End of Spangdahlem

[nsplayr]

14 hours ago, FLEA said:

Nsplayr, I hear what your saying man and consent that there is a degree of immeasurable "political" favor we get from NATO partners via our commitment, like the fact that they buy our weapons, however, those favors have been waning. 

Bush's article 5 use was controversial but was a last ditch attempt to save the purpose of the alliance in a post cold war era by redefining it as an international force to combat terrorism in the 21st century. Sounded like some awesome rainbow six shit until reality kicked in and we realised we can't even all define who a terrorist is.

Let's also look at some of the shortcomings of NATO. Another lesson from the WW's, one more persistent than those we learned in WW2, is that webs of alliances can quickly accelerate a regional conflict to a global conflict. Now as long as NATO maintains a unified purpose we are all CAVOK, but what happen when Greece and Turkey start shooting at each other and one of them declares article 5 first? This is why bringing on more member states was a huge mistake. It made the ability to nail down a singular purpose near impossible. How do you get 30 states to agree on who the bad guy is? 

Some valid points here although Greece and Turkey have both been members since 1952 so we seem to have that mostly figured out although craniums up w/ Erdogan as the new Sultan-for-life. In general I still strongly believe that alliances make us stronger; even accounting for when we have some back-stabbing allies like Saudi or Turkey that at times pursue agendas or allow problems to fester that are supremely unhelpful to our goals. 

I agree that NATO needed a new purpose after the Cold War ended, but I would argue that Russia is fully back as a major threat to western liberal democracy in terms of ideological and global power competition, and China is an even bigger competitor in that space. Frankly the US could use a better unified NATO, including all the periphery states in eastern and Southern Europe, to join with us and stand against non-democratic, non- or state/crony-capitalist, anti-human rights regimes that are out there actively wielding both hard and soft power across the globe. If you like voting and freedoms and individual rights, a strong US-led alliance like NATO should be the champion of that world-view.

Sounds like a great purpose to me and the U.S. can achieve better results at driving the alliance toward that with cooperative leadership rather than poke-em-in-the-eye transactional squabbling and “America First.”

Edited August 7, 2020 by nsplayr

[elvis]

With the Biden administration freezing Trump's order, think spang is back on the menu for the Viper?

[Lawman]

Really you can pull the whole army out at a minimum. The general US doctrine anymore requires Airpower to hold the line until the Army can be ready for phase 3 ops. "If" air superiority is achieved, AF can hold the line indefinitely while logisticians figure the Army out. 
Your JOPESters can tell you to the day every day you will recieve new assets in theater by priority. 

This was dangerously shortsighted thinking in 1930, and its even more so now.

“AirPower to hold the line” is a bad leftover tenant of a military that enjoyed absolute superiority in the ability to locate, fix, target, and prosecute the enemies limited ability for long range fires (IE Desert Storm). What few get through, well that’s what PAC3 and Thaad are for....

The Russians have the ability to reach beyond anything and saturate in greater amount compared to our 1990s mindset of hold the line and build forces. Today when the balloon goes up the fight will entirely be determined by what cards you have in your hand to play at the moment of play, and what you can keep alive after the first day of fires and massed cyber/space massed effects. Simply put you are no longer safe at distance with the security and you are to immobile to protect. What is far enough back is simply too inadequate in square footage of ramp space to generate what will be needed to take it back once lost.


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[ClearedHot]

3 minutes ago, Lawman said:

This was dangerously shortsighted thinking in 1930, and its even more so now.

“AirPower to hold the line” is a bad leftover tenant of a military that enjoyed absolute superiority in the ability to locate, fix, target, and prosecute the enemies limited ability for long range fires (IE Desert Storm). What few get through, well that’s what PAC3 and Thaad are for....

