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12/18/2002 Archived Entry: "American military power"

THEY'RE TOUGHER THAN YOUR DAD AND YOU COMBINED: Despite the fact that I carried a rifle and wore the green suit for my country I claim to be no military expert unlike many others who because they learned how to tiger crawl suddenly became Napoleon. That said, I've long studied all aspects of military matters because I'm interested in them.

One thing that irks me is people who have no comprehension how powerful the U.S. military is today. You'd be surprised, but there are some nations, pound for pound, which theoretically could give the U.S. problems in a war. If the UK were as large as the US in terms of manpower and other related variables, you could well see a stalemate between them. The English seriously punch well above their weight because like the Americans they are very technologically advanced and go in for heavy training. That said, no one on the planet poses any real danger to the Americans. Not the Russians, not the Chinese and not the British.

My theory has always been that because Americans were among the first to effectively employ combined arms attacks (which, by the way, will become even more deadly in less than a decade's time thanks to new American innovations), they had a head start on the progressively more difficult challenge of effectively employing high-tech tools and weapons. A lot of people seem to think that just because you have high-tech weapons, your job as a military leader is much easier. I would argue that while they give you more options, they can also make your job more difficult because you have to use each tool effectively, something that can be problematic.

Look at it this way. If you had Chinese and American military forces of equivalent size and both equipped with current American weaponry, the Yanks would win every time. They have had five decades practice in effectively employing technology, something that only the British and a few other countries can say. And what makes them even deadlier is the constant improvement in technology.

Witness a recent story in the Independent that states a war in Iraq could last as long as one week because of the new weapons the Americans could use, weapons that weren't ready for prime time just 12 short months ago. In fact, the lightning victory the American led coalition enjoyed in 1991 will seem like a Second World War-esque battle compared to this new war.

"The first Gulf War was fought like the Second World War, with air dominance – pounding their defences, softening up the forces and then going in," said Daniel Gouré, a military analyst with the Washington-based Lexington Institute think tank. "This will be speedier, more precise – an effects-based operation. It will be much more surgical, both in the use of explosive force and in the overall operation."

What's scary, at least for the West's enemies, is that America's military technological lead continues to grow every day creating a distance between it and the second most powerful nation militarily (I'll let you argue who that is) that may never be bridged.

Babbling...I am at work and bored so forgive this nonsensical post...