Live From the Pentagon

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The French government has issued their own hurricane warning as the storm uprgrades in severity.  The French Ambassador is yet to thank our President for his actions in evacuating their citizens from the danger area.

Secretary Ford,
Considering that your assistance was neither asked for, nor necessary, there was nothing that our government felt the need to thank you for.  The Citizens of our Departments of Guadeloupe and Martinique face the threat of hurricanes every year and we have made suffiicient preparations to care for their safety and the safety of any visitors to our overseas departments.  All you have manged to do is play to the cameras and caused tourists to leave sooner than they otherwise would have, thus hurting the fragile economies of the region.

Jean-David Levitte
Ambassador of the French Republic to the United States of America

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Secretary Ford,
I sincerely hope you will consider visiting Cairo in your travels.  The ties of mutual history give us insight into the situation facing our Sudanese cousins, that may prove helpful in resloving the problems in Darfur .  Let me also express wishes for the swift recovery of Secretary Nyman's father and our hopes that you will not need to do double duty much longer.

M. Nabil Fahmy
Ambassador to the United States of America
from the Arab Republic of Egypt

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Announcement on a new force structure plan:

In spite of having gone largely unnoticed, the Defense Department has indeed cancelled (for now) deployment of a missile defense system, one reason being that it is not ready to be deployed.  Now, I will tell you the other reason we cancelled.

Actually it has been noticed and has affected actions taken by both North Korea and Taiwan so as to be different from what they otherwise would have done had the program been continued.

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Yes on the time compression, but I'll be using the usual 1 year reality = 1 month fantasy that tends to apply here, so they won't be ready until near the end of August.  Will this be a change from 10 active and 10 NG divisions to 12 active and 10 NG or to 12 active and 8 NG divisions?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

$10 billion would be a bit on the low side, but not impossible in my opinion.  If you were proposing to buy the new divisions new equipment, it would be impossible, but switching the existing NG equipment to the new active duty divisions and breaking out older equipment for the NG units is quite doable.  However, if you actually make use of these new divisions, the costs will increase fairly rapidly.  (As it is, you get a break because the 7th and 24th divisions already have some Active army personel in them.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

One other question, given that most people here assume some form of time compression and we are assuming that we start in the same position as the US, can I expect to have any forces freed up as Iraq improves (if it improves)?

Yes, but absent action by the Atlasian givernment that affects Iraq, it will not be any better or worse than the situation in Iraq in reality.  I'd prefer to keep things as close to reality as possible just simply because it makes it easier for new people to figure out what is going on.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The UK indicates that it has no problems with you using Deigo  Garcia as you propose as it clearly falls within the terms of the US lease.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps respectfully points out to the Secretary of Defense that the 2nd MAW and 3rd MAW are not equivalent units and that the 2nd MAW contains the Marine air units best capable of establishing forward air bases where existing suitable facilities are not already present.  In addition, the units of the 3rd MAW (other than MAG-39) are unlikely to contribute significantly to the carrying out of the Secretary's stated plans for Sudan as he has indicated them to be.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

No, they agreed to let you base there.  Neither country has facilities suitable for just plopping down an F/A-18 squadron and operating from there, altho they do have sufficient air strips to operate (provided that you provide the equipment) some forces.  If you try to base the 14th and 31st MAG out of Chad, you would just barely be able to operate them form their existing facilities, but only at the cost of nothing else using their few paved runways.  Chad is willing to be hospitable, but not that hospitable.  The 13th MAG isn't much of a problem as Harriers are designed to make do with unimproved airfields, but there is absolutely no way that the existing airfields in Eritrea can handle the entire 11th MAG.  Five airports with paved runways for seven F/A-18 squadrons isn't feasible especially not when other air traffic will be needing to use them as well, and Chad has only 6 usable airfields for the Hornet (7 paved airfields, but one has runways that are too short for the Hornet)  Deploying the Harriers and helicopters is fairly simple as they are designed so that they can use rude facilities, but Hornets require paved runways of sufficient length which both Chad and Eritrea have in short supply.

