Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[Clark Griswold]

On the Russians and the way they fight and endure… worth the time 

https://www.hoover.org/research/crusade-against-ukraine-eurasias-last-medieval-power-war

[arg]

6 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

disagree. we are amazing at it with a proven track record.

when we fight american versions of "war" we aren't good at it.

 

take the gloves off, remove concerns about ROE and collateral...watch out.

 

Yep, too bad we haven't been able to take the gloves off since WWII, maybe Korea? 

[BashiChuni]

8 hours ago, arg said:

Yep, too bad we haven't been able to take the gloves off since WWII, maybe Korea? 

which should make us wonder why we are choosing to fight limited wars. i personally don't believe in limited warfare. human history supports total war. if we aren't willing to commit to total warfare we shouldn't fight at all.

[ClearedHot]

3 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

which should make us wonder why we are choosing to fight limited wars. i personally don't believe in limited warfare. human history supports total war. if we aren't willing to commit to total warfare we shouldn't fight at all.

Bro....you have heard of nuclear weapons?

[BashiChuni]

obvious caveat that i'm excluding nukes here. conventional total war.

[raimius]

1 hour ago, BashiChuni said:

obvious caveat that i'm excluding nukes here. conventional total war.

Pretty tough to have a conventional total war in the nuclear age...

Unless the losing side is non-nuclear.  (i.e. why Kim made sure NK got nukes)

[Clark Griswold]

which should make us wonder why we are choosing to fight limited wars. i personally don't believe in limited warfare. human history supports total war. if we aren't willing to commit to total warfare we shouldn't fight at all.

IDK, do we choose or do we have to as the for now global leader trying to sustain an aspirational fairly decent global system or are we told we have to by apathetic leaders, neocons, globalists and naïve utopians?

My two cents it’s both in varying degrees per case, the other systems and their players will keep trying to shape the world even if we lose interest in it so we have to keep playing, how is the question(s)?

Draft, war bonds, congressional oversight, legal requirements for military mission strategic objectives stated publicly with ways, means specified, etc….

Not holding my breath


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[Lawman]

disagree. we are amazing at it with a proven track record.
when we fight american versions of "war" we aren't good at it.
 
take the gloves off, remove concerns about ROE and collateral...watch out.
 

You’re confusing our track record of expressing combat power at distance to our own will, not at fighting a war. Go read a history book focused on the first series of months/year of any of those “take the gloves off” wars. I’d suggest Dr Shawn Faulkners lecture on WWI 1917, or when it comes out Jon Parshall’s book on 1942. WWI was us buying a place at the peace table through sacrifice. WWII was literally us letting the other team score for the entirety of the first half with little to show for it while we got our feet under us and learned the vital lessons that led to all those 1944 victories. If you don’t think we will do a lot of that in the next one I’ve got news for you. We have a hard enough time getting commanders to actively digest the lessons learned in Ukraine without playing the “well we’ve always done it this way,” card.

Does anybody honestly believe we could in an era of social media and instant access survive something akin to 1942. One battle of Savo Island or those first years of B17 raids worth of casualties. Do you think likewise we could just carpet bomb a city to attack a port or bomb to rubble a co-use airport. What do you think our societal demand for leadership heads or stopping the war would be? Would it be more distracting to a political class seeking only to remain in leadership than say actively prosecuting a war?

We haven’t had a no holds barred full gloves off war because we haven’t had an existential crises for our own survival to accompany it. Even with one by 1945 Americans were largely over the war, and Japan was seeking that for a negotiated peace to drag it to 46. It’s one of the reasons the Navy wasn’t allowed to seek their preferred option of blockade and starve. Even in modern coin it’s bred into us to maximize the CDE discussion to applying force. Anybody that wants to see that contrast go watch a Ranger Raid and then compare it to a raid run by the SAS or Grom. One group is executing call outs, the other is “knocking” with a Gustav.


