National Security & Defense

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

So, we talk a lot about domestic and economic policy here and, frankly, that's boring to me. I want to discuss foreign policy and national security. Let's start with Russia. They've recently invaded Georgia, engaged in naval exercises with Venezuela, sent bombers to Cuba, bribed the Kyrgyz government to shut down a US airbase, and announced plans for significantly modernizing their military. The Obama Administrations has pushed for a "reset" of US-Russian relations and tried to get Russia to cooperate on the Iranian nuclear issue by holding out the possibility of removing missile defense installations from the Czech Republic and Poland (which the administration probably doesn't even care about anyway).

 

Is Russia a potential threat to US security? How should the US respond to these seemingly aggressive actions by the Ruskies, if at all? How gangsta is Vlad Putin?

[909 0]

Is Russia a potential threat to US security?

Maybe.

 

How should the US respond to these seemingly aggressive actions by the Ruskies, if at all?

Too early to respond at all. I think it is somewhat of a big deal, as modernizing the Russian military and exerting it's strength seems to priority number one over there. The Ruskies are putting everything into it. Why? Who knows.

 

We simply cannot compete at the moment. We do not have the manpower nor the resources. I am, however, a big believer in the Monroe Doctrine, and believe that it is policy that should be used today. If Russia begins to exert too much influence, we need to put our foot down in some way. This presents quite the problem.

 

When it comes to the missile defense installations, Russia knows they can provide nothing more than defense, and I don't believe we should consider ditching them given this recent run of aggression. In fact we should be more steadfast in maintaining them. Maintaining them would be the proverbial "foot down."

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

If you understand MAD, missile defense isn't just a defense. Luckily for Russia, though, it's pretty much just an unreliable, expensive boondoggle.

[909 0]

Can you explain please

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Happy to. MAD, or mutually assured destruction, was a theory of nuclear weapon utilization developed during the Cold War. You can wikipedia it, but, basically the US and USSR knew that if one used nukes on the other they were gonna get blown up. It's really scary, but it led to stability and, well, the Cold War staying cold.

 

Missile defense throws MAD--and the stability that came with MAD--out the window. Developing a reliable missile defense would allow an aggressor to lob ballistic missiles at a target, even a target with second strike capability, with no fear of retribution.

 

Even technologies that seem purely "defensive" in theory can have offensive purposes. Think of a wall. Yes, a wall protects me from you. But I can also run out and smack you and then run behind my wall for defense, or throw rocks at you from behind my wall with little fear of retribution.

[EricMM 0]

Indeed.

 

You have to realize that the U.S. doesn't always get the "good guys" moniker from the rest of the world, especially after the last eight years. YOU might feel like we're the only safe people to have nuclear weapons, but a lot of the world still sees us as the only nation on earth ever to nuke another population.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

Is Russia a potential threat to US security?

Maybe.

 

How should the US respond to these seemingly aggressive actions by the Ruskies, if at all?

Too early to respond at all. I think it is somewhat of a big deal, as modernizing the Russian military and exerting it's strength seems to priority number one over there. The Ruskies are putting everything into it. Why? Who knows.

 

We simply cannot compete at the moment. We do not have the manpower nor the resources. I am, however, a big believer in the Monroe Doctrine, and believe that it is policy that should be used today. If Russia begins to exert too much influence, we need to put our foot down in some way. This presents quite the problem.

 

When it comes to the missile defense installations, Russia knows they can provide nothing more than defense, and I don't believe we should consider ditching them given this recent run of aggression. In fact we should be more steadfast in maintaining them. Maintaining them would be the proverbial "foot down."

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Russia was trying to regain some of the countries that broke away after the dissolve of the Soviet Union. They've been playing hard ball with all the ex-soviet union countries for the last few years. Georgia got it big time with the Russian Army invading and a part of Georgia defecting back to Russia by proxy. The Ukraine have had their gas supply from Russia cut off, and I wouldn't be surprised if they (Russia) said come back to us and you can have it. Its all the ex-soviet that want/lean towards joining the EU.

