Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Both China and Russia have been extending their reach beyond their border sight quite a bit lately. Multi-regional might be a better term.
And by that account, Both France and the UK falls under the same category, albeit in lesser capacity.

I'm actually not sure what the definitions for these things are. I mean, none of China, Russia, France or the UK can sustain any kind of operation outside their borders if the US opposes that operation. Does that limit their claims to force projection?

China and Russia can both sustain a helluva naval operation.

Not really, their navies are tiny in comparison. And they only have two carriers between them.

I don't think china and russia are regional powers, china for example has a population that is higher than the US, canada, australia and all european countries together, not to mention the several millions of chinese immigrants spread in any part of the world. China also have influence in some other asiatic countries.

Western societies are only a small part of the world, many times we forget about that, thinking that we are the only countries that actually exist.

 Blackie wrote:
, not to mention the several millions of chinese immigrants spread in any part of the world. .

What are you trying to say here?

Chinas military capabilities do not extend far beyond Taiwan and the South China Sea since that is the "region" they wish to be a power in.

 sebster wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Both China and Russia have been extending their reach beyond their border sight quite a bit lately. Multi-regional might be a better term.
And by that account, Both France and the UK falls under the same category, albeit in lesser capacity.

I'm actually not sure what the definitions for these things are. I mean, none of China, Russia, France or the UK can sustain any kind of operation outside their borders if the US opposes that operation. Does that limit their claims to force projection?

I would see suffering denial as distinct from the ability to claim projection. Otherwise whomever has the best denial becomes logically the only one capable of projection.

France has been running about a dozen military campaigns in Africa under their own flag in the last three decades, with Licorne lasting 13 years.
The UK have a few international bases and a decent-sized military. I'm not a military buff, at all, by any standard, but I'd assume they'd be capable of a certain degree of force projection.
Russia proved it was willing to project it's force outside its border. I think we made fools of ourselves by not calling their bluff. I guess it's throwing dice with the fate of the world, but I'm 99.999% sure they would've backpedaled in less than an instant, had we proven willing to escalate.
China tried something, and Obama reacted well imo. Artificial islands takes time and ressources to build, and legally binds nothing whatsoever. In the meanwhile, heavy freedom of naviguation more or less means business as usual for anyone who had to take those waters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:
I don't think china and russia are regional powers, china for example has a population that is higher than the US, canada, australia and all european countries together, not to mention the several millions of chinese immigrants spread in any part of the world. China also have influence in some other asiatic countries.

Western societies are only a small part of the world, many times we forget about that, thinking that we are the only countries that actually exist.

We were talking about regional and international military powers. China and Russia, and others, have enormous political and economical influence on close and distant countries. But China would be incapable of invading Spain, even if they wanted to and had a reason to do it.

Only the US could pretty much spin the globe, pick a location by chance and say "yeah, let's frak their gak up" AND actually be capable of pulling it off regardless of where the index landed.

 Ouze wrote:
Nothing like hearing cries of poverty from the guys who found 400 billion dollars to blow on a plane that can't fly at night, and sometimes catches fire and no one knows why.

Perhaps there are other places they can find to save money too?

What plane are you talking about? It's not the F-35, I assume. Because it has neither of those issues.

I mean, I know you have way more experience with both strike fighter flight operations and strike fighter acquisition than me, but given my hours in both fields, I'm pretty confident in the ugly little fether.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:


Only the US could pretty much spin the globe, pick a location by chance and say "yeah, let's frak their gak up" AND actually be capable of pulling it off regardless of where the index landed.

I disagree, the US have a significant military power but without the european allies they lose a lot of their power. The can't invade an european country like spain, as they would lose all the european allies. The US has the strenght to invade third world countries, and most of the times they can't even finish those wars.

China and russian hackers for example are considered the best in the world, a real cyber attack against the US can be a thing. Today wars are dirty wars, it's impossible to say who's gonna win between those super powers.

 Blackie wrote:
I disagree, the US have a significant military power but without the european allies they lose a lot of their power.

That's patently untrue. Europe is composed of small, underfunded militaries with next to no expeditionary capability.

The other way around, though, is absolutely true. European NATO members lacked the resources to continue the Libyan air campaign after less than 30 days of sustained bombing; we had to provide them with ordnance. Similarly, the French escapades in Mali wouldn't have been possible without USAF tanker assets.

