Powell on the National Guard

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...

Yes we had barely enough. And it taxed the manpower. Now we
have that mission, Bosnia and Iraq. Plus a potential war with
China in the near future for control of the far East.

Well, we could shuck Bosnia any day. We don't have a dog in that
fight.

And we can't prepare for a war with China. We could not prevail in
such a war.

Really? While I agree the likelihood of such a conflict is not that great at
present (provided the PRC does not go stupid over Taiwan), I don't really
see how we "could not prevail" in a military conflict with the PRC. It is
not as if prevailing requires us to to put boots-on-the-ground in Beijing.
The PRC is quickly growing to rather like its foreign trade, and its people
are becoming more and more enamored of materialistic possessions. Turning
off their power grid, chunking up their communications systems, and denying
them any viable foreign trade (i.e., naval blockade) would seem to offer a
reasonable chance for us to "prevail" against them. I don't think the PRC
cares to risk finding out the hard way.

In this respect, it is the United States that is the
second-rate nation.

I don't think so. Remaining bound to the Lanchesterian attrition model is
not a very good basis for assessing the capabilities of the modern US
military. China's PLA indeed has oodles of men with rifles; unfortunately,
it has yet to demonstrate a keen ability to operate as an effective joint
combat force, their PLAAF (despite its gain of some Su-27 and Su-30 mounts)
is nowhere near being able to confidently confront US airpower, they are
newcomers to the field of using space operations as a source of leverage in
military operations, and their PLAN would provide little more than target
practice for the USN.

We must get along with China, and China to prosper
must get along with the U.S. Fortunately both countries seem to
understand that.

I like the view posited by some national security wonk a couple of years
back: he described our strategy vis a vis the PRC as "congagement", with us
both containing and engaging the PRC. Engagement generally seems to be
working, but if the PRC *really* thought that the US could not confront them
militarily all bets would be off and they'd be a lot more antagonistic to
their neighbors.

Brooks


all the best -- Dan Ford