New National Strategy Goes to Rumsfeld

[46Driver]

In the current issue of the Marine/Navy/Army/Air Force Times, the new national military strategy has gone to Rumsfeld - it is a 24 page document. The Pentagon is changing to deal with new threats from the global war on terror and away from conventional war. The 4 categories shown are:

1) Irregular: Terrorism, Insurgency, Civil War
Likelihood "Very High", Vunerability "Moderate"

2) Catastrophic: WMD, Rogue Missile Attack, Sept 11
Likelihood "Moderate and Increasing", Vunerability "UNNACEPTABLE"

3) Traditional: Conventional Land, Sea, and Air, Nuclear Forces
Likelihood "decreasing", Vunerability "Low"

4) Disruptive: Space, Sensors, Biotechnology
Likelihood "low", Vunerability "Unknown"

Just thought I would throw this out for comments in regards to what everyone wants to purchase aircraft wise (F-22, JSF, MV-22). Although I have been a critic of the MV-22 in the past, my time here at EUCOM is softening the opposition to it - although I'm still in sticker shock over the price.

 

[BigWorm]

Well, both the MV-22 and the Marine JSF offer something brand new to put on the table. If they work out the bugs, then you have a jet parked right behind the front lines and an aircraft that can do a coast to coast CCX in a day instead of a weak. Everything needs to be tied to the ground pounders up front. The public doesn’t like death, but the majority of deaths have been on the ground, or when a helo is shot down, not in the air wars.
The primary focus on spending should be with ground training, emphasizing some of the new ideas about urban operations (mout, urban patrolling, anti-terrorism, etc..). For the cost of one of these Gucci F-22s that can take a star ship out, I’m sure they could erect some better mout training facilities. Some will argue about this high speed European fighter, but there are more ways than air to air to take a jet down.
With the spending, I thought the idea behind the JSF was to have 80 something percent parts that were interchangeable between all the services. If the Navy, and the AF aren’t big on their version of the JSF, then what is the point? Colonel somebody spoke about how the Marines were going in a risky direction by having our own Air Force – every aircraft we are looking at getting is different than the other services.