Aircraft Carriers - What is their future?

[Bengalzona]

(07-25-2017, 09:16 PM)Dill Wrote: Sorry I am late responding to this.  I am not an expert on military logistics.  B-Zona could probably give us a better idea of what might be required to keep bases in Germany.  I don't think skeleton crews will do it, though. Something tells me the the Chiefs of Staff would balk at 1,000-2,000 people tops.  They know what it takes to move men and material quickly through the air, and in sufficient quantities.  The US military may need to do more than just land on those bases.

The real crux of our difference is how we imagine what happens when the US pulls back from world policing and "other people step up."  They will perhaps have the ability to police their own crises. But they will also have the ability to create crises, and to control trade routes and airspace as they wish.

There are some state actors in the Far East, Africa, and the Middle East who would not view a vacuum of US power as a chance to help keep order. Rather they would see it as an opportunity to assert regional hegemony, as Saudi Arabia now appears to be doing.

The next difference between us is how we imagine regional conflicts elsewhere might affect the US.  Most people who espouse your position think such conflicts would affect us very little or not at all. People who have lived with the benefits of "world policing" for so long now imagine them (if they imagine them at all) to result from a "natural" international order which will continue on as before if the US withdraws.  I think such conflicts would greatly affect world trade, and would have a chance to balloon and link up with other conflicts, as happened in the period just before WWII, when the US was caught unprepared and had to catch up, paying a great price for two decades of isolationism.

This time around, it is unlikely the US will ever get back the power and influence it is giving up now, short of winning another world war. But how could anyone do that with nukes on the table?

The 20T debt you refer to is as much a result of tax cuts as military spending; though I grant a chunk of that results from bad foreign policy decisions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The restriction of the US economy which would follow isolationist policies would not help us pay off that debt. And likely we would have to increase it--or raise taxes on the rich as we did in WWII--when forced to intervene in world affairs again.

35,000 sounds likes a minimum we need  in Germany with our current commitments in the Middle East and Central Asia.

I get the sentiment of "Why do we need to be the World Policeman?". I really do. But these were decisions made long before we were born, and it is all about economics and politics (usually a mix of the two). It has nothing to do with us being "morally right" or even caring what happens to people in other countries. If that were the case, we would be nation-building in Somalia. As a nation, we really don't care what happens to people in other countries (despite the rhetoric you might hear). We hardly care what happens to Americans in other states. And more and more, we could care less about what happens to Americans with different political or religious beliefs than us.

After our nation was founded, the forefathers decided that we needed to model ourselves after the British and do business all over the world. That is the main reason why developing a powerful fleet and merchant marine was so critical to our country. Certainly you'll recall the "clipper ships" from history. They were to facilitate international trade. But if you are going to trade internationally, you have to protect your merchant fleet.

So, we thought that that would be all we needed: a strong merchant fleet and a strong navy to protect it. But, it we kept running into situations where that wasn't enough. Situations where we had to secure land areas or threaten governments with force. Cuba, the Philippines, China, etc. The sentiment of "Why do we have to get involved?" was always there, though.

World War I rolled around and we tried hard to stay out of it. It didn't work. The Germans got mad at us because we were still doing business with the Brits and they started doing nasty things (torpedoing U.S. ships, attacking U.S. ports, trying to get Mexico to invade us, etc.). Lesson: sometimes you get attacked just because you are doing business with someone at war.

Between the wars, we were initially a little less bashful about sending troops abroad. We sent troops to fight with the White Russians against the Red Russians (and the Soviets never forgot that we did that). That was about defeating communism, which was viewed in capitalist countries as the greatest threat to trade ever (that was before China became economically successful). We sent the Marines to invade Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba at the behest of U.S. corporations. After all, why should those companies have to pay mercenaries to secure their interests when the tax payers have already provided armed forces that are just sitting around doing nothing (read in a really snide voice).

World War II came along and the Pacifist movement in the U.S. was a force to be reckoned with. But Japan openly attacked us and left no choice.

After World War II, we were in a unique position... to make a lot of money. We had troops scattered all over the world a huge merchant fleet, a powerful military, an atom bomb to threaten people with. So, we set about redesigning the world politically and economically into a place where we could make the maximum amount of money possible. And our plan would have worked perfectly, if wasn't for those meddling Soviets and their blasted nuclear weapons! (homage to Scooby Doo). Now, we had to meddle in other countries just to keep the communists out (they being established as being the greatest evil ever and proving it by trying to spread their thoughts around the world and developing their own nuclear weapons!). But along with standing up to the blasted commies, we did find time to make and secure safe zones for our international trade.

After the Cold War ended, we found that we could return to using our military to do what it was intended to do: to provide safety for and ensure our companies can make lots of money from foreigners.

So to sum it all up, we need to be the World's Policeman to ensure that Coca-Cola can do make money in Mozambique without anyone else trying to get in on the action.