[EricMM 0]

Its tragic how far backwards the Europeans are going to start (continue?) to bend over backwards not to piss off Russia. This natural gas thing is rough.

 

In the happier days of prosperity, people REALLY should have been working on producing more of their own energy.

[BruiserKC 0]

I think right now Russia is in huge trouble financially because of the drop in oil prices. Ideally they thrive on oil prices sitting at about $60-80 a barrel, and right now with oil way below that they are hurting. This can make them someone to watch, I think it's more an issue of money.

[909 0]

Happy to. MAD, or mutually assured destruction, was a theory of nuclear weapon utilization developed during the Cold War. You can wikipedia it, but, basically the US and USSR knew that if one used nukes on the other they were gonna get blown up. It's really scary, but it led to stability and, well, the Cold War staying cold.

 

Missile defense throws MAD--and the stability that came with MAD--out the window. Developing a reliable missile defense would allow an aggressor to lob ballistic missiles at a target, even a target with second strike capability, with no fear of retribution.

 

Even technologies that seem purely "defensive" in theory can have offensive purposes. Think of a wall. Yes, a wall protects me from you. But I can also run out and smack you and then run behind my wall for defense, or throw rocks at you from behind my wall with little fear of retribution.

I thought that when you were referencing a specialized sort of missile defense system when referencing MAD. I know about mutually assured destruction. I was confused!

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Recent news has made Georgia look way more culpable in provoking the summer war than the media let on at the time:

 

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, the television appearance by General Kurashvili plays a key role in the investigation. His remarks indicate that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was not repelling "Russian aggression," as he continues to claim to this day, but was planning a war of aggression.

 

This is because Kurashvili may have been quoting directly from Order No. 2 from Aug. 7, a Georgian document that could shed light on the question of who started the war. When the commission questioned the Russian deputy head of the general staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, in Moscow, he quoted from the very same Georgian order. According to Nogovitsyn, the document also contained the phrase "reestablishment of constitutional order." If the order, which Russian intelligence intercepted, is authentic, it would prove that Saakashvili lied.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/...,615160,00.html

 

 

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Big news today as the most badass plane in the world crashed. These things clock in at just under $150 million a pop, not counting the tremendous development costs, and we're going to have less than 200 of them probably--so a crash is a huge freaking deal. They're also the subject of considerable procurement controversy, which you can read about here, among lots of other places.

 

An Air Force F-22 Raptor, the service's most advanced and expensive fighter, crashed Wednesday morning in the desert near Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California, killing the pilot.

 

The pilot, David Cooley, 49, worked for Lockheed Martin Corp., the plane's manufacturer. He was a 21-year veteran of the Air Force and had been with Lockheed since 2003. The cause of the crash is being investigated by the Air Force.

 

The plane was on a test flight and went down at 10 a.m. about 35 miles northeast of the base. Lockheed and the Air Force jointly test the F-22.

 

It is the second time an F-22 has crashed. In December 2004, an F-22 crashed at Edwards during a test flight, with the pilot safely ejecting, according to the Air Force.

 

The twin-engine jet is generally regarded as the world's dominant fighter because of its maneuverability, speed and advanced electronics systems. It is designed to be able to sneak into another country's airspace and attack other planes, as well as ground targets. The plane's sensors also give it an edge that other fighters lack. Boeing Co. is a major subcontractor. United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney makes the plane's engines.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123802321736442009.html

 

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

We simply cannot compete at the moment. We do not have the manpower nor the resources.

 

This is, frankly, absurd. The US outspends Russia militarily greater than 10 to 1. Let me say that again, TEN TO ONE. We also have have more active duty troops and close to as many total troops, not to mention that our troops have superior training and are way better equipped. I could go into our staggering naval and airpower advantages, but I believe I've made my point.

 

With respect to Russia's meddling in the Western hemisphere and military buildup, I basically consider them a gnat on America's ass. They've been hit as hard as anyone by the global economic crisis and low gas & oil prices. I basically see all of this as posturing designed to distract from their serious domestic problems.

