FLEA

They have a full population sample up to 65+. Where do you see it focused on college students? A university poll means it was conducted by a university, doesn't mean it just poll'd university students. From the study "The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Doug Schwartz, Ph.D. since 1994, conducts independent, non-partisan national and state polls on politics and issues. Surveys adhere to industry best practices and are based on random samples of adults using random digit dialing with live interviewers calling landlines and cell phones." "1,374 U.S. adults nationwide were surveyed from March 4th – 6 th with a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points."

Well its not a military effect for one. Its an economic effect and economic power is exercised very differently. I agree that chuckling at hunger is not apropo. That said, there is some rationale here. For one, just scratching the surface, tightening Russia's economy reduces revenue available to their war machine. It will make it difficult for them to sustain an extended campaign. Putin will have to choose to feed his people or expand his military efforts. I know the knee jerk thought is he wouldn't do that, but remember Machiavelli here, the primary security concern of the Prince is to prevent rebellion, not external security. We've seen dictators practice this time and time before. Kim Jong Un is a good example who didn't have the popularity of his father when he ascended and immediately needed to reinvest military capital into the country's agricultural sector to balance his internal/external affairs.

EU also agreed to reduce imports from Russia by 2/3s by December. I think their position is a little harder than ours with states like Hungary relying exclusively on Russian energy. They are going to need some time to figure out supply chain and source other providers. I also think its not just oil for them but natural gas, refined power, etc... that complicates it quite a bit more.

Probably not in the next 1-4 decades but Mexico did have enough fascist at the time that Hitler thought he had a reasonable chance of getting them to join the Axis. I would never say never. The biggest obstacle is our terrain. We have an ocean to the east/west and a single neighbor to the north/south. Neighbors bring more baggage than history, so only having one of each is advantageous. Additionally, we are probably the only country in the world at the moment that can stage an army on a different continent but that gap will close over time. Regardless, its just a thought experiment. As I've said, I have my ideas on some of the gap but I cant explain it all. The real clues are probably in race/gender/immigration status, how they vote, and how/why they would see their war time responsibility differently. For example, far more women in the democratic party than men, and women might be more likely to see their war time responsibility to flee with children and get them to safety. No one would fault anyone for that or say they're less committed Americans. In the full meta data it shows that women were only 40% likely to stay vs men 70%.

Man. It's like being the second in command of Al Queda. I remember a 4 year straight where that was the most dangerous job in the world.

Its an observation. If you're going to dismiss it as tribal nonsense, extrapolate. Why do you think democrats would significantly poll differently? Of note, in the same poll, dems are more willing to support Ukrainian refugees than Republicans. This indicates a significant difference in values and perceived responsibilities in a security challenged world. I have my ideas and none of them cast anyone as the bad guy, im just curious what other people think first. Edit: Also of note, this is a university poll, not a media poll. which gives it a bit more relevance in my opinion since it would have had to meet scholastic norms for ethical human research and it would have deliberately tried to omit population biases. Here is a link to the study if anyone is interested in reading it: https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/us/us03072022_ujca44.pdf

https://newsworldupdate.com/politics/more-republicans-than-democrats-would-stay-and-fight-if-what-happened-in-ukraine-occurred-in-us-poll/ BLUF: if the US were in the exact same situation as the Ukraine, the majority of Republicans would defend the country while the majority of Democrats flee.

Houston is fucking awesome and us way under credited for great places to live. It's coastal, the fastest growing city in the US, and despite what liberal Texans would say about Austin, Houston is the real heart of culture in Texas. It has large immigrant communities, and because of that, the second best culinary scene in the US, only after NYC. Weather is great year round, just a little warm and muggy in summers. I begged my wife to go to Houston but it was too far from family for her.

Also examine the possibility that the theater expands outside the Ukraine. Naval assets in the Black Sea clash and creates conflict in Turkey for access to the Dardainalles. Russia closes Suwalki gap to ensure it can resupply fleets from the Baltic to come around the other side. The Baltic states are now cut off and lose their capability to defend themselves in a matter of days. The opening of the Baltic drives the arctic counsel into chaos and brings the polar front into the war meanwhile heavy land fighting breaks out in Poland to defend the east front of NATO. And in all that time we expect China to not use the distraction to seize Taiwan or disputed islands in the Pacific, railing those partners into chaos without US leadership. Its really easy to see how this can spill into a global catastrophe REALLY REALLY quickly. We have a playbook for this conflict. We did it for 40 years. Its called a proxy war and it was super effective. We need to stick to the playbook and exercise political patience.

I think this image captures everything you really need to know about US political priorities.....

I mean.... So what? Because a few dudes were assholes all academics were ass holes? Yeah man, there's bad people out there. Do you think your Intel shop is trash because Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden? You aren't really making a point here. There's just garbage people in the world. I mean should I pin the China's rise on pilots because Shapour Moinian sold secrets to a Chinese intelligence asset? Surely you don't believe that?

You meet all types man, and you get a thick skin. It's part of the business. I'll miss it immensely but I can't cut the career path I want here anymore and I know there is other stuff out there. Careful offering me beer, I may take you up on it one day and I get talkative when I'm drunk. (Why do you think I'm posting so much!!!)

