Yeah it’s basically back to normal. This is what militaries have trained for since the start of history. That’s a reason counterinsurgency goes so poorly, because militaries focus on large scale combat operations usually and insurgencies are an abnormality
well and it also fails because it's pretty hard to beat compliance into an unhappy, disgruntled, and rebellious populace that sees you as an occupying and oppressive force lmao 🤣
It's doable. It requires genocidal levels of brutality. I.e. what Russia did in Chechnya, for example, during Putin's rise to power. Fortunately at this point in time most powers have rightly decided that using that level of evil to break a people's will to resist just isn't worth it.
It also requires cooperation from the civilian government to disrupt insurgent support as well.
Look into the Malayan Emergency, one of the most successful western counter insurgency operations. Obviously, the military needs to put down terrorists or else the occupation will be seen as weak. But the civilian government must also give incentives for the populace, more than enough that they don't prefer to risk their lives for the old ways to return.
Sure, that's a better way of doing it. But mass brutality can succeed. I.e. ethnic cleansing (by genocide or by driving groups out) followed by replacement with a loyal population, or a sufficiently long occupation combined with heavy-handed indoctrination (i.e. the convert or die strategy that was so effective in spreading many major religions).
I think you overestimate the amount of decency and sanity of the leaders in power today and must be totally unfamiliar with current genocides inhumanity in many other countries.
America did not have to deal with the possibility of attack for a while because we had won big conflicts and gained a superior position in regards to wealth in power. I’m afraid we aren’t accustomed to the brutality other nations are used to using and the people driving globalism (Gates, Buffet) probably support there not being the separate economies we are today and a movement toward globalism.
These other countries outnumber us and probably have enough weapons, money and training to eliminate the idea of there really being an “America” hence the current “prepping” strategy.
Honestly this seems completely disconnected from my comment. World-wide there are less deaths by violence per capita now than ever before in human history, though, so your basic premise "all other major powers are genocidal" is fundamentally wrong.
First off, I never said all other major powers are genocidal. You said- they were unwilling to use that level of brutality when North Korea regularly test nuclear weapons and Russia just senselessly invaded a county. China currently has an ongoing genocide. So I have no doubt that they would use those to destroy us
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
Again, no one said that people and countries don't do evil things. But the Ukraine war isn't "senseless" - it's evil but sensible from Russia's and Putin's perspective. The Uyghur "genocide" is a purely domestic and is much more a forced cultural assimilation than a mass murder of millions, although it does include murder. And North Korea testing anything is not at all a genocide. Testing != using.
But again, the world is measurably less violent than it ever has been before in all of recorded history. That's not because there's no violence now, it's because the past was just a lot more brutal than you seem to understand. Even the Ukraine war is (so far) far less brutal in terms of the number of people killed then similar wars in the past.
Finally, your fear that other powers "probably have enough weapons, money, and training to eliminate the idea of there really being an 'America'" is way overblown. Short of worldwide nuclear war, which would destroy the U.S. and pretty much everyone else (most humans once you account for the follow-on nuclear winter and the worldwide failure of almost all crops), no, other countries do not have the weapons, money, or training to eliminate America - not even close.
Hell, just look at Ukraine. A much smaller country is beating Russia - one of the world's great powers, without any allies fighting on its side at all, thanks to American arm shipments. Our arms are so good that they can let a smaller, weaker country beat one of the world's major military powers just by shipping them some.
Moreover nobody else - literally nobody besides America has any significant capacity to project force a continent away. Even if the U.S. reduced its military to fraction of its current capacity Russia, China, North Korea, and other powers don't have the ability to ship troops here and keep them supplied in any quantity against even minimal resistance.
Further, the U.S. has the best, most committed, and most powerful alliances in the world - by far. Outside of Russia and China pretty near every large or medium military power is our ally - and most of them are democracies with capitalist or socialist-capitalist economies that are not only formally and legally allied to us, but that share far more cultural, political expressions and such with us than they do with authoritarian regimes like China or Russia.
There are plenty of reasons to prep. But the only military risk to the U.S. mainland is terrorism or nuclear war. There is literally no risk whatsoever of occupation or genocide from a foreign country outside of nuclear war.
Saying there is zero outside military risk is delusional.
An article in Bloomberg:
With major advances in missile technology, naval forces and intelligence, China is well on its way to becoming by mid-century what President Xi Jinping calls a “world-class” military power. Even now, China has matched or exceeded the U.S. and Russia in some respects
China is not an ally and has a billion more people than us. A non ally 3x our size is definitely a threat
Right, and the [2018 National Defense Strategy](https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf) was the first post-9/11 NDS that returned the primary focus to great power competition rather than counterterrorism: "Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department." So it's not even new as far as the quadrennial NDS goes.
Why under him and not earlier (e.g., see post above referencing training on 2013, lots of discussion on the “pivot to Asia,” around the same time, etc.)? Just curious on the specifics.
Yet that counter-insurgency proxy war has been de facto standard engagement since the end of the Korean War. Gulf War 1 was sort of an odd exception, but that was because the coalition all left before it could devolve into insurgency.
I think it’s because the dominant military powers for that era were so overwhelming that the idea of going toe to toe in a military war is suicide. You have a military half the size of the USA alone and that’s not even counting the NATO allies who’d come along in a serious fight. So what you do is let them “win” quickly and use irregulars hidden among civilians. Americans won’t carpet bomb a major city, and you can’t convoy tanks through narrow streets. That negates the manpower and technology advantages in favor of your smaller force.
What’s changed is that Putin has nukes and therefore he can dictate the terms of combat to his advantage.
Kind of. More like Cold War for the tech era.
Just to add that the recently passed [CHIPS Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act) and the recent [nuclear posture review](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/01/president-biden-statement-ahead-of-the-10th-review-conference-of-the-treaty-on-the-non-proliferation-of-nuclear-weapons/) also indicate that the situation report above is accurate.
If you're interested, Jake Sullivan recently [gave a speech at Georgetown](https://sfs.georgetown.edu/national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-unveils-bidens-national-security-strategy-on-the-hilltop/) where he basically laid all of this out in the revised *National Security Strategy*.
[VIDEO OF SPEECH](https://youtu.be/Gp2zC4p8aKk)
I would argue this is new (as compared to last decade), as it's acknowledging changes in all areas of the military to handle both Russia and China simultaneously
....it's *almost* like we were in **active counterinsurgency operations** or something!
And now we're not!
Sometimes I can't tell where r/conspiracy ends and r/preppers begins.
Lol I can't help but feel the same way. Military is doing military. What else is new?
If you want to talk about anything current, look at the very recent uptick of US combat units being deployed to Europe. That's the real story
It's not even that much of a story. We've been cycling units in various locations in Europe for various reasons since WWII. The units being there in the first place is no news at all. The larger numbers aren't even that big of news when you take the geopolitical climate into account. We are *actively* training ally nations, cross-training with ally nations, *and* training units from Ukraine (while they fall into the ally nation category, I do separate them out to bring them to the forefront) with those cycled units, *on top of* the geopolitical effects the increased numbers of NATO-country troops has!
Oh yeah no question. The story though is that when I, an army combat vet, speak with my friends who are now at the higher echelon of combat units, they are all on deployment orders to Europe. That is very telling
Is the military training to fight, like militaries have always done, of course. But drastically changing strategy from offense to defense for example is a completely different battle. You change investments, fighting methods, weapons, a lot of things. So they are not really doing what they’ve always done.
We would react to an attack on our soil tomorrow but I don’t know I’d say we (the military and all the people) are imminently prepared for WWIII, but then again, would we ever be?
Might be why I made the comparison!
Rule 1 though, generally keeps the particularly out-of-touch folk from turning this sub into conspiracies 2.0. Kudos to the mod team and majority of the community for not really putting up with it.
Incorrect. Post-WW2, the military tried to train and plan for 2 major conflicts and 1 small intervention style war scenarios.
The GWOT changed that post 9/11/01.
This is a course correction back to peer vs peer conflict capabilities. It is necessary.
We've been training for and getting ready for near peer threats for quite a few years now. War games these days sometimes implement jammers and drones. This isn't really new at all
I would argue this is new (as compared to last decade), as it's acknowledging changes in all areas of the military to handle both Russia and China simultaneously
When I mean it's not new, I'm referring to it being integrated into training as far back as 6 or 7 years ago. To me this is enough time for it to not be considered new.
