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Welcome to Base ops. Knowing what one is talking about is widely admired, but not strictly required. It’s more fun with whiskey.

Not that I want to engage with you but whenever I hear this type of attack I tell people to look up Chesty Puller and Tom Norris. Couple dudes that did alright even though they couldn’t hack it in pilot training.

And in a moment of levity sometimes we forget to get away from the emotion and remember it really is about the nail.

And Russia/Ukraine. COVID is definitely not as doom and gloom as the chance of nuclear war. It never was, the hype was a convenient distraction from how incompetent the left’s president is. What is it, never let a good crisis go to waste?

Soooo, the Russia/Ukraine war spreads and involves NATO to include the US. How does that play out? How many ground divisions of various flavors will be required? How long will it take for the US to bring in serious numbers? How will the logistics flow? For how long? How about local ground and air defense of staging and flying bases needed to move/support kinetic ops inside Ukraine? How do the good guys tell the bad guys apart in an urban environment? Shedding a uniform is easy. Not everyone in Ukraine will welcome the intervention, particularly the further east the action might move. Would the Russians fight better if it becomes a direct fight of defense for them as opposed to being the aggressor against a smaller state? I.e., if this is NATO attacking Mother Russia, might the enthusiasm ramp up? Barring a full-on WWII level of effort in industry, increased shipping capacity, etc, etc, etc, this ain't happening. Which, by the way, would stretch us to the limit. And we would then be unable to respond anywhere else. Like Taiwan or Korea. Nor should it. Do you really believe that Old Europe - Germany/France/Italy, etc - is going to risk thousands of troops for this? Let alone the threat of catching airstrikes or a nuke if they are in the game? Also, those proudly proclaiming "I'll pay $6-7 per gallon" are awfully generous with those who aren't on the government dime at decent wages. Feeding any size family when the income is $20-30k or less becomes a no kidding fight to survive. Think of your airman who, unfortunately, got married at 18 and now has 2 kids and a spouse to try and feed/clothe/house when real inflation is taking 20% or more of his purchasing power. Another pretty immediate effect of this war is the supply of food - wheat/soy/etc - that has stopped. Egypt, as only one example, is a ticking bomb since they get 60% of their food from Ukraine. The Egyptian government subsidizes that purchase. Prices are more than skyrocketing. People get pretty cranky when they are starving. And that's just one country. Plenty of others almost in as bad of shape for feeding their people. Finally, this war going south for Russia (and I, again, hope it does), risks a nuke going off. If the war spreads outside the current conflict, the risk of that increases as does the number of targets on both sides. Blithely writing off those consequences as "meh" is dishonest. Go Ukraine; bleed Putin out, demoralize his forces, and the world should give you all the arms and supplies you can ever use, plus some. Anyone else pulls a trigger and this gets ugly everywhere.

I think this image captures everything you really need to know about US political priorities.....

Wtf are we even arguing about anymore? Everyone has a subjective opinion of how much they care about the current situation. About any situation. However society is a collection of all of these subjective opinions, and society moves as on the majority of those opinions, or at least it's supposed to. Helodude you are free to not care about sanctioning Russia, buying Russian oil vodka, etc. But the vast majority of us on here do care. F*ck Putin, I dont care if gas goes to 6 a gallon. Go carpool.

Uber left wing "journalist" Fareed Zakaria just published his "take" on CNN...on how to deal with the Ukrainian situation - "The U.S. should immediately pump all the oil it can. It should export as much natural gas as possible (including replacing all coal plants with natural gas). We should remove all sanctions from Venezuela and Iran and let them pump the market full of their oil" Everyone is worried about Putin being in a corner, to me it looks like Biden is in a corner with AOC and the Green New Deal Squad.

I'm just hoping we never have all three (house, senate, potus) controlled by the same party. I absolutely love a slow cumbersome government that has to convince everyone that the cause du-jour is a good idea. It's not foolproof, as evidenced by the Patriot Act among others, but it usually works better than either party does alone.

You asked what I would do, not what I think Biden is doing. Focus. I literally went to a home builders conference with a goal of finding manufacturers from countries other than China. Of note, a window manufacturer in Poland with great prices. Not China great, but still good. One of the features of collective action (government) is that it promotes a sense of fairness, critical in human systems, through uniform enforcement of the collective will. How many people would pay taxes if they weren't mandatory? Yet we all agree there needs to be some revenue source for the government. Do you avoid bridges and roads that were paid for by legislation you disagree with? I disagree with lower taxes for capital gains, and would vote to abolish them. But I'm not going to disadvantage my family when the correct mechanism is voting and communicating. Ironically, I will disadvantage my family to a point, which I do with more expensive purchases from non-China sources. But maximalist arguments are rarely valid. You're making a silly point, which is out of character.

