Tidbits

Read this from the Financial Times:

Jonathan Eyal, an analyst with the Royal United Services Institute in London, says: “The Pentagon has spent the last 10 years trying to reduce the amount of time it takes to deploy. Unlike the last Gulf war, it can now take weeks rather than months.”

Just how many weeks is a tougher question. RUSI believes a substantial force could be assembled in little more than two weeks because of the amount of equipment already on the ground and the ability to bring in more by air or sea.

Ships pre-packed with tanks and other heavy equipment could have already left the Diego Garcia naval base in the Indian Ocean. Given that air strikes would probably last at least two weeks before ground troops were sent in, analysts believe the two phases could be carried out simultaneously.

“If they wanted to start a war they could start it next week,” concludes Mr Eyal.

Most of that is army equipment, pre-positioned in Kuwait, Saudi, and Diego Garcia. We have (I have to tread lightly here) other items from another service mothballed in another country fairly close by. Technically, the stuff belongs to them, but with the understanding that it