Seaward wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I disagree, the US have a significant military power but without the european allies they lose a lot of their power.

That's patently untrue. Europe is composed of small, underfunded militaries with next to no expeditionary capability.

The other way around, though, is absolutely true. European NATO members lacked the resources to continue the Libyan air campaign after less than 30 days of sustained bombing; we had to provide them with ordnance. Similarly, the French escapades in Mali wouldn't have been possible without USAF tanker assets.

There is some truth to it, given our current state of readiness. Afghanistan for example, we'd have to roughly double our man power in country in order to fulfill their contributions. This would be incredibly taxing on our forces (it's ridiculous that having to say another 6,000 deployed soldiers would be a problem for us).

Our European NATO allies due have a lot of manpower and equipment that would greatly supplement our capabilities. You're absolutely right though in the fact that they do not have anything close to our logistical capabilities, and they'll founder in protracted fights with other powers because of that. We on the other hand, have the strategic reserves to make up for the shortfall that we'd experience without their support.

 djones520 wrote:
There is some truth to it, given our current state of readiness. Afghanistan for example, we'd have to roughly double our man power in country in order to fulfill their contributions. This would be incredibly taxing on our forces (it's ridiculous that having to say another 6,000 deployed soldiers would be a problem for us).

Our European NATO allies due have a lot of manpower and equipment that would greatly supplement our capabilities. You're absolutely right though in the fact that they do not have anything close to our logistical capabilities, and they'll founder in protracted fights with other powers because of that. We on the other hand, have the strategic reserves to make up for the shortfall that we'd experience without their support.

The reality with Afghanistan is that we could have done it entirely solo. We chose to let allies assist because that meant the least disruption to other theaters. Hell, if we absolutely had to, there's no shortage of guys in South Korea to cart over.

Making up for the ~8000 coalition dudes wouldn't really be a problem, it'd just force us to prioritize a little differently. Far from the end of the world, but it's nice not to have to do it.

Well actually if you melt all european armies into a single one (not including russia of course) you'll have a military force that is not small or underfunded, with certainly more soldiers than the US military, which also rely significantly on military bases set in europe, without them they would lose a lot of their assets too.

The USA without the european allies could never invade a middle eastern country, and nations like afghanistan should never be invaded, that was only the US desire.

History shows that the US army had hard times against enemies that were extremely weaker, that's why a war against a real opponent would have unpredictable results, there are things like nuclear missiles or cyber attacks that the US have never dealt with, and they haven't fought against a real army since WW2. Actually no decent armies fought each other since WW2.

Seaward wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Similarly, the French escapades in Mali wouldn't have been possible without USAF tanker assets.

Now this is patently untrue. The French Navy has a permanent base in Dakar and had about 1 000 personnel in the region before Serval. Operation Licorne lasted 13 years and saw a deployment of over 5000 soldiers without that USAF support, afaik.

Park this one here for you:

Q. Why didnt Trump conduct a full intelligence briefing before sending in the marines?

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Similarly, the French escapades in Mali wouldn't have been possible without USAF tanker assets.

Now this is patently untrue. The French Navy has a permanent base in Dakar and had about 1 000 personnel in the region before Serval. Operation Licorne lasted 13 years and saw a deployment of over 5000 soldiers without that USAF support, afaik.

As someone directly involved in the French Mali operation, the French would have been utterly incapable of deploying as many soldiers, as quickly as they did, without our airlift capability. The mission required a rapid deployment of forces. Not a long naval voyage, followed by days of convoying thousands of troops to the region they needed to operate in.

You reference 5,000 troops over 13 years. We made 4,000 troops move in several days. Something that the French were completely incapable of doing themselves.

 djones520 wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Similarly, the French escapades in Mali wouldn't have been possible without USAF tanker assets.

Now this is patently untrue. The French Navy has a permanent base in Dakar and had about 1 000 personnel in the region before Serval. Operation Licorne lasted 13 years and saw a deployment of over 5000 soldiers without that USAF support, afaik.

As someone directly involved in the French Mali operation, the French would have been utterly incapable of deploying as many soldiers, as quickly as they did, without our airlift capability. The mission required a rapid deployment of forces. Not a long naval voyage, followed by days of convoying thousands of troops to the region they needed to operate in.

You reference 5,000 troops over 13 years. We made 4,000 troops move in several days. Something that the French were completely incapable of doing themselves.

The FAN can deploy 1500 men in 3 days anywhere north of Angola. France currently has what, 4 000 troops in Mali?
I'm not denying France needs to improve its projection capacity. France doesn't deny it either. Everyone is asking for class 1 frigates first, tho, to make the Charles de Gaule less of a joke, so they're aren't going to get anywhere close to the objective of the Livre Blanc soon.

 Blackie wrote:

The USA without the european allies could never invade a middle eastern country,

Why not?

History shows that the US army had hard times against enemies that were extremely weaker,

Such as?

 Kovnik Obama wrote:


The FAN can deploy 1500 men in 3 days anywhere north of Angola. France currently has what, 4 000 troops in Mali?
I'm not denying France needs to improve its projection capacity. France doesn't deny it either. Everyone is asking for class 1 frigates first, tho, to make the Charles de Gaule less of a joke, so they're aren't going to get anywhere close to the objective of the Livre Blanc soon.

Hard to improve capability if you're unwilling to even meet NATO minimum spending targets.

Seaward wrote:


Such as?

vietnam, iraq, afghanistan.... none of these enemies was completely defeated despite having an army that was 10000000 better.

 Blackie wrote:
vietnam, iraq, afghanistan.... none of these enemies was completely defeated despite having an army that was 10000000 better.

You're conflating political failures with military ones.

 whembly wrote:
The infant mortality rate comparison is a misconception as every country counts them differently.

This isn't right. There are some recording differences, but they are fairly minor. When those recording differences are removed from the study, such as by restricting it to live births over 22 weeks and 500 grams, US infant mortality is still much higher than European countries.

There's a lot of factors at play but the simplest answer is that the US model means massive variations in healthcare. People with excellent healthcare will have get excellent care for an underweight, premature birth. People with no coverage or mediocre coverage will be pushed out of the system long before they would be in Europe.

Kinda like comparing FBI crime statistics to UK crime statistics isn't apples-to-apples.

This is also a myth. While there are recording differences, these differences are known and can be controlled for. Any adjustment to US figures for these differences still leaves the US with a much higher murder rate.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Similarly, the French escapades in Mali wouldn't have been possible without USAF tanker assets.

Now this is patently untrue. The French Navy has a permanent base in Dakar and had about 1 000 personnel in the region before Serval. Operation Licorne lasted 13 years and saw a deployment of over 5000 soldiers without that USAF support, afaik.

As someone directly involved in the French Mali operation, the French would have been utterly incapable of deploying as many soldiers, as quickly as they did, without our airlift capability. The mission required a rapid deployment of forces. Not a long naval voyage, followed by days of convoying thousands of troops to the region they needed to operate in.

You reference 5,000 troops over 13 years. We made 4,000 troops move in several days. Something that the French were completely incapable of doing themselves.

The FAN can deploy 1500 men in 3 days anywhere north of Angola. France currently has what, 4 000 troops in Mali?
I'm not denying France needs to improve its projection capacity. France doesn't deny it either. Everyone is asking for class 1 frigates first, tho, to make the Charles de Gaule less of a joke, so they're aren't going to get anywhere close to the objective of the Livre Blanc soon.

That's why they're getting A330 tankers. Had the A400M been delivered on time and with full capabilities (France is getting 50 of them) the picture would have been different as well.

Seaward wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
vietnam, iraq, afghanistan.... none of these enemies was completely defeated despite having an army that was 10000000 better.

You're conflating political failures with military ones.

I'll take "War is the continuation of X" for 500, Alex.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
vietnam, iraq, afghanistan.... none of these enemies was completely defeated despite having an army that was 10000000 better.

You're conflating political failures with military ones.

I'll take "War is the continuation of X" for 500, Alex.

And you're welcome to. But claiming the military failed when it accomplished every military objective it was given is disingenuous.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
Nothing like hearing cries of poverty from the guys who found 400 billion dollars to blow on a plane that can't fly at night, and sometimes catches fire and no one knows why.

Just to go back and address this, because the price tag gets thrown around a lot by people who don't know how DOD pricing works...

If you calculated the cost of a Honda Civic the way the F-35's price is calculated, a Honda Civic would cost $128,114.