Of course I have, but I'm also not dumb enough to think personal purchasing is equivalent to foreign policy. I do go out of my way (and spend more) to avoid Chinese goods where I'm able. Where has it gotten us? Literally the free-est and most prosperous the West (and the rest of the world largely) has ever been. South Korea and Taiwan are certainly better off. Germany, the rest of the EU, and Japan are looking pretty great too. I'm sure Israel appreciated our intervention. Sitting out Rwanda, however, was a bad look, and one of Clinton's biggest regrets. And when we pulled out of Vietnam there was an unfathomable slaughter in Cambodia. Afghanistan isn't looking to great, but I suppose zero deaths in the year prior to the withdrawal was too high a price for the "no more foreign wars!" crowd. It's trendy right now to act like our history is some comedy of errors. It's intellectually hollow and incredibly self-righteous to retroactively interpret history in the most negative light. The world is immeasurably better for billions of people as a direct response to US power projection. "The better part of a century" with American "interventionalism" has been pretty fucking good compared to the better part of a millennium without it.

I'd nail it

I think this is where Western politicians need to be straightforward with their constituents right now. Moving forward, the world economy has likely changed permanently. Leaders need to be honest about this. Assuming the regime in Russia doesn’t undergo radical change very soon, there will be economic ripples for decades to come. Humans are adaptable and will adjust their lives when they have to. This is especially true if they believe the economic sacrifices they’re making will make life better for those directly affected by this horrific conflict. Note: this has nothing to do with whether we become involved militarily. The economic effects will be felt regardless.

I don’t think it’s immoral. It’s just some people value American values and ideas, freedom etc. more. Some people value US interests, money, lives more. It doesn’t mean people value only one or the other, just what they value more. I don’t think either answer is right or wrong, but as a democracy we should go with the majority.

Spin it however you need to man. If you think I’m immoral for not wanting the US to get involved with a war on the other side of the globe, then so be it.

Don't misunderstand me, I think you're wrong, still and going forward. But you seem incapable of understanding nuance, if anything at all, so I don't see much of a point continuing. Your individual purchasing vs foreign policy arguments are now bordering on pathetic. You're either too emotional to engage usefully in the conversation, or intentionally constructing ridiculous arguments to cover for a lack of solid footing. Either way, it's boring. If literally quoting what I said in the past is "walking it back" then I'm not sure you understand how conversations work in the first place... I'll try typing slower. Here's the "if" statement: Here's the "then" statement: And here are the *two* qualifying statements that indicate I, the person with an opinion on an opinion board, don't think we/you/people who want inaction are being immoral under the present circumstances. Finally, this part of the sentence indicates that if things get worse and you maintain a position of "not my problem, let them die," then I will absolutely consider your preferred policy to be immoral: If your skin is so thin that you can't handle the idea that you might be holding an immoral position or doing an immoral thing, which *every single one of us* does regularly, and hopefully we all struggle to do better through conversations and experience, just let me know and I'll stop burdening you with the unspeakable pain I've be haphazardly administering.

If that’s what you got out of my original post, then I have to explain it better…here it goes: If Ratner is going to say that his morality is superior to others because he is wants the US to do X to Russia and wants the American people to sacrifice Y due to economic sanctions (when others like me don’t desire these options), then I expect him to voluntarily sacrifice more than what is a minor inconvenience in his daily life. Ratner says that we should stop doing business with countries (ie Mexico) who are still ops normal with Russia and yet Ratner himself is not willing to make such personal sacrifices on his own. You can live a life in the US without ever purchasing anything from Mexico. If you disagree, then that’s fine…but this is the equivalent to those who want AR-15s banned in the US but is willing to get one themselves and/or hire someone with an AR-15 to provide their private security. Another example are those who want SUVs using traditional gas engines banned, but who also continues to use them until there is such a ban. If Ratner wants to play the “moral superiority” game, then he has to be willing to accept the fact that he picks and chooses as well, and thus is not better than anyone else.

The flip side is said slow cumbersome government actually passing a budget and funding essential elements of our government such as the military.

