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My biggest concern is that when Trump doesn’t win the Rep primary that he decides to run as an Independent and then in turn splits the Rep ticket. This would almost guarantee the Dems to win the 2024 election…

nothing will change when the same "leaders" in charge of the afghanistan debacle are still in charge. show me one senior leader who resigned or was fired...they weren't. in fact they doubled down and called it a success. cowards. all of them.

Trump opens 2024 run, says he's 'more committed' than ever

I was quite surprised to see Mini's name on that memo. This should have been a CSAF or JCS level directive. 2nd, the memo could have removed China getting called out specifically, because I think by calling them out a fight is more likely to occur because of it. Lastly, it could have addressed firearms training without jumping the shark. I guess we use "clips" in our M9s and M-4s? But here is where I was truly surprised; the attempt to remove obstacles to operations, taking away the absurdity of current command mentality, and improve the force. Like, allow Sq/CCs run their units without having to report every cotton-picking tiny piece of bullshit. Aircraft CCs run their missions and crews to get the job done. Like actually instill independence. A lot of ACs these days gotta ask permission to do anything. Wartime and home base ops have two standards. Why the hell is the waiver authority so high for dumb shit? So I expect the semiannual self inspector to get a new job. Bullshit side duties to die with impunity. But don't forget the vRED! He has some power to modify AFIs, so start chopping. As a small aside, this is the same Mini that slammed a fist into chalkboard in front of a lot of crews because he thought he saw one of then taxi past a pallet within 10 feet; crew saw it, knew of it, talked while going past it, safe distance, no danger. To see him advocate for the opposite is refreshing. Hope he can keep it up. PS. Mattis was once (or more) heavily critiqued for saying its fun to shoot some people. He survived.

Some SAP/STO planner: “Dammit…. People are gonna find out about the Earthquake gun!” Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I don't mean this is an attack on you, but your post demonstrates why these things rarely change. Let's operate on the assumption that this guy actually has the authority and approval to put these types of changes into place. When an organization is run like dog shit for so long, you end up with a lot of lost-causes who simply can't move on from the amount of shit they were forced to eat for so long. I'm one of those people by the way. So when you come in as a leader with an attempt to make a drastic and immediate change to the very character of the organization, it's not going to work if you don't first go through and sweep away all the dead bodies. A perfect example of this is Twitter, I think they got rid of 2/3 or 3/4 of the company at this point, and that's what it takes to make sure the cynicism born of the previous however-many years of terrible leadership and decision making don't poison the future. The leadership infrastructure in AMC is built upon a system that this guy is trying to flip over. That means the leaders now are literally the opposite of the leaders he needs. The AF picked the current AMC sq/gp/wg commanders based on ability to process and adhere to administrivia. Now he wants leaders who excel in undefined environments, with a much, much higher probability of failure. We're talking polar opposites in terms of leadership characteristic. Is the air force ready for what accompanies those types of leaders? Considering the last decade of squadron-culture-eradication, I doubt it. This will not work until the stakes are so high that the AMC/CC can literally remove a commander on-sight and install his replacement on the same day. You need alignment of vision to make something like this work, and the outgoing leaders will not take their exile idly if they are removed one-by-one over time. Mini will not be the CC when this happens. He's the leader we need, but remember the first rule: timing is everything. He's too early, and as such he will fail.

They talked about it while you were golfing and shitting on the SNCO’s.

It's like the Army version of the Defensive Egg.

Bet this will raise some eyebrows…And for Milley, that’s gotta be excruciating.

To put it visually… stuff like this becomes a hell of a lot easier when your supporting bases of fire includes a tank. Then the maneuvering element comes up and steps on your neck while the S-head element dug into the objective tries to deal with that armored gun reducing their position one 120mm round at a time. Not to mention 11k roads of machine gun that it adds to the supporting fire positions. The defense would use indirect fires to disrupt the attack. Usually that’s gonna be mortars. Maybe they’ve got artillery but even then the Tank largely doesn’t care. So they have to have dedicated anti tank systems in close with them and there are only so many of those in a formation to go around. So the enemy is forced to make a decision of withdrawal out the free axis and try to consolidate a counter attack later giving up the ground, or they can stay there and be overwhelmed and try to trade out casualties to make the offensive force stall. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We absolutely should have preference or ranked-choice voting in every election nationwide. It takes a bit of additional voter education, but it enables more nuanced preferences of the electorate to be expressed.

My spidey sense says they were still concerned about their career vs what they believed, it was just about their next career. Be it college president, think tank wonk, consultant, whatever... those who publicly profess contra-prevailing conventional wisdom / groupthink ideas probably have limited post mil career opportunities. There is something to having a unified team and then there's a pack of lemmings blindly following the lemming in front of them. No perfect objective measure like porn vs art but you know it when you see it. I think that compliments your above point on leaders willing to challenge the status quo. Copy book recommendation.

Lots of speculation over on Twitter about who was responsible and where things originated. Be interesting to see the real story/data. Israel Strikes Iran Amid International Push to Contain Tehran - WSJ Either way, things blowing up in Iran, no clearly responsible party, and videos on Twitter of Iranian citizens cheering some of the strikes. Not a bad way to start a Sunday morning.

One of the (kinda) cool things about ACSC in-res was the level of briefer/public speaker that would come and talk with us. Ran the gambit, tons of 4 stars, State Department types, couple politicians etc. Some of them stuck with/spoke the party line, some actually had real shit to same and were quite candid in their views/opinions. Unfortunately, the military guys that usually were the most candid/interesting were the ones that were no longer upwardly mobile or those that were close to retirement. Almost all of them, to a T, made sure that the cameras weren't on or that "academic immunity" or whatever they called it was in effect. They were all very concerned about going "on the record" about pretty much anything. I understand that messaging wise you don't want to get in-front of your boss(es) and that having generals openly saying things that are at odds with our civilian leadership is not usually a good thing. At the same time, I've always been a fan of leaders who are blunt in their beliefs/expectations and who are willing to take risks if it means their force(s) are well prepared and ready for unexpected challenges. I'm not sure we have as many 0-6+ leaders ready for an all out, attritional type war with a peer as we need. Interesting anecdote, just finished up another deployment and as I was writing AMs for my crew, it was brought to my attention that the local awards pub did not allow the words "captured" or "killed" to be used in award citations anymore. Was seriously a WTFuck moment; the military exists, on lawful order, to kill people and break their shit, but I can't officially say that anymore or recognize people for performing their primary duty to our country. I'm a firm believer that every young officer should read TE Ferenbach's This Kind of War, specifically the chapter titled "Proud Legions". Would have applicable lessons for any full on fight with China, Russia, NK, or Iran.

Not taking it as a personal attack. I'm one to dismiss, ignore, and skirt every type of queep/bureaucracy to get the mission done (sidebar: it actually made for a great TMAAT story at my legacy interview). But Mini is what...at least the 3rd 4-star in a row to talk about how we need to accelerate or die, right? What has changed? Has anything gotten better? I see it all as empty words. Go in and publicly fire some people that are holding up progress. Publicly promote the dudes who solved the complex tactical issue that CH mentioned. I don't disagree with Mini's intent but, after 6-9 years of hearing it, and not seeing any traction take place I just can't be bothered anymore.

https://www.iranwatch.org/our-publications/articles-reports/irans-nuclear-timetable-weapon-potential I wonder what a mapped out Iran nuclear sites versus earthquake epicenter would show? Someone has to be putting them on the same map... ...or it's ordinary quakes along their fault lines crisscrossing Iran

Great news buddy. SGLI increased to 500k. You're good to go 🙂

And on top of that, Ronna got re-elected. The DNC is pure hammered dogshit of the highest caliber, and should be simple to crush. And yet, the RNC is embarrassingly incompetent and living in a fantasy world. The only hope is someone like Desantis or Paul wins the primary, but the GOP establishment is just as corrupt and corrosive as the Dem establishment, so won’t be surprised to watch them “take the competition out” like the Dems did with Tulsi. Fuck! I need a whiskey.

I’m sure President Biden and his fantastic press secretary will have something insightful to say this week regarding the General’s remarks.

You know it's funny, I read the memo and immediately believed it was false because of the tone. But then I think about what a lot of Elon musk's messages, or Steve Jobs messages, or Jeff bezos's messages sound like, and it actually fits the mold. It's just so strange to hear anybody commit to a real vision, because we live in a world of people playing it safe. That said, there is a 0.0% chance of this guy lasting in the Air Force now. He's played his hand from a position that does not allow you to have that type of vision. Only the top dog can, and he's quite a few rungs below. We have the same problem in corporate America. Companies that achieve great things through the vision and perseverance of their founder are eventually led by accountants and Wall Street hacks chosen by a board of other accountants and Wall Street hacks. Sometimes your board might have some other founders on it, but they're founders from different companies with different visions, and they don't offer anything useful to the company. Shareholders will only ever agree on one vision, short-term profits. So that's the type of leaders you get. This guy is done for. The current president of the United States has family members who are making money from China. And his transgressions are child's play compared to the entirety of the academic, corporate, and media world. China has done an incredible job of warming their tendrils into some of the biggest and most powerful institutions in America, and they aren't going to be extricated one at a time. China will have to do something so catastrophically unacceptable that America will just have to rip the Band-Aid off. And a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money in power, just like when we ripped the band-aid off Russia, but that's what it took. I hope Mini enjoys his retirement. It's coming soon.

Of course it’s real. While the rest of his 4 star buddies are focused on pronouns and diversity TED talks, he is actually focused on what matters and what will kill us. If you’ve ever met the guy, you know, he’s the real deal. Make whatever ATIS and fat chick jokes you want, INDOPACOM presents a logistics, movement, and maneuver challenge that we have never seen before and it’s nice that AMC is finally focused on the mission instead of 1206s.

Tell me you don't know the first thing about crypto without telling me you don't know the first thing about crypto... Bruh, the entire basis for the blockchain is to be a distributed, peer-to-peer, value-exchange system. It may be that more "action" is taking place in the exchanges, but that's like the fact that there is more action in the futures markets for soybeans. None of the soybeans traded in Chicago ever make it there, but I assure you there are soybeans that would still exist if the CME was shutdown. Think of it like that. The CME plays the role of the exchanges in the cyrpto market, but the actual blockchain (the bottom line behind crypto) are the soybeans growing in everyone's own backyard.

If you can’t figure it out you’ll definitely make your Star… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You need to take the course I offered you brother. Youre arguing outside of your depth. If you don't understand on a technical level how the crypto industry holds or records value, how it's distributed, what mining actually means on a technical level....you are going to struggle to understand why and how crypto currency works peer to peer. Crypto was deliberately created to circumvent financial services institutions following the 2008 bank collapse. The creator wanted people to be able to trade peer to peer without governments or banks involved he did a very good job of ensuring that the currency was protected from that.

The boom is

KC-135 strikes. Brings up a question. Does the mother ship get credit for the strikes or is it the actual drone?

Looks like the first KC-135 Drone mothership already completed it's first strike downton Tehran. Four different regions had strikes/explosions.

Completely bad ass. Cheers arg.

That's me when I fell out of the cargo door of a KC-135, twice.

You really add absolutely nothing to any conversation you engage in, eh?

Mobile protected firepower for the maneuver forces attempting to retake hardened objectives. Eventually all the fires in the world need to be capitalized with infantry to take and hold territory. Tanks make things that stop infantry go away quickly or draw the attentions of the defender in such a way that the combined arms maneuver has a free hand. With Abrams you also get a weapon system that can direct fire at stand-off preserving Survivability while still remaining useful. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Even now, we have GOs and senior O6s with less than four years of command time. I know a few who did a quick one-year squadron command tour, followed later with a one-year wing vice commander stint, and then wing command.

@Prozac @Danger41 You both have excellent points and perspective and these are discussions that we NEED to be having if we want to defeat/deter China. FWIW, Mini is an old friend and we shared a beer at WEPTAC two weeks ago, two things that struck and impressed me: 1. While we were talking about old times and family a steady stream of captains and majors walked by and engaged him with ideas...they were not seeking career advice or face time, they were bringing genuine ideas on how to solve tough problems. He took the time and engaged with every single one of them. 2. At one point two captains engaged and brought a contractor along. They were brain-storming through a current tough tactical problem and had an idea that was actually very good and it combined some capes we already have. Mini immediately grasped what they were saying and said "put it together and bring me 467 of them." The captains and contractor actually seemed shocked, finally one of them blurted out "serious?" Mini immediately replied "I am trying to win a war here!" I know in the past we have had false hope in some of these GO's, and knowing Mini gives me some bias, but what I saw was a very senior leader genuinely interested in defeating China even if that meant changing the status quo. He was also setting the environment to bring as many ideas and inputs as possible into the conversation. So while things like single pilot tanker ops loading with cruise missiles may get a lot of eye rolls, I think that line of out of the box thinking and the willingness to foster it is what makes us better.

Been saying this for years. Want to improve QOL for maintainers? Get rid of the AMXS and PCA everyone to the flying squadron. Marines and Navy have no problem with this model. 0-4 leadership position is MX OIC as a pilot. Not sure if it would make sense to fuse the MXS side as well. In any case, along those lines, I say get rid of all Groups and transition to an A-Staff model where Squadrons report directly to the Wing. I believe Mt Home and some other bases have already done that. My army coworkers look at my sideways when I tell them we have 0-6 Group Commanders and 0-6 Wing Commanders.

I stole it and have preached it for years that the key to greatness is being brilliant at the basics. So I’m with you 100%. But unless 22 years (JFC) of GWOT and the ONW/OSW/WW Desert Storm have taught me, the mobility bros are pretty amazing at the basics. Not many people know about the mobility role in Schwarzkopf’s left hook but that whole thing doesn’t happen without AMC (MAC at the time). But now, this reminds me of the Tomcat looking for relevancy after the Cold War ended and the Soviet bomber cruise missile swarms weren’t a thing. They reinvented the platform into a great strike fighter. Same with the Viper going from a day VFR fighter to damn near everything under the sun. Same with the C-130 evolving into the AC-130 in Vietnam after the previous Gunships paved the way. Same with the F-4 evolving into a very good SEAD platform prior to retirement. I think the B-25 showed some pretty decent, non-standard use on April 18, 1942. Why can’t a tanker be a delivery platform for UAS? Hell, take the AC-J internal CLT mounting configuration, crank it to 11 and you could easily put 100 of those in the back. Yes, you’d have to cut holes, flight test, etc but you could turn the back into a radio shack setup with a laptop and have all that shit ran by the boom when he’s not being a boom (aka napping 95% of the time). The earlier Block Draco variants were pretty much cables and laptops everywhere with dudes making it work. It’s very doable. I always thought the tanker force in Afghanistan/Iraq should’ve had some passive collect capability while they covered the whole country 24/7 in the tracks. Maybe they did, I’ll have to check my garage scif but nobody told me. I also saw the proposal for AMP-4 ops and think that should be approved tomorrow. Get some IP’s to Hurlburt/Cannon with the MC dudes, fly a few locals, get some academics on it, and press. To the uneducated outsider, this is the litmus test for me of if this whole endeavor will make any headway. Unfair or not, my perception is that AMC has some incredibly risk averse people that call “safety of flight!” For damn near anything. AMP-4 is something different but well within your command’s capabilities. If it gets hung up by those in the Safety camp*, nothing will change. My passion for this topic is probably pretty evident. My favorite line in a movie is in the Departed when Jack Nicholson’s character talks about how John Lennon said “I’m an artist. You give me a fucking tuba, I’ll get you something out of it”. That’s how I view my time in the AF. I may not have the tools but I’ll do what I can to help win. The other reason IGAF about this is I can’t stand cynicism (copy shot on picking the worst profession in the world for that). My hero, Theodore Roosevelt, talked about it and I actually had this on my wall as a young Danger. ”The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement.” That’s a very long, very rambling way of saying I hope AMC gets after this stuff and finds ways to win. This post brought to you by the good people of Basil Hayden’s. *Safety is critically important and I’m not advocating for stupid risk. If these things prove to be stupid, then don’t do it.

I’m all for more focus on the mission, esprit de corps, and treating military members like warfighters. Doesn’t mean the pendulum has to swing to absurdity. Single pilot tankers launching a hundred UAVs into the fight is a bit much. How about AMC just shifts focus back to flying/mission basics for a while & see how that works before crafting grand “outside the box” schemes to utilize platforms in ways they were never designed to operate?

We lost the last one, but GOs weren’t fired so the organization already forgot. To me the worst part of 1206s is lack of feedback. I spent hundreds of hours trying to get folks recognized and never received feedback on why they were or were not the chosen one. Our processes can’t work with shitty/toxic GOs running them, and we’ll never convince inspiring officers to stay unless we treat them better. Which we can’t do because we’re managed by shitty/toxic GOs…. The downward spiral is tragic.

😬 I was not saying WTF as in “wow I love it.” Maybe the guy is great, I don’t know him or even of him at all. I mean mission-focus is one thing, but wishcasting war with China specifically in 2025 is irresponsible. Thanks for your random wag political analysis sir, maybe keep that stuff to yourself or just create a BO.net account so you can vent. Also when he wrote (sic) “empty a clip” and “aim for the head” lolol. Ok John Wayne 😂 they are Chinese, not zombies. I would definitely not want to be the US ambassador to China rn having to explain why a 4-star is saying stuff like this in widely distributed memos…

I wish every MAJCOM commander were as focused as Mini.

Do yourself a favor and stop pondering...

I thought I was fairly clear in my last response but I’ll remind you that the breakup of the Soviet Union happened over three decades ago. Ukraine did not secede from Russia. They became a sovereign nation thirty years ago. The better analogy would be the United States granting Puerto Rico independence in 1991, and then ruthlessly invading it in the spring of 2022, deliberately targeting the civilian populace, and unleashing our hardest criminals to rape, pillage, and do god knows whatever else to the people there. Ask yourself if you could see that scenario unfolding for the United States anytime soon? There is no comparison. Get outta here with your secession assclownery.

The plot thickens... Maybe the company could occasionally listen to the union inputs on safety. Having a stellar safety record for many years doesn't happen without cost and effort. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/2023/01/19/first-officer-on-american-jfk-runway-incursion-flight-had-added-task-at-departure-source-says/?sh=5f15e6cd67ac

Let’s lighten this thread up a bit…

His most notable contributions were pushing toxic policies in relation to COVID. Although, he’s been shockingly absent in that thread as of late…

The off-ramp remains open any time the Russians want to take it! Either get rid of Putin and stop the invasion or convince him to do so if that’s possible. That’s it, that’s the basis for peace in Ukraine. The Ukrainians will never back down from defending their country from an unjust invasion, nor should they 🇺🇦