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[brabus]

Meh, seen many raids where we “knocked with a Gustav.” You’re not wrong that we’ve been generally CDE/ROE driven to retarded lengths, but we absolutely are willing to do things that throw all that out the window. When it’s important enough to us, or shit hits the fan bad enough, we will do whatever it takes to win (while maintaining our humanity).

[Lawman]

Meh, seen many raids where we “knocked with a Gustav.” You’re not wrong that we’ve been generally CDE/ROE driven to retarded lengths, but we absolutely are willing to do things that throw all that out the window. When it’s important enough to us, or shit hits the fan bad enough, we will do whatever it takes to win (while maintaining our humanity).

When in any current conflict have you seen us go to the “kill them this is war” mentality compared relatively to other countries attitudes.

We get into a nasty fight in Wardak or TK and we have a gunship dropping 40mm for demonstration against a mountain side, or we clear hourly rocket runs by the Apaches against some obscure block of yellow terrain amongst an area of interest. If we were for example the Russians we’d have been throwing that ordnance in the 200 series because we didn’t care. There’s an article a few posts up explaining that the RussianUkraine thing is carrying not just a war for territory but a war for extermination flavor. When did that concept ever really play in our mindset. I was over Raqqa when we literally didn’t give a crap and even that was reserved compared to watching what the Russians were doing with TOS-1 in Aleppo. Look at Mariupol and the doctrinal concept of “annihilation fires.” We stopped doing anything like that in August of 1945.

Could we get there, maybe. But as I said it would take a reality of pain inflicted in our own home territory that we would just as likely have people sue for peace and we definitely wouldn’t feel that compulsion to act if it was just “people over there.” Lose Rose Barracks in Germany and you’ll get a lot of rhetoric, but what action is a real question. That’s part of the reason some of us are so insistent that Ukraine needs to win or at the very least neutralize to parity/exhaustion this war with Russia. Eliminate the opportunity to dither in the face of aggression when actually met with it because it doesn’t get to us.


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[brabus]

9 hours ago, Lawman said:

When in any current conflict have you seen us go to the “kill them this is war” mentality compared relatively to other countries attitudes

Several times. I’m not saying we go to Russian levels of Geneva convention violations or sub-human evilness of ISIS. In my opinion, neither of those are required to be considered “all in” for winning war. I’ve also seen plenty of terrain denial and other stupid shit, so I get the frustration.

[ecugringo]

4 hours ago, brabus said:

Several times. I’m not saying we go to Russian levels of Geneva convention violations or sub-human evilness of ISIS. In my opinion, neither of those are required to be considered “all in” for winning war. I’ve also seen plenty of terrain denial and other stupid shit, so I get the frustration.

Persian gulf….highway of death…..destroying a retreating army.  Have we gone to that level since?

[brabus]

Poor comparison - we haven’t fought a mostly conventional war vs. a mostly uniformed, state-sponsored military in the 21st century. But still, seen plenty of comparative violence levied on our enemies. I get the frustration guys, but maybe throttle back on the emotion and apply more logic founded on knowledge of capabilities and the warfighters who employ them. I have plenty of real world experience to support the fact we absolutely do “push people’s shit in” when desired. Should we do that more often, yes, but to say we don’t ever do it or lack the capacity to do it now is false. And if you’ve never been a part of it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

[Biff_T]

I remember there being a lot of targets being destroyed during the first few weeks of OIF.  We seemed to be fighting and killing like a proper war machine.  I dont know what the whack a mole deployments were like.  But during the first few weeks of OIF, we were very effective with air power.  

I have a bud who was on the ground for a few deployments in Iraq. A few people in his unit cut off the heads of the enemy and left death cards in the necks.  

We have the capability to be pretty gnarly as American war fighters, our leaderhip at the Civilian level wont let that happen on a massive scale like the Russians will.   

If we get attacked on American soil, we will either fight together or we will have a civil war. That's what really bothers me.  

Edited October 8, 2023 by Biff_T
Spelling bee failure

[Lawman]

Poor comparison - we haven’t fought a mostly conventional war vs. a mostly uniformed, state-sponsored military in the 21st century. But still, seen plenty of comparative violence levied on our enemies. I get the frustration guys, but maybe throttle back on the emotion and apply more logic founded on knowledge of capabilities and the warfighters who employ them. I have plenty of real world experience to support the fact we absolutely do “push people’s shit in” when desired. Should we do that more often, yes, but to say we don’t ever do it or lack the capacity to do it now is false. And if you’ve never been a part of it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Again.

Taking a precision guided munition or putting 105 on it to knock down a building with a S-head who is literally incapable of effecting anything outaide AK range is not unleashing the original implication of “taking the gloves off” or “pushing shit in” to use your parlance. That’s playing whack-a-mole from a position of impunity.

Tabqa damn or when it got Mosul/Raqqa was considered the most recent “Wild West” for US Forces. Compare us taking a week to stop and examine whether or not we killed civilians that ISIS herded into the building and deliberately baited air strike to or just how long we made the Iraqis wait before we finally struck the hospital in Old Mosul. Now look at Mariupol or Bakhmut and compare. And that’s still a misunderstanding of what is being asked for, total unbridled war.

Total war as being opined about is to acknowledge that every portion of a societal infrastructure and the people participating in it are part of the apparatus to make war. See the Russians targeting the grain supply or the power grid on Ukraine. Or us bombing the ball bearings, steal production, fuel refining capacity, and most of all the people that build the weapons in WWII. Even in 91 or 03 that wasn’t the kind of targeting we adopted. We were attacking their immediate capacity to engage tactically or inflict casualties on our immediate forces. Mentioned earlier the “highway of death” was probably a great example of actually adopting the annihilation of your enemies war-making capacity, and what did we do once cameras were on it, we turned it off.

And if you want to make this a dick measuring contest and compare deployments and “what you’ve been part of” I can very readily play. I doubt you’re going to find my perspective on the matter limited. Even still, being amazed at the killing power effectiveness of our weaponry in some individual battle is not a measure for seeing the US war making apparatus truly unchained to fight a war to a decisive definable victory. We’re talking about adopting a line of thinking inline with Lemay’s era and carrying that out. Tell me that guy could even exist in the current environment much less be types in charge when the bell goes off.


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[Lord Ratner]

Yeah, I kind of agree with lawman on this one, we have certainly unchained our fighting forces to destroy a specific enemy, but that enemy is not a nation. It's a military target

 

It would be fascinating to see how it plays out if we did. Imagine targeting every power production facility in every major city of a developed enemy nation. Or targeting the waste water treatment plants, which there aren't many and they're not hardened. Then just wait to see what a metro area of millions looks like with no functional sewage system. I bet there are tons of horrifying options that are easily targeted. 

 

[brabus]

4 hours ago, Lawman said:

Taking a precision guided munition or putting 105 on it to knock down a building with a S-head who is literally incapable of effecting anything outaide AK range

Not remotely what I am referring to. But cool dude, you seem to be really interested in a dick measuring contest. Have fun with that. I’m only here to say America is capable of doing what needs to be done, the only question is what does our current crop of leadership decide to do. I do not concur with implications that we’re not capable, that’s all I’m saying.

[Biff_T]

13 hours ago, brabus said:

America is capable of doing what needs to be done, the only question is what does our current crop of leadership decide to do

This.  We have a very capable military (no shit Biff), our leaders dont know how to use it or dont have the nuts to accept the responsibility of sending a country into total war.  Our current batch of US citizens would be tired of a real war in a week.   They have no idea what total war looks like because they don't read history.  

My grandfather bombed factories and neighborhoods full of German civilians in WWII.  They wanted to destroy the will of the Germans as a whole (not just the military) to fight as a nation.  Killing indiscriminately to bend your enemy's knee with the backing of your country's civilian population. Total war.  