[Jingus 0]

As it stands, the American military would absolutely squash any other country in the world if we actually had a conventional war with someone. Russia, China, doesn't matter, we'd win. It's a great deterrent, at least to anyone who's not as arrogant as the various third-world dictators out there who seriously think that nobody can beat them. Problem is, conventional wars are few and far between these days. No matter how much shiny new equipment you have, it can only help so much when you step into a cowpie of ongoing civil wars (Iraq, Vietnam, etc) and try to police the situation. On the other end of the spectrum an unhealthy number of people out there have various kinds of WMDs, which pretty much take the chess board of conventional warfare and set it on fire.

 

You have to realize that the U.S. doesn't always get the "good guys" moniker from the rest of the world, especially after the last eight years. YOU might feel like we're the only safe people to have nuclear weapons, but a lot of the world still sees us as the only nation on earth ever to nuke another population.

I hate this mindset. Firstly, everyone was involved in the decision to nuke Japan are all dead. Secondly, we spent an absolute fortune of money, time, and effort in building that country back up after we knocked it down. Thirdly, back then we really didn't know what kind of horrifying long-term consequences that nuclear weapons cause over the long term, and learning that information has greatly changed our policies. Finally, it was such an entirely different situation from anything that's happening today that it's not a fare comparison. The war was much bigger and the nukes were much smaller; way more people were killed in Dresden and Tokyo with regular bombs than died by atomic fire. Today, a single one of our ballistic missle submarines could literally wipe Japan off the face of the planet. When the stakes got so much higher, the rules changed about how and when using nuclear force was considered necessary.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Thirdly, back then we really didn't know what kind of horrifying long-term consequences that nuclear weapons cause over the long term, and learning that information has greatly changed our policies.

 

The first part is right, the second part really isn't. By the 50s and 60s we pretty much knew all the horrible stuff about nukes. And that didn't really change policy. In fact, they became even more integrated into national and global defense strategies, to the point that we even let the Soviets pass us in ground forces and decided to rely on a nuclear trump card in the event of aggression in Western Europe. Ike even specifically stated that he didn't want a stigma or taboo to develop around using nukes because, well, we might want to use them. The US also never took a "no first strike" pledge, while the USSR did.

[Jingus 0]

Everyone who made those decisions? Also dead and gone. I'm not talking about policy half a century ago, I'm talking about the difference between 1945 and now.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I'm talking about policy that persisted throughout the Cold War. Which ended not that long ago.

[Jingus 0]

Okay then, we're talking bout different things. Mercifully we managed go get through that dark patch without radioactive armaggeddon.

[zhangmeijie 0]

Indeed.

 

You have to realize that the U.S. doesn't always get the "good guys" moniker from the rest of the world, especially after the last eight years. YOU might feel like we're the only safe people to have nuclear weapons, but a lot of the world still sees us as the only nation on earth ever to nuke another population.

 

A point which I would agree on, well at least at one stage. Right now I think of US as being the good guys. I don't think they always were. Now let me first state I am no particular fan of Japanese goverments either, they commited many war crimes in China in WW2. What the US goverment did though was a war crime as bad as anything Hitler did in that war. The Japanese bombed a naval base, a legit target in any war. Sure it was not a nice thing to do, but in war you expect these things. In return US should have bombed the Japanese equlivant of a naval base or some sort of army base. Not blow up a whole city. I see no excuse for dropping a nuke on a city. To be blunt I view Harry S. Truman as being a war criminal who never stood trial.

 

Anyway all that is past, right now I see US goverment as one which is trying to do the right thing, sure like any goverment they make errors, but still better the right thing. Sure beats the inept, dangerously inept goverment we have in China. The only good thing about the Chinese goverment is they don't care for war, at least that's the feeling we get in China, so the chances of them starting a war are zero.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

We blew up way more than one city.

 

One thing that I learned recently was that the firebombing of Tokyo was the single deadliest episode in human history as far as deaths/time.

[zhangmeijie 0]

We blew up way more than one city.

 

One thing that I learned recently was that the firebombing of Tokyo was the single deadliest episode in human history as far as deaths/time.

Actually I never knew it was that bad in Japan. Still long past now as I said in my last post. The current and receant US goverments, not even under Bush's loooooong reign, I couldn't see dropping a nuke on anybody.

[snuffbox 0]

Wasn't our old friend Bob MacNamara involved in those Japan bombings?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I think so--he talks about them in The Fog of War, which is a pretty interesting documentary. Curtis LeMay was the main honcho behind them, though.

[snuffbox 0]

Of course. You don't get a cool nickname like "Bombs Away" for nothing.

[Hitler Cubano 0]

Two things I want to address here.

The Japanese bombed a naval base, a legit target in any war. Sure it was not a nice thing to do, but in war you expect these things.

If you're talking about Pearl Harbor, you should also be aware here that we weren't at war with Japan at the time, which was why the U.S. was caught by surprise as it was, thus FDR's "day that will live in infamy" speech, which was our formal declaration of war. The other Allies were pretty damn happy about it too, since they couldn't hold back the Nazis in Europe and there was a lot of debate here about getting involved with the war until it happened. Japan would've done itself a favor to have not gotten too greedy and just work on dominating their side of the Pacific first before getting too arrogant and taking on the U.S... Not to mention surrendering much, much sooner than they did. The nuclear bombs were a favorable alternative to outright invasion, when every man, woman, and child in Japan was being trained on how to attack and kill invading Americans. The nuclear attacks were atrocious, absolutely, but we had to accept those deaths as collateral damage, and the act was what ultimately led them to surrender. Japan was in the war until the death, until they saw the nuclear attacks and realized they were going to get wiped off the face of the earth if they didn't surrender. Really, it probably averted a much greater loss of life.

 

The only good thing about the Chinese goverment is they don't care for war, at least that's the feeling we get in China, so the chances of them starting a war are zero.

Really? The whole posturing business with Taiwan doesn't make you think otherwise? Or their lack of willingness to do something with North Korea, if anything supporting them? I trust the Chinese much more than a lot of other potential war opponents to remain peaceful, though, but I'm only cautiously optimistic.

[zhangmeijie 0]

Two things I want to address here.

The Japanese bombed a naval base, a legit target in any war. Sure it was not a nice thing to do, but in war you expect these things.

If you're talking about Pearl Harbor, you should also be aware here that we weren't at war with Japan at the time, which was why the U.S. was caught by surprise as it was, thus FDR's "day that will live in infamy" speech, which was our formal declaration of war. The other Allies were pretty damn happy about it too, since they couldn't hold back the Nazis in Europe and there was a lot of debate here about getting involved with the war until it happened. Japan would've done itself a favor to have not gotten too greedy and just work on dominating their side of the Pacific first before getting too arrogant and taking on the U.S... Not to mention surrendering much, much sooner than they did. The nuclear bombs were a favorable alternative to outright invasion, when every man, woman, and child in Japan was being trained on how to attack and kill invading Americans. The nuclear attacks were atrocious, absolutely, but we had to accept those deaths as collateral damage, and the act was what ultimately led them to surrender. Japan was in the war until the death, until they saw the nuclear attacks and realized they were going to get wiped off the face of the earth if they didn't surrender. Really, it probably averted a much greater loss of life.

 

The only good thing about the Chinese goverment is they don't care for war, at least that's the feeling we get in China, so the chances of them starting a war are zero.

Really? The whole posturing business with Taiwan doesn't make you think otherwise? Or their lack of willingness to do something with North Korea, if anything supporting them? I trust the Chinese much more than a lot of other potential war opponents to remain peaceful, though, but I'm only cautiously optimistic.

