http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf ROXTXIA posted something about this earlier. I followed his advice and am in the process of reading it. It's published by a Neo-Con think tank that includes the editor of 'The Weekley Standard' and Paul Wolfowitz. It was written in 2000 PRIOR to 9/11. On page 62 or 63 of the document there is an eery statement. "Furthermore, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor." I'm about halfway through reading this and have do not see any evil in their thinking. It basically says so far that the U.S. needs to re-think their defensive strategies and adapt to a new threat to insure an "American Peace" (they refer to peace this way throughout the article). If anyone cares to read it or have read it and want to discuss it, let's toss it around. I'm not done yet so I can't make any conclusive decision as to whether I agree with their views or not.
Rumsfields "force transformation" idea of a smaller more agile military is purely military and it is fine and I have no problem with it. I just skimmed the TOC but that's what your link appears to be discussing. Rumsfields involvement in the geopolitical side is what people are complaining about.
Bigman is an idiot and a troll I didn't see Rumsfield's name listed in the contributing authors. I may have overlooked it. I know he's part of this think tank and possibly his name is now omitted. I still don't know what to make of the coincidence of the 'catastrophic' event that they refer to. It could be purely a coincidence. Terrorist experts have longtime argued that it was just a matter of time. But the Bush Admin is following this doctrine to a 'T'. I guess it could be speculated that some nut, trying to better his country, planned out the 'catastrophic' event (9/11) to expedite the 'transformation' of America's defenses. (of course this is what some have hinted at, namely Glynch). But if you plan on doing that, why put it in writing? Where the hell is Oliver Stone when I need him?!!
Random thoughts: Their specific mention of some particular programs seems the same as the other "roadblock programs" to me : V-22 Osprey, Comanche helicopters, missile defense in particular. The vulnerability of attack helicopters (i.e. Apache losses to poorly armed irregulars ) is not addressed by the stealthy Comanche, and the cancellation of the superior A-10 for the sexy new things just seems stupid. They should certainly try new things but as a counterpoint B-52's and Spectre gunship tech from Vietnam era and earlier still do their jobs. If they really want to do the constabulary duties, why do we seem so eager to fop this work off on our allies? We'll never get better at this if we don't work at it. We are the ne plus ultra of winning wars but we suck at winning the peace, and we need a lot more ground troops than the slight increase they are asking for the new missions. They don't address the way salary increases are the same throughout the ranks. This is stupid, if they want to encourage reenlistment they should weight it towards the middle and lower ranks. It could take 50 years to get the Navy downsized in crew requirements - we have to wait until the current carriers get decomissioned and replaced since that's where the bulk of the carrier task force crews are. If we replace M-1 tanks with something more vulnerable to cheap RPG's, I'm not sure what we've gained - we get there faster, but get more casualties. http://flakmag.com/opinion/comanche.html http://www.pogo.org/p/defense/do-020517-failures-comanche.html http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/shalomosprey.html http://www.pogo.org/p/defense/do-020518-failures-v22.html heck, I'm using this so much: http://www.pogo.org/p/defense/defsubmain.html Missile defense we could argue until the cows come home...
I haven't finished reading yet (work sucks ) but I've mainly scanned the document looking for political agendas and potential conspiracies. I don't know enough about the weaponry to assess it. What I find curious is if you are going to form a game plan and then follow it, why publish it so that your enemies can get a hold of it? It also troubles me that they refer to peace as an 'American Peace'. Kind of sounds like peace but on our terms only. But overall, it does look like they do have America's best interest in mind. I don't find evil in it, although some, if not many will find it in the quoted passage linking 9-11.
Woofer: The A-10 is not being cancelled, it was just announced that their airframes are to be refurbished to extend the planes usefulness out to 2028; the V-22 is quite necessary and will revolutionalize the way we do air insertions - if they would just figure out how to stabilize the damn thing's tail section (a technical hurdle that will almost certainly be addressed before production); and the Comanche should be significantly more survivable than the Apache for a number of reasons - you just have to keep in mind that helicopters are not flying tanks, are inherently vulnerable since they operate hundreds of feet off the ground, and are still, despite that, worth their weight in gold on the battlefield. The whole issue of transformation is something that the services, particularly the Army, is currently at odds with itself about. On the one hand, we cannot afford to wait six months to ship an armored division to its AO, but on the other hand we cannot afford to ship a light force into a combat area where it will get torn to sh*t in an urban, RPG-infested environment. There are those who favor the light, transformed approach, and there are those who point to Iraq and say that the heavy forces work well. The Army's concept for light and yet powerful forces works very, very well when we're talking about a desert or plain, because in that environment our superior sensors and optics, as well as superior tactical mobility, allow us to maneuver and kill before any enemy can even detect us. But in the close confines of urban terrain, you want heavy armor for those RPGs that always seem to fly out of alleyways and hit you in the ass. In the end, I suspect that the M1A2s will be around for quite a while, and they will work side by side with Strykers and the planned FCS family in a mix of heavy and light assets. That way we will have the speed of the light forces available when necessary and yet retain the sheer power of the heavy forces for when it's just too dangerous to chance it. So in the end, a mix. Incidentally, most of the "transformation" revolution is not going to come in the form of better weapons, although there will be some of that. Most of it is coming in the form of better sensors, better optics, new and lighter materials (for example composites for armor and stronger nylon for gear), better computers and information systems, improvements in logistical systems, and - often overlooked but probably more important than any new gadgets - new tactics to suit a changing battlefield. The real revolution in hardware will come with Landwarrior, though. That will give us the same kind of edge in the urban fight that we currently have in the open field - we will be practically undefeatable. The first sets are currently finishing EMD, and are due to begin serving at the end of this year. I suspect that at least parts of it have already been battle tested...
Had to check out the Land Warrior. You made it sound too cool Land Warrior Treeman, wouldnt EJD's interfere easily with the system? Seems like it would be easy to spike an area and make the suits usless. Believe me, I don't know anything about either, EDS' or Land Warrior, but that's the first thing that popped in my head.
EJD? Not familiar with the term, but if it has something to do with electronic interference (like EMPs) the system's electronics are supposed to be hardened against that type of attack. Also, everything is redundant - each kit ('suit' is an inaccurate term - it is really a collection of subsystems) even has two totally redundant computers. It's designed to be survivable in pretty much any environment. The Army won't touch it unless it is. Land Warrior: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/land-warrior.htm http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Sep2000/a20000918mout.html http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/pipeline/story/0,23008,3332342,00.html http://www.csc.com/industries/aerospacedefense/news/2044.shtml www.natick.army.mil/soldier/WSIT/LW_ORD_AppD.pdf www.natick.army.mil/soldier/WSIT/LW_ORD.PDF http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020821-lw1.htm (lots of pictures) http://militaryphoto.com/Land Warrior Selects/M1 Abrams 4000dpi.html