Edited October 9, 2023 by Biff_T

[HeloDude]

If the House GOP is smart (usually they’re not) they’ll pass a bill (once they have a Speaker lol) that gives Ukraine some more funding, along with a lot of Israel funding to go directly towards wiping out Hamas, etc…oh and way more funding for our own border protection.  I’m not saying all the Dems will vote against it, but it definitely won’t be anything close to unanimous.  They should call it the “in defense of democracy bill” or something cheesy like that lol.

[Lawman]

If the House GOP is smart (usually they’re not) they’ll pass a bill (once they have a Speaker lol) that gives Ukraine some more funding, along with a lot of Israel funding to go directly towards wiping out Hamas, etc…oh and way more funding for our own border protection.  I’m not saying all the Dems will vote against it, but it definitely won’t be anything close to unanimous.  They should call it the “in defense of democracy bill” or something cheesy like that lol.

I as gonna say my dream scenario is immediate floor vote on putting McCarthy back in as speaker. Force the Dems to go on record with what’s more important, immediate house normalcy or an alliance with Gaetz. As soon as that is done, bring the Ukraine bill to the floor with provisions to funding Israel.

We get some form of bipartisan normalcy back. The Dems get to show Gaetz he isn’t in charge of crap. And if we are really lucky the likes of Omar or Tlaib resign in protest or at least say something they can’t take back on record.


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[gearhog]

On 10/9/2023 at 3:34 PM, HeloDude said:

If the House GOP is smart (usually they’re not) they’ll pass a bill (once they have a Speaker lol) that gives Ukraine some more funding, along with a lot of Israel funding to go directly towards wiping out Hamas, etc…oh and way more funding for our own border protection.  I’m not saying all the Dems will vote against it, but it definitely won’t be anything close to unanimous.  They should call it the “in defense of democracy bill” or something cheesy like that lol.

Washington Post: White House considers attaching Ukraine funding to Israel aid package

Olena Goncharova

Mon, October 9, 2023 at 8:08 PM EDT·1 min read

The White House is considering a strategy to bundle Ukraine funding with a forthcoming request for urgent aid to Israel, people familiar with the discussions told the Washington Post. This approach aims to enhance the likelihood of Congress approving assistance for Ukraine, despite facing growing opposition from House Republicans.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by gearhog

[bfargin]

2 hours ago, gearhog said:

“…The White House is considering a strategy to bundle Ukraine funding with … aid to Israel…”

 

I’m shocked they would try something so underhanded. 

[Biff_T]

3 hours ago, gearhog said:

Washington Post: White House considers attaching Ukraine funding to Israel aid package

Olena Goncharova

Mon, October 9, 2023 at 8:08 PM EDT·1 min read

The White House is considering a strategy to bundle Ukraine funding with a forthcoming request for urgent aid to Israel, people familiar with the discussions told the Washington Post. This approach aims to enhance the likelihood of Congress approving assistance for Ukraine, despite facing growing opposition from House Republicans.

 

 

At what point do we just call this WWIII?  

[BashiChuni]

3 hours ago, gearhog said:

Washington Post: White House considers attaching Ukraine funding to Israel aid package

Olena Goncharova

Mon, October 9, 2023 at 8:08 PM EDT·1 min read

The White House is considering a strategy to bundle Ukraine funding with a forthcoming request for urgent aid to Israel, people familiar with the discussions told the Washington Post. This approach aims to enhance the likelihood of Congress approving assistance for Ukraine, despite facing growing opposition from House Republicans.

 

 

fucking crooks

[gearhog]

I have been arguing this shit was going to be a miserable failure. Wasted money. Wasted lives. Now we’re walking away. 
 

Hopefully some of you will finally come to the realization we don’t know WTF we are doing.

https://x.com/warclandestine/status/1712223627259609419?s=46