I'm not sure how that's relevant?

For whatever it's worth I'm not going to have a say in this soon. I will be a civilian shortly and as much as I love this world, it's a world the AF won't let me stay in and I need to find something else. Point being, for myself, and the rest of the civilians in society, we are trusting you with our security and to make good decisions with it. Sure, myself, and other Americans, are outraged at what is happening to the Ukranian people. We are even willing to pay higher gas for it. But how many of those people, if you explained to them the realities of nuclear war, would be willing to accept that risk on themselves and their families, for the sake of proving a point? Your oaths of office are not to NATO, and not to Europe. You swore oaths to the US constitution and your obligation is to the United States, it's people, and it's interests. We are trusting you to keep those interests, mainly our lives, our safety and our freedom, at the forefront of your decision tree. If you are failing to do this for some obscure reason, you are failing us, and that to me is sad. Very few people on here have communicated how in their world view they are going to continue to protect US interests. I have no problem with radical plans to ousts evil dictators, but I'm not willing to risk the lives of my wife or children to do so. For those of you that stay, you do so at great peril and I thank you for that. The world may be on the precipice of entering the most complex security environment we've seen in 30 years and I'm hoping the redundancy of operations in the GWOT didn't mend our thoughts into ones based on complacency. I only hope that the US makes smart foreign policy decisions that value our troops and their lives appropriately. I pray that your generation never have their "Afghan moment" which is something that left me and many others with a striking amount of moral injury. If we are going to be the leader of the free world we need to recognize that is a job that is hard, needs to be taken responsibly and will require us to make tough decisions about our values and the values of our own people. There will be pressure from other countries to mold the world into their own order and we need to resist that, applying pressure where we can, but recognizing that US power and resources are limited and should not be squandered. That's really all I have. I have weeks left. Going to be a wild transition but I'm ready for it and I'm really excited for what's next. I sincerely wish the best of luck to all of you.

I was going to give you a more sincere answer but you're kind of dick about it so I'll just tell you yes I finished pilot training and flew 3 ops tours before I entered the world I'm at now. GFY. I literally took 10 steps back to try and bring some civility to this with SurelySerious but you want to go right back to personal attacks?

First off, yes, it is passion. As mentioned earlier, i went to school for this, I do it for my job, Ive participated on multiple projects with it. I love talking about this and I can talk about it all day. And seeing as how Ill be working 12-14 hours a day with lots of white space between tasks until this either blows over or I can separate, I have lots of time to talk on Baseops. Nothing to be upset about here because my case is validated by the points of view of former Ambassador Matlock and dozens of others. Now I would be interested for you to explain your case a bit more. What exactly do you mean by acceptable? Because its possible we are getting hung up on language. I've never said his views were ok. But I will uphold that every head of state has a sovereign right to advocate their country's security concerns and that his concerns are founded in historical behavior of Europe and the west, in other words, he arrived at those concerns rationally.

Don't mistake passion for emotion. But if you want to take 5 steps back and clarify your position I'll give you the opportunity now.

I'm literally holding up Mr. Matlo... I mean comrade Matlock's position this whole time and youre trying to tell me I'm forwarding Putin's view point.

I like this one, this was Secret Agent Jack Matlock's (Ambassador to RUS for the US, but now we know from SurelySerious part of Putin's secret syndicate) remarks to the Senate Armed services committee in 1997 when they voted to ratify the first expansion of NATO. Remember, this is Putin's narrative. He told Matlock to say all of this!

I also want to hear your really well thought out response to how Putin was able to mastermind this under the Yeltsin Kremlin. The government that was so extraordinarily pro-west they allowed all the FSUs to hold free elections to elect their freedom and separation from the Soviet Union. Like, was Yeltsin in on this too? Were the elections just a ploy to be able to invade them again later?

Really? What was he doing? This was all some masterminded plan over 3 decades to gain and seize power of the world? Lt Col Putin was that smart, smart enough to infiltrate the sitting White House and national security staff. Are you listening to yourself? Your in like QAnon territory level conspiracy theory shit now. Just answer the question. Rationalize how you're going to kick Putin off the planet and protect US interests. I'm still waiting for your calm, collected and non anger invoked response.

The narrative he built? So you're saying he infiltrated Kissinger, in the 90s, Bush Sr, or hundreds of other national security experts in the 90s, (before he had any power mind you) to construct this narrative? Not sure how your justify a pervasive motif of thought in the US national security community as Putin's narrative when he wasn't even around when it was constructed. I say your emotional because you can't rationalize how you are going to kick Putin off the planet and protect US interests. You're driving the desire to kick him off out of anger, which is an emotion. That's fine, but recognize it, and then sit down and realize you're playing nuclear chess. We owe it to our people to be less wreckless with their lives.

You are definitely not the opposite of emotional lol.

This is where I can't grasp you. You're saying other countries interests don't matter unless they align with ours. This is a big planet though and we have to share it. I get that you don't like Russia or Putin but you don't have the power to kick him off without detrimental harm to the US. The only way I can rationalize this is if you prioritize the interest of other non-us countries over the US, such as Ukraine's interests.

I actually really like JP, and will definitely give this a listen.