Lawman

That’s a narrative constructed to ignore the previous past of Russia during Stalin’s expansion of the Soviet Union and blame NATO as an aggressor. It ignores how countries in places like the Baltics became Soviet satellites (or why Russia was fighting a war in Finland before fighting the Nazis). The Russians aggressively annexed those nations under the guise of protecting the smaller nations against the European great powers. Once done it immediately moved to a policy of Russification something plainly evident as still policy in Ukraine with things like changing the spelling of a Nations capital (we all grew up recognizing it as Kiev until they gained independence) along with a host of brutal actions against the native populations. Russian authority’s in Putins group don’t view things like Latvia as some aggressive preemption by NATO to invade them, they view it as it and other nations maneuvering away from some perverse “rightful position” as vassals to the greater Russian motherland. This whole “view it from their perspective,” is fine. But let’s not pretend they base that perspective on reality. It’s like asking a Japanese citizen today about why we dropped the bomb. They’ll have a lot to talk about, but somehow things like Nanking or Saipan propaganda causing mass civilian suicide isn’t going to be part of the discussion. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Man it’s weird how the media isn’t going out of its way to point out how diverse the Republican debate stage was… Odd *sarcasm* Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No it’s restating that the level of exploitation far exceeds what most O5/6s who probably don’t operate in an intelligence domain is tracking. And if they’ve been training against a REDFOR model that wasn’t body armor/cyber domain/night vision capable/etc than they’ve been ignoring directives for training that have been in place since ~2016. Talk to the guys in NGIC or MSIC for actual details on that world. Even in the mundane sections of the mundane areas like logistics and sustainment we are getting to see some really good and likewise really bad ways to conduct a ground war. I would equate this to watching the Israelis take some of our top end stuff into fights with the Arabs using the other sides stuff and getting to watch and record results. How much do you think that kind of information paid off later when we had to go fight the same equipment? We’ve got injects in our division warfighter that are being driven off stuff that surprised us over there, so we get to rehearse instead of see it live for the first time. There is as of a day ago what would potentially be a strategic weapons delivery platform in a war against NATO that is a pile of ash, along with several of its friends. If Russia is intent on having this war with Ukraine (because they aren’t doing it for any other reason), even if they were to eventually win it, we would be far better suited to bleed them white than let them roll over the Ukrainians. They (Ukraine) can still very much lose this war. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I’ve got a lot of bad news for you about those low dollar items and the frequency of their loss during that hard fought years of GWOT. Not even just maliciously stealing our stuff. It was disturbingly common to listen to the team lead in the back and one of his other guys discussing why a KSK walked up the ramp sans NVGs. Dude didn’t sell them, he had just taken them off while he sat in an OP (pulling security in the dark IE napping) because they were uncomfortable and never bothered to pick them back up. And now that kit is in some goat herder that makes 40 dollars a month’s back yard. I’m not saying the risk isn’t there, but the one sided nature of this conflict in what we are getting and validating is pretty legit. And a nice change of pace given us showing off our playbook for all to see. There is stuff we regarded as world ending equipment that we have learned more about in the last 6 months than the proceeding decade simply because it also got left in a field with some farmers after the lines collapsed or it broke down. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The direct foreign exploitation of intel was worth 10 billion alone. We are getting a brigade/division worth of casualty prevention in any future conflict based solely off knowing their playbook, dissecting equipment, and seeing the shortcomings of a lot of our own. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Only this time there’s a 1/5 chance it DOESN’T involve them rolling into an Article 5 country. Quick let’s predict the Russian justification for invading Moldova. I’m gonna guess Secret NATO nuclear weapons stocks. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I found this guys stuff as well. This was an interesting one from a stand point of developing tactics literally from nothing in an information deficit on knowing what capes the other side really had. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/inside-a-russian-disinformation-campaign-in-ukraine-in-2014/2017/12/25/f55b0408-e71d-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html An example of the Russian backed BS perspective you’ve been repeating on this very site. Despite all the cited examples of exactly what was being done in the wake of that situation, you’ll probably still act like the Russians were giving us some insight into “what was really going on” while alluding that WAPO writing what I linked is part of some greater propaganda and protection effort by the liberal backed media or some other nonsense. Again, you’re clueless, and what’s worse your willful of it to achieve your political goal. Nobody is fighting you with Ukrainian disinformation, they are telling you you’re an adult sitting in the kiddie pool of “facts” trying to tell us all its unusually warm and that’s some sort of thing caused by our government while the rest of us try to warn you it’s actually just full of piss. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Holy crap you’ve like quadrupled down on this now like all the rest of us need to prove something you’ve repeatedly been shown. You are spouting off Russian Talking Points as your argument and linking to dubious Twitter/etc accounts (whoever’s they happen to be) with apparently no understanding of how social media intertwines with itself or how that very fact is abused for illicit means. I’d tell you go talk to some Psyops guys or just remember your SERE training on indoctrination and soft vs hard influence efforts, but you’re the smart one. It’s all the rest of us that are being duped. So no share away if that’s how you want to be identified, but those of us pointing you out as a stooge will be more than happy to remind the room how willing you are to drag a hostile powers IA campaign into a discussion to achieve whatever your ideological desire happens to be. You’re a shill because it aligns with your need to rage against the current system/admin just like Tucker was. Plain and simply. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What a really long winded way of saying “I’m gonna post propaganda from Russia, because it supports my ideological desires, and fact checking would limit my argument too much for it to possibly be effective.” It’s also pretty clear you simply don’t understand or care about the impacts of sharing Russian social media propaganda across multiple sites and domains and how that effects its persistent presence in the general internet town square. It’s been pointed out to you the clear “truths” you’ve been spouting off on that are manufactured Russian disinformation campaigns or narratives. If you’re dumb enough to keep shouting about them please let everybody know you’ve turned into that crazy uncle that emails/Facebook messages chain crap they found on Reddit. Oh look… your posting from Twitter. What a wonderful place for you to find “facts.” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You’re not trying to argue some universal scientific truth that the Moon orbits the Earth which orbits the Sun. You are arguing for a change in foreign policy which would translate to aid and comfort of an enemy you “want to see fail,” and you are doing it with that enemies manufactured talking points and disinformation to built the moral righteousness of your argument. That’s why you’re being criticized for it. There are plenty of legitimate arguments to be made for any frustrations against this current admin or the way our system works in general. But your frustrations with tax policy or Covid or whatever perceived rights you view at risk, aren’t germane to what you’re being specifically called out for now. Even if you advocate for not participating in the Ukraine conflict, you can formulate an argument which doesn’t use Russian disinformation and propaganda literally put together, manufactured, manipulated, and amplified by them for their express desire to help their cause on the battlefield. And when you puff up and scream about your 1st amendment right to repeat that propaganda when it’s pointed out to you, or try some moral platitude of “both sides” in the way you are now, that just paints you as a stooge. You are literally carrying Russia’s water for them when you make your argument that way. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Is this supposed to be some appeal to world peace where they wouldn’t be resisting the Russian invasion if they didn’t have western weapons? Because I’ve got news for you, like so many invaded peoples before they have a means and will to resist. They just do it a hell of a lot better with our stuff in hand. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No, but given the open source nature of this forum it is a far more trustworthy source than some guys YouTube video or Twitter research. At least looking across political alignments with the actual shown math format of their products you can formulate and evaluate the information. There are historical and active examples of the undeniable gains in disinformation campaigns turning into political effect and translating that into actual tangible battlefield capes. It’s the same reason we have Psyops as a domain within the Special Operations community. From a Russian cost analysis, Fomenting Anger and ignorance in vacuum chambers = political effects = no artillery shells for the Army they are fighting. It is the Information Age equivalent of Leaflet Drops or Tokyo Rose. You would have to be an idiot to ignore it both going on and who it’s targeting actively and passively when its obvious. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Access to the Sea of Azov and the Kirch straight bridge are really the make/break on this offensive. If they can do both and effectively cut off access to Crimea they set themselves up very well for a negotiated settlement where they walk away with gains that would otherwise need to be purchased through force of arms. Laying siege to a city like Sevastopol would take a lot of resources and time and sap it from other fronts. Worse, fighting in a city like Sevastopol would generate a lot of unsustainable casualties both in personnel and vital equipment (IFVs etc). It also never looks good to onlookers and that’s the support base. City battles being measured in months, I doubt they would make that play when the open field war of position/logistic lines is an option. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Immediately makes comments on a Russian backed narrative of how the US/NATO broke a promise and that’s why their actions bear justification. (Not their deliberate attempts to cross into NATO airspace lately). Posts earlier about the Maiden Revolution implying it was a US backed Coup. (First advanced via RT and Sputnik and still present in circles on social media) Makes comments on the other threads about illegal sale of western munitions and corruption. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-62983444.amp congrats, you’re being duped. Finds every open source example (because I doubt you’ve been on SIPR in a decade) of such examples highlighting their origins and advancement on social medie by Russian state actors and cyber brigades as “swallowing the mainstream media narrative.” Yeah dude you’re too smart to be used. You see through the giant Soros group media Cabal of information and understand how we can’t be supporting Nazi weapons manufacturers designing a Covid strain to target ethnic Russians… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You’re not a Russian operative, you’re a useful idiot. Don’t try to oversell your worth. Understanding the difference would be key in knowing how you’re being abused. Remember your self proclaimed “I’m willing to listen,” but really no you aren’t. You’re the same old exploitable population of disinformation and disenfranchised persons they’ve always targeted. In the 60s it was the counter culture movements. In the later decades the racial social movements. Now outside influences don’t really care about end goal as much as distraction. But you’re “too smart” for something like that. I mean those guys at CSIS or other such places, they are just part of the Illuminati machine. Thank god some random guy who saw some shit in Iraq is here to break it all down for us. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It’s not so much government as bureaucracies interwoven paths of authorizations when the current environment is outside the status quo. The military exists to accomplish mission as a challenge. Regular government exists to accomplish day to day normality. Somewhere in the middle of that is these shit shows we keep dealing with. At the operator level of incident everybody is ready, because verbal orders can get stuff done. Step up to a HADR and suddenly as somebody else alluded to, letter agencies and people in positions which hold titles have to be involved so they can be seen as orchestrating the events. What we don’t ever see is those same orchestrating asshats involved when things go south. This being a great example of a whole lot of people at the O5 and below level told to sit on their thumbs to keep them warm, but a state government woefully out of its depth. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

25th CAB had to fight to get what paltry contribution they ended up with into the ordeal. Hawaii after action should be interesting if they ever make the chains of communication public because heads will roll. You had an entire Army CAB at the behests of the division commander literally lay it all at the disposal to the mission and they finally asked for a couple helicopters to pull Bambi bucket missions. People in state leadership potions should be fired. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Oh please we all wait anxiously for you to throw some more Tucker talking points and RT expressed narratives about Covid and Ukraine please. Tell us why Ukraine is really all the fault of the US, and how Covid vaccines will make us all sterile or some other stupidity. We desperately need more of that here. [mention=1535]Helodude[/mention] to the point way back about China and the combined impacts of their economic model’s in sustainability combined with the demographic nightmare, this guy is a little more Doom and Gloom than everybody analyzing the situation, but it’s a very succinct collection of the problems they are facing. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

You and Bashi could just go find a room to stroke each other in and save us all a lot of time. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hey everybody, the crew of people insisting they are interested in the “middle ground” approach are here to remind of a bunch of reasons we should stop helping the Ukrainians. But remember they want Russia to fail. We just have to wait until we find the flawless pure allied entity to do it for us, because until then we can’t allow our resources to be used for that purpose. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

