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Apparently Putin has never seen Red Dawn. What I'm seeing is an interesting mix of asymmetric warfare. My suggestions for Ukraine, hit harder and faster every day the during the peace talks... give no time or space to regroup. Every break Putin takes he gets an update on losing more units. Every 10 minutes he has some peon whispering in his ear on another strike. Oh, and as an interesting middle finger to Russian interests, we seize all real estate, boats, cars, businesses, and accounts tied to the russian mob, even if it means pending court cases might get hosed. Arrest as many as possible. Send a few to rot in Gitmo for a year. Then seize everything tied to russian power players. Squeeze them very hard. Create internal Putin enemies. Post hundreds more interviews of Russian POWs, showing humane care, and with them begging for forgiveness of listening to Putin.

they need to press MENU the GPS 20.4 is triggering me

Ukraine.mp4

Yeah, almost like conscript and slave are not the same thing.

There is nothing about the VDV (Airborne) of their 1st Guards guys that got hammered which would qualify as anything resembling a Penal Battalion. The Russians losing an AN-26 and IL-76 alone would cut a pretty deep swath across some formations that they cannot readily replicate. Same as burning T-80s being seen in social media feeds. I’m noticing a lot more of these convoys with problems that to the laymen would be easily missed. Non prime movers with tow bars attached to other trucks, Diesel engined trucks/tracks with smoke colors that should cause alarm just hammering in down the road until they catch fire somewhere later. When you see a whole Mech convoy in what is not your rear area being filmed by somebody with absolutely no sign of any kind of set security or flank guard. Why on earth in a line of tanks at a tactical pause are you sitting turrets all facing forward, or have dismounts pushed out watching your vulnerable fixed force… that says a lot about the mindset of how they thought this was gonna go. It also explains why the Ukrainian military is having such luck with complex ambushes against these elements. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The old timers will follow this, new guys will throw spears at me, but hear me out! What if the Ghost of Kiev is actually a special ops fighter pilot? You know, your average Delta Force F-22 patch, finally going toe to toe with the Ruskies? Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

Watching Red Dawn while drinking Jack Daniels may have resulted in an overshoot.

I actually think this is a ridiculous take. The entire nuclear enterprise is predicated on no one launching a nuke. If Russia launches a nuke, it may not result in a nuclear response, but it will result in a complete reframing of the worldview of nuclear deterrence. In particular, I suspect it would lead to the West determining that nuclear weapons can no longer be allowed in any number amongst our enemies. That is an outcome that China most assuredly does not want. A nuclear attack makes any economic sacrifice suddenly palatable, and you would expect the West to completely isolate both China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia from the world economy in the event it is decided that no one can have nukes anymore. If, and I think it is a spectacular if, Putin were to use nukes against anyone, I think you would see China immediately ally with the United States and the West for the purposes of utterly and completely decimating Russia as a global player. We may seem weak in this new and sensitive world. But our enemies have not forgotten what happens when the United States finds resolve, and our adversaries have been very careful over the last 30 years to avoid crossing any lines. Nuking and innocent country would bring out the best in Americans, which would be the worst possible outcome for anyone in our way.

Does it really matter? The Obama admin refused lethal aid and, in retrospect, that was a mistake. His successor’s attempt to extort political favors in exchange for weapons was a moral abomination, even if weaponry eventually made it to the country. I watched Mitt Romney do an interview on CNN this morning & even that network’s assessment was that he was right and Obama was wrong in 2012. The point is that there is plenty of blame to go around for how we ended up here. None of it matters at this point. We are at a watershed moment in Europe’s history and indeed the World’s. The only thing that matters now is how we move forward from here. This is bigger than a single president or which party happens to hold power at the moment. The choices we make now will affect multiple administrations for years to come, and we need to implement coherent policies that will withstand and transcend political bickering.

A whole lot of “Peace Keepers” getting ready to learn what every military professional with experience in it will tell you…. don’t fight in cities unless you absolutely have to. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Opinions may differ, but imo, the hardest part of flying as a brand new FO are taxi instructions at a big airport. Something we obviously don't get much practice at in the AF. My very first leg of IOE was into LAX at night. After taxing clear, something like this went down: ATC: "SWA69, turn right on H-6, cross 25R at J, then the North route to checkpoint 1." Me, still 20 miles back wondering how we got here:

so i guess covid's over huh? midterms coming up and a coordinated dropping of mask mandates, vax cards, vax mandates, etc so scientific!