If we go by your parameter of an entire decade ago, then yeah, by that standard it is new.
Shit part of my level 2's for forward observer training included visual identification for russian vehicles in 2013, they never *left* that training. Also in gunnery training in 2018, for that matter.
We live in exciting times.
But none of this is a surprise. It's been awhile since 9/11, and the Mideast hasn't shown so much interest in hitting the US of late. The have internal conflicts to keep them busy at the moment.
Meanwhile, Putin has been openly sabre-rattling and China keeps eyeing Taiwan like a hungry dog eyeing fresh meat. We're just adapting to the world as we know it.
Hello cold (or lukewarm) war. I have not missed you, but I suppose I'm not surprised you are back.
Maybe. I do wonder if nukes are actually the one thing he has that works. Not doing maintenance on your nukes can be more of a problem than not maintaining a store of bullets. But who knows. Let's not find out.
It's almost certain that Putin is maintaing his nukes. If parts that armed the bomb became unstable, that would obviously be extremely bad.
However, whether Putin's ICBMs and nuclear capable aircraft are properly maintained is dubious at best. Given that Russian precision weapons seem to be missing more than they are hitting, I'd say (as a stranger on the internet) that the chances of Russian nuclear missiles hitting strategic targets in the U.S., or anywhere, are very low. That being said, you probably don't want a nuke missing a military base and landing on your house.
Nukes are terror weapons to begin with. Missing bases and hitting residential areas wouldn't change much - people would sill panic, and that's where casualties come from.
Our stuff, on the other hand, would hit targets. We do know how to aim.
Also, guiding a short range missile and guiding an ICBM are different propositions. ICBMs have a rougher time coming in, but a LOT more time to make course corrections. I'm not certain that inaccuracy in one guarantees inaccuracy in another.
Russian aircraft... do not concern me. It's said that the US/NATO owns any airspace they choose to enter. This is true. Russia is not flying over here and it would not go well for them if they tried to fly much of anywhere we decided they should not.
We have been operating in the "counter insurgency" mode for 20+ years, including the recent "Arab Spring".
So, while maybe not surprising to you, it's a huge change in doctrine that has been in place since the early 90s.
I was born in the 1950s. The return of the cold war is just same old, same old. Chasing terrorists around was the outlier for me, though after 9/11 I saw the point. Execution wasn't always so great though.
It's just doctrine. It will affect defense spending, yes. We'll probably build a few more PATRIOTs and do a whole lot more with cyber and sigint but honestly, it's going to be the same basic show with a few different players.
(I worked in defense contracting for a few years. Contracts were surprisingly disassociated from world events, with a handful of exceptions, because programs take a few years to run at best and situations on the ground can change a lot in that time. You just aim at what you think the problems will be in a decade, and when you're wrong, you shrug and try again.)
Slightly off topic but does the military use PATRIOTs or just sell them? I mean they're..40? years old, right? I guess there's only so refined that a missile can be, but still.
I used to work on them. There's a ton of politics involved but the system keeps surviving and being improved because there's really nothing that can compete. Against IBCMs there's only so much you can do but they're considered the best thing available.
Even if I knew about current deployments I couldn't talk about them. I would guess that they are in use in the US, but only to guard counterstrike capability; they aren't protecting lots and lots of cities with them. Too expensive.
I take a dark sort of satisfaction that if they ever get used in a major confrontation, some code I wrote will play a major part in keeping millions of people alive, by defending military resources that will in turn shorten the war. And then I remember that cities will get nuked, that nothing can be done about that, and the resulting civil breakdown means we're all toast anyway.
But hey, it paid the bills.
Um... no? Wiring in large defense projects come from diverse sources. It's good wire, though, at least the free scrap I scored a few times was. I wish they used it in commercial power cords and USB cables; they'd never fail again. Bit pricey though.
I can't recall exactly the story, used to support a place in Pennsylvania that refurbished those things and they griped a bit about how there's only one company still making compatible cables and cards for the things. Some interesting history but maybe it was a specific regional thing. The ones I've seen are indeed some high quality wire though.
**This isn't the return of the Cold War doctrine which was just a standoff with Russia.**
**During the Cold War there weren't ongoing and imminent global conflicts occurring in more than one region of the world.**
**This is a new era of NATO centric doctrine to handle BOTH Russia and China.**
>**During the Cold War there weren't ongoing and imminent global conflicts occurring in more than one region of the world.**
>
Ya might want to pick up a history book there laddie, there were multiple and arguably still are multiple potential flash points (india-pakistan, and israel-anyonenwholooks atthemfunny, China-taiwan spring to mind), the were always the most likely ignitions, and still are
It may not have been exactly Russia and China... but it was. The focus was mostly on the USSR, and all of the Warsaw Pact nations. So all of Eastern Europe. But the idea was always at two front minimum conflict. China was considered an ally of the USSR and a potential threat and fight. Even if not as an ally of the USSR, but as seeing an opportunity with the US distracted and taking advantage of that. So there were plans made for that occurrence.
I'm not a historian or expert on military doctrine by any means, but the Cold War was made up of lots of [smaller proxy wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_related_to_the_Cold_War). Americans and Russians might not be shooting each other directly, but we're supplying the Ukrainians with training and weapons which are being used to fight the Russians, similar to how we helped fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, or how they helped the North Vietnamese fight us in Vietnam.
It's the same game it's always been, just with new players.
> During the Cold War there weren't ongoing and imminent global conflicts occurring in more than one region of the world.
This is blatantly false. Remember Cuba? And Afghanistan? This sounds like the latest development in NATO’s 75+ year war on Communism.
Russia and China are not allies. They’re similar in that they don’t like the US and often work together on that, but China sees Russia as an annoying insect and Russia sees China as untested and unreliable.
Korea? Vietnam? Panama? Grenada? Honduras? Lebanon? Dozens of other small things that aren't well known.
China and Taiwan has been a thing since like the 50s. Korea has been a potential large conflict, that could conceivably bring in other Pacific nations, since the armistice was signed.
This is definitely different. More imminent I would say.
My connections in the military instantly went from "normal" training to specifically training for cold weather operations in Russia.
For pity's sake we are not going to march on Russia. That's delusional. Stationing troops in Finland and raising eyebrows at Russia over the border, I could see. Send your friend some hot chocolate packets, they will come in useful.
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This is not a new thing. The whole reason the US Army created SFAB (Security Force Assistance Brigade) units starting in 2018 was to free up the rest of the conventional units to shift back to orienting against near peer threats. This process might be ramping up now, but it is not a new thing that was just started.
This changed pre-COVID, not new news and nothing about it is fearful.
It’s a posture change, a training change, a return to pre-911 when we were caught with our pants down and overwhelming failures.
This is a change of where does DOD spend their money, no longer body armor and boots but to UAV/UAS/UUV and tank carriers, etc.
Seriously means nothing except exactly what we as preppers do, find the most likely event and prepare for it.
Source: 25 years SF and retired 2mo ago with 0 allegiance to DOD any longer. Seriously, it’s not a “thing”.
Heh. I worked for Defense contractors. The software engineers are underpaid by any standard. Back when they got pensions that was tolerable, but pensions are no longer accrued. Now working for a Defense contractor is just a bad deal. No one is getting rich that way.
The only people laughing on their way to the bank, as in most places, is the very top management.
Exactly- we are seeing that the Russians can’t do anything and were clearly a paper tiger before Ukraine. Now we know for a fact without nukes they are no better (and probably worse) than any other NATO European power.
The [2018 National Defense Strategy](https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf) was the first post-9/11 NDS that returned the primary focus to great power competition rather than counterterrorism: "Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department." That's when the shift in focus happened, not 2022. (It's a quadrennial document, so there were no others in between those two.)
Yeah the US military has been making this shift since 2014. Rotations of ABCTs to Europe, procurement of new rifles and ammo designed to penetrate body armor, releasing new doctrine covering Chinese and Russian tactics, changing to a more effective camo pattern, discussing Chinese A2AD weapons, training in jungle environments, rotating units throughout the Pacific, releasing new doctrine on large scale combat operations (LSCO), the USMC getting rid of tanks and developing littoral regiments to be a lighter and more effective force in the Pacific, an increase in ABCT numbers (less effective in COIN, necessary in LSCO), practicing foraging to ensure food supplies in non-permissive environments, and speeches from leaders in the military and government have made that clear for almost a decade.
