Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Sub Pops Up Amid US Navy Exercise
One NATO figure said the effect was "as big a shock as the Russians launching Sputnik." American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast USS Kitty Hawk. By the time it surfaced, the 160ft Song Class diesel-electric attack submarine had sailed within viable range for launching torpedoes or missiles at the carrier. The incident caused consternation in the US Navy, which had no idea China's fast-growing submarine fleet had reached such a level of sophistication.
The exercise was presumably planned, so all he had to do was sit by the bottom and wait for the fleet to go overhead.
/.) as I'm about to read the article.
I won't be able to remark any more on the issue though (at least not on
...it may be that hostilities are about to increase. They've been at showing a bit of their capabilities, physical and electronic warfare-wise for about the last 2-3 years now.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Because as of yet there is no real chance of any conflict breaking out any time soon, yet there is plenty of geopolitical point scoring going on, and this will help the Chinese in that area.
Azural - instrumentals
Modern submariners are a joke compared to their cold war predecessors.
Do we need to up to cold war standards? I'm sure that the current army soldiers are a joke compared to WWII era hardened veterans.
Submarine warfare is limited to those nations that have the ability to have submarine fleets. Those countries aren't terribly hostile towards the United States. It's extremely doubtful we're going to fight a big naval battle anytime soon.
AccountKiller
Those with the connections will always be excused. You'll be left with only those who cannot find any way to avoid it.
The all volunteer force is supposed to give us professional, dedicated warriors. But it doesn't seem to work out that way.
Our fleet hasn't seen real naval combat since WWII. Anti-ship missiles are incredibly lethal and it costs far more to defend against them than it does to fire them. It will only take a few hits to ruin the day for any American task force. Sure, start a war with Iran. After the first carrier takes a hit that knocks it out of action for a two year repair, our fleets will be kept so far out at sea that their tactical usefulness will be zero. Score one for the Iranians.
The whole concept of the super-carrier is very vulnerable at this point given the kinds of weapons available to potnetial hostiles. The only reason why they persist with such glowing reputations is that they have not been put to the test in battle, their vulnerabilities not made clear. In this case they are like the battleships of WWII, or possibly more apt, the battle-cruisers. The battle-cruisers were up-gunned so they could fight with the big boys but they lacked the armor to stay in the fight. Very expensive viking funerals, they were.
The only development that will save the carrier is if active defenses can be improved to the point that nothing but nothing will get through the wall of fire. As it stands, our current ships are simply not survivable. Frigates and destroyers will get goatse'd if hit by a serious cruise missile. The torps out there these days can break a ship in two. The Russians, of course, designed torps that were supposed to be able to bust a carrier's keel in one hit.
Our whole military aparatus is still stuck in the 20th century and is still trying to bring forward concepts that saw their genesis back in the Cold War. It's going to take a serious kicking of our collective asses to force the Pentagon to reevaluate our military and put together something that's realistic and sane. But I'm not sure how big of an ass-kicking it'll take. We're getting a good one in Iraq and the lessons don't seem to be sinking in.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
It's not clear whether the sub actually navigated its way into the heart of the carrier group, or whether it was just sitting there waiting for the other ships to sail by. It's a cheap and easy tactic, and they could have had subs stationed along the common navigation channels or the exercise area (which is no secret) long before the exercise, just in case they got lucky and the carrier group sailed over their heads. Worked for the U-boats, still works today.
But it's not quite so easy the second time. Were the US ships using any active sonar? It doesn't say, but my guess is they weren't, because this is a fairly provocative thing to do -- especially if you're in waters that another country is claiming are its territory. But now that the Chinese have made a provocative move of their own, they'll have the picket ships and helos pinging away and dropping sonobuoys. And it wouldn't surprise me if the Chinese subs all find themselves with a silent new shadow the next time they leave port...
Ah, the bad old days are back again.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
There are good reasons to have a draft, but having more troops for the sake of having more troops isn't one of them. Modern wars aren't decided by the size of the armies involved. Mutually assured destruction means the odds of direct conflict between China and the USA are very low, but the odds of a proxy or asymmetric war are somewhat higher.
