DirkDiggler

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/putins-ukraine-quagmire/ Interesting article arguing that Putin's calculus on Ukraine may be having effects opposite that which he intended.

Objective article that discusses Russia's role in the global oil industry and what a supply disruption in Russia could mean. Unfortunately it doesn't discuss natural gas, might be addressed in a future analysis. https://www.csis.org/analysis/oil-market-cannot-afford-lose-russian-supplies

https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-gamble-ukraine Long but well researched/reasoned article.

There’s no 1s or 0s, just circumstances …

Interesting article from CSIS on pipelines that supply Russian gas to Europe. https://www.csis.org/analysis/can-european-energy-cope-conflict-ukraine

Good side by side analysis, hadn’t seen that website before, thanks for posting. Unfortunately another area where Ukraine will be severely overmatched is long range fires. I’d hope that if this goes all out that we’ll provide Ukraine real time targeting intelligence which would help to maximize the effectiveness of Ukrainian artillery.

If you want a (hopefully, a little dependent on the person) no shit read out of your record and where you stand get on your SR's calendar. Ideally him/her should've gone through it prior to the board but honestly time and numbers play into this. (They)'re leadership; part of their job is honest feedback on records.

The above is not an accurate statement. Most wars in history have not been "total" wars ie the entire population of a state/tribe/group completely mobilized and waging war for the purpose of complete destruction or subjugation of an enemy. Its just not that common in history statistically. Sure, there are wars that were "total" (3rd Punic War, some of the Mongol campaigns, I'm sure there's others I can't think of off the top of my head). The most recent example would probably be the USSR and Nazi Germany in WWII (Richard Overy's "Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort" is a great read that articulates just how total the Soviet effort in WWII was). There are countless (far too many to list here) examples throughout history of limited wars that permanently settled the issues that provoked the conflict. The US has fought several "limited" wars that were successful. The Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, and Desert Storm are all good examples of limited US wars that were very limited in scope with successful outcomes. The revisionist arguments about Desert Storm being an "unfinished war" ignore the original goals of the war and conflate the muddled reasoning behind the ONW and OSW efforts. Prior to 1990, Hussein provided a useful cudgel to bleed the Iranians, and we didn't really care what he did to the Kurds and Shiites inside Iraq's borders.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/22/us-in-talks-with-qatar-over-supplying-lng-to-eu-reports If Russia's leverage over the EU's energy security is much diminished, the calculus for could change for Mr. Putin. Russia's economy is heavily reliant on the petroleum sector; sharply diminished exports, isolation from the SWIFT system, and cutting off Russia's largest banks from the Western market would make for an extremely turbulent and difficult time in Russia. This would be further exacerbated if a Russian invasion of Ukraine bogs down and/or is beset with heavy casualties. History doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme. The Russia civil war happened only 100 years ago and while the political and military situation is very different, there are some parallels. If a Ukrainian invasion goes poorly, or ends in a brutal stalemate disaffecting the Russian people, and more importantly, the military, things could get tense in Russia. The ultimate irony of this is that while Russia (really Putin) plays the long game quite well in many instances, an all-out invasion of Ukraine will probably have an opposite effect of what he's trying gain (security and spheres of influence). Eastern European countries like Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic could conceivably start rapid military buildups/rearmament programs (Poland is already there in some respects). The have recent memories of what its like being under the Russian thumb. The Baltic States already contribute more than the obligatory 2% NATO requires on defense (a fact my Estonian friend was always very proud of); a further increase would be very likely as would an increase in invasion preparations like arms stockpiling for guerilla warfare, mining of LOCs, fortifications etc. Sweden and Finland would very likely apply for NATO membership. Even some of the Western European states might start an arms buildup (I see this as less likely for some though). BLUF is that for as strong as Russia is in some respects, they're far from invincible and actually quite vulnerable in many aspects. Russia has few allies and the ones it does have either aren't strong and/or don't trust Putin much more than we do (see Belarus and several of the Stans). Russia's military, while its made some significant advances in the last 15 years, isn't the Soviet military juggernaut of 1945 or 1980. M2's Baseops signature block still holds some truth today.

My guess (speculating) is that this was intentional on NATO's part. It would be very easy for the Russians to use something like allowing overflight of weapons by the German government as justification/pretext of "Ukraine is sliding further toward neo-nazism (something they've already been hyping to the Russian population), NATO is getting ready to invade, remember what the Germans did in WWII and they're coming again, etc" type stuff. Better for us on the information warfare front left of bang for the Brits to do what they did.

Pretty comprehensive analysis of the Ukraine crisis with some good recommendations going forward. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-possible-invasion-ukraine

I'm starting drift towards her viewpoint (was honestly on the fence for a while, wasn't sure what I thought of the situation). Putin's list of demands for this latest round of "negotiations" read like something from the late 19th century, or maybe 1938-39. Either way most of those demands are non-starters. At a minimum, in addition to what you mentioned above, I think we should start providing additional heavy conventional armaments to Poland and the Baltic states. Army has reactivated its European long range artillery unit I believe. Maybe its time to station an armored division or two in Poland permanently as well. F-35s to Romania. Reactivate a NATO led Baltic Sea flotilla formed around small SAGs. I'm sure there's reasons why all this is a bad idea but letting Putin reestablish a new Russian empire at the expense of our allies and at least a semblance of the international order is horseshit.

Kinda controversial but interesting article regarding US/European response to Putin's aggression in Ukraine. https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/01/us-must-prepare-war-against-russia-over-ukraine/360639/

Is an assignment to CVS going to drive me into homemade toilet wine production?

MC-130H

No idea honestly. I'll probably have better insight once I get the download from my friend but that won't be for another couple weeks. It seems unfortunate; as an outsider looking in I thought this was a good concept and had potential to be productive.

He's in a bit of a weird spot; he's a LtCol (so older) and his previous MWS is retiring in 20 months.

Thread revival (and also maybe termination). A good buddy of mine was in the first 13O training class; he told me this weekend that the AF is terminating the the 13O career field and that he needs a job. Anybody else hear the same?

Had a really good buddy take this route. He punched at 13 years for the airlines. He didn't get hired by the flying unit at his airline domicile (tough unit to get into) and he didn't want to commute to a Guard/Reserve job. He ended up taking a non-flying Exec position at a Guard Mx Group (think it was Guard) at his airline domicile location. He said the job/work is boring but it was his insurance in case the airlines went tits up. Low and behold, COVID happens; he was able to pickup a year of orders while waiting the his airline to sort itself out.

Good article on Putin/Russia's view regarding Russian power, and Ukrainian neutrality. https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/01/10/why_neutrality_is_no_answer_for_ukraine_811228.html

I hadn't heard about this at all until today. The AFSOC/CC just put out an official statement on Instagram regarding it. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYaE5UflyRo/

This info is 14 years old so take it with a grain of salt. I went to SOS with a Viper driver (previous B-1 WSO, not sure which he was when he was matched) who had been a bone marrow donor. He didn't make any specific comments regarding the AF medical process (at least he didn't say he had any issues with it) itself but he did reinforce that the recovery was pretty rough (they're driving large bore needles into your pelvis/legs I believe). He said he was on crutches for a week and it was a pretty painful recovery. That said, he was pretty happy he was able to help (rightfully so) and said he was back flying not too long after the procedure. I'd tell you to reach out to your local Flight Doc but given my recent experiences there's a good chance they may not know what bone marrow is. Best of luck!

Thanks for that, I actually lol'd. Back on my first deployment as a young 1Lt, I had a Nav who, while a good dude, was super loud/brash and would forget his head if it wasn't attached to his body. He kept leaving his shit all over ops and the plane, so by month two of the deployment pretty everything he owned had hogs drawn all over it. He finally loses his shit one day on the all of us in ops, yelling, unspecified threats towards the next mofo that draws a dick on his stuff, pretty epic rant honestly. After a couple minutes of this he storms out the door in a very angry fashion. Unfortunately for him he forgets his snack banana, left it lying on the table. No one says a word. I picked the banana up and drew a big veiny triumphant bastard on said banana. 5 minutes later he comes back in to get his snack, picks it up and sees this giant cock drawn on the side of it with the whole crew sitting there silently staring at him. Hangs his head in defeat, unpeels it (looking disturbing like very loose foreskin at this point), and walks out the door.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/01/06/putins_calculation_for_war_is_sincere_810817.html Very good article on Putin's Ukraine calculus.

Mosul on Netflix is worth watching if you have some spare time and are looking for a war movie. Pretty good depiction of brutal urban combat against ISIS. Plot was a little thin but was still overall a well done movie.