New Theaters of War Part 1

The New Theaters of War Pt 1
The US and allies have been dealing—or failing to deal with—with procurement and strategy issues . The military end of the blogosphere is abuzz with horror stories of barely armed ships and billion dollar boondoggles. Unfortunately, most of the horror stories are true. How did we get here? The number one reason is that we replaced strategy with buzzwords. But for strategy we need to know who the enemy is supposed to be. Sadly, it seems many in the political arena—and yes that includes generals and admirals—don’t really seem to believe we have one. There are literally a half-dozen serious hot spots or potential new “cold wars”. Each has its own needs. Some needs will overlap, some will be highly specific. So let us look at these potential wars and rumors of wars on the horizon. Please note that some of these are ones that we probably shouldn’t get in involved in…but I am not here to debate on whether to intervene but rather what should be used for intervention. Some may seem far-fetched but so was America going to war in Europe again during the 1920s, the Soviet Union collapsing in the 1960’s, etc. We can never be 100% sure of anything.
Here is a short list of what will be looked at on this blog–they are not in any certain order:
1. Chinese Armed Expansion—not a mythical pivot east but actual levels of combat.
2. Muslim Insurgency in Western Africa—not if we should intervene but what if we do.
3. Russian Armed Expansion—the defense of Eastern Europe.
4. Iranian Nuclear Threat—not just trying to prevent it, but what do we need if they get the bomb?
5. Syrian/Iraqi theater—the war against ISIS. Related to others below but with specific challenges.
6. The Caliphate—if we lose Syria and Iraq or Turkey and Pakistan go radical. Welcome to the second Ottoman Empire. Including a potential Western European radical-Muslim insurgency.
7. Pakistan + India + Radical Islam—a border war gains a very terrifying new element
8. Thinking the Unthinkable in the 21st century—nuclear strategy.
This first post will not go into any of them but is rather ask anyone reading it to think about what they feel we need to procure and how to deploy them. We’ll jump in the pool on the Tuesday, January 13th. Think hard. I am hoping for real debate…yea, I know I have zip in terms of followers but hey, if you see this ask the same question of your folks and we’ll all hash it out.