OT or Not OT: Twilight 2030

[Raellus]

I've been working on projections for U.S. military equipment and force strength and the findings are a little bit on the alarming side. I'm probably beating a dead horse here, but I really think that any projection to a third world war needs to take the following into consideration. Although the U.S.A.'s gargantuan military budget is still much larger than other emerging [rival] powers, much of it goes either to paying for the costly, long-running counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan or for expensive, small batch weapon systems like the F-22 (for which orders have been significantly reduced). The litany of projects that have been cut or downgraded in recent years is rather long. The following is from an article on the downgrading of the U.S. Army's GCV program (to replace the M2 Bradley IFV):

“The Army can’t afford anything new,” said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, Arlington, Va. “It can afford mods, it can afford upgrades, but clean sheet designs have fallen out of the modernization plan. There’s no GCV, no Armed Aerial Scout — it’s all a continuation of the Army’s ‘Big 5’ during the Reagan years.”

In the 1980s, the Army invested heavily in Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, the Abrams tank, the Bradley fighting vehicle and the Patriot missile defense system. All of those systems are expected to remain in the Army inventory for years, or decades, to come.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/2...T02/301180024/

The USAF and USN are also finding that items on their wish lists aren't safe from the chopping block.

The active U.S. Army is set to shrink to around 400,000 by the end of this decade. Although the remaining force will still be quite capable, I don't think the U.S. military is going to be the world beater that it was (arguably) 10, 20, or 30 years ago.

IF the defense budget trends that I've been harping on in this thread continue, there's no doubt in my mind that the U.S. will be hard pressed if it finds itself in a major, conventional land war with another world power, let alone more than one. This will be a prominent feature of T2030.

[pmulcahy11b]

And what we'll also get is the "Hollow Army" of the 1970s and 80s again. The higher-ranking officers, senior NCOs, and a few die-hards stay; then you have a horde of new troops who will get thrust into leadership positions well before they are ready for the responsibility or have the proper training.

[Raellus]

No doubt, Paul. It looks like the U.S. Army, at least, is going to be fighting a significant degree of institutional and technological atrophy in the near future.

I'm starting on operational plans for the T2030 war in Europe and I stumbled across the following while researching the modern Polish armed forces. It's a NATO contingency plan, c. 2010, to defend its Baltic members in case of an attack (presumably by Russia and/or Belarus).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Guardian

That link led to this article.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...russia-baltics

Wow. Just wow.

[pmulcahy11b]

Wikileaks...goddamned guy...

[Raellus]

Here's an interesting little piece. The bit about the Russian aircraft carry isn't particularly alarming, but the table on NATO military budgets is rather telling.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia...195206098.html

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Raellus

the table on NATO military budgets is rather telling.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia...195206098.html

That chart was exactly what I was looking at when I suggested that some of the Baltic states might leave if a "1.6% of GDP must go to defense" was a new NATO requirement. That number would keep Estonia in but lose the others.

Then you could have Russia take Latvia and Lithuania without pressing the Article 6 button. Estonia now surrounded and Nato has few options to support (logistics wise).

[Rainbow Six]

If I'm reading various articles correctly there already is a supposed minimum percentage of GDP that must go to defence spending and it's 2 %, e.g.

http://www.defenceiq.com/defence-tec...rtfall-intern/

The agreed rate set between NATO allies is a relatively meagre 2% of GDP

In 2013 the only members that met this target were Estonia, Greece, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. The only others that have come close since 2009 are Turkey and France.

As a side note, Greece and Turkey (two of the bigger spenders) still have conscription, as do Norway and Denmark (although period of service in Denmark is only four months), but the rest of NATO has abolished mandatory military service (although some countries, e.g. Germany and Sweden) have retained the legislation to reinstate it should the need arise. In most cases conscription was abolished over the last decade or so, so it's possible that as time goes by and new conscripts are not recruited some countries may see a reduction in the size of their reserve forces.