Yes, but are they winning? What are the collateral damages?
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Back wehn I was younger I used to think like that. But I've become less and less violent as the years passed. Now when I see a weapon of any sort I do not see beauty or excitement: only repulsion, and threat. Ans to think I used to love Katanas...
Raw, regarding what you said about not needing an offensive capability to be defensive, I'm going to bring up The Falklands War.
While it remains slightly controversial, the fact remains that there were British citizens on those islands who had no desire to become Argentinians any time soon. Argentina wasn't willing to back down and neither were we, and when you have that kind of situation a war is more or less inevitable.
Without power projection we could not have beaten them. Without Harrier-equipped aircraft carriers and long-range Vulcan bombers (which undertook the longest bombing missions ever flown) the Falklands would now be the Malvinas.
edited 12th Jan '11 4:57:28 AM by pagad
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.
... Y'know, if they had wanted to win, they could just have cut the water and electricity...
Also, this is my first contact with the rethoric the UK used...
So, you people are telling me it's pointless to be a Sandaime when there are people like the Orochimaru and Gaara's father around?
edited 12th Jan '11 5:11:39 AM by RawPower
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?Until now I had only heard the Argentinian version of the story. It also boils down to "they are ours by right", but they didn't seem to take the human factor into account. Most Argentinians believe this is a scam by the government to turn them into a militaristic fascist state. After that war they added some symbol to their flag saying that they gave themselves a hundred years to recover them. Most Argentinians just nod and snigger on the inside
If you meant the water, I'm told the Malwines were provisioned with water and electricity by the Argentinian mainland through tubes, and that the Argentinian government, for some reason, didn't bother to cut the Falkland's supply: in the eyes of many, proof that they never set out to win in the first place.
The third paragraph is a Naruto reference. The Sandaime was an old Badass Pacifist and Martial Pacifist who had a general policy of avoiding violent conflict at all costs. He had seen two world wars, and hated the horror therein. However, other foreign leaders, either out of self-interest or simply For the Evulz, broke that peace once by staging a surprise invasion of the ninja village the Sandaime was leader of. Even right before the invasion, he still tried to find a way to negotiate around it, but the invaders were so confident in the results of force they just refused discuss anything at all.
edited 12th Jan '11 5:21:32 AM by RawPower
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?Or sheer bloody incompetence. If they had set out to win, they presumably wouldn't have attacked a far superior naval force that could and did literally blow them out of the water.
Anyway, the democratic Argentina of now is not the military junta of then. The war only served to hasten its downfall, which is definitely a good thing.
edited 12th Jan '11 7:22:49 AM by pagad
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.They wanted to lose gloriously.
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?From a few Argentinians I met in Morocco...
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?Who said otherwise?
edited 12th Jan '11 6:42:52 AM by RawPower
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?It's hard to pull a Three Hundred these days. It's one thing to get killed in mêlée and another entirely to be blown to smithereens in a freaking instant.
Oh, wait... USA Vs SPAIN, 1898. The Spaniards were traumatized for decades.
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?^ In both circumstances you end up dead, regardless of whether it's a sword or an Exocet missile.
It is possible the Argentine military did not believe they would fail as hard as they did, though. If they'd managed to sink a carrier it would be a different story.
Guess they didn't count on Sea Harriers.
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.
Doesn't matter that you die as long as it's inspirational. Except it wasn't. That's why it was an Epic Fail.
Anyway, it's not projection if you need it to reach bits of your territory that are far away. It's still defense. And area denial. Yes?
edited 12th Jan '11 6:52:16 AM by RawPower
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?My point was that you will often need power-projection offensive military equipment even if your intent is to be entirely defensive.
(I disagree with the military being limited entirely to defensive actions, but that's a different kettle of fish)
edited 12th Jan '11 7:04:43 AM by pagad
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.Obviously defending your allies counts as defensive moves.
What NATO is doing... stretches the definition perhaps a bit too far. They've expanded their field of operation to basically everywhere.
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?Basically, if I remember an analysis I read last year or something, their internal rules allow them to intervene anywhere, anytime, for any reason. Basically Team America World Police, except more literally.
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?I completely disagree with the offensive capability. Anybody want to touch China? I thought not.
If everyone resorted to defensive militaries our budgets for armed forces would drop dramatically and all that extra money goes into domestic development, infrastructure or stupid shit like beer parties. The point is that, the more defensive you make your military, the cheaper it is and at the same time reduces reasons for your neighbours to get weapons.
Just to show you how easy it is to defend your country here are some Pentagon examples of Chinese weapons being 10000x cheaper than what America has to do.
- AEGIS Cruiser from the US navy, best damn cruiser out there, with anti-air capabilities and even shoots down incoming missiles.
- Chinese Solution: Fire 1000 dumb-fire rocket missiles at it. AEGIS Cruiser sinks. Each missile costs a thousand bucks. You just lost a ten billion dollar cruiser.
