Next Stop Syria

[Vin DSL]

Anybody else noticing the buildup, except for me? I'd be willing to put money on it! Then, it's on to Iran, to clean their atomic clock...

[Jaded]

With what Army?

[Ron]

Since we're using about 10% of our army in Iraq, I think we could find some soldiers if we really needed to.

[Jaded]

A year ago, active army personnel numbered about 500K. With 138K troops in Iraq and @ 40% of those troops being reserves. Without reserve units the active soldiers in Iraq would be closer to 25%.

The stop-loss program and the recently announced call-up of IRR suggests that expanding and extending this course of action would require a draft within 2 years in order to produce the necessary operators for today's high-tech army. It takes at least a year to fully train today's techs from the time they enter basic.

Of course, if the generals just want to throw bodies at the enemy, we should be able to ramp up and get new meat on the front line within 4 months if we disregard logistics.

The isolated attacks throughout Europe have served to "feel out" the opposition. I think we are, this week, seeing the beginning of a Europe-wide War unlike WWI and WWII. The enemy has already infiltrated the countryside and there is no frontline. The fault belongs to the U.S. for failing to commit the necessary forces once this war was commenced.

We started it, then allowed arrogance to blind us to the reality of the task before us.

J. William Derleth wrote in "Armed Force and Society Vol. 15, No1, Fall 1988, pp. 33-54"

"Soviet attempts to cut guerrilla supply lines in the border provinces of Nangarhar Kunar and Pakita..., diplomates in Kabul noted 'this tactic, while troublesome, did not appear to have had a significant effect on overall mujahadeen supplies.' The primary Soviet problem was lack of manpower, for when they concentrated on one area of the border, other infiltration routes opened up.

Whatever the original reasons for invading Afghanistan the Soviets adopted a policy of limited containment based upon heavy aerial bombardments and sporadic large-scale military operations against guerrilla stongholds. Operationally, Soviet tactics were geared to holding major urban areas limiting infiltration, and destroying large guerrilla bases with a minimal ependiture of manpower and equipment. As with the U.S. experience in Vietnam, Soviet strategy was predicated upon the use of high technology to give them mobility and firepower. Just as American attempts at defeating the Viet Cong through a reliance on technology failed, Soviet operations in Afghanistan yielded similar results. The Soviets came to realize that superior technology has only limited use in a guerrilla war and is no substitute for extensive combat operations."

(From AY1990-1991 Departmet of Warfare Studies International Security Studies, Air War College, Air University, Unitd States Air Force)

IMO, foresight was not required in Iraq -- we had the benefit of hindsight, we just didn't use it.

[Ron]

Ok.....

Since we're using about 10% of our army in Iraq, I think we could find some soldiers if we really needed to.

[the_ancient]

we have troops on all regions over the world

we still have bases in Germany from cring out loud.


We have plently of Troops, they are just spread all over the world.

as far as attack syria goes...... I wish someone one would teach the powers in charge the age old lesson of "finish one thing before you start another"

[Connie]

as far as attack syria goes...... I wish someone one would teach the powers in charge the age old lesson of "finish one thing before you start another"

I won't bet with Vin, but I think it would be difficult to get Congress to approve another war right now.

[the_ancient]

I won't bet with Vin, but I think it would be difficult to get Congress to approve another war right now.

war no, but "military" action does not have to be appoved by congress, just the spending for military action..


Once it starts though it is kinda hard from them to deny funds, and even if they do, fund can be rerouted..


The seperation of Power that was set up by the constitution has been bastardized just like everything else in the constitution to the point where it really does not matter

hell congress never authorized this "war" in iraq, it is not a war it is military action. Congress as only appoved various funding bills for the "war"

[Vin DSL]

Since we're using about 10% of our army in Iraq, I think we could find some soldiers if we really needed to.

Exactly right! We actually have too many soldiers in Iraq right now, with too much support going on in the background, bogging things down. In cyber-world, this is called bloat.

I've heard that this 'Global War On Terror' has turned out to be reminiscent of the 'American Indian Wars' of yore, and the U.S. military is going back and closely studying those campaigns to see what worked and what didn't...

They are facing small groups of highly mobile warriors, scattered all over the map, which need to be met with an equally small group of highly mobile soldiers, just like in the 'Wild Wild West'. All this old skool, regional war, military support is getting in the way. That's not the way it works these days...

