Not enough for a major war, that was only 22 jets, and that wasn't the only thing the US was flying for Operation Iraqi Freedom, US forces flowed into the theater from all over the world, and it wasn't subtle, there was massive forward deployment, all enabled by Military Sealift Command, via Diego Garcia Island in the case of bombers.GrumpyCatFace wrote:
But again - bombed from CONUS to ME, no stops, no waiting, do not pass Go.
In the build up for Operation Desert Shield in the initial month, the Air Force flew 53,000 sorties, 300 transport aircraft, one landing every seven minutes at Dharan in Saudi Arabia, there's no hiding a US build up for a major war.
OIF wasn't even a big war in the grand scheme of things, if the US was ramping up for a war with China, it would be all hands on deck, dwarfing anything the US did in 2003. More like 1990-1991, and that, was not subtle. It would be bigger than the Gulf War, there's no hiding the build up to the brink of World War Three.
It would be mass mobilization, every US combatant command would be on alert, US forces would be flooding out of the CONUS to PACOM, and likely EUCOM as well.
If China and Russia are involved, it's no longer a theater war, that's a global war by default, and so the entire US military would be ramping up into high gear, worldwide, it would be all over the news, you wouldn't have to scour clickbait sites to find it.
People can check online right now, there's no ramp up for war, most of the American carrier strikes groups are in port, if they were preparing for war on the Peninsula, at least five of them would be steaming towards Korea at flank speed right now, along with a Marine Expeditionary Force, XVIII Corps, VIII Army, and everything in PACAF would be swarming to Yokota, Osan, and Andersen Field on Guam.
And that would just be for starters, all of NATO would be ramping up as well.