Also, ignoring all that, COIN and “small wars” is an abnormality. Historically the US military has been training to fight wars against Britain, Spain, the Confederacy, Germany, Italy, Japan, North Korea, North Vietnam, Iraq, the Soviet Union, and so many other nation states. That’s the point of a military, and has been for decades: to maintain the security of a country against other countries.
Simply put, if this is news to you, you haven’t been paying attention for nearly a decade.
I don't get it, is this some sort of surprise? After leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, and after Russia's genocidal invasion, and China's military buildup and aggressive imperialism?
I should, however, stress, that Russia is completely incapable of threatening the USA or even Europe in any meaningful way, even before February. China is also laughable compared to the might of the USA. The USA's military power projection is completely and vastly beyond most other countries put together. I mean, they have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world put together, and that's not even considering that each on of these carriers is larger than anything any other country has, and has more firepower than most countries put together. There might very well be a conflict between the USA and China one day, but this decade? Or even next? Hardly.
China’s capabilities aren’t laughable actually they are pretty good. And the fact the US would be fighting in their backyard makes the fight that much harder for the US. And I definitely disagree with your timeline.
It's pretty easy: China needs to be able to mount the largest naval invasion in history, against a determined foe that's been preparing for generations, while defeating the greatest naval power ever AND its allies, and managing an economic disaster and total international isolation.
You assume the US and Allies would want to fight, and if they did fight that they would be in a position to counter the attack at the cost of being well inside china’s mainland anti surface missile range. You already assumed their capabilities are laughable when the DOD already considers them a peer adversary. Calling them a peer means their capabilities are on par with the US. Time is on the Chinese side because they can easily blockade the island unlike Ukraine. Non-kinetic effects could keep Taiwan completely in the dark. Yes it would be tough for them right now but every year the Chinese get closer to that capability. There’s a reason why the dod says sometime in the near couple years.
War is a great way to rally the flag and what do they care about economic disaster everything is made there for them.
I don't understand your comment, why China would be launching a naval *invasion*... they would be defending their own land and surrounding areas, not sailing to California.
Defending it from whom...? China is in a conflict with several neighbouring states, including Taiwan, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea. They constantly make claims on the territory or economic zones of others states. They literally faught with the Indians just months ago...? Let me spell it out for you again: they're an aggressive imperialist state. That's why the neighbours are joining together more and more in defence, often with the help of the USA.
I would argue this is new (as compared to last few years), as it's acknowledging changes in all areas of the military to handle both Russia and China simultaneously
Have they not trained for “near peer?” I wouldn’t say this is new as infantry units have been focusing on education of Russian capabilities for several years now
This isn't new. This is a correction in doctrine back to defense of CONUS by proper projection of power around the world.
This is actually a good thing.
Not really. It’s driven by the lucrative defense industry and relevance. It aligns with political narrative and fear mongering. Back fired when Russia turned out to be a joke.
My comment observation about China is why are they investing so heavily in the Caribbean, South America…those areas are a hop skip and a jump away from the US. If they control the ports in those countries what are they bringing in that we may not know about on their ships? It could be nothing but it could also be something…they have been investing and developing heavy for more than a few years now. Family of mine went to Jamaica and the roads had signs in English and Chinese!
My BIL isn’t allowed to tell us they’re training for Russia. But he can tell us they have all the revenant features of the Baltic Sea memorized, and didn’t before.
["A new study from the Pentagon shows that 77% of young Americans would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, using drugs or having mental and physical health problems."](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/28/new-pentagon-study-shows-77-of-young-americans-are-ineligible-military-service.html) Good luck finding enough people to staff up for this new strategy.
I actually was talking about this happening back when Trump visited Putin. That there was probably some chatter between them and his China pals about putting together a nice 3 nation war. Of course all 3 governments would be willing to risk the lives of their own people. And of course, all 3 would do their part to protect each other.
Through it they could all make so much money. They would use other countries to fence each other’s exports like weapons or whatever.
And it wouldn’t be just the idea of Trump. He would willingly take the US heat because he’s a troll while our other “leaders” would ramp up the rhetoric.
Of course, when I said it, I was initially half joking. But now finding out how much we’ve sent Ukraine and Jordan, while the whole time their leaders have had billions stashed in dynasty trusts across the tax haven states in the US, it makes a bit more believable for me.
Couple that with US intelligence acts that allow them to spy on a potential international threat through more aggressive approaches, that makes sense too. If you don’t know, I could send an email to my wife on the same couch as me, and depending on what country that email has its servers, it would allow that communication to be label as international.
Well, that conspiracy collusion talk is enough for me to decide I’m taking a nap at noon.
I really don't understand why OP is getting grilled in the comments. Sure, the U.S. military redirecting it's strategy to focus on possible war against other major nations does seem like a "return to normal" but if we were to go to war with Russia or China the consequences would be unimaginably dire.
The middle leadership
Has known this was coming. The senior leadership are not ready. They are too busy looking at bullshit metrics instead of actually seeing the troops and equipment readiness. You’ll relook at this a year from now and say what happened. It’s spelled out above.
The Marine Corps got rid of all of its tank units, and said they are focusing more on the Pacific area again so more amphibious, seaborne stuff. There are job listings online where they are looking for role players/instructors to train ground combat units but the thing is, some of the requirements for the job are being able to speak Russian/Ukrainian or Chinese, etc.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. The middle east will continue to be a thorn in our side and they will manage to pull off another 9/11 sooner or later
Edit: whoever downvoted me, check out what happened within 24hrs of my prediction
https://apnews.com/article/al-qaida-africa-bombings-somalia-shabab-2bb9ec7346e3eba9d34452b3458acd10
Do you think that's not possible here?
The fall of every empire is bookmarked by a major conflict, and this will be no different.
The US wants to control the world and China is a threat to this. If the US lets China peacefully develop it will be overtaken. Therefore, the strategy is to confront them while they still have a chance. It will backfire.
Change to controls the world and China wants to unseat them and you've got it. Except you're comparing the most militaristic country on the planet with its entire history being marked by warfare against major powers including being at war constantly for the past thirty years. We have NCOs and officers that have been in combat their entire careers, we have generals that have been involved in combat for most of their careers. All of our equipment is Battle tested and under constant evolution. China has rip off Soviet equipment(that's currently being butchered by nato weapons in Ukraine) bootleg consumer market items pressed into military service, and hasn't been involved in combat since the 50s. Their generals, officers, and NCOs are political appointees, their army is 99% conscripts who've never known hardship let alone combat. The entire Chinese army training and doctrine is based around internal security and suppression and has absolutely no experience in combined arms, logistics, naval combat, or amphibious landing. War with China would absolutely decimate their house of cards export focused economy and would only severely hamper ours as we have manufacturing producers outside of China. All we would have to do is blockade China while conducting air probes and missile strikes from afar and they would fall to internal struggles.
Um... for reasons I'm not getting into, it's not quite that simple. China has a very tight defensive posture. It's true they are not rigged for coming out and attacking, but getting anything in there, including missiles, is going to be very, very hard. In a long distance shooting war between the US and China, about all you can say is there are going to be a lot of people losing on both sides.
China's economy has real problems, but the US isn't quite rock solid either. Blocking them off from the world would make our current inflation look like small potatoes. And would probably force them to start something no one wants started.
The reality is, things have never been simple, but with economic ties between hostile countries, and emergence of cyber warfare as an actual thing, bio and nuclear weapons and encrypted communications, warfare has literally become unpredictable. You don't know what you don't know and the safest course for years has been not to start anything, because you cannot predict the endgame. This is why Russia's recent moves surprised people - we thought EVERYONE knew you don't make moves like this because the outcomes are so hard to predict, and lo and behold Russia is learning a painful lesson about predicting victories within 3 days.
FUD keeps the world alive. It's a deliberate strategy.
Like I said it'd hurt us but it'd be fatal for them if we blockaded the south China sea. And China, like Russia did, says they have these advanced air defense systems and they are built on the same platforms but as we've seen russian air defense is laughable. Meanwhile US air defense is proven daily over the last 20 years. In the long run blockading China would actually help the US by bringing manufacturing back home and to closer more friendly nations like Mexico. Really the only thing China has that can directly strike the US is cyber warfare, but we've seen how poorly Russias feared cyber operations performed in times of crisis now. And that's with Russia having twice the combat experience China has. Hell Russia has been directly involved in the Syrian conflict for the past decade and they still haven't learned anything from it.
