http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4334

Don't know if this has been posted elsewhere.

Another spot on the dice so to speak. Another carrier group is another chance for Gulf of Tonkin II.

I love how they are always "speeding" to their destination.

The rest of the time they just kinda float around out there I suppose.

But I guess that, "USS Enterprise Strike Group is slowly drifting towards the Persian...", just does not have the same ring to it.

floating listlessly
drifiting casually
meandering
wiling away the day dreamily sailing

row,
row,
row your boat ...

I'm going to make a prediction.

I reckon Iran will suffer many airstrikes by the end of September 2007.

I reckon before that to happen there will be a 2nd 9/11 type false flag terror op. They will blame Iran for it directly or indirectly.

Once the airstrikes begin, probably using tactical nukes with coventional bombs, Russian and Chinese ICBMs will go on high alert.

Economic collapse will follow soon after.


Lets hope I'm wrong.

-LC

I bet you're wrong.


But I'm a rosy-eyed optimist (Or a rosy-nosed optimist).

I am a pessimist and I think well, you're probably wrong... I don't think the current admin. needs another attack to lash out at Iran. If anything another attack might focus our attention on the stateless actors who pulled off the first attack.

I bet you are both wrong simultaneously!

Actually, the republicans may need a strike on Iran to get their approval ratings up. Remember, nothing helped Bush's public opinion more than terror attacks. An attack on September 11, 2007, coupled with a response by Bush to turn every A-rab/Iranian into irradiated glass would make the sheeple think Bush is better than Jesus.

Remember, the sheeple bleat most happily when they think they are being protected or gaining mass vengeance on a band of bedouins.

I hope it gets there before Iran attacks the U.S. They will probably load a bunch of suicide bombers in a plane and then parachute them out somewhere over the East coast.

Tell me you're being sarcastic...

Yes, I am.

Thoughts on US Military Strategy for the next Century

I've been reading much on the topic of Peak Oil as of late, and digesting the data through my brain. I'll start by enumerating some basics which are today well-accepted, then move on to a proposed military strategy for the United States which covers the next one hundred years.

Peak oil is about to be upon us! What joy, what pain, what chaos! The stage is set, the actors shuffle about nervously awaiting the curtain's rise.

The US is the world's biggest consumer of oil, per capita at least. China is rising rapidly as number two, and the former USSR is an important factor too, though they are in a much better self-supply situation than China.

China is the heart of this particular analysis, because their current consumption rate extrapolated into the future means terrible things for the US, even without oil extraction rate decline.

Barring some massive new discoveries, the largest portion by far of the world's remaining easily-extracted oil lies in the Middle East. By now we must be familiar with the motivated, passionate religious folks who are in part responsible for the chaos there now. The sparks they're striking are small.

The crux of my idea is that there are really just three nations which will, as oil depletion becomes a real problem, begin to face each other as serious enemies. The US, China and the fUSSR.

Before I go into the details of each nation's position in this play, I'd like to mention a particular abstract which may be related to game theory. In a group of individuals who trade mutually economic raw materials, goods, or services, but who also depend on a common raw material...

In this group, when that raw material is plentiful, the most profitable thing for each to do is be productive and trade. However, when the common material becomes very scarce, the situation changes and it is more profitable for them to kill one another, to assure themselves of the increasingly limited supply.

Turning back to the Big 3, let's for a moment apply that logic to their relations. First, the dependencies. The US is highly dependant on imported oil from the mideast and elsewhere; China is increasingly so and looks to be much more in the future. The fUSSR has better ability to self-provision and so is less likely to take an offensive stance.

This leaves the US and China to fight over the plunder. Both are world superpowers; both have very large conventional and nuclear forces.

It is therefore predicted that within 100 years, there will be a major conventional or nuclear conflict between these two powers. Such a conflict is likely to start as conventional war, and escalate into nuclear.

The forum for such a conflict is not likely to be US soil, for several reasons. First, the US is geographically far from both China and the fUSSR. It has the capability of shooting down any ICBMs well before they reach continental airspace. Its potential enemies don't have on-continent bases from which to deploy a rapid attack which could not be stopped by such interception capabilities.

China may be the forum for such conflict, but it will not likely start there. Initially such action is likely to start in the mideast, due to its production centrality and relative proximity to available US bases in Europe.

At this point it must be reiterated that existing mideast conflict is merely low-grade grumbling. After much thought, I've realized that even if its sparks end up igniting a superpower conflict, they are not necessary for such a conflict to begin and indeed by striking such a conflict earlier, may decrease the severity of the eventual, inevitable war.

Ultimately, it is pretty much inevitable that at least two major superpowers will start a conventional war over oil in the next hundred years; if so, it is almost certain that the first point of conflict will be the mideast. A conventional war is highly likely to escalate into the nuclear mode, especially as supplies dwindle and the US populace loses their 'morality' and adopts in its place 'expediency', as historical examples demonstrate they are willing to.

It would in fact be unwise not to make use of every available military resource, nuclear included, to secure the last remaining treasure of the world.

Thinking along these lines, I've realized that planners in the US military must already be a step or two ahead of me, so I've decided to take some more steps and figure out the most efficient strategy for them.

If I was in charge of the US military & government, I would...

First, over 1-2 years, move as many nuclear missiles and deliverable nuclear bombs to areas primarily along China's borders as possible. In addition of course, bomb delivery systems (jets, launch stations) and fuel. Of the 80% of the US's nuclear stockpile which will be moved out under this plan, 10% will be moved to locations surrounding the mideast, and 90% arranged for rapid targeting of China's densely populated cities.

The entire movement of these supplies will be carried out slowly enough that suspicions will not be aroused. The plan will be kept with utmost secrecy.

Once deployment is complete, all nuclear missiles and delivery systems will be activated in a pre-emptive strike against China, wiping out most of their population by delivery of fusion bombs to the hearts of their densely-populated urban areas, also wiping out industrial infrastructure, roads, etc.

The rationale for this plan is that the US ought to with all haste eliminate its most dangerous competitor before the game turns nasty (ie. before supply constriction makes it more beneficial to kill rather than trade). In this way it will profit maximally by capturing China's present and future oil demand, alleviating for a while the harsh pinch of peak oil and significantly flattening out the depletion curve. The risks of such a move to the continental US are minimal due to its geographic isolation and excellent defense systems, providing the fUSSR does not retaliate.

If such a plan is executed, the fUSSR might retailiate. However, if we look closely at the cost/benefit for such a move, they reap a net benefit from the destruction of China's oil demand; a major competitor for this resource will be removed from their vicinity, and part of the oil supply the US is unable to capture will go to them. Thus, they may publicly condemn such a move, but will privately accept it and not retaliate.

It is not my expectation that such an adventurous plan will be implemented. Rather, the cowardly administrations of the present and future are more likely to engage in a slowly escalating conventional conflict with mideast nationals. At some point in the price escalation curve, a major competitor nation will step in on a pretense and start the real war. From there, it will be a short or maybe medium time until nuclear deployment.

The end result of this second scenario is a bombed out warzone in the mideast, and nuclear destruction of various Chinese and possibly fUSSR cities, though the second is less likely. This second model I call the 'slow conflagration'. The slow conflagration model means much more oil will be used by the military, relative to the 'fast strike' plan. The 'fast strike' plan is very economical; it doesn't take much fuel to drop hydrogen bombs on cities and launch cruise missiles, compared to deploying troops.

If anyone in a position to implement such a 'fast strike' plan reads this, I encourage them to seriously consider its execution as soon as possible, as the logically most efficient and maximally beneficial choice for the United States at this time.