Navy Admiral sends warning to Congress

originally posted by: SR1TX
Why do we need that many to be ready or any at all?

Who are we at war with?

en.m.wikipedia.org...

A navy is an offensive force. The notion of peace through strength is no longer operative when the enemy is not a nation state.

I pick on the Navy a lot, mostly because I'm not convinced it is a 21st century tool. That and a Navy is extremely expensive.

Perhaps what we need to do is to re-invent NATO and remove the NA, membership is cut if you dont meet requirements.

The UK will have 2 x QE class carriers with hopefully 128 F35-B between them, training and maintenance. These carriers are effectively an extension of US Marine forces as we will cross deck. If we want to be at the top table of that mutual defence treaty we must up our GDP to minimum 3% defence. With that in place, we should be able to take some of the load off the USA, as allies.

Then look at Australia, its building a few world class Air Warfare Destroyers, agree that to be in the club at least one must be availabe to support a US Carrier force then the US needs one less.

We can go on, but what has always p1ssed me off is this line from Blackhawk Down, i dont know if its true:

Behind a force of 20,000 U.S. Marines, food is delivered and order is restored.

It is us that let America down, why werent there 5000 Royal Marines to support 15000 US, or 5000 Royals and 5000 Anglicans to support 10,000 US Marines....

We are close allies and we should balance our aircraft, why cant the French provide 100 Rafale to cross deck the cats and traps to support their allies whilst their rusty hulk is bed ridden??

a reply to: JIMC5499
Noone wants to do the fun jobs anymore...This is pretty much the telling quote..

All of this assumes that there are still people available who know how to make the components and assemble the doors.

Ive done a lot of Warbird parts in the past.You MAKE it happen...

a reply to: FredT

(sorry for the late response...took the weekend off of ATS)

Knowing how to win wars and actually fighting to win are two different things, entirely.

I know how to get out of debt, but that's doesn't mean that I'm debt-free. I know how to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight, but that doesn't mean that I do it all of the time.

See, the thing is, as a nation, we've realized that we can make massive profits off of war, so until our government gets it in their heads that the lives lost during prolonged wars are more important and valuable than dollar bills and stock increases, we will forego our knowledge of how to win wars and just keep perpetuating them instead.