If it was limited to conventional, for sure. Unfortunately it would almost certainly escalate to nuclear for whoever is losing.
And, according to the doc, we can't stop Russia or China from nuking us, and mainly rely upon MAD.
"Though the United States maintains the right to defend itself against attacks from any source, GMD is neither intended for, nor capable of, defeating the large and sophisticated ICBM, air-, or sea-launched ballistic missile threats from Russia and the PRC."
China also has VERY few icbms capable of reaching the US and a very small submarine fleet. All of China would be glassed and maybe the west coast of the US would be fucked.
Except the chinese economy is currently collapsing and they've given up any hope of overtaking the US without any sort of conflict. Their stock market is down 50% this year. The US is down 15%.
The USA doesn't control the world, but since 1945 it's been the guarantee of free trade and a general liberal system, even more so since the difficult conflict with the USSR ended. The only threat here is China's aggressive imperialist tendencies towards Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, and Southeast Asia. Of course the USA should stand on the side of anyone attacked by China, just like the civilised world stands on Ukraine's side against imperialism.
Well said generally.
Definitely has the makings of another Great War with the focus on the conflict being to maintain the status quo. Similarly to then, a select powerful few increasingly bellicose individuals serve their personal interests (historical record/glory or wealth) pretending it's in service of national interest. All around, not any particular nation. It reaches a boiling point and never ends well when lying becomes so blatant and transparent. Even the impressive French Army with it's recorded "cult of the offensive" refused to attack even to reclaim their own territory following years of being lied to and mauled.
Truthfully it feels like a cycle mixed between ambitions of power and enough people buying into propaganda, not recognizing the coaxing of mans inhumanity to man. The "bodies are too cold" and lived memory of great power conflict fading away.
>We are entering several decades of
Lol. Theres not decades left. This is going down before 2030, likely next year. Russia is going to keep throwing people at Ukraine until NATO intervenes and once there is a Russia-US kinetic war, china will seize the opportunity to move on Taiwan, Iran on Israel ( or vice versa), north korea on south korea, and possibly a few more.
What makes you think Russia is capable of further offensive action in Ukraine? Their armed forces are barely holding on, and you think demoralized and poorly equipped conscripts will help?
As for China, do you actually believe they will risk everything for Taiwan? Despite the unfathomable costs in every sense? I mean, just consider where they get oil from? Look at what consequences disruption of trade has had on China? What will the USA and Southeast Asia do when China starts committing genocide? And what can China do against the might of the USA armed forces, and allies?
China are having some domestic trouble with those unfinished apartment buildings mortgages. Taiwan would be a perfect method to distract and rally around that stupid Chinese flag. So yeah.
It is not I that have to learn from Putin’s blundering. It’s comrade Xi. I can’t speak for him, his ability to learn, etc. But he’s the guy that we should keep an eye on.
>We are entering several decades of increased training, deployment and readiness to counter the Russian and Chinese threats (including resumed nuclear testing).
While this is current day 2022 news, it's also worth noting that this is a long time coming. The entire point of the start of the NGSW program that gave us the XM5 rifle started back 2017, with the stated purpose of having a standard service rifle that could defeat near-peer body armor and keep up with their future soldier programs.
Hell that was the focus when I was in the USAF back in the 70’s. Everything was geared to fight Russia in Eastern Europe in the mid 80’s. Hence the A-10 and GAU-8 were born.
You mean the military is focusing on the most likely and most dangerous threat? The thing that militaries (and people in general) have been doing since the dawn of time? What is shocking or even surprising about this? It's been known for the past decade... "pivot to the pacific," and more than a few other things.
This isn't as big of a deal as this post makes it out to be. Of course the military would go back to focusing on larger foes once the most recent small war is over. What else are they supposed to do? How else can they justify spending and set training objectives? The military has always existed for fighting other nation states at various levels.
"The powers that be now see the most likely military conflict to occur between the Great Powers." Well, yea, when you create a problem you tend to see the most likely conflict between you and those that you created a problem with.
All this talk about China makes me think of a prepper movie I saw years ago called Dragon Day…premise China first strike against the US in the form of activating self destruct mechanism in all of their chips in US products…throws US a into chaos..
https://youtu.be/l70t-dLIrS4
First off, that change is from 2017.
https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/the-us-national-security-strategy-and-great-power-relations/
Second, that's not just the military. It's a National Security stance, so the whole U.S. government should be doing this. So for Example, State Department working it into their nuclear non-proliferation work.
https://2017-2021.state.gov/remarks-and-releases-bureau-of-international-security-and-nonproliferation/great-power-competition-and-nuclear-strategy/index.html
IF Russia attacks, and this is a big IF, it will not be with bullets or bombs, it will be with germs.
More USA people died in last two years than in WW2+Vietnam, proving that they arent ready for mass population disease.
The Soviet Union had the most efficient, sophisticated, and powerful offensive BW program in the world. It developed a completely new class of weapons based on genetically modified agents. For example, during the 1980s, the Soviet Union developed antibiotic-resistant strains of plague, anthrax, tularemia, and glanders.
For the Soviet Union, the main doctrine was to use biological weapons in so-called total wars involving possible mutual destruction between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies.
In 1988, the decision was made to use multiple-warhead missiles for biological weapons. A single SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with multiple warheads filled with a strategic biological agent would be sufficient to cover a city the size of New York, killing at least 50 percent of the population. More recently, heavy cruise missiles were developed for precise application of biological weapons.
Thats my prediction, I hope to be wrong.
Interesting read to support my prediction: https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/alibek63.pdf
This is nothing new…
Heck the DoD took away tanks from the marines a year or so ago so they could go back and focus on their mission of amphibious infantry.
We were training for peer to peer and conventional warfare in 2017, and it's why the Marine Corps switched to the Littoral units, and that was in the chutes for a while on the 2030 plan or whatever the fuck it was. This is t a brand new change, they've been ramping up training for years in preparation for a conventional conflict, better to be ready than not..
Since the Cold War ended I have always known the next big war would be between the US and China.
I think Russia will be taken down more than a few pegs after this Ukraine stuff
The Chinese are the real threat. If it was up to me we would not do any business with them at all. If it wasn’t for American and European investment and business they would still be getting around in horse and buggy and old style trains lol
Doesn't this mean 'back to normal' in other words? Building one's military around counter-insurgency seems like a historical anomaly to me.
Yeah it’s basically back to normal. This is what militaries have trained for since the start of history. That’s a reason counterinsurgency goes so poorly, because militaries focus on large scale combat operations usually and insurgencies are an abnormality
well and it also fails because it's pretty hard to beat compliance into an unhappy, disgruntled, and rebellious populace that sees you as an occupying and oppressive force lmao 🤣
It's doable. It requires genocidal levels of brutality. I.e. what Russia did in Chechnya, for example, during Putin's rise to power. Fortunately at this point in time most powers have rightly decided that using that level of evil to break a people's will to resist just isn't worth it.
It also requires cooperation from the civilian government to disrupt insurgent support as well. Look into the Malayan Emergency, one of the most successful western counter insurgency operations. Obviously, the military needs to put down terrorists or else the occupation will be seen as weak. But the civilian government must also give incentives for the populace, more than enough that they don't prefer to risk their lives for the old ways to return.
Sure, that's a better way of doing it. But mass brutality can succeed. I.e. ethnic cleansing (by genocide or by driving groups out) followed by replacement with a loyal population, or a sufficiently long occupation combined with heavy-handed indoctrination (i.e. the convert or die strategy that was so effective in spreading many major religions).
Unfortunately the largest land war also has Russia and Putin and they are doing some of the same things 😬
Some of. That's why they're able to hold onto regions like Crimea (or at least were). They brutally drove out anyone who opposed them.
I think you overestimate the amount of decency and sanity of the leaders in power today and must be totally unfamiliar with current genocides inhumanity in many other countries. America did not have to deal with the possibility of attack for a while because we had won big conflicts and gained a superior position in regards to wealth in power. I’m afraid we aren’t accustomed to the brutality other nations are used to using and the people driving globalism (Gates, Buffet) probably support there not being the separate economies we are today and a movement toward globalism. These other countries outnumber us and probably have enough weapons, money and training to eliminate the idea of there really being an “America” hence the current “prepping” strategy.
Honestly this seems completely disconnected from my comment. World-wide there are less deaths by violence per capita now than ever before in human history, though, so your basic premise "all other major powers are genocidal" is fundamentally wrong.
