It seems like the US military is less prepared for a large scale conventional conflict than it should be...

>reinstate actual standards for enlistment

You're a fucking moron if you think they've ever been extremely selective prior to GWOT. Not that long ago they stopped taking applicants with GEDs. It's harder now than it has been in the past to get into the military (which doesn't really say much for a lot of the people I served with)

>What things could they do to prepare and modernize for a large scale conflict.

Hypersonics, hypersonics, hypersonics.

When hypersonics are as cheap as cruise missiles, it will be possible to project power directly from CONUS at tactically relevant time scales, removing the need for most combat aircraft, regional air bases, and carriers.

>it went nowhere but up after the shitshows of the 90s

Imagine being this delusional you 300lb somehow-got-allowed-in-because-of-falling-standard tub of shit.

>muh boomer

Off by 30 years faggot

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>What things could they do to prepare and modernize for a large scale conflict.
anti-ballistic missile systems
submarine detection that doesn't kill all the whales
etc
if you want to prepare for a large-scale war, you better start with the nukes

>What is the solution?
A final one

>a bunch of vaguely good-sounding buzzword collections that have no application to reality

Pointless. Nobody wants your M113s, PESA or battleships.

Want real reform? Here's a concrete proposal: replace carrier deployment cycles with rear-basing ships like the last great peacetime naval competition.

Declare war on Russia and send the retards all to die on the Eastern Front

Part of the problem is the changes in the global strategic situation.
The old US Military was built over 50 years to fight WW2:PART TWO
in Germany on the same terrain and with the same types of units as the last major war.
Now the Russian military is a shadow of its former glory (yes it’s way better than it was in the late 90s but it’s nothing compared to the Soviet Union)
and NATO is forward deployed 1,000 miles closer to Moscow than it was in 1988. Despite being much smaller than it used to be, the NATO forces are sufficient to counter the Russians right now.

The issue is that the US and allies have allowed a large reduction in all types of forces that allow force projection and can no longer fight a two front major war.
So if the Russians and Chinese make a go for it at the same time, we have a problem.

Strategic planners have been aware of this for a few years now since the zeitgeist of the Iraq/Afghanistan era dissipated. People a lot smarter than me are working on the problem, but American weapons development and acquisition (new ships and aircraft specifically) is such a drawn out convoluted process that we won’t see meaningful changes for a decade.

And in the meantime the old neocon cabal keeps tryna sucker us back into the sandbox, which serves zero strategic interest for the USA.

Interesting times indeed.

>Cyber warfare, drones, surveillance, and special operations are the new battleships and beach landings

Overpriced toys that can't do their job right and get blown up by a smaller weapons system built for a fraction of the price?

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That guy was wounded in combat, got fat in the hospital on overdoses of steroids to heal up quicker, was pulled out even earlier to return to his undermanned unit (depicted in the pic), and supported them from a COP until he got Jow Forums again before the deployment ended.

Source: my unit replaced his.

How many combat deployments do you have?

im actually wondering how the us would face off against a conventional military. like if they came up against a real army what would happen, how would they deploy there troops. more tanks integration? cuz them driving around in Humvees is all you see most of the time

As for beach landings. There's a reason we haven't mounted a major one since Korea. They're bloodbaths with massive loss of life for very little gain in terms of territory won.

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fuck off chang

Like who tho. We already have forces in Europe. We would never invade Asia.
Literally no war scenario with China involves invading the mainland. We have enough forces in the Pacific to reinforce South Korea, who already has a big army.

This shit doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

Made this thread a couple of days ago but made the mistake of posting it at night, which didn't go well seeing as how 80% of this board are literal boomers.

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Well China is becoming a larger risk and Russia is regaining strength. Our grasp on global power projection is shifting back into a vulnerable position which makes a need for larger scale capabilities. We don't need huge standing armies but we need to shift focus back to having infrastructure that can scale rapidly and face a formidable enemy. One of the things that became very clear in the invasion of Iraq was how useless the "cool" looking pet projects were.

>You're implying it's a problem. There is no serious conventional threat to US interests in our current condition.
>Laser based C-RAM at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels
>Multi Domain warfare and integrating EW heavily into military units
>Rogue state actors and regimes with powerful, loyal military's
>near peer nations becoming more unstable due to great shifts in geo-politics
>redditspacing
Fuck off.

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I'm into it.

