The Glade 4.0

But can you defend yourself from Manbearpig?

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

DE, according to his posts in this thread, isn't intrested in National Defense. He is more interested in defending modern empire, wherever it may go.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Yes they are. You're just switching definitions of "defense" from what's meant when "Defense spending" is normally discussed,



No, we really can't. You already admitted that this would involve a reduction in our nuclear deterrent and we've already reduced this to dangerously low levels. In order to make up for that we would (in fact we already do) need to make major increases in ABM and fighter aircraft defense, not to mention adequate defense for Hawaii, Alaska, Guam and other posessions, and as I pointed out, major reductions make increases to contest us feasible.

Why do you think Australia cares about having the capability to attack Indonesia? Defense. It isn't some desire of Australia to rule Indonesia; its the fact that Indonesia is a nation with a far larger population and is potentially hostile, and Australia needs to be able to destroy the means Indonesia would use to attack it.

Wars are not won by defensive action. You can't just sit inside your borders and say "we're defended, it's good"; you have to have some means of removing an attacker's ability to attack. If you're a small nation, you make an alliance. If you're a larger nation, you accept that alliance and provide those means, while reducing costs in other areas by letting the smaller nation do what it can afford.



First of all, defending shipping lanes is defense of borders because we require shipping lanes to reach Hawaii and our other island posessions other than by air, and some thing cannot be shipped by air efficiently, and others not at all. We also need them to reach Alaska without having to go by air or through another nation. Second, bombers are defense of borders because they are part of our nuclear deterrent.

Second, again, you're switching definitions. "Defense" =/= "Defense of borders". I'm talking about defense of the nation's economic health and strength as well as its territorial integrity. There's not a lot of point in saving money on defense if we then encounter worse economic prospects overall.

Finally, Britain has not indicated that it is espousing any policy of defending only its borders and even if it had you seem to have forgotten the Falklands, which overwhelmingly prefer to remain British and which they already fought once to retain. Britain indicates it plans to continue as part of a coalition in any future fights, essentially saying "as part of a coalition with the U.S. where they pick up the tab." If you'd read carefully rather than just quibbling over the definition of defense you'd have seen that.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

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From what I know, this sounds like a ridiculous assertion.



No, you really don't. You need to be able to maintain the abililty to generate an army (as I mentioned above). If there's an imminent risk, you can engage this. Furthermore, by maintaining the Navy, we're not at significant risk of invasion. Therefore, you will have adequate time to develop the capability to attack (and I fail to see why we need an army to attack).



All may be a good point. However, since in my opening post I capitalized DEFENSE, in my second post I said "prevent invasion" and in my third post I said "defense of our borders", I don't think I'm changing the definition at all.

I agree that you are talking about defense of our current overseas capabilities and infrastructure and influence. I am certainly not.



I read fine. I'm not quibbling. My definition of defense is clear. And I think you even agree, since you're consistently trying to pull away from my definition. I think you recognize we could defend ourselves from invasion quite adequately for a small fraction of what we are currently paying for defense.

Likewise, GB's borders are under no threat with their proposed budget.

Exactly what do you "know"? We're already at 10% of our 1988 levels and Obama just signed something to reduce to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. That's a very low level; low enough that a disarming first strike starts to become a real possibility. Even accounting for the fact that each bomber counts as one warhead regardless of how many are loaded on any given flight, that's not a lot to come up with a targeting plan. There's also the fact that with so few deployed warheads it gets harder to address deterrent needs against multiple opponents since our levels are tied to Russian ones.

We certainly don't need to go back to Cold War levels of warhead deployment, but we really need to go back up to at least about 3,000. We could certainly stand to cut back on the stockpile of warheads not in use, and several models ought to be decomissioned and replaced anyhow but the fact of the matter is that when you get below a certain level stability decreases because in a crisis your opponent now has a real chance of wiping out enough of your weapons to survive a counterstrike as an intact nation.



You're arguing with a basic military principle here. You cannot win a war by defensive action. Period.

Second, you cannot maintain the ability to generate an army except by generating an Army. You have to have a trained institutional base to build additional forces around. You also need to maintain the industrial base to properly equip them. This has been true for a very long time; militias or other hastily-created forces have never performed well against well-trained opponents.