Apparently, I’m good at derailing threads. Again I poorly communicated my point via a personal attack, and that was wrong. I would happily buy flea or any who may not agree with me a beer. The US needs to be able to discuss differences without automatically assuming the other side is dumb or a Russian Plant. The air force in the 40’s, 50s and 60s was run by men with vast combat experience. Somewhere in there the notion that academics can solve everything with missiles became prevalent. We saw how that worked out. The hit rate of the Aim-7 in Vietnam was in the single digit percentiles. How was McNamara’s F-111. There is an F in front of it because it was supposed to do air to air. To sum it up, common sense combat experience is extremely valuable and can’t be bought via a degree. And no, I don’t need the standard O-6 speech of how would I fly my jet without AFE. Well, I’d probably inspect my own gear, but I sure as hell need MX and LRO. Finance questionable. Our recent awards ceremony only had one ops winner. We as a whole have lost sight in the value of guys hacking the mish. In my view it’s due to 60 years of domination.

The individual (consumer) only has power up until a certain point. You could want to buy an American computer all you want, but if none are manufactured, you're going to have to buy what's available. This is what ratner is getting at. I went through this a few years ago when Craftsman stopped making American tools. I bought as many USA ones I could find before they went to asia. I did find another manufacturer, SK, which is USA, they are more expensive but I pay it anyways. But if SK didn't exist, I'd be SOL unless the government did something to collectively force US manufacturing of tools. What a lot of people fail to forget is that the US makes a lot of money off selling things to China. Ever seen how popular Buick is over there? Trade is good economically for both countries. However as we are seeing, those benefits may be short term if the state you are trading with turns beligerent. Imagine you had a neighbor you hated because he beat his wife, but he really needs to borrow your pressure washer, and you really need to borrow his weed wacker. What do you do? You could both go buy your own additional weed wacker and pressure washer. That'll be bad for both of you economically, but than youd be free to tell him to stop beating his wife. Pros & cons to both arguments.

I mean.... So what? Because a few dudes were assholes all academics were ass holes? Yeah man, there's bad people out there. Do you think your Intel shop is trash because Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden? You aren't really making a point here. There's just garbage people in the world. I mean should I pin the China's rise on pilots because Shapour Moinian sold secrets to a Chinese intelligence asset? Surely you don't believe that?

I’m not the one telling people that their morals are lacking if they don’t support action against Russia for invading Ukraine. So if you’re going to ask where my personal lines are then I’m going to do the same to you. The difference is that I don’t care whether or not you support action against X country but apparently you care if I don’t support said actions. So I ask you to lead by example—be the change that you want to see happen. If you’re not voluntarily willing to sacrifice what you want the government to force us all to sacrifice, then your argument holds zero weight.

I’d like to second that foreign policy and personal behavior are two distinctly different things. Not sure why we’re grabbing on to the personal jab there…my personal sacrifices aren’t going to slow Russia’s roll down the road to the capital. The initial question is pretty legit. So why not…I have my answers, but Lord Ratner is well into it at this point and I’d love to hear it. ~Bendy Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

The US can initiate sanctions and demand compliance from other nations. Reference Iran. So in the case of Mexico, should they choose to go their own way, then we take another look at NAFTA, or maybe cut off personal bank wire service between the US and Mexico. Not a difficult country to pressure. Is it the concept I'm not communicating well, or merely the exact detail? Either of us could come up with many options using examples from the past. I'm not sure how them being ops normal with Russia right now is relevant. I'm not the president, so obviously they aren't doing what *I* would do.

First off, they don't have to sanction them, merely comply with the sanctions. But no, the second order sanctions would not have to be punitive (such as seizures or exclusion from SWIFT). But immediate suspension of trade agreements, preferable tax treatment, termination of joint military exercises. It's not particularly hard to exert pressure. We did it with the European countries with the Iranian sanctions, much to the dismay of France and Germany. We're not going to take your wealth (in your example), but your wealth creation through interaction with the United States will suffer. We are the big kid on the block. If you want to live under our security umbrella, you don't get to play with the villains. And as before, the direct violation of national sovereignty, genocide, or nuclear use are clear definitions of villainous activity.