I agree with this and it scares the shit out of me, I wish I could be involved in the planning/thought process but unfortunately I'm a neverserved with a degree in something different so not only do I not have the qualifications I also wouldn't know where to look. I just hope sharp minds are taking this issue seriously and are making changes to fix the problem.

Still waiting, faggot boomer. How many purple hearts do you have?

China would have multiple areas that we may fight. South Korea although with a large force would still be overwhelmed by China and NK. We may step in to fight them in India if politics change Turkey fighting Europe could be another future threat. We put these things in a vacuum because we cannot predict what future politics and actions may be but we can predict growing threats and changes. A war with China would absolutely need a military stronger than ours in its current state and that is cause for alarm.

China, north korea and turkey are no threats at all.
Chinese has traditionally been a trade nation and never really invaded others. Also it can't afford war for another 50 years or so.
Turkey is weak economically and doesn't even have nukes. They don't seem to have any strength left. Also they're a small country.
Russia is weaker than turkey economically on average and only has nukes.

The delusion in this post is amazing. China has 300 plus nukes with ever increasing missle tech, they will make a push in Asia within the next 30-50 years. Russia may have a small economy but their actively trying to repair their military and could become an issue again.

There’s be a lot of warning ahead of time of a Chinese mobilization and deployment to any theater on their border which would allow us to counter position our forces. China still doesn’t have real force projection so you won’t be fighting them outside of mainland Asia, at least on the ground.
Turkey is a 3rd rate Military power and would only be a problem if they joined with Russia, which is unlikely given the recent tensions between the two.

The United States is not gonna commit land forces on the scale of ww2 to defend India or retake a rogue Turkey.
We’d provide air and naval support, and sell equipment and supplies and probably organize foreign manned units.
You will literally never see American divisions marching on Ankara or defending Mumbai.

As for “dealing with China” it would be bloody but we’d win if it kicked off under the current balance of forces. A war where China invaded South Korea would probably see all the US Pacific allies come together against China.
That’s all the RIMPAC nations.
China would be completely surrounded and matched in numbers of ships and aircraft. They’d be forced into defensive and isolated, all trade cut off. We’d never need to invade.

The problem is if Russia and China coordinate some crazy conventional ww3 Plan, we would be spread thin enough to put the outcome in doubt.

The US MIC has planned for China, Russia, NK, etc; but it has a perfect record of never fighting where it plans, so by deduction, the next war will be somewhere else.

Where could that be? South America? Nigeria or the Sahel?

But what possible strategic interest would motivate a massive war in central Africa or South America?
For what purpose?

On the other hand, Putin's approval rates are plummeting.
And it's hard to sell same bullshit twice.
I don't think Russia is a threat long-term. China is.

>all these people acting like a conventional war is going to happen before the Second American Civil War

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Pretty sure its posters with anti American interests.

I don't know. SEA is where the US wants proxy wars vs China (or Africa, if you're SOCOM) but South America is where the Chinese would choose a proxy war and the US would have to answer because muh Monroe doctrine.

Turkey could absolutely be a future enemy with the way their politics are going. The incident with Russia shows that they are willing to cooperate with Russian forces. They also have a large enough conventional force that leadership will feel confident in hostile action and are neighbors with Western European countries.

China can be stopped by simply voting for Trump and his tariffs. They'll be too poor build a military.
Reminder that America was first a strong economy and only became strong militarily afterwards.
The USSR spent more on military than America did and wasted their resources in the end. The same thing could happen with America if it tries to overspend on the military vs china. The economy matters the most.

Europe can handle turkey. On it's own. It has in the past too.

bruh. nukes exist. america rules the air and sea, there is no feasible way we couldnt glass whatever threat was so big that we began to run out of equipment.

Russia is basically Israel with a few more nukes and a lot less influence on US domestic politics. They have a bigger but less stable economy and longer borders, but wew, they're not a real threat.

Everyone in Asia hates China. Japan and the US have the first island chain on lockdown. In emergencies, they can station AShMs on both chains and then lay mines for the war.

China is a serious rival, but I don't see how they can compete without some technological breakthough in the next 30 years.

Always wondered what was up with that. Thanks for the story.

Handle is different than being efficient The economy matters yes but we have the economy and raw materials we need, we also aren't in direct competition with them material wise. What we need to do is shift doctrine and equipment so we are prepared for a large scale conventional war.

Stagnation leads to deterioration. Nukes will destroy vast amounts of area but at the cost of ruining those areas. A conventional force is still necessary

It will never happen if you play the cards right. Same as it never happened with USSR. China is even less confrontational.

