is imperative to winning a single war, would need to be even greater to sustain and then win a conflict on multiple fronts, or multiple conflicts simultaneously. The circumstances would be very important. Unless the US was blatantly attacked, I do not think support will be widespread.

Another thing to remember about America's multiple front war in WWII is the fact that the main action on each front was fought by different branches of the military. The Pacific war was for the most part a naval conflict, and the actions on the ground were sustained by only a fraction of the numbers that were used in the European Theater. The fact that the US did not need such a large naval presence in the Atlantic definitely freed up resources for action on two fronts. But if two major ground conflicts needed to be fought on multiple fronts, then that means that there would be a smaller amount of troops on each front, especially considering a single branch of the military must be further divided to field sufficient resources.

The island-hopping campaigns on the Pacific did not require a large amount of ground troops, compared with the European Theater is what I'm saying, and since the US navy could be concentrated in the Pacific, since the Atlantic naval threat from the Germans was mostly U-boats, things worked out okay, even though the US was fighting mainly two nations...There were more than two fronts for the US during that war, but the African and Italian campaigns were not undertaken simultaneously with the invasion of France. I too believe in focusing on a single major strategic objective, then moving on to the next. The US HAD to fight in the Pacific, and they slowly eased their way in to a war in Africa, branching out from there after Rommel's army was obliterated, allowing for a push into Italy. So I would consider the war a 3 front war, with the fronts being France, Italy, and the Pacific. But I do not consider the Italian campaign and the Normandy campaign as distinct actions, as these forces would eventually link up, concentrating their power in a sense.

WWII has shown us that a multiple front war is winnable, IF a nation has the necessary backing of a industrial civilization and support at home, and can field a large army and navy. Germany fought basically on 4 fronts, although not all simultaneously, and not all fielding large armies...These were north, south, east, and west. But for the most part they are thought of as fighting a 2 front war. And it is generally accepted that this was a major reason for their defeat. There were many, many other reasons, but they would have had a better chance with concentrating on a single front at a time. That nation had the support on the home front, but they were not able to produce enough resources, including troops, to quell the inevitable invasion of their country from two fronts. Part of this was due to allied air superiority, which could be difficult for the US to establish against a modern superpower, since anti-air technology has advanced so much, along with the fact that other nations possess 4th and 5th generation jets that can compete with the US in many instances.

So I think one of the lessons to be learned is that a two front war is risky. If the US would be fighting a modern nation that is large and has a large military, I think that a two front war would be disastrous. Yet the US strategy includes fighting two major wars, each with possible multiple fronts? It is just not feasible to me, even with the US military's technological edge over many nations. Especially if we had to fight a nation like China who can field a million man army. More than I'm sure, and China is advanced by this point in their military technology.

I think it is much more feasible to fight a holding war in one area, while simultaneously fighting a full scale war in another. A military as advanced as that of the US could easily establish a hellish defensive line, and any attacking enemy would be hard-pressed to break through it. But that goes for the US invading an area controlled by a modern, large military as well. So this is much easier than attempting to fight two wars, attempting to take the offensive in both. But again, ANY war involving multiple fronts or multiple nations should only be undertaken as a last resort. I do not think the US should ever get involved in anything over a single war unless it is unavoidable. I think the US grand strategy should allow for such a possibility, but should not undertake the task of purposefully starting such a war.

And if the US feels that a war is inevitable, they should pull all military resources out of countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, unless the war is taking place around that region. I shudder to think of a modern war between two superpowers. Warfare itself has changed drastically since WWII, or the last "global war," and a WWIII will involve new tactical doctrines, although the strategies themselves will likely include remnants of strategies from previous conflicts, going back centuries.

Ranong
Since when is Ukraine and Russia YOUR business? Go home and stay home America, does us all a favour. You have enough resources to take care of your own. Leave the world be, it was doing fine without you.
P.s. I'm not attacking the Op but the guy in the article.
Peace.

Since we signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in order to get them to dismantle a HUGE supply of nuclear weapons they possessed. Get educated so you look less a fool in the future.

2 wars only ?

Used to be 2 and 1/2 wars, right ?

Not that long ago, the doctrine was to be able to go face to face with the Soviet and and simultaneously fighting a regional war with someone the size of China/India and that 1/2 a war was with some 1/2 countries like Afghanistans and Iraqs.

Well, you know the scores so far.

Two wars? Yes. Two occupations lasting a decade? No. People seem to forget just how fast the U.S. handled Iraq. (4th largest military in the world at the time) It made the German Blitzkrieg (lightening war) look like it was carried out by mere boy scouts. Afghanistan, on the other had, should have been a special forces operation from the beginning. IMO it seems it was deigned to drag on. No general in his right mind would take a conventional army to fight that sort of "war".

originally posted by: Ranong
Since when is Ukraine and Russia YOUR business? Go home and stay home America, does us all a favour. You have enough resources to take care of your own. Leave the world be, it was doing fine without you.
P.s. I'm not attacking the Op but the guy in the article.
Peace.

Really?
Really!
Where do you live mate?
What language would you be speaking now if the USA didn't intervene in W W 1 or W W 2, or the other conflicts where freedom cost the price of young American blood, I bet it would either be Japanese, Chinese, German, Russian, or Arabic.

Throwing money at a problems never the best solution, just means more ends up "lost" IE ends up in slush funds, wasted on silly projects ect

Best thing to do is make what you have go further, be more more efficiant.

USA if they tried I bet could do far more without spending another cent.