The military is a wonderful option for any young man who wishes to become a woman and serve under generals who will give our enemies advanced notice in case of a surprise attack.
If I were America's strategic rival- one of them, anyway- and I wanted to make sure her military was sufficiently hamstrung that the smart people remaining in the command echelon wouldn't pick a losing battle with me, and let me basically do what I wanted short of directly invading her sovereign territory- I'd probably do my best to infect the rising generation of soldiers with woke.
Gosh that's just exactly the sort of move a very old and cunning rival state would make, say, one with a thousand year history of advanced treachery and psy-war, maybe one that never bought into the whole Western idea of lawful and limited warfare...
He used slightly different words but I remember Paul Harvey commenting on how the United States could be defeated without firing a shot, and the general ideas were very similar.
On top of having done their level best to alienate both the serving military and their largest recruiting pools by haranguing them for years about how they're all vile, hate-spewing transphobic racists, following it up by forcing poison into their veins, and botching the withdrawal from a pointless war that swallowed the lives of thousands of soldiers over the last two decades, they've also done everything in their power to lower training standards to ensure that women can make the grade in combat arms.
Then there's procurement, where research budgets have been squandered on absurdly expensive weapon systems (looking at you, F-35) that don't function properly except insofar as the function is to pad the bottom lines of defense contractors ... and even if they did work as advertised, are likely to be useless in an actual great power war.
So morale is garbage, the technological edge is mostly lost, training standards are shit, and the quality of the recruits is even more shit.
No sane superpower would go to war with another great power with its military in such a condition, which is why our "leaders" will probably drag us into WWIII.
Thanks. This helps me understand why it feels wrong when people argue the military “owns me” and I have no place to say no to a potentially dangerous vaccine.
Not that long ago it was said the only time when teenagers with machine guns showed up in town and it wasn't a disaster was when they were under the American Flag.
Russian military doctrine does not place value on inividual soldiers, this is due to having reserves and a mentality that the individual only exists as a number to be counted. Therefore, losing 25:1 the number of casualties while being horribly expensive is not seen as a net loss if the goals are attained.
And since russian military goals define victory not just as "mission accomplished" as does the US and UK militaries (and their derivatives) but as "enemy destroyed", the number of dead opponents and civilians doesn't matter either - rather the opposite. The more death and destruction, the greater the victory. Which is truth, really, however horrible - destroy the enemy, kill hm wherever you find him, and grind his land into dust and he has no choice than but to obey. Saving infrastructure is no point in itself, it can be rebuilt cheaply using the conquered as serfs.
And if you think Russia ruthless (or realist) go read up on chinese tactics during the Korean War. A family mmber who is life-long career military summed it up callously as "We have more people than you have ammunition. We won."
Remember, the US may have lost only some 50 000 in Vietnam, and still lost despite the vietnamese losing millions. Now look at World War 2 and compare the losses sustained by Germany vs the Soviet Union, and compare with what little shred of the Wehrmacht the US fough and whatit still cost.
That's the problem with your assessment of the US military moral structure: you have never, ever, fought an enemy that was an actual threat to you, requiring you to spend lives for real: you have never faced an enemy seeking your utter destruction. This is not due to fault of yours and the world would be better for it if no one ever foguht wars of extermination (all wars are wars of that), but it shows in every conflict from Korea on: the US is great at winning battles and performing operations, but it consistently loses wars, because the cost of war is unacceptable to the populace and political leaders of your nation, which would be a good thing if you stopped going to war allover the place without a second thought as to what comes after - you are much too liberal no matter how conservative you think yourselves: either pulp the enemy to dust, brush it off an go home, or roll in and occupy proclaiming the land US territory.
Look at Irak, Afghanistan and Jugoslavia: you came, you blasted the living daylights out of things from afar, you took a handful of casualties, you got bogged down in nation building and then you went home leaving the mess for others to clean up: like a drunken ox of a line backer fratboy at a kegger, nice enough but just too used to having daddy's money protect him and being able to buy friends. (Friends such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, China, oh my what a collection of model democracies... not. Well, Israel at least gives the vote to their secind class citizns the palestinians.)
I think this whole vaccine shenanigans serves as a very welcome wake up call to your armed forces that they have, for the better part of 30 years, been used as nothing but corporate enforcers. The soldiers are waking up and smelling the BS. Same as after WW1 when they were cheated out of their promised compensation for going to the trenches in Europe, or after WW2 coming home to unemployment finding that rear echelon silver spoons hogged both honour, glory and cushy jobs. Bill Mauldin's "Willie and Joe" contains quite a lot of pointed social commentary as to the corruption rampant in your military even then. (They can be found collected in "Willie and Joe: Back Home" from Fantagraphics Books, well worth a read.)