In short, you can base six Hornet Squdrons in Chad, and five in Eritrea and in addition you can base two Marine EA-6B Prowler squadrons out of the smallest paved Chad airfield or one Prowler squadron could be colocated with any of the Hornets.  I don't think you could flood either Eritrea or Chad with enough Harriers or Helicopters to overwhelm their unpaved airfields using just the 2nd and 3rd MAW's.  Maybe both combined would prove too much for Eritrea   Also, all this assumes that any aerial tankers or cargo planes would be based elsewhere as well as far as maintenence and such are considered.

I'll admit that I misunderstood from your previous comments the sort of air war you were planning on fighting.   I had thought you were aiming for a Afghanistan-style campaign rather than a Kosovo-style campaign.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Iraqi government tells you to define "target" befire you start doing so.  (i.e., target as in actively going after him, or target as in if he shows up in some Marine's sights by chance, the Marine is free to shoot.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It's late, I should have been in bed an hour ago and I'm heading there immediately after posting this, but there is no way that the Iraqi Interim Government can acquiese in your manhunt now, not with it having been phrased the way you did as if their concerns were of no concern, not if they hope to remain in power.  The coalition is ordered by the Iraqi Government to pull its forces out of Nasaf and leave it up to Iraqi forces to deal with the situation there.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You know, if you had quietly approached the Iraqiis they might have put a little sugar coating on it, but they would have gone along with what you wanted to do.  Instead, you've given Iyad Allawi two bad choices appear to be an American lap dog or to cut you off at the knees. I don't think Allawi is a lapdog or desires to appear to be one.  See the next issue of the The Region, appearing soon for the news.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I will be using this opportunity to acquire a large number of put contracts in petroleum options.  If the situation gets resolved as I hope it will be, I'll make a lot of money; if it doesn't, we'll all be broke anyway, so it won't matter how bankrupt I be.  

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I hate it when traditions are broken because of politics.  Traditionally, the only acceptable excuse for renaming a commissioned ship has been to reuse the name on a better and newer ship.  So tell me, Secretary Ford, when will the keel be laid on CVN 78  USS Jimmy Carter?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Varyag is in no shape to be used as an opearting aircraft carrier.
All it is a rusting hulk that the PLAN is studying to gain an insight into how to build a carrier of their own like they have done before wuth eth Minsk, the Melbourne, and the Kiev.  Heck, they turned down getting the Clemenceau for free which shows what the Chinese think of French naval expertise!

Even if it were usable, the Kuznetsov class carriers can't launch planes with heavy strike loads, so it primarily serves as a platform for defending agaimst enemey planes by hopefully shooting them down before they can sink the fleet they are a part of.  Combined with the fact that they aren't going to be able to get and sister ships, I can't see the Chinese making an operating carrier out of the hulk.

If the Chinese have finally decided to seriously enter the field of naval aviation after having dabbled for the past few decades, several ships similar to our own Wasp-class LHD's would probably be the most sensible option for them.   That would give them a carrier capability second only to the US, and would be a logical starting place for a program that would let them pull ahead of the UK, France and Russia.   The Chinese saber rattling is interesting, but not particularly worrying to the US.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

China's navy is still a brown water navy, right?
&
Has China begun building their next generation SSBN?

According to what I can find on the web, The first Type 094 SSBN has been launched, but is not expected to be in operational status for several years at the earliest.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Well, the public news reports contain no such information, altho of course the Secretary may well have had briefings from the intelligence services.   But I will stand by what I said, and assert that the PLANS Chinluck is not a major problem for the US.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Just a note-I don't know terribly much about ships

All I can say is that the fkleet will be focussed on two battleships with some limited missile abilities, and maybe a couple of Chinese/Russian/whatever variants of AEGIS cruisers.

The fleet will be very very moble, however, and whilst officially it is to ensure they control the sea routes into and out of China in the east Asian area, basically their aim is to control all the sea routes in the area and to ramp up their naval fleet in readiness for a possible war with the rogue province-not that that is on the cards at the moment.

John, you might have to determine the ships your enemy has-but remember, they have to be very mobile.

Battleships are not very mobile.  That is why Atlasia has decommisioned all of hers.  They make perfect targets.

Perhaps China is planning something like the monitor concept the USN toyed with a few years ago which was for a large ship that would carry a large number of SLCM's and SAM's and could partially submerge to reduce its radar signature while it was on station but not actually launching.  However, they aren't particularly fast, so the USN decided that it wasn't worth going ahead with monitors at the moment.