The Russians have the ability to reach beyond anything and saturate in greater amount compared to our 1990s mindset of hold the line and build forces. Today when the balloon goes up the fight will entirely be determined by what cards you have in your hand to play at the moment of play, and what you can keep alive after the first day of fires and massed cyber/space massed effects. Simply put you are no longer safe at distance with the security and you are to immobile to protect. What is far enough back is simply too inadequate in square footage of ramp space to generate what will be needed to take it back once lost.


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"Quantity has its own quality"

[17D_guy]

37 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

"Quantity has its own quality"

<200 F22's...and the Russians got us beat at quantity.

[Lawman]

Russia is not trying to get a taste of the US, especially after what happened in Syria. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/american-commandos-russian-mercenaries-syria.html
That's beside the point, but most Russians don't want war just like most of the EU and Americans. 

Wow, we caught a bunch of unsupported throw away contractors out in the open rolling in tactical column with an AC-130 overhead...

Go look at the denied area capes in the 130J, it’s an absolute analogy at our wholesale investment in 99 cents of every dollar to fight the coin fight while pretending we are ready to take on the other peers out there.

No you are right in that Russia doesn’t want a conflict that will solidify China as the global super power that didn’t piss it all away when it’s over, but for the love of Christ can we as a nation stop viewing Russia through the same 1990s Vodka swilling “Da Comrade” tropes and understand they actually can hurt us.


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[Lawman]

They actually need operational equipment and a budget to fix their toys. 
Tell them to launch their TU-160s and see how that works out. Let's not even talk about their naval carrier that spews black smoke.
I speak with factual knowledge. Let's not even bring up their idiocracy at Chernobyl. They're more likely to hurt themselves and take everyone else down with them.

Because our intel people weren’t completely awestruck at their ability to deploy to Syria the way they did at the time...

Because they haven’t been using Syria as a proving ground to rotate their professional contract officer and NCO corps through to build capabilities...

Because they don’t leverage more EW capability than we have face in the last 3 decades within each individual Brigade element just look at some of the timed intentional displays of GPS and VHF harassment going on in Syria...


We had a hard enough time cracking the egg on where you can and cannot go in Syria and they’d spent a decade having a civil war at the time. Don’t sit here and pretend Belarus is just gonna be another demo on the awesome shock and awe of Air Power. They don’t need to sortie TU-160s to F up Sprang//Aviano/etc. If the Iran question creates the problems it does (some of you are probably familiar by now) what do you think squaring off with the Russians does, because I don’t think for a second any of our NATO allies or us for that matter are willing to suffer some of the annihilated battalion here, bombed out airbase over here casualty reports they are likely to generate.

This isn’t about whether we can do cool stuff and blow stuff up, this has to do with having way more to lose than them and a far higher threshold for anything resembling “victory” on the back end of a conflict. They the Russians truly believe they are responding at this point to our aggression. That already absolves a lot of first strike jitters. If the Russians lose a few divisions achieving their goal of breaking the spine of a half dozen western powers and putting us into a reset of half century isolationism/fear of conflict, they absolutely win.


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[jazzdude]

The hard part about fighting Russia (or China for that matter) is that we assume they will fight is the way we like to fight.

Our strength comes from tactical prowess, with a heavy emphasis on technologically advanced weapons. But those are expensive, and highly skilled tactical units are expensive to train and retain, meaning we can afford fewer units. This means we can be in fewer places at once, and any loss will have a disproportionately bigger impact.

Sure, maybe the Russians don't have the best equipment, or the best tactical level units. But like Lawman said, operationally, they are very responsive. So they are playing to their strengths. Plus their investment in EW and Cyber seems to be paying dividends at their operational and strategic levels of fighting. So they seem to be able to achieve effects in Syria for much less cost than what we're investing.

It seems like a lesson we are too stubborn or proud to learn since WW2: our enemy may not fight the way we fight, or think the way we think, and we have to adjust our strategy to counter their way of fighting/thinking.

[ThreeHoler]

I was a SIGINT Analyst at the NSA and at Osan before becoming a pilot. You're ranting about topics you don't fully understand. 
There are somethings we let happen because we don't want to show our hand. 

Keep talking about things that if you really were in those jobs you wouldn’t be talking about them. Tell us more!

[FLEA]

8 hours ago, Lawman said:

This was dangerously shortsighted thinking in 1930, and its even more so now.

“AirPower to hold the line” is a bad leftover tenant of a military that enjoyed absolute superiority in the ability to locate, fix, target, and prosecute the enemies limited ability for long range fires (IE Desert Storm). What few get through, well that’s what PAC3 and Thaad are for....

The Russians have the ability to reach beyond anything and saturate in greater amount compared to our 1990s mindset of hold the line and build forces. Today when the balloon goes up the fight will entirely be determined by what cards you have in your hand to play at the moment of play, and what you can keep alive after the first day of fires and massed cyber/space massed effects. Simply put you are no longer safe at distance with the security and you are to immobile to protect. What is far enough back is simply too inadequate in square footage of ramp space to generate what will be needed to take it back once lost.


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I don't really care what they thought or didn't think in the 1930s man, that was like 100 years ago haha. They didn't have cluster munitions or land mines back then either. We also dont have any plans to defend territory in Europe. Our plans are built around regaining territory because the areas Russia is interested in are indefensible by NATO. RAND wrote a pretty good paper on it. I'll see if I can find it. 

[ClearedHot]

11 hours ago, 17D_guy said:

<200 F22's...and the Russians got us beat at quantity.

Ummm...copy, Sarcasm detector inop?  That quote is often falsely attributed to Stalin and how he would fight America during the Cold War.

[chase]

5 hours ago, MyCS said:

You mean like the dude on this forum talking about what happened to his GPS and VHF systems. Brilliant to mention that here of all places.

Do you even know what a SIGINT Analyst does? Has nothing to do with any topic that was discussed. That's what happens when you assume...

Keep talking.

Enlighten us.

[Lawman]

I don't really care what they thought or didn't think in the 1930s man, that was like 100 years ago haha. They didn't have cluster munitions or land mines back then either. We also dont have any plans to defend territory in Europe. Our plans are built around regaining territory because the areas Russia is interested in are indefensible by NATO. RAND wrote a pretty good paper on it. I'll see if I can find it. 

It’s funny you mention land mines and cluster munitions in a discussion about defending an area where most are signatories of treaties to use neither, but that’s a whole other threat worth of discussion. (For the record I find them going that way incredibly stupid).

I’ve seen the Rand a few other groups pushing the general theory you’re talking about, and there is a huge flaw to this tactic. Having forward forces you can’t just immediately evacuate in sufficient number not only demonstrates commitment to allies, it forces that commitment if the balloon goes up. Fulda was the trip wire in the old game, the game is on when it’s crossed and everybody knows what they are doing or start learning the lyrics to Гимн СССР.

We don’t get that in the hang back at a distance, deterrence on the back side of conflict strategy. We demonstrated that twice already. It allows too much time to “consider all options” which is code for talk ourselves out of backing up deterrence with the commitment to force of arms that makes those agreements worth anything. You’ll see the media give justification like we did with “well actually many in Crimea want to be Russian due to ethnic ties,” we will get the give peace a chance crowd screaming why should we die for Estonia, and oh yeah expect a massive IO campaign from the Russians to defeat our resolve to respond. Having forces forward immediately committed force action because the other option is leaving the thousands of your own citizens fighting out to dry while you dither and think of a “proportionate resolve.”


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[17D_guy]

15 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Ummm...copy, Sarcasm detector inop?  That quote is often falsely attributed to Stalin and how he would fight America during the Cold War.

Was trying to do an alley-oop, failed. Noted, will attempt again later after better planning.

[ClearedHot]

8 hours ago, 17D_guy said:

Was trying to do an alley-oop, failed. Noted, will attempt again later after better planning.

WIC debreif complete.

[M2]

10 hours ago, 17D_guy said:

Was trying to do an alley-oop, failed. Noted, will attempt again later after better planning.

[Prozac]

23 hours ago, Lawman said:

we will get the give peace a chance crowd screaming why should we die for Estonia,


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[SocialD]

Having spent a few months in Tallinn, Estonia, I can attest to the above post!  Just be carful not to catch the High-Five! 

[Clark Griswold]

WOR article supporting overseas basing (continued) 

https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/why-overseas-military-bases-continue-to-make-sense-for-the-united-states/

For it in the right places and for the right reasons / threats but elsewhere (ahem Germany) not so much.

Referencing @jazzdudeand @Lawman points and just a rhetorical question - how do you fight an opponent(s) that knows you are averse to any taking any significant casualties (for many valid reasons), are dependent on information superiority and have multiple elements in your society that can be exploited to confuse, dissuade and degrade political and national will to fight?

[jazzdude]

WOR article supporting overseas basing (continued) 
https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/why-overseas-military-bases-continue-to-make-sense-for-the-united-states/
For it in the right places and for the right reasons / threats but elsewhere (ahem Germany) not so much.
Referencing [mention=269]jazzdude[/mention]and [mention=2836]Lawman[/mention] points and just a rhetorical question - how do you fight an opponent(s) that knows you are averse to any taking any significant casualties (for many valid reasons), are dependent on information superiority and have multiple elements in your society that can be exploited to confuse, dissuade and degrade political and national will to fight?

It's death by a thousand paper cuts. So long as China or Russia doesn't do anything egregious that directly impacts the US, they can move slowly towards their end goals.

Just like Germany did just prior to WW2 before they invaded Poland. Even then, we didn't get involved in directly WW2 until after Pearl Harbor.

We don't have a strong response to them because we don't have the national will to do so, which stems from how our society is set up. Loose vs tight cultures is an interesting theory that can explain some of our struggles. Loose cultures tend to accept or tolerate more deviations from social norms. The benefit of this is it fosters and accelerates creativity and invention (leading to economic and standard of life improvements), but the downside is it makes it harder to recognize and unite against threats to that society. (This is also IMHO one of the underlying/fundamental conflicts between conservatism and liberalism within US politics)

As crappy as this is going to sound: in addition to forward capability and rapid initial responses, forward bases/troops provide justification for US involvement if they are attacked, or worse, lost. For example, I don't think we'd really do anything militarily if China invaded Taiwan (aside from upping posture within PACOM), except strongly protest the action in media and at the UN, and economic sanctions. However, if there was a USN vessel sunk in the crossfire, it'd likely be used as a rallying point for direct military intervention (ala Gulf of Tonkin).

[Clark Griswold]

1 hour ago, jazzdude said:

It's death by a thousand paper cuts. So long as China or Russia doesn't do anything egregious that directly impacts the US, they can move slowly towards their end goals.

Just like Germany did just prior to WW2 before they invaded Poland. Even then, we didn't get involved in directly WW2 until after Pearl Harbor.

We don't have a strong response to them because we don't have the national will to do so, which stems from how our society is set up. Loose vs tight cultures is an interesting theory that can explain some of our struggles. Loose cultures tend to accept or tolerate more deviations from social norms. The benefit of this is it fosters and accelerates creativity and invention (leading to economic and standard of life improvements), but the downside is it makes it harder to recognize and unite against threats to that society. (This is also IMHO one of the underlying/fundamental conflicts between conservatism and liberalism within US politics)

As crappy as this is going to sound: in addition to forward capability and rapid initial responses, forward bases/troops provide justification for US involvement if they are attacked, or worse, lost. For example, I don't think we'd really do anything militarily if China invaded Taiwan (aside from upping posture within PACOM), except strongly protest the action in media and at the UN, and economic sanctions. However, if there was a USN vessel sunk in the crossfire, it'd likely be used as a rallying point for direct military intervention (ala Gulf of Tonkin).