As for the US berating russian war crimes: hundreds of thousands iraqis says hello hypocrites. How 'bout you fully sign and ratify the ICC first? Neither the US, Russia, China or Israel recognises the Hague. Gee, I wonder why? Could it be at some level your leaders are more similar than different? Their actions under the Obama and Biden years seems to bear that out.
From what I have seen (non US State affiliated media), Russian army appears to be performing well given the self-imposed battlefield constraints. This is relative to somewhat comparable urban battles we have seen elsewhere (e.g. Mosul ~ 9 months, Raqqa ~ 4 months, Fallujah ~ 2 months).
The conscription vs volunteer question is nuanced. The word "volunteer" can be misleading. A good % of volunteer corps are in the military because of economics i.e. they are poor and have no other viable economic options. And they stay because they have no other viable economic options outside of military. It needs to be understood in the broader socio-economic context.
Your assessment is a reoccurring trope that US forces are in some large percentage people who can’t do anything else. That’s not true, especially above the E-3 level. It’s because these people increasingly don’t trust their leadership that they are choosing to leave…and they have options elsewhere.
And what sign that Russia is not performing well? Our “reliable” media? A sane Russia would want no more than to secure and protect the Eastern lands that favor Russia. Duh.
The military is a wonderful option for any young man who wishes to become a woman and serve under generals who will give our enemies advanced notice in case of a surprise attack.
I spent my last few years as an SNCO saying variations on this and mostly got strange empty looks of incomprehension back from my leadership.
This has been a long time coming, but the rush to vaccinate pushed it over the edge.
Add the addition of Biden/Austin’s 2 radical Democrats and self-proclaimed ANTIFA to purge the Military of who they believe were WHITE EXTREMIST…
This was GREAT. Don’t forget they’re now trying to work out a way to allow those w a pre-existing mental illness to enlist.
This was needed to recruit Transgender and LGBQ
We could use the unvaxxed and normal people for "our" army. 🤨
If I were America's strategic rival- one of them, anyway- and I wanted to make sure her military was sufficiently hamstrung that the smart people remaining in the command echelon wouldn't pick a losing battle with me, and let me basically do what I wanted short of directly invading her sovereign territory- I'd probably do my best to infect the rising generation of soldiers with woke.
Gosh that's just exactly the sort of move a very old and cunning rival state would make, say, one with a thousand year history of advanced treachery and psy-war, maybe one that never bought into the whole Western idea of lawful and limited warfare...
ah... ah... SunTzu! 'scuse me & Gesundheit
I mean, "Confucius Institute" doesn't sound very Russian...
Astonished you didn't mention the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. On target essay!
I am also astonished that I didn't mention the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle.
He used slightly different words but I remember Paul Harvey commenting on how the United States could be defeated without firing a shot, and the general ideas were very similar.
On top of having done their level best to alienate both the serving military and their largest recruiting pools by haranguing them for years about how they're all vile, hate-spewing transphobic racists, following it up by forcing poison into their veins, and botching the withdrawal from a pointless war that swallowed the lives of thousands of soldiers over the last two decades, they've also done everything in their power to lower training standards to ensure that women can make the grade in combat arms.
Then there's procurement, where research budgets have been squandered on absurdly expensive weapon systems (looking at you, F-35) that don't function properly except insofar as the function is to pad the bottom lines of defense contractors ... and even if they did work as advertised, are likely to be useless in an actual great power war.
So morale is garbage, the technological edge is mostly lost, training standards are shit, and the quality of the recruits is even more shit.
No sane superpower would go to war with another great power with its military in such a condition, which is why our "leaders" will probably drag us into WWIII.
You may understand the Russian army and its current undertaking a little better if you read this:
https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/i-am-in-awe-of-the-sheer-ruthlessness
Thanks for posting this -- I don't have enough knowledge about the situation to evaluate it for truth. I find the whole thing baffling.
From the US side, listening to Prof. Mearsheimer is a good start...
https://vasko.substack.com/p/the-lying-medias-ukraine-propaganda
Thanks. This helps me understand why it feels wrong when people argue the military “owns me” and I have no place to say no to a potentially dangerous vaccine.
who benefits from the inane and insane condition we are in now in the US and the west? China?
Cui bono? Follow the money
More specifically, https://baldingsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/KVBJHB.pdf
Not that long ago it was said the only time when teenagers with machine guns showed up in town and it wasn't a disaster was when they were under the American Flag.
