no way man! they weren't evil. we were, for using the bomb!

11/18/2009 1:15:07 PM

Quote :

"Why was unconditional surrender so important? The only thing the Japanese were fighting for was the emperor. If we had offered to cease fire, with the condition that the Emperor would have kept his position (which he did anyway), that would have been it. No more American or Japanese lives lost. Instead, we had to be hardheaded, and demand an unconditional surrender. Was that reasonable? That was the time when diplomacy could have been used to save lives, which would have benefited everyone involved."

Well, history tells us that unconditional surrender is usually the best way to ensure the complete end of the conflict. Korea, Vietnam and Iraq I were all ended with less than unconditional surrender. We're still in Korea and its unstable, Vietnam was a disaster, and we're back in Iraq. By comparison, we have good if not excellent relations with Germany and Japan.

Note that history also teaches us that unconditional surrender will not end the conflict if no effort is put into correcting the damage that the war did (see Germany between WW I and WW II).

Also:

Quote :

"They weren't willing to go with the "unconditional surrender" option because the Japanese felt that the emperor was a god of some sort, and they didn't want him to lose his position. People believe crazy shit, whatever. The point is, we could have easily stopped the bloodshed by allowing the Emperor to retain his position. And, in the end, he did."

If you don't understand the difference between pre WW II Emperor and post WW II Emperor, you don't know much about historical Japan.

11/18/2009 1:15:25 PM

^^^That sounds like a plausible explanation, but we shouldn't have negotiated a surrender that allowed them to keep occupied land or anything like that. Obviously, we wouldn't have let the surrender include whatever conditions they wanted. Just the retention of the emperor.

^^I already concluded that "evil" and "good" are useless concepts.

^History also tells us that humans are capable of killing large numbers of other humans, when that violence could have been avoided. I think we could have proceeded with Japan just like we did, as far as helping them rebuild and restructure, without dropping the bombs, through a surrender that allowed retention of the emperor.

I do understand the difference. The emperor post-WWII is mostly a symbolic/cultural position, not totally unlike the Queen or King of England. I think that allowing him to retain that position through a conditional surrender, as insignificant as it may seem, could have ended the bloodshed. We'll never know, because we fired away without bothering to find out.

11/18/2009 1:25:10 PM

Quote :

"we shouldn't have negotiated a surrender that allowed them to keep occupied land or anything like that."

They wouldn't have gone for it. They had been an imperial power since the 1870s and following the war lost territory that they'd been picking up over the previous 70 years.

Quote :

"Obviously, we wouldn't have let the surrender include whatever conditions they wanted. Just the retention of the emperor."

That's how a negotiated conditional surrender works. The military leaders were ready to sacrifice the lives of 20 million Japanese on the beaches for leverage in negotiations and certainly would have driven a hard bargain. They retained the emperor after unconditional surrender and surely would have wanted much more after such a monumental sacrifice.

11/18/2009 1:43:09 PM

Quote :

" They wouldn't have gone for it. They had been an imperial power since the 1870s and following the war lost territory that they'd been picking up over the previous 70 years."

that's not true

they actually began the war knowing they could not win

they planned on having a negotiated peace where they would lose some of the territory they occupied during the war

sure they planned on coming out positive in the end, but, in general, the idea of negotiated peaces/surrenders is not foreign to them

11/19/2009 10:59:49 AM

that's not true

they actually began the war thinking that they would be knocking the US navy out of the fight for a longer period than they actually did

while the US was rebuilding it's Pacific fleet they would be conquering and fortifying the western Pacific as well as quickly increasing their military strength

they planned on making the cost of defeating them high enough to discourage any allied attempts to do so.

11/19/2009 6:40:48 PM

certainly what you're staying is true

but I don't think the Japanese thought we were not going to fight AT ALL

I know that they thought we were a bunch of playboys who could not handle a protracted conflict

so the "cost" thing was correct, but I'm pretty sure that they planned on giving up some of their conquests (Probably acquired US territory) in the process of a negotiated peace

in any case, these idiots who throw surprise attacks at ENORMOUS countries, whether or not they thought they could achieve ultimate victory, we're certainly not in the correct strategic mindset

I still don't know that Russia would of caved in with the lose of Stalingrad. I would be awesome if someone knew if there were usable oil fields, other than the Caucasus, for the Russians. If the Germans would of captured those oil fields, would the Russians have been oil starved? (I know that an oil rich German Army would of been good to go... BUT IT'S STILL RUSSIA, SO BIG)

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 8:26 PM. Reason : .]

11/19/2009 8:25:46 PM

Here's an interesting article that came across the wires. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) identifies four key cost drivers for future budgets:

1) continued real growth in pay and benefits for troops and civilians
2) growing operations and maintenance costs
3) plans for advanced systems
4) investments in new, high-tech spy capabilities

I think people forget the first one, but the military, like many companies, is also struggling with traditional issues like the cost of health care (Tricare), pensions, and trying to stay competitive in other pay and benefits for key skill sets with the private sector.

Operations & Maintenance costs are continuing to be a big problem. I can't speak for other systems, but I know that on the aerospace side, the continuing use of aging platforms (50+ years) like the KC-135's and the B-52's are driving up O&M costs as the airframes are being stressed to the brink.

Advanced systems goes into the prior article I posted about the fubar that our acquisition system is.

As for the spy capabilities... well... I shouldn't really speculate on such things.

Quote :

"Pentagon budget must rise to fund current plans Reuters News 11/19/2009 Author: Jim Wolf WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - U.S. defense spending in coming years must rise roughly 6 percent on average from the record sum sought by President Barack Obama this year just to meet current plans, Congress's budget office said Wednesday. An average of $567 billion would be needed annually, in constant 2010 dollars, from 2011 to 2028, not including any war funding, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated. This is about 6 percent more than the bumper $534 billion requested in the base fiscal 2010 Defense Department budget, Matthew Goldberg, CBO's acting assistant director, told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee. "CBO projects that carrying out the plans proposed in the president's 2010 budget request ... would require defense resources averaging $567 billion annually" from 2011 to 2028 in constant terms, the analysis said. The need for more funds to stay on the current path could squeeze top Pentagon suppliers such as Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), Boeing Co (BA.N), Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N), General Dynamics Corp (GD.N), BAE Systems Plc (BAES.L) and Raytheon Co (RTN.N). Other factors could boost defense spending above CBO's projection, posing even tougher choices for decision-makers grappling with trade-offs in future defense budgets. Obama administration officials have said they were initially assuming the base defense budget, excluding war-related funding, would be essentially flat for the next five years. In other words, they have been shooting for growth only enough to cover inflation, or zero real growth. The 2010 base budget request included $109 billion, or 20 per cent of the total, for procurement, and $79 billion, or 15 percent, for research, development, test and evaluation, CBO said. Its new projection of $126 billion of procurement funding for 2020 is $21 billion below its previous estimate based on a plan, called the future years defense program, that accompanied the fiscal 2009 budget. Similarly, a CBO projection of $187 billion in total investment funding for 2020 is $25 billion below its earlier call. The new, smaller projections incorporate program changes announced by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in April, before the formal release of the 2010 spending plan. CBO identified four main cost-drivers: continued real growth in pay and benefits for troops and civilians; growing operations and maintenance costs; plans for advanced systems; and investments in new, high-tech spy capabilities. The fiscal 2009 and 2010 defense budgets, including war-related funding, are at a post-Cold War high after taking into account inflation, said Stephen Daggett, an expert on the defense budget at the Congressional Research Service. "Systematic underestimation of weapons costs has become such a significant element of defense costs that it can easily be seen as an independent factor driving up the overall price of defense," he testified. Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute, a private research organization in Washington, argued the costs of American "primacy" have been low and generally getting lower over time as a share of gross domestic product. "Baseline" defense spending -- the core defense budget without war-related spending -- has risen to about 3.6 percent of GDP through the Bush years and into the first year of the Obama administration, or fiscal 2010, he said. By contrast, President Ronald Reagan's Cold War buildup peaked at 6.2 percent of GDP in 1986. David Berteau of the private Center for Strategic and International Studies, said program cuts announced by Gates did little to fix long-term funding shortfalls. "Nearly every one of his reductions was offset by an increase elsewhere," Berteau told the panel. (Editing by Steve Orlofsky)"

11/20/2009 11:02:53 AM

i haven't been reading this thread so this will be a really long post...

Quote :

"They're basically conducting economic war on us..."

Not really. China's just implementing the same "free trade" policies we've pushed for years.

11/21/2009 4:56:20 PM

Quote :

"We don't specifically target innocents and civilians though. Sure, we're kinda haphazard about collateral damage, but they aren't the targets. The other side DOES specifically target innocents and civilians. That's the biggest difference in my mind when that topic comes up. "

So far from true. USS cole? pentagon? us capital? government buildings? military patrols? those are the things they usually attack.

