Pentagon cuts aircraft carrier presence in the Gulf due to budget

[e6bflyer]

A bunch of wise words...

Shack.
Anyone in the Navy (or other services for that matter) that has been directly involved with fifth fleet has seen the consequences of keeping an unsustainable presence there. Let Iran saber rattle. They are a formidable regional force, but with surge capability, we have enough assets to still make our presence there well known and protect our allies and interests.
With very little effort on their part, they are bleeding us dry in resources by keeping their Navy in their backyard and making silly threats. It is costing us billions. Their greatest weapon, in my opinion, is their ability to leverage a few hot button threats and pull our puppet strings. It is about time we throttle back a little and let Israel and our other regional allies take a little more of the share in reigning Iran in.

 

[sevenhelmet]

^SMART THINKING.

 

[Catmando]

"A Global Hemispheric Force For Good."

 

[Fog]

"A Global Hemispheric Force For Good, 5 days per week 9 to 5 EST - except for federal holidays and Ramadan"

Just sayin' . . .

 

[xj220]

but look at Libya - Europe couldn't handle that campaign without the help of a number of unique national assets that essentially only the US maintains. And Libya represented a fairly negligible threat.

Couldn't or wouldn't? There's a difference and I bet if Europe collectively put themselves together and made an earnest effort they could accomplish a lot. Regardless, the outcome is the similar and I agree with your sentiment.

 

[Flash]

Couldn't or wouldn't? There's a difference and I bet if Europe collectively put themselves together and made an earnest effort they could accomplish a lot. Regardless, the outcome is the similar and I agree with your sentiment.

They have only a fraction of the logistics tail and support assets we do, even when they want to they can't do much alone.

 

[jtdees]

I think that part of the nature of our security blanket is that we provide the opportunity for cheap oil to Europe and Asia, among other things. We don't primarily, or even secondarily, depend on the Middle East, but they do. Without the easy flow to Europe, China, and Japan, all those economies would go in the toilet within a month, and our economy can't depend solely upon the trade with our 2 biggest partners, those on each of our land borders.

Essentially, we've helped the world back itself in a corner where, on many levels, they need us, but enjoy the freedom to criticize and accuse us of pursuing their own motivations, with little regard for consequence. One would think that the low pressure would give them the time and will to explore much more creative and effective means of self- and community-defense, but apparently they, barring the examples above, have chosen to explore other forms of creativity.

So, our continued presence in a region that can't or won't govern itself is a Rube Goldberg mechanism of investment in our own welfare, operating through several obstacles of altruism and provision for the common defense and prosperity, beyond our original intents as a nation.

 

[Fog]

Even the enlightened ones here call me reactionary, but if we develop all our fossil-fuel reserves in North America, we can let the arabs stay rich selling crude to the europeans & asians and guess what - let them pay for keeping the Straits of Hormuz open to international shipping!! WTF, who woulda thunk it?

That way, if things ever got really stinky we could still send a few ICBMs to Iran much more cheaply than keeping the Navy & 100K expeditionary forces in the region. Just sayin' . . . I know this isn't fashionable, but IMHO it is true and considerably cheaper and safer for American lives. Oh, and did I mention that the $$ we don't send to the Mideast would, therefore, not be available for re-cycling to terrorist groups.

 

[Brett327]

Only one problem with that, and it's the word commodity. Unless, of course, you want to go the way of Venezuela and nationalize all the fossil fuel production in this country.

 

[jtdees]

I would personally like to think we could do that, for most of the same reasons, but what seems to happen when we live and let live is what happened in Egypt and Libya. Whether those occurrences are the Middle East in their current natural state, or yet another, opposite reaction to our influence, is probably up for debate, but the fact that the Middle East's biggest customers, those with the most interest in stability, don't seem to have shown an interest in developing their own means of securing their commerce, as belabored above.

Throughout history, the times of greatest stability are those when the one largest nation maintained control over the known world's commerce, etc. Others often expressed distaste with the system, but periods of true multipolarity are also generally periods of constant war, poverty, and diminishing freedom. We have been able to almost unilaterally guarantee the safe conduct of world trade and education, and the periods when that status has been challenged are the periods of most discomfort here at home and in the world generally.

It's a conundrum, and unfortunately the rest of the world chooses to blame us solely for its creation, which should obviously be unfair.

