Just a little "sky is falling" reminder to help rain on your pity parade.
This makes me very nervous. Remember "victory disease?" I hope the folks in charge of worrying about things think the same way.
Confidence in one's abilities is a good thing- overconfidence is a killer.
NK has learned a lesson from Iraq, but it's not the lesson we hoped to teach it. In their view, Iraq was attacked exactly because it had too little WMD capability and had staked its reputation on having no WMD at all. That's why NK acts differently: They're totally upfront about their nuclear capabilities (even bluffing when necessary) and won't repent for anything. As a result, not only have they forced us to talk to them, they're making us do it largely on their terms.
I'll be darned. It's so inspirational it inspired North Korea to join in proliferation before the ink was even dry on Jimmy and Slick Willy's nukes & food deal with North Korea in 1994, well before the inspirational American victory in Iraq. And of course there was Iraq's and Brazil's efforts to join the proliferation game in the 80s, all well before our inspirational victory in Iraq.
Now THAT's not just inspirational, it is PREEMPTIVELY inspirational.
Just a little "sky is falling" reminder to help rain on your pity parade.
For the extent of American military superiority has become almost impossible to overstate. The United States sent five of its nine supercarrier battle groups to the region for the Iraq assault. A tenth Nimitz-class supercarrier is under construction. No other nation possesses so much as one supercarrier, let alone nine battle groups ringed by cruisers and guarded by nuclear submarines.
I hate it when so-called newspapers of record cannot get their facts straight. The US now has TWELVE "supercarrier" battlegroups in its Fleet, not NINE. They forget the three conventionally powered oil-burners the Kitty Hawk, the Constellation, and the Kennedy. The Nimitz class nuclear powered carriers are not the only carrier battle groups in the US Navy.
Carrier Commissioning Date ------------------------------------------ Oil-Burners CV 63 Kitty Hawk 1961 CV 64 Constellation 1961 CV 67 John F. Kennedy 1968 Nukes CVN 65 Enterprise 1961 CVN 68 Nimitz 1975 CVN 69 Dwight D. Eisenhower 1977 CVN 70 Carl Vinson 1982 CVN 71 Theodore Roosevelt 1986 CVN 72 Abraham Lincoln 1989 CVN 73 George Washington 1992 CVN 74 John C. Stennis 1995 CVN 75 Harry S Truman 1998 Future Nukes CVN 76 Ronald Reagan 2003 CVN 77 George H. W. Bush 2008
Point being, the US Navy sent five of its twelve carrier battle groups to the Gulf War II. THe Constellation (CV-64) retires after its last war cruise...
dvwjr
However, the author makes some mistakes and questionable assumptions.
As far as the ability to project force over long distances, no country can match us. The entire EU could not match us. However, the ability traverse the oceans is not absolute. Even if there will never be another carrier on carrier battle like Midway, there are other threats.
The English have some very nice SSN (the Trafalgars and new Astute class). The Russian Akula-IIs and Oscar-II are a threat (at least utill the Soviet era low-orbit satelite network burns up). Many countries have purchased good conventional submarines from the Germans, Dutch, Swedes, English,French, and Russians. The Russian Kilos purchased by Iran and China aren't going away any time soon. These are a threat to us in the shallow areas near these coasts. Uneven sea beds, shifting currents, and multiple thermal layers create bad accoustics for hunting submarines. As long as the Kilos are on battery power, they are hard to detect. While the Kilos might be constrained in that they too are in a fog of poor accoustics and are limited by battery power, they have some advantages. An america task group operating near Iran or China would be continuosly tracked by enemy recon and radar. The sub commanders could place their subs in front of a US carrier group and wait a few hours to strike.
Similarly, operating near enemy coasts puts our CNBG's at risk to enemy attack. As i noted before, our carriers would be painted by radar, unless we took these out. Iran and China have strike fighters and bomber carrying anti-shipping missles. The Chinese Silkworm may not be a real threat, but the Russian K-35 or Sunburns are.
No other nation has air-to-air missiles or air-to-ground smart munitions of the accuracy, or numbers, of the United States.
Many of our allies produce these weaposn for us and themselves.
Based on unclassified paper specs, I would take the Russian A-11 Archer over our AIM-9. the AA-12 looks like an AMRAAM, so I wouldn't discount it.
the Russian Klub cruise missle is supposed to use GPS. They have Laser guided munitions. They are a few years behind us, not decades.
The Abrams cannon and fire-control system is so extraordinarily accurate that in combat gunners rarely require more than one shot to destroy an enemy tank. No other nation is currently building or planning a comparable tank force. Other governments know this would be pointless, since even if they had advanced tanks, the United States would destroy them from the air.
The British Challanger, German Leopard II, Israeli Merkava, and Russian T-90 are all nice tanks. Iraq had the cheap export T-72's. These lacked the good Russian optical and targeting systems, as well as the Tank lanched anti-missle systems liket he Koronet, which outrange us.
Our forces are advanced, but a smart enemy could cause real problems for us. For starters, they could hit us, isntead of allowing hte US to have operational control.
The current situation IMHO is like the last move of the game when the victor marches around the entire globe in an unstoppable wave taking out each weakened opponent as he goes until der Welt is finally his.
Bwah-ha-ha-ha!