Yeah, we want a straight stand up fight where the enemy shows up to be heroically mowed down and beaten in one cataclysmic battle with no moral question of who is right / wrong, it is over and done quickly and the vanquished are thankful to us and it all works out better. 

0.00000001% chance of that happening in conflicts we will be involved in the future.

Concur on the likely necessity of human casualties to actually spur the US to respond militarily to Russian / Chinese physical aggression.

Had not heard of loose vs tight cultures, always thought of it as open vs closed societies but that is another good way of describing us vs. them.  Open / Loose had better figure out that standing up for themselves and being confident i their inherent worth, right to exist and I would say superiority to the closed authoritarian systems or they will dither / self-flatulate themselves away. 

[Lawman]

Yeah, we want a straight stand up fight where the enemy shows up to be heroically mowed down and beaten in one cataclysmic battle with no moral question of who is right / wrong, it is over and done quickly and the vanquished are thankful to us and it all works out better. 
0.00000001% chance of that happening in conflicts we will be involved in the future.
Concur on the likely necessity of human casualties to actually spur the US to respond militarily to Russian / Chinese physical aggression.
Had not heard of loose vs tight cultures, always thought of it as open vs closed societies but that is another good way of describing us vs. them.  Open / Loose had better figure out that standing up for themselves and being confident i their inherent worth, right to exist and I would say superiority to the closed authoritarian systems or they will dither / self-flatulate themselves away. 

I’m with Jazzman on this.

Without a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 type event to galvanize resolve the likelihood of us engaging in conflict is moot at best. Even more important is to remember while those events were the big ticket casualty moments that pushed us to act they were not alone in being attacks on our nation. We had already had ships fired on and sunk in WWII before Pearl Harbor, and the isolationist “not our problem” voices were successful in seeing those events were ignored. Similarly AQ was totally inflicting attacks on us before 9/11 and we weren’t doing much to anything about it. Again, not until GW Bush got on a megaphone in a pile or rubble in our backyard did Americans care enough to mobilize their efforts.

Americans will absolutely send thoughts and prayers to a conflict that they see from a distance. They don’t get that option if 2ACR is suddenly very much in a fight for its life after blowing out to defend against a Russian backed incursion.


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[jazzdude]

Had not heard of loose vs tight cultures, always thought of it as open vs closed societies but that is another good way of describing us vs. them.  Open / Loose had better figure out that standing up for themselves and being confident i their inherent worth, right to exist and I would say superiority to the closed authoritarian systems or they will dither / self-flatulate themselves away. 

Loose/open vs tight/closed cultures goes the other way than what you're thinking. You could have a strong sense of self worth and be in a tight culture/closed society; those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Here's a couple pretty decent articles on it:
https://behavioralscientist.org/tight-and-loose-cultures-a-conversation-with-michele-gelfand/
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/loose-vs-tight-societies

A tight cultures tends to resist change. It has stronger ("tighter") social norms that it holds to be important, and punished those who break those rules. Life's good if you buy into the cultural norms, but sucks if you have different views, even if they are logical or could be justified. The benefit though is you have a strong social connection and baseline, so it's very easy to identify threats to your culture and respond to those threats quickly (the society already has buy in to respond, whether it's tacit or overt approval). Some examples of tight cultures would be Pakistan, China, and Japan.

A loose culture tends to tolerate or accept change. It has weaker ("looser") social norms, and it's more tolerant of social rules being broken. So generally, the culture is more accepting of outside ideas. Great for creativity, invention, and innovation. But since there's less consensus on right and wrong, it makes it very hard for that society to identify threats to the society. Examples of loose cultures include the US, Australia, and NZ.

That's not to say one is "better" than the other, but there's trades that are made within a society. Think of it as multiple sliding scales on different issues.

Plus, open societies/loose cultures can respond to threats quickly. For example, US response to 9/11 was pretty much instantly unifying with a fairly rapid response.