No problem cleaning out the rat nests in Syria and Iran!

Anyway, if you look into the current buildup on the Syrian border, with U.N. involvement, and so forth, it's identical to the buildup to the invasion of Iraq...

[the_ancient]

Solution, bring Back Political Assinations

[Spathiphyllum]

The isolated attacks throughout Europe have served to "feel out" the opposition. I think we are, this week, seeing the beginning of a Europe-wide War unlike WWI and WWII. The enemy has already infiltrated the countryside and there is no frontline. The fault belongs to the U.S. for failing to commit the necessary forces once this war was commenced.

We started it, then allowed arrogance to blind us to the reality of the task before us.

Yes, it's always the U.S.'s fault.

The brilliance of Afghanistan was smaller contingencies using indiginous peoples wherever possible. Same thing for Iraq except that Iraqis, as a whole, have been more reticent than expected because of our failure to help them a decade ago when Bush senior urged them to revolt against the Hussein regime. That was a momentum that was not entirely unpredictable but is turning around in spite of a media obsessed with presenting the worst possible scenarios.

The smaller the footprint exogenous militias present, the better the potential of locals to take over their country without our perpetual assistance. Now, being aware of your position on army size, would you currently advocate any required number of American troop escalations to get to the "perfect" number of boots on the ground?

I don't know about you but I was and am not blinded to "the reality of the tasks before us." When Rumsfeld stated it would be a long, hard slog and when Bush said that successes would occur but not all could be publicly reported in this war on terror, I believed them. It makes perfect sense that the dynamic would unfold as they predicted from a strategic POV. Past Presidents knew that this hornets nest was festering but did not do enough to smoke it out for the sake of "stability". What shortsighted vision that was indeed.

The pockets of resistance to which you refer existed outside of the borders of Iraq before we ever got there. The military is using Iraq as a honeypot to some extent now to attrit the jihadists. That locales outside of the ME and into Europe are becoming bastions of Muslim unrest is not surprising. There has been a vast migration from the ME for many years now.

As far as Vin's assertion on Syria, who knows. I have my doubts at the moment because we have been pretty passive politically despite their involvement in the Baathist cause. The thing is, politics as they are may be enough since Iraq is improving, the Palestinians are less tolerant of Syrian influence, and the rest of the world through the U.N. is finally recognizing Syria's intransigence. Iran, on the other hand, is one heck of a problem. It would appear that the regime (and maybe the populace) is getting more belligerent and the European solution for nuclear containment has been an utter failure. Another predictable outcome.

[lokki]

as stated over and over again, guerrilla warfare is incredibly difficult to deal with, especially with an organized army like the US. The ways of overcoming them are to change the ideology of the supporters, and to take away their resources.

I don't see either of these happening any time soon. I think it's pretty clear that negotiation with a 'head' of the resistance is out. Given the recent comments by Iran that Isreal must be 'wiped off the map', there doesn't seem to be much room for negotiation. Not with Iran, not with Iraqi resistance, and not with Isreal.

Here's a tongue-in-cheek solution... get everyone the hell out of the desert, declare it a global holy land, owned by nobody. Build nothing out there, allow no motorized transport (gotta get the oil through different means, perhaps??), let nobody stay for more than the time it takes for a pilgrimage. Bury alive anyone who starts trouble with someone else.

Then we only have to deal with the sudden influx of cheap labor.

[Vin DSL]

Hrm... guess I was off by a few months! I figured Mar/Apr tops!

Gotta get that crystal ball checked...

Catch the latest: http://news.google.com/news?&q=syria

[Vin DSL]

Um...

BTW, you guys know what hit the Israeli missile frigate the other day, right? You know, the "airplane filled with explosives" they reported in the news? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge...

It was an Iranian-built C-802...

[Vin DSL]

Confirmed (26 minutes ago)...

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/wo...eb4&ei=5087%0A

The Israelis also said that one of their ships had been damaged not by a Hezbollah drone, but by a sophisticated Iranian C-802 missile, which is radar-guided and which the Israelis admitted that they had not known Hezbollah possessed. They said the missiles, one of which sank a civilian ship, were launched with the aid of Lebanese military radar along the shore. Israel then destroyed most of the radar.