I personally do not advocate calling up anymore than we are now. Darth seems to want to invade Syria and Iran. I completely disagree with him. I believe that the current administration knows the army is too small. However, they cannot get the billions from Congress needed to add divisions. I think going into Iraq was the right thing to do at the time. We could not wait for several years to recruit and train two new divisions.

Look, when we went into Iraq in 1991 we had what, 18 Army divisions? Now it is 12. And we had a smaller military budget then. Even today, the military budget is not at its historical high (mid - late 80s) in constant dollars. When 9/11 went off and Bush said we were going to end terrorism and state support of it, I assumed a program to increase the size of the military would immediately be embarked upon. But no, this is not the case. Instead, Bush is continuing such nonsense as selling our M-1 tanks to Egpyt (well "sell" is actually "deduct cost from military aid"). The fact that no increase in the US military is being sought is proof enough for me that no major campaign against Iran or Syria is planned for a second Bush term - because such expansion would already need to be underway (as you pointed out otb). The National Guard is big around my area and I know alot of people in both the Guard and the Active Reserves. Most people in the Guard thought they were signing up to hand out bottled water after tornadoes and keep the civil peace during rare times of unrest (riots, etc). They did not expect to essentially become Army regulars. I bet it gets damn hard to get new Guardsmen enlisted. Who can afford to walk away from their $50,000 / yr job and make Guard pay for a year or more? To me, this is insane. We shouldn't have to call up reservists to put less than 150,000 troops in a theater. A national military isn't like General Motors; you can't lay off a third of your workforce til things pick back up and then continue where you left off. And believe this - there are many, many nations that have national goals diametrically opposed to those of the United States. There is no doubt that if they decided to make their moves, they would coordinate their operational timetables. And I will continue to say this. Explain to me, someone, how in the hell can there be a true war on terror if the governments of Syria and Iran are allowed to stand? And let's remember that Iran will obtain the bomb THIS YEAR. There were only 2 good reasons to invade Iraq: 1. Secure oil resources for US exploitation to remove the knife OPEC holds against our throats 2. Establish a base of operations from which to strike Syria and Iran. Well the first one was the least likely to occur. The second one made sense. For one, Iraq is ideally located to project American power into the entire Middle East. It borders Syria and Iran. The point is that if the arch-terrorists in Syria and Iran remain in power than terrorism will not be defeated and mega-terrorist attacks will always be a real possibility. The longer these governments remain in place, the more time they have to transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists who can explode it on US soil and leave the US with no nation to retaliate against. I hope you realize that this is precisely how supra-national government is going to become a reality. You will have your way, and Iran and Syria will not be confronted. A nuclear device will eventually be set off in the US by "non-state actors." Finally, with a city (cities) in ruins, the American public will be sold the argument that traditional national governments can no longert guarantee security, and the only way to stop terrorism is to get the developing world more "engaged" in global prosperity. This will "democratize" international society (you know, like they claim is happening in China lmao) and bring more moderate governments in terrorist regions that will police themselves and purge their various cancers, like terrorism. I'm not daydreaming - this is the future. We have no war on terror - we have protracted indecision. Time is not on our side. We must strike soon. But we won't.

Discussion ongoing here: http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/34-687.asp

Discussion here: http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/41-96.asp

iraqi air defence was outdated at all times. it never really had a chance against massive us forces. one very single sided match. also the iraqi soldiers can be regarded as pretty badly trained and unmotivated. it also wasnt that much an achievement to be proud of in military terms. politicaly is another question.

Actually, it's only been proven to be outdated in retrospect, with the benefit of HINDSIGHT. When we first were planning for Desert Storm, aircraft loss projections expected about THIRTY coalition casualties on the FIRST NIGHT. We thought the French IADS KARI system, along with "experienced" MiG-29+Archer fighters would inflict some significant casualties. Also, the Baghdad air defense complex, regardless of how you look at it, was formidable, and operated the latest in Russian/French SAM technology. Militarily it proved static passive air defense doesn't work thanks to some very simple facts of life that I don't feel like posting all over again.

If u call badly maintained Sa-2 and some SA-6 the latest russian weapons.......these missiles already sucked in the arab israeli wars, as israels quickly found ways to fight them with new ECM and flight tactics. The only modern weapons the irqaqis had were some Roland Flarak systems (short range air defence systems) with middle 80s technology, used to defend their air bases, and yes, the british tornados attacking these suffered some losses, higher than US-wild weasels firing HARM at some outdated SA-2 from the long distance.

Me anti-American? You must be joking. Anyway I will not go into any tirades. If you had said anti-Swedish, you might have a point, but Anti-American? (Sick pained smile).

In theory, yes an S-300 could strike down a Tomahawk. But we're talking sheer numbers here: can the Chinese AD network handle, say, 200 Tomahawks and SLAM-ER's, plus who know's how many attacking aircraft? And that is in addition to any naval surface activity going on. Once a conflict would ignite, it won't be a "hold on, my radars can't handle this many targets" scenario. There are very very few systems that are configured to handle the volume (numbers) of potential targets in such an all-out conflict. Unless you can tie together all your surveillance/reconn/tracking systems and see the entire battlespace and every engagement (regardless of any Chinese JSTARS-comparable aircraft), most likely some fool will launch an S-300 at a target already under attack by 1 or 2 more S-300s.

Oh...and you're right, one CV has only 50-60 top of the line fighters. But that's ONE CV. We have TWELVE. Furthermore, we also have lots of DDGs and CGs that, unlike the S-300s, are very mobile and stealthy(well the DDGs anyway) and can easily nail a bunch of unsuspecting tac aircraft. the problem is that is very unlikely the usn could bring more than 3 carriers into action fast enough to be of any real value. the invasion of taiwan is likely going to be a done deal in two weeks other than some mopping up and it could very well be over in a few days if things go well for the prc and taiwan folds under pressure. either way it's not a lot of time to deploy a strike group to intervene. all the carriers in the world aren't going to count for a lot if they are somewhere else when the balloon goes up are they.