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I would say America would be very hard pressed to put 500,000 troops in the field. It took us six months to do that in Desert Storm, and we downsized considerably since 1991. We're having a devil of a time rotating troops in Iraq and Afghanistan while keeping prior commitments in Korea and elsewhere.
I agree that given the current level of strategic distraction of American forces we would be hard pressed put 500,000 troops into the field. However, I would rate the relative effectiveness of American to Russian forces at something like 3-1. The Russians still hold to the Stalinesque quantity has a quality all its own. Sadly for them, they have neither quantity nor quality in their armed forces. Russia is a paper tiger and no more than a regional threat conventionally.As I said before, Russia's real power comes from its control of so much of Western Europe's energy supply. This makes the Western Democracies hesitant to do naything concrete that might anger the Russians. This was demonstrated in the Georgian crisis of last summer. The nations of Europe held back, especially after veiled threats by Russia to cut off oil and natural gas shipments to Western Europe.
Well maybe we'll be revisiting talk about the Monroe Doctrine sooner than I thought…Russian warship to cross Panama CanalThe next question becomes: will the Obama Administration be pushed around and intimidated over the next four years? I could be wrong but I would have a hard time seeing the Russians doing this kind of thing if Bush weren't on his way out of office.
The next question becomes: will the Obama Administration be pushed around and intimidated over the next four years? I could be wrong but I would have a hard time seeing the Russians doing this kind of thing if Bush weren't on his way out of office.
Well, what about Chavez doing what he did during Bush's presidency?I'm going to take a strange perspective on this:Venezuela is corrupt, weak, and has a really crappy military, nevermind navy. One one hand, the drug trade has strengthened them, but on the other hand, it's also weakened them significantly because of the corruption and because there aren't any real, honest alliances. (I'm assuming) I think their threat is minimal.Russia has a good navy, so do you think the proud officers of these ships assigned to cruising around Venezuela are happy to be involved with a nutcase like Chavez?As long as Obama keeps the current leadership in USSOUTHCOM, things should be OK. The lead ambassador has been involved in Middle and South America since the early 80's. If things get out of hand, I highly doubt they wouldn't consider arming the more democratic countries in S. America more than they already are now.
From what I can tell of the Obama team as it shapes up, it will more or less be status quo. Clinton and Bush retreads are going to comprise his administration. He isn't going to radically do anything different. I will make a prediction that Obama will shift the focus of the WOT to Pakistan since Iraq is finally in mop up stage.
I think you are spot on about how strategy in the Middle east is going to shape up. However, as I said before, operations in the Middle East have become a strategic distraction for the US. We are not as focused on maintaining friendly relations with our neighbors as we should be or preventing alliances between South and Latin American countries and foriegn nations. It is arguably in American interests to prevent the formation of an anti-American coalition of nations with members so close to our shores.
