DirkDiggler

A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026? | Foreign Affairs Interesting article.

I bought a Ruger PC Carbine 5.7 a couple years ago and it’s an absolute blast to shoot. Probably not the most practical gun I own but sure is fun.

Your original post, before you edited it, came out pretty forcefully in support of the US continuing down this path with some statements that aren't supported by facts. You mentioned Eminent Domain as a way for the United States to "acquire" Greenland. That's not a legally accepted way that nation states exchange territory. I'm no lawyer, but it took all of 10 seconds on Google to figure that out. It sure sounds better than annexation or invasion though, which is what this will be if Denmark and Greenland continue to tell us hard no and we press the issue. You also mentioned this situation being our "Golan Heights" or it being comparable to that annexation. Israel captured the Golan Heights in war, then annexed it in 1981 from a country who had attacked it several times with intention of the destruction of the State of Israel. No such threat is currently present or even progged to be present from the territory of Greenland. Why would we do this? Do you really believe your statement above that Greenland needs "freedom"? The current administration has offered several very generic reasons for the US acquiring Greenland, depending on which way the wind is blowing that day. We've heard "we need it for security", to "Russia and China will take it if we don't", to "Golden Dome", to "they have lots of rare earth minerals", to "Arctic sea lanes are opening" to "I haven't gotten the Nobel Peace Prize" amongst others. The 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement between the US and Denmark, already gives the US very wide latitude to establish bases and conduct military activities across Greenland. The administration has offered no (that I'm aware of) concrete unresolved security concerns with respect to Greenland. Agreement listed here: Avalon Project - Defense of Greenland: Agreement Between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark, April 27, 1951 Neither Russia nor China is currently capable of projecting the hard power beyond near proximity to their respective borders that would be required to seize Greenland by force. China has made several attempts to invest and/or purchase various interests in Greenland. That effort was blocked during the first Trump administration in a collaborative effort with Denmark and so far China's attempt to build a Polar Silk Road has been a failure. Background here: Greenland, Rare Earths, and Arctic Security Golden Dome. Currently a concept on PPT slides. No hard explanation has been given as to why Greenland would matter to this. Most of the concepts presented thus far have been space based. We already have Early Warning and Ballistic Missile/Bomber coverage from there, Alaska, Canada etc. And from point #1, if we wanted to build additional facilities, we already have an agreement in place to do so. 0 Rare Earth minerals have been extracted from Greenland. 0. They do have two known large deposits, but the environment and lack of infrastructure have been major impediments. Even with the warming temperatures up there, development will take a long time to see results. Also, Greenland's parliament passed a law banning development in one of them (the Kvanefjeld field) due to it being full of uranium and, shockingly, they don't want to pollute their country. Chinese investment attempts were stopped. Same link used in #2: Greenland, Rare Earths, and Arctic Security Russia does have a large fleet of polar icebreakers (including 8 nuclear powered) to exploit the Arctic sea lanes. The US currently has 3, count'em three, polar icebreakers, two of which were built in the '70s. US shipbuilding is currently in the toilet, so much so that we're buying icebreakers from Finnish shipyards (a NATO ally). Canada also operates a large icebreaker fleet and is expanding. If we rupture the NATO alliance over this, will those assets and new ships still be available to us? Who knows, because there's no way to know. NATO’s ‘Arctic seven’ find strength in numbers | The American Legion Nobel Peace Prize. Such a retarded fucking reason to blow up NATO I can't even address it. Right now polling in both the US and Greenland show that each countries' respective populations are against this: US voters widely opposed to taking Greenland by military force -- even most Republicans - ABC News Does Greenland Want to Be Part of the United States? We're demanding that a long-term ally give up a large portion of land. If they agree to sell it, bully for everyone, our free market economy is functioning. But they aren't, and we're currently using not so veiled threats of military force to take it from them. Our government has offered no concrete explanation as to why and is threatening long term Allies with economic and military consequences if they don't play ball. So I'll end on, once again, why are we doing this? None of the given explanations are developed or even make sense. Do you really want to occupy or annex a country that doesn't want us there just to take their natural resources? That's pretty close to some of the worst parts of the 19th and 20th centuries colonialism and/or quests for autarky. This isn't worth the dissolvement of NATO, and it sure as hell isn't worth us fighting Allies (kinetically or otherwise).

Dude I understand your frustration, things like that suck for everybody involved. That being said, you only can affect the things under your control and UPT & FTU delays aren't something you can control. They're also nothing new. Some guys in the 90s were on the banked program, where they did 1-2 year non-flying assignments before they even went to UPT. Wasn't uncommon for UPT selects in my ROTC Det to do 9-12 month casuals prior to going to UPT. I had a 5 month BIT between EWO school and the FTU. Guys that tracked fighters in my UPT class had a 9 month BIT (which was pretty average at that time, if you were even able to get a -38 slot since all the fighter FTUs back then were severely backed up). The BLUF of all that is delays like these have been going on for decades and all those pilots writ small and the AF writ large survived. Focus on the things you can control and realize you'll have a great time flying AF aircraft whether you're delayed or not.

Nothing's wrong with them, they're just not currently executing the IPT syllabus.

Doss may become an IPT location, depending on how the bids shake out and if they want to do it. IFS as currently designed will go away once the AF shifts completely to the new model.

My guess is it has something to do with the 4 murders and suicides the SFG there has had this year.

Glad he got out.

Based on the current and future plans for aviation pipelines across all the services, I honestly believe that the Bobs have made a conscious decision to accept higher mishaps rates and lower quality of product, at least in the near to mid term in order to up production numbers. They’re just not outright saying that. As an FTU CI, it’s frustrating. The FTU syllabus for the airframes I teach are based on the legacy UPT/UCT product. A lot of the T-6 direct to the FTU students are struggling. It’s not their fault; most of them are hungry, have a good attitude, and study. They’re just behind in multiple areas because they haven’t gotten enough reps before they show up here.

Right now they have the advantage since CSOs/WSOs seem to be the bulk of the people that are staying in.

How War in Taiwan Ends: If Deterrence Fails, Could America Thwart China?

Hope I’m wrong but that looks bad

I know very little about him besides the recent uniform focus shenanigans. What are his negatives?

I'd have to look at the slides again but I'm pretty sure eventually when UPT goes to a single aircraft model (T-7) there's different syllabi after track select depending on which type you track ie Heavy guys wouldn't be flying events like 4 ship form. IIRC after track select Heavy students basically go direct to the FTU. Edit to add: if you have a .mil email PM me and I can send you the placemat slide explaining the current plan.

Anyone have any experience with owning or flying a Socota TB-20 or 21?

AF is currently progged to buy Bombardier bizjets to replace C-146 NSav.

Would like to give another shout out to Jon at Trident, just finished a refi with them and it was super easy/seamless, especially compared to the first one I did years ago that wasn’t with Trident. Would absolutely recommend for any mortgage needs.

Beyond FPVs: Learning the Lessons of the Ukraine War—All of Them - Modern War Institute Pretty good read.

Honest question; he was retired, how did he get strong armed into it?

The Soviets initially built the place; maybe he meant give it back to them. I’d be all for letting the Jawas mort some more Russkies.

What is the US Military Preparing For? Force Design and the Pathology of Lessons Learned - Modern War Institute Long but good read.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5512254-taliban-trump-afghanistan-bagram-air-base-return/amp/ Doesn’t look like the Jawas are on board with this.

It's very difficult for me to imagine a world/scenario where going back to that filthy shithole and dumping more of our blood and treasure into the dirt there would be a good idea.

It was/is pretty embarrassing. Mine is chambered in .357. Was shooting it out at the range with a buddy of mine, he says “.38 is cheaper, I’ve got some, let’s put that through it.” First round doesn’t make it out of the barrel/just not enough oomph. I take it home and instead of just tapping the bullet out and calling it a day I decide I’m gonna field strip and clean after I’ve put a grand total of maybe 50 rounds through the thing. Random pieces just kept falling out the more I took it apart. YouTube videos weren’t overly helpful. After about the 300th “fuck” or “cocksucker” my wife told me to take a break. I’m probably gonna take it to a gunsmith, I just don’t think I have the patience.