Attack on Georgia Gives Boost to Big U.S. Weapons Programs

Attack on Georgia Gives Boost to Big U.S. Weapons Programs

online.wsj.com

Russia's attack on Georgia has become an unexpected source of support for big U.S. weapons programs, including flashy fighter jets and high-tech destroyers, that have had to battle for funding this year because they appear obsolete for today's conflicts with insurgent opponents

(visit the link for the full news article)

Funding for large new weapons programs has been hard to come by as most of today's wars are conflicts with insurgents , and terrorists.

online.wsj.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Nations ALWAYS make the mistake of saying "We will be fighting these types of wars so don't need X type of kit for the next generation", which always comes back to bite you on the arse.

Look at how the Royal Navy was viewed as virtually obsolete in the early 1980's, then all of a sudden the Argentines took advantage of a run down fleet and invaded the Falklands. Needless to say, we learned some serious lessons then.

Unfortunately, today's politicians and bean counters are starting to forget those lessons.

Flashy new jet fighters and high tech destroyers are always the best weapons for fighting in a urban warfare street to street setting. This makes total sense. Think of the Battle of Berlin or the Tet Offensive or Guadalcanal or the Georgian/Russian conflict. Flashy new jet fighters and high tech destroyers certainly have been the deciding factors in all urban conflicts since the days of Caesar.

reply to post by CuriousSkeptic


Kind of missing the point there. When your all geared up to fight only one kind of war, in this case insurgency's, your not exactly preparing yourself in case a much bigger war sparks off or one which your military isn't prepared for.

See my example about the Falklands War. The UK was woefully ill-prepared and only through guile and sheer luck did we manage to beat off the Argie invasion.

I don't disagree with you man, it's just the line of logic in this article is stupid. Because of an urban conflict that is involving street to street fighting and guerilla tactics, that somehow is the inspiration for spending for ships and planes.

That's like me saying because I'm losing the hair on my head, I should get a nose job.

However, I do agree with you on constantly updating and incorporating the latest technologies into our militarizes. But at the same time I'm so sick of these type of Pro-Military Complex sentiments that reside on completely stupid logic. You want to write a pro-military industrial complex article and verbally felate how great our stuff that kills people is, great. But to try to tie it into a current event and give justification based on fear for it isn't only stupid but slimy.

perhaps now it's become more apparent why the U.S gov decided to have a proxy war with russia.

i heard the same non sense before, it's always fear that motivates these huge spending(by the us congress) rather than rational thinking... the U.S gov defense spending is half a trillion annually- surpassing any nation- whilst education is 63 billion.

who or how are these weapons meant to protect? we all know we're in the nuclear/hydrogen age.. and it doesn't matter how advance a defense program is, you can't prevent a nuclear warhead from hitting it's target.

these weapons aren't for defensive measures but rather offensive attacks-mostly against small defenseless third world countries

sounds like the old-school military & Admiralty
is in conflict with the (VP) Cheney model of a restructered military.

like the normandy invasion versus the shock-&-awe strategies.


the response to the Georgia war action...could not be a shock-&-awe retaliation, as that would make Georgia or America look like the bad guys.
so a protracted and clumberson response, with 20th century war toys, are needed by the war planners/responders.... at the Pentagon & the JCS

This has perfect relevance to the current news. Here is my explanation, in Iraq and Afghanistan the focus has been place upon the Army and the Marines. Sure the Air force and navy are around but we are not so much fighting from the air or sea these days. In this current conflict with Georgia and Russia we read about the Russian navy sinking Georgian ships and also about Georgia shooting down a few Russian planes.

So with this news the US needs to remember that we need a powerful Air force and Navy. How many destroyers do we have ready? How fast can they get to the effected area? How many F-22's and F-16's are ready to fly? In order to get into an urban conflict in which ground forces can do their job first you have to be able to get into the country which could involve sea warfare and then at least some sort of air superiority must be established. If Georgia had air superiority then the Russians wouldn't have been hitting their military bases or fighting positions, Georgia would have been hitting Russia's troops on their way in.

Shock and Awe was a vary effective campaign tactic. That was a great example of navel and air superiority. Before any ground troops hit the ground the US was able to soften any enemy military targets that would have posed a threat. Now what we need to look at is being able to keep a military force that can keep that superiority against stronger targets.

this whole War mindset makes me sick..

oh ya...lets make better stuff for the next war....ya ...ya.. and lets make em more deadly and and we can kill so much better...ya ya.....

so when we design the next war we can kill so much better..
ok...wait we gotta think-a more ways to start wars first....ya ...ya ya

...man this is fun.... wanna play?

reply to post by Maya432


How... naive.

As long as there is more than one person on this planet, there will be conflict. The more power a given side has in that conflict compared to the other side, the better their chances are of surviving it.

The rest of the world won't stop building new weapons just because you do. Because of this, current technology will one day be inadequate for military use. Examples: military tech that was at one point cutting-edge stuff was employed by Georgia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Those countries' governments were all easily defeated by countries employing current cutting-edge stuff.

