Lawman

Story of this damn war apparently… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Which would seem weird if not for the fact it’s permitted under their law in time of Martial Law/War. That then opens up option 2 for popular referendum/revolution but the polling is showing something in the 70-80% of Ukrainians being against holding an election with a large portion of their population unable to participate. So that’s not likely to materialize either. The political pressure in Zelenskyy to hold an election and potentially change the course of the war effort isn’t coming from Ukraine. It’s coming from people on our side of the Atlantic choosing to use it as a justification to end funding they’ve called to end before any announcement was made. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No it means when somebody is screaming that Ukrainians don’t have the will to fight because of conscription it ignores the fact they like us have a representative democratic process. If conscription was so out of line with the will of the represented it would result in 1 of 2 options; vote out those reps in a referendum (again the ballot box) or have a revolution. Since none have occurred the portrayal as Ukrainians being unwilling to fight because people are being jailed or running away in refusal is misrepresenting the facts. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Your freedom and liberty to choose is at the ballot box. Same as it is for the Ukrainians. If you don’t want a draft than elect people to put it into law that you will never use one. We are and have been for several decades and “all volunteer force” just ignore things like stop loss or refusing to grant retirements and so forth. If the political sway is such that something as unpopular as a draft can happen without the immediate loss of those reps that enacted it surviving with their seat intact guess what, that’s consensus and by definition consent of the governed. We participate in a society of voices and opinions with general consensus being the path forward. Saying “you can’t make me fight” when we have laws stating yes we can which were enacted by elected representatives is no different than the liberal hissyfits of “he’s not my president” when Trump or Bush were elected. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It wasn’t “worth fighting for” against the Nazis by your standard. If it had been we wouldn’t have needed 2/3 of our military to be forced into uniform while the rest of our population was told no there won’t be a new model of Chevrolet this year, we’re making M5 tanks though if you’re interested in driving one. And while it’s a popular myth, most of the people that served in the wartime position of Vietnam weren’t draftees. Draftees were bulk used to maintain commitments abroad. Only a quarter ever went to South East Asia as a theatre, roughly a third of that number served in support capacities in places like Thailand on the periphery. Now I’ve got no doubt when actual Nazis started hitting our cities directly there would be a realization by plenty that something needed to be done and the time to act was now, but that’s far to late to build a military out of which is something a short range problem focused populace will never be capable of understanding. That’s why we started drafting people in 1940 before a single bomb was dropped on our soil. The powers that be were smart enough to read the tea leaves. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We had forced conscription in both world wars to meet the ever churning requirement for manpower. We also did deferments of people who wanted to serve but were judged to be to vital in position and told no they couldn’t serve. Nobody would argue about the righteousness of our cause in the Second World War, yet it took 2/3 of our military being drafted to meet the requirements of it. By the beginning of 1945 there was a real discussion at the White House/Chief of staff levels on how we were going to apportion and release vs not release the ETO troops. The decision was those that “done enough” could go, those that hadn’t would serve as the veterans and the units would be backfilled with new inductees because of the manpower requirements that taking and occupying Japan would have required. Remember this is after we fought for Saipan and started seeing the suicidal side of Japanese resolve. The points episode of BOBs barely scratched this topic, same as Flags of our Fathers talked about war fatigue in funding and a desire by many to make terms with the Japanese. Ukraine is not in a unique situation, it’s a reality of any nation caught in an existential struggle for its existence managing the total economic and manpower of its nation to grant it the means to continue the war. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You could eat off of their hanger floors. Does anybody know if they got a long term sustainment contract with Leonardo? I know the Spartans USASOC had were basically living in borrowed time because they wouldn’t allow on demand buys for upgrades and replacements. Italians wanted a long term gravy train or nada. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I mean there’s plenty to pick on with the Germans. Lord knows I’ve seen it since I was stationed there all of 4 years. Still they’ve become the easy button to sell people on the populism message of “we gotta take care of our own.” It’s an old bias that I was happy to see Trump call out (callous as his normal method) but it’s not effectively true anymore. They are starting to fix their long overdue stupidity. The first step in that was getting rid of Merkle who for the whole of the Trump admin just adopted the contrarian position along with people like Trudeau rather than actually worked to strengthen NATO. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No I don’t think spending billions on a military to deploy it to our border is a smart financial investment at all. The cost to outfit and equip the soldiers we send down there far outstrips the cost effectiveness of a body on the border. Now expanding an agency like CBP/Coast Guard/port control absolutely. Using the Army to be CBP or those other functions when I now cost the drain to regular unit readiness, lower enlistment rates, all the kit we issue in RFI, etc etc…hell no. There are far smarter ways to effectively work on the issue of the border and most of it involves law enforcement and thinks like going after employers, two things the military is wholly unsuited for. Unfortunately the Army (particularly the reserves/guard) have become a political easy button for it with no regard to long term cost. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don’t worry, the debt resets to O after the EMPs go off. It’s a feature of the plan. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Look at the post directly above this one. Like I said treating this like we are throwing money and telling our people to eat shoe leather while the Euros enjoy vacations, wine, and siestas is disingenuous to the reality of what spending they’ve done. The US growth has outpaced the EU substantially since the last decade and the housing crises/recession passed. Without England in it we outpace the EU by double in GDP. They still produced tens of billions of dollars for Ukrainian funding/aid as well as investment in military infrastructure largely purchased directly from us which is good both economically and in terms of commonality in a future fight. It’s easy to just pick on Germany as the punching bag example of how not to invest in a military for the last 30+ years. Even they went up a couple billion in the span of a year while their total government spending went down almost 8-10% (depends on source of exchange rates) because of the economic slowdown down in their own country, that’s a pretty massive change for them with the stated goal to continue cranking up. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Europe has spent a combined 91 billion in monetary aid to Ukraine and while short of the 2% mark Germany pushed its military budget up a couple billion (largest increase in a half century) in a single year in the midst of 3 straight quarters of a recession. France cranked in its largest increase in decades, Poland is spending nearly 4% of its GDP and outfitting its self with our latest stuff (economic gain to us). These are just a few examples of what is and has been a wider immediate wake up call to reality for them. It’s disingenuous to imply we are going it alone here. So what exactly is the threshold Europe has to meet for us to be allowed to get off the bench? Because the EU has roughly half the GDP combined we do and they aren’t simply letting us come to their rescue. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Populist driven policy of “let the people on the other side of the ocean deal with it” has led us to the more expensive and consuming outcome of two world wars. It’s even easier to dehumanize and detach from it when some are freely buying Russian talking points. Nobody is saying abandon the border for the sake of Ukraine in this argument. Nobody is saying send troops to Ukraine and fight directly, in fact that’s what we are all attempting to keep at arms length letting them play this out a phase line early. What we are saying is that in this new Cold War/slow collapse of the global supply chain we sit diametrically apposed to a party made up primarily of Russia/China. One of those two major opponents to us coming out on top in this is happily feeding its military capacity into a wood chipper whole sale. We would be idiots to stop paying to put gas in it when comparing the costs of other COAs. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A regiment of 4th Guards Division was recently seen training with T-62s. Let that sink in for people that don’t understand, that is the Russian Army’s most prolific Armor formation. They are the guys that are based to protect Moscow that had the best equipment. They got chewed to hell fighting along the fight to Sumy. The loss situation is such that they can’t replace their losses and maintain the front. That would be like us having a bunch of Eagle/Viper squadrons lose their aircraft and then get handed F4/5s to regen with because the modern airframes were needed elsewhere. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah lord knows the way to show you are about to lose a war is to successfully conduct a wet gap crossing. You’re reading trash media claiming to have any idea what’s going on and saying we (the west) need to abandon Ukraine because of their “historic ties to Russia.” What point do you have to make other than to be a relief to all of the sane you aren’t in charge of anything? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What did you get tired of reading RT? Nobody in here has called for US troops in Ukraine. What we have done is call out your isolationist BS and parroting of Russian talking points to justify just leaving Ukraine in the wind like it will stop there. The entire mission of Foreign Internal Defense was to build combat capability by partner nations so we could avoid needing larger troop deployments later. What we’ve been doing the past 2 years has accomplished that in Ukraine. Continue mission. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You are literally parroting what will be China’s excuse to invade Taiwan in a discussion about deterrence and wider foreign policy like it’s a good reason to reward annexation by force. Ukraine has “historic ties,” yeah so do the Czech’s. Maybe read a book some time on what the conditions of those historic ties and why they came running into NATO to avoid going back to them. “Eastern Bloc Governments,” wow. Those are NATO partners. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Why so we can wait to hear you call to abandon all those next series countries because of their “historic ties to Russia.” Seriously… the dumbest point you’ve tried to make on here. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Read my lips, if you’re on a Forum spouting off Russian talking points about how Ukraine belongs to them historically, or that NATO expansion justified them invading by force a sovereign nation, or insinuating the CIA ran a coup to overthrow Ukraine’s government (all points he’s tried to make) you’re a shill. Putin has expressed his interest in realigning the old Soviet satellites as vassal states. Pretending otherwise would ignore the last decade of action by him. So yeah Ukraine is as many have pointed out the stepping stone in a lone of stones already crossed leaving us with the next step having a 4/5 chance of being a NATO country. I’ve got no interest in trying to convert Bashi, I’m pointing out to the rest of the room that may think he has a point how incredibly stupid it is. Why are you suddenly trying to defend him? If he stuck to points about budget he’s fine, but he is repeating known Russian talking points advanced and stimulated across social media. And DCG would be deputy commanding general. We have one currently and he’s Polish. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Dude I can’t wait to tell the DCG tomorrow that the reason we can’t invoke article V to defend his home country is because of their “historic ties to Russia.” He’s gonna be confused for a second and think it’s as stupid an idea as I just said. That deserves to be laughed at. But it goes to a wider conversation we had about why it seems like a good size chunk of Americans want to give Putin Eastern Europe like it’s his. After spending the pages of response to point out how clueless Bashi’s points are who give a crap at this point if we just agree he’s an idiot and state it openly. Go read a history book on Russia’s “historic ties” to the Eastern European states some time. If you would describe that as some sort of equal relationship and not just outright soft/hard power conquest and subjugation you’re clueless. It’s also a repeated line of justification by the Russians to execute the annexation of Ukraine as legitimate but it wouldn’t be the first time he and others have peddled those talking points. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

“Historical Ties to Russia/USSR.” Well that’s an incredibly stupid point to stand on given the argument. Most of us are arguing the necessity of stopping Russia in this fight to avoid them invading the next 5 nations who are all in NATO and apparently have “historic ties to Russia.” And yes NATO kicks in… against an opponent who is as you described justifiably fearful we will simply destroy them and likely to retaliate early and immediately with Nukes or Chem to immediately force us to stop short of a full exchange. That’ll only cost Stuttgart or Antwerp or something… no big deal right? Earlier in this thread you were screaming about the dangers of escalating with nukes because of our political support, now you’re telling us to pick the best COA likely to lead to their employment. God damn 4D-Clyde’ian-strategery right there gentlemen. Make that man a flag officer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Plenty of people making MPX adapters to a standard lower config. I don’t know anybody with an MPX or similar setup that is upset about the decision. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Then why rank them higher than Georgia if it’s a simple as they aren’t evaluated to be that competitive. More specifically why do it 2 weeks after you already put them at one place in the list with said world changing quarterback? The default answer is a cop out of “the committee is an evolving evaluation based off ____.” Then it ignores its own precedents when inconvenient. And the default answer is “we aren’t wrong and weren’t wrong then, we’re just somehow more informed now.” FSU got hosed for one simple reason, the money/views provided by the SEC participation in the final 4. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah FSU… they “aren’t the same team without the QB” But we can let them play Georgia because that makes sense. By rights FSU could be playing OSU with the history on bowl alignment. That would make sense if they aren’t good enough to be in right? After all the ACC isn’t a real conference or some weird crooked post BCS logic. Runner ups of B1G and SEC and have Georgia replay OSU for a rematch but nahh, that makes too much sense. FSU should be in, and the SEC should have been exposed and left out having no clearly defined greatness as a Georgia without 2 key players couldn’t put away an Alabama that lost to Texas. But no way will dollars ever be left out of the discussion and if there is one thing that was not gonna happen is was leaving the SEC booster money out of big bowl games played in their back yard. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No lie, one of my IPs in primary was in that movie. Decades on and apparently he wasn’t allowed to introduce himself to his students without one of the other Instructors bringing it up. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk