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Originally Posted by JALU3
Since we have sold our manufacturing base willingly 
However, in COIN operations, aren't alot of what creates a successful campaign a lot of the low-tech, highly-intellectual, actions which do not require the high ticket items whcih the military-industrial complex request the army to purchase.
Not that we haven't already passed the most recent aquisition cycle leaving the majority of the force with equipment that is at least half a generation older then what is currently available.
I think a possible problem is that recent visions of the future force envision the entire force to be the 'tip of the spear' without considering that a lot of the force of said spear is the mass behind it.
As for funding of our military, if we spent our GDP more prudently, I am sure as a nation we could finance a larger land-based military without straining the economy. |
I'm going to have to check on this but I am pretty sure that, inflation adjusted, our GDP is higher now than it was at the peak of force expansion in ww2. Problem was, they couldn't afford it then, either. The U.S.A.'s fiscal health took another nosedive with Lyndon Johnson's "Guns and Butter" program. And we continue to spend money we don't have today. Every dollar the Government borrows or prints brings us a little closer to monetary collapse, and yet even now, as we approach the point of no return, the spending continues.
You're right about COIN ops. If we had Arab-American infiltrators and indiginous counterinsurgents acting as a secret police force the situation would be a lot different. Don't worry though, we'll get it right in the next war, although that war will require a completely different strategy, thus perpetuating a long-standing American tradition of fighting the last war.
Even better would be to have some cultural context and simply split Iraq into three parts. Notice how well that worked in the Balkans? The Government didn't.
You are also correct that our eqipment is not the best although a lot of it is pretty good. While our multimillion dollar weapons are some of, if not THE best around, the average footsoldier is outgunned, outarmored, and outclassed by Blackwater operatives. Just another example of private industry doing things better than government.
There have been growing concerns about the "toothiness" (combat to support personnel ratio) of our armed forces for decades now. My stance on this is that an even smaller, even better equipped force that requires a lot more initial aptitude and a lot more training. A significant portion of our ground troops at this time are drug-waivers, ASVAB-waivers, Criminal-record-waivers, and other less than stellar types. If the military paid well and expected more from its' potential recruits, it might be more effective.
And finally, I don't quite think "spending the GDP" is the problem, inasmuch as GDP isn't really spent. GDP is a measure of buisness capital. Theoretically we could spend the whole thing and make even more money. What we are spending is our tax income. Often several times over. This has nothing to do with outsourcing manufacturing jobs or importing cheap labor. It has everything to do with government devaluing our currency (yes, banks do too but there is a limit for them)
and creating an environment that it unfriendly to investment and business growth. The only reason our country has been as successful as it has is that almost everyone else is even worse. Countries that do embrace buisness (Switzerland, the Asian "Tigers", Lichtenstein and the like) have frequently given America cause for alarm as they steal sectors of the market away from us. Hypothetically we could outsource every low-paying job in the nation as long as the companies that outsource are based here. Imagine the economic power of the U.S. combined with the lassiez-faire regulation and taxation of Hong Kong. We would be unstoppable.
Wait I'm drifting off-topic now so I shall desist.
Point is, military and economic failures have two principal causes; politics and, well, that actually sums it up.