 

[Fog]

Only one problem with that, and it's the word commodity. Unless, of course, you want to go the way of Venezuela and nationalize all the fossil fuel production in this country.

I'm sorry Brett, but you truly are a CFI sometimes. It doesn't MATTER what the PRICE of crude is: the point is to whom are we writing the checks for crude. Personally, I'm pretty comfortable writing them to Exxon, BP, et. al., instead of Aramco & PetroVen. Or would you prefer to continue pouring piss down a hole (and killing eagles) providing tax-credits for solar & wind energy? WE could be building 20 new nuke electrical-power generating facilities per year around America if we so chose instead of greasing the palms of BHO's campaign donors. There, I feel much better after saying that.

 

[SkywardET]

I would personally like to think we could do that, for most of the same reasons, but what seems to happen when we live and let live is what happened in Egypt and Libya. Whether those occurrences are the Middle East in their current natural state, or yet another, opposite reaction to our influence, is probably up for debate, but the fact that the Middle East's biggest customers, those with the most interest in stability, don't seem to have shown an interest in developing their own means of securing their commerce, as belabored above.

Throughout history, the times of greatest stability are those when the one largest nation maintained control over the known world's commerce, etc. Others often expressed distaste with the system, but periods of true multipolarity are also generally periods of constant war, poverty, and diminishing freedom. We have been able to almost unilaterally guarantee the safe conduct of world trade and education, and the periods when that status has been challenged are the periods of most discomfort here at home and in the world generally.

It's a conundrum, and unfortunately the rest of the world chooses to blame us solely for its creation, which should obviously be unfair.

It's not like we don't get anything in return for the situation as it is. Sure, we foot the bill for security on a pretty much global scale, but we also are presently living off the heritage of dollar hegemony as well. We get all kinds of goodies for free*. You might say that our most valuable export is security, and in return we import all kinds of stuff.

However, this situation will change substantially very soon I think. If we have about half as many ships 10 years from now, then it will be a very different world. Suddenly it would no longer be such a great hurdle to overcome in order to challenge us militarily, and we will arrive at that multipolar world which always seems to invite conflict.


* - Although nothing is truly free in an economic sense, our perpetually negative trade balance means that we continually gain stuff in exchange for only rag paper and a few bits of digital code representing that rag paper. Since that rag paper loses value perpetually (to the tune of about 20% over the past five years, which is about average), in real terms we are acquiring significant wealth more than we are trading for it.

 

[Brett327]

It doesn't MATTER what the PRICE of crude is

I'm pretty sure the American people care if it costs them $200 to fill up their tanks, and that's what counts come election time. Who cares whether the Saudis are getting their dollars from Exxon-Mobile or BP. They're getting them either way, and driving up the price of oil by allowing chaos in the middle east only benefits them further. You're letting your idealism get in the way of your common sense.

 

[jtdees]

It's not like we don't get anything in return for the situation as it is. (etc.)

Of course, all that's completely true. It isn't all risk, no reward for us. However, the concern is, as you hinted, when we start running out of dollars and willpower to keep footing that bill. If we withdraw, and the ME goes wacko, our supplies will go relatively uninterrupted, as far as the geographic course of each drop of oil. The problem is that OPEC replaced the previous system, where American boards like the Texas Railroad Commission set the prices and coordinated production targets. With OPEC being directed by wackos, and Europe and Asia unable to stop them or afford their prices, suddenly all the value we get for our increasingly worthless pieces of paper will dry up, because there will be no production of anything for us to receive in trade.

We are the only ones who have been able and willing to guarantee the conduct of the world's economy, just as Britain did it before us in the Victorian era, and if we don't continue, you can bet China will be the only one ready and willing to make the world into their own image, if anyone does it. Otherwise it's a Fall of the Roman Empire situation, and we won't like the Dark Ages that follow.

We can leave everyone to their own devices, or lead everyone to their own devices, but so far, we've only been employing a halfway strategy, (leasing everyone to their own devices?) and this is where it's got us.

 

[hscs]

Funny thing - after 10+ years of fighting - we can't seem to accept or remember what it was like to be in a Phase 0 world.....even with OSW, we didn't always have a carrier in the mid east - and that was when we had more of them.....