Originally posted by ujustdied
i don't really get this. why the hell do we need a draft???? i mean with all the technology you'd think this should be easy. but you know it was the peoples choice for putting the dems in the house. i guess now they know why i don't vote for them. lol but seriously we have f22s and freaking super sonic bombers and picture spy planes and bombs that can go through a chimney. wtf do we need more troops for????
y'all can answer me. i really don't know
I'll second the boots on the ground. Enemies of America learned from the Gulf War (the 2nd Gulf War to those from that region), and the fighting in the Balkans, that the best way to counter American technological superiority and air power is to take the fighting into the cities among the civilian population.
Among heavy populations, insurgents can hide in the open. We've got satellite imagery, aerial patrols, scouting helicopters, derigible platforms, and UAV's all operating over Baghdad and Iraq, yet insurgents can still emplace IED's to attack passing convoys every day. Munitions are transported in donkey carts and taxis and hidden within loads of produce like tomatos and watermellon.
Insurgents will nail a pipe to a tree, drop in an arty round or mortar round, set it off into a compound, then bug out. Counter-battery will return fire... killing the family in the house next to the tree. Not very good press.
Technology cannot easily spot low tech operations in heavily populated environments like these. Part of the problem we're in now was too much reliance on technology to justify keeping the initial force size low when we first went into Iraq. But jets in the sky could not stop looting on the ground after their government collapsed.
Even if you discover the location of an enemy cell, if it is next to a Mosque, or within an apartment complex, or adjacent to a school.... do you hit it with a 1,000 lb JDAM? Western powers do not believe much in carpet bombing, arc light, incediary raids, and the like any more, since WWII really and places like Dresden. They are not big on large numbers of casualties through collateral damage as an intentional act. In other words, we can't even use those high tech weapon's platforms in many cases.
Furthermore, the U.S. ordanance inventory is not all that large, when compared to WWII or Korea, or Vietnam's days. For example, Pres Clinton used up a sizable portion of the conventionaly armed cruise missiles during his two terms, to the point that nuclear-tipped cruise missiles have been rearmed with conventional warheads to make up for shortages.
You want to see what I mean? Get a few of your friends to wander around a city in AHII on the ground on foot. You circle overhead with icons turned off and try to find them. Now imagine a million other figures running around in the city among your friends. Add a few thousand vehicles. Designate two or three as VBIED's and try finding them. Take up a couple 1,000 pound bombs... hit the church in a town, but don't damage any other buildings.
And, as I stated in above, a draft is the wrong way to go, and political suicide as well, but mandated service to the country in one form or another I could support, as well as the idea of an American Foreign Legion. But to fight the "Long War", which is what the War of Terrorism is called in military circles.... rightly so.... , at a tempo that it requires also requires more troops to be used.
Using NATO troops as a suppliment does not work well. The various restrictions NATO members have placed on their troops use have hamstrung NATO efforts in Afghanistan. We've never had enough troops in Iraq to suppress the insurgency, and sending in more troops now, instead of two years ago, just reinforces claims about colonialism on our part by critics in the region. If we had to commit troops to another front or operation anywhere in the world, we will be really juggling troop numbers to come up with bodies needed.
Roughly 24% of America's GDP went into WWI, 38% to 150% of U.S. GDP (depending which numbers you use) went into WWII. About 4% of GDP goes into American defense spending now.
11.2 million servicemen fought in WWII. Over 407,000 U.S. servicemembers died in WWII. The U.S. total population at that time was 132,000,000 citizens.
Rough numbers put our current military at 2,685,000 total force numbers of which Active troops = 1,426,000 and the rest are Guard and Reserve. The nation's population is over 300,000,000 now.
America has been fighting the War on Terror longer than it fought World War II.
We, as a nation, are really not all the serious about fighting this "War on Terror" all things considered.
