"Red Dawn: Alaska" Topic

If Putin wants to recreate the Old Russian Empire, Alaska would be a good place for step 2.

Anyway, there would be lots of great opportunities for scenarios, from Paradrops, Naval Landings, Irregular Warfare, Special Ops – and even Ice Station Zebra style incursions in a new Cold War.

There was a good if cheesy TV show in the 80s that had Russian paratroops dropping in to sever the Alaskan pipeline. They go head to head with some national guard. The show ends with nukes flying in both directions.

Palin would sort him out!

It was called World War III starring David Soul from Starsky & Hutch.

The old Twilight 2000 RPG setting had the Soviets entering Alaska and then down to Canada and the NW US. Don't recall a specific book on it, but the vehicle guides would have the occasional colour plate of something from that front.

If they took Alaska – hmmm would they just 'stop' at the Canadian border. Because, everyone knows the Russians respect international borders…unless it has something they want for whatever misguided reasoning.

Justifying the Russian annexation of another country or part therof is something I can't understand.

Palin would sort him out!

"Who, me?"

I think Alaskan oil production is down/on a downward slope, not of as much value today as then.

On a downward slope due to environmental regs, mostly.

There's still a whole lot of oil under the permafrost.

Are the Russians still better at cold weather warfare than we are?

Lol, South Dakota is the second leading oil producing state now and rising in production. So a long way to go to get our oil now. The problem is no one really is eager to move there, big labor shortage.

The US military is actually larger, in terms of manpower, than the Russian armed forces. Their blue water navy is both small and antiquated and their Airforce is still driving old Cold War iron. Their ships and aircraft are maintanance nightmares and can't maintain anything close to first world availability.

The Russians have about 100,000 quality troops in total and that is all primarily the airborne and SOF. The reason they've maintained a superpower nuclear arsenal is that it is cheaper for deterrent defense than actually maintaining a competent conventional force structure.

Russia can beat up a smaller neighbor right next door but her ability to project meaningful conventional power against a like kind of opponent is zero. In twenty years they, absent the nuclear deterrent, will maintain their Asian provinces at the whim of China who will begin taking back some of her disputed property from the past.

Yes, they are a shell of their former power, militarily, but we are and will be as well, shortly, especially once 50% of our cruisers go into drydock (will they come back out again?), we divest ourselves of all the Perry class frigates, cut our troop strength by 25%, etc..

Also, in the news yesterday here on TMP were discussions about how to keep the A-10 squadrons, which apparently is now under review, due to Putin's moves in Crimea, and on the border of Ukraine. Seems the tank-buster may still be needed, afterall, as many have been saying all along.

It would be folly to scrap them, just when they may be needed most.

Suggestions were if we did that, we'd need to scrap virtually all our B-1Bs, or a bunch of F-16s before their replacements are available (the F-35). We only have a handful of B-2s, and our B-52 design is about 65 years old, so that seems rather a foolish move to even consider. We also have very few F-22 air superiority fighters, and last I heard, they had an oxygen supply problem for the pilots (not sure if that was ever really adequately resolved).

As you can see, the above options aren't really very good, either.

They could easily cut back on other wasteful government spending, e.g. waste, fraud, abuse, congressional staffing and bloated retirement packages, government employee travel and expensive meetings (really, over the top, paid vacations – use the phone, e-mail, or the "Go to Meeting" service – yes, I know the gov't. is tapping that, but you made your bed…..), monetary aid to countries that hate us, etc.

If they did that, there'd be more than enough money to maintain our current military structure. We'd actually be able to increase funding for our troops, and new weapons programs.

It'll never happen, though.

I doubt China will be making any moves on Russian territory, as long as the latter have their nukes.

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Mako11, the F-22 issue was resolved a long time ago. The issue was not with oxygen supply- there was simply a valve malfunction in an anti-g vest. It's a non-issue.

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One more time!
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"They could easily cut back on other wasteful government spending"

Like propping up the A10 (aging, at the limit of its development, one trick pony, etc…) for no better reason than nostalgia and over reaching Congressional mandate….

They could invade Alaska. Its a great 2 wars for the price of one! You get both Canada and the US in one move. Plus a few thousand miles of nothing to drive your tanks through. Better to hit one of the port cities. Heck a deal with China and you might be able to land most of your troops with a few super tankers full of "toys"

"Like propping up the A10 (aging, at the limit of its development, one trick pony, etc…) for no better reason than nostalgia and over reaching Congressional mandate….".

….or, killing Russian armor on the European battlefield.

Kyote, keep that idea in your back pocket, since we just might have to do that for weapons, and to pay for rides to the international space station, too (currently paying almost $71 USD mil for a six-hour ride, now, apparently).

I hope that includes a decent in-flight meal, and a nice beverage.

I hope you are not talking about my bloated military retirement? I know the government is already talking about cutting retirement to pay for programs, so lets just go back to Victorian standards for our vets then?

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"doug redshirt" I'm with you.

We vets (20 years active duty army) here in the U.S. may be in the same boat as the 'The Last of the Light Brigade' in a few years.

The programs are broke and I'm not talking financially.

We shall see, but I have no faith in the Government I swore to defend to keep there end of the agreement.

I work for the VA at times. While everyone says they support the veterans, I have yet to see the person who wants to pay for it, including the veterans (what it actually costs in people, time, and money). So, ACR, it isn't the government (contrary to public perception, most of the people who do the work want to do a good job), it is all of us not supporting them. The reality, you are correct, we cannot, nor ever could provide the incredible amount that was promised by politicians of any party. Budget wise, all the above suggested cuts sound great, but wouldn't even put a dent in the real numbers. Logically, this must be so, to provide so much to the past warrior means something must be cut for the present soldier/sailor/airman and/or cause major problems for the economy (which means even less for the future warrior). It isn't what people want to hear (hence what politicians say), but it is the truth.