From: jac54@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: BBN II -- Murk-o-Vision World Update (Mau Mau)
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 13:47:06 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.105902@axion.bt.co.uk> ravis@axion.bt.co.uk (Richard Avis) writes:
>
>In article <NIGEL.92Jul29184225@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov>, nigel@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov writes:
>|> In article <1992Jul29.150823@axion.bt.co.uk> ravis@axion.bt.co.uk (Richard Avis) writes:
>|>
	[points I'm not going to address deleted]
>|>
>|> You might consider that the US has been guarding Europe for over 40
>|> bloody years, Japan and the Phillipines (well until recently) for the
>|> same period and Korea for almost as long.  Vietnam was certainly not
>|> over in a week either.

>There is a big difference between garrisoning a country and defending it.

	I'm not sure you've differentiated them.  As far as defending
	Western Europe is concerned I'm quite certain that the U.S.
	was ready to go out and fight.  The mission of the U.S. military for
	the last 40 years was to prevent Soviet military expansion into
	areas vital to the U.S.  Western Europe was one of them, and they
	spent a lot of time and money in equipping and training troops for
	that purpose, and not for garrisoning as an occupation force.  The
	people most likely to use the occupation force argument were the
	British.  The RAF were notorious for this.

>It's a big step between spending money to send your citizens across the seas
>to live in nice comfortable bases ans actually getting them to risk death and
>injury.

	U.S. bases in Europe by and large aren't too wonderful.  They're
	usually WWII or earlier vintage German camps.  Meeting the costs
	of U.S. deployments is a bit more complex.  The Germans paid a
	significant part of the costs.  The Germans actually paid 99% of the
	costs of maintaining the allied garrisons in Berlin.
>|>
>|> I think that you may wish to rethink the statement that the US
>|> military has "no concept of prolonged military commitments".  The fact
>|> that our economy is in such disrepair is in part because we have been
>|> honoring those commitments.

	Your economy is in disrepair because it was made hostage to
	party politics.

>But there are VERY few armies with quite the capacity for collapse and
>self-destruction. Witness the roughly 10,000 friendly fire casualties in
>Vietnam,

	Total U.S. casualties were about 240,000, 4% friendly fire is actually
	slightly better than average.

the collapse during the first major Chinese offensive in Korea
>and the weakness of line US infantry against their German counterparts in WW2,
>despite massive fire-power advantages.

	Hmmm, fall of France 1914, fall of France 1939, Singapore etc.,
	being shafted by Chaka Zulu at Isahndlwana, I could go on, but
	I won't.
>
>If I show contempt it's not intended. The US military is very representative
>of the USA and suffers accordingly. Unlike a TRUELY professional service, the maintenance
>of discipline when it goes to war is based on a common cause amongst a bunch
>of individuals, and with the public. The origins of its members are too
>disparate to maintain cohesion when that sense of `purpose' goes.
>This happened in Vietnam - and discipline began to suffer.

	This is pop psychological/sociological nonsense.  Any mothers' son
	can be turned into a soldier, it's a matter of training and rule-of-
	thumb psychology.  The U.S. had a very good army with excellent
	unit cohesion based on a regimental system as in the UK until that
	idiot MacNamara came along and decided to treat soldiers like
	spare transmission bolts.  The resulting inability to form a coherent
	unit in Vietnam came from this decision.  It has nothing to do with
	the society.  Maybe you should compare small unit effectiveness in
	Vietnam with that in Korea or WWII.  The U.S.Army called MacNamara's
	decision Black Friday and they are returning to the regimental
	system.

>A REAL professional service is the French Foreign Legion.

	Well go and join them.

	Alec Chambers.
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