Originally posted by Officer of Engineers
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This is why, I don't see any US forces being sent within a week. Just wouldn't happen. Because we wouldn't know our capability and time frame to deploy to create the footprint that is imagined, in a small intensity conflict.
Hence, its unlikely, to risk other assets, MEU and elemts of Rangers and SOF, when you can't field a heavy brigade with a HQ. So whatever, military planners scrap together, will be formidable it will just take more time. Its easy, pre Afghanistan and Iraq, with all three units on standby. 101, 82nd, Mountain, Ranger.
So any deployment, will have to have a clear time line of when a brigade can be deployed. And when another can be deployed. because, one frankly won't cut it. What is your mission, in Libya? Gadaffi loyalists? The main eastern city with a million plus? What is a brigade going to do? This isn't Afghanistan. Like the Northern Alliance. This is density population, with the likes of Iraq. IF your goal was a oil facility, or some sort of refuge camp, within Liybia, then its possible. Of course we could pitch our tent in the city, and capture a air base. MEU's, SOF. Ranger's etc... With a brigade on the way.
But what would be sending a battalion in? IN what capacity? To oversee the flow of aids from the port, too city? You will need more then a battalion. And frankly more then a MEU, IMHO. This is immense. We just don't have that capability.
We have the capability, to land SOF on the ground. Target Gadaffi loyalists with Air strikes, and give the people in the eastern, time to fortify.
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