#4 This is an old story, just making another round. I worked on a project in 1989 whose goal was to develop a working plan to put a full division on the ground, anywhere in the world, with all its logistical train, in 72 hours. I'm sure that the plan has been refined substantially in the last 14 years.
There's a big difference between a plan and reality. The reality of accomplishing something like this requires a lot of hard work, phenominal amounts of coordination, and the right equipment in the right places. I hope the Pentagon is doing a better job of that now than they were in 1989. I think the slowness of our positioning troops for the war in Iraq had more to do with costs than the lack of planning or capability. |