The minitary need to keep their internal PR machine going. The military soak up a huge amount of the US budget, yet are slipping up. They need to keep selling to the US public to keep getting funding and keeping the generals and admirals from getting fired.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
As a Veteran, I was proud to have served in an all volunteer Army, and in hindsight, more apt to give my own life in return.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
"The war wasn't meant to be won or lost, it was simply meant to be fought. The war was never meant to end, merely to go on."
:)
Do you folks actually think that both sides of this conflict hate each other as much as the peons do? Sheesh. When the rich meet at the country club, the boys from Company A, and the boys from Company B, regardless of nationality, are friends.
The same is true of "presidents", "bankers" and anything else. Gentleman's rules, to all games. Gentlemen don't KILL each other. They get proxies, peons, idiots and fools to slaughter each other in their names. After all, only fools would hate someone they've never had a chance to get to know, or witness first hand their deeds (and their motivation, of course). Short of aggression carried out against the individual in question, "fighting a war" generally involved mass psychosis, usually cultivated by carefully trained and prepared "superiors" and "intelligence personnel."
This stuff's as old as the world. The wars will go on, the arms races will go on, and humanity will go on. All the fears and the doomsayers are merely meant to up the ante, and keep the peons scurrying about, frittering their lives away doing nothing at all interesting or worthwhile, other than what they have been TOLD to do by someone else, for someone else's benefit and minor, if any, benefit to themselves.
Welcome to the future
The only reason I keep watching this mess is because it is, frankly speaking, fun to watch. Nothing more, nothing less.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
We need a commander-in-chief that doesn't abuse his position. Many are probably afraid to sign up, not wanting to be stuck on a ten-year tour-of-duty. We should have been in and out of Afghanistan in a few months, and we shouldn't have entered Iraq at all. We didn't have a single good reason to invade. Why would anyone want to sign up for an pointless war? Our soldiers should have the right to protect our country with honor.
Because the Chinese stand to learn more about US capabilities and tactics than the US will learn about China. The US probably knows quite a bit about diesel-electric sub technology. So there's nothing to hide here. 'Popping up' in the middle of a battle group probably isn't actual Chinese battle procedures, so there isn't much for the US to learn. OTOH, how the US ships respond to a threat is of great interest to the Chinese.
Have gnu, will travel.
And that's assuming that it ever came to war. I don't want to be blasé about the risk of conflict, but keep in mind that US debt isn't quite critical but has become very, very large. A good portion of that debt is to China (another big chunk is borrowed against the public via social security, et al). The US government has essentially mortgaged the country. There doesn't have to be a war before a US citizen finds she's working for a Chinese company and renting from a Chinese landlord.
Now the US has an enormous military (there had to be something to show for all that borrowing and it certainly wasn't in education and health care, yes?). You could say that the US could tell the rest of the World to go and fuck itself and renege on the debt. But that's extremely unlikely because (a) the richest people of the US who have the greatest influence to bring about such a thing are those who would lose the most in any sort of international isolation or chaos, (b) the whole economic structure of the US would go into freefall and (c) it would be hard to fund the US military in an economic crisis anyway, at least for any sustained period.
Besides, it's not in the USA's creditor's interests for the US to default on debt or go bankrupt or turn into a military dictatorship. The percentage is in keeping it just sufficiently under the economic thumb that it can be milked in perpetuity and nudged into selling off its institutions and resources group by group. That's one of the nice things about a heavily privatised society. It makes it convenient for the country to be sold without non-radical means of preventing it.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Carriers are projection weapons.
The mistake is that they float.
Long ago we should have began working on carriers designs that were submersibles and only surface in order to let their air craft take off.
The ability of a submarine to remain undetected and at the same time to detect enemy submarines is as fundamental to the concept of a submarine as the ability to fly is to an airplane
Did you really miss my point entirely?
Submarine technology is actually way less relevant to the threats of the modern world than even freaking tanks. When was the last time we used a submarine to do any kind of warfare or political maneuvering? I'd say that ended in the cold war.
The US and the rest of the world are fighting enemies that don't have submarines, or any navy at all. Al-Queda doesn't have a navy. These are small, dedicated groups of people who remain hidden. You can't fight people like that with a tank, much less a submarine.
The US can take two roads here. Train a bunch of submariner guys REALLY well, develop technologies to defeat them, basically start another cold war. Of course.. that just might be a slight distraction from that other threat..
