Pooter

I really hope this is true. I'm doubtful though based on their insane pace of military development in the last few years break/break @Clark Griswold point taken. I can see the argument that having a few wildcards out there in command will make enemies think twice. Break/break I'm willing to grant that he has the right intent here, but to be honest this reads exactly like the same "accelerate, change, or lose" drivel we seen for years without anything changing. You're smart and experienced enough to know that the status quo will continue unless you spell things out explicitly and force the change you want. We all know the saying about the difference between the Air Force and Navy.. in the navy they check the reg to see if it says they can't do it. In the Air Force we check the reg to see if we can. So you know damn well that these two paragraphs are not going to reduce queep one iota, because it's not explicit enough. Waiver authorities aren't going to change enterprise wide without specific direction to do so and top cover to go along with it. The queep administrivia will continue because these vague paragraphs get laundered through 6-9 levels of command until it's just status quo by the time it reaches the squadron level. I'll repeat my previous question: why are the only specific directives in the memo about firearm training, vred, and pie in the sky 135 drone deployment? Maybe I'm hyper sensitive to the admin issue right now because I just came into a very queep heavy job. But I truly believe on this issue, we say one thing and then do the exact opposite. We say we're going to accelerate and change, but all I see at my level is myeval turning the OPR process into even more of an abortion. Leaders say they want you to take calculated risks, but the waiver authority to make a tiny syllabus deviation in any upgrade program is with the first two-star or higher. As if they have literally any idea what we're asking for, and we all have weeks to sit around waiting for an eSSS to route up to the NAF and back. My point is the bureaucracy is too deep for generic talking points to make any difference. And you have to remember us peons at the lowest level are just trying to follow the rules, make good decisions within our power, and CYA so we don't get crucified. So as strange as it may sound if you want to elicit any actual change from a high level, you need to be hyper specific. I'm sure the 135 drone thing will at least be workshopped. Because he explicitly mentioned it.

Glad they're trying to make things right, but I do have a question for your buddy. Military and gov't leadership hasn't changed, and the vaccine requirement was only rescinded after multiple years of consternation and a gradual shift in public opinion/medical data. But who's to say a bad variant doesn't pop up and then the military reinstates the mandate? If your buddy was ready to separate over this, and now he's back in, isn't he just exposing himself to the possibility of the same thing happening again? Personally I see the issue differently, but if I was so dead set on not getting vaccinated that I was ready to separate, a simple "whoopsie we're sorry" from the DOD would not be enough to keep me around.

Interestingly, there are a bunch of countries that don't do ranked choice voting but do have multi-party systems (3+). So it makes you wonder how that came about. I also wonder if 3+ party systems are maybe inherently unstable and over time trend toward 2 party systems as the power gets more consolidated. The other piece to consider in America is that as the political parties siloed into their two camps, so did the media. To the point that you had a huge media infrastructure on the left, and on the right, with very little in the middle. I think a big step in the right direction would be campaign finance reform. Right now the money is so heavily concentrated in the two parties, it's impossible to mount a competitive campaign without party donor backing. Even Perot, a billionaire who pulled the best independent popular vote numbers ever, barely made the double digit percentages. I so desperately want there to be a viable 3rd party, and I think it could arise organically out of the reasonable middle. But.. I think its far more likely you'd get a viable 3rd party from a full blown schism on one side or the other. And you can bet whichever party isn't undergoing the schism will have the upper hand for quite a while. Both extremes of the political spectrum seem to have gone particularly insane these days with the hardcore trumpers on the right and the hardcore wokes on the left, so I feel like the time is ripe for a moderate right or moderate left camp to break off into the middle.

I'm sure some people agree with his assessment. But the point is it's not his assessment to make and blast out to the whole world. His job is to manage AMC, make sure it's as good as it can be, and leave the strategy up to the secaf, csaf, secdef, Congress, potus etc... Attaching a specific year to your prediction is especially asinine because you're almost begging for it to happen on that timeline. He could have said something like "near peer conflict in the pacific is likely in the coming years so I need you to all be ready." That says basically the same thing inside AMC without everyone in DC having to run damage control for you.

From the outside looking in on AMC I think I speak for a lot of people by wondering: Why is Minihan mouthing off about war with China, firing clips, and drone delivery good idea fairies when the two tankers that constitute almost our entire capacity to project airpower around the globe are f-ed up with no end in sight? This is also the dude behind single pilot tanker ops right? Seems like he is big on new age pie in the sky nonsense and not very big on the fundamentals. If he's actually so concerned about war with China, maybe he could do something about the fact that the tactical experts in his (and all majcoms) spend 60-90% of their time on administrivia. Do you think chinese pilots are worrying about quarterly awards? I doubt it.. And in case he's reading this thread here's a non all inclusive list of things he could enact literally tomorrow that would immeasurably improve our lethality and mobility: -abolish all awards not related to combat operations -enact single line OPRs and EPRs that show your strat 1-n and that's it. -reduce the waiver authority for literally everything in every reg to no higher than OG or WG level -reduce readiness reporting to once a quarter -abolish TMT -order your subordinate commanders to eliminate the every additional duty that does not directly contribute to readiness/lethality. If he ever did any of that, I'd take his memo a lot more seriously.

Makes sense

Totally checks. I only brought them up because I don't see how tanks fit into the equation. They're not asymmetric, nor are they long range standoff strikers for targets behind enemy lines like himars are.

You sure? The internet is absolutely overflowing with videos of Russian dudes in trenches getting their dicks blown off by grenade laden drones. Go to r/combatfootage right now and see what 90% of the videos on there are. I don't dispute himars has obviously played a huge role and has taken out many important targets. That's why I mentioned it. But as far as influencing public perception of how the war is going for Russia, the daily HD imagery from these things is putting the front lines into the public eye more than any other conflict in human history. That importance and sway on public opinion can't be overstated

Makes sense, I'm just wondering what Ukraine's capacity is to field and appropriately support these tanks. Russia certainly doesn't seem to be able to do it, so is the smaller and outnumbered force going to be able to? From the very non-expert armchair I'm sitting in, it seems like Ukraine's biggest successes have been through asymmetric warfare. Small commercial drones dropping grenades on entrenched Russian soldiers and the like. And some pinpoint standoff strikes on key Russian nodes with the himars we gave them. Just struggling to see where the abrams fits into this model

@nsplayr are you guys at all concerned with chatgpt asking you to verify with your cell phone # ? Seems sketchy to me especially because I already verified an email. I've been super interested in the platform for a while now but giving away my cell number to an open source AI program gives me serious heebie-jeebies

Question, because I am not smart on tanks. We've seen Russian and Ukrainian tanks repeatedly dumpstered by anti tank weapons throughout this conflict, so is there any reason to think the same won't happen to the abrams and leopards getting sent over there? Do western tanks have vastly superior countermeasures or something? Just not really seeing how a few dozen western tanks are going to last long out there or honestly make that much of a difference.

Totally off topic but I spent 9 hours writing 1206's for annual awards today for people who don't event want them. That is more hours than I have flight time in the last two months, and I am (supposedly) a CMR instructor pilot in the CAF. We are going to lose the next war.

Maybe we can get back to some basic assumptions we can all agree upon: Russia military weakened = good Russia agitated to the point they might go nuclear = bad Ukraine getting invaded against their will = bad US spending a crap ton of money on something that's kinda not our business and with no movement toward a clear end goal = probably bad Deterring Russia/China from future more consequential land grabs = good 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️ why it's almost like foreign policy involves lots of complicated trade-offs without a super clear right answer.

Absolutely Insane. And now we have 2 dem and 2 GOP fuck ups so it's basically a classified cornhole wash where no one gains or loses any points. My bet is no one gets prosecuted at all. Sad when principles are so far gone that mishandling classified only matters to politicians in so far as you can use it to bludgeon your opponents.

These goddamn clowns (hillary, trump, biden, and pence) along with all of their staffers should all be in jail as far as I'm concerned. Because that is exactly what would happen to any of us if we were found sitting on a pile of classified at home. The processes don't need to be revamped. Our political leadership needs to be revamped. The process is actually super easy. Don't take fucking classified to your house. If you can't manage that with your bloated staff of god-knows-how-many brown nosing aides you have no business running a country.

