{"id":21269,"date":"2010-11-19T09:32:19","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T13:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=21269"},"modified":"2010-11-19T10:26:08","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T14:26:08","slug":"tanks-to-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=21269","title":{"rendered":"Tanks to Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post<\/a> reports that the US is planning on deploying M1 Abrams tanks <\/a>to Afghanistan;<\/p>\n

The deployment of a company of M1 Abrams tanks, which will be fielded by the Marines in the country’s southwest, will allow ground forces to target insurgents from a greater distance – and with more of a lethal punch – than is possible from any other U.S. military vehicle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I think that this move is a little too late in the war. Not only that, but one company? An Army company of tanks is 13 tanks (well, it was two decades ago, anyway) and I guess the Marines have the same number.<\/p>\n

The Post writes that this is significant because it shows the the US is getting serious about the Taliban. It’s be significant if it’s been done years ago and the force is bigger than a company. To me it looks like the Obama Administration is trying to look tough rather than actually be tough.<\/p>\n

I don’t know how they’ll break this new force down to be effective, and I realize that the company will probably never be deployed as a company, but rather as a two vehicle force accompanying Marine patrols. But, I find it hard to believe that this new force will have much effect on the battle. The enemy will hear the tanks miles before they see them and probably beat feet to look for a patrol without tanks.<\/p>\n

The article says that the M1 will have the advantage of engaging long range targets immediately rather than the troops having to wait for indirect fire or air support, but if the enemy leaves upon hearing the tanks, what good is a long range capability?<\/p>\n

I think this deployment is more symbolic than good strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post reports that the US is planning on deploying M1 Abrams tanks to Afghanistan; … Tanks to Afghanistan<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}