We have the means via technology to never need to kill civilians but they don't. Its very hard for them to attack non civilians without killing civilians as well.

Quote :

"I, however, have no problem labeling a lot of those motherfuckers as "evil". They are certainly misguided, too, and generally do think that they are doing the right thing, but those things are not mutually exclusive"

They hate us for a reason. Evil acts create evil. We did all kinds of evil things in the cold war to prevent the spread of communism (what we thought was "evil") at the end of the day, preventing people from choosing their own government is evil.

Quote :

"the point is that we don't have to target civilian populations for the wars we've lately conducted so we don't but if we had to for a necessary strategic objective we would, in a heartbeat"

even thouggh we don't "target" civilians, we still kill them. If we drop a precision bomb on a school, it kills everyone inside, even if militants kept supplies there.

Quote :

"or one of our allies"

11/21/2009 5:26:54 PM

Quote :

"us capital? government buildings?"

ahahahaha, what a moron.

Quote :

"at the end of the day, preventing people from choosing their own government is evil."

yes, yes it is.

Quote :

"even thouggh we don't "target" civilians, we still kill them."

Unfortunately, this is the nature of war. It makes it no less tragic, but it is unavoidable.

11/21/2009 6:22:11 PM

i would just like to post that i am all for military spending....

thanks for the 3.4% raise.

12/30/2009 12:24:22 AM

One thing that needs to be noticed is that a fair number of defense programs become congressional pork projects.

You could build it for 10 billion, but if they fund it with 15billion then the contractor is willing to build a new factory making widgets in their district.

Another problem is many defense programs and developments happen on scales longer than the staff that may start with them, as well as the congress and goals that orignally approved them.

There is an immense strive in the government to get the promotion and move on. Completion of a project really does not matter. People need to be assigned to projects and not allowed to leave until its completion.

These solutions to problems are left to linger long after their problem no longer exists.

The other side of that is some projects that do need to be completed never are because of political changes.

I know alot of you feel like the cold war is yesterday, and war like that can never ever never ever happen again, but if history has shown us anything, is that large scale war is a constant for humanity.

Currently we have an immediate need to properly respond to gorilla type tactics. The classical solutions to that kind of combat are total war, which we are unwilling to wage.

[Edited on December 30, 2009 at 3:49 PM. Reason : dd]

12/30/2009 3:28:08 PM

Quote :

"You could build it for 10 billion, but if they fund it with 15billion then the contractor is willing to build a new factory making widgets in their district."

There's also "You could build it in 1 state for 10 billion, or 10 states for 20 billion".

12/30/2009 4:12:00 PM

Quote :

"Military officials bought thousands of dollars worth of alcohol, food and other amenities for the U.S. lawmakers they accompanied on trips overseas, travel records viewed by The Wall Street Journal show. The documents don't show these outlays have secured any favors or favoritism from lawmakers. And the funds spent by military personnel—which ran about $4,300 per trip for the 43 trips examined by the Journal—usually account for only a small portion of the total lawmakers spend on overseas travel. Instead, the records shed light for the first time on how the military exploits its official escort role on these trips to foster relationships with lawmakers who approve departmental budgets and top appointments. The disclosures also underscore the military's pervasive pursuit of congressional access. Indeed, the military aides who accompany lawmakers overseas are usually the same people who lobby Congress at home; their offices are in buildings shared with lawmakers."

http://on.wsj.com/5XiUyt


I don't think it is particularly shocking, and "thousands" isn't a huge amount of money, but I question whether or not the military should be spending appropriated money (beyond it's obvious role of protecting a legislator) to lobby another branch of the government, which appropriates said money.

OTOH, the military is often at the mercy of congressional interests and whims as to what gear they want the military to purchase as opposed to what the military feels it needs.


Food for thought either way.

1/21/2010 10:35:32 AM

I think the question depends upon whether or not this same level of spending, this same level of courtesies is provided to senior military officers and senior DoD officials. If so (and it could very well be), then I don't see this as being anything particularly scandalous; if anything, I bet Congress would be in an uproar that they're not being treated with the same level of respect as the Executive branch officials.

I could also see a case where Congressional members and their staff maybe bitched in the past about the rough transport by the military and strongly "suggested" that the military improve the quality of their transport. After all, they are civilians, so you can't simply strap them into a C-17 next to palates of explosives.

1/21/2010 12:15:45 PM