As for why you attack, you attack so that you knock your opponent out in order to avoid throwing away lives by generating this poorly-trained, poorly-equipped army turtling in so as to piously avoid having any offensive capability for no good reason other than that it feels all kum-ba-yah to say "but why attack anyone!?!" It's a lot better to just put your opponent down fast rather than feeding men into a meat grinder.



You are since I referred to "defense" in terms of general military capabilities in the thread title and that's also what's meant by both the British and American governments when referring to military capabilities. You may have noticed that we don't maintain a separate "Department of Offense" from the DOD nore does Britain have a "Secratary of State for Attacking"



Then you're doing nothing other than quibbling over the word "defense".



I somehow agree because I'm pulling away from your definition of defense even though the definition I'm using is the on I posted in the title fo the thread, which, I may remind you, I started, and which matches that used by the institution (the British government) that the OP is about?

That's hilarious. Yes, you are clearly quibbling. I haven't argued with the idea that we could spend less to protect ourselves only from invasion; I've pointed out that A) it wouldn't be as small a fraction as you think and B) that anything beyond "defense against invasion" is not magicallly "not defense" because you've suddenly decided that somehow defending things other than territorial integrity somehow isn't defense.



Which is irrelevant because A) defense is much more than protecting borders and B) GB has goals beyond protecting their borders. That of course ignores the fact that the Falklands could easily be threatened again in the future.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't buy it. I fail to see even multiple threats that could not be deterred, or for that matter, attacked on a massive scale with 1500 warheads. Furthermore, I think a true disarming first strike is not very likely, given the mobile nature of our submaries.



Except I'm not. I'm not talking about winning a war, here. I'm talking about DEFENDING BORDERS. Please stick to this subject when addressing my posts or we're wasting our time.



Who said anything about 'performing well'? Obviously, the more trimmed down your military gets, the poorer they will perform. Secondly, it would not take much, relatively speaking, to maintain some infrastructure, through rental agreements or other measure, to maintain training facilities or the equipment at other industrial facilities to move over to military production in the event it is necessary. No, it would not be good, smooth, or free, but it could be done.

Thirdly, the primary training investment is in officers. You could maintain reserve officer units, that are available in the event of an army being raised. Again, not as good as we have now, but could be done.



Better? I agree - but that's beside the point. We're talking about what could be done.



All beside the point. If you refuse to discuss the ability to defend borders, and insist on arguing to some point I'm not discussing, then why are you wasting time arguing we me?



Then you're doing nothing other than quibbling over the word "defense".[/quote]

No, I understand your definition of defense. I'm being as clear as possible that I'm discussing the ability to DEFEND BORDERS with somewhere in the neighborhood of $150b. So, I'd appreciate it if, when addressing my points, you'd stay on the topic of my points.



I don't know for sure if you agree or not, because you won't address my posts properly. You're not arguing the same discussion scenario I am. If you aren't interested in the discussion, and only want to focus on maintaining current military capabilities, rather than defense of borders, please feel free not to respond to my posts.

If you consider my discussion as a derail, feel free to ignore it. But I don't really feel compelled to avoid related discussion in threads.



Which is why I said above that I suspect you agree with me.



So what's your number and why? Mine was (hastily) generated as the approximate budget of maintaining the Navy. Navy could probably be trimmed down, and other programs not completely eliminated. What's that work out to in total? Not sure, of course, what a realistic number would be. I'm certainly interested to hear your estimate.



Don't see how that's relevant to my discussion points.



Well, if they have goals above defending borders, then (as I said above) they're probably in trouble. However, the budget, I believe, is adequate to protect from invasion.

Conventional warfare, invading and conquering is a thing of the past. We killed it. There is no one left who has the ability to pose a serious threat to the US except its own citizenry.

China will not invade the United States, even if it could. Killing the goose that keeps laying the golden eggs is a bad idea. India on the other hand is a much more logical target, but China knows something we seem to have forgotten, don't fight land wars in Asia.

Any successful takeover of the United States will be done by the hearts and minds method. Win over the citizens and convince them to vote the changes you want in. This is not an easy task, luckily we have people who can think who will point out what is being done long before it becomes a threat.

However, DE is right. We remain unconquerable because we are the biggest dog on the planet. We're still the only ones with a believed nuclear deterrent. Next time we won't have 18 months to industrialize while we don't even hold our own in the Pacific. We have to remain at a state of readiness to defend our own, to swat down the enemy whenever they start feeling like they stand a chance, and to retaliate when we are attacked.

To not be there is to invite attacks on our holdings outside North America, our citizenry abroad, and our weakest allies. Do you think the Republic of China on Taiwan would still exist if China didn't see extensive consequences for taking it back?

We also have to remain on the cutting edge technologically, and that costs a lot of money. To fall behind is to invite attack. The Afghanis with their century old Khyber rifles were downing modern Russian armored helicopters because they found a weak spot. We leave enough blood on the battlegrounds without encouraging more of that through leaving the weak spots in place.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Why should Taiwan be supported on the backs of our citizens?

If its a moral good - why are you forcing your morals through the force of the state on others?

Where does our highest law allow this? Since it does not why do you wish to undermine the idea that all are subservient to the law or do you support the idea of aristocracy?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Do we even have a base their anymore Mr. Isolationist? I don't think we do but I could be wrong.

Are we supporting Taiwan at all anymore? Aren't we just saying "Hands off, or their will be repercussions."

As far as I know we have an embassy there, like we do with most other countries. We do not forbid American citizens their economic pursuits in that country. The United States position on RoC/Taiwan has been that Mainland China is the real China, Taiwan is most likely part of that, but it is an internal dispute. Unofficially we have a hands off policy. It doesn't hurt mainland China for the pretenders to have their own Island. It has been that way for almost 32 years.

Screw you Elmo, once more you go far afield in your desire to pump your pet topics. I am not forcing my morals on anyone, I do however agree with the concept (though not always our practice) of peace through strength.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Peace through strength works but one merely has to have enough strength to discourage attack on the self. It isn't our job to act as neighborhood tough guy for all the other kids.

We shouldn't be "hands off or their will be repercussions".

And yes if you support that doctrine then I take it you support politicians who support it and that means using them as proxy force to take the wages and inflate the currency of your fellow citizens - despite and against their wishes for the fruit of their labor.

I am sure you don't want to think about it that way but that is what you do.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

There is a price for everything. I'd rather we pay the price to support peace than be isolationist fools thinking that if we let them kill each other they will never come here.

American citizens live in most foreign countries, some have a lot, some just a few. Should we ignore their safety, let them be victims to your isolationist attitudes? Hey, they didn't have to move there, work there. They knew the job was dangerous when they took it.

I find your viewpoint exceptionally foolish, morally bankrupt, and using the constitution as a tool for selfishness. It is the source of law in this country, not an out for pretending we have no humanitarian responsibilities. Not a tool to keep you from having to pay taxes.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Michael,

I agree with you, for the most part. I think it's folly to go isolationist when the world is getting smaller. That said, I couldn't care less about Taiwan. We need to be a little more careful about throwing our weight around.

Also, like DE - I believe we could accomplish our CURRENT GOALS much, much more efficiently. Specifically, it's obvious we want to maintain military superiority. Ok, by how much? An edge? Should we be able to sink 3 enemy warships for each of ours lost? 10? 28? (obviously this depends on the threat, and how many ships the threat has) If we go to nuclear war, how many cities are we willing to lose? We know there are diminishing returns on force multipliers (even Tony Stark can't take out an entire army), but where do we want to sit on that curve?

We need to adjust our goals, and then accomplish these more efficiently.

They get to make their own choices about risk and reward Micheal - just as we shouldn't subsidize risk in the mortgage industry we shouldn't subsidize it at all.

I don't believe I said "they will never come here" but thanks for the strawman - I'm building a collection. If they decide to come here our deterrent is what makes them stop. Nuclear arsenal plus subs launched missiles is more than enough to deter a nation-state.

I find your viewpoint full of baseless assumptions and bread likely from a lifetime of propaganda.

We as individuals may have humanitarian responsibilities. The state exists only to protect the right of the individual citizens. Do not confuse their purpose with your own moral compass - which is exactly how you come to wish to force people to support your own moral position.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I think your examples here show that you're thinking of this in an oversimplified way. That's not a cricticism of you, but it does illustrate maybe why you're not following me.

If, for example, we have some sort of naval engagement we aren't concerned simply with a loss ratio of ships. A 3-to-1 exchange may seem great on the surface, but if our opponent has large numbers of small, cheap craft, it may take dozens to equal just one of our ships because we build sophisticated, powerful individual ships in order to avoid losing them at all whenever possible. Moreover, why is this engagement taking place in the first place? We wouldn't sink ships in a naval engagement for the sheer hell of it; there is some larger goal on either side.