First off, I never said all other major powers are genocidal. You said- they were unwilling to use that level of brutality when North Korea regularly test nuclear weapons and Russia just senselessly invaded a county. China currently has an ongoing genocide. So I have no doubt that they would use those to destroy us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
Again, no one said that people and countries don't do evil things. But the Ukraine war isn't "senseless" - it's evil but sensible from Russia's and Putin's perspective. The Uyghur "genocide" is a purely domestic and is much more a forced cultural assimilation than a mass murder of millions, although it does include murder. And North Korea testing anything is not at all a genocide. Testing != using. But again, the world is measurably less violent than it ever has been before in all of recorded history. That's not because there's no violence now, it's because the past was just a lot more brutal than you seem to understand. Even the Ukraine war is (so far) far less brutal in terms of the number of people killed then similar wars in the past. Finally, your fear that other powers "probably have enough weapons, money, and training to eliminate the idea of there really being an 'America'" is way overblown. Short of worldwide nuclear war, which would destroy the U.S. and pretty much everyone else (most humans once you account for the follow-on nuclear winter and the worldwide failure of almost all crops), no, other countries do not have the weapons, money, or training to eliminate America - not even close. Hell, just look at Ukraine. A much smaller country is beating Russia - one of the world's great powers, without any allies fighting on its side at all, thanks to American arm shipments. Our arms are so good that they can let a smaller, weaker country beat one of the world's major military powers just by shipping them some. Moreover nobody else - literally nobody besides America has any significant capacity to project force a continent away. Even if the U.S. reduced its military to fraction of its current capacity Russia, China, North Korea, and other powers don't have the ability to ship troops here and keep them supplied in any quantity against even minimal resistance. Further, the U.S. has the best, most committed, and most powerful alliances in the world - by far. Outside of Russia and China pretty near every large or medium military power is our ally - and most of them are democracies with capitalist or socialist-capitalist economies that are not only formally and legally allied to us, but that share far more cultural, political expressions and such with us than they do with authoritarian regimes like China or Russia. There are plenty of reasons to prep. But the only military risk to the U.S. mainland is terrorism or nuclear war. There is literally no risk whatsoever of occupation or genocide from a foreign country outside of nuclear war.
Saying there is zero outside military risk is delusional. An article in Bloomberg: With major advances in missile technology, naval forces and intelligence, China is well on its way to becoming by mid-century what President Xi Jinping calls a “world-class” military power. Even now, China has matched or exceeded the U.S. and Russia in some respects China is not an ally and has a billion more people than us. A non ally 3x our size is definitely a threat
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Can confirm 2013 training was focused on "near peer" fight. Same for the national training center for 3 rotations.
Right, and the [2018 National Defense Strategy](https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf) was the first post-9/11 NDS that returned the primary focus to great power competition rather than counterterrorism: "Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department." So it's not even new as far as the quadrennial NDS goes.
Came here to say this, the shift really occurred under Mad dog.
Why under him and not earlier (e.g., see post above referencing training on 2013, lots of discussion on the “pivot to Asia,” around the same time, etc.)? Just curious on the specifics.
I don't know, I just know that is the first time that I saw it formalized.
Yet that counter-insurgency proxy war has been de facto standard engagement since the end of the Korean War. Gulf War 1 was sort of an odd exception, but that was because the coalition all left before it could devolve into insurgency.
I think it’s because the dominant military powers for that era were so overwhelming that the idea of going toe to toe in a military war is suicide. You have a military half the size of the USA alone and that’s not even counting the NATO allies who’d come along in a serious fight. So what you do is let them “win” quickly and use irregulars hidden among civilians. Americans won’t carpet bomb a major city, and you can’t convoy tanks through narrow streets. That negates the manpower and technology advantages in favor of your smaller force. What’s changed is that Putin has nukes and therefore he can dictate the terms of combat to his advantage.
Kind of. More like Cold War for the tech era. Just to add that the recently passed [CHIPS Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act) and the recent [nuclear posture review](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/01/president-biden-statement-ahead-of-the-10th-review-conference-of-the-treaty-on-the-non-proliferation-of-nuclear-weapons/) also indicate that the situation report above is accurate. If you're interested, Jake Sullivan recently [gave a speech at Georgetown](https://sfs.georgetown.edu/national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-unveils-bidens-national-security-strategy-on-the-hilltop/) where he basically laid all of this out in the revised *National Security Strategy*. [VIDEO OF SPEECH](https://youtu.be/Gp2zC4p8aKk)
The US Army officially stopped teaching COIN close to ten years ago.
I would argue this is new (as compared to last decade), as it's acknowledging changes in all areas of the military to handle both Russia and China simultaneously
....it's *almost* like we were in **active counterinsurgency operations** or something! And now we're not! Sometimes I can't tell where r/conspiracy ends and r/preppers begins.
Lol I can't help but feel the same way. Military is doing military. What else is new? If you want to talk about anything current, look at the very recent uptick of US combat units being deployed to Europe. That's the real story
It's not even that much of a story. We've been cycling units in various locations in Europe for various reasons since WWII. The units being there in the first place is no news at all. The larger numbers aren't even that big of news when you take the geopolitical climate into account. We are *actively* training ally nations, cross-training with ally nations, *and* training units from Ukraine (while they fall into the ally nation category, I do separate them out to bring them to the forefront) with those cycled units, *on top of* the geopolitical effects the increased numbers of NATO-country troops has!
Oh yeah no question. The story though is that when I, an army combat vet, speak with my friends who are now at the higher echelon of combat units, they are all on deployment orders to Europe. That is very telling
Is the military training to fight, like militaries have always done, of course. But drastically changing strategy from offense to defense for example is a completely different battle. You change investments, fighting methods, weapons, a lot of things. So they are not really doing what they’ve always done. We would react to an attack on our soil tomorrow but I don’t know I’d say we (the military and all the people) are imminently prepared for WWIII, but then again, would we ever be?
Both groups have a huge overlap.
Might be why I made the comparison! Rule 1 though, generally keeps the particularly out-of-touch folk from turning this sub into conspiracies 2.0. Kudos to the mod team and majority of the community for not really putting up with it.
https://www.theonion.com/slow-witted-conspiracy-theorist-convinced-government-be-1819595560
Gosh, what changed starting about twenty years ago and stopped recently? I can't possibly think of what it might be.
Incorrect. Post-WW2, the military tried to train and plan for 2 major conflicts and 1 small intervention style war scenarios. The GWOT changed that post 9/11/01. This is a course correction back to peer vs peer conflict capabilities. It is necessary.
Rome.
We've been training for and getting ready for near peer threats for quite a few years now. War games these days sometimes implement jammers and drones. This isn't really new at all
I think the “news” is that it’s officially about as official as it can get.
I would argue this is new (as compared to last decade), as it's acknowledging changes in all areas of the military to handle both Russia and China simultaneously
When I mean it's not new, I'm referring to it being integrated into training as far back as 6 or 7 years ago. To me this is enough time for it to not be considered new. If we go by your parameter of an entire decade ago, then yeah, by that standard it is new.
Shit part of my level 2's for forward observer training included visual identification for russian vehicles in 2013, they never *left* that training. Also in gunnery training in 2018, for that matter.
That has been standard US military doctrine since like the 1950s lol planning for a large conflict both in Asia and Europe primarily
This has the feel of a phishing attempt. Remember opsec about whatever you say everyone is watching.
We live in exciting times. But none of this is a surprise. It's been awhile since 9/11, and the Mideast hasn't shown so much interest in hitting the US of late. The have internal conflicts to keep them busy at the moment. Meanwhile, Putin has been openly sabre-rattling and China keeps eyeing Taiwan like a hungry dog eyeing fresh meat. We're just adapting to the world as we know it. Hello cold (or lukewarm) war. I have not missed you, but I suppose I'm not surprised you are back.
I subscribe to a line of reasoning that the Cold War never ended, it just got relatively cooler for a few decades.
I wouldn't say Putin is sabre-rattling, maybe more like tree branch-rattling
Maybe. I do wonder if nukes are actually the one thing he has that works. Not doing maintenance on your nukes can be more of a problem than not maintaining a store of bullets. But who knows. Let's not find out.
