Or not.
How do you think Saddam and those kind of guys actually control their populace?
By rationalising themselves with some other terrible threat. Fear of yourself is important, but fear of someone else you are protecting the people from is much better. Save us from the Imperialist Americans, save us from the commies, save us from the Zionists, save us from whomever burned down the Reichstag.
Your lack of consistency in argument is appalling. We're talking me here, my proposals or at teh very least people who think like me. *I* am the will.
That's all very well, but unless you have masses of like-minded and dedicated people, you are not able to achieve much.
None of which changes the basic fact that air power cannot hold ground, air power cannot be continually available, airpower cannot function without extensive ground support.
Fair enough. I thought you meant simply crushing the enemy's capability to fight, for which holding ground isn't as important. And as to ground support, it doesn't have to be in the same nation, which is a definate plus.
I'm afraid I'm not going to agree with you on the usefulness of an war machine designed in the early 80s to fight USSR tanks in modern warfare. If you are looking to control a hostile city, to root out insurgents without destroying everything else, an MBT isn't tactically flexible enough. If you're not concerned with collateral damage, and simply want to damage the enemy's capability to fight, you've no reason to put your forces in harm's way.