There is a huge difference in supporting a military effort for a nation that *clearly" yearns for freedom, and the Team America world police bullshit we've been involved in for my entire adult life. The Ukrainian crisis is shaping up to be exactly the type of conflict the do-gooder American spirit is tailored to support. At a certain point, when you tolerate evil that you have the capacity to impede, you are being immoral yourself. We aren't there yet, but we are getting closer. Ask yourself, is there a line the Russians could cross in Ukraine that would justify direct military intervention by NATO/USA? If not, you need to get your morality sensors recalibrated. I'm sure the relativists here will disagree, but that's a morally bankrupt philosophy by design.

Never thought I'd love a dude packing a Russian manpad but that day has come! Not sure about the part that he shot down the Su-30M but hope that's true too. On the serious discussion side, I'm in the camp of the no NFZ by us or NATO. Keep supplying them with Javelins and Stingers and it seems like they will be able to "win" in a protracted battle of attrition. Definitely going to be brutal on the civilians but appears by and large that they are all in on shedding blood for their country.

Just saw this which kinda aligns with my current observation of the situation. Let's not forget Putin cares about himself, he can rattle the nuke button but deep down he's scared and knows that that'll be the end of mother Russia forever. He's scared shitless. Which is why he's thrashing around Bashi, dudes shitting himself sitting at 12 foot long tables and all. Putin can call them an act of war all he wants. Nobody cares, I think we'll see the end of him soon if the Russian people have anything to say about it. Imagine the American military killing Canadiens. F*ck that, this is going to boil over internally for him. How many Russian intelligence officers want this to be their legacy?

Never underestimate the power of a people fighting for their home and their freedom. If I was a Russian officer, my motivation would be rock bottom for this conflict.

I'm wondering what rational person listened to that feces and thought "yeah, he seems to have it all under control". I get that his supporters know what he is and accept it, but how did that dumpster fire of a speech positively sway anybody's opinion??

Is anyone disagreeing with what Putin believes? We get it. He views the West as aggressive. Cool. Who didn't know that? Prove to me that if we didn't entertain the idea of Ukraine in NATO, Russia would have been content to maintain their present borders forever. You can't, which is why, despite your exhaustive repetition, you are merely repeating a theory. And you are using a class of people (who you hilariously claimed "win wars") who are wrong *constantly* when they make concrete predictions. I'm 100% positive there are idiots in Washington who believed we can invite anyone we want into NATO and Russia would do nothing. But I don't think you're arguing with any of those people here. I've expected Russia to do this everyday since they made their intentions clear with crimea. And I decided long ago that should they proceed, we should stop them. That is an opinion, much like yours.

They fully know it. It's just incompatible with their desire for empire building. The Russian/Chinese conception of world affairs is incompatible with the West. Either they adapt, or there will be war. My bet is the latter. But the longer we navel gaze, as you are doing, the longer they have to prepare for the fight. This is the epitome of "don't dress like a slut if you don't want to be raped." Does that mean we strike first? No. But it does mean we don't allow for any trade or economic interaction with countries that won't follow the rules, and we definitely put our full economic weight behind innocent countries (West aligned) that are attacked. We have, and continue to finance our enemies. You're dangerously close to relativism here, and relativism is always a losing philosophy, both in geopolitical outcomes and in general. There *is* a right and wrong. This is wildly illogical. America won the war. Turing and Einstein wouldn't have gotten much done without Patton and Macarthur, who wouldn't have gotten much done without Ford and Kaiser. Only an academic with major insecurities (i.e., academics) would make such an absurd claim. You have to be pants-on-head stupid to think we are going to negotiate Iran out of nukes. But you also thought we would be able to negotiate Russia and Putin out of imperialistic ambitions, so I guess that's consistent. The parallels between the appeasement of Hitler and the appeasement of Putin are getting clearer by the day. I fear the progression of conflict will follow a similar path. If not with Russia, assuredly with China. How do you appease a regime that identifies your downfall as a precondition to their success?

We don’t. But we can come to the conclusion that our adversary’s issues are incompatible with our own goals and values. Otherwise, why fight for anything, ever? Look, I agree that it’s vitally important to be aware of our own cultural biases and realize that not everyone thinks like us. That doesn’t mean capitulation though, especially in the face of bald aggression. As much as I hate Hitler comparisons, I think this is one of the few times the analogy is appropriate: Hitler had a lot of “issues”. Jews, territory, resources, and ego were just a few of them. By your rationale, if we only could’ve seen the world through Hitlers eyes we would’ve come to the conclusion that if we just let him exterminate a few million people and mow over a few countries, all would be right with the world.

