I've seen a lot of politics on here, but never a discussion about modern military strategy. I don't expect any of you to be educated strategists or anything like that, but you can still give an opinion on the current state of affairs.

The modern goals of U.S. seapower are as follows:

Forward presence - The presence of U.S. and allied forces throughout the world with the capability of quickly responding to crises.

Deterrence - Being the biggest and baddest force in the world to dissuade potential enemies from carrying out aggression.

Sea control - Overlapping patrols and deployed forces to ensure total domination of the oceans to enforce the law of the sea and ensure the continuation of fair and safe commerce and travel. Also includes sea denial, which actively prevents aggressors from deploying.

Power projection - Different from forward deployment, this is the ability for a nation to respond to foreign threats quickly from domestic or allied territory.

Maritime security -  Protection maritime (civilian and military) assets from attack through secure ports and enforcement of the law of the sea.

Humanitarian assistance/disaster response - Self explanatory, but it's important to realize that the U.S. and its allies use a significant amount of their forces to conduct humanitarian operations, especially in response to natural disasters.



This isn't really a discussion about isolationism; isolationism simply isn't going to happen in such a globalized world. To wrap up, here's an interesting quote I happen to like: "Combat operations reflect the greatest failure of our national security strategy."

I'm talking strategy, not tactics. Our current global strategy is deterrence-based. Though open war between nations will likely never happen to the scale that was typical the past 600 years, there will still be pockets of terrorism and aggression which can largely be preempted by presenting a large enough threat.

Well no, not really. I'm talking about the role of America and it's allies in defending each other with a preemptive, deterrent strategy.

Here's the strategy.. Spend more money that we can afford. That'll show our enemy how freedom works.