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News report stated two hours north, so do you log that as .1 PIC and 1.9 as observer?? Asking for a friend

You mean Michael? Lol. Hes so strong and beautiful. If you disagree, you are a racist and whatever sexual-fantasy-phobe is not cool at the moment.

We’re talking about a country’s right to defend its sovereignty against a foreign aggressor, which is exactly what my example describes. Call me naive but I couldn’t accept being told to give up by another government were it my country. Which is why I find it hypocritical to suggest the US do that in this situation. If you want to vote to stop sending them arms, fine. That’s not the same as demanding they relinquish their territory.

Micheal or his bitch Barrie?

So you should cut off your nose to spite your face.

God forbid the US will never face the kind of existential threat that Ukraine is facing. If we do face that, I hope those of you suggesting to “let it go” when it comes to national survival/sovereignty are no longer in the military.

Pirate rules. You fall behind, you get left behind.

Tell me you don’t understand erbil and the Kurds without just saying it

This

Quite a bit if the alternative was my family dying, and I would deeply resent a foreign power meddling in my business. I’d bide my time and wage an insurgency when I felt I had the upper hand. But I wouldn’t bleed my neighbors against an adversary so much larger than me, I’d play it smart like the Taliban and eventually gain my land back. What were witnessing is just bad tactics. It is astounding to me how the warmonger crowd acknowledges they are sending kids into the meat grinder with no hope of victory yet they claim moral superiority for their stance. All the while advocating for somebody else’s family die with the guns we give them. I do enjoy war and I don’t mind killing Russians, but what is happening right now is just foolish. Brought to you by the same people who lost Afghanistan and gave Iraq to the Iranians, lol.

ukraine is losing. the western media won't tell you that. you can poo poo me all you want but it doesn't change the facts.

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?

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.

Other than hogs, does any fighter community even train to those skills anymore? I get it and I knew my post would rile people up. Try telling an ex viper pilot that their BFM foundation was for nothing or a hog guy that they’ll never get close enough to use their 30MM or better, call the F-22 a legacy platform for some good responses. Not debating fighters will be around a long time. Just that their role will diminish as better/cheaper/safer options are fielded. And they are being fielded.

Haha, I knew I’d get a few riled up here. Brabus is correct, the last fighter pilot hasn’t been born. That doesn’t mean that last fighter pilot will be as relevant and necessary as they once were. There is a reason raptors are retiring in 10 yrs, NGAD will be procured small in numbers and the F-35 but will be cut drastically from original #’s and it has to do with things like hypersonic artillary and new tech that does the job of the fighter cheaper/better/with less risk. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I’ll take a stab at the “doctrinal” concept of air superiority/strategy as related to fighters. Using China as an example, long range precision fires, maritime interdiction of supplies, and non-kinetics will play more of a role in achieving the AF’s #1 doctrinal priority than a 4-ship of Raptors on a Banzai flow. Admittedly, in a tactical sense of traditional strike packaging, you need to have the OCA players out front steamrolling the lane, but to think only fighters have a role to play in air superiority is incorrect.

In actuality, the usaf probably doesn’t need as many pilots as it thinks it does. We are stuck in an outdated model. Fighters especially just aren’t probably as necessary today as a few years back. We have better, cheaper options. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

That's why he's our favorite troll.

Go with source, study, or evidence to back up your conjecture that fighters are less important. I would concede that you could make a case we didn’t need fighters from 2001-2021, but how exactly do you do implement doctrinal concepts of “air superiority” or “air supremacy” against peer threats in 2027 or 2035?

But we’re not talking about that, this Ukraine vs Russia, even with our help they are looking at a Pyrrhic victory if they goaded and supplied by us make it unacceptable to stop fighting unless every square inch of territory the Russians recently took they get back which is highly unlikely, they will run out of men at the rate of attrition and the Russians will still have enough men to come back at them The Finns faced this same thing in the Winter War, we chalk that up as a win for them even though to end it they ended up ceding more territory to Soviets than they initially demanded of them. It was a victory against the Soviets because the Finns didn’t win but because they didn’t lose They didn’t lose the majority of their country, the kept their sovereignty and they bloodied the bullies nose Sometimes a shit sandwich is just what destiny has served you for lunch Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Fair enough They can continue to fight but if it were my job I’d tell them past point X it will not be with our support They may want to fight but continuing the war may not actually be in our interest vs theirs, as we are their main patron it is our call as to whether they get our support, if the Europeans wish to fill our position, go ahead Food instability is rising, Russian hydrocarbons are not being produced or sold in the regular oil markets and the other geopolitical issues arising from the continued Ukrainian War IMHO are outweighing the short term benefit of weakening the Russian Federation Ending the war soon will not fix all of those issues I listed or others but would likely considerably ameliorate them Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk