The Flat Earth Society
Other Discussion Boards => Philosophy, Religion & Society => Topic started by: Rushy on July 11, 2015, 01:16:39 AM
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For a few years now President Obama, as his campaign promised repeatedly, has downsized the military. Now, I can't be mad about this because he said he was going to do this and then did it. That's not a terribly big surprise. However, you get to wondering where those jobs go, and for me it was pretty obvious, I saw a lot of the jobs replaced by contractors.
In the government world there are two types of civilian employees. The GS series employees are considered federal employees. They work for the government. In addition to this you have contractors, who are employed at your job location but do not work for the government, but instead work for a defense company. These defense companies have been sucking up all the jobs that the military once held and taking more money to do it. Companies such as General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, DynCorp, and Raytheon have all nearly quadrupled in size and value. Their stock prices are through the roof as all that once federal military money is now theirs.
Contractors now make up the majority of more than a few military installations. Essentially meaning, these facilities are now being maintained by people who aren't federal employees, but rather employees of private firms. Private firms which are under considerable pressure to make as much money as humanly possible. This also, leads into the title point. That you can now, essentially, invest directly into the military. For example the F35 isn't flown by contractors, but it is built and maintained by them... and still owned by Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin doesn't sell them directly to the government, the government pays for the right to use it (as do all other foreign nations who pay for it). That means if you want to invest in the F35, go ahead and invest in Lockheed Martin. Its the same thing.
tl;dr President Obama is a master troll.
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NASA is run almost entirely by contractors. The only people who work for NASA are security and managers who are three levels up.
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This is a great post. I actually worked for a software company that was on the same campus as General Dynamics, and it was incredible, spared no expense.
A friend of mine did sysadmin work overseas for a contractor and made 3 times as much as a similar job pays over here. Yes, some was hazard pay, but ignoring that it was still nearly double what could be made in this market. These contractors have access to deep pockets.
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This is my biggest problem with government "downsizing". Hell, this is my biggest problem with pretty much every fucking industry. They say "Why go through the hassle of hiring our own doctors when we can just contract from Fucking Texas!". Or really, anywhere.
I think sub-contracting should be illegal if the sub-contractor is going to do a job your company is expected to do.
Example: A hospital should not sub-contract their fucking ER doctors.
A construction company should not sub-contract their god damn carpenters.
And the military should not sub-contract soldiers.
It's really all just a way to saying "Nope, not my employee so I'm not liable if they fuck up."
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On the subject of retarded government fiscal policy:
After a lone gunman stormed the parliament buildings there was concern that the ceremonial soldiers on parliament hill would become terrorist targets. The solution was to post extra police guards around these soldiers. Now these are real soldiers with much more substantial training than police officers, and they are carrying AR-15s, the only thing they are lacking is ammunition. Why in the world they don't just give these soldiers ammunition is totally beyond me.
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I'm just mad I didn't see this coming three years ago when the draw downs began and contractors magically appeared everywhere. I could have made some cash by buying into these defense companies. Oh well.
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Instead of having a Federal army, you are getting a private army owned by god knows who. They aren't taking orders from the President. They take orders from their shareholders.
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Instead of having a Federal army, you are getting a private army owned by god knows who. They aren't taking orders from the President. They take orders from their shareholders.
Yes, Thork, thank you for adding to the discussion by summarizing the opening post.
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Contractors now make up the majority of more than a few military installations. Essentially meaning, these facilities are now being maintained by people who aren't federal employees, but rather employees of private firms. Private firms which are under considerable pressure to make as much money as humanly possible. This also, leads into the title point. That you can now, essentially, invest directly into the military. For example the F35 isn't flown by contractors, but it is built and maintained by them... and still owned by Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin doesn't sell them directly to the government, the government pays for the right to use it (as do all other foreign nations who pay for it). That means if you want to invest in the F35, go ahead and invest in Lockheed Martin. Its the same thing.
tl;dr President Obama is a master troll.
Isn't this how every fighter procurement program has ever worked? I'm also skeptical of how you say the operators of the aircraft don't actually own it.
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No, because aircraft prior to the F22 didn't have their design specs retained by the company. Now every newer aircraft that comes out has its design held by the company. For example, military members aren't allowed to perform internal maintenance on the F22 or the F35. Only contractors from Lockheed may open the interior aircraft panels.
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How is that surprising? We're talking about highly advanced stealth fighters. In any case, I know Australia will be able to work on the F-35 without having to ship anything to the US, on account of LM establishing a heavy maintenance capability here. Japan is also getting the same treatment. I don't know what the Euro purchasers have to do, although I doubt it involves returning the aircraft to the US.
I know for a fact that the RAAF aren't exactly dissimilar in regards to contracting. From memory, they rely strongly on civilian contractors, with only the most important crew members being a part of the RAAF itself. So I doubt this approach is anything new for them.
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How is that surprising? We're talking about highly advanced stealth fighters. In any case, I know Australia will be able to work on the F-35 without having to ship anything to the US, on account of LM establishing a heavy maintenance capability here. Japan is also getting the same treatment. I don't know what the Euro purchasers have to do, although I doubt it involves returning the aircraft to the US.
The military isn't allowed to work on them because the military isn't allowed to retain the design specs. This isn't about the technical qualifications of the maintenance team. The design specs of the aircraft are still the property of Lockheed Martin. Australia won't be able to work on the F35 without retrieving contractors from Lockheed. Every country that uses the F35 will be paying Lockheed long after they "bought" the aircraft because Lockheed still controls the specs, so therefore there will only be one company on the planet that can make parts for it and do the maintenance. It isn't a mystery why some countries are losing interest in buying them.
They won't be shipping the aircraft back to the US, but they will have to rely on the US furnishing all parts and labor for the aircraft. It'll be a shitstorm if any country opens up to see what is inside that aircraft. It is exactly why Israel doesn't want the US tech inside it and instead wants to put their own tech in it. The thought of that alone made Lockheed not want to sell it to them.
I know for a fact that the RAAF aren't exactly dissimilar in regards to contracting. From memory, they rely strongly on civilian contractors, with only the most important crew members being a part of the RAAF itself. So I doubt this approach is anything new for them.
Most of Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia are all heading in that direction.
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The F-35 is estimated to cost a trillion dollars! A trillion bloody dollars. In the US, about 150 million people work. That's about $7000 dollars each! Everyone in America who pays tax has spent $7000 as an average on that one stupid aircraft.
An aircraft I might add that is totally useless. It is not even as good as an F16! It has lost combat fights to them and is now deemed so bad, it can't do air to air combat.
http://www.combataircraft.com/en/News/2015/07/02/Controversy-Flares-Over-F-35-Air-Combat-Report/
http://rt.com/usa/pentagon-f35-report-combat-012/
Imagine if you didn't have to buy that aircraft, what you could do with your $7000 back. for that money, the US could fund Obamacare until 2025! you could fund all the schools in America for 17 years on that! Or every one of you could have a holiday of a lifetime.
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The F-35 is estimated to cost a trillion dollars! A trillion bloody dollars. In the US, about 150 million people work. That's about $7000 dollars each! Everyone in America who pays tax has spent $7000 as an average on that one stupid aircraft.
R&D is very expensive, especially for modern electronics.
An aircraft I might add that is totally useless. It is not even as good as an F16! It has lost combat fights to them and is now deemed so bad, it can't do air to air combat.
http://www.combataircraft.com/en/News/2015/07/02/Controversy-Flares-Over-F-35-Air-Combat-Report/
http://rt.com/usa/pentagon-f35-report-combat-012/
It lost to an F16 in a dogfight. In a real world scenario, the F35 would be equipped with amraam missiles and would have destroyed the F16 before entering visual range. Neither the F16 nor its older gen amraam's would be able to spot the F35 in a real world scenario because it is too difficult to identify a F35 on radar.
This isn't WWII and we aren't fighting Hitler. Dogfights aren't even real anymore.
Imagine if you didn't have to buy that aircraft, what you could do with your $7000 back. for that money, the US could fund Obamacare until 2025! you could fund all the schools in America for 17 years on that! Or every one of you could have a holiday of a lifetime.
Yes, the opportunity cost of having the largest and most advanced military on the planet is high. We have more aircraft on a single carrier than most countries have in their entire fleet.
