US Army Expects Major War Within 5 Years
 

Let's just hope it's not in Europe....

U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely Within Five Years

A bit of sabre-rattling might perhaps divert attention from the fact that the Army of the oo-ess-ay cannot manage their allocated budget?

But if that lunatic Trump is elected as Mr Pres., all bets are off.

If Trump is looney, what would that make George Bush, who was convinced he saw terrible things like WMDs and managed to infect another imbecile, whom everyone had every reason to believe was nothing but quite harmless, with his delusions. Not that I am any kind of a shrink, but could it possibly be termed paranoid schizophrenia.

I love the film " Dr. Strangelove".

BEagle, the Army are indeed managing the allocated budget as they usually do, and as usual they have to provide reports to service secretaries on what expected readiness shortfalls are.


This happens every year, in times of good funding and bad.


I am not sure if you are familiar with Integrated Priority Lists, and "approved but zero funded" programs and procurement. I got very familiar with those things back in the 90's as funding went down but the OpTempo went up.


It's an old story. So, choices have to be made, which means some choices can't be made. Some of those choices reflect in changes to weapons system upgrades or acquisition. (For example, a few years ago the OH-50D was chosen for elimination top to bottom, which cut short an upgrade program). Who is concerned about this? Business. People who sell things.


Please pay attention to the disclaimer at the end of page 2 of Mr Thompson's piece. (Several of the Army’s equipment suppliers are contributors to my think tank and/or consulting clients.) Remember, this article was written for Forbes, which caters to business. Who is his audience for that piece? People who make money selling stuff to the Army.

LW, I don't think BEags was that far off from you. If the threat played up then you might get a budget uplift. As I said before the F15 procurement was based on the Backfire threat to CONUS. As the F15 entered service it happened that the Backfire threat was amended. I don't know if that was just happenstance or Machevallian.

Jade Helm
 

Hmm remember the joint services ex called Jade Helm which had started in October 15 and took over 6 months with no signs of Endex. - Back in March an American ex pat (father of friends of friends ) one night downtown was telling me about this.

He said it caused a lot of the populace in the south west states to be paranoid from CA to TX as everyone from active to National Guard, to Homeland Security mobilising like someone was going to march on the shores of Malibu beach or Imperial Beach!

cheers

Given all the crap going on in the South China Sea, NK, the Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere, I'd be hesitant to dismiss this as as a budget ploy.

As we no longer have the Strategic Assets to fight two Wars at a time due to Budget Cuts and the wear and tear of Fifteen Years of War....we best pray we don't have any kind of a War at all.

So it'll be wooden staves and shields at dawn, will it? Ah well, there's always those nukes as a backup if the USA looks like losing. :) (staves = plural of staff)

I would think the U.S. military is certainly considering the very high likelihood of a serious Korean stoush in the offing.

Bet the Yung Fat Wun will be rubbing his hands with glee when he hears of this.

Endex was September 15th, as scheduled, two months after the exercise began: Stars and Stripes: Remember Jade Helm 15, the controversial military exercise? It's over

Are all of his tunnels finished?

Lets just hope they're wrong... :(

Stave as in a vertical plank? I guess those, with Shields are purely defensive. You really need pikes, that'll hold 'em off.

I'm no strategic analyst - but I do get a whiff of BS about that.
Sounds more to me like the time-honoured ploy to get the great unwashed to do what they're bid.
Even relatively recent history tells us that.

Have a look at it..
North Korea is a joke.
China is not yet ready to do anything - it's just playing a game bullying its smaller neighbours to see what it can get away with.
If seriously confronted, it will pull its head in.
Vlad is not that stupid either - I hope.
.

How sane is the NK Leadership and how obedient is the NK Military?

Annexing Crimea by force and a proxy war in the Ukraine doesn't register on your stupidity meter?

Crimea?
Well, he seems to have gotten away with it.

Agreed. This will embolden him moving forward. No military repercussions for that, no military opposition beside local pushback for the rest of what he's doing in the Ukraine, questions about whether title 5 would really apply if Poland is next in the crosshairs.

The elements of a large war are in place and simmering.

LW50, You would have to ask John Hill that.