If the idea of staying on top of the game makes you sick, then you should thank your lucky stars that somebody in your country can stomach the reality of life here on Earth. Why? Because Sunshine and Roses aren't gonna appear across the globe just because you lit a camp fire and started singing Kumbaya.

reply to post by mattifikation


you sir are a war loving a-hole
and I`ll sing kumbia any day my friend.

As long as there is more than one person on this planet, there will be conflict

nice mindset you have there buddy

I`m so sick of power hungry people...
they should all be arrested.

when I go to a concert or a game there are thousands of people..
and...there not fighting..in fact they are all getting along rather nicely.

Staying on top of the game??????

what game...the game of "invent a war and then kill everyone" ??????

there is no enemy .....
never was....
never will be...

geesh... i give up here.... ciao
ps.
I sure hope the boost in killing machines greases all the right pockets...

GOOD!

I bet they'll regret scrapping the Comanche or not making enough F-22/35s!

It's all just a matter of being prepared. It's not raining today, and I don't know if it's going to rain tomorrow but I own an umbrella just in case.

We never know of or when there is going to be a situation where we may need the fastest or most maneuverable plane. But when that situation comes up I want the US pilots to be able to out maneuver and fly circles around the enemy air craft.

Are you worried about who is making money? Invest in Lockheed Martin. If they come out with something awesome or start selling a lot of planes then their stock is going to go up. If you own there stock then you are going to make some money. That's how the stock market works.

You can hate wars, it's something that we all hate. It's just something that we have to be prepared for.

Originally posted by Maya432

you sir are a war loving a-hole
and I`ll sing kumbia any day my friend.

First of all, I didn't say I like war. I said war is reality, whether you love it or not. Kind of like hepatitis. It's here and it's here to stay. Hating either one of them won't do squat. Neither will calling me an "a-hole," despite the fact that the very word "a-hole" by itself is such a well thought-out argument against my point.

nice mindset you have there buddy

And what mindset is that? Realism? Take a look back if you're so enlightened. Find me the period in history when nobody on earth was at war with anybody else. Tell me the time period. Show me any evidence whatsoever that a time existed when there wasn't fighting between men. Before we could even make tools, we were probably killing each other with ordinary rocks and sticks. And before that, we were probably doing it with our bare hands.

Someday we'll probably be doing it with laser beams and plasma weapons. And some day, really far off if we don't all die before then, we'll probably be laughing at third world countries with their pitiful nuclear weapons as the "super powers" threaten to destroy each other with black holes and antimatter bombs.

when I go to a concert or a game there are thousands of people..
and...there not fighting..in fact they are all getting along rather nicely.

What's your point there exactly? That not everybody is fighting 100% of the time with everybody else? Duh. But look at the big picture. If there's 1000 people at the concert, at least one of them's probably killed somebody else at some point. Probably a good 10-20 are career criminals or worse. One in four women in that crowd, statistically, have been or will be victims of a sexual assault at some point in their lives. Depending on the concert, a good 10 percent of them might be using drugs at that very moment. Humans are violent, whether YOU PERSONALLY are violent or not. And all this is just in that one small crowd. Magnify that crowd to the population of Earth, and you have the REAL PICTURE instead of the rose-tinted fantasy you've dreamed up in your head.

Staying on top of the game??????

what game...the game of "invent a war and then kill everyone" ??????

The game of "Kumbaya might sound nice and make you feel all warm and fuzzy after a fight, but it doesn't make the other guy stop kicking the snot out of you during it."

there is no enemy .....
never was....
never will be...

Not only are you completely overreacting and being guided by a sheer lack of objective common sense at the moment, but you are being totally unrealistic. You really think nobody out there wants to destroy anybody else? You're on EARTH, a planet with 10,000 nuclear bombs that are all freakin' pointed at something.

I suppose in World War II there was no enemy? The allies should have just stopped making weapons, because the Axis was just made up? If only they had completely disarmed, the Nazis would have followed suit. Pure genius, I see now. If only we'd tried this tactic earlier! Maybe we could have gotten Napoleon, Alexander the Great, maybe even stopped the Crusades if only one side in one of those conflicts would have... uh... Rolled over and died, instead of defending itself?

Russia did not attack Georgia.

Georgia attacked Ossetia first, Russia defended Ossetia.

[edit on 18-8-2008 by ergoli]

as a member of the forces, i believe we should show off. let the world see our superiority in the air, sea, and on land. shoot, kick some arse and while were at it, have a few beers and let it go....just my opinion.

reply to post by ergoli


for once someone speaks the truth.

This was a American/Israeli backed and trained Georgia, attacking South Osetta.
There's much proof showing Israel provided weapons and logistics, while American and Israeli' commando's trained the Georgian army.

2 days BEFORE Russia even entered, there were news reports of Georgia having very violent gun battles with South Osettans, and using heavy artillery against civilian area's.

How people are so dumb to believe Russia invaded Georgia on a whim defeats me.

Ahem. None of that is exactly the topic here.

This thread is to discuss whether or not the purpose of the war was to line the pockets of the military industrial complex.

There are about a billion other tired old threads to play the "blame America" game in. They got old three wars ago, so how 'bout you leave it out of here?