BLACKFIVE: Whither a military?

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Whither a military?

Posted By Mr Wolf

H/T to Kate Pitrone for this- but over at No Left Turns, a discussion came up (O/T, BTW) in the comments section for a posting on the mom that sent the silly string over. The comments (Read this string HERE ) are fairly interesting, but highly indicative of the COMPLETE mis-understanding of where we are today, how we got here, and WHY.

The question of the day- "WHY DO WE HAVE A LARGE MILITARY, AND SHOULD WE? WHY DON'T WE JUST GET RID OF MOST OF THE ARMY AND MARINES AND JUST KEEP A 'CONSTITUTIONAL' NAVY AND AN AIR FORCE''?

There is more to this discussion than I could ever hope to post here, but I do think it is worth looking into. Not being a constitutional scholar, I think I somewhat understand the point around a 'constitutional navy or army', in that it is a strict interpretation of the Constitution's language as written. Never mind they would never have foreseen an Air Force. Nor, for that matter, the type of foes we have faced in the 20th and 21st centuries. But there have been people making an argument that we are in the spot we are precisely because our military is TOO BIG.

My argument- it ain't big enough, in the right places.

To say or think that we could maintain our current government and standard of living WITHOUT a military (with the exception of a Navy/Air Force) is ludicrous. The argument made for keeping 2 of the elements is that well, they gotta cross a big ocean to come get us.

Not no more, they don't. And that ocean is NO GUARANTEE they can't without being detected. Who's to say they are not already here?

As one commenter put it, "To use a hockey analogy, the best way to win a game is to keep the puck in the other teams end of the ice." This is part of our strategy today. The reason we have not been as successful at it is that we have been, for far too long, without a capability that would allow us to address problems outside our borders. To this, they say, why don't we just leave them alone over there?

To this, I would say use this example- of why we had to GO to Afghanistan in order to face down a threat:

it's not clear to me that the Taliban was doing a whole lot to assist Al-Qaeda, beyond providing a place for some of the group's leaders to hide. How much support did the 9/11 attacks need? The terrorists used box cutters that they probably purchased at Wal-Mart, and learned to fly planes in America, not Afghanistan. That said, the operation was still defensible as a retributive strike, but I still don't see how it qualifies as true "defense."

The rebuttal:

The safe harbor provided by the Taliban was more important than where the box cutters were purchased or where they learned how to fly, or at least take off. As to defense, it is true defense in so far as any place where people are free to organize and plot terrorist actions free of internal impediments can be reasonably labeled a threat to national security. Taking out the Taliban ended that safe haven. It may also be a defensive measure to try to the extent possible to change the political culture and the regimes of foreign states that assist others in plotting attacks. Unless you are willing to say the terrorists strike only because we meddle in their affairs, or that we simply exist, then one may be forced to accept that the root causes of terrorism resides in the political culture or religion of that region of the world. If that is true, even if only partially true, than it would seem to make sense to say an peremptory attack on those states is defensive.

People need to understand this is not the world of 1905, that negotiation is not the only way to agreements. We are facing a period that with the influx of information so easily provided via the internet and other technologies, nearly any group can develop and execute horrendous attacks on the general populace with ease. And get away with it.

The one principal that people fail to get (including those in the military) is that YOU HAVE TO PHYSICALLY HOLD THE GROUND. All the bombs, missiles, satellites, etc in the world will do you no good if you have NO physical presence on the ground. That is what the Army and Marines provide. The THREAT of those elements becoming a 'physical presence' can be deterrent enough at times; others, it takes the combined elements of both to become effective. As we've heard time and again, you can TAKE an area with only a bomb, but you'll NEVER hold it...

Reducing the size and strength of our military GOT us into the mess we're in- reducing it further will NOT help matters...

-Wolf