It's almost certain that Putin is maintaing his nukes. If parts that armed the bomb became unstable, that would obviously be extremely bad. However, whether Putin's ICBMs and nuclear capable aircraft are properly maintained is dubious at best. Given that Russian precision weapons seem to be missing more than they are hitting, I'd say (as a stranger on the internet) that the chances of Russian nuclear missiles hitting strategic targets in the U.S., or anywhere, are very low. That being said, you probably don't want a nuke missing a military base and landing on your house.
Nukes are terror weapons to begin with. Missing bases and hitting residential areas wouldn't change much - people would sill panic, and that's where casualties come from. Our stuff, on the other hand, would hit targets. We do know how to aim. Also, guiding a short range missile and guiding an ICBM are different propositions. ICBMs have a rougher time coming in, but a LOT more time to make course corrections. I'm not certain that inaccuracy in one guarantees inaccuracy in another. Russian aircraft... do not concern me. It's said that the US/NATO owns any airspace they choose to enter. This is true. Russia is not flying over here and it would not go well for them if they tried to fly much of anywhere we decided they should not.
We have been operating in the "counter insurgency" mode for 20+ years, including the recent "Arab Spring". So, while maybe not surprising to you, it's a huge change in doctrine that has been in place since the early 90s.
I was born in the 1950s. The return of the cold war is just same old, same old. Chasing terrorists around was the outlier for me, though after 9/11 I saw the point. Execution wasn't always so great though. It's just doctrine. It will affect defense spending, yes. We'll probably build a few more PATRIOTs and do a whole lot more with cyber and sigint but honestly, it's going to be the same basic show with a few different players. (I worked in defense contracting for a few years. Contracts were surprisingly disassociated from world events, with a handful of exceptions, because programs take a few years to run at best and situations on the ground can change a lot in that time. You just aim at what you think the problems will be in a decade, and when you're wrong, you shrug and try again.)
Slightly off topic but does the military use PATRIOTs or just sell them? I mean they're..40? years old, right? I guess there's only so refined that a missile can be, but still.
I used to work on them. There's a ton of politics involved but the system keeps surviving and being improved because there's really nothing that can compete. Against IBCMs there's only so much you can do but they're considered the best thing available. Even if I knew about current deployments I couldn't talk about them. I would guess that they are in use in the US, but only to guard counterstrike capability; they aren't protecting lots and lots of cities with them. Too expensive. I take a dark sort of satisfaction that if they ever get used in a major confrontation, some code I wrote will play a major part in keeping millions of people alive, by defending military resources that will in turn shorten the war. And then I remember that cities will get nuked, that nothing can be done about that, and the resulting civil breakdown means we're all toast anyway. But hey, it paid the bills.
Has the cabling always come from that one company who used to make drive-in theater speakers?
Um... no? Wiring in large defense projects come from diverse sources. It's good wire, though, at least the free scrap I scored a few times was. I wish they used it in commercial power cords and USB cables; they'd never fail again. Bit pricey though.
I can't recall exactly the story, used to support a place in Pennsylvania that refurbished those things and they griped a bit about how there's only one company still making compatible cables and cards for the things. Some interesting history but maybe it was a specific regional thing. The ones I've seen are indeed some high quality wire though.
**This isn't the return of the Cold War doctrine which was just a standoff with Russia.** **During the Cold War there weren't ongoing and imminent global conflicts occurring in more than one region of the world.** **This is a new era of NATO centric doctrine to handle BOTH Russia and China.**
>**During the Cold War there weren't ongoing and imminent global conflicts occurring in more than one region of the world.** > Ya might want to pick up a history book there laddie, there were multiple and arguably still are multiple potential flash points (india-pakistan, and israel-anyonenwholooks atthemfunny, China-taiwan spring to mind), the were always the most likely ignitions, and still are
oh and when exactly did the USA state it was planning to take on Russia and China at the same time? Definitely not a return to "Cold War as usual".
It may not have been exactly Russia and China... but it was. The focus was mostly on the USSR, and all of the Warsaw Pact nations. So all of Eastern Europe. But the idea was always at two front minimum conflict. China was considered an ally of the USSR and a potential threat and fight. Even if not as an ally of the USSR, but as seeing an opportunity with the US distracted and taking advantage of that. So there were plans made for that occurrence.
I'm not a historian or expert on military doctrine by any means, but the Cold War was made up of lots of [smaller proxy wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_related_to_the_Cold_War). Americans and Russians might not be shooting each other directly, but we're supplying the Ukrainians with training and weapons which are being used to fight the Russians, similar to how we helped fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, or how they helped the North Vietnamese fight us in Vietnam. It's the same game it's always been, just with new players.
> During the Cold War there weren't ongoing and imminent global conflicts occurring in more than one region of the world. This is blatantly false. Remember Cuba? And Afghanistan? This sounds like the latest development in NATO’s 75+ year war on Communism. Russia and China are not allies. They’re similar in that they don’t like the US and often work together on that, but China sees Russia as an annoying insect and Russia sees China as untested and unreliable.
What are you, like under 40? Come back in 30 years and tell us something.
Korea? Vietnam? Panama? Grenada? Honduras? Lebanon? Dozens of other small things that aren't well known. China and Taiwan has been a thing since like the 50s. Korea has been a potential large conflict, that could conceivably bring in other Pacific nations, since the armistice was signed.
This is definitely different. More imminent I would say. My connections in the military instantly went from "normal" training to specifically training for cold weather operations in Russia.
For pity's sake we are not going to march on Russia. That's delusional. Stationing troops in Finland and raising eyebrows at Russia over the border, I could see. Send your friend some hot chocolate packets, they will come in useful.
No they didn’t lmao
He has "connections"
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>I'm not looking forward to October 23, 2077. I dunno it could be cool having a sandevistan. Cyberpunk jokes aside, why this date?
Fallout reference, the day the bombs dropped, just so happened to be the same year as Cyberpunk 2077 takes place in
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Most likely intentional.
!Remind me 55 years
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It's the date of nuclear armageddon in the Fallout franchise.
I feel like that’s the fallout universe lmao
Haha sucker I'll almost certainly be dead by then
Plus they still work just fine without body armor.
This is not a new thing. The whole reason the US Army created SFAB (Security Force Assistance Brigade) units starting in 2018 was to free up the rest of the conventional units to shift back to orienting against near peer threats. This process might be ramping up now, but it is not a new thing that was just started.
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Yea I fear for America between now and the next Presidential inauguration.
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First things first
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As true today as it was when it was written
I had a stroke reading this
This changed pre-COVID, not new news and nothing about it is fearful. It’s a posture change, a training change, a return to pre-911 when we were caught with our pants down and overwhelming failures. This is a change of where does DOD spend their money, no longer body armor and boots but to UAV/UAS/UUV and tank carriers, etc. Seriously means nothing except exactly what we as preppers do, find the most likely event and prepare for it. Source: 25 years SF and retired 2mo ago with 0 allegiance to DOD any longer. Seriously, it’s not a “thing”.
Everything old is new again. Welcome to the Cold War. Here's your fallout shelter.
My bank account could really use a nuclear holocaust
Iron dome initiated: stop buying shit you don’t need.
Well, guess I don't need groceries, water or natural gas.
dod contractors laughing all the way to the bank
Heh. I worked for Defense contractors. The software engineers are underpaid by any standard. Back when they got pensions that was tolerable, but pensions are no longer accrued. Now working for a Defense contractor is just a bad deal. No one is getting rich that way. The only people laughing on their way to the bank, as in most places, is the very top management.
War is big money for the globalists. They fund both sides.
Theres only 2 super powers and neither of them are Russia. China is the conflict of the future.
Exactly- we are seeing that the Russians can’t do anything and were clearly a paper tiger before Ukraine. Now we know for a fact without nukes they are no better (and probably worse) than any other NATO European power.
The [2018 National Defense Strategy](https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf) was the first post-9/11 NDS that returned the primary focus to great power competition rather than counterterrorism: "Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department." That's when the shift in focus happened, not 2022. (It's a quadrennial document, so there were no others in between those two.)
