Some practical effects of our military unilateral disarmament

Some practical effects of our military unilateral disarmament

1)       Sustainability.  One obvious example is an aircraft carrier in some theater of operations, like the Persian Gulf area.  If the USA has one carrier (and air wing) there, there has been in the past an on-call “surge” carrier available to deploy there if need be, and one carrier in for repair, maintenance, or people replacement and training.  Anything less is not desirable for flexibility reasons and people reasons, and will limit any commander’s ability to respond for a sustained period.

2)      People.  The USA has had an all volunteer military going on for four decades. Now to rapidly “man up” some form of a previous military draft will probably have to occur, with obvious negative consequences.  Present leaders will have to add these consequences to their list of things to deal with.  And even this “manning up” will take time, like years. Drafts mean our female descendants are probably vulnerable, too.

3)      Marriages.  Most families (most of our military is now married) will probably work for one extended fighting deployment (like 12 months vice the present lesser times). The extra pay will surely help. But routine extended deployments as in WWII are a new subject that we have not tried in over seven decades. One can and should worry about the consequences.

4)      Future leaders all.  They (and even some of the present leaders) will have less options available to consider and use.

5)      Death. Less training (or quick training) often means more deaths as people learn “the hard way”. Less combat hardened and tested equipment often means extra and unnecessary death, too.

6)      Professionalism.  Amateurs and politicians with no military experience in charge are not a good thing for military power, both at home and deployed.  If you live and work overseas, keep your wits about you!  These present leaders who use lying, and quoting to each other seemingly impressive numbers (we do not know what we do not know), and reacting vice acting, are obvious examples.

7)      A guess. Let’s face it. More people are now probably going to have to die as a result of unilateral disarmament.  Or we can just surrender to present regional powers like China and Iran using diplomacy in order to  extract the best surrender we can get.

And then there is the Classical Debate about air bases and air power. Has anyone read about where our actual bombers are based and fly in and out of? I have not. The obvious example is that aircraft carriers are sovereign USA soil, while more traditional land air bases like in Qatar or Turkey are located on foreign soil, and each has its own restrictions for use by the USA.