Is the Government setting up the armed forces to lose?

a reply to: InverseLookingGlass

I think the argument is the quality and pertinence of that spending.

I would attribute the problem more to DC's ineptitude than a concerted effort to degrade the US military even though the result might be the same.

I've got a novel idea, why don't we just stop all the wars period? What kind of idiot civilization kills its own sisters and brothers? "War is a racket"- Gen. Smedley Butler U.S.M.C. "Beware of the military industrial complex"- President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Leave the Russians alone! Why do we allow sociopathic, bloodthirsty parasites to run the world? PEACE. Stop falling for the same old scam over and over again!

originally posted by: MrSpad
Ok ok I know it is hard for civilians to understand what an exercise is. It is not a battle simulation. It is design to give to how specific scenerios are handled so that lessons can be learned. Sometimes it is to test agains a specfic threat, sometimes it is more random but, you almost always lose. Then you are brought back, get some feed back and do it all again. Before the Desert Shield/Storm the press got wind of a military exercise of and Iraq war scenerio where the US suffered massive losses, so all the sudden you had new stations predicting hundreds of thousands of deaths. Of course in that exercises every crazy thing that be imagined was tossed in bythe people running the exercise.

Another example is NATO always lost its biggest exercise to the Warsaw Pact. Until one year in the 90s they did not. That meant that with the end of the Warsaw Pact and collapse of the Soviet Union, nobody could up with a way no matter how for NATO to lose. That was the last time the exercise was run, because no it has not value.

Another thing that is often done that tricks civilans is when they are told of some Officer not following the rules of an exercise and defeating the superior forces againts him then getting trouble for doing it. Again people do not understand the reason for an exercise. If you are on exercise to teach your squad how to fight off and ambush and the OPFOR instead laying and ambush calls in and airstike and wipes you out, the nothing was learned and the exercise designed to teach a specfic skill is ruined.

What you can look at it real life. The Arab Israeli wars were pretty a small scale version of a NATO Soviet conflict. Desert Storm completely shook China who used the same equipment and tactics. This is how things have alway shaken out.

Now look at Russia's latest conflicts against Georgia and Ukraine. Even against obsolete poorly trained forces like those Russia has struggled. In Georgia they had to call off air support because of communications break downs leading to them shooting down their own planes, units were lost, and the entire thing which should have been quick and bloodless was a mess. Hundreds of officers were fired, and reforms started that ended when all the money for reforms was absorbed by corruption at every level.

Something the US takes granted like a ground movement of a couple thousand miles by US armor forces is looked at by Russian officers with enevy because for them to do the same would mean lossing at least half their force to breakdowns.

So no, in no way shape or form could Russia come close to defeating the US on the battlefield.

Good post here. I'm not a military person but a large part of my work involves making simulations and games. Not very much different from the simulations a soldier is using when performing an excercise (though theirs may be live rather than digital). If you're trying to create a test, the #1 job is to create a situation in which the tester cannot win. You give them the goal of winning, but engineer it to the best of their ability that they cannot. This can mean very ridiculous low percentages actions happening... but if that's what it takes to win, so be it.

When NATO couldn't lose a simulation is when NATO had complete victory.

a reply to: Dimithae

I read your article, it refers to a specific program that was tried. I'm not up to date on all the military stuff but aren't projects canceled all the time? In this case, the drone just didn't have the sensors required. That seems like a simple fix.

The problem here is that "conventional warfare" is obsolete. What Paul Van Ripper did in the war-game may or may not have worked in practice depending on circumstances- the low tech version basically depends on surprise.

However, it illustrated vulnerabilities which are instantly and remotely exploitable by much higher tech and harder to defend means in the modern age that mean the end of massed equipment, large scale battle lines, and reliance on irreplaceable assets like aircraft carriers and large transports.

This has effectively been true since the dawn of the nuclear age, except it only applied to full scale war because of MAD. Now these things can be rendered irrelevant without going nuclear, but it still pares down the other guys options to just the nukes, which leaves a certain amount of deterrence in effect for the time being.

I believe that due to classified technologies on both sides, if push came to shove, on day one Russia's advance would be slowed to the pace of dismounted infantry and their communications would be reduced to runners, and their navy would cease to exist and their airforce would be grounded. Meanwhile in America the power might go out, our navy might lose several carriers and subs, there would be long range non nuclear attacks on the CONUS, America would admit most of its known equipment is all but useless but put up a surprisingly coherent resistance without ever presenting a target using digital warfare, special operations, space based weaponry (whether already in placeor awaiting deployment in case of war), and a few classified aircraft that will be able to operate in this war safely.

