From: Stephen Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Wed Mar 16 2005 - 07:25:51 PST
On Mar 16, 2005, at 9:11 AM, J. Wiehe wrote:
> Well, given the sad state of our armed forces, this is not a slight
> towards the
> men and women serving, probably say shame shame, offer to send some
> peacekeepers providing we can rent, lease, borrow some transport.
Yeah, "providing" being the key word. The US has enough capacity only
for itself and a little extra, yet pretty much all the European and
ANZAC nations are incapable of moving and supporting even small forces,
the others require significant help over the long haul. I have a
senior officer friend in the Belgian Para/Commandos and when the
Belgians sent a relief flight (ONE PLANE) down to Dafor the Paras had
to cancel a maneuver because they lost their one remaining C-130 ride
in the sky. And didn't that make them happy...
Of course the US can't do much about anything else militarily at the
moment. We're stretched way too thin as it is. It would take a while,
and a rather significant draft, to up our capabilities. And not sure
how well that would work in the high-tech area since domestic industry
is currently buying so much stuff from China and Asia in general. Even
10-15 years ago defense watchers were gravely concerned about the
reliance on offshore sources for critical components, so I'm sure it is
now many times worse. Sure, the contractors are domestic, but the
rules about sub-contractors are apparently riddled with holes. Even
low tech stuff, like uniforms, are made in part outside of the US but
we still have the capacity to rectify that sort of disruption fairly
quickly.
Steve
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