Quote:
Originally Posted by Ducimus
This is more or less why i'm not a big fan of some of the really high dollar projects like the F-35. Things like that become so expensive, so valuable, that you dare not use it, and if you lose one, your going to feel it in many ways.
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Its like adjusting a slider, with "maximum number of cheap units" at the one and of the scale, and "maximum quality, expensive units " at the other. Already Rumsfeld pushed that slider utmost towards the latter, so he claimed. And I think that is a mistake. There is a lesson to be learned form the Russian war against the Germans.
The trick is to push the slider towards the latter, but not to the maximum of it, but to find a good balance between numbers and quality, where as the chance of enemy technology damaging you or enemy number superiority overwhelming you are kept at the possible minimum.
The cuts in the American defences are okay if they indeed should serve mainly for defending the American homeland. The growing isolationism of the US speaks for this also. But for an America that may redefine its role as a globally engaged actor, it overstretches the defence resources. You cannot quickly rebuild quality forces in case you need them, if for years you have not maintained such reserves for this case _ you need years of preparation, the more years the better quality you want, because quality not only means industrial capacity and technological skill, but also experience. If you cannot maintain such reserves because you cannot afford it anymore, your global claims have to be limited. And I think that is what is happening, which is noted in Europe and the ME with growing discomfort and nervousness.
It's an empire reversing expansion to contraction. History knows no example of contracting empires so far that nevertheless survived. Where an empire reached the point where it did not expand anymore, it started to stagnate and fade.
China btw. has just sold a record share of its US bonds in December, witch the Chinese also buying the global gold market empty. Their defence budgets (and that of their neighbours and those in the ME) are growing, in some countries almost explode. All that are more signs that the US empire is in contraction.