pawnman

Someone made a whole song about their drones...

"Stealing Enemy Air Defenses"

I had to do RA stuff for a while. I learned very little about budgeting and a whole lot about what a pain DTS and GPC programs are to manage.

You've never done the MyVector thing where you see all the avaliable jobs for your rank and AFSC? It's what replaced the old ADP.

Who is doing the oppressing? It's not likely that Putin is visiting each dissident personally.

What sanctions do you think would target only the elites?

Ah. In that case, it likely skews much older than average. Good luck get a twenty-something to answer an unknown number, and good luck finding anyone under 30 with a landlines. It's a self-selecting sample of people willing to talk to a survey taker.

So you don't want to commit the military and you don't want sanctions. What's left, some strongly worded letters written to the Russian embassy?

Omit population biases? Its focused on college students - people who are predominantly from wealthier families, and who skew away from violence in almost all forms.

Isn't that what they are doing? I know Biden floated a plan to bring manufacturing back to the US.

Voters have notably short attention spans. Local governments are removing mask mandates...I totally see that being a selling point in the elections. "Trump and the GOP put you in masks and closed businesses. Biden and the dems have made it safe to take off the masks and go back to work..." All nonsense, of course. But that's what I expect to see. And a lot of voters will forget that it was democratically controlled states and cities that created the most burdensome mandates.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I hope we see more blasted BTRs and helos in the next few days.

Do you think there's a difference between what happens within a country's borders and when they invade another country?

Why would Moldova change your calculus? Not a NATO country. Why would Finland change your calculus? Not a NATO country. Or is your assertion that only Ukraine is so useless and backwater as to not warrant a response? AFTER, may I remind you, signed security agreements with the US in exchange for their nukes. If this is what a US security agreement buys a country, we're at a real disadvantage in any diplomatic efforts to counter China or Russia in the future.

I definitely think he will take as much as he can get away with. Do I think he's gonna start a war with NATO by invading a member country? Seems unlikely. But I can definitely see him trying to pick off Moldova or Finland. And in response to your edit: we did care about Ukraine, otherwise we wouldn't have been considering them for NATO membership. And I think it perfectly rational to oppose a country like Russia trying to just take over a country by force. Maybe you're content to cede US global leadership to any country willing to commit to military action against their neighbors. I'm not.

A country seizing parts of a neighboring country while governments with the power to stop it say things like "its not our concern" and "we don't want to start a bigger war" certainly seems analogous to me.

Is this like when liberals told me I couldn't judge Islamic countries for honor killings "because it's their culture, you just don't understand"?

I don't see much evidence that any other nation is willing to commit to anything kinetic, even if Putin takes all of Ukraine and kills every man, woman, and child inside the borders.

All the world is seeing is that US security assurances aren't worth the paper they are written on. If I'm Iran, North Korea, Israel, Pakistan...I'm clutching my nukes with both hands. Because they provide more security than a US assurance of sovereignty.

Just be sure to fill out that high-risk activity form before submitting your leave request.

But what if you're close personal friends with the squadron commander?

Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics.

Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions.

AFROTC requires you to pay for college. Unless you get a scholarship put of high school...which requires high academic achievement. Guess what's correlated to academic achievement?

I hear it's treatable, but you don't want to be the first responder on the scene...