Ukraine - Russia Conflict

Blizzard said:
I'm guessing the concept of CSAR has to be virtually non-existent there?
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Bro. I don't know how many times I need to say this, but I will again.

The intelligence community owes me a fucking apology. For YEARS (decades?!) I've been retlighted (@AWP ) to believe the Russians were a pacing/peer threat. THAT was a lie *Maury Voice*.

The breathless BroVetBois that were talking shit about the lil Russia propaganda film of them waking up with shaved heads for pushups and Spetznaz in DragonSkin need to get fucked.

Russia is a paper fucking tiger with the GDP of Florida that cant perform basic ass logistics functions, let alone exquisite warfighting functions. they cant do raids... you want them to do PR? They'd get marked by MANPADS, and can't even communicate.

If only some sort of world leader that could actually impose *any* DIMEFIL cost on Russia would say "enough" and bring everyone to the table.

Oh well! Guess we are too busy with Trans Interviews, displaying a remarkable misunderstanding of State's rights and responsibilities.

/rant
 
amlove21 said:
Russia is a paper fucking tiger …
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My old man who served in the Soviet military, always said that in our West-Russia politics & comparison rants. He also predicted fairly accurately how a war would go down between Russia and Ukraine.
But because of mostly Western hype and Russian propaganda I also remained a little skeptical until this conflict.
 
Blizzard said:
I'm guessing the concept of CSAR has to be virtually non-existent there?
Click to expand...

There are a lot of nations who can’t fathom why we put so much effort into CSAR. Most books I’ve read on the air war over SEA mention our willingness to perform CSAR as a major factor in a crew’s morale. The more I read about SOG, the more I see the same argument made as well.

At this point I’d like to call @amlove21 a marginally coifed aircrew cuck because I’m a dick and need coffee.
 
amlove21 said:
Bro. I don't know how many times I need to say this, but I will again.

The intelligence community owes me a fucking apology. For YEARS (decades?!) I've been retlighted (@AWP ) to believe the Russians were a pacing/peer threat. THAT was a lie *Maury Voice*.

The breathless BroVetBois that were talking shit about the lil Russia propaganda film of them waking up with shaved heads for pushups and Spetznaz in DragonSkin need to get fucked.

Russia is a paper fucking tiger with the GDP of Florida that cant perform basic ass logistics functions, let alone exquisite warfighting functions. they cant do raids... you want them to do PR? They'd get marked by MANPADS, and can't even communicate.

If only some sort of world leader that could actually impose *any* DIMEFIL cost on Russia would say "enough" and bring everyone to the table.

Oh well! Guess we are too busy with Trans Interviews, displaying a remarkable misunderstanding of State's rights and responsibilities.

/rant
Click to expand...

1991 all over again... when the wall fell and we made bro love under glastnost we saw that the Soviet military we thought was going to roll through the Fulda Gap and control the air was, well, as you said, a paper tiger. The Soviet menace was about 20% of what our intel community said it was.

Deja vu all over again.
 
Devildoc said:
1991 all over again... when the wall fell and we made bro love under glastnost we saw that the Soviet military we thought was going to roll through the Fulda Gap and control the air was, well, as you said, a paper tiger. The Soviet menace was about 20% of what our intel community said it was.

Deja vu all over again.
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Yep. There's a lot of money in making people scared of something. The bigger the "something," the bigger the payoff. That could be Soviets, it could be "they're taking our jobs," it could be "Orange Man is a threat to our very democracy!" Fear works. There are few things stronger.
 
We found out the Soviets were, and are, paper tigers. We hyped the Iraqi army because of its size. We're hyping China now.

So what?

We're going to fall into the MICC argument? We spend too much money on defense and now that we see we have vastly overstated those threats we can slash our budget? Yeah, nah.

I'm not saying this board is making that argument (though some of you might), but almost every "We thought they were better" argument pivots (see what I did there?) to a "slash the budget" argument. Anyone who wore a uniform in the 70's or 90's saw the results of that nonsense. Could we trim the budget? Sure. Slash the budget? Are you insane?

We also have to guard against complacency. "Oh, we did all of this training only to find out our greatest threat was weak." That doesn't work and has never worked. We have an AMAZING track record of cutting funding and cutting training, which leads to increased funding for mortuary affairs. Always has, always will.
 
AWP said:
There are a lot of nations who can’t fathom why we put so much effort into CSAR. Most books I’ve read on the air war over SEA mention our willingness to perform CSAR as a major factor in a crew’s morale. The more I read about SOG, the more I see the same argument made as well.

At this point I’d like to call @amlove21 a marginally coifed aircrew cuck because I’m a dick and need coffee.
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MARGINALLY?! That’s honestly the only part I disagree with.
 
AWP said:
We found out the Soviets were, and are, paper tigers. We hyped the Iraqi army because of its size. We're hyping China now.

So what?

We're going to fall into the MICC argument? We spend too much money on defense and now that we see we have vastly overstated those threats we can slash our budget? Yeah, nah.

I'm not saying this board is making that argument (though some of you might), but almost every "We thought they were better" argument pivots (see what I did there?) to a "slash the budget" argument. Anyone who wore a uniform in the 70's or 90's saw the results of that nonsense. Could we trim the budget? Sure. Slash the budget? Are you insane?

We also have to guard against complacency. "Oh, we did all of this training only to find out our greatest threat was weak." That doesn't work and has never worked. We have an AMAZING track record of cutting funding and cutting training, which leads to increased funding for mortuary affairs. Always has, always will.
Click to expand...

I think those are two very different arguments (finding out post hoc that an adversary was weak, and slashing the defense budget) and not related; however, I also have read those arguments and some of the illogical maneuvering to make the point.

I would argue that because we spent so much on defense we hastened the demise of the USSR because they simply could not keep up, which led to the implosion of their economy.

Part of military deterrence is having more and better than the other guy. I am on board with that.
 
Devildoc said:
I think those are two very different arguments (finding out post hoc that an adversary was weak, and slashing the defense budget) and not related; however, I also have read those arguments and some of the illogical maneuvering to make the point.

I would argue that because we spent so much on defense we hastened the demise of the USSR because they simply could not keep up, which led to the implosion of their economy.

Part of military deterrence is having more and better than the other guy. I am on board with that.
Click to expand...

I'm onboard with your post.

My argument is that believing an enemy is strong keeps the accountants and anti-defense folks at bay. It gives Congress and the President less wiggle room (or should at least) on defense spending. Our country, probably most countries, will look back and know we had a weak opponent, cut funding as a result, and then we find ourselves back in the same mess as before. Accountants and the anti-military are constantly looking for a reason to cut funding and the argument of deterrence loses steam when we trumpet our enemy's weakness. Perception drives "reality."
 
AWP said:
I'm onboard with your post.

My argument is that believing an enemy is strong keeps the accountants and anti-defense folks at bay. It gives Congress and the President less wiggle room (or should at least) on defense spending. Our country, probably most countries, will look back and know we had a weak opponent, cut funding as a result, and then we find ourselves back in the same mess as before. Accountants and the anti-military are constantly looking for a reason to cut funding and the argument of deterrence loses steam when we trumpet our enemy's weakness. Perception drives "reality."
Click to expand...

Yes, definitely. Goes to your 'complacency' point, and how we always train (and fund) to fight the last war.
 
AWP said:
We found out the Soviets were, and are, paper tigers. We hyped the Iraqi army because of its size. We're hyping China now.

So what?

We're going to fall into the MICC argument? We spend too much money on defense and now that we see we have vastly overstated those threats we can slash our budget? Yeah, nah.

I'm not saying this board is making that argument (though some of you might), but almost every "We thought they were better" argument pivots (see what I did there?) to a "slash the budget" argument. Anyone who wore a uniform in the 70's or 90's saw the results of that nonsense. Could we trim the budget? Sure. Slash the budget? Are you insane?