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The F35 is a disaster.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-f-35-is-a-disaster-2014-7?op=1&IR=T
http://rt.com/usa/air-jsf-f-35-cost-346/
http://www.wired.com/2012/03/f35-budget-disaster/
It is also not the world's most advanced fighter ... the T50 is going to be better ... and has a far smaller unit price (one fifth) so they can build more for less.
http://www.wired.com/2012/11/russia-stealth/
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The F-35 is estimated to cost a trillion dollars! A trillion bloody dollars. In the US, about 150 million people work. That's about $7000 dollars each! Everyone in America who pays tax has spent $7000 as an average on that one stupid aircraft.
An aircraft I might add that is totally useless. It is not even as good as an F16! It has lost combat fights to them and is now deemed so bad, it can't do air to air combat.
http://www.combataircraft.com/en/News/2015/07/02/Controversy-Flares-Over-F-35-Air-Combat-Report/
http://rt.com/usa/pentagon-f35-report-combat-012/
Imagine if you didn't have to buy that aircraft, what you could do with your $7000 back. for that money, the US could fund Obamacare until 2025! you could fund all the schools in America for 17 years on that! Or every one of you could have a holiday of a lifetime.
Commenting on that recent news event, the F-35 didn't lose to the F-16 in a dogfight, because it wasn't a dogfight. It was a test of the F-35 in ACM, to establish what its current limits are. It was found that the F-35 in question, AF-2 (from memory), was well within its limits and could stand to use some changes in the flight software to allow it to be more maneuverable.
AF-2 also didn't have any of the systems that give it an edge in the merge, such as the EOTS/DAS, HMCS and HOBS missiles, as these weren't what was being tested. As Rushy noted, the F-35 would utterly decimate an F-16 in realistic combat, even if an F-16 somehow got close. It has superior radar, sensors and stealth.
The F35 is a disaster.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-f-35-is-a-disaster-2014-7?op=1&IR=T
http://rt.com/usa/air-jsf-f-35-cost-346/
http://www.wired.com/2012/03/f35-budget-disaster/
It is also not the world's most advanced fighter ... the T50 is going to be better ... and has a far smaller unit price (one fifth) so they can build more for less.
http://www.wired.com/2012/11/russia-stealth/
The T-50 is facing it's own fair share of issues, and India (a major funder of the PAK-FA program) has expressed serious concerns over what they're receiving from the Russians.
Russia has never maintained an edge in radar technology relative to the US, and the stealth of the T-50 is questionable given design choices like engine placement, engine blades being open to the front, etc. Russia has also cut down their order of the PAK-FA substantially, with a focus on more Su-35's.
It's highly unlikely that it's 1/5th the cost as well, as the F-35 is already pretty cheap.
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This isn't WWII and we aren't fighting Hitler. Dogfights aren't even real anymore.
Tell that to Korea, Viet Nam and Gulf War fighter pilots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_War
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This isn't WWII and we aren't fighting Hitler. Dogfights aren't even real anymore.
Tell that to Korea, Viet Nam and Gulf War fighter pilots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_War
Hi, my name is Markjo and what is a dogfight?
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This isn't WWII and we aren't fighting Hitler. Dogfights aren't even real anymore.
Tell that to Korea, Viet Nam and Gulf War fighter pilots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_War
Hi, my name is Markjo and what is a dogfight?
Hi my name is Rushy and I didn't read anything Markjo linked to.
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This isn't WWII and we aren't fighting Hitler. Dogfights aren't even real anymore.
Tell that to Korea, Viet Nam and Gulf War fighter pilots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_War
Hi, my name is Markjo and what is a dogfight?
Hi my name is Rushy and I didn't read anything Markjo linked to.
Even Markjo doesn't read the things Markjo links to. His posts exist in an attempt to waste your time. Did it work on you?
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This isn't WWII and we aren't fighting Hitler. Dogfights aren't even real anymore.
Tell that to Korea, Viet Nam and Gulf War fighter pilots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_War
Hi, my name is Markjo and what is a dogfight?
Hi my name is Rushy and I didn't read anything Markjo linked to.
Even Markjo doesn't read the things Markjo links to. His posts exist in an attempt to waste your time. Did it work on you?
Yes and no. It took some time to determine that there were indeed dogfights in the Gulf War. My employer thought it was a waste of time.
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This isn't WWII and we aren't fighting Hitler. Dogfights aren't even real anymore.
Tell that to Korea, Viet Nam and Gulf War fighter pilots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_War
Do you know how long ago Korea and Vietnam were? And there were like 1 or 2 engagements in the Gulf War that could be called 'dogfights'.
Modern radar and missiles means most engagements will typically happen at range. Even if the pilots do somehow manage to get within visual range, technology like HOBS missiles combined with HMCS allow missile shots at large angles, meaning you no longer have to maneuver to get a gun kill so long as you have an AIM-9x. The F-35 takes this a bit further with the ability to fire at anything within a 360 degree sphere around the aircraft.
But ignoring all of that, going into the merge is near suicidal in a realistic context as it almost always ends with you or your enemy being shot down by someone not in the fight. You lose all of your energy maneuvering, and significantly reduce your awareness through focusing on one enemy. Pilots still train with dogfights because they demand a large amount of skill and endurance, not necessarily because they're still relevant.
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Yes and no. It took some time to determine that there were indeed dogfights in the Gulf War. My employer thought it was a waste of time.
Well, try not to. If you haven't noticed by now Markjo responds bluntly to quips for some odd reason. I've become fairly confident that the 'odd reason' is simply an attempt to waste the other poster's time since it mostly includes some link to a vast amount of information that you have to sift through.
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In other news, Lockheed finally announced confirmation of a Sikorsky buyout. Up up up goes the stock ticker.
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Modern radar and missiles means most engagements will typically happen at range.
Do you honestly think that the US is the only country working on stealth technology or that other countries aren't working on countermeasures to stealth technology?
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Modern radar and missiles means most engagements will typically happen at range.
Do you honestly think that the US is the only country working on stealth technology or that other countries aren't working on countermeasures to stealth technology?
Yes.
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Modern radar and missiles means most engagements will typically happen at range.
Do you honestly think that the US is the only country working on stealth technology or that other countries aren't working on countermeasures to stealth technology?
Yes.
In that case, I have some investment opportunities that you might be interested in.
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Do tell.
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Modern radar and missiles means most engagements will typically happen at range.
Do you honestly think that the US is the only country working on stealth technology or that other countries aren't working on countermeasures to stealth technology?
No, of course not. But that doesn't mean you can invalidate stealth technology. This kind of view is indicative of an extremely simplistic understanding of stealth. It isn't some fabulous new technology for which a magic bullet will be invented; it's the result of a combination of advances in materials science and computing which allows simulation of radar behaviour with specific body shapes.
Radar operates in a series of frequencies that have been defined as bands. Different types of radar systems use different bands, as each band offers its own advantages and disadvantages. Stealth technology is already and has always been useless against specific bands, such as OTH low frequency systems that are used for early warning. They're able to tell you there's aircraft in the air, but not much else due to the clutter and low resolution they suffer from. This means they're never used in a firing solution.
The radar systems that guide missiles typically operate in the bands that the F-22, F-35 and B-2 are optimized against. Now, this doesn't mean they're invisible to these systems, it just means they have to get extremely close before they can be adequately detected. I've no doubt competitors will come up with something to negate this huge advantage, but I highly doubt it will invalidate the technology. And if it does, I fully expect the US to innovate better coatings.
Right now, to my knowledge, Russia does have a low frequency missile for the S-400 system. However, they're low in number and likely in range too, which means an F-35 with a HARM will be able to outrange the S-400 and still get first shot.
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Adding to that, other countries are developing stealth technology. Both Russia and China have stealth jets being tested right now, although their stealth aspects are questionable (and it is their first attempt at doing so). China in particular just stole the plans for the F-35 a while back, copied the design and chucked two shitty Russian engines into it. Russia's attempt, the PAK-FA or T-50, has its share of problems with only 12 currently on order (cut down from 150 to 70 to 12, or something like that). It will almost certainly have a lower RCS than the Su-35, but it's doubtful it will match the 0.001m2 of the F-35 and 0.0001m2 of the F-22 on account of certain design choices and Russia's comparatively inferior materials science research.
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We could give the exact specifications of the design of each aircraft and engine to Russia and China and it would still take them a decade to build the facilities capable of manufacturing the materials. Russia's economy is built on raw exports and China's is built on low tier industry. Neither country is technologically capable of building military equipment on the scale or quality that the US does.