Consider for example the Battle of the Coral Sea. Despite the Japanese inflicting more total damage on our carrier force than we on theirs, this battle was a victory for us because we stopped the Japanese from achieveing their strategic objective.

In the case of a nuclear exchange, the calculus becomes both simpler and much more difficult. There are many models for such a conflict and we can be reasonably sure of their accuracy, but the fact is we have no empirical data whatsoever beyond the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the known properties of the weapons themselves.

Your post highlights a certain misconception in the public, in fact. Cities are not targeted with nuclear weapons. Facilities and structures are. These are often located within cities, which amounts to targeting the city itself. The problem is not, however, how many cities can we lose, but what parts of and how mcuh of our infrastructure can we lose? What if, for example, our power plants are targeted? If an enemy targets all our power plants, even if we destroy many weapons and intercept many others, there remains a possibility that our electrical grid will be crippled, which would then cascade into effects well beyond the direct damage of the attack. Can we inflict enough damage in return to make that attack option unattractive and still retain enough power to deter other adversaries that might be emboldened by the damage we took?

In some cases a single detonation could inflict devastating (although probably not catastrophic) damage just by these cascading effects. What if only a single detonation occurs, but that detonation is over the Boeing plant in Seattle? What then happens to military aircraft repair, the civilian airline fleet, etc. and what are the cascading effects of that? Could we survive it? Absolutely; we could obviously purchase Airbus aircraft and rebuild, but the damage would extend much farther than simply a large crater in Washington, and in any case, we absolutely cannot say that the casualties alone are an acceptable risk simply in order to save money.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

DE - I'm very aware of the oversimplification. The point was made not to identify actual numbers, but suggest that if we set the bar too high (no successful nuclear attacks permittable in the US), then the resulting costs of that defense are too high. "Allowable" damage sustained must be balanced against the cost (and practicality) of maintaining the equipment and personnel needed to accomplish that task.

by the by.. none of this would be a problem if we did not follow some sort of mythical "rules of war" to keep things civilized.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

With so few deployed warheads, those surviving on submarines (as some submarines would be lost in port) could not be guaranteed to inflict sufficient damage on Russia to make a first strike infeasible in the heat of a crisis. Furthermore, we would no longer have enough to deter nuclear threat from other states. Furthermore, that number is deceptive because it does not include tactical weapons. Russia depends heavily on sea-based tactical weapons and those could be used to attack land targets as well and thereby gain an advantage. We no longer have deployed tactical weapons at all, and the tactical weapons we do have are not in a position to be used against Russia.



Then you've been wasting my time this entire time because I'm talking about defense in general, not "defending borders". Furthermore, it becomes a lot harder to defend your borders when you're unwilling to strike whatever generates the attack in the first place.



Actually, no, this is really not true. Aside from the fact that you're readily accepting far higher casualties simply in order to save money, the fact is that maintaining these things in useful fashion without actually using them isn't all that cheap either. Moreover, where are the experienced personnel to use these facilities to come from?



Again, this is not true. NCOs are far more of a training investment than officers (there are far, far more of them), and you could not train them in sufficient numbers nor could they gain the experience they need without a full-time institution that trained them



If you're going to discuss merely what it is physically possible to accomplish while dismissing major disadvantages simply by pointing out that they do not render it impossible, you are wasting your time and mine. Who cares what we can do when it presents no advantage when considered in total?



Because this is my thread and I'm not talking about defending borders, nor do I care about it except as part of the larger problem. All you're doing here is admitting you're hijaking the thread onto some purely theoretical exercise for no reason other than to quibble over the word defense.



Then you're out of luck, since you didn't decide to stay with the topic the OP I posted was about, and that's what I want to talk about. I created the thread, and I'll address your points in terms of what I originally wanted to talk about. Otherwise, why the hell would I have bothered to create it in the first place?



I'm addressing your posts just fine. This thread is about defense, specifically that of Britain, as a whole and how cutting it won't control budget problems when your social spending is out of control and you don't have the political will to fix that. The fact that I'm sticking to defense in the larger sense isn't a problem with me responding to your posts except int he sense that I'm trying to drag you kicking and screaming back to the topic I created the thread about and you're insisting on staying on this tangent.



I'll feel free to continue to point out how you're simply discussing a completely theoretical tangent, thanks.



You suspect I agree with your ridiculously small figure just because I agree we could spend less than we currently do?



The fact that you think you could do it with just the Navy alone shows your figure is entirely too low. You need the Air Force as well as the portion of the Army that does air defense as a bare minimum even if you roll that into the AF, or both of them into the Navy. Or does defense against ballistic missile attack or strategic bombers somehow not count as defending borders? Does defending borders now only mean defense of borders against troops invading from the sea?

So, my number for defending borders only is A) The navy, beefed up, not trimmed down, the National Guard, enough of the Marines to secure naval forces, especially nuclear, the Air Force and ANG fighter and bomber forces, ICBMs, and Army air/missile defense. I don't care to look up the numbers at the moment.



It's relevant to the OP that I created. I don't know why you think you can come into my thread, shoot of on some tangent and expect me to refrain from pointing out that you're doing exactly that. Nice double standard there.. you can derail my thread but I can't steer your derail back on track. Whatever.



They clearly do have goals beyond protecting their borders, hence their own reference to fighting as part of a coalition. Again, you clearly did not pay enough attention to the article.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No successful nuclear attack is not setting the bar too high, as long as we approach meeting it realistically. That's why we maintain a deterrent; it's much cheaper and more realistic to maintain that goal by threatening unacceptable consequences to an opponent than by trying to "turtle" in with fighters and ABMs.

There is no such thing as allowable damage; we are not ok with taking a certain number of detonations. There's survivable damage: How many detonations can we take and still have hope of recovering to something resembling a modern country again? (Obviously not one fixed number of attacks)

In any case, that surviveable damage amount dictates that we be able to either A) deter such an attack in the first place or B) reduce any such attack below that threshold or C) have a sufficient combination of the 2 approaches to achieve the same result (deterrance reduces the force of an attack because our deterrent will destroy some weapons if used; defenses help deter attack by making it less likely to succeed). If we don't, our society collapses and the question of cost is moot, in whih case you and I will be having this discussion over a campfire and with far better empirical data.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Again, since my first post, this has been clear. It's not me wasting your time....

Yes, it's harder to defend borders if you can't attack, sure. That's why I suggested maintianing the ability to raise an army if needed.



Part of maintaining equipment is training on its use. This would have to be part of the agreements. But yes, you'll see more casualties.



I'd have to see a study on that before I bought it. You may not be able to get them to current quality, no, but yes - you could train them to some degree. What's the effectiveness of this? We'd have to figure that out.



If you're going to discuss merely what it is physically possible to accomplish while dismissing major disadvantages simply by pointing out that they do not render it impossible, you are wasting your time and mine. Who cares what we can do when it presents no advantage when considered in total?[/quote]

Because it's cheaper. That's the point of the discussion. What can we have for x amount of money vs how much does it cost for what we want.



No, I'm not hijacking the thread. I'm discussing a related topic. Suggesting that "this is yoru thread" is fine - suggesting you don't care about my point is fine, but then please stop wasting my time by arguing with me off the point.



Have at it. It doesn't seem like a whole lot of others are interested in the discussion. If you'd like to discuss what it would take to defend borders, feel free to reply.



So, since you're staying on topic, and I'm on a tangent, you're not addressing my posts (as I said).



Ok, but that's a waste of our time. When you own your own message board, you can prevent tangents. Until then, sorry bro - you're out of luck. I don't feel bad for having a related discussion.



You suspect I agree with your ridiculously small figure just because I agree we could spend less than we currently do?[/quote]

Who knows? Since you're replying with only offtopic arguments, it's hard to tell.



The fact that you think you could do it with just the Navy alone shows your figure is entirely too low. [/quote]

I was clear that you'd be able to reduce Navy but keep other programs.



If deployed along borders, it counts. If it's necessary.



So you agree then that a standing army is not necessary?



It's relevant to the OP that I created.[/quote]

So related, but off topic to the post YOU REPLIED TO.



You can certainly point out whatever you like. But if you reply to a post, and argue with it, it's generally a time saver if your argument addresses the post. When you go off on a tangent, it's good to be clear about that (as I was) so that people understand your post is no longer related. Furthermore, when you do this you shouldn't respond to quoted text.

As for why I think I can shoot off on some tangent? Because it interests me more than your OP. And who's to stop me? Sorry bro, but that's the problem with message boards, you don't own the discussion. If you don't like the tangent, a suggestion is: don't participate in them.



Again, yes, I did. You're not impressing me with your reading comprehension, dude. Focus: Goals aside, I believe they can defend their borders for that.

What do you think?