The other path is to not over-react. China isn't going to attack the US, if for no other reason they've invested too damn much money in us. I'd bet the Chinese economy would collapse if the US wasn't buying all that crap from them. Concentrate on the real threats, not the Chinese wanting to look like big-shots by sneaking up on a few inexperienced submariners (most of which is probably all still geared up to look for nuclear subs).
AccountKiller
This is China. They're telling the US that if China decides to invade Taiwan, not to mess with them. The US fleet often travels in the Taiwan Strait just to show China that they control the sealanes and can protect Taiwan. China is saying, "No, you don't".
Funny thing about the schkval is that in the 50s/60's, we were designing and about to build a Mach3 bomber ( B-70 valkrye). About the time of go-no go, the Powers was shot down, and USSR had their ICBM. Kennedy wisely decided that it would be a waste of money to pursue these, though he kept the research going for faster planes (which Nixon killed) and better rockets (NASA). Now, we see a torpedo that is KNOWN to be fast. Of course, it is not accurate, but who cares. If you can get it close with a small nuke (which russia owns), you own the ship. The real problem is that supposedly Russia has turned over that info to China. So now what do we do?
Back in the 70's, Carter predicted that the day and age of large ships needed to end due to the ease that USSR (and other nations) could get to them. His goal was to push for small ships that worked together, basically a parallel system. Sadly, reagan killed that and pushed us back to the day of the battleships. Now, we have the ddx, but we are still pushing major ships. It strikes me that we will need to have automated or remotely controlled ships that can do the search and destroy missions. But just as the Air force fought that, the Navy is fighting that as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think the message is more "Don't fuck with us if we invade Taiwan". China doesn't want war with the West. They're getting rich selling stuff to the West now. But at the same time, the Chinese military is chafing to take back the "rogue province" of Taiwan.
Any moron can fly a plane, but it takes a real man to be a SS Qualified Nuke Office.
Reading the comments, it seems like the consensus is that given sufficient time, motivation, and technology it's hard to passively detect a well designed and built submarine in the open ocean, if it's built for quiet (i.e. non-nuclear) and active detection is the electronic version of wearing a "KICK ME" sign.
Well, the solution to that is obvious - do just what satellites have done for surface bases; map the oceans with automated sonar/other detection grids until we know what's going on everywhere, and the dark (unobserved) areas are points of interest simply by appearing - if someone removes our ability to see it's an automatic point of interest.
The environmental impact of doing something like that would not be trivial of course, but probably given sufficient time, money and resources it could be done. It would mean WE couldn't move quietly either, most likely (we wouldn't be the only ones doing it, once it started) but it would make a "sneak attack" rather more unlikely.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Submarine technology is actually way less relevant to the threats of the modern world than even freaking tanks.
This is one of the stupidest statements I have ever read on Slashdot.
Two points (and there are many more that I won't discuss):
1. Just because there isn't fighting on the seas today doesn't mean that there couldn't be. It would be wise to look at how submarines were used in WWII (axis and allied submarines). The use of submarines in the Pacific Theatre was particularly devastating. I'll give you a hint on how they might be used today if a major war broke out: submarines might be used to attack the transportation routes of a certain precious substance that starts with an 'O' and ends with an 'L'. It also might have the middle letter 'I.' This same tactic was used in the past to bring the Japanese empire to its knees in WWII long before US bombers were in range.
2. You were talking about "the threats of the modern world" and nuclear SLBMs didn't cross your mind? Really? Then you are dumber than a doorknob.
I'm beyond draft age, but there's no way I'd subject my younger relatives to being drafted for another BS war-of-choice like Iraq or Vietnam.
I would trust them to be patriotic enough to join up if they were needed to fight a *real* threat like WWII.
My guess is that the submarine sensed the flotilla sailing on a collision course and surfaced to identify and save itself. That still doesn't excuse the US Sonar Operators for not sensing it.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Al Quaeda are not a threat to the the United States. Not in the way that an actual army is. Al Quaeda are just the logical response to a long history of US support for the nasty regime of Saudi Arabia. Unchecked, they will cause deaths, but the only real threat they pose to the US itself, is one of respect which harms the government and its foreign bad-ass image. But not a threat to the American way of life or culture (those have come solely in the government's response). The two reasons that Al Quaeda are played up by the US government and media are (a) as a part of a campaign of confusing issues to justify an occupation of Iraq and (b) to excuse the diversion of vast funds into the military sector. A dubious reason to increase government surveillance and power is also a pleasant (for the authorities) bonus.
Of course this isn't to disagree with your main arguments. Trying to restart the Cold War is massively misguided and the US can't afford to do it anyway. I'm just observing that Al Queada is a reactionary force to US policy, not an independent force. They fight primarily off US territority and could not pursue a war on US territority. All the US needs to do to stop the resistance is to stop pushing. But the powers that be in the US can't countenance such an idea because they have so much riding on being the big tough guy, both before the US people's (Slashdotter's excepted) drilled in faith in their country's superiority and on the international stage where they have pushed other countries around for a long time (mostly with a complete lack of awareness of the situation on the part of the population who I've usually found to be very friendly).
The swollen armed forces of the US have been unnecessary for quite some time. I'm surprised people haven't cottoned on a long time before now.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Right. An then pop goes the Chinese financial system. And if China did something like that, the US would be far more likely to aggressively respond to any Chinese military moves.
no money no Navy, Army, Air Force or USMC
The military is the last thing to get cut. Even if their budget were reduced, it would have the capacity to crush China for years, if not decades.
Much better for China if they can suggest, by demonstrations like this, that confronting them militarily would be an expensive exercise, and that the US and China should just do business as usual if China decides to invade Taiwan (after some token protests).
Let's say Osama bin Laden buys a Chinese sub. He drives it into the middle of a battle group, "pops up," says hi to the closest ships with a full complement of surface-to-surface missiles, and scores some decent hit points.
Meanwhile, US reconnaisance, within the group, in the sky and in orbit, are busy snapping hires photos of a Chinese sub. Doesn't matter who was driving it, it all points back to Beijing.
In a matter of minutes, the US is in total retaliation mode - against China.
Submarines aren't in any way comparable RPGs or dusty Soviet-era rockets sold through arms merchants. To keep an expensive, complex piece of hardware like an attack sub running, you *must* have parts, a fully-trained crew, ad naseum. That means a steady supply large coin going to the seller, with supply lines, technical support, and giving the crew access to military nav sat so they can actually navigate. That makes China a de-facto partner in the operation.
What are you smoking? You sound much like a wild-eyed neocon who fully expects the brown-skinned, foreign-sounding guy at the checkout counter to pull an AK-47 and smoke some Americans.
'Nuff said.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
Had it dawned on you that perhaps they where not running a ASW screen? I spent 10 years in the navy as a Operations Specialist, most of it aboard Burke class destroyers. During peace time battle group steaming the formation is generally not running a ASW screen unless they are actually
practicing ASW detection.
You are highly underestimating the capabilities of modern warships.
Another thing, quiet don't mean shit when you get a P-3 Orion mark on top with a MAD(Magnetic Anomaly Detector).
Got Code?
A navy pilot once described to me the kinetics of landing on an aircraft carrier. I still shiver.
It takes testicles in addition to skill to be a carrier pilot.
Wind. Check. Carrier moving. Check. Unforgiving short runway. Check.
Stuff nightmares are made of.
C//
I actually think we ought to have mandatory military service for everyone along with the option of other forms of community service for conscientious objectors (maybe infrastructure development).
The major reason is that foriegn policy regarding war is rarely made with a real understanding of personal cost in lives, lost loved ones, etc. War has become something that other people fight for us so we can be cavalier about it.
I think it would change the dynamics fundamentally if every community had people serving in the armed forces at all times. We pay the price at any rate, but at least this way, we as a society know the price when we pay it-- it isn't something that just happens to someone else.
BTW, I have lost a friend to the Iraq war. It wasn't an IED, an insurgent bullet, or anything like that which ended her life. It was the PTSD (she committed suicide about a year after getting back). How many others have lost friends?
Just to let you know where I stand on Iraq. This is a war we never should have fought. We shouldn't have gotten involved, and I said that at the beginning. However, we are there now, and for better or worse, we are now responsible for Iraq's well-being. Therefore IMO, the only acceptable discussion now is how we help the Iraqis to emerge from their civil war. While we as a country made a mistake, it would be an even bigger one to leave simply because the cost of staying in American lives is too high.
I actually think we need to be prepared to leave, and we need to use that as a threat we can use to get the current Iraqi government to stop using militias in official or unofficial capacities (we should probably scale down our use of private paramilitary groups such as Blackwater as well).
However, back to the China question: we will be involved in military confrontations with them at some point there is no doubt. However, as a democracy, we owe it to the people to spread the burden of the decision making, the politics, and the price fairly. Volunteers are great. But mandatory military service would put this country back into the hands of the people rather than the global planners.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Dear Mr Bush,
This is just a cordial visit to remind you that you owe us $200,000,000,000. Nothing to be alarmed about. Have a nice day.
China
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Enjoy.
It's a myth that our debt is large or crippling. Doubly so when you look at historical levels of the national debt.
Triply so when you consider that as the dollar looses value, so does our debt, while our cheaper currency drives exports and growth.
It's true that the U.S. economic situation is not perfect. We don't print money on trees, and our growth rate isn't good, there are class issues, and inefficiency is growing. However, our environmental situation is _pretty good_ these days, and for the most part (at least in terms of environmental contaminants, and deforestation) there is a good deal of substance (read "balls") to the U.S. economy. Watch the yuan continue to grow in value, and renewables continue to be ever more viable in the face of escalating oil prices, and you'll see that the U.S. shall continue as a strong economy for the forseeable future.
We're hardly pawning off our assets to pay our debts. The only thing that's happening now is that foreign countries no longer value our debt as AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, driving the value of the dollar down; which makes sense, as it was overvalued. Our purchasing power shall decline, however, our incentive to work hard, produce, and sell to the rest of the world grows. All we have to do is a)ride out the occasional correction, as we are doing now, and b)find politicians willing to exercise fiscal restraint and work towards budget surpluses, as well as a sustainable, cheap source of energy.
Hopefully, the market will take care of the second part, and the 2008 election will take resolve the first.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
What!? Pretending the other side has much more effective hardware, ala the Soviet Union's illusory missile gap(s)?
Don't you see that that would mean that Navy/DoD staff would have to go to Congress and ask for $billions more to upgrade the Navy hardware, and they would hardly have a chance to see that project underway before they'd be retiring to positions at defense contractor. Who would go for that?
Get real.
I actually think we ought to have mandatory military service for everyone
Interesting. I assume by everyone we all really mean those without the connections and money to avoid it. I somehow cannot imagine having a politician's son with me in boot camp or combat. We cannot risk high-quality people.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
How to "psychotic leaders" or "insane leaders" carry out the murders of millions? Stalin only personally killed some 1000 people or so. His multi million death quota was reached by willing underlings.
Perhaps the blame lies with the sheeple, not with the evil rulers. I've said this over and over again, its "fellow men" who are to blame, not "evil men or evil corporations, but the sheeplike nature of the majority of mankind... the mass man so to speak, for he does not lead, and does not think, he merely follows."
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
You do know that's a reason for them not to attack us, right? I mean, it's not like we'd honor their treasury bonds if they declared war on us.
Frankly, I think one of the (few) good things to come from the current state of war (at least for the Army and USMC) is that it is quickly flushing the dilettantes out of the enlisted ranks and (more slowly) the ranks of the commissioned officers. The military isn't a game. Too many people seemed to think it was like the Boy Scouts, only with mortars and rifles.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
They demonstrate an anti-satellite weapon. They show off a quiet sub. The second isn't as impressive as it sounds. As any hardcore Discovery Channel watcher will tell you, several of our European allies already have super-quiet subs. But the Chinese show off these new technologies in public. What are they trying to do?
When they look as us, what do they see? Remember, these guys aren't stupid, they listen when Bush speaks, they watch when he acts. They see a president completely disdainful of alliances and diplomacy, dependent upon military force and dedicated to unilateral, unprovoked military actions. They see an American administration encouraging rash behavior in its allies. Remember the recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon? The Bush administration, according to some news reports, encouraged the Israeli government in its invasion plans. What might Bush do next? The Chinese wish to show our president that not every problem has an "easy" military solution. Bush doesn't listen to words, maybe he'll pay attention to deeds.
As Cap'n Jack Sparrow would say: "They put a shot across our bow, matey!"
The quoted text is almost insightful, but it still devolves into "if he knows that I know that he knows..."
Perhaps the US was tracking the Chinese sub all along, but is now going to destroy a couple of careers just to make it look like the sub was not detected due to human error. What are a couple of careers measured against misinforming the enemy?