 

That's just it, with Taiwan it is just posturing. You have to understand though that the Chinese goverment consider Taiwan to be mainland China. They won't bomb their own country. Shoot 'innocent' Chinese people yes sometimes, bomb no. I really don't know how to think about the Korea situiation. Also if China really wanted to attack any country it would be Japan on top of the list. There is still bad blood between Chinese and Japanese goverments. Even there the goverment show no intent to do anything. Seriously I would be shocked if China started any wars with another country.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

The nuclear bombs were a favorable alternative to outright invasion, when every man, woman, and child in Japan was being trained on how to attack and kill invading Americans. The nuclear attacks were atrocious, absolutely, but we had to accept those deaths as collateral damage, and the act was what ultimately led them to surrender. Japan was in the war until the death, until they saw the nuclear attacks and realized they were going to get wiped off the face of the earth if they didn't surrender. Really, it probably averted a much greater loss of life.

 

I don't think there's really a historical consensus that this is the case.

 

"Careful scholarly treatment of the records and manuscripts opened over the past few years has greatly enhanced our understanding of why the Truman administration used atomic weapons against Japan. Experts continue to disagree on some issues, but critical questions have been answered. The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it." (Emphasis added.)

 

The author of that statement is not a revisionist; he is J. Samuel Walker, chief historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nor is he alone in that opinion. Walker is summarizing the findings of modern specialists in his literature review in the Winter 1990 issue of Diplomatic History.

 

Another expert review, by University of Illinois historian Robert Messer, concludes that recently discovered documents have been "devastating" to the traditional idea that using the bomb was the only way to avoid an invasion of Japan that might have cost many more lives.

 

Indeed, as early as 1946 the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, in its report Japan's Struggle to End the War, concluded that "certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

 

Similarly, a top-secret April 1946 War Department study, Use of Atomic Bomb on Japan, declassified during the 1970's but brought to broad public attention only in 1989, found that "the Japanese leaders had decided to surrender and were merely looking for sufficient pretext to convince the die-hard Army Group that Japan had lost the war and must capitulate to the Allies." This official document judged that Russia's early-August entry into the war "would almost certainly have furnished this pretext, and would have been sufficient to convince all responsible leaders that surrender was unavoidable." The study concluded that even an initial November 1945 landing on the island of southern Japanese island of Kyushu would have been only a "remote" possibility and that the full invasion of Japan in the spring of 1946 would not have occurred.

 

Military specialists who have examined Japanese decision-making have added to the modern understanding that the bombing was unnecessary. For instance, political scientist Robert Pape's study, "Why Japan Surrendered," which appeared in the Fall 1993 issue of International Security, details Japan's military vulnerability, particularly its shortages of everything from ammunition to fuel to trained personnel: "Japan's military position was so poor that its leaders would likely have surrendered before invasion, and at roughly the same time in August 1945, even if the United States had not employed strategic bombing or the atomic bomb."

 

We now know, however, that as of April 29, 1945 the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), in a report titled Unconditional Surrender of Japan, informed the JCS that increasing "numbers of informed Japanese, both military and civilian, already realize the inevitability of absolute defeat." The JIC further advised that "the increasing effects of air-sea blockade, the progressive and cumulative devastation wrought by strategic bombing, and the collapse of Germany (with its implications regarding redeployment) should make this realization widespread within the year."

 

The JIC pointed out, however, that a Soviet decision to join with the United States and Britain would have enormous force and would dramatically alter the equation: "The entry of the USSR into the war would, together with the foregoing factors, convince most Japanese at once of the inevitability of complete defeat."

 

http://www.ncesa.org/html/hiroshima.html

 

The whole thing's worth reading.

[BorneAgain 0]

The atomic bombing of Japan is complicated matter to begin with, but I can't completely fault Truman for his decision, nor can I fault the beliefs of people like Eisenhower and MacArthur who didn't believe it was necessary.

[Nightwing 0]

It was my understanding that, even after two bombs had been dropped, the deadlock on the argument for and against surrender hadn't broken (Due to unconditional surrender possibly leading to the removal of the Emperor). This sparked Hirohito himself to finally come in and tell them to put out unconditional surrender. Generally speaking, people talk about "the Japanese wanted to surrender", and don't mention what type of surrender they wanted. The idea that we'd let up on the gas outside of Japan until November (and just let Manchuria sit) seems beyond foolish from a military perspective. Hell, they might have actually gone through with Operation: Cherry Blossoms at Night if given that much time.

