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The strength of the US military has never been in existing numbers, but in vastly superior logistical capability: "Fustest with the mostest." Clockmakers converted to making Norton bombsights. Shipbuildiers were turning out whole new cargo ships every thirty days. Rosie the Riveter was as important to winning WWII as the soldiers in the field.
Wealth also plays a significant role in the training it allows. Those shiny imported tanks and airplanes look impressive during the annual parade in front of the presidential palace, but if the cost of intensive training - fuel, live ammo, and resulting maintenance - can't be borne, then the hardware is just for show. A country that has the capacity for that spending, combined with the discipline to actually spend the money on that training rather than buying a few more items just to make the parade more impressive (or, even better yet, doesn't give a hoot about such parades in the first place, because they do squat for defense) is going to outperform the country that has stuff but not on the talent to use it.
Wealth also plays a significant role in the training it allows. Those shiny imported tanks and airplanes look impressive during the annual parade in front of the presidential palace, but if the cost of intensive training - fuel, live ammo, and resulting maintenance - can't be borne, then the hardware is just for show. A country that has the capacity for that spending, combined with the discipline to actually spend the money on that training rather than buying a few more items just to make the parade more impressive (or, even better yet, doesn't give a hoot about such parades in the first place, because they do squat for defense) is going to outperform the country that has stuff but not on the talent to use it.
Yes, and that had also long given the edge to the US up until the last 20 or so years. Today, the Air Force can only put half of its planes into the air, the Navy less than that. The Air Force this year had a shortfall of 2,000 pilots.
Blah blah blah, we have neem in Afghanistan for 20 years...the 20 year mark for Iraq is around the corner.
The US defense spending accounts for over one third of the entire global defense spending. If China and Russia are going to catch up to that, then you all need to ask "where in the hell is my money going?"
But at that, a huge military is no guarantee of anything. The US lost Vietnam, the USSR collapse despite the size of its military.
But having fundamental if not critical domestic issues brewing, all the while dumping a trillion on the F-35, certainly is not going to assist the US on internal matters.
Yup. Organized militaries have never been able to cope with guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare learned from allied tribes was a major factor in winning the Revolutionary War, remember. Brit soldiers trained to fight in formation were helpless against it.
Yup. Organized militaries have never been able to cope with guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare learned from allied tribes was a major factor in winning the Revolutionary War, remember. Brit soldiers trained to fight in formation were helpless against it.
Organized militaries can squash guerrilla warriors if, in fact, the organized military is on its home turf and if, in fact, the organized military has the support of the populace.
For instance, the Syrian military is on its home turf, but it's supporting a minority government that's opposed by the majority of the population...so it's effectiveness is questionable.
The US was not on its home turf in Vietnam or in Afghanistan. In both case, the guerillas have confidence that sooner or later US forces will go home, even if it takes generations.
Yup. Organized militaries have never been able to cope with guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare learned from allied tribes was a major factor in winning the Revolutionary War, remember. Brit soldiers trained to fight in formation were helpless against it.
There were a lot of factors at play in relation to the the war of independence, one of the main ones was that Britain a Naval power had neglected it's Army and was relying on hired Germam Hessian troops and impressment (forced conscription) to bolster it's Army however this was proving very unpopular. The attrition of constant fighting, from the Seven Year War through to the later Napoleonic Wars, coupled with the inability of the Royal Navy to decisively defeat the French Navy also took it's toll.
By 1778 Britain withdrew the majority of British forces from North America ultimately led to the British army's defeat. The surrender of Cornwallis's army at Yorktown in 1781 allowed the Whig opposition to gain a majority in parliament, and offensive British operations in North America were brought to an end.
The US War of Independence is seen outside of the US as a footnote between the Seven Year War, the first great global war and the Napoleonic Wars when Britain and her allies finally defeated the French at Trafalgar and Waterloo.
The British did however use a lot irregular warfare themselves, indeed the US Rangers owe a lot to British Army Major Robert Rogers and his 28 "Rules of Ranging", and US Forces actually took inspiration from this small British unit, and Rogers is always mentioned in relation to the US Army Rangers history.
Rogers Island is an island on the Hudson River, in Washington County, New York, that once formed part of the third largest "city" in colonial North America, and is considered the "spiritual home" of the United States Special Operations Forces, particularly the United States Army Rangers.
Major Robert Rogers returned to London and is buried in South London, the woodsman and survival expert Ray Mears, made a documentary about Rogers life and his Rules of Ranging.
Britain always had smaller armies than other European powers, but a much larger navy, and as a consequence Britain was always eager to try out irregular warfare tactics, indeed Britain was instrumental in forming Command units (Boer War)and units such as the Special Service Brigades, the Raiding Support Regiment, V-Force, the Chindits and T-Force during World War Two. Britain was also one of the first nations to set up modern Special Forces such as the Long Range Desert Group, Pathfinders, Special Air Service, Special Boat Squadron etc.
In 1775, a rag tag group of assorted militia men, volunteers and took up arms against the British Army. The British army was the largest, best trained and best armed army at that time and had the newest tactics to use the weapon that installed the most fear - the socket bayonet. And yet, we won. A combination of tactics, alliances but perhaps most of all sheer persistence paid off.
Zipping forward, at the present time, the US Navy faces some daunting challenges from morale, exhausted crews, to aging ships to yard repairs running months behind schedule and subpar training. US Navy exercises were canceled during the Trump administration. Carrier exercises have resumed in the Pacific under Biden in the South China Sea to assert our right of navigation and multi-national training in the Gulf will resume with the US, the French (they will send the De Gaulle), the Belgium and Japanese. The full effect of Covid on the military is not known by the public (rightly so).
In 1775, a rag tag group of assorted militia men, volunteers and took up arms against the British Army. The British army was the largest, best trained and best armed army at that time and had the newest tactics to use the weapon that installed the most fear - the socket bayonet. And yet, we won. A combination of tactics, alliances but perhaps most of all sheer persistence paid off.
Britain was always a naval power, and always has a navy twice the size of other European nations, however in terms of Armies, the British Army was always smaller than it's European counterparts such as France, Germany (Prussia) , Russia etc
"In 1775 the British Army was a volunteer force. The army had suffered from lack of peacetime spending and ineffective recruitment in the decade since the Seven Years' War, circumstances which had left it in a dilapidated state at the outbreak of war in North America".
A third of the troops were German Hessian mercenaries, and many of the rest were forced in to service by impressment, and didn't want to be there.
The British Army of the time was not some great elite force, and the US was not some rag tag army, it was an army that had home advantage and French supplied equipment.
The war in the American colonies was also deeply unpopular back home, a kind of Vietnam of it's time, and there was no political will to continue, as pointed out in my previous post.
The much later Cardwell reforms, a century later did vastly improve the British Army.
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