Nope. Been very very very highly trained by the USG on this. Hold a graduate degree in global security and have worked academically in partnerships with strategic DoD centers. Look I dont support Putin. I'm trying to get you guys to think like officers and not naive teenagers that think they can just march in a parade or pick up a gun and make a difference. If you go to war with Russia tomorrow, you are going to lose, because you don't even know what victory conditions are for Russia. How do you stop Russia from winning when you don't even know what it is he is trying to win.

Sure, collective defense. That's the excuse all of NATO is going to use to invade Belarus when they see a Russian exercise there as an excessive force build up. Here's a fact for you, the US doctrinely plays the offense in war. We don't wait to be attacked we teach to open with shock and awe. Putin knows that. He knows "defense" can be shammed for an offensive operation because he essentially just did that. Its not being duped. You lack the creativity to see the world without your American rose tinted lenses and therefore can't come to terms with your adversaries motivations.

But that's not how Putin, or anyone in Russian governance sees it. And they continue to see NATO aggressively because NATO refuses to accept olive branches. It doesn't matter that you know NATO is a defensive organization. Russia doesn't and they aren't privy to the insider baseball that would make them think that way.

So why should NATO expansion go forward? Putin is just supposed to be happy that an alliance created to deliberately overthrow his country is allowed to continue getting stronger while he has to continue to sign arms treaties and contain his foreign policy sphere?

3.6 Roentgen. Not great…not terrible.

Noone forced them to join but every single NATO nation had to agree and allow it, and NATO is very selective. Russia applied for NATO and was told no. Again I think there is momentum to derationalize man who is acting very rationally and by doing that you risk him being able to outmaneuver us in thought. This isn't a tantrum. Putin wants something. What is it?

Not a cop out. It’s geopolitical politics. We thought he was bluffing and he called us on it. Just cause you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not reality.

Well they’re sure as hell a threat to Ukraine. The Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, and all of the other former Soviet/now NATO countries absolutely see the value in NATO. Ask yourself this: Do you think Putin would be less emboldened to move in on former Warsaw Pact nations if they hadn’t joined NATO? Would he allow them to exist peacefully on his border with their free press and their buzzing economies and their Western ideals? I’ll answer that for you: Fuck no. There would be Russian puppet governments in all of those countries and the ones that resisted would be given the treatment Ukraine is getting right now. Ukraine’s biggest regret right now is probably that they didn’t move to join NATO sooner. Why didn’t they? Well it took them a while to shake off the pro Putin puppet government that Moscow tried to force on them a’la my argument above. The sad thing is that this is still probably going to end poorly for Ukraine. And then Moldova and Georgia will come right after. You are SO far off base in your assessment. NATO protection for countries that wish to be democratic and free has never been more important.

Expanding NATO to Russia’s doorstep needs to stop. We cause our own worst problems. if anything their poor military performance demonstrates how they are NOT a threat to Europe

I don't know about you folks but I am sick to my stomach watching this unfold. I am older than most of you and I remember the cold war, there was always an uneasy feeling in the background as we looked across the wall at the USSR. I remember the joy and celebration when the wall came down, the hope, watching freedom on the faces of many formerly oppressed people. There is no reset button, our relationship with Russia will obviously be very dark for years to come, in my lifetime things will never be the same. I was watching CNN a little while ago and the story and picture of the Ukrainian Father crying over his dead son...I can't even process it thinking of my own son. Like many of you I flew a lot of combat missions and saw a lot of horrible things, but this is fucked up and it is only going to get worse. How will we be remembered by history? As we sit by and let potentially millions be slaughtered. I know there is no easy answer and we have peeled this onion every way possible but it is a hopeless feeling to watch this brave people getting mowed down.

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

I am genuinely shocked and dismayed at the government reactions from governments I considered democratic and more liberal than us. Namely, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, and somewhat the UK. I simply could not imagine the measures they've implemented at government whim, not population voting. I have always been supportive of the Second Amendment as one area where I can enjoy basic God-given rights, but I begin to understand the Founder's intent in specifically enumerating this right, perhaps.

rep kinzinger is a total JOKE looking forward to him being defeated

Have you ever stopped sniffing these “academics” seat cushions long enough to consider the fact that the only reason Russia is a nuclear threat today is because some treasonous academic war-winners sold our nuclear secrets to Russia in the first place? Let me guess…I’m only viewing through my ‘Merica lens, and If I put down my chicken nuggets and macaroni I would become enlightened enough to understand that Rosenberg, Fuchs, and Hall were actually really cool bros.