Draug's right. We need to be able to fight and defeat anyone in the water, the air, and on land.

But at least you appreciate the importance of the USAF.

The sky jockies of the USAF are only needed for the bombers. The Navy has the best fighter pilots and the Marines are locked and loaded in the non-fixed wing arena and UAVs.

Marines, sure. Any time we actually have to hit dirt overseas, they should be enough. Because we are too involved in foreign dealings. In how many nations do we have bases? Do we really need all of that?

I'm going to quote a little Vonnegut (or paraphrase more likely, its from memory). In his civics class in the 1930s, he was taught to pity the Europeans for spending so much on national defense, and that we did things so much better in this country. He's never forgotten that civics lesson.

A small, professional army designed to be the nucleus of a larger army of national defense if the need would arise. A small, professional Marine Corps for the few times we need to actually project power overseas. A decent sized Navy for both the Atlantic and Pacific. A defensive Air Force.

We could be spending a third of what we do on defense, and be getting the same effect on our national security.

And then we wouldn't have to put up with the right wing in this country wanting to defund an excellent source of objective news.

It took me a bit, but I brought it back in to the original topic. Sorry guys for being part of the tangents.

"objective" news? LOL! I enjoy NPR. But it has a definite liberal slant.

Land power is not really necessary. The British ruled the world with sea power alone. WWI was really won at sea, not on land. The world's superpower for the past several centuries has been the world's preeminent sea power. If you control the seas, you can strangle any opponent's economy to death. That's exactly what happened to the Kaiser.

But WWII was land and air more than sea power, at least int he European theater. And even the Pacific war was about who had the best carrier based aircraft more oft than not. Sea power can't take and build airfields on remote islands. Sure, they can bomb the fuck out of said islands and turn them to rubble, but to really leapfrog back then required the Army/Marine land soldier to brun out the enemy and build the airfields on those islands. And in Europe, I don't think the Navy was going to be fighting on the Russian front.

Even in our modern combat, the Navy is useless against insurgents and air power is pretty limited to when you don't know who is the target and who is an innocent from thousands of feet up. No, it takes gropos to perform surgical strikes and reduce collateral damage.

@Putin: "Land power is not really necessary." - undeniable proof that you are a military genius! Those dead soldiers at the somme and verdun must feel like idiots!

quick, call the president, you have a money saving idea! XD

The Kaiser's army was nearly double the size of Britain's in 1918. And what exactly did the Battle of the Somme lead to? It was a terrible waste of life for little to no strategic advantage.

My point is that land power is not nearly as important as sea power, which I think history has shown conclusively. Read your Alfred Mahan.

America should just nationalize their news stations and set them up like BBC and CBC. That way we get unbiased news thats main focus is not ratings.

hmm, so russia should concentrate on its navy, and get rid of its army?

HAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, man you are just too funny.

no such thing as unbiased news, you fascist fuck

Russia can't. It will always be a land power. It's not like you can transcend geography. Russia's geographic position will make it difficult for it to ever be the preeminent power in the world. China is a land power trying to become a sea power. We'll see if they succeed.

But you're more interested in shouting abuse than a real conversation.

heh, you got my number! :)

Well I havent read much of this thread, but for my 2 cents, I say china has little to no chance of military expansion in our childrens lifetimes. The far bigger threat is subversion, which is a worry. I wonder how much of whats happening in the middle east riots is funded by PRC.

"I wonder how much of whats happening in the middle east riots is funded by PRC."

Yes, because Libyans waving pro-western monarchy flags is an obvious PRC subversion plot. This is the same government that sold the Nepalese monarchy military hardware to help it crush the Maoist insurgency. Ditto the Philippines.

I agree with Putin about the value of being a sea-power. The worlds greatest power is the greatest sea power. In peace it is about the ability to control trade routes, while in war it is about supply, and the sea is where it really counts. In both WW1 and WW2 Germany really suffered from not being a sea-power. They were strangled. Likewise what really defeated the Japanese in WW2 was the battle for the Pacific. They lost. Had they been able to win they would have been able to gain all the resources of East Asia and control trade in the Pacific, and then would have really been a great power. But the didn't; America won that battle.
I recently finished The Next 100 Years by George Freidman. He poo-poos the idea of China rivalling the USA. Two reasons he cites are internal problems, and the lack of the ability to become a sea-power (Friedman argues that it takes a long time to develop a powerful Navy).

@Putin: You confuse strategy with ideology. You want everything to be obvious?

Considering they're willing to sell military equipment to help crush rebellions that would be ideologically sympathetic to the Communist-led government in Beijing, no I'm not confusing strategy with ideology. China is deathly afraid of uprisings, turmoils and insurgencies anywhere. They had to arrest leaders of a so-called "Jasmine revolution" in the aftermath of the Middle East unrest. China has nothing to gain from Libya's government being removed. The US, on the other hand, could potentially gain a lot. A historic thorn in the side of US policy in the region could be gone. A guy who trained and aided virtually any anti-western group he could find. It is the Americans who have had a history of supporting these types of things in eastern europe and central asia. In fact, Gene Sharp, the architect of the "color revolutions" in Europe/Central Asia, took credit for being the model for the Egyptian uprising. Sharp, incidentally, is well connected to the NED, IRI and other intelligence connected outfits.