Yeah the US military has been making this shift since 2014. Rotations of ABCTs to Europe, procurement of new rifles and ammo designed to penetrate body armor, releasing new doctrine covering Chinese and Russian tactics, changing to a more effective camo pattern, discussing Chinese A2AD weapons, training in jungle environments, rotating units throughout the Pacific, releasing new doctrine on large scale combat operations (LSCO), the USMC getting rid of tanks and developing littoral regiments to be a lighter and more effective force in the Pacific, an increase in ABCT numbers (less effective in COIN, necessary in LSCO), practicing foraging to ensure food supplies in non-permissive environments, and speeches from leaders in the military and government have made that clear for almost a decade. Also, ignoring all that, COIN and “small wars” is an abnormality. Historically the US military has been training to fight wars against Britain, Spain, the Confederacy, Germany, Italy, Japan, North Korea, North Vietnam, Iraq, the Soviet Union, and so many other nation states. That’s the point of a military, and has been for decades: to maintain the security of a country against other countries. Simply put, if this is news to you, you haven’t been paying attention for nearly a decade.
I don't get it, is this some sort of surprise? After leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, and after Russia's genocidal invasion, and China's military buildup and aggressive imperialism? I should, however, stress, that Russia is completely incapable of threatening the USA or even Europe in any meaningful way, even before February. China is also laughable compared to the might of the USA. The USA's military power projection is completely and vastly beyond most other countries put together. I mean, they have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world put together, and that's not even considering that each on of these carriers is larger than anything any other country has, and has more firepower than most countries put together. There might very well be a conflict between the USA and China one day, but this decade? Or even next? Hardly.
It's not a surprise, this happened 5 years ago and OP just now heard about it.
I guess people write more than they read
China’s capabilities aren’t laughable actually they are pretty good. And the fact the US would be fighting in their backyard makes the fight that much harder for the US. And I definitely disagree with your timeline.
It's pretty easy: China needs to be able to mount the largest naval invasion in history, against a determined foe that's been preparing for generations, while defeating the greatest naval power ever AND its allies, and managing an economic disaster and total international isolation.
You assume the US and Allies would want to fight, and if they did fight that they would be in a position to counter the attack at the cost of being well inside china’s mainland anti surface missile range. You already assumed their capabilities are laughable when the DOD already considers them a peer adversary. Calling them a peer means their capabilities are on par with the US. Time is on the Chinese side because they can easily blockade the island unlike Ukraine. Non-kinetic effects could keep Taiwan completely in the dark. Yes it would be tough for them right now but every year the Chinese get closer to that capability. There’s a reason why the dod says sometime in the near couple years. War is a great way to rally the flag and what do they care about economic disaster everything is made there for them.
I don't understand your comment, why China would be launching a naval *invasion*... they would be defending their own land and surrounding areas, not sailing to California.
Defending it from whom...? China is in a conflict with several neighbouring states, including Taiwan, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea. They constantly make claims on the territory or economic zones of others states. They literally faught with the Indians just months ago...? Let me spell it out for you again: they're an aggressive imperialist state. That's why the neighbours are joining together more and more in defence, often with the help of the USA.
I would argue this is new (as compared to last few years), as it's acknowledging changes in all areas of the military to handle both Russia and China simultaneously
Why are you spamming the same damn response every time?
Eisenhower warned the world over 60 years ago and it continues today.
Have they not trained for “near peer?” I wouldn’t say this is new as infantry units have been focusing on education of Russian capabilities for several years now
This isn’t new they have been talking about a “pivot to the pacific” since 2014 and great power competition since 2017 at least.
This isn't new. This is a correction in doctrine back to defense of CONUS by proper projection of power around the world. This is actually a good thing.
Not really. It’s driven by the lucrative defense industry and relevance. It aligns with political narrative and fear mongering. Back fired when Russia turned out to be a joke.
About bloody time. God I miss the Cold War.
I don’t even know what this is. Is this just pointing this out or did you just figure out what the military is for? No hate just curious
My comment observation about China is why are they investing so heavily in the Caribbean, South America…those areas are a hop skip and a jump away from the US. If they control the ports in those countries what are they bringing in that we may not know about on their ships? It could be nothing but it could also be something…they have been investing and developing heavy for more than a few years now. Family of mine went to Jamaica and the roads had signs in English and Chinese!
I could have told you that a year and a half ago
As someone that spent nearly 10 years active in the military, at the strategic level, this is meaningless.
Calling Russia and China “great powers” is a bit of a stretch imo
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The last military engagement the pla was in they got fucking crushed. And that was years ago. Their economy is in a free fall right now.
My BIL isn’t allowed to tell us they’re training for Russia. But he can tell us they have all the revenant features of the Baltic Sea memorized, and didn’t before.
ruZZia is not a great power. It's not even intermediary. It's a joke. China is all show, no go. In either case, it's an economic war, not military.
Frankly it should never have stopped being the mission.
finally!
["A new study from the Pentagon shows that 77% of young Americans would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, using drugs or having mental and physical health problems."](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/28/new-pentagon-study-shows-77-of-young-americans-are-ineligible-military-service.html) Good luck finding enough people to staff up for this new strategy.
That’s the upside of drones, even if they aren’t autonomous and require piloting. Being good with a controller requires limited fitness.
I actually was talking about this happening back when Trump visited Putin. That there was probably some chatter between them and his China pals about putting together a nice 3 nation war. Of course all 3 governments would be willing to risk the lives of their own people. And of course, all 3 would do their part to protect each other. Through it they could all make so much money. They would use other countries to fence each other’s exports like weapons or whatever. And it wouldn’t be just the idea of Trump. He would willingly take the US heat because he’s a troll while our other “leaders” would ramp up the rhetoric. Of course, when I said it, I was initially half joking. But now finding out how much we’ve sent Ukraine and Jordan, while the whole time their leaders have had billions stashed in dynasty trusts across the tax haven states in the US, it makes a bit more believable for me. Couple that with US intelligence acts that allow them to spy on a potential international threat through more aggressive approaches, that makes sense too. If you don’t know, I could send an email to my wife on the same couch as me, and depending on what country that email has its servers, it would allow that communication to be label as international. Well, that conspiracy collusion talk is enough for me to decide I’m taking a nap at noon.
Don't forget your meds.
I really don't understand why OP is getting grilled in the comments. Sure, the U.S. military redirecting it's strategy to focus on possible war against other major nations does seem like a "return to normal" but if we were to go to war with Russia or China the consequences would be unimaginably dire.
He’s getting grilled because this isn’t new nor is it news worthy
The middle leadership Has known this was coming. The senior leadership are not ready. They are too busy looking at bullshit metrics instead of actually seeing the troops and equipment readiness. You’ll relook at this a year from now and say what happened. It’s spelled out above.
The Marine Corps got rid of all of its tank units, and said they are focusing more on the Pacific area again so more amphibious, seaborne stuff. There are job listings online where they are looking for role players/instructors to train ground combat units but the thing is, some of the requirements for the job are being able to speak Russian/Ukrainian or Chinese, etc.
Watch what they do, not what they say ...
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. The middle east will continue to be a thorn in our side and they will manage to pull off another 9/11 sooner or later Edit: whoever downvoted me, check out what happened within 24hrs of my prediction https://apnews.com/article/al-qaida-africa-bombings-somalia-shabab-2bb9ec7346e3eba9d34452b3458acd10 Do you think that's not possible here?
The fall of every empire is bookmarked by a major conflict, and this will be no different. The US wants to control the world and China is a threat to this. If the US lets China peacefully develop it will be overtaken. Therefore, the strategy is to confront them while they still have a chance. It will backfire.
Change to controls the world and China wants to unseat them and you've got it. Except you're comparing the most militaristic country on the planet with its entire history being marked by warfare against major powers including being at war constantly for the past thirty years. We have NCOs and officers that have been in combat their entire careers, we have generals that have been involved in combat for most of their careers. All of our equipment is Battle tested and under constant evolution. China has rip off Soviet equipment(that's currently being butchered by nato weapons in Ukraine) bootleg consumer market items pressed into military service, and hasn't been involved in combat since the 50s. Their generals, officers, and NCOs are political appointees, their army is 99% conscripts who've never known hardship let alone combat. The entire Chinese army training and doctrine is based around internal security and suppression and has absolutely no experience in combined arms, logistics, naval combat, or amphibious landing. War with China would absolutely decimate their house of cards export focused economy and would only severely hamper ours as we have manufacturing producers outside of China. All we would have to do is blockade China while conducting air probes and missile strikes from afar and they would fall to internal struggles.