Incorrect. Many, many people have and do. You simply disagree with the argument. While absurdism is very useful in determining the realistic bounds of an argument, it's still absurdism. So the line is between your absurd hypothetical and the reality of conscription. You are conveniently leaving out a core component of individual freedom, which is the ability to opt out. Leave, go somewhere that doesn't have conscription and respects individual freedom to the maximalist level you are suggesting. You may find it difficult to locate such a society, because such a society most likely exists only in hypothetical conversations. Just as my personal freedom to live on the moon is limited by the physiological realities of a lunar atmosphere, your desire to live in a society that both honors individuality and personal choice while shunning conscription in times of existential threat is limited by the sociological realities of human nature. What you want is simply impossible with the tools you have. Therefore it is absurd. Perhaps one day it will not be. Retroactive takes on history always seem to compare what was done many years ago with what would be done today, or even worse, and a hypothetical society of peak enlightenment. This is the same nonsense mindset that is used against the founding Fathers for participating in slavery, Churchill for his views of colonialism, or comedians for their sexist jokes in the 80s. What was the alternative in the 1930s and 40s, and what would have happened in conflicts before then? How many multicultural societies existed or had existed to the extent the United States had already diversified by then? What was the playbook for having a large population of citizens from a ethnically homogeneous country that had just declared absolute war and attacked your homeland? It's incredibly conceited to use modern norms to judge the past, just as it's incredibly small-minded to use hypothetical best-case outcomes to compare to actual outcomes of previous campaigns. Slavery and genocide are wrong, but it takes a long time to overcome the brutality of nature and reach very unnatural philosophical conclusions. We are gradually working our way towards a set of ideals that are even today are still hypothetical. Just as Olympic runners get closer and closer to the 2-hour marathon, there is no reason to believe 2 hours is just a step on the way to 90 minutes. Your Rand-ian belief in absolute freedom is a yet-unproven theory. We've done quite well getting closer to that goal, but many libertarians miss the irony in castigating socialists for seeking Communist Utopia while promoting an impossible utopia of their own. In your case, a land of absolute individual freedom that somehow survives the predations of the surrounding illiberal societies.

I’ve browsed it but I don’t give two shits about their argument…conscription is not slavery. Both are involuntary but different. Can we get back to dead Russians please..I’ll start

I just gotta make the connection with your post and the meme that just started up on social media… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

At this point, I'd be more worried for the Russian citizens when the birds cook in the silos.

Please. Any country on the planet that is facing no-shit potential annihilation would act in the same manner, including yours.

We buy and source everything consumer based from CCP controlled outlets in China. We (the USA and most of the West) don't have the resolve anymore to sacrifice personal comfort for a cause, even a major cause like basic human rights. I forecast (if CCP invades Taiwan) we pontificate a lot (and I mean a lot), we drum up a few superficial sanctions, and we lobby the UN to make a statement that China was bad in this action but.....

There’s a cynical part of me that wonders if the Russians are utilizing an updated version of the penal battalion concept they used to fairly good effect in WWII. Push the conscript heavy/non Russian (Chechen/Donbas/Luhasensk) units forward to soak up the Ukrainian higher end anti-armor munitions (Javelin, NLAW, AT-14 etc), identify Ukrainian force concentrations, then use follow on echelons to overwhelm depleted Ukrainian infantry through massed artillery strikes and tank heavy mechanized units. Hope that’s not the case.

So long as he doesn't withhold $400m worth of anti-tank weaponry to Zelenskyy in exchange for political dirt, it'll be better than last time around.

No point in going Point by point because this doesn’t matter. I’ll be Mulder, you can be Scully, and we’ll drink 10 beers about it someday. But speaking of gullibility, I gotta dip out for a bit to extend my car’s warranty on my way to a guided Bigfoot sighting expedition. Great deal!

It’s not. Russians redesigned a whole lot of their ground doctrine following Chechnya. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/portals/7/hot%20spots/documents/russia/2017-07-the-russian-way-of-war-grau-bartles.pdf https://info.publicintelligence.net/AWG-RussianNewWarfareHandbook.pdf https://info.publicintelligence.net/AWG-RussianNewWarfareHandbook.pdf That’s Low side. There is other stuff out there…. There is a lot of wide area discussion but essentially it focuses on the move to Battalion Task Group models (BTG). Actual Table of Equipment though is all over the place dependent on type of units. Main tank rule is Battalion structure. They don’t intermix tanks below Brigade level so a battalion is going to be structured around a particular model (72, 80, 90). Brigades may have Battalions with different types (like a single 80 and 2x 72s). Within that individual Battalion you have 3 or 4 company models (10 MBTs per company with 1 for the Battalion Commander) based off what kind of parent brigade/division it’s intended to fall under. Tank Brigade/Division will usually prioritize 4 Troop tank Battalions (41 total tanks) to Infantry brigades so they can provide a Troop to each infantry Battalion with a single Troop in force reserve. Which brings me to my main point….. Send More Javelins! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

One other piece is expressing your desire to continue service in the Guard or Reserves. The AF then retains their highly-skilled aviator in a capacity other than active duty service. Whether or not ANG/AFRC unit interviews are as fruitful as airline interviews is a different story.

Got it. My inclination initially was that the Ukrainians would maybe have somewhat of an interesting advantage if Russia did control the skies ENTIRELY, because than they could basically shoot at anything and everything with ground based systems, and know that if it was in the air, it is most definitely hostile. Would be interesting to know how many aircraft being shot down are from land based systems/success rates of the Stinger. Helo squadron shows up to protect advancing armour, Ukrainian's pop off a couple stingers, helicopters scatter/leave/some get hit, than the Javelins/NLAWs come out and the 3 million dollar tanks get crippled by a Ukranian school teacher with a 100k missile on their shoulder. Awesome. IMO, Putin has dug himself into a very deep hole. He wants Ukraine, but he's grossly miscalculated how much they don't want him. He was banking on the intimidation factor, which has back fired now that he is losing valuable assets bogged down by cheap & easy to use missiles. He can't leave without looking like a failure, even tho he already looks like one, and if he stays he'll keep bleeding money/troops/valuable tanks/helos so long as Javelins and NLAWS are flowing, and thank god I don't see us stopping that supply. He could take the territory by leveling it, but if he levels it, than getting it doesn't mean much, does it? I don't see this ending well for him, this ego boosting operation is a total backfire. Also, he really sucks at hockey. I thought I was bad....... P.S. - If any Russian pilots read these forums, it ain't worth it...

Pulled by a tractor, awesome.

That's a fair question, and my honest answer is I don't know. I've personally made the effort over the last 3-4 years to intentionally buy things that aren't made in China (it's more difficult than you'd think, waffle makers seem to be pretty much exclusively made in China these days, insert Frank the Tank not enough time reference). There's a lot of verbose public personas ranting against China and pushing an independence from interdependence on China but not a lot of discussion on why/how the US got there in the first place. Autarky hasn't been an overly successful model for any country in the past 300+ years (there's probably a historical example I'm unaware of, would honestly be interested in anything referenced). I'd agree that the bulk of the US population that actually cares about this topic exhibits an odd form of schizophrenia that involves "China bad, America good" and "I want to buy American" (or insert any other foreign made product) but is unwilling to pay the higher prices involved in such an effort when confronted with reality.

Could you provide an example of societies that promote freedom and liberty, but did so without conscription? Honestly, this is starting to sound like a libertarian children's story rather than a realistic assessment on human nature and societal construction.

Necessity, based on preserving a way of life and a set of ideals that's morally justifiable. Not preserving an economic model, or war booty, or the subservience of one race over another. So I'll ask again, would you, as current member of the US military, tell a living WWII veteran (I'll drop the MoH example), to his face that his service in WWII constituted/was equal to that of a slave?

So we shouldn't defend them, and they shouldn't be forced to defend themselves? This is where libertarianism always hits the wall. Our "restraint" has led to this escalation of tensions. And the solution is more restraint? We have an incredibly vested interest in a stable world. How libertarians continually forget this is a mystery to me.

Conscription… con·scrip·tion /kənˈskripSH(ə)n/ Learn to pronounce noun compulsory enlistment for state service, typically into the armed forces.

Sure it matters. A poster overtly stated that sending blankets ended up costing Ukraine possession of Crimea. A pretty bold claim, so I don't think it's too much to ask for verification. Especially since the assertion was made as a defense of The Former Guy withholding security assistance resources because of a personal vendetta. There are good arguments about whether or not the Obama administration should have done more sooner with respect to lethal weaponry. History and hindsight sure make it look that way. But words matter, and the previous poster wanted to play some "whataboutism roulette" and lost.

That's weird, I read the whole article and only found the citation pasted below. I'm sure I missed it, can you point me to the verbiage in the article you posted that said we were providing blankets? "What the White House offered was a military aid package that will provide body armor, helmets, vehicles, night and thermal vision devices, advanced radios, patrol boats, counter-mortar radars, rations, tents and uniforms."

“ Poroshenko said blankets and night-vision goggles from the USA are important, "but one cannot win a war with blankets!"” USA Today article from 2014.

And yet that aid, to include weapons, got there. And Russia didn't take any parts of Ukraine then. Unlike the last time Biden was point man for Ukraine and that administration sent blankets. That cost Ukraine Crimea. So far, Biden's given the ok to "a limited incursion." As well as cashing various 10% checks payable to "the big guy" from Hunter's Ukrainian adventures. So...I'll take what are anti-tank rounds for a $1000 over What are blankies for $500. Now do Afghanistan withdrawal planning...

It's no different than the selective service we still have on the books in our country, or the fact that the US had used conscription to achieve national goals until very recently in our history. Ukraine is facing a fight for it's existence, and called up all the men of military fighting age to defend their country. Freedom isn't free...

We need a breathalyzer interlock for keyboards on Base Ops. Friends don't let friends drink and post. Though it's probably better than drunk dialing an ex.

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-tweet-going-toe-toe-vladimir-putin-resurfaces-ukraine-crisis-russia-1681266%3Famp%3D1

If necessary, yes. They are selling us oil yes but we are giving them what they need, cash, and we can replace their oil quickly, not without some pain but yes we can. Move fast and decisively. None of us were ever guaranteed to have a perfect carefree life with no inconvenience. COVID and the initial response to it, say the first 6 months, were appropriate then we should have transitioned to living with it. Likewise I would propose being honest with the people of the Western developed world, this will be expensive and inconvenient to shut off Russian oil and gas so long as Putin runs Russia and as long as they are attacking Ukraine but it is what is required to preserve what we have come to think of as the normal and default, a developed world mostly at peace where large nations don't change borders at will with force. We have been navel gazing while that has been done with less dramatic fashion in the SCS with island building in disputed waters, atolls and reefs. This is just uglier and 1,000 times more violent but the same thing. We have to stop it here and now. Returning to the idea of a no fly zone in Western Ukraine, I doubt if the AFs of multiple nations came together and established a mission, not just the US, that the Russian AF would not ingress and challenge it. They would cede that airspace and not fly there. Putin knows he has his hands full now, shooting down fighters from other nations that are not bombing his ground forces anywhere in Ukraine, that are not leaving the container they are patrolling and not attacking SAM and AAA sites elsewhere in the country would be foolish. This gives the Ukrainians a safer area to fight from. No but we signed a check for them back in the day with the Budapest Memo, with our support of Euromaidan movement. I know we have no formal defense treaty and I know Ukraine is not a perfect democracy like our allies South Korea and Taiwan were not at the beginning of their democratic systems of governance. We are not all powerful, we have limited resources but this fight is one to expend some of them. This is not some amphorous mission where the unofficial goal is to change an ancient and radically different culture into a post-modern Western civilization, it is to stop conventional aggression by one nation-state against another. We can do this but at a cost.

I admire your vigor but…. How’s the hangover this morning?

I'm not eager for it but I know it is the most feasible thing we can do to forestall & prevent defeat in this conflict and prove to the other aggressive authoritarian power in the East that if they try aggression, we will engage and not just leave our ally to their fate. Honestly, why have we been spending billions and billions of dollars into this technology and weapons systems then like 22, 35, etc…? To win the high end fight, we have envisioned the high end fight being in another theater mainly but destiny being the fickle woman she it, decided it would be in Europe versus our old adversary rather than our new one we would be tested. We have the means, we have an ally under attack and we have a dangerous moment. We have to prove to the authoritarian systems in the East and their allies that we will fight back, we will not allow our allies and those who aspire to join our systems, alliances and our way of life to be picked off one at a time.

His source is ENJJPT students who heard it from a friend of a friend of a friend. Yes, the entire Ghost story was made up by a gamer on Twitter. It's based on a video game called Ace Combat. No, I'm a fighter pilot with a bit of common sense and a healthy dose of skepticism. Given what you know about the MiG-29 and the Russian Air Force, did such a story really ever make sense? Do you really think a retired Su-27 pilot hopped in a MiG-29 and suddenly had global SA in such an environment and accounted for 69% of the kills? Stop being so gullible.

You think China is going to allow some nuclear laden dust flying around their border because some dude with an ego is currently losing to, on paper, an inferior military and that’s the end-game option he chose?

Hellfire the President of a sovereign nation that has more nuclear weapons than we do?

Got the email today. Palace Chase approved! Request 6 months and they approved it for 4 months. All-in-all my app was in the system for a little over 5 months and at SAFPC for 6 weeks. Best of luck!

Except we aren't talking about sanctioning/halting Russian energy exports. Sure, maybe Germany is putting a "pause" on it's pipeline...but it's just a pause. And our actions are none-existent for probably the worst reason...political. Biden knows his popularity would tank even more if gas prices went up higher (justifiably). So, instead, for domestic political points he avoiding really putting a rear naked choke on the Russians: I'd be willing to bet there are no long term US/Western sanctions against Russia (at least crippling ones) and Putin is betting on that COA as well. Temporary pain now for Putin, but he will still be supplying the LNG to Europe for decades while enjoying the view from his new loft apartment in Kyiv. And cutting out of Swift won't happen because everyone still needs to pay for that Russian LNG.

What you're witnessing is obvious disinformation by Ukrainian MoD. They've done same in 2014. I would not trust anything unless there is a video+picture footage.