Uhmm, What's up with Korea?

[samclem]

With nukes and the mobility of our armed forces, just how important are foreign bases anyway?

Lance

They are still important.
1) Having forces in theater allows us to defend the receiving location, the air/sea bridge, and to hold critical bad-guy elements at risk while we build up. Everything is much harder or impossible if we don't have a foot in the door.
2) It takes a long time to move stuff from the US, and not every adversary will be as accomodating (stupid?) as Saddam was in 1990. Airlift is fast, but if there's no place to stop and stage aircraft/crews, then it takes longer. Aerial refueling isn't the answer when there's a lot of stuff to be moved. And, the vast majority (90+ %) of cargo needed for a big operation must still move by sea (= many weeks to marshal, onload, steam to the offload locaton, offload, onward movement to folks who need it). We can get around some of ths by prepositioning stuff afloat (as we do now), but that's not always a great answer.
3) US presence in many of these places is one big way to demonstrate a committment to regional security agreements. Some folks would argue the merits of various cases, but it is clearly a powerful tool. If we've established a strong relationship with a host nation, we're more likely to be allowed to use our base in their country to conduct operations that the host nation may not strongly support. Conversely, if we have no bases in the area and we have to start from scratch to get permission to use a site, it's much easier for the local governments to come up with reasons to say "no."

 

[Nords]

Conversely, if we have no bases in the area and we have to start from scratch to get permission to use a site, it's much easier for the local governments to come up with reasons to say "no."

We don't need no stinkin' bases, we'll always have several acres of soverign American territory near the world's hot spots!

(This public service announcement has been brought to you by the U.S. Navy...)

By the way, Sam, can we get a few thousand gallons of tanker service for our F/A-18s? They've been up for almost 20 minutes now so they're gettin' pretty low...

 

[samclem]

We don't need no stinkin' bases, we'll always have several acres of soverign American territory near the world's hot spots!

(This public service announcement has been brought to you by the U.S. Navy...)

By the way, Sam, can we get a few thousand gallons of tanker service for our F/A-18s? They've been up for almost 20 minutes now so they're gettin' pretty low...

(Below offered in the hopes Nords is offline for several days and winging has way toward the mainland)

Don't get me started!
Start with 70 airframes
- 7 broken= 63 remaining
- 23 fighters guarding the boat (can't take any chances with the boat!) = 40 remaining
- 10 buddy tankers for the acft guarding the boat = 30 remaining
- 3 E-2s watching for possible threats to the boat = 27 remaining
- 6 SH-60 SAR helos and backups to the SAR birds = 21 remaining
- 2 C-2s carrying the skipper's packages and booty from shore = 19 remaining
- 8 S-3's keeping the boat safe ("there could be a sub out here!!") = 11 aircraft remaining
- 2 ES-3s listening for possible threats to the boat = 9 remaining for the strike package
- 4 EA-6s to jam for the strike package = 5 remaining
- 2 fighters to fly OCA = 3 remaining
- 2 buddy tankers for the OCA and the strike aircraft
= 1 remaining fighter to take the fight to the enemy
***********************************************

Interservice joshing aside, the ability of the USN to generate a tremendous number of combat sorties from afloat is amazing. Hopefully some PRC reps and policymakers are getting a big eyeful of this right now as they watch Exercise RIMPAC.

Oh--and a moment of silence as we say goodbye to the F-14 Tomcat, which left service in Feb of this year after 24 years of fleet service.

 

[laurence]

F-14 is out of service? Wow. But that's a two seater, yes? That mean's I could get a ride in one turned over to civilian use?? Awesome! I can be Goose! Except for the whole hitting my head on the canopy and dying, I'll skip that part.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

So you're happy with just being doofy and sitting behind tom cruise in an airplane?

 

[samclem]

F-14 is out of service? Wow. But that's a two seater, yes? That mean's I could get a ride in one turned over to civilian use?? Awesome! I can be Goose! Except for the whole hitting my head on the canopy and dying, I'll skip that part.

You think that Jeep of yours gets crappy mileage?! Wait 'till you taxi up to the pump and buy 2200 gallons to fill 'er up after a few hours of fun zooming around.

 

[laurence]

So you're happy with just being doofy and sitting behind tom cruise in an airplane?

If I get to kick his chair the whole flight!

Let's see, 2200 gallons x $3.50/gallon = divorce!