Now if you tell me that the Russian Air Force is not a threat, I instantly believe you based on results of this war. If you tell me that the Russian Navy is no threat, it’s easy to be similarly convinced.

But Sec of Defense Gates was a Russian specialist, and I’ve read him comment on the fact that there are inherent Russian insecurities and tendencies to posture…and follow through on that posturing in a tit for tat.

We recognize Kosovo. They attack Georgia. We help the Northern Alliance beat up on them in Afghanistan. They bribe Kyrgysztan to kick us out of Manas. What happens if they attack a NATO or near Europe ally? Does a solely air attack response…especially if deep…create the same kind of response that Hammes talks about reference China?

I don’t worry too much about China. A billion Chinese won’t swim the Pacific and they can’t shut off our oil/natural gas. Russia, in contrast, is quite close to European allies we are sworn to support,and equally close to numerous sources of energy.

Again, this war was an example of why you don’t ask airpower to win a war by itself against “effects-based” targets. If the Israeli “effect” was to cut off the source of rockets, it failed since nearly more were firing at the end of the war than at the beginning.

Nature of the opponent? How may Hezbollahs are there in the world? How many have implicit goverment support or ignoring(scared)behavior to allow Hezbollah to arm and prepare defenses in detail without interference? How many are sufficiently fanatical to employ suicide-like warfare.

If there is only one Hezbollah, and its influence is in Lebanon where it has the capacity to amass 7,000 unobstructed fighters, why are we using it as the basis for all other future conflicts??? Planning to invade Lebanon anytime soon? I don’t think so.

Then I read that there were vollies of ATGM fire with relatively few hits…especially against moving targets. But there were 15 hits of tanks and 12 deaths because of reliance on armor against ATGMs. But these vaunted Hezbollah defenses apparently were not that intermingling with civilians.

Where was the suppressive fire and airpower droppig 2,000 lb bombs to crush tunnels and deploy white phosphorus smoke (sounds like Israel learned that lesson this time around)?

Israeli airpower was over near the Syrian border apparently and bombing downtown Damascus?

In addition, the Israelis apparently were employing the current survival standard of belief in armor…the more the better. Because some tanks were hit and killed and many battles were close range between dismounted infantry and armor, this was supposed to be an indictment of FCS as implied here and in Biddle’s study. What happens when you put the engine in front and get hit in the front. Bye, bye engine and ability to back out of harm’s way or move forward to cover.

If the major threat was ATGMs as described, why would a FCS force with effective active defenses, armor capable of defeating shaped charges, few exposed troops on board to get hit, engines in a unique position and batteries to provide short-term power and ample UAS and supporting Army and joint close air support access be afraid of ATGM-armed hidden bad guys?

Then they talked about prolonged firefights well removed from civilians. Again, where was the artillery and suppressive/destructive close air support? I’m left wondering if this was a ground force of primarily reservists that are so prevalent in the Israeli Army? Our Army provides better reservist equipment and training prior-to-fighting than the Israelis and has a far larger active force for sudden contingencies like this one.

So again, why is this unique Israeli experience an indictment of FCS, when Israel will never need to deploy, and will never attack over extended distances well-removed from their homeland?