Or, perhaps the Chinese sub should have been detected if it was actually following but was instead using a cheap trick like sitting on the bottom until the carrier group came past, then surfacing to give the false impression that it was super stealthy and had been following all along.
Those are just a couple of possibilities off the top of my head, and (hard as it is to believe) I'm sure there are even smarter people than me working for US and Chinese military intelligence.
.evom ton seod gis eht
Question: how many people are waiting in line to get a job on a submarine? What I'm getting at: is the military having a hard time filling these positions?
You cannot be infinitely cunning in developing new type of counter-weapons. It is better to find more common goals. Best strategy to win is to make everyone want cooperate with you, because you have a desireable vision for the future of everyone.
http://id3as.livejournal.com/
As a former ASW (anti-submarine warfare) pilot, I would like to point out that, in 1998-2000, the Navy decided that "we don't need ASW to be a primary mission for the carrier." So, they assigned the carrier helos additional duty as an ASW platform ("They can handle anything inside 50 miles"), P-3s to take care of the long range stuff ("They're available"), and F/A-18s to do surface search ("They're always around, anyway").
Now, don't get me wrong, a helo can be an excellent ASW platform...if its crew is given time to train, if the carrier has enough of a "heads-up", and if they aren't doing plane-guard 90% of the time (hovering near the carrier to pick up an wrecked pilots.)
F/A-18s can't spend the time down low (they use too much gas and would rather drop bombs or shoot aircraft, not to mention that's a lot of work for one guy in a cockpit), P-3s are great, but there are only so many and they have a huge area to cover, and they have a big crew with lots of run-up for a mission...plus, they are usually based far away from where the carriers actually are. ("We just spotted a sub! Get your boys out there!" "Roger that, we'll be on station in 4 hours...")
Not being a bubblehead (submarine guy), I can't speak to any limitations on subs, but there are only so many, and a kamikaze diesel sub can and will cause a lot of tight sphincters on any ships in his area.
As the parent pointed out, no one has really tried to challenge the US for a long time, and we've gotten soft in this area (think ASW during WWII, mine warfare, brown water ops in Vietnam, etc, ad nauseum.) It usually takes either a big scare or a smoking hole in the water before anyone dusts off the old books and starts to really think about how the job needs to be done.
ASW is a highly-developed skill, and when you start to dismantle that skill, you suffer for a long time. If we haven't reversed those decisions to downgrade the ASW mission, maybe this will be an early enough wakeup call to undo the damage before someone decides that we're weak enough to slap us where it hurts.
It only takes one carrier with a hole it the side to win the public affairs war.
Background/Disclaimer: My experience was as an S-3 pilot, a carrier-based ASW aircraft. I've been out of the Navy for 3 years now, so all my points may be hopelessly out of date. On the other hand, I doubt the war on "terrah" has had any admirals sweating enemy subs, and people (as a group) don't really change, do they?
Never confuse movement with action. --Hemingway
"There are good reasons to have a draft"
Such as?
I'm too lazy to parapharase this post I made elsewhere, so I'll just edit to reflect retiring recently:
Rant mode on:
My opinion as a 26-year Air Force NCO is that a return to conscription will cost lives for nothing, would be a financial disaster, weaken the armed forces, not build any sort of (positive) shared national identity among the victims, and otherwise is a terrible idea.
Conscription instantly builds justifiable, bitter resentment among the tiny minority of victims. By the time you filter the physically and mentally fit out of the pool, you have an even smaller slice of the youth population. Not being totally stupid, some of these folks wake up to the fact that THEIR sacrifice is to appease some other fellows desire for SHARED sacrifice, whatever THAT is. These bitter humans form a pool of first-termers who will not re-enlist. Guess where the investment in training them went? Out the gate along with their ability to train brand new people, who must suffer learning by (KABOOM!) experience instead of mentoring.
Training the rotating victim pool falls to the career enlisted, who are exhausted thereby, and saddened at the deterioration of the military they had worked so hard to build. More career people quit...depleting the mid-career ranks, later depleting the senior ranks...
The blast radius of this stupidity isn't limited to Army units. Conscription was famous for scaring those unwilling to be bullet catchers into the Air Force and Navy. I came in a few years after the draft ended, but the horror stories were still fresh and I believe them. Drug use (not healthy for quality aircraft maintenance or fighting aircraft carrier fires...Forrestal, cough, cough..), discipline problems (hard to threaten someone who WANTS to be discharged!), morale in the shitter, you name it.
