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I laughed a bit at the “top 60% of the top third” line. Admittedly I’m a product of public school and OTS but my math equates that to about the top 20% of total. Which I thought was where we were at already…

RAF Airplane with RAF service members is not an airliner (not sure if any Brits were on that flight....and BREXIT has changed a few things. I've been in London all week and there you can feel it in the air when this story hit BBC.

Don’t forget fix to fixes Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Probably what they're trying to avoid. I always thought that was a bait and switch where you can go to DARPA or the Willy Wonka factory or whatever else for IDE but still had to do ACSC online to get IDE credit. I hope they still have guys go to the sister service schools so they can come back and act all superior and speak some filthy Pig Latin about "METT-TC", "MDMP", and "it's not gay if it's underway" and the like.

100% of the say. Unfortunately 'the people' largely can't or won't effectively communicate their opinion to Congress. We are a republic 'by the people, for the people' where 'the people' have had physical barriers placed between them and the governing body (note the new security fence around The Hill). Decisions about this conflict are being made behind closed door by people who are not responsible for those decisions. Anyone who thinks that the Joe is setting the policy for our engagement there (which he's not responsible for), or that the Congress is actively involved in determining the direction of our grand strategy, is simply ignorant. Want proof? Try having a coherent and factual conversation about the Ukraine war with anyone over the age of 65. There are some bright and sage exceptions, but the majority of those conversations will rapidly devolve into inaccurate assumptions and unfounded preconceived notions. That demographic is largely who are supposed to be responsible for setting policy in this conflict, because that's the demographic nominally in charge of our government right now. To be blunt, they clearly aren't the ones setting policy for that conflict. THAT should concern everyone.

Nothing creates an incentive like punishing your best performers.

Dogs are fine and getting a car is not hard. The paperwork on the other hand is painful, but that’s true of everything in Germany.

We had zero trouble finding pet sitters or kennels for travel. Germany is one of the most pet friendly countries. Lufthansa was very good. Flight attendants even gave us 3 hour updates on how they were doing. Zero issues.

Just speculating that this has more to do with exhausting alternate lists due to declinations than sending more people to school. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There’s the glossy brochure/i’m-not-briefed version, and then there’s reality. Pilots (including fighters) will be very relevant for decades to come.

I think I saw that guy posting on the FB OFP group yesterday. Just below the post about how we'll lose every future war because we don't do formation takeoffs anymore.

DIA not wanting to disclose sources and methods regarding information gathered (likely digital or human) in the only other country on the planet that poses a military and economic threat to the US security. Not shocking. Having seen how the sausage is made, I can attest that we overclassify the ever-living crap out of everything. Given very active Chinese efforts to infiltrate every aspect of our society, politics, and military, that's also not surprising. Frustrating as all hell, but not at all unexpected. I have no doubt that espionage effort is definitely a two way street. What is sincerely concerning is the fact that our current leadership is not simply doing nothing at all to bring China to account for creating or at least not containing COVID, but that individuals in the administration are actively engaged in personal gain from Chinese influence, and have been for decades.

That sounds... diminished. Why doesn't the bomber Mafia run the AF anymore?

Great question. No, but let me explain: the current level of support is escalating not remaining static. From types of weapons (cluster bombs, F-16s) to amount of funding to real-time tactical intelligence used for lethal targeting, it’s continued up up up with no end in sight or coherent vision of an upper limit. I would answer yes if anyone had a cogent articulated strategy with self-imposed limitations (example: containment, MAD, etc.), but we don’t. I’ve had GOs summarize our strategy as “continuing to dial it up as the Ukrainians need, to bleed Russia dry.” This seems open-ended and risky, but my question is how much say should the electorate have in the risk our leadership accepts on our behalf?

Meh, Russian weapons shot down an airliner in 2014 with zero European response….I have little faith that Europeans have any stomach for war or escalation. Even the Brits. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Spent 3.5 years in Germany as a young Lt/Capt with a dog, wife, no kids. We traveled all over Europe by car—made for some pretty cool experiences we would’ve missed without him (lab/put mix). Stuff like exploring historic parks in cities to get him a morning walk or hikes in random towns. Restaurants were mostly very dog friendly. Occasionally left him with a great German dog lady when we travelled by air. Zero regrets bringing our dog to Europe.

Yes because we have no historical examples of proxy wars with an opposing “great power” that led to not-a-nuclear-exchange… Jesus Christ we are giving them munitions to fight a war they aren’t the aggressors in. When we start flying strike sorties out of Spang to blunt Russian logistics or putting regular Army troops on the ground in Kiev maybe you have substantiated examples and a point to make. Until then vague warnings about WWIII is just grand standing to make a point in an argument. Given the anecdotal evidence it seems that is entirely politically aligned and not actually based on some form of strategic analysis of the facts. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It’s really hard to jam/hack/interdict a bullet or a dumb bomb delivered by a well trained thinking human being. lemme know when the egg heads crack that nut

The irony is the products of IDE do not in general meet CQ’s stated requirements in the article. Talk to 99% of staff, they have no fucking clue. The 1% can’t overcome the bureaucratic inertia of the clueless.

Are you implying Americans are too stupid to have negative opinions on sending their kids to WW3?

Dear shiny pennies, hope you like Maxwell "In totally unrelated news, our crowded seminar rooms are suddenly more spacious"

Thanks again for the perspective, everyone. I think I'm probably most useful as a flier, and damn right, it's what I joined to do, so there's not much sense in pointless thrash if odds will stay 50/50. Better to be a reliable crewdog than the alternative. I'll check back in with results once all this plays out.

