Re: Taiwan in stealth technology breakthrough: report
US has pulled out of Iraq already. Military contractors remain.
That's just for the headline and largely symbolic. There are no 'combat' troops in Iraq, but there is still significant US military assets and personnel tied down there still.
As for Afghanistan, they have also started pulling out. The 1st phase of pull out was pulling back the "surge" troops. Now, they are preparing for more pull outs with the handing over of security duties to Afghan troops/police. They certainly aren't waiting until Afghanistan is rebuilt before pulling out.
Again, largely for the home crowd. There are still huge numbers of American military personnel and assets tied down and will likely remain so for some time despite what the politicians say to appease the home audience.
And the PLA will also need to mass it forces across from ROC before they can mount an invasion.
Are you assuming that PLA:
1. Don't need to mass forces to successfully invade ROC? Or
2. US will not pick up PLA massing its forces?
3. US will not react to PLA forces massing across from ROC?
The opening move of any PLA plan to re-take Taiwan will not involve them sailing huge numbers of men and equipment across the straight.
China probably have sufficient ground forces stationed within a few days of Taiwan to take the island, and enough to take the island several times over can be moved into striking position within a matter of days, a week at worst. This is a fight on China's doorstep do not forget.
If the PLA wants to take Taiwan, it will need to take out its defenses first. The 2nd Artillery already have vast numbers of missiles stationed within striking distance of Taiwan. These missiles can be fired without having to leave their home bases in many cases.
It's a similar case with the air force. Much of the force needed to take the island can strike from their home bases. Maybe not all and additional forces would need to be mobilized and brought in to take the island, but for the opening strike, the units already in striking range should more than suffice.
It will take time to weaken Taiwan's defenses enough for a landing to become a viable option, and the full mobilisation can take place then.
Given how close Taiwan is to China, with modern weapons, they could be very little pre-warning of an attack.
Don't need to bomb the crap out of Iran. Just need to take out the nuclear facilities.
Israel did it decades ago on Iraq with the Osirak raid. And Israel allegedly repeated it to Syria a few years back.
If that was a serious option I am sure they would have taken it by now. The Iranians learnt from Saddam's folly and has gone out of their way to spread out their work and have back up facilities for back-up facilities to make it almost impossible to take out its nuclear programme from the air with any confidence.
As I mentioned before, you are welcome to try and bomb their bomb, but chances are you will never fully eradicate it and will have to come back and do it all over again a decade or some further down the line.
In the meantime, extremely dangerous materials and advanced weapons might just go walkies in Iran because of 'all the confusion for the western attacks', and find their way into the hands of Al-Q or other global jihadists desperate to strike at the west.
Attacking Iran will open a massive can of worms, especially if you leave the job half done, and could easily result in one of the main fears behind the decision to go to war (that nuclear materials might find its way into the hands of terrorists and be used to attack the west) becoming reality.
You either leave Iran the well alone, or you go in to utterly remove all the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons material in the country. Since the west does not have the stomach for that kind of commitment, any attack on Iran will ultimately prove counter-productive to the west's goals and interests in the long run.
Syria is in a completely different league to Iran or Iraq and could not afford anywhere close to the scale of Iran's nuclear efforts.
And what stops them from doing this anyway (regardless of invasion or not)?
The fact that if they do release WMD material to terrorists and it was used in an attack, or even captured, the materials will ultimately be traced to Iran, and that will almost certainly lead to war.
It's the same principle as MAD. Iran dissuade the west from military adventurism with the veiled threat that an attack might lead to dangerous materials going 'missing'. The west discourages Iran from 'misplacing' such materials normally with the threat of attack if that happened. As soon as one side plays their hand, it would free the other from any restraint.
Why can't the boots on the ground come from Saudi? Or Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members? I'm pretty sure Iraq will be quite glad to have boots on the ground in Iran.
Well not if you actually want to win.
And as McCool already pointed out, the GCC is massively out of its league trying to mess with Iran American military support or not.