Consider how even the deliberate restriction of a military to non-threatening levels in Germany after WWI both motivated and masked the development of unprecedented weapons and tactics, not all of which could be countered at the time. Reagan's secretary of defense worried about that happening in Russia's favor in a book called The Next War, but that possibility cuts both ways- and we've got more people and more money to put into that race.

Granted a large empire cannot operate efficiently as a blunt instrument against another empire- those have always been messy affairs- the large light infantry forces you use to hold an empire together can't be sent hey diddle diddle right up the middle at elite defenders on even footing- that's how Thermopylae happened. That's how every bloodbath of the American Civil War happened.

But an empire need not do business that way- its bigger, its got better endurance, it can take more losses- it can strangle its prey rather than ripping it limb from limb in a bloody fight. All the Persians had to do was stand back and fire arrows all day long and send out scouts looking for a way around all day long, sooner or later they would have dislodged the 300 without a fight and driven them off on open ground- it was their belief that they could just go over and bluntly stomp on people without taking them seriously that was their downfall- but losing required a generation of poor decision making even from that position. America is in the same boat with Russia.

originally posted by: InverseLookingGlass
a reply to: Dimithae

So you are saying, that the US spending more on military funding than the entire rest of he world combined is setting the armed forces up to fail?

How long have you been watching Fux News?

But what % of the money taken from the pockets of the public for the Military actually gets to the Military. It goes through a lot of hands before it gets to a soldier.

That's the REAL question.

Jude11

a reply to: MrSpad

Here is what you seem to have difficulty understanding about this,they wanted to show up this retired general,that all his huffing and puffing about technology was nonsense,and they could beat the Russians hands down. He was trying to tell them that they are depending on the technology too much,and that it could be defeated. This was not an exercise for lessons to be learned by the current brass,it was to teach an old man he didn't know what he was talking about. They purposely set it up in their favor to show him up,instead he SHOWED them what he was talking about.Instead of them learning from this and saying "you know,he may have a point here,we need a back up plan". They instead just screwed around with the test until they won. This taught them nothing at all except to cheat.Thats great until you get into an actual war and it doesn't matter if you cheat or not,cause your enemy is cheating too.

I remember watching Nat Geo on this war of the worlds scenario,about if aliens really did come down and attack us. Though I doubt anything like that can ever happen,they made what I think is a really good point,that people should always keep in mind.When you are fighting on another's territory and they are determined to keep it,all they have to do is lay low and build up their strength. When the time is right,they can do running hits and keep the pressure on you till you expend your resources,and or just get worn out and tired of the whole thing.This is basically what happened in Vietnam. We HAD superior weapons,we had the know how and skill,we still lost. Yes we could have kept the fighting going until we drug China and Russia into it with us and started another world war. But we didn't, the people back home had had enough of the whole thing.They were tired of picking up their loved ones at the airport in boxes to be buried. They were tired of loved ones coming home that they no longer knew who they were. Even those that staunchly had believed the good ole red white and blue was always right,had a lot of them change their minds by the end. The American public had no heart for this.

In a major war like what would come with Russia, I sincerely doubt that Americans would be too happy as the body counts rise. There are weakness' in our armed forces that we refuse to acknowledge,we are setting ourselves up to made fools of. In the meantime the money will continue to roll in for the military industrial complex,at the cost of our people's blood and the blood of Russians. Do remember that Russia always lets the idiots come into their country,then cuts them off and mops up the mess left.

I'm going to make one last point on this,then I am done with this thread. I for one am sick to death of listening to rabid foaming at the mouth so called 'patriots',that think the America people should be a country that runs around attacking other countries,even though said countries are no possible threat to us. They think we should tell the whole world what they can and can't do. That we are GODS among other nations,and that others need to bow to us or we will slash,torture,kill,bomb,shoot and rape their citizens. We have done all those things and more. Here is what a true patriot is,a person that backs up the constitution and bill of rights of this country.They support neither 'party'. They do not support the senseless killing of innocent civilians caught in the middle of wars. They do not support random bombings of civilian populations. They do not support imperialistic demands or goals. Empires never end well,if you want to be like Rome was,remember how it all ended for them.It was not pretty. Those that glorify war are those that haven't fought it. They may have been in the service,but as far as being up in an enemy's face and having to kill them? There is no glory in that. When that happens it is a failing of the human species to learn from past mistakes, and to find new ways to prevent them. Such a shame.

Well, SOME empire will eventually take over the Earth...