Effectiveness goes down, costs go up, waste goes up, experience goes away, and the downward spiral goes on unless a Ronald Regan shows up to un-fuck it.
Rich folk still dodge service as they always have and always will, because there is no SOCIAL censure for doing so. Poor folks who don't want to be there, led by inexperienced supervisors, die and are wounded in greater quantities than in the highly effective Volunteer Force. Surviving conscripts, shanghaied by a government that took them, fucked them, and chucked them end up homeless and ruined, just like the last time.
World War II is over, and that massive level of shared service is not economically supportable or necessary or intelligent due to technology. Army service is not a viable substitute for parenting either, because the kind of harsh discipline that is necessary to control the actively unwilling no longer exists and the public will not tolerate it. Society has changed, and I respectfully submit that proponents of conscription either have no clue or deliberately want it as a spoiler to damage the military.
Consider the Volunteer Force. It rebuilt itself during the 1980s into an effective war machine, won the (conventional) Gulf War battles with minimum loss and impressive speed, withstood the first drawdown, and is doing surprisingly well at simultaneously managing drawdown/transformation/the mess in Iraq.
Do we REALLY want to toss conscripts into the mix? Why would putting less-committed, less-professional, less-trained people into incredibly stressful situations be better for anyone?
Anyone out there with substantial recent US military experience favor a draft? Very few I've heard from.
The lessons of conscription have been learned.
Read and heed:
http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/Vietnam/heinl.html
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Hmm, shortsighted AC. Funding education (i.e: literacy) is protecting the nation. Disagree? Consider: It worked during the Cold War by giving us a critical edge in technology.
Dumping money into defense systems while allowing your foe to leap beyond you in sciences and technology won't win you that game of Civ2 either....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Do you know what it would cost to employ, train and equip 170 million soldiers? 1000$ is probably a fairly lowball figure if you were to outfit them all as infantry and you'd already spend 170 billion dollars just on equipment. Be generous and assume an average salary of 50$ a month. 8.5 billion dollars per month. And that's if you use them as cannon fodder. If you want proper promotions the salarieas increase, if you want tanks, planes and transports you're looking at another few hundred billion.
Unless the entire Chinese economy would be geared and taxed for war that 170M army would turn out to be little more than cannonfodder for any serious army and almost immobile as the supply lines and transports are insufficient to keep such an army moving. Would be impossible to acquire enough food and supplies just from the conquests, if your supply lines get interrupted your 170M men are going to starve. You're better off using fewer people and more advanced equipment.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
There, fixed that for ya.
The support of the Saud dynasty is a by-product of a pro-Israeli policy, much as the support of variously nasty Egyptian governments has been, with the concomitant strengthening of the Muslim Brotherhood and the coming together of Al Quaeda.
It's time the US faced facts, and realised that supporting the aggressive land thieves who currently occupy Palestine is the cause of most of the ill-will towards America in the Islamic world - other parts of the world dislike US foreign policies of the past for their own reasons (Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, more recently Venezuela), which may be harder to fix, as the US at least had justification for feeling the need to interfere in local affairs.
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
If you owe the bank 1000 dollars and can't pay, you're in trouble.
If you owe the bank a billion dollars and can't pay, they're in trouble.
The Swedish Navy has trained with the US Navy for several years now using a diesel sub trying to avoid detection. From what I've heard the swedish crew have been very succesful. http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=3574&date=20060418
They're a little short on shipping to do that though...
That's part of the reason for the USA to have a strong navy, to prevent any nation from being able to just ship a military over to attack.
The USAF would just be a bonus - taking out cargo ships laden with troops tends to be fairly easy.
I don't read AC A human right
The weird thing is that you mention how beholden the US is to China, as if it's a good thing
We're both beholden to each other, China needs the US market to continue their economic growth, and American needs China to keep buying dollars (which they've stopped).
Cool post, by the way. Lots of rambling but hell, the details are the good stuff.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Taiwan hasn't been part of China since WW II. Culturally, politically, socially - even linguistically - they have become two very different countries. If you think that Taiwan could be painlessly absorbed by China - even *without* US intervention - you don't know the Taiwanese.
Saying that Taiwan today is part of China is like saying the USA is still part of the British Empire.