China is becoming very confrontational, they simply can't do everything yet because they dont have the capabilities yet. They are also incredibly invasive with technology and espionage.

You're completely wrong.

I don't think you realize how much the US military has before, during, and currently focusing on conventional warfare and future warfare.

The reason there is panic requests to handle current conflict issues (such as IEDs in early GWOT) is due to this very focus on future large scale warfare and not the experience, adaptability and common sense of the actual key leaders and personnel on the ground.

Those dudes were called in from IRR.

GWOT has lasted almost 2 decades with technological and medical innovations out the ass. Casualties are dramatically low, the amount of preventable deaths in GWOT is literally a single digit percent of previous wars.

We have the most efficient form of military the world has ever seen. It does have its faults of course: a bureaucratic system that makes it almost impossible outside of SOF to eliminate waste in personnel and spendage.

>They also have a large enough conventional force that leadership will feel confident in hostile action

Roach detected. Turkey is mostly known for the defensive tactic of scattering Leopard turrets as chaff to distract Syrians. Turkish forces are used and trained for counter-Kurd ops. They may own some nice gear but Erdogan gutted the Western-trained military. That takes decades to fix but won't be fixed if Erdogan considers it a threat. Sultans ruled by divide and conquer for centuries and Turks know this. "Leadership" has been fired and jailed.

foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/13/turkeys-post-coup-purge-and-erdogans-private-army-sadat-perincek-gulen/

>Turkey is mostly known for the defensive tactic of scattering Leopard turrets as chaff to distract Syrians
Fucking lmao
I remember seeing the videos of M60s and Leo 1s being sent to ATGM hell without infantry support.

large scale conflicts are a thing of the past. The nuclear powers fight among themselves through proxy wars. The alternative is mutually assured destruction

A bunch of druggie hippy draftees vs an all volunteer force, many with some college experience, who are taught, trained, and led by combat veterans...you sir are a retard.
I have noticed a drop in discipline in the last few years, but thats just because Mother's of America needs to stay out of boot camp and let their precious little baby get hazed like they're supposed to

they shouldn't be preparing for something that's a thing of a past. what they should be doing is realizing that what's currently "in" right now, cyberwarfare and manipulation of public opinion via the internet, requires a substantial rethinking of what military organization will look like outside of the traditionally rigid hierarchy

Mutually assured destruction only works if both countries can cause similar levels of destruction.

Also this:
I can't wait to be wearing woodland cammies with all coyote tan gear not blending at all with the favelas because we discover some fusion catalyst in Brasil

Thinking taking and holding ground and valuables as a thing of the past is the dumbest mistake you can make.

>taking and holding ground and valuables
that isn't exclusive to large scale conventional conflicts

in that scenario especially, there wouldn't be war

>nuclear powers don't fight

India and Pakistan may not be in all-out war, but they're doing a little more than skirmishes.

>rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2270.html

You need to read this service culture study. They know there's new shit, but new shit comes and goes. Budget and head count not so much.

>redditspacing
Hey there newfag

Let me guess, you came here in 2016 due to the election and now think that since just over two years have gone by you consider yourself an oldfag? Fuck outta here, reddit is an infestation and should never be tolerated on any board.

No but for fighting against superpowers to take and hold their ground you need large scale force. Ideological subversion and other modern methods have yet to prove themselves capable of much.

>this level of nostalgia faggotry
the 90s military was an absolute shitshow. the US was at its worse than and we absolutely fucking stomped the worlds 4th largest conventional force with minimal casualties.

youre a retarded faggot, phil.

>There's a reason we haven't mounted a major one since Korea.

Because we haven't had an opponent of significance with beaches we wanted.

>the US was at its worse
>imagine being this delusional

>we absolutely fucking stomped the worlds 4th largest conventional force with minimal casualties.

Because we had a vastly superior military in 1991 than we do now you stupid fucking nigger

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>Because we haven't had an opponent of significance with beaches we wanted.

Kuwait in 1991

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Hypersonic cruise missiles can't take or hold ground and their kill chain is still to long for interdiction. The notion that they could replace combat aircraft is foolish. The US's current legacy cruise missiles have already proven difficult to stop as well. Stealth missiles are the future, not fast and loud bois that can only fill a ballistic role.

>what is the AHW
>what is the waverider
come on dude. anywhere in the world in under an hour has been achievable since fucking 2014.

2016 newfags are exactly the retards complaining about redditspacing.