DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Russia looks ready to invade Ukraine

i agree, but i think our military capabilities are better.

the thing i dont underestimate is their cyber capabilities. thats what im worried about, because we are woefully behind in that aspect. you're more worried about their military ability, and im more worried about their cyber ability.

im sure the reality is somewhere in the middle. but i guess the thing with you and i is that we're talking about our own countries ability to handle the job. these European countries better do something. cause if its only us doing something then im not interested. i hoping that we're in a NATO vs Russia engagement, not a US vs Russia engagement.

Agree 100% on the cyber attacks and issues/concern.

Listened to a piece on the radio the other day talking about how the entire world needs to recognize cyber attacks as an attack of aggression / war. Maybe this will be the tipping point?

oh, I'm plenty concerned about that. I know a few people that work on that front, and I think we have a LOT of catching up to do. Meanwhile, Russia and the Russian Mob, have been practicing cyber-warfare for like two decades.

And, unless it is NATO/U.N. vs Russia, it isn't happening. Everything else aside, this country doesn't have the balls to do it 1-on-1.

thats why you dont go it alone. thats what NATO is for, so we can do things like this together.

this is why i keep saying it; NATO (which includes the US) better respond. because if not, whats the point? what was the point in all the investments and such? whats the point in a military alliance if we're arent gonna align and beat somebody's ass when necessary?

people need to realize that if we dont respond, then ukraine turns into an actual buffer state like a north korea. im sick of war just like everyone else. but just because we're sick of war doesn't mean china and russia are.

and again, if we're talking about a US vs Russia and China, then of course we're at a disadvantage. but we're not. its NATO vs Russia. and people need to put some respect on our allies military capabilities as well.

they aren't pushovers. we have to remember that europeans have being going to war against each other since before America was a twinkle in anyone's eyes. they're aren't just a bunch of helpless countries.

Putin shut down all independent media over the past year or so. The Russian people ae reliant on State media, so you know what is happening and what they are being told are 2 different stories. The question then becomes, what do the people believe to be true.

Put a block on all Russian world banking and that could really crush their efforts.


Then the other issue here is, that if we get physically involved, what does China do. Do they side with their communist brothers, or do they follow the money, because America is much more import to them than Russia when it comes to their economy.

This is what I was trying to say last week. So, in your opinion, what should happen if the EU countries just continue to sit there and wring their hands while their adversaries take what they want? I'm not ok with the US going in and doing other peoples' work for them, knowing full well we would be going against not desert tribes or poorly-equipped mercenaries, but a near-peer adversary.

see purp that why you and i cant run countries.

"aye, is that rail gun working?"

"not really"

"screw it, shoot it anyway"

"Rail Gun" gives me all the feels.

I'd like to see us launching a volley of about 350 cruise missiles right about now.

those are good questions. when you have an iron fist on the media like that, its hard to gage where the people stand. as far as China goes, i agree they are in a tougher spot. they COULD help Russia, and even take it further and attack Taiwan. but im with you in that their economic activity is of far more importance. so if they do anything that directly helps Russia, the consequences won't just be with America, but with the EU as well.

FYI: this is something that Truman can do right now.

They could sortie 3/4 of her aircraft, they fly down the Med, hang a left into the Black Sea, and launch cruise missiles to pound every airfield Russia has.

if they sit there and just send out strongly worded letters, we should do nothing.

i hope im clear in saying that my personal opinion throughout all of this is to go hard in the paint WITH our allies. it doesnt need to be all of them. but if the EU wont protect their own region of the world, im not interesting in the US carrying them. im always down with leading from the front. im not down with doing things solo dolo.

i wanna see what those F-35's are gonna do. you think it will end up being worth the money?

Do you read anything before you post or just argue with me because you see my name and like to be proven wrong?