We also have to guard against complacency. "Oh, we did all of this training only to find out our greatest threat was weak." That doesn't work and has never worked. We have an AMAZING track record of cutting funding and cutting training, which leads to increased funding for mortuary affairs. Always has, always will.
Click to expand...
I thought about what you wrote, and I have a slightly different opinion. I don't think it's a money issue. Like you, I was in the Army in the mid-90s. Budgets were low, but we also had an effective Army. We smoked the shit out of Grenada, Panama, and even Iraq in the late 80s and early 90s. In contrast, we had an unlimited budget in Iraq and Afghanistan and we all know how that turned out.

I don't think it was ever about the funding. I remember our State Department rep talking about "If we had your budget..." Bro, if you had our budget you'd just fail bigger. It's about organizational culture and political will. We were never going to be allowed to do what it took to win in Afghanistan or Iraq, because too much of what needed to be done was outside the purview of the military.

Congress literally makes us buy shit we don't need, because it affects their voters and donors. We could slash A LOT and still have the best military in the world. The problem isn't the military, its who's running it.
 
I think the old theory that we must able to fight and win two major wars simultaneously was a good plan, but budget cuts won't get that done. Can/could we fight and win in small insurgencies or an OOTWA on any given day? Sure. But if helicopters don't fly and tanks don't run, like in the 90's, we'll have problems.
 
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Our goal is not and should not be to go toe-to-toe on equal footing with anyone. Our military exists to "deter war and, should that fail, to fight and conclude war to the advantage of the United States." It exists to fight and win wars. Period. That's their core expertise - a fact that seems to be lost on many in Washington these days.

In order to achieve this, we need the best leaders, training, and equipment/technology. And when the time comes for us to choose violence, we have a moral obligation to act overwhelmingly so as to limit suffering and lives lost by concluding the conflict as soon as possible. Maximizing our military advantages allows us to do so. That's a result of both culture/political will and funding...how's that for walking both sides?

In terms of funding, particularly when it comes to R&D efforts, sure, there's efficiencies to be had. After all, it is the government; there's waste everywhere. However, we must continue spend on leaders, training, and advanced systems now more than ever as potential adversaries continue to emerge, some with numerical superiority and advanced technologies. Political will alone won't get us over that hill. We must have the right tools. It requires a comprehensive approach.
 
AWP said:
We found out the Soviets were, and are, paper tigers. We hyped the Iraqi army because of its size. We're hyping China now.

So what?

We're going to fall into the MICC argument? We spend too much money on defense and now that we see we have vastly overstated those threats we can slash our budget? Yeah, nah.

I'm not saying this board is making that argument (though some of you might), but almost every "We thought they were better" argument pivots (see what I did there?) to a "slash the budget" argument. Anyone who wore a uniform in the 70's or 90's saw the results of that nonsense. Could we trim the budget? Sure. Slash the budget? Are you insane?

We also have to guard against complacency. "Oh, we did all of this training only to find out our greatest threat was weak." That doesn't work and has never worked. We have an AMAZING track record of cutting funding and cutting training, which leads to increased funding for mortuary affairs. Always has, always will.
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I bet you 1000000000% that la lloyd is going to slash end strength in the 2024 fiscal year and then Byron will get us into some deep shit that requires an Army the size of what we have in 1988. Say a lot of shit about Shinseki, but he at least knew his end strength number to sustain an invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.
 
ThunderHorse said:
I bet you 1000000000% that la lloyd is going to slash end strength in the 2024 fiscal year and then Byron will get us into some deep shit that requires an Army the size of what we have in 1988. Say a lot of shit about Shinseki, but he at least knew his end strength number to sustain an invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.
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Well that’s one way to end our recruiting problem.
 
AWP said:
What does concern me is how they are slowly working their way towards options more vile than starving the populace.
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I don't know how more vile it can get than the following one.

The host was allegedly removed for these remarks because this one in particular caught attention outside of Russia. But he's been reportedly ranting like that for months.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1584054018145685504

Then there is this. Should probably stay clear of windows.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1584725196581523456
 
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