Shifting the Military from Offense to Defense
Colonel Macgregor suggests US is likely to be kicked out of bases in Germany, Korea, Japan, and the Gulf
The US is likely to be kicked out of bases in Germany, South Korea, Japan, and the Gulf because countries see US presence as making them a bigger target, rather than serving as protection
War is shifting to favor defense because forward operating bases in the Gulf or in Germany are vulnerable to missile and drone attack.
Previously, it was thought, the best defense was a good offense.
Now, with the exception of Hypersonic Inter Ballistic Missiles, the US can defend itself Defensively from North America. We are unwanted in the middle east.
QUESTIONS:
Do you agree with (Former) Colonel Douglas Macgregor that there is a major shift in technology that will shift US (Doctrine?) to favor Defense over Offense?
Do you agree that after Iran attacked US military bases in the Gulf, many allied countries are going to see the bases in their countries as targets, rather than protection.
Do you agree that the US is likely to leave bases in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the Gulf?
Do you agree that Aircraft carries are of less value because they can’t get within (600 miles?) of the coast?
Do you believe the MICIMATT is likely to accept such a shift in the near term, or will the US dig in its heels and have to face bigger losses before agreeing to a re-alignment.
Transcript
.. Well, we could do that with a wave of the hand. withdrawal of US forces from areas surrounding Iran.
Okay. Uh if we do that, we’re surrendering. We can’t do that.
And Doug, on that note, I’d like to ask you, here are the US bases at the point of February 28th this year.
Are any of them active in any manner that you are aware of?
Not that I’m aware of. That doesn’t mean we still don’t have some people in proximity to them, but for the most part, they are unusable.
Let’s just put it that way.
And Doug, wasn’t the very the reason why they were there to begin with was for a a time in in in in history as this.
This is why we had them there.
Isn’t that why we put them there over the course of time?
Sure. That’s all 11 of these. There’s 11 of them here that they they’re noted.
Yeah. Well, absolutely. There’s no question about that.
But we haven’t been keeping keeping up with current events in warfare.
If you looked at what’s happening in eastern Ukraine, you would know that none of these places are defensible anymore.
You don’t have enough air and missile defense batteries. You don’t have enough radars.
You don’t have any redundancy in
it. And there was a tendency to dismiss out of hand the competence and capability of the Iranians.
Now, having
dealt with the Israelis over the years, the Israelis were very definitely sensitive to it, but even they did not appreciate the magnitude of the leap
forward in ISR strike that Iran had achieved.
And I don’t think anybody appreciated the extent to which the
Chinese and the Russians would commit their own overhead surveillance assets to the defense of Iran.
So bottom line is if you go back to your list and you you take in mind this fundamentally changed environment for military power you know it’s insoluble for us.
We we can’t do this. We can’t admit uh or or support you know this
basket of uh requirements or demands but at the same time we can’t reverse them.
That’s the problem. It’s not a question of refusing to uh refusing to deal with them.
We we just there’s nothing we can do about it.
So Iran is de facto winning the war whether we like it or not.
Right now, there’s something else though, and
this is very, very important, and your audience needs to understand that bases like this are very important to the Department of Defense, I’m sorry, Department of the War at the moment.
And that’s because forward presence, the presence of US, naval, air, and ground forces far from the United States has
always been part of this notion of forward defense.
that the best way to prevent wars as being as far forward as
possible and making it impossible for the enemy to rapidly overrun everything.
Well, those days have been over for years.
This kind of thing I and others have talked about this repeatedly.
If you put something forward within range of all of
these missile systems and unmanned systems given overhead surveillance, you’re going to lose them.
Now, if you
lose all of this overhead and excuse me, all this overseas structure, you also
lose all the general officer and flag officer positions in the Navy.
Well, guess what? The Department of Defense doesn’t want to give anything up.
We’re about to be thrown out of Germany once we get rid of this
Chancellor Mats.
And eventually the alternative Deutsch, the AFD takes over and they have a chancellor.
We’re going
to throw us out of Germany.
And by the way, the Koreans are already pushing to throw us out of South Korea.
They’re being polite about it. That’s
effectively what they’d like.
And the Japanese are not far behind because instead of being a source of defensive
capability, instead of being there to protect these countries, we are now seeing we’re now seen as being a magnet
for conflict, a catalyst for war, frankly, because if they’re a target because they happen to have US forces on
their soil, what’s the point of having us on their soil?
And boy, have we been uh what’s the word I want?
We’ve been exposed, I guess, is the best way to put it. Exactly.
And what what a what a a shame and an embarrassment it is. All this bravado really.
Well, this is what happens when you overstay your welcome anyway.
But right now, it’s it’s matched by technological change that has fundamentally shifted uh the advantage in warfare.
The advantage in warfare
strategically and I would argue operationally is now defensive.
And we have built everything that we do on the basis of offensive action. Offensive.
We had better start thinking about how we’re going to defend the continental United States.
And we better start thinking about quickly.
And unfortunately, let me just play you one voice that that flies in the face of that Dan who wants to um uh just be uh
remain a true believer.
And this is a former Sententcom commander just from this morning. The president has time on his hands.
He’s controls the narrative. He controls the strike capabilities and he knows that the policy he set with the blockade
has had short-term and long-term effects on the regime and the people of Iran.
So, he’s been very astute in leveraging that time.
I presume you don’t know this man and he’s saying it with a straight face.
Is it because he’s got money flying into his pockets or is he really a true believer?
Well, it’s a combination, no doubt. I mean, he’s certainly going to be rewarded financially for pushing the status quo, particularly from the Israel
lobby and its agents all over Washington DC.
They’re all wedded to permanent basing overseas. If you go to something
like the Atlantic Council, which is should be on life support at best at this stage.
Everyone over there is trying to figure out how you hold this
NATO mess together in perpetuity, which is absurd.
uh about the best you can do for the patient that’s sitting on the operating table right now is give him a haircut and a shave because you can’t replace
the heart.
You can’t resuscitate the body. But that’s where we are. Everyone is clinging to the past.
The past is their best hope. No, they’re wrong.
Coming to terms with the the future is difficult.
What do we need a large surface fleet to do in this new environment?
If your ships are forced hundreds of miles offshore, making it very difficult for you to attack targets
ashore, if you can’t land forces, if you have to refuel all of your aircraft repeatedly into and out of the combat
area, and you’re losing the war to air and missile defense, what’s the point of aircraft carriers?
Point of this big fleet. Uh, you know, the these are tough things.
You know there when I was working for the office of the secretary of the navy people
would joke repeatedly there are only two classes of ships — submarines and targets
because in every exercise with the surface fleet the submarines sank everything.
Now don’t you think the Chinese and the Russians have capable submarines? Of course they do. Right?
Uh and there it’s not going to end there.
Pretty soon, people, if they’re smart, will build unmanned versions of
underwater capability.
They they don’t need to build giant expensive submarines. Everything is about denying
access to us.
We’re the aggressor. We’re the offensive strike force. So, what do you do to keep us out?
And if you look at China and you look at Iran and increasingly I would say Russia, they have effectively answered that question.
They know how to do it.
War as we’ve known it in the past is over.
And if we keep on insisting that it isn’t, we’ll eventually face
something far worse than we are facing right now with Iran ..