In what world would anybody care about the opinion of a guy who is now trading off his years and experiences of service as currency in order to shill Russian troll farm talking points on a forum full of professional, former, and prospective military aviators. You aren’t continuously challenging the narrative or whatever high minded foolishness you think you’re doing. By making open statements like we backed a Coup you are repeating a Russian approved government backed disinformation campaign while shouting about “doing your own research” or some other nonsense. Those claims literally came out of the GRU playbook starting on RT and Sputnik. And for those that think this isn’t an active move on the chess board by the Russians (but also others) and you don’t have access to the “deep throat intel narrative” well here is open source reporting as such https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-kremlin-targets-veterans Again thank you for rowing the boat, but you may as well go throw your medals over onto the White House lawn in frustration because you are being used, and not by the people you claim we need to stop and examine. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Look we can simply step over to you and others repeated attempts to pass off Russian talking points as viable discussion and then claim “the middle ground,” to your approach. I could really care less if you or the bitter old veterans club experienced real or imagined encounters over there. If you were so afllicted personally by the impact of what you saw first hand, go get some help for it. Don’t pass off your experience as some sort of ruling none of it was worth it, plenty of us who were there or saw worse would have a different opinion that you aren’t speaking to. I was physically in Iraq in the last 5 years. And I and others are physically on the line any future fight against Russia which looks less and less likely every day since we (as a unified block of western nations) allowed and reinforced in Ukraine the means to effectively defend its self. Can you say the same? And yes listening to you shout the names of the fallen as some sort of reinforcement to back away from helping Ukraine when it completely aligns with our foreign policy and security interests is little more than cheerleading a cause on the backs of the dead. You aren’t doing it to somehow honor that memory. And all the while you peddle their (Russia’s) Reddit quality justifications to why they aren’t the aggressor making you a stooge to a Russian Disinformation campaign built to do exactly that. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No see we can count the total number and frequency of those missions. We can quantify in the long term the cost of that particular conflict in and amongst the world wide collection of historical conflicts. Same was we can do it with ammunition expended, with lives lost wearing other uniforms/flags/civilian clothes, etc. And when we are all done debating whether the cost of a particular venture was justified at the time and you can appeal to the memory of so and so, we can also step out of your anecdotal experience to others for comparison. You can get in a car and drive down what used to be Route Irish today and be safer than you would in a lot of neighborhoods in Detroit/Cleveland/DFW/Baltimore/etc. and while you’re factoring in the human cost of seeing coffins and such, why don’t you go ask somebody who had to SSE a “Rape Room” or other such regime/tool of both the state and the follow on fighters in Iraq. Try and quantify the frustration and risk/reward math from the guys that went and solved the ISIS problem after seeing a Yazidi village literally put to the sword for however many years we watched and did nothing overhead from ISR feeds. See if people on that side of the discussion feel the same apathy toward conflict. That doesn’t minimize the specific cost to family X for the loss of person Y or prevent those people from mourning that loss. Any family touched by death feels that it’s not specific to military service. But it’s laughable to hear you bring up their stories as a warning to the risk of lives in a conflict which hasn’t happened going on 2 years now. This “We’re gonna start WWIII” argument is far older than this conflict. Some around here are old enough to remember it in the actual Cold War. And to make that argument while simultaneously implying that me and a whole lot of others we would be somehow safer from such impending doom if we stopped current efforts of non direct combat opposition to a major geopolitical foe and let them pull up to a NATO border. I’m sure this time they’ll pull out… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You saw dead men loaded on the back of your plane. Oh my god what a unique position to find yourself in. Nobody else who has done such could possibly call you out for your apologetic doublespeak of “let’s avoid conflict” and paint the current one as if we were filling coffins and draping them with US Flags. All while parroting Russian propaganda and talking points to invalidate any positions we have to support the current regime over there. You wanna classify the Maiden revolutions as some sort of US orchestrated overthrow of an elected government is a gross misrepresentation of our actions or the decade+ of that ousted governments actions that led to protests, casualties, and their parliamentary vote. And it’s nothing if not an often repeated piece of Russians disinformation widely put out to somehow justify their military backed invasion of the Donbas and Crimea. Thank you for rowing the boat from whichever position in the canoe you did, but you are far from unique in this room. And I doubt your attempt to feature some poor dead grunt as a reason to adopt strategic foreign policy positions is anything more than the same Cindy Sheehan kind of crap she was doing when her chosen political flavor wasn’t in higher office. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk