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Lighten up Francis

It's always pointless trying to guess what Trump will do, but he is the only politician with the balls to play hardball with Russia. Okay, Vladimir, if this whole thing is about preventing having NATO right up against your border, then you have two options. You can vacate all Ukrainian territory, affirm the sovereign borders Ukraine as they stood in 2013, and in return you will have a binding treaty that the United States will never support or allow Ukraine membership in NATO. Or, we can lock the borders where they are now after your incursion into the East, we will consider this new Russian territory to be the buffer between NATO and Russia, and immediately recognize what remains of the newly defined Ukraine as the newest member of NATO. Otherwise I'm willing to bet that we can print money to supply Ukraine for longer than you can draft citizens to fight them.

Let’s be honest, each President since 2005ish (so yes, including Bush) didn’t want Afghanistan to fail under their watch because Afghanistan for the longest time was seen as the legit/supported war. As public support for more activity decreased, Trump was wanting to wind it down substantially, as was Biden. In the end, Biden made the call to end it, most likely when his advisors told him that the government/Afghan military could at least hold things together for a while…which obviously didn’t happen. And anyone who did any sort of close advising in Iraq or Afghanistan knew that this wasn’t going to work out, especially in Afghanistan. BL: As M2 states above, we absolutely suck at nation building. It might sound good on paper, but it’s not worth it. So no, staying in Afghanistan after the first few years was most definitely not worth it. I’m all for going in and breaking things if we think it will net positive the interests for American citizens, but then that’s where things need to stop. But hey, the defense contractors made some serious money.

In Afghanistan, the DoD knew how to kill people and break things; but the US government never had a clue as to how to build a stable government and society. Not one fucking clue. 2459 killed, of which 1922 were in combat. 20,769 wounded in action. Countless others suffering the psychological impacts. Afghanistan will never be "done."

This is a pretty shitbag comment, bro.

bro i have no idea what their plan was. i know they were not going to let NATO establish influence in ukraine. something we kept pushing over and over foolishly. the lack of critical thinking skills from our professional officer corps and diplomats is shocking. and the dismal foreign policy results back it up.

That unit was so on its ass in maintenance to spool up for a deployment we gave them an entire active duty battalions aircraft out of Forscom so they could go. While on said deployment they had not 1 but 2 inadvertent fuel starvation flameouts (idiots doing idiot stuff) a long with a host of bungling across RC North. This is the unit that tries to sell its self as something special for doing all the quick reaction testing when really that’s a 2 aircraft every couple years requirement to fly canned test scenarios. They don’t deploy often enough and when they do it’s largely a series of small disasters. We should have changed them over to Hawks and kept Idaho or Penn. Yet somehow because of the strength of the guard through its senators that unit is getting brand new EV6 aircraft before active duty units that are deploying with D’s. That last part isn’t unique to them either, for some reason we’re going to let an active Army divisions have their supporting aviation brigades use a lot of old airframes while we upgrade the guard with virtually no deployments on its calendar (the CENTCOM E-Cab always uses an active duty Apache Battalion) to the newest E’s rather than give them the old stuff they are already qualified in. There are anemic D models still flying at Carson and Bliss while these guys pretend to do high altitude gunnery in easier conditions. And one of them that could have been had just burned it in giving an F-35 guy a tour of how the other half lives. Way to go Utah… but again no surprises. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've gone back and forth in my mind a thousand times, nine deployments was it a waste? Our yardstick of success tends to be the end state which is valid but doesn't tell the whole story. While it sucks the Taliban are running Afghanistan today I prefer to think about it in different terms like a relative peace at home for 20 years. Afghanistan was a flame the drew a lot of bad moths and we killed them all over there instead of here. Not necessarily the perfect metric of winning and losing but if you step back there is value to what you did, it was not a waste. I cringe when I see the Vietnam comparisons. That was a fumbling bumbling proxy war against Russia, we wasted 58,220 American lives trying to keep South Vietnam "free." Our political and military leaders were stooges who tied our hands behind our back when it came to fighting. While far from perfect, the military was allowed to truly fight in Afghanistan and we created a killing machine that eliminated a lot of horrible humans. The effectiveness of the War on Terror will be debated for many years to come. Wars always get front-page press because of the drama. A few stats for perspective: From 2019 to 2022 107,941 Americans died from drug overdoses. From 2011 to 2021 110,000 Americans died due to drunk driving. 9/11 alone we lost 2,977 Americans. In 20+ years of fighting in Afghanistan we lost 2459 American service men and women.

I bought MiG Pilot that night.

I had a family member (actually two) who was a Viet Nam Veteran. When I was young, I never really comprehended his bitterness to the political establishment for pissing away the mission there. After Aug 2021 I had a much better understanding of his point of view.

Trump: Old, loud, unsophisticated, shoots off at the mouth, takes enemy fire up close, they keep trying to get rid of him but he sticks around longer than anyone thought. Harris: Remote controlled, annoying to be around, a threat to US citizens. Goes down a lot.

It’s not hard. 2016-2020 was better than 2021-present unless you are a trans/illegal border crosser/indebted student/Taliban/woman unable to figure out birth control/welfare recipient/guy who wants to compete in women’s sports/person wants to get paid not to work. Who’d I miss? Choice is easy to vote for Trump despite him being a dickhead on Twitter. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Relight thread Reading this https://www.twz.com/air/b-21-taking-on-some-of-ngad-fighters-missions-on-the-table-air-force-says Reminded me of Stillion’s article https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/Air-to-Air-Report-.pdf Now it’s not an official announcement but it sounds like alluding to adding / developing a CCA controlling capability / mission for the Raider, I’d like to see that same concept applied to a light fighter but that’s another thread…

to make ukraine a neutral state and deny them entry into nato. secondary objective to "liberate" eastern ukraine from "oppression".

As the fight went on there was a lot of data that showed MANY of the fighters were coming from foreign lands. The primary motivation is as you have noted, the Americans occupying. Most of my deployments were early on and the ROE, especially in the beginning, was very permissive as compared to later in the war. My first two deployments we were often cleared into a kill container and given free reign to shoot ANY vehicles. I can't tell you how many Toyotas we zapped, once we started shooting dudes with guns would pour out like a clown car. Interestingly, at least 50% of what I shot in that time period I found with my NVGs. Sensors are great but they are a soda straw. Using my NVGs I was able to scan large areas and would usually find a target within a few minutes. There were nights I went Winchester with a full combat load two hours into the Vul, landed at Bagram or Jalalabad, took another combat load and did it again. Gun over-heating limitations were a real thing. On my last two deployments I do recall the tight ROE, that being said, I never had a deployment where I did not shoot. Impossible to know it would have changed the national debt. Remember we can't view the conflict with only a 2024 optic...In the days after 9/11 we were sure there would be more attacks unless we acted and we would be a vastly different country had we just taken that hit on the chin and turned away. Beers, whiskey, coffee at my casa anytime for anyone that needs it.

This…the priority in the AF and DoD is DEI stuff more so than “warrior spirit” stuff. Just look at where more time and resources are spent outside of the basic day to day operations.

FSUs Offensive Line has holes like Riley Reid. It doesn’t matter what talent is on the rest of that team if you’re going to give up whole drives to just bad protection of the quarterback. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm on the same boat regarding that point. I never had a problem negotiating that conclusion either, but I have nothing but empathy for those who struggle with what essentially is a public loss of their religion. I lost my OTS class leader to green-on-blue over there. Complete waste of potential; a solid human being and family man at the hands of a distrungled and corrupt local. A true believer my friend was, and a bona fide hero in my eyes. Such Heroism wasted on an unreedemable place, and unreedemable people. I got too many stories of personal corruption and cowardice from that so called allied force, even stateside. Fuck. That. Place. In the macro, I never bought into any of that shit. Our self-defense Air Power objectives in that shithole were largely completed by 2003 from where I saw it as a civilian college student. That was a full 3 years before I would even see the inside of a military building. So 9/11 was never a draw for me. Lord knows I disagreed with the second invasion of Iraq from the jump, as I also disagreed with the criminal decision to disband the Iraqi Army (may Paul bremer and his blood-soaked hands burn in hell.... a lackey of Kissinger, this is my shocked face). Full circle now during my time in, we get tasked to bomb the predictable offspring of that decision 10 years later in Syria, and I'm supposed to put my brain on pause and grab some pom poms? Nah I'm good. It was a waste when my friend Nylander lost his life, and it was still a waste in the Levant as we wrecked strategic heavy bombardment assets over turkey shoot medals with what could have been accomplished with surplus Yak-52s and recreational AR rifles a la Texas hog hunts. Digressing. In due credit to the Service, it did afford me the opportunity (via ARC) to focus on a role I not only could tolerate for 14+ years, but personally thrive in. I was always an aviatior purist at heart. I've never been fazed by the "flying for the sake of flying" supposed aspersion it's meant to imply, usually uttered by cOmBaT veT true scots fallacy merchants. I've legit enjoyed the amount of upside down flying the service has afforded me as a career instructor. Much bigger sense of personal accomplishment, in what conservatively is circa 500+ individual pilots and still counting. My time in the CAF left me rather unfulfilled by comparison, though that was a combination of poor career timing and luck (BRAC 05 no fighter soup fo you, TAMI-21, then PRP/PACAF babysitter bitch while the bones got all the turkey shoots). At any rate, my decades spent building something of personal import to me in the training command is a legacy that will outlive both me, as well as all of Uncle sammy's bullshit wars... and I'm here for it. We all have our rationalizations, I won't apologize for mine. My username checks. Now FUPM. 😄

Project Warrior with it's focus on history and why is important to maintain capability and skill to kill people and break their stuff would have to overcome the DEI programs focus saying history is bad and killing people and breaking their stuff doesn't rate in the Top 5 mission statements. But I agree, it was a great program. I remember attending a Daedalians gathering at Columbus. This 90 year old guy gets up and says he was the original FAIP in 1917( -ish) and was teaching guys to fly in France before moving into a combat squadron and going up against the Germans. Definitely inspiring.

Dibs...

Definitely bring it back. I was a FAIP during Project Warrior's years, and at Laughlin, we used that to go pick up guest speakers in the T-38 to bring them out to talk to the Wing... usually done so they could go to the monthly Daedalians meeting that night. I flew to Oklahoma Cuty and picked up Bob Anderson, MiG killer and early Thunderbird. "Here's a helmet... unpin the ejection seat when I tell you. Questions?" Also got to fly back from Phoenix with X-15 pilot Pete Knight on my wing. Another FAIP got to pick up Victor Belenko. That was cool. After the Daedalian meeting, he wanted to hang out but most everyone left. So myself and 2 other FAIPs sat in the OClub bar and drank with him. Surreal. Project Warrior was a huge positive. But I seriously doubt our risk-averse culture would allow it to happen again like it did.

ironically the REAL threats to democracy are all on the left

You children just pick a few dissected quotes from a few posters here and act like everyone is saying the same thing. Go back and find any posts from me where I am denying the things you say we are all denying. You won't find them. Has it occurred to you at any point that the reason you keep falling back on the same stupid arguments is because you don't have anything approaching a policy prescription for America? We all get it, you're aghast at what a terrible person Trump is. The difference is some of us consider him not particularly worse than the people who have been occupying Washington for decades. And it's hilarious that you would list generals, who I consider to be the most pathetic group in America right now, as some sort of evidence. This generation of generals have distinguished themselves in nothing other than their ability to eat the most shit and disregard their own virtue to assure promotion in an organization that hasn't accomplished anything for decades. I don't like Trump. I didn't like him in 2016. Does it matter, what I have before me are two choices and two very different visions for America. I would love a different candidate representing the more conservative vision for America, but I didn't get one. Doesn't change the fact that if I have to choose between what Donald Trump did when he was in office and what Harris did while she was in office, that question is so simple that it boggles my mind you are even here defending the opposition. But you aren't defending the opposition, are you? You're doing the same thing Harris is doing: everything in her power to focus on Trump's admittedly awful personality instead of her obviously awful track record. I'm not voting for anybody for president this year because I've decided philosophically that I'm against presidents over the age of 65 beginning their first term. I'm in Texas, so I can do that and hope that there will be some statistical change that can be recognized and hopefully get us better candidates in the future. But if I was in a swing state, I would be voting for Trump. If you are unable to understand how someone can vote for someone they don't consider to be moral, then I have to wonder what type of drugs you are taking that make you think your candidates are moral. That's the more interesting conversation here.

Clickbait - 100% on the PIC. I’ve let many “unqualified” people fly an F-16, would have been 100% my fault if they had done something that resulted in a class ____.

Which I also find funny given the high G, highly maneuverable profiles of the B-2.

She was gropable. Thanks for the pics