WASHINGTON, D.C.— House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Vice Chair Elaine Luria today pressed Army leadership on the role of American ground forces in the event of a conflict with China. In a hearing on the Army’s Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request, Army Chief of Staff General James McConville discussed the role of the Army in the Pacific Theater.
Vice Chair Luria also questioned the duplicative programs in this year’s defense budget, specifically the long-range precision fires, a capability the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force are also developing simultaneously and at a lower cost.
Paul Plante says
Pardon me, but this gets more and more surreal all the time!
What world does this Elaine Luria live in?
Cloud Cuckoo Land (a realm of fantasy or of whimsical or foolish behavior)?
And talk about vincible ignorance, which is ignorance that a person could remove by applying reasonable diligence in the given set of circumstances, except they don’t, this DEMOCRAT Elaine Luria seems to be a textbook case.
Is she at all aware of our experience fighting the Chinese in Korea back in the early 1950s?
Has she ever bothered to read “This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History” by T,R, Fehrenbach, or “The Coldest Winter” by David Halberstam, or “China Crosses The Yalu” by Allen S. Whiting, or the excellent Marine Corps history of the Chosin Reservoir action in Volume III of “U.S. Marine Operations In Korea 1950-1953,” entitled “The Chosin Reservoir Campaign,” by Lynn Montross and Nicholas A. Canzona?
Is she at all aware that China wields by far the world’s largest military, with 2.8 million soldiers, sailors and airmen — twice the American number?
Does she realize that in any war with China, which itself is a ludicrous concept, the Chinese would have “homefield advantage,” just as the Vietnamese had “homefield advantage” in Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Crusade to whip the ***** of those who resided in that “raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country,” and were, like the Chinese, masters of the art of guerilla warfare, known in the East as the “weak man’s strategy?”
In a war with China, a nation with a population of 1.398 billion in 2019, compared to our 327 million, and a land mass of 3.705 million mi², compared to our 3.797 million mi², which makes us about equal in size, how does this DEMOCRAT Luria plan on getting our “team” onto the ground in China to have this war of hers?
Does she think the Chinese will give us our own locker room so we can get suited up for “the game,” while the Chinese patiently wait for us to mass enough troops and ammo and tanks and personnel carriers and Bradley fighting vehicles and artillery so as to make a “good” war out of it, as opposed to the farce in VEET NAM?
As I say, surreal!
sara baldwin says
Way to go Ms. Luria. How refreshing to hear somebody with experience and common sense question potentially wasteful spending!
It is highly doubtful we will ever fight a classic war in China. Not when wars can be won by hackers who take down grids and pipelines and companies, and by drones. Not to mention bio-warfare.
Paul Plante says
Experience?
Er, ah, wasn’t she in the Navy, something to do with boiler room operations or something like that?
What exact experience would you say the Navy gave her that would make her any kind of expert on ground operations by the Army?
Or do you see them as interchangeable because they all wear uniforms so congresswoman Luria’s Navy experience would also make her an expert on ground operations by Army units in combat?
Note: Luria was a DESRON commander, and most Naval officers are very well aware of Joint military operations (Army, Air Force, etc.) and capabilities.
Paul Plante says
DESRON 28 functions as the sea combat commander, responsible for directing surface combatants in surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare at sea.
They also fulfill functional duties as the screen commander, mine warfare commander, maritime interdiction operations coordinator, and helicopter element coordinator.
– DESRON website
Historically, and here I am talking amphibious assaults going back to WWII, the Navy hauls the Army on its boats, and the Army is responsible for its ground operations.
And the issue isn’t what Ms. Luria may or may not have done in the Navy, it is this war with China she keeps harping about.
Does she as a DESRON commander, i.e. somebody who commands destroyers, a smallish Navy boat, as Navy boats go, think we can win a land war against the Chinese on Chinese soil?
Why all these questions about China invading Taiwan?
There is what we would like some clarification about.
Are she and Joe Biden trying to revive Operation National Glory?