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What is your opinion on the criticism that the administration is being too slow in sending equipment, saying it would be too provocative to send certain weapons only to then later send them anyway (such as tanks). IMO, they need to be more assertive in their support of Ukraine. I have read it...

Been kinda wondering about that. Hope they aren't over complicating the logistics for Ukraine.

One point though, I don't think mass-scale war production is ever possible in any peacetime economy. Usually it takes a year or so in a major conflict to start really scaling up industrial production. Churchill had a quote on this, I can't find it, but paraphrasing, it goes something like, In...

Do they have the manpower to maintain this though? They are pulling in old men and prisoners now.

On the issue of unmanned vehicles, one thing to also keep in mind is the ability of the enemy to hack and/or jam the signal to your vehicles, and this will change as the technology advances. Unmanned F-22s are no good if the enemy can block you from controlling them.

On the issue of people saying tanks are obsolete due to how Russian tanks have performed in Ukraine, I do not understand this. The Russians have utilized their tanks in a horrible manner. It isn't any secret that tanks are highly vulnerable to enemy firepower if not used right. That goes all the...

Just curious, but what do you mean by this? Wouldn't Naval aviators be as tactically proficient as Air Force aviators? Like aren't the Navy aviators sort of like the "air force" for the protection of the fleet? So in terms of tactics, just as proficient as the Air Force? My understanding is...

Funny you say that, it never left my brain from John Cusack's using it in the movie Con Air.

Yep. You really had to go through all that to figure out "qualified authors" is just another way of saying experts? If I had said I read books/articles by experts, you could have just as easily asked how do I determine whether one is an expert or not? You are probably getting at how do I see...

I didn't say national pride was the sole factor, just an important one My point on the Czechs was that they immediately were prepared to stand and fight against the Germans, not fold. The French in WWII had a willingness to fight, and they did try, but their military was not at all prepared for...

Their credentials and standing within the community of people knowledgeable about the subject.

Any opinions of Hitler's generals I have are from having read books/articles by qualified authors.

Hitler's generals were terrified of any major conflict with Czechoslovakia because of the capability and size of the Czech military and warned Hitler that the German military was not in any state to take on that country. The Czechs had been building up their military for two decades at that...

My thinking was Poland tried to fight back but was overrun. Czechoslovakia Hitler threatened and they told him to go fly a kite and mobilized their military. Hitler was stopped (initially) because the Czech military was actually quite sizable. Britain fought back as we know and France tried, but...

What are some of the dozens of militaries? (not saying your argument is wrong, but I mean out of curiosity). On Afghanistan, that again was never really a country. There was likely no real sense of national pride or sense of nation on the part of the Afghan soldiers for them to bother fighting...

I don't have a specific source, but that is my understanding of Iraq based on its history. It was created by the British unifying multiple provinces. The country consists of multiple religious and ethnic groups that don't like each other and was ruled by military strongman throughout most of its...

From what I've read, it's really been a lifesaver for the Ukrainian military. I think also because NATO's strongest military members are the U.S. and U.K., two nations that historically have HAD to be good at logistics in order to fight anywhere in the world.

The Ukrainians would have been forced to live under a pro-Russian regime with all that that entails. Any freedoms in terms of criticizing such, and anything Western-style, would have been prohibited. Iraq was never really a "country" in the sense of having any national sense of nationhood...

I've read their logistics are really crappy. Like that they have fewer logistics trucks than the U.S. Army has despite having (had?) on paper a larger force. Also their trucks aren't like the ones the U.S. and the Brits use, which carry a container pallet which the truck then lifts off using a...

That's actually the simplified version :) The German language seems to like to make words out of what would be whole sentences or phrases in English (although to a German I suppose they'd say English likes to make whole sentences out of what should be words), so they then shorten the name of the...

Yes, but M1 carbine rifle or M1 Garand rifle? M3 medium tank or M3 light tank? My understanding was that it was standard British practice to give names to their different weapons systems, for example their Churchill and Matilda tanks, and so to avoid the otherwise confusing American system which...

Keep in mind though that Ukrainian forces had been preparing for quite awhile to be able to fight the Russians as well. The whole country had been prepping to fight a Russian invasion and the military had been getting training from NATO. I wouldn't use Gulf War I as a comparison because with...

For some fun historical trivia, this is how the convention of naming American battle tanks after generals got started. Basically when WWII started, the Brits noticed that the American naming convention for our tanks and weapons systems was a bit confusing. For example, there was the M1 light...