- M1 Tanks from US armoured units, best damn tank out there. Survives multiple direct hits from other tanks. Basically unbeatable.
- Chinese Solution: Anti-tank guns. I can get like ten of them for each M1 tank, if not more, and it doesn't matter if it takes twenty shots to blow up one tank. I got plenty of tank destroyers.
- American stealth fighter, the new F-35 Lightning 2, costs 140 million USD, capable of shooting down upwards to 4 previous generation fightercraft
- Chinese Solution: Su-27 Flanker. A pretty basic fighter craft of which they can get six for every F-35 Lightning 2. Worse, combat simulations show that because of the greater fuel capacity of the Su-27, they can always fly just out of combat range of the F-35s until the American jets run out of fuel and then get blown out of the sky. Even in optimal conditions, the F-35 only blows up four Su-27, so no matter what, USA loses without spending more money.
^ Numbers are a weakness in and of themselves. Take your anti-tank guns, Abrams tanks never work alone. If your ten guns cannot destroy one tank in 10 shots those few Abrams are going to return fire and waste your ten guns with little or no loss. (Then you have the fact the Abrams can fire at targets 4000 meters away accurately while traveling at 45 mph) Take your dumb fire rockets too. The Aegis ship is moving, and dumb fire rocket systems have ridiculously short ranges compared to the Standard Missile series used on those ships. Aircraft carrying said dumb fire rockets would never get close enough, you'd have to have more aircraft than the Aegis ship and its attendant neighbor ships have missiles. One US Pacific Fleet battlegroup (no carriers) contains more surface to air missiles of the Standard series variety than half of the aircraft of the People's Air Force. (nevermind the other stuff like Sea Sparrows) Throw in a carrier or two and the F-18/(future) F-35 escorts would ensure no PLA aircraft ever reaches firing range on the US Navy.
Also, the tactics you describe such as staying out of the operational range of the F-35 is a losing tactic. Basically the area an F-35 covers (to say nothing of other US aircraft) is then ceded absolute air supremacy to the US instead of contested by China. When you lose air supremacy, you lose the ground war. M1 tanks would never need face your tank guns in the first place in that situation since air strikes would make short work of them.
Then you have the fact the Chinese are aware of this. They can't just Zerg Rush us and expect to win handily no matter how many thousands of tanks and aircraft they can throw at us. They want some better technology so that any potential battle against US forces is not some kind of ridiculously lopsided casualty figure. (As happened in the Korean War with PLA forces losing tens of thousands of troops for maybe a few hundred American killed and wounded.) They know our military can defeat an enemy that outnumbers them even at orders 3 or more times greater. China doesn't have enough manpower in their entire population at that kind of firepower spread to hope to wipe out all standing and future US forces if they try nothing but Zerg.
edited 12th Jan '11 8:55:15 AM by MajorTom
You're completely missing the point Tom. They don't have to care to defeat your army because all they're doing is putting up defensive measures which only cost 2.0% of their GDP and has had zero increase relative to their economy for over a decade while you've been spending more and more as a percentage of your GDP over the years. That is the point. Your economy is sinking into a military-industrial complex and the only thing you seem to come up with is "Our American weapons are so much more awesome than those stinking Chinese."
They don't have to care they can't beat your army, they aren't invading you. You can dream of Chinese soldiers rushing the California coast but the fact of the matter is that they will never do so and they have zero plans to do so. If you attacked them, forget the 100 billion a year for Iraq, it's going to cost you 10 trillion a year. Think you have an economy that can support that? Flying those F-35s for area denial, in a country the size of China, is not cheap. Shipping the millions of grounds forces to make land incursions in Asia, is not cheap. The point is the cost, not the technological capabilities of the US military. You can't make these decisions in a vaccuum void of all socioeconomic conditions.
The Soviets made that mistake and their economy collapsed but unlike USA, they couldn't sell any T-bills to save themselves.
^ You don't win a defensive war that way. Defensive wars period are almost doomed to failure for the defender as a rule. If you cannot counterattack and go on the offensive, it matters not if you have a billion men in uniform you'll still lose against an enemy who can.
The Chinese know this and if they want to be able to be taken seriously on the global arena and in their interests both near them and around the world, they have to be able to project power which is what they are trying to do. Remember the Chinese economy has growth numbers that are so volatile that military expenditures as percent of GDP is a poor metric to go by. If your economy doubles its GDP in 15 years (which is what China has done) the GDP figure is going to be ridiculously flawed since at that metric no change in spending as percent means no change in spending when the truth is anything but.

What about using angles? Do we have a geostrategic analogue for that?
However, I'll have you notice that an unsuccessful invasion that keeps prolonguing itself is extremely expensive and perhaps inviable, though I guess this depends on relative force?
Yeah, it's expensive, but any enemy can be brought down if the attacker is ruthless enough. To be honest the perfect military forces for an insurgency are the Russians and Chinese, they don't play with the kid gloves.
Given, the Russians have their problems with Chechnya, but both sides are fighting to the death in that instance.