# We are going to war. Mark my words. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 11, 2017, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326 "2017-05-11T01:46:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326/61 "2017-05-12T14:30:55Z")
> [@XT](#): > > As for the OP, I think war is possible, but I don’t think Trump et al are planning one or preparing for one. I don’t think Trump et al could plan a free beer event at a red neck picnic effectively. IF we go to war it will be because Trump and his administration have boxed themselves and the US into a corner by using threats and bluster and someone (Kimmy, Assad the supposed non-murderous non-dictator, maybe Putin) calls him on it…or does something particularly stupid (Assad and Kimmy being the best candidates for this). Trump won’t back down like Obama did with his red line and will lash out and things will degenerate from there. No, he’ll just have his surrogates explain to the media that he either a) never said any thing; b) what he said before doesn’t count; c) both of the above. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326/62 "2017-05-12T15:58:00Z")
> [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](#): > > No, he’ll just have his surrogates explain to the media that he either a) never said any thing; b) what he said before doesn’t count; c) both of the above. I HOPE that’s what he does if his mouth gets him into a bad position. But I’m not sanguine that he won’t let his temper and his inner crazy and clueless side out in such a situation and simply lash out. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326/63 "2017-05-12T16:24:50Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > All the signs are pointing to a war. Trump is under fire so “Wag the Dog” is an obvious strategy. > > I have a friend that lives close to Luke AFB in Arizona. They have a wing of F-35’s and a wing of F-16’s, I’ve been there over many months. The Air Force trains out of Luke AFB. Typically they take off, circle to the west and do whatever they do on the other side of the mountains. > > That has changed. They are doing maneuvers that are very unusual. There are cargo/refueling planes flying out of there that have never been there before. > … Ther’s been plenty of debunking of your main premise upstream. But I’d like to tackle this specific bit of what you think of as “supporting evidence” I used to be stationed at Luke. This was many years ago but I’ve checked the open sources on what’s based there now. Big picture there have been no functional changes. The units at Luke are 100% training units. The aircraft themselves are identical to the ones at the combat units. But the personnel there are all trainees or are instructors. In a full scale war they’d be the very last units to be moved into a battle since that’d be eating your very last seed corn. Prior to that \*extremis \*situation, they’re not going anywhere. They’re ceertainly not anything that’d be moved first or in preparation to opening hostilities. Most of the maneuver areas for Luke are to the south, not the west. Ref [Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_M._Goldwater_Air_Force_Range) for more. Immediately after takeoff we tended to turn west then south rather than east then south simply to keep our noise over the uninhabited areas, not suburbia. It means nothing more than that. As to tempo changes, different units move in and out of different phases of the training program. Some do a couple weeks of night flying. Then go back to day flying. Others have a week working with tankers. Who are usually staged out of somewhere else, but may move temporarily to Luke for reasons of their own. As to cargo craft, NATO also has training there. And periodically conducts rotation deployments swapping out airplanes and equipment from the home country. That results in an influx of a few cargo and tanker aircraft for a couple days. Then they’re gone and it’s back to business as usual. Don’t worry, it’s just those beastly Germans invading Germany. Sigh … again. Or those beastly Brits invading Britain. Bottom line: The idea that seeing some short-term change in Luke’s activity is a sure sign of near-term conflict is about as sensible as seeing some National Guardsman in his desert camo clothing at Home Depot buying a gallon of white paint and concluding that the United States is about to invade Antarctica. My point being that extrapolating a great distance from a tiny clue or two is almost always an error. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326/64 "2017-05-12T17:25:26Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > “Typical airstrike or launch of cruise missiles”—you’re claiming that the US launches cruise missiles on some sort of routine basis? If we want to get super-technical, probably not the _BGM-109 itself_, but it has certainly been the norm for the US to engage in drone-striking, air-striking, military action of some sort here and there since 9/11; in fact, even before then (think Bosnia, Desert Fox, Infinite Reach, Allied Force, etc. during the Clinton administration). So for the OP’s prediction of “war” to count, I think it has to be something much bigger than that. Missiles hitting one of Assad’s airfields doesn’t count. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_lining](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Silver\_lining](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_lining)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326/65 "2017-05-12T18:50:12Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > All the signs are pointing to a war. Trump is under fire so “Wag the Dog” is an obvious strategy. > > I have a friend that lives close to Luke AFB in Arizona. They have a wing of F-35’s and a wing of F-16’s, I’ve been there over many months. The Air Force trains out of Luke AFB. Typically they take off, circle to the west and do whatever they do on the other side of the mountains. > > That has changed. They are doing maneuvers that are very unusual. There are cargo/refueling planes flying out of there that have never been there before. > > My guess is that Trump will bolster his popularity by making good on his promise to take out ISIS and kill them and their families. That points to Syria. After that, who knows, Afghanistan? North Korea? He will probably use Syria to send a message to N. Korea. > > I know I will be poo-poo’d on this but I made a similar observation on some unusual military activity prior to the 2nd Gulf War. I was right. Check back with me in about 6 months. I do not see a war. Maybe an incident or two on Isis. Trump has the rest of the world scared. In this respect, he’s a bit like Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326/66 "2017-05-12T18:53:00Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Most of the maneuver areas for Luke are to the south, not the west. Ref [Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_M._Goldwater_Air_Force_Range) for more. Immediately after takeoff we tended to turn west then south rather than east then south simply to keep our noise over the uninhabited areas, not suburbia. It means nothing more than that. It’s based on nothing but trying to throw the OP a bone, but do you think we could plausibly theorize that the changes he’s perceived were a result of trying to increase the visibility of our armed forces for propagandist “MAGA” reasons? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326/67 "2017-05-12T19:37:00Z")
Real unlikely. There’s plenty of ways to conduct obvious exercises at real combat bases. Even better, real combat bases in the the theater where the fighting might start. All of which can be fed to the MAGA crowd via social or traditional media. The Phoenix area has 1 airline airport, 3 bizjet airports, a handful of lightplane airports, and Luke. The airspace within 50 miles of downtown is a 3D spaghetti pile of intertwined tubes leading to and from each airport towards the outside world. Just willy nilly flying Luke’s traffic in a different direction over suburbia for a few days in hopes that some R voters living under the noise might notice and applaud the difference fails the laugh test pretty completely. IMO. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326/68 "2017-05-13T03:42:02Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > I said it on a different message board. My son was doing an Outward Bound trip in Oregon. He observed a long train loaded with brand new military equipment (tanks, personnel carriers, Medical vehicles, etc. Brand new.) headed across a valley towards Portland. > > I occurred to me that we were preparing for war. A few months later that’s exactly what happened. Wars don’t happen on impulse. After Iraq invaded Kuwait it took 6 months to prepare for our invasion. For what it’s worth, I was on a business trip in late fall 2015 and drove from Seattle to Portland. I saw a very long train with tons of shiny military equipment on it too… And that was when nobody thought Trump would even secure the nomination I also don’t doubt that the Fat Orange Shitstain could bring us to war, but as yet I don’t see any reason to believe preparations have started. Does anyone remember the thread years back where I said I thought we should take the “Congress declares war” provision of the constitution more seriously, as I didn’t like how much of a free hand the President has to \*start \*wars? Yeah, about that… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-going-to-war-mark-my-words/786326.md?page=3)