Diversity would be A-cups bro. This ain't diversity.

It will take 5 -10 years to reach SCOTUS. A right delayed is a right denied. The process is the punishment.

Putin points at military encroachment by NATO, but the reality is that the NATO force posture is a skeleton of what it was in 1991 and poses absolutely no physical threat to Russia. If Putin was really worried about NATO military power on his border, he would quit threatening his neighbors. What scares Putin is the people in former Soviet “republics” have a pretty fierce independence streak, have no problem highlighting former Soviet/Russian threats and atrocities, and want to pursue Western style democratic governance, so much so that they have run Russian supported leaders out of their countries (e.g. Yanukovych). The growing (but not complete) success of these countries poses an existential threat not to Russia, but to Putin himself as Russians might see the benefit of reform in their own country. Luckily for Putin, he has a ton of power, no conscience, and no problem offing as many people as it takes to maintain power. To the previous comments about Russia doing better on the battlefield than is being reported - this is a bogus argument. No one is winning. Ukraine knows that they can’t give up territory every five years when Russia needs to scratch an itch, and Putin can’t be seen backing down to a country that is a fraction of its size. Russia has sustained high losses and had their most competent battlefield formation, a band of mercenaries, make a run on Moscow. This is going to continue to be ugly and stalemated, and the big losers are the civilians caught in the middle. The reason people argue over issues like this so much is that they seek a good outcome. There are no good outcomes; only “least worst” outcomes. The U.S. has no authority and little ability to “end” this war without military engagement. Any U.S. negotiated settlement that cedes Ukrainian territory will not be agreed to by the Ukrainians and will be seen as 21st century Munich Agreement style appeasement. Ask the Czechs how they feel about that. The U.S. primary goals should be no engagement by/risk to U.S. personnel, a sustained cease fire, weakened Russian influence in the region/world, and Putin remaining in control of Russia (the idiot you know is better than the idiot you don’t, especially when nuclear weapons are involved.) Providing weapons to Ukraine supports these goals. The real policy question for Americans is if this is a priority among everything else; our country is slowly spending itself to death. In my mind, we are getting great value out of our Ukraine support and the only way to fix the budget is to fix entitlements, but I am not an economist and don’t pretend to be.

In Russia's eyes NATO has been encroaching on them for decades despite promises not to, and they started this war to prevent Ukraine from further aligning with the west and threatening them. Additionally the area they invaded are full of ethnic Russians who claim mistreatment by Ukraine. you asked the question so I'm answering it, not endorsing Russian actions. Although I would add that my non-US friends are quick to point out that a preemptive invasion to deter a threat to their homeland.... is exactly what the US did to Iraq. my opinion: we need to end the war in Ukraine. It would involve Ukraine giving up territory. That sucks. However, that is preferable to me than getting the US involved in war against Russia to settle a regional dispute.

I'd definitely take the 0800-1500 option. That's earlier than I leave already. And with no drinking at the squadron bar, a 1500 departure should get you to the local Applebee's just in time for happy hour...

What a giant douche and shitty CC. This clown has no idea what he’s doing, probably been that way his entire useless career. I’ll be drinking at work and wearing a colored morale shirt just for him.

0800-1500 sounds pretty cool

You missed the point, which isn't surprising. I'll try once more and see if you can stay on target: in the USA the opinion of the people is supposed to impact government policy. Polls show the people do not support further escalation in Ukraine. Question: Do you think we should continue supporting the war despite our population mostly opposing it? Yes yes, Russia bad, got it. I don't want a moral lecture, I'm curious if you think we should be doing things that get us closer to an actual war when the population doesn't want it. Please be smarter than implying we're just giving them weapons.... there's literally a post on the last page about how close the UK came to exchanging blows, which would drag us in. Don't even reply if you can't control your emotions enough to engage maturely.

Not sure where it ends exactly, but if we keep going with the current plan I don't have much hope for Ukraine remaining as a nation and if they do, whats left will have 1/2 the population dead or permanently disabled. All I'm saying is we need to reassess and work as hard as we can to negotiate the best peace agreement we can to save Ukraine. This war is def shaking up Russia but they have banded together and won't trust us for decades now. They have upped their in-house production capability and are even selling more oil to Europe than before we "closed" them off and they have more liquid cash than they had prior to the war. From what I've been reading (from European and American news sources) patriotism is up in Russia and they trust the West less than they have since 1989 when things began to crumble for the former USSR. They've banded together with China in a stronger relationship and the world seems less stable than it's been in a while. I'm not a policy expert or a bureaucrat and am not a fan of Putin but I hate to see a country used up and spit out when there are probably ways to establish peace (with some concessions that might not be perfect). If Zalensky dies in battle soon, my skepticism of him might be proven wrong. I don't trust his motives, and he's a biden type "leader" who is all about himself and enriching his own. Towards the end, when Ukraine is completely toast, I see him heading for Florida or Switzerland and moving into a nice comfortable mansion to spend some of the billions we've sent over as he lives out his comfortable existence (similar to other scumbags of the late 1900s...Suharto, Marco, Seko, Aleman, to name a few).

Hey remember when Biden got millions from Ukraine?

bull. fucking. shit. we're paying the god damn salaries of the Ukrainian government FFS! don't tell me we have no leverage to end it.

In your mind, is there a difference between keeping the current level of support and escalation?