It's also why Intel elected to build its newest foundries in the US at cost. China has been screwing up anything smaller than 28nm.
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Isn't ridiculously powerful private armies one of the big reasons the Roman Republic turned into a dictatorship?
I'm personally in favor of dramatically reducing the size of the US military, by any arbitrary percent, but this is a stupid and dangerous way to do it. NGOs should not have militaries.
The way I see it, the world powers are already incapable, and unwilling, engage in direct armed conflict with each other. We proved that in the cold war. At best it would be a repeat of the first world war, at worst it would be nuclear armageddon. With that in mind it seems like folly to maintain early 20th century standing armies. We're never going to use them for anything more than small-scale engagements and military occupations (i.e. Russia in Ukraine, China in Tibet, the US in Iraq), but our militaries are based on the idea of an impossible conflict between the giants. It's silly and paranoid.
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World powers can and probably will fight each other, just not on their home soil. Conventional warfare is still viable for control of outside lands. A war between Russia or China and the US isn't by default a nuclear one.
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World powers can and probably will fight each other, just not on their home soil. Conventional warfare is still viable for control of outside lands. A war between Russia or China and the US isn't by default a nuclear one.
No, but it seems like the nuclear deterrent is enough to stop open conflict before it begins. Don't get me wrong, I understand that what I'm asking for is impossible unless Russia and China were to agree to also downsize their militaries, but I still think that a scenario where the world powers had militaries only large enough to enforce their superiority would be preferable to the current situation. Think of what we could do with all of the saved resources.
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Oh, you were just interested in expounding idealistic nonsense and not interested in an actual discussion.
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Isn't ridiculously powerful private armies one of the big reasons the Roman Republic turned into a dictatorship?
I'm personally in favor of dramatically reducing the size of the US military, by any arbitrary percent, but this is a stupid and dangerous way to do it. NGOs should not have militaries.
The way I see it, the world powers are already incapable, and unwilling, engage in direct armed conflict with each other. We proved that in the cold war. At best it would be a repeat of the first world war, at worst it would be nuclear armageddon. With that in mind it seems like folly to maintain early 20th century standing armies. We're never going to use them for anything more than small-scale engagements and military occupations (i.e. Russia in Ukraine, China in Tibet, the US in Iraq), but our militaries are based on the idea of an impossible conflict between the giants. It's silly and paranoid.
Western nations are downsizing their militaries quite a bit, and the overall size is already tiny compared to WWII numbers; the USAAF had in excess of 50,000 aircraft relative to today's 5,000. The F-35 and LCS are good examples of this new cost saving mentality; mission versatility and interoperability built in to an already cheap platform, which then replaces the bigger and purpose built platforms of old.
There's also been plenty of news stories published in recent months regarding the capability of individual forces within NATO (i.e the Bundeswehr training with broomsticks instead of rifles, Luftwaffe Typhoon's not being ready, etc). Russia, too, has shown its lack of readiness in the consistent aircraft hull losses driven by a heightened state of readiness brought on by the Ukraine crisis. There just isn't the military spending that there used to be, and it shows.
I also disagree that a conflict similar to WWI would ever take place again. What distinguished WWI was trench warfare, which was largely dictated by the immobile nature of warfare at that time and the superiority of defensive tools like the machine gun. Modern technology means an entirely different battlefield if such large scale combat were to take place again. I wouldn't be surprised if conflict between nation states fizzled out quickly on account of quick losses in expensive hardware, such as aircraft or ships. It's all well and good for rebels to blow up a few old T-72's in disparate regional conflicts, but how many T-90 losses could Russia stomach? How many F-16's could the US stand to lose?
Finally, conflict between the big boys doesn't necessarily mean Armageddon. From memory, Russia always planned the use of tactical nuclear strikes in the case of hypothetical conflict with NATO. I doubt such an attack would spark global nuclear warfare. MAD just means nation states are unlikely to nuke each other, not that they won't enter conflict at all.
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Isn't ridiculously powerful private armies one of the big reasons the Roman Republic turned into a dictatorship?
I'm personally in favor of dramatically reducing the size of the US military, by any arbitrary percent, but this is a stupid and dangerous way to do it. NGOs should not have militaries.