Check out this video.
"Crack Russian Tank Crew"
https://i.imgur.com/Ks1RRsw.mp4
😯😆😂🤣 Brilliant!
Russian military doctrine does not place value on inividual soldiers, this is due to having reserves and a mentality that the individual only exists as a number to be counted. Therefore, losing 25:1 the number of casualties while being horribly expensive is not seen as a net loss if the goals are attained.
And since russian military goals define victory not just as "mission accomplished" as does the US and UK militaries (and their derivatives) but as "enemy destroyed", the number of dead opponents and civilians doesn't matter either - rather the opposite. The more death and destruction, the greater the victory. Which is truth, really, however horrible - destroy the enemy, kill hm wherever you find him, and grind his land into dust and he has no choice than but to obey. Saving infrastructure is no point in itself, it can be rebuilt cheaply using the conquered as serfs.
And if you think Russia ruthless (or realist) go read up on chinese tactics during the Korean War. A family mmber who is life-long career military summed it up callously as "We have more people than you have ammunition. We won."
Remember, the US may have lost only some 50 000 in Vietnam, and still lost despite the vietnamese losing millions. Now look at World War 2 and compare the losses sustained by Germany vs the Soviet Union, and compare with what little shred of the Wehrmacht the US fough and whatit still cost.
That's the problem with your assessment of the US military moral structure: you have never, ever, fought an enemy that was an actual threat to you, requiring you to spend lives for real: you have never faced an enemy seeking your utter destruction. This is not due to fault of yours and the world would be better for it if no one ever foguht wars of extermination (all wars are wars of that), but it shows in every conflict from Korea on: the US is great at winning battles and performing operations, but it consistently loses wars, because the cost of war is unacceptable to the populace and political leaders of your nation, which would be a good thing if you stopped going to war allover the place without a second thought as to what comes after - you are much too liberal no matter how conservative you think yourselves: either pulp the enemy to dust, brush it off an go home, or roll in and occupy proclaiming the land US territory.
Look at Irak, Afghanistan and Jugoslavia: you came, you blasted the living daylights out of things from afar, you took a handful of casualties, you got bogged down in nation building and then you went home leaving the mess for others to clean up: like a drunken ox of a line backer fratboy at a kegger, nice enough but just too used to having daddy's money protect him and being able to buy friends. (Friends such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, China, oh my what a collection of model democracies... not. Well, Israel at least gives the vote to their secind class citizns the palestinians.)
I think this whole vaccine shenanigans serves as a very welcome wake up call to your armed forces that they have, for the better part of 30 years, been used as nothing but corporate enforcers. The soldiers are waking up and smelling the BS. Same as after WW1 when they were cheated out of their promised compensation for going to the trenches in Europe, or after WW2 coming home to unemployment finding that rear echelon silver spoons hogged both honour, glory and cushy jobs. Bill Mauldin's "Willie and Joe" contains quite a lot of pointed social commentary as to the corruption rampant in your military even then. (They can be found collected in "Willie and Joe: Back Home" from Fantagraphics Books, well worth a read.)
As for the US berating russian war crimes: hundreds of thousands iraqis says hello hypocrites. How 'bout you fully sign and ratify the ICC first? Neither the US, Russia, China or Israel recognises the Hague. Gee, I wonder why? Could it be at some level your leaders are more similar than different? Their actions under the Obama and Biden years seems to bear that out.
From what I have seen (non US State affiliated media), Russian army appears to be performing well given the self-imposed battlefield constraints. This is relative to somewhat comparable urban battles we have seen elsewhere (e.g. Mosul ~ 9 months, Raqqa ~ 4 months, Fallujah ~ 2 months).
The conscription vs volunteer question is nuanced. The word "volunteer" can be misleading. A good % of volunteer corps are in the military because of economics i.e. they are poor and have no other viable economic options. And they stay because they have no other viable economic options outside of military. It needs to be understood in the broader socio-economic context.
Your assessment is a reoccurring trope that US forces are in some large percentage people who can’t do anything else. That’s not true, especially above the E-3 level. It’s because these people increasingly don’t trust their leadership that they are choosing to leave…and they have options elsewhere.
It ends in disaster when a brainwashed illiterate ethicless military is finally ordered to attack the population.
And what sign that Russia is not performing well? Our “reliable” media? A sane Russia would want no more than to secure and protect the Eastern lands that favor Russia. Duh.
You really don't know much about the Russians and perhaps you only typed out that last paragraph because you are afraid of your government.