Price of the car: $18,740
Price of 500 gallons of gas per year for 53 years: $60,685
Price of yearly maintenance for 53 years: $40,598
Price of new tires per year for 53 years: $7,791
Price of driver's education: $300

The actual price per plane of the F-35, plus fuel, maintenance, parts, and training until 2070, are all calculated into the F-35's "price."

Not to mention it flies at night and does not catch on fire for unknown reasons. Watching the blogosphere react to the iterative testing process is enough to make me wish the internet was around back when the F-16 was earning its "Lawn Dart" moniker back when it first entered testing and its fly-by-wire system was planting it into the ground with shocking regularity.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Both China and Russia have been extending their reach beyond their border sight quite a bit lately. Multi-regional might be a better term.
And by that account, Both France and the UK falls under the same category, albeit in lesser capacity.

I'm actually not sure what the definitions for these things are. I mean, none of China, Russia, France or the UK can sustain any kind of operation outside their borders if the US opposes that operation. Does that limit their claims to force projection?

China and Russia can both sustain a helluva naval operation.

Not really, their navies are tiny in comparison. And they only have two carriers between them.

Chinas carrier are experimental, though they do have force application in surrounding waters.
When China gets serious about building carriers for power projection it will build a dozen or more, at once. The time is not quite ripe yet.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Both China and Russia have been extending their reach beyond their border sight quite a bit lately. Multi-regional might be a better term.
And by that account, Both France and the UK falls under the same category, albeit in lesser capacity.

I'm actually not sure what the definitions for these things are. I mean, none of China, Russia, France or the UK can sustain any kind of operation outside their borders if the US opposes that operation. Does that limit their claims to force projection?

China and Russia can both sustain a helluva naval operation.

Not really, their navies are tiny in comparison. And they only have two carriers between them.

Carriers are so last century. How many thousand of missiles do they have off the Taiwan Strait? With their new land carriers they can replicate that and are proceeding to do just that.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Both China and Russia have been extending their reach beyond their border sight quite a bit lately. Multi-regional might be a better term.
And by that account, Both France and the UK falls under the same category, albeit in lesser capacity.

I'm actually not sure what the definitions for these things are. I mean, none of China, Russia, France or the UK can sustain any kind of operation outside their borders if the US opposes that operation. Does that limit their claims to force projection?

China and Russia can both sustain a helluva naval operation.

Not really, their navies are tiny in comparison. And they only have two carriers between them.

Carriers are so last century. How many thousand of missiles do they have off the Taiwan Strait? With their new land carriers they can replicate that and are proceeding to do just that.

That's not a naval operation Frazz. Talk to me when China can sustain an effective military action is Angola at a moments notice.

Angola prison? They could just take American Airlines top check it out.

Angola the country? I guess their response would be, talk to them we can can register above 8% growth...for decades at a time.

(also we can't have a sustained bombing campaign with just navy planes either...)

 Frazzled wrote:
(also we can't have a sustained bombing campaign with just navy planes either...)

Yeah, we can.

 Frazzled wrote:
Angola prison? They could just take American Airlines top check it out.

Angola the country? I guess their response would be, talk to them we can can register above 8% growth...for decades at a time.

Economics isn't te point here Frazz.

(also we can't have a sustained bombing campaign with just navy planes either...)

I'm pretty sure we can, not as effective as if we have ground-based planes, but air-strikes are still very much possible solely from USN planes last I checked.

Seaward wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
(also we can't have a sustained bombing campaign with just navy planes either...)

Yeah, we can.

Not against a significant target. In every major engagement, it has been both the US AF and Navy.

 Frazzled wrote:
Not against a significant target. In every major engagement, it has been both the US AF and Navy.

Because we've had the luxury of bringing both to bear.

The contention that the 10 carrier air wings we have (representing more than 400 strike fighters, backed up by the logistical might of the rest of the Navy) couldn't maintain a sustained bombing campaign in some hypothetical isn't accurate. They could if they had to.

Seaward wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Not against a significant target. In every major engagement, it has been both the US AF and Navy.

Because we've had the luxury of bringing both to bear.

The contention that the 10 carrier air wings we have (representing more than 400 strike fighters, backed up by the logistical might of the rest of the Navy) couldn't maintain a sustained bombing campaign in some hypothetical isn't accurate. They could if they had to.

Thats a fair point you make. Since WWII we haven't had to have a sustained naval campaign alone.

Inversely the Chinese nor Russians would either.