Why it's almost like the scouts get it wrong all the time.. 🤔 To me, "back-to-back national champion" is a much stronger argument than "he's kinda small." But what do I know

Exactly. Guess what, he'll likely have a great o line and receivers in the NFL too. He knows how to stand up in the pocket and deliver bombs. He picked apart teams all season with pinpoint slot passes.. which is exactly what a good NFL QB does. He also knows when to use his legs to extend plays but isn't overly reliant on qb scramble antics like the manziels, RG3s, and newtons of the world. Hence the comparison to Brees and Wilson in both size and play style. Is he a sure thing? Of course not, no one is. But my point is that raw athletic ability and "potential" leads scouts astray all the time. The ability to reliably win and lead an elite team on the biggest stages should be valued just as much if not more.

Wild to me that he's not considered a premier NFL prospect. You don't stumble your way into winning back to back national championships by being just an average quarterback surrounded by really good people. He led this team and has monster passing stats to back it up. Is he kinda short? Yeah. Same height as Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray, and an inch shorter than Drew Brees. So not really in uncharted territory here. The NFL is far too focused on physical specimens from mediocre teams who they're convinced they can re-mold into Superman.. except that doesn't work out all the time. If tonight's game taught us anything, it's that strength of schedule is very much a thing. And the guy who can perform at this level in the toughest conference and biggest stages has some serious skill.

I don't dispute legit masters degrees are important once you get to a certain level and are working on strategy/policy/doctrine type things. But we already have an IDE/SDE pipeline specifically designed to get people masters degrees and prep them for high level policy making so why the fuck do we need people to have a miscellaneous masters beforehand?? A degree mill masters doesn't do anything for anyone. It doesn't make you a better leader, tactician, or strategist. And it robs time from your primary duty and family life. But it does give the Air Force one invaluable data point. It helps big AF identify the individuals willing to jump through their ass for a better chance of promotion. And that's their favorite kind of person because they're more likely to stick around no matter how bad the treatment.

I get that from a 30,000 foot view at the end of a solid career it's easy to say "take it easy, these things go back and forth, what do you expect from a big organization." And I understand this was probably easy to predict for a 20+ year old hat. But there are people up for their majors board this year who have been under the masked policy since they were a butterbar and probably didn't even know the significance of the policy the last time it was changed in 2015. Now they have 3 days notice. Legitimate question here. The vast majority of O-5s and up, including you, have at least one masters if not more from various IDE/SDE programs. So it's clear the Air Force has ample opportunities built in for continuing education of people on the command track. So why the emphasis on getting a check the box degree beforehand? Does basket weaving from AMU improve the member or the Air Force in any way? The masters time suck pulls valuable time from CGOs who should be reaching their peak tactical proficiency level in their careers. So if the Air Force will get them a masters later anyway, what's the point? *this question assumes tactical proficiency is something to be valued.

You know what would be even better timing? Working for a healthy organization that didn't constantly flip flop on decisions and undermine its people.

God forbid people spend their time focused on tactical proficiency. It's sad because I joined the Air Force because the patriotism, camaraderie, and mission resonated with me. The longer I stay in the more the Air Force pulls me away from those things. FWIW, this masters policy affects me zero percent. I have a masters, made major last year and have no plans to stick around 1 second past my 10 year adsc. But it's the latest in a litany of tone deaf policies that have nothing to do with winning the war that we look increasingly likely to lose, while also leaving a sour taste in everyone's mouth. The HAF level leadership has been so bad for the last 5-10 years that if I wasn't an ardent subscriber of Occam's razor, I'd suspect sabotage.

What if I told you throwing up our hands and just saying the USAF "is fickle" is precisely the kind of leadership that got us in a huge retention problem in the first place. We're all well aware AF policy swings back and forth like a pendulum, but it doesn't have to be that way. I'm glad you can put up with it and had what sounds like a really solid career. But I (and the vast majority of my year group) don't plan on sticking around long enough to find out how many useless masters the Air Force will give us after for some reason requiring you already have one.

Could they have rolled this out gradually, with a year or two notice? Of course they could have. But no. Happy new year, get fucked, policy effective in 3 days.

If republicans were coordinated, or proactive, or serious in any way about winning an election ever again.. this would be the moment to strongly distance from trump.