Sure, preventing war is easier, but IF war, then what level of capability is justifiable?



There is. Infinite funds could go a lot further to ensuring no detonations. But that's not practical. We've settled at a funding amount - this is, I suspect, lower than the amount needed to ensure there would be no detonations.



Seems like a reasonable minimum goal. Personally I'd like to bump our goal up just a smidge above "survivable".



lol

Still, you can't break the bank on something that might happen.

No, it really has not been clear since your first post. All you did was take issue with the term defense.

AS for the second, how you expect to be able to maintian the ability to rise an army on the budget of the Navy alone escapes me, especially with talking about paring the Navy down and the obvious fact that the Navy must get the Army where it needs to go. It also is a bit bizarre that you take issue with discussion of the effectiveness of that Army, then acknowledge it would be harder to defend if you can't attack. If your army is ineffective, how will you attack?



And the money for these agreements comes from where? You waned to have a budget only for the Navy.



Exactly where would anyone produce a study on the effects of not having a professional NCO corps on our army? I can refer you to the state of Soviet military forces circa 1970-1990 wherein conscripts were inducted every 6 months and the best were made "instant NCOs" through an academy. The result was that in a large part the officers ended up doing the NCOs jobs for them.



So you're trying to construct a cost-benefit analyisis that excludes non-monetary costs and disadvantages for no good reason other than to produce a strictly financial comparison. Why do we care about the financial aspects in a vaccum?



I'm not. The point here is the ineffectiveness of cutting defense spending when you can't control your social spending, specifically in Britain. How the costs of purely territorial defense in the United State are a related topic is something you have not explained, despite rejecting my pointing out that you are only quibbling over the word "defense". In fact, you even capitalized DEFENSE at one point. The only relationship that appears to exist is the use of that word.



Topics do occasionally come up that don't get a lot of replies. I didn't realize there was any requirement to post topics that would generate a lot of them.



Pointing out the irrelevancy of your tangent is certainly addressing it, and I'm definitely addressing your points just fine. We've clearly established you're trying to conduct a cost-benefit analysis that excludes certain types of cost for no apparent reason.



When you have your own message board, you can demand that I not point out that you're on a tangent or try to get you back on topic. While you're at it, if you feel your time is being wasted you're free to quit responding.



You suspect I agree with your ridiculously small figure just because I agree we could spend less than we currently do?[/quote]

Who knows? Since you're replying with only offtopic arguments, it's hard to tell.[/quote]

I'm responding with on-topic arguments to your off topic tangent. I don't know why you think coming in and posting some tangenital nonsense prevents people from responsding to you in terms of the OP.



I was clear that you'd be able to reduce Navy but keep other programs.[/quote] Based on what? You're trying to "trim" the Navy and keep other programs while just arbitrarily staying within the Navy's budget?



So now it has to be deployed along borders? What the hell is so special about borders? You may want to look into the history of border-oriented defenses like the Maginot Line and the Atlantic Wall in WWII. You want to defend borders, but once something gets past them, **** it? What the hell is the point of that plan? This is just moving the goalposts, now its not just defending the borders but it actually has to be physically deployed along them? What's the point of defending the borders if we don't defend against anything that gets past them?



Did I not just get done stating that you would need a standing army to man air and missile defense? No I don't agree with that since I don't care about merely defending borders in the first place and even if I did you need a standing Army for the core, national level antiair/ABM defenses and to act as a training cadre for NG troops.



So related, but off topic to the post YOU REPLIED TO.[/quote]

What's your point? Your post was OT to my OP. You can be off topic but I can't? Got it; I'll try to remember that Arathain has special privileges in the future.



There's no reason I shouldn't respond to quoted text when my entire purpose is to relate your point to the original topic in the first place. Furthermore, your claims of being clear that its no longer related are total bullshit. You started this entire tangent to claim that we could conduct defense on a $150 billion budget. I pointed out that you can't. You then shifted the goalpost to "defending borders" and later claimed Britain can still defend its borders. Therefore, your entire tangent is for no purpose other than to take issue with the term defense, and the rest is just some smokescreen to justify ignoring anything other than the relative dollar amounts.



The same applies to you. You've been shooting off on a tangent the entire time, then claim my discussion of the OP is unrelated to your tangent and I shouldn't waste your time? Make up your mind. Which way is it going to be? Are you going to stop derailing the thread with this nonsense, or are you going to stop complaining about my replies?