 

In my opinion, I think it was necessary. Again, from what I've been taught in college, the military was absolutely deadlocked on the issue. Perhaps it wouldn't have been nearly as costly to the Americans as Operation Coronet's initial output (They pegged it at over one million casualties for the Americans), but I still think that an invasion would have gone down even with the Red Army invading Manchuria. Of course, I've heard a variety of different ways to how it could have gone, though the most convincing to me actually has to deal with something already covered in the thread; from what I've been told, it was to take the Southern island and simply firebomb them continually and on a scale which hadn't yet been seen.

 

By the by, the firebombing of Japan is easily one of the most overlooked war crimes in history, often ignored due to the better-known atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We firebomb Germany once, and then pull off because of how horrific it is, but we continue to use it against Japan? God, I hate LeMay almost as much as I hate MacArthur.

[At Home 0]

It was my understanding that, even after two bombs had been dropped, the deadlock on the argument for and against surrender hadn't broken (Due to unconditional surrender possibly leading to the removal of the Emperor). This sparked Hirohito himself to finally come in and tell them to put out unconditional surrender. Generally speaking, people talk about "the Japanese wanted to surrender", and don't mention what type of surrender they wanted. The idea that we'd let up on the gas outside of Japan until November (and just let Manchuria sit) seems beyond foolish from a military perspective. Hell, they might have actually gone through with Operation: Cherry Blossoms at Night if given that much time.

 

In my opinion, I think it was necessary. Again, from what I've been taught in college, the military was absolutely deadlocked on the issue. Perhaps it wouldn't have been nearly as costly to the Americans as Operation Coronet's initial output (They pegged it at over one million casualties for the Americans), but I still think that an invasion would have gone down even with the Red Army invading Manchuria. Of course, I've heard a variety of different ways to how it could have gone, though the most convincing to me actually has to deal with something already covered in the thread; from what I've been told, it was to take the Southern island and simply firebomb them continually and on a scale which hadn't yet been seen.

 

By the by, the firebombing of Japan is easily one of the most overlooked war crimes in history, often ignored due to the better-known atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We firebomb Germany once, and then pull off because of how horrific it is, but we continue to use it against Japan? God, I hate LeMay almost as much as I hate MacArthur.

 

My favorite topic! Here we go.

 

I don't buy the opinion that the Japanese wanted to surrender considering that they were training women and children to kill American with bamboo staffs. In short, a land invasion would've been like the strategy of island hopping (which, by definition required waves of men being sent to their death) only ten times more brutal. Someone would've had to have been decimated with a land invasion.

 

Regarding the Red Army in Manchuria, don't forget that we asked them to be there. At Yalta, Roosevelt specifically requested that three months after the war ended (or the conference, I forget), the Red Army needed to be in Japan to secure victory if we hadn't already. This is why, after the decision was handed down to use atomic force, they absolutely rushed to drop the bombs as fast as they could: to prevent Russian excursion into Japan. Concurrently, along with preventing Russian excursion into Japan, a second benefit to atomic force was the ability to show the Russians our nuclear might and send a warning out that surely gave us some bargaining power in the beginning of the Cold War.

 

Also, food for thought: the "unconditional surrender" thing came from WWI Germany. Some historians argued that in order to have successfully dealt with Germany, the winning powers needed to have crushed it completely, or done nothing at all. What ended up was something in the middle, leading to the mess of the Weimar Republic, and, long story short, Hitler. They didn't want easy treatment for Japan (even though they let them keep the Emperor) in case another Hitler propped up in Japan.

 

Smit: I've read that before, and it's interesting, but it's by no means a case-closed kind of thing, just another dimension. Consider the Imperial army: all the crazy shit that happened in China, young, rogue officers invading Manchuria without any sort of approval, the island hopping strategy being predicated off of the belief that Americans were weak soldiers and wouldn't take the losses they did fighting up the islands of Japan. The Imperial Army was some serious shit.