Is/was Russia ever really a "near-peer" adversary though? "Near-peer" means they should be able to give NATO a run for its money. Now it seems clear that it was all just an image. If Putin had somehow been able to try attacking NATO, given all the massive preparation NATO has been engaged in...

Just curious, but why do you say it is a "minor miracle" that Russia didn't win decisively? They seemed to blow the whole thing from the very start.

Here is a funny tongue-in-cheek video done on the Russian T-90 that in light of Russia's invasion has aged pretty well:

Well not meaning to hand wave it in terms of the behavior itself, it just seemed very baffling to me how so many in the media and Washington establishment seemed to lose their minds over it but did not seem to do so over what, IMO, were much more destructive actual actions by the prior...

Because we know how much more damaging Trump saying such a thing is than the horrendous foreign policy decisions made by the prior two presidencies, which needlessly actually got people killed.

What else did he do that was so bad? Also I am not saying he was uniquely perceptive about German and overall European energy dependence on Putin. My point is that for all the talk about his praising of Putin, in terms of his actual actions, he behaved a lot better than the Europeans. On the...

While rather very rough, I do think he was right overall in how he went about that. For too long certain members of NATO refused to pay the minimum 2% of GDP for defense. Yes, prior presidents did criticize them, but it didn't do anything. And by not spending what they should, that unto itself...

I know you are all in particular interested in MY take on beards and whether the Navy should have them :):):)

No, no sense debating over debating.

Well a few things: 1) I don't know which members have said post-graduate education and experience, so someone telling me I'm wrong means nothing by itself. 2) Post-graduate education in what? Russian and Eastern European studies specifically or international relations in general? Because...

It really isn't that. I am just enthusiastic about these issues and so like to discuss them and give my opinion, and unfortunately it comes off that way.

There was that Chechen force of elite (and apparently very violent) troops sent to assassinate Zelensky, but Ukrainian forces slaughtered them.

Well that is fine and I see what you mean. I avoid forums filled with clueless people because they usually only have brainless discussions. I would rather discuss with educated people like yourselves:)

My "take" on this subject is probably about 100% in agreement with your own take, minus just some disagreements on the issue of cancel culture. Otherwise, I don't really see where the disagreement is. The thread was about the military recruitment ad versus the "macho" Russian one. I stood up for...

The point is it shows some rather extreme political correctness and denial to get upset that a study finds that infantry with female infantry soldiers doesn't move and shoot with the speed and accuracy of all-male infantry. The Israeli female infantry were created more for reasons of political...

This is IMO a bit of a canard. Yes, the elders have been complaining about the youth and how they'll be the downfall of civilization for thousands of years, there is a quote I think from Socrates or one of those guys about the youth of their day and how terrible they are. But when you have kids...

I'm not talking about offending mainstream viewpoints, I'm talking about people making the slightest "offense" and possibly having their lives ruined because they offend a select group of ultra politically-correct people. Look at the culture on the universities nowadays for example. The Dixie...

At least the last few where there wasn't a cancel culture like now.

I don't think you read my post because I was saying that the criticisms of our military's "wokeness" are way oversimplified. I also would say your understanding of "wokeness" is wrong, because "wokeness" isn't about being open-minded towards different peoples, the criticism is that it's about...

Actually I don't watch, read, or listen to much of anything Ben Shapiro says. I do think he is very intelligent and right on a lot of things, but he just isn't one I pay much attention to. Regarding credibility, I agree with you but many among the right-wing base listen to what said non-credible...

Remember this?:)

There is a lot of talk in right-wing media about the "wokeness" problem with the modern U.S. military and how our enemies, like the Russians/Chinese/Iranians/etc...don't have any of that "crap" in their militaries, but the problem is those people don't realize that the combat arms only make up a...

Is it so hard to believe that Russia can't just be driven out of Ukraine altogether? We are less than a year in and already the Russians are losing. Wars can take a few years at least.

What damage, regarding Russia, did the previous administration do to our foreign policy?

Chinese Scientists Call for Plan to Destroy Elon Musk's Starlink

Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system has also played a rather big role from what I understand. It prevented Putin from shutting down Ukraine's communications altogether and has allowed many ordinary Ukrainians to keep in contact with the outside world and with each other. It also has allowed...

Not talking about TV pundits. And it is interesting you bring up John Mearsheimer, who is an epitome of what I have been talking about. He actually blames the West (primarily NATO and the United States) for Putin's aggression, because of "expanding NATO" after the Cold War ended and proposed...