The way I see it, the world powers are already incapable, and unwilling, engage in direct armed conflict with each other. We proved that in the cold war. At best it would be a repeat of the first world war, at worst it would be nuclear armageddon. With that in mind it seems like folly to maintain early 20th century standing armies. We're never going to use them for anything more than small-scale engagements and military occupations (i.e. Russia in Ukraine, China in Tibet, the US in Iraq), but our militaries are based on the idea of an impossible conflict between the giants. It's silly and paranoid.
Western nations are downsizing their militaries quite a bit, and the overall size is already tiny compared to WWII numbers; the USAAF had in excess of 50,000 aircraft relative to today's 5,000. The F-35 and LCS are good examples of this new cost saving mentality; mission versatility and interoperability built in to an already cheap platform, which then replaces the bigger and purpose built platforms of old.
There's also been plenty of news stories published in recent months regarding the capability of individual forces within NATO (i.e the Bundeswehr training with broomsticks instead of rifles, Luftwaffe Typhoon's not being ready, etc). Russia, too, has shown its lack of readiness in the consistent aircraft hull losses driven by a heightened state of readiness brought on by the Ukraine crisis. There just isn't the military spending that there used to be, and it shows.
I also disagree that a conflict similar to WWI would ever take place again. What distinguished WWI was trench warfare, which was largely dictated by the immobile nature of warfare at that time and the superiority of defensive tools like the machine gun. Modern technology means an entirely different battlefield if such large scale combat were to take place again. I wouldn't be surprised if conflict between nation states fizzled out quickly on account of quick losses in expensive hardware, such as aircraft or ships. It's all well and good for rebels to blow up a few old T-72's in disparate regional conflicts, but how many T-90 losses could Russia stomach? How many F-16's could the US stand to lose?
Finally, conflict between the big boys doesn't necessarily mean Armageddon. From memory, Russia always planned the use of tactical nuclear strikes in the case of hypothetical conflict with NATO. I doubt such an attack would spark global nuclear warfare. MAD just means nation states are unlikely to nuke each other, not that they won't enter conflict at all.
Well trench warfare dominated the Western Front, but the real defining characteristic of WWI was that the weapons they were using had never really been used in large-scale warfare between major powers before, so the old strategies were obsolete, and that the nations involved were powerful enough that only what essentially amounts to total annihilation could cause one to surrender. I think a modern world war would be similar, if there were no nukes involved. I doubt there'd be many trenches, but it would be drawn out and bloody and everyone involved would be totally devastated. I think the issues of expense wouldn't be enough to end it quickly unless one side was losing everything and the other side wasn't, which seems kind of unlikely (although the US would probably have a pretty big technological advantage, so who knows). I don't know a whole lot about the mechanics of the military, but I do know politics and history and those say that the loser wouldn't surrender until they had nothing or no one left to fight with. Especially Russia. I mean, look at them in every major war they've been in during modern times. When they run out of equipment they just send waves of soldiers at the enemy until they win. If it came to total war, I don't think they'd be beyond doing that again.
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Well trench warfare dominated the Western Front, but the real defining characteristic of WWI was that the weapons they were using had never really been used in large-scale warfare between major powers before, so the old strategies were obsolete, and that the nations involved were powerful enough that only what essentially amounts to total annihilation could cause one to surrender. I think a modern world war would be similar, if there were no nukes involved. I doubt there'd be many trenches, but it would be drawn out and bloody and everyone involved would be totally devastated. I think the issues of expense wouldn't be enough to end it quickly unless one side was losing everything and the other side wasn't, which seems kind of unlikely (although the US would probably have a pretty big technological advantage, so who knows).
I just can't see that happening with the way modern militaries are equipped and trained. As we've both said, WWI essentially came down to a war of attrition. That hypothetical placed in the context of a modern conflict would be significantly hampered by the reliance on highly expensive hardware, in the hands of trained soldiers. Then there's the proliferation of precision weaponry.
The small scale conflicts currently going on emphasize a standstill, mostly on part of the factions fighting them lacking the training, manpower and hardware to make substantial territory changes. It's certainly possible that modern conflict could devolve into this given enough time, but just don't see it lasting that long. And yes, I know everyone said that about every major conflict in the 20th century.