That's the problem with internet message boards. If you don't like being dragged back on topic, don't participate in them.



The hilarity of this post is almost beyond words. You said:



Got that? You do remember posting that, right? The word "if" indicates that its unknown or unclear to you whether they do have such goals.

OK good. I responded:



In other words, I clearly comprehended that you were unsure if they had goals beyond protecting their borders. Since you claim to have read the OP, its then pretty clearly not a matter of my reading comprehension, but of your inability to communicate clearly.

Furthermore, this brings us back once again to your insistence not to be quibbling with the word "Defense". So what if they can defend their borders for that? Who cares? The British don't care. They clearly have goals beyond that, and regardless in terms of absolute dollars (or pounds) they haven't very much left to cut and some of it cannot be cut, like pensions, so they are reapidly running out of defense to cut since even according to your silly terminology they will soon be cutting into the minimum they need for border defense, especially if they start decreasing their already minimal nuclear deterrent.

So really, are you just posting this to take issue with the word defense? Or are you just posting irrelevant tangents to hear yourself talk?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

In that case, as much capability as we can afford without either increasing it so much that other countries feel threatened and begin an arms race thereby spiraling costs and capabilities upward or go for a first strike out of desperation, or being simply economically infeasible in and of itself. This is why I favor ending our current wars, and transitioning to a purely strategic force that would have a smaller active Army (although larger than in 2003) with 60-65% of land forces being Reserves and NG, as well as eliminating redundant commands that don't command anything other than think tanks and contractors. That land force would then be focused on two major areas: ABM/air defense against strategic attack, and rapid deployment to destroy any adversary and return home. Counterinsurgency and nation building would be a thing of the past.

This is also why I favor unilateral withdrawl from arms-control treaties; they provide a false sense of security by appearing to regulate weapons levels which sound good to the public, and we have a bad history of giving up the world in order to gain concessions that ar unimportant. I also don't trust other nations to abide by them. We should simply unilaterally say "This is the level of deterrence we feel comfortable with. You're welcome to come and look for yourself at what we have, and we don't plan on spending to go higher as long as no one else starts pushing the issue. Just don't get the idea that your visits here are something you're entitled to; start playing legal games and its off." Nonproliferation should also be disavowed; other countries that want nukes should understand they can have them, but if they start going crazy with building more, then our stated lvel of deterrence may have to go up, as may that of other nuclear powers.

In any case, the level of capabilities that is justifiable is, basically, enough that A) there is no reason to think deterrence will fail B) if it does fail against the most powerful possible adversary, we can destroy sufficient enemy weapons and stop sufficient incoming ones to survive as an intact nation and begin meaningful recovery. If it fails against a weaker adversary, we should be able to utterly destroy that nation as an organized society in order to strengthen deterrence in the future. Exactly what systems and how many this means depends a great deal on at what point in time you mean, and would be a very lengthy discussion. We can't transform overnight, so where I'd like to be now is pretty irrelevant. 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now become progressively more achievable but unfortunately I'm not running that show. I occasionally work on a strategic vision of where I'd like our forces to go but it's never gotten very far before it becomes work I'm not getting paid for.

This is not limited exclusively to nuclear weapons. I don't think our use of them should be tied specifically to enemy use of them. Rather, our philosophy should be "if they aren't a threat, we don't need to be there. If they become a threat, they don't need to be there" and we remain ready to make them not there at any time. A threat also means a threat to our sea lines of communication and trade or to our access to trading partners and resources.



That is true. However, the goal is still no detonations. We set that as our goal, and then fund as much of that as we can afford, so the real goal becomes "As few as possible".

Realizing that this rather begs the question and further realizing that there is not one fixed number of detonations, the real amount we need to spend is, essentially, enough that if eliminated as much non-warfighting capability as possible, ended the current conflicts as soon as possible, and did not accept an overall reduction in forces but rather a conversion over time to a strategic offense and defense force that I've briefly described, we would increase our strategic offense and defense capability as much as possible without spending more than the current defense budget exclusive or war expendiatures, which, in the current budget situation, need to be cut out of hand. Ideally I think we could achieve such an increase and spend less than that, but that's ideally.



I would like to bump it as far above surviveable as possible but I would caution against false precision. With a total lack of empirical experience in such attacks and the somewhat vague notion of what is and isn't survivable we can only roughly estimate where "surviveable" is. If I had to give one criteria, I would say that 70% of our electrical power plants need to survive. I won't go into a lengthy explaination of why since I'm sure you already understand and in any case this criteria is simply to give an idea of where that level is. From my understanding complex systems are catastrophically damaged somewhere between 60 and 70% This is not a matter of "At 71% things are hunky dory, and 69% we're ****."



Clearly. I am not in favor of breaking the bank. I don't want defense for the sake of defense; I want it in order to ensure as economically successful a society as possible by preventing anyone else from using force to impact us economically by either destroying us or using "soft power" to cut off our trade or resources. This is why I don't favor any further Afghanistan/Iraq/Viet Nam type wars. We need to be in and out fast, and the rest of the world should understand that we basically operate on a policy of "We don't want to come over there. You really don't want us to come over there. Don't make us come over there and we'll treat you fairly." As long as we maintain the ability and willingness to go over there and get back out rapidly, everything will be more or less okay.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This was an interesting topic.

1) By stating the necessity to maintain the ability to raise an army, but not having an army, I meant to imply that you would need to allocate additional funds when the army is raised. 2) you can attack with a less effective army. Your attack will be less effective, or more costly in casualties.



No. I said I hastily generated the overall budget from what is currently the naval budget. A less than current naval budget, plus substantially less budget for other items equals.... what? Are we back to the current Navy budget again? Again, I'm not sure, generating an actual realistic number would require substantial effort.



Then that is data that should be considered as part of a study. Significant study and analysis would obviously need to precede any implementation of the hypotheticals we are discussing. We're talking about huge changes, from policy, to capabilities, to private-side involvement, to local economy issues (near bases) etc.



Um, I'm not? Although, for message board discussion, it has to be simplified to the maximum extent practicable.



The budget, as you note in the OP, is seriously low. In any budget, priorities need to be made. To simplify, GB has two competing programs for tax dollars. Social vs. military. Let's forget everything else for the moment. If they are not willing to spend on military at the cost of social, then the capabilities for military are reduced. You pretty much stop the discussion at "they can't maintain current capabilities". I'm taking the next step: "what can they do for that budget?"



There's not, but I'm hardly hijacking the thread and derailing an in-depth conversation.



That's not clear at all. And it's not irrelevant at all.



It's not nonsense just because you say so. The question remains - what capabilities can they maintain for their budget? How does this relate to what the US could do?



Yes. As opposed to what other figure? Is the current Navy budget unrealistic? Perhaps, it will take a lot more work from folks more knowledgable than us to work out a real number.



The point of my discussion? If it's not being used to secure the border, then it doesn't count as equipment needed to secure the border....



Of course not. However, comparing our current situation to that of the defense of France (from either side) is a bit disingenuous. First, if we were France, I wouldn't be arguing that a Navy and a bit of other equipment would be adequate to prevent against invasion. Likewise, I would not make that argument if Mexico or Canada became a threat. Furthermore, how would the breaking of the Atlantic Wall have gone if Germany had the superior Navy?

Now to clarify, by "deployed along the border" I mean deployed to defend the border. No, it doesn't need to be sitting on the border if there's a better place for it.

Furthermore, I don't believe that an invasion force could reach the US if we have the superior Navy. If it does, it will be destroyed even without a current standing army. If it cannot reequip (again, need the Navy here), the populace will kill it.



What level of personnel do you need to maintain the antiair/ABM defenses necessary to defend borders, relative to the standing army we maintain today? Obviously, unless we are at significant current risk, we have an excess in troops by at least the amount currently stationed overseas.



That's always good to note.



It's really not.


I pointed out that you can't. You then shifted the goalpost to "defending borders" [/quote]

That was not a shift, as I've pointed out. Numerous times. At length. Over and over.



Which, for that budget, I believe they can.



Incorrect. As I have stated. Over and over. At length.



I'm not being dragged back on topic, in case you haven't noticed.



No, it doesn't. It's a simple if-then statement. It doesn't make any mention of my views of their goals, nor my understanding of them.



Since that is not the case, no you did not.



Oh, I don't doubt that I'm not communicating with you sufficiently for you to understand. It is, however, not from lack of trying. Still, though, you keep bringing up things directly contrary to my actual statements. That's ok, though, we'll get it.



Me? Obviously....



This is clear. But, what can they do for that budget, since they are clearly reducing their current capabilities? I bet they can defend their borders for that....



I have no issue with the word defense, and I'm not the only one talking....