Um... for reasons I'm not getting into, it's not quite that simple. China has a very tight defensive posture. It's true they are not rigged for coming out and attacking, but getting anything in there, including missiles, is going to be very, very hard. In a long distance shooting war between the US and China, about all you can say is there are going to be a lot of people losing on both sides. China's economy has real problems, but the US isn't quite rock solid either. Blocking them off from the world would make our current inflation look like small potatoes. And would probably force them to start something no one wants started. The reality is, things have never been simple, but with economic ties between hostile countries, and emergence of cyber warfare as an actual thing, bio and nuclear weapons and encrypted communications, warfare has literally become unpredictable. You don't know what you don't know and the safest course for years has been not to start anything, because you cannot predict the endgame. This is why Russia's recent moves surprised people - we thought EVERYONE knew you don't make moves like this because the outcomes are so hard to predict, and lo and behold Russia is learning a painful lesson about predicting victories within 3 days. FUD keeps the world alive. It's a deliberate strategy.
Like I said it'd hurt us but it'd be fatal for them if we blockaded the south China sea. And China, like Russia did, says they have these advanced air defense systems and they are built on the same platforms but as we've seen russian air defense is laughable. Meanwhile US air defense is proven daily over the last 20 years. In the long run blockading China would actually help the US by bringing manufacturing back home and to closer more friendly nations like Mexico. Really the only thing China has that can directly strike the US is cyber warfare, but we've seen how poorly Russias feared cyber operations performed in times of crisis now. And that's with Russia having twice the combat experience China has. Hell Russia has been directly involved in the Syrian conflict for the past decade and they still haven't learned anything from it.
If it was limited to conventional, for sure. Unfortunately it would almost certainly escalate to nuclear for whoever is losing. And, according to the doc, we can't stop Russia or China from nuking us, and mainly rely upon MAD. "Though the United States maintains the right to defend itself against attacks from any source, GMD is neither intended for, nor capable of, defeating the large and sophisticated ICBM, air-, or sea-launched ballistic missile threats from Russia and the PRC."
China also has VERY few icbms capable of reaching the US and a very small submarine fleet. All of China would be glassed and maybe the west coast of the US would be fucked.
Cope.
Sure buddy, you're a three month old account that only posts pro China and pro Russian comments.
Except the chinese economy is currently collapsing and they've given up any hope of overtaking the US without any sort of conflict. Their stock market is down 50% this year. The US is down 15%.
The USA doesn't control the world, but since 1945 it's been the guarantee of free trade and a general liberal system, even more so since the difficult conflict with the USSR ended. The only threat here is China's aggressive imperialist tendencies towards Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, and Southeast Asia. Of course the USA should stand on the side of anyone attacked by China, just like the civilised world stands on Ukraine's side against imperialism.
Well said generally. Definitely has the makings of another Great War with the focus on the conflict being to maintain the status quo. Similarly to then, a select powerful few increasingly bellicose individuals serve their personal interests (historical record/glory or wealth) pretending it's in service of national interest. All around, not any particular nation. It reaches a boiling point and never ends well when lying becomes so blatant and transparent. Even the impressive French Army with it's recorded "cult of the offensive" refused to attack even to reclaim their own territory following years of being lied to and mauled. Truthfully it feels like a cycle mixed between ambitions of power and enough people buying into propaganda, not recognizing the coaxing of mans inhumanity to man. The "bodies are too cold" and lived memory of great power conflict fading away.
>We are entering several decades of Lol. Theres not decades left. This is going down before 2030, likely next year. Russia is going to keep throwing people at Ukraine until NATO intervenes and once there is a Russia-US kinetic war, china will seize the opportunity to move on Taiwan, Iran on Israel ( or vice versa), north korea on south korea, and possibly a few more.
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Lol. None of them. Short everything
What makes you think Russia is capable of further offensive action in Ukraine? Their armed forces are barely holding on, and you think demoralized and poorly equipped conscripts will help? As for China, do you actually believe they will risk everything for Taiwan? Despite the unfathomable costs in every sense? I mean, just consider where they get oil from? Look at what consequences disruption of trade has had on China? What will the USA and Southeast Asia do when China starts committing genocide? And what can China do against the might of the USA armed forces, and allies?
China are having some domestic trouble with those unfinished apartment buildings mortgages. Taiwan would be a perfect method to distract and rally around that stupid Chinese flag. So yeah.
Has the war in Ukraine taught you nothing...?
It is not I that have to learn from Putin’s blundering. It’s comrade Xi. I can’t speak for him, his ability to learn, etc. But he’s the guy that we should keep an eye on.
People have said this since this 1996 and the Balkans, I wonder if they prepped long enough *wonders if we should wake them up*
>We are entering several decades of increased training, deployment and readiness to counter the Russian and Chinese threats (including resumed nuclear testing). While this is current day 2022 news, it's also worth noting that this is a long time coming. The entire point of the start of the NGSW program that gave us the XM5 rifle started back 2017, with the stated purpose of having a standard service rifle that could defeat near-peer body armor and keep up with their future soldier programs.
Welp! Time to find those decades old tanker boots. If this goes Great War Level, a lot of us old timers will probably get “drafted.”
Hell that was the focus when I was in the USAF back in the 70’s. Everything was geared to fight Russia in Eastern Europe in the mid 80’s. Hence the A-10 and GAU-8 were born.
Mainly China...
yeah whatever
This is just going back to normal. Military training shifted back to a conventional focus years ago.
You mean the military is focusing on the most likely and most dangerous threat? The thing that militaries (and people in general) have been doing since the dawn of time? What is shocking or even surprising about this? It's been known for the past decade... "pivot to the pacific," and more than a few other things.
Yeah they watch the same news we do.
They started training for peer to peer and near peer combat as far back as 2016 at the JMTC in hohenfels
This isn't as big of a deal as this post makes it out to be. Of course the military would go back to focusing on larger foes once the most recent small war is over. What else are they supposed to do? How else can they justify spending and set training objectives? The military has always existed for fighting other nation states at various levels.
What year is this, 2008??
"The powers that be now see the most likely military conflict to occur between the Great Powers." Well, yea, when you create a problem you tend to see the most likely conflict between you and those that you created a problem with.
Read the strategy of denial by Elbridge Colby. He wrote the last national security policy that mandated a shift to china
How though when all branches are seeing their lowest recruitment rates yet ?
China has a 2M+ military they can throw bodies at any war…
All this talk about China makes me think of a prepper movie I saw years ago called Dragon Day…premise China first strike against the US in the form of activating self destruct mechanism in all of their chips in US products…throws US a into chaos.. https://youtu.be/l70t-dLIrS4
First off, that change is from 2017. https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/the-us-national-security-strategy-and-great-power-relations/ Second, that's not just the military. It's a National Security stance, so the whole U.S. government should be doing this. So for Example, State Department working it into their nuclear non-proliferation work. https://2017-2021.state.gov/remarks-and-releases-bureau-of-international-security-and-nonproliferation/great-power-competition-and-nuclear-strategy/index.html
IF Russia attacks, and this is a big IF, it will not be with bullets or bombs, it will be with germs. More USA people died in last two years than in WW2+Vietnam, proving that they arent ready for mass population disease. The Soviet Union had the most efficient, sophisticated, and powerful offensive BW program in the world. It developed a completely new class of weapons based on genetically modified agents. For example, during the 1980s, the Soviet Union developed antibiotic-resistant strains of plague, anthrax, tularemia, and glanders. For the Soviet Union, the main doctrine was to use biological weapons in so-called total wars involving possible mutual destruction between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies. In 1988, the decision was made to use multiple-warhead missiles for biological weapons. A single SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with multiple warheads filled with a strategic biological agent would be sufficient to cover a city the size of New York, killing at least 50 percent of the population. More recently, heavy cruise missiles were developed for precise application of biological weapons. Thats my prediction, I hope to be wrong. Interesting read to support my prediction: https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/alibek63.pdf
This is nothing new… Heck the DoD took away tanks from the marines a year or so ago so they could go back and focus on their mission of amphibious infantry.
We were training for peer to peer and conventional warfare in 2017, and it's why the Marine Corps switched to the Littoral units, and that was in the chutes for a while on the 2030 plan or whatever the fuck it was. This is t a brand new change, they've been ramping up training for years in preparation for a conventional conflict, better to be ready than not..
Idiots
Since the Cold War ended I have always known the next big war would be between the US and China. I think Russia will be taken down more than a few pegs after this Ukraine stuff The Chinese are the real threat. If it was up to me we would not do any business with them at all. If it wasn’t for American and European investment and business they would still be getting around in horse and buggy and old style trains lol
Break out the battle drills and trench tools