@Putin:

"Considering they're willing to sell military equipment to help crush rebellions that would be ideologically sympathetic to the Communist-led government in Beijing, no I'm not confusing strategy with ideology."
- please think a bit harder about what you wrote there :)

"China is deathly afraid of uprisings, turmoils and insurgencies anywhere."
- yep, so? As all good governments should be.

"China has nothing to gain from Libya's government being removed."
- oh really? So china has no interest outside its borders huh? Please refer to:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5320648.stm
http://www.rebelnews.org/politics/asia-pacific/657458-china-slams-meddling-in-egypt-affairs
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11944

"It is the Americans who have had a history of supporting these types of things in eastern europe and central asia. blah blah etc..
- relevance?

As I was saying, subversion is the real threat from China.

"please think a bit harder about what you wrote there"

I don't get your point. Perhaps because you like to speak in riddles instead of actually talking plainly. China doesn't help out rebellions even when they'd be beneficial, ideologically or otherwise. So I'm not dismissing Chinese support for the Libyan rebels based on the fact that they have pro-western flags alone. Whether they waved pro or anti US flags doesn't matter, China tends not to support insurgencies outside its borders, at least since the mid 1970s.

"yep, so? As all good governments should be. "

Yep, so they're not in the business of financing them.

"oh really? So china has no interest outside its borders huh? Please refer to: "

Is that what I said? Not at all. I said they don't support uprisings outside their borders, not that they don't have interests. They have an interest in preserving regime stability everywhere.

As for your links, what is this supposed to show? The first link talks about an anti-Chinese pro-Taiwanese Zambian politician who pissed off the Chinese because he met with Taiwanese businessmen and said the Chinese mistreat their workers. And? So this means they're funding uprisings in the Middle East? Brilliant. The PRC regards the Taiwan issue as a core interest. They make the one china policy the litmus test for all diplomatic relations. No surprise that they're not thrilled with the prospects of a pro-Taiwan leader in Zambia.

The second link is a comment from the Chinese saying they condemn US interference in Egypt. Well, gee, if that isn't the smoking gun that China is behind the unrest. So by saying the US should stop putting pressure on the Mubarak government, and that they want a stable government in Egypt, China is "subverting" Egypt. Again, brilliant.

Your third link points to US/NATO efforts to strangle Sudan, who has oil connections with China. Your point here is, again? You're only buttressing my point that the US tends to be the power that tries to interfere or sabotage other countries and promote instability, while China wants a stable government to do business with. It was the US who has been promoting the fragmentation of Sudan, and now the South Sudanese are fighting amongst themselves. China has always supported the Khartoum government.

"relevance?"

Should be rather obvious. The subversion, if any, is coming from the West. Not China.

"As I was saying, subversion is the real threat from China."

None of what you posted here supports that conclusion.

Draug's right about the importance of sea power. Sea power is very important, but you can't win wars without a strong, professional army and marine corps.

I'd like to point out that Germany was defeated in WWII because they were bombed back to the Stone Age by the Allied AIR FORCES. Sorry, Jack_Klein. Even your retarded brothers in the USAF are important.

"I'd like to point out that Germany was defeated in WWII because they were bombed back to the Stone Age by the Allied AIR FORCES."

This is all sorts of false.

Yeah. German production actually went up in the teeth of Allied bombing... it wasn't until they started to lose control of strategic resources (oh hai thar Red Army) that the jig started to be up. You can blame/credit Speer for that.

Not saying that the bombing wasn't hard on Germany, but to blandly put out there that the British Bomber Command and the USAAF won the war is the same kind of drivel I'd expect out of the people who claimed post-war that all we'd ever need would be bombers with atomic weapons for any future war.

And you can judge for yourself how well that theory worked out.

"@Putin: "Land power is not really necessary." - undeniable proof that you are a military genius! Those dead soldiers at the somme and verdun must feel like idiots!"

Sorry to double back here, but yes. While land power isn't 'unnecessary', the dead soldiers at the Somme, Verdun, Gallipoli and countless other battlefields (without meaning any disrespect to the dead) *should* feel like idiots. They were used as cannon fodder. In some four and a half months, there were around 500,000 casualties on each side, for the British and French to gain 11 km of ground. Based purely off English statistics (420,000 casualties, 2km gained) each centimetre cost two men. Now try to tell me there was a good reason for that.

**Example referring to the Battle of the Somme.

"German production actually went up in the teeth of Allied bombing"

Can you cite that?

http://books.google.com/books?id=r2yn7k0kRUkC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=German+industrial+production+1939-1945&source=bl&ots=wbCmTBB838&sig=0oXrEo9IyvL98xU2HCFE1b1Trbc&hl=en&ei=6Y1yTffWMcL48AbR8s3zDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=German%20industrial%20production%201939-1945&f=false

Look at pages 79-81.

Also, look at energy consumption (thousands of coal-ton equivalents) from the years 1939-1945 for Germany.

1939 - 255050
1940 - 256916
1941 - 264396
1942 - 268595
1943 - 273895
1944 - 250837
1945 - 133062

It's true that iron and steel production declined (data in thousands of tons).

23733
21540
20836
20480
20758
18318
10000

All data comes from the Correlates of War dataset on National Material Capabilities. I happen to be using it for my dissertation.