I said "Congress has been cutting our military expenses for years and we are at a very low spend point vs our GDP."
Facts:

We are spending the least amount per GDP that we have since 2001.
2019 $731.75B 3.41%
2018 $682.49B 3.32%
2017 $646.75B 3.31%
2016 $639.86B 3.42%
2015 $633.83B 3.48%
2014 $647.79B 3.70%
2013 $679.23B 4.05%
2012 $725.21B 4.48%
2011 $752.29B 4.84%
2010 $738.01B 4.92%
2009 $705.92B 4.89%
2008 $656.76B 4.46%
2007 $589.59B 4.08%
2006 $558.34B 4.04%
2005 $533.20B 4.09%
2004 $493.00B 4.02%
2003 $440.53B 3.83%
2002 $378.46B 3.45%

I said "Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have a 2-year head start on us with production and war games."

This is true. they started ramping up the war games in 2018/19 - China, Russia, Iran, and to some extent North Korea.

Russia really started in 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/world/g...war-games-military-exercises-in-pictures
China Russia and Iran started in 2019 https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/the-chinese-piece-in-irans-war-games/


I said "A main reason we were successful with WW1/2 was that we stayed out of it and gave our manufacturers a chance to build up production."

Facts:
WW1 - From 1914 to 1917 The United States supplied the Allies with goods but tried to stay out of the fighting. We entered the War in April of 2017
During World War II, we began to provide significant military supplies and other assistance to the Allies in September 1940, even though the United States did not enter the war until December 1941.



lay off the weed. it may help with reading comprehension

I’d be fairly confident Russia he S-300s in the area. If we did any sorties, those would have to be accounted for.

Man, I hope so. The biggest benefit they offer is survivability. Hopefully it pays off.


Engagements have to get to close-quarters before "Top Gun" maneuverability matters, and you need an aircraft that can actually survive in the face of a massive volley of modern missiles just to get to that point.
IF you can close that gap, then you can make hay. Those aircraft *should* be much faster than, and be able to turn inside of, those 1980's-90's MiG's.

The bigger question is: do we have any in-theater within striking distance?

As someone who works in the business, our spending is not the problem.

You could argue the value of what we receive in return could be, but shear spending is not a problem.

Yes, our military budgets have been getting crapped on for a LONG time. The Navy has gone to crap. Training sucks. Maintenance sucks. Deployments are insanely long with little stand-down and refitting periods. We don't take care of our equipment and we barely train our people.

Absolutely, and the lead cruise missiles would likely be tasked with taking those out. Hopefully, we've actually been tracking where they've been getting deployed.

No kidding.

Last time I checked the US spends more than something like the next 10+ countries in the world combined.

https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2021/07/t...ense-than-the-next-11-countries-combined

No doubt politicians and lobbyists - bought and paid for - make sure the money is not wisely spent. But hey, that's the American way right?

omfg.....

does anybody want to explain to SBD what happened in 2011 that lead to a decrease in military spending per GDP? and by the way, we still INCREASED the actual military budget every year looking at your own numbers.

your arguments are all over the place. we didn't stay out of both WW initially to build up production. we stayed out of it because we DIDNT WANT TO GO TO WAR. im not commenting on your post because its you. i dont give a damn about you.

im commenting because you're framing this completely wrong. you're posting this as if we stayed out to build our forces up first. thats not true. we stayed out of the wars in the beginning because we didnt want to be involved. we only became involved when when we were personally attacked. production ramped up when we declared war and engaged.

and again, war games. do you not understand the difference between war games and real life experience?

they are doing military drills while we have REAL WORLD experience. you're basically saying they have the advantage because they were playing call of duty: warzone on a team while we were actually FIGHTING our enemies in real life.

do you not get that? do you not understand that for the last 20 years, we've been using our weapons and equipment in REAL WORLD scenarios while they've been playing flight simulator on the PC? we've been developing our strategies and tweaking our equipment using live information. the Russians and Chinese are completely inexperienced compared to NATO, and especially the US.

so while they certainly have made gains in their tech, they have no clue if their training and equipment ACTUALLY works against REAL enemies fighting back.

we do. you getting so caught up in numbers and quantity without realizing that we have tech that can destroy whole bases without putting a single american troop in harms way.

if this is you sober, then you might want to start smoking weed. cause your ability - or lack thereof - to comprehend history and strategy is making me depressed right now.

everybody needs to get a software update on what modern warfare looks like.

I think too many are a little eager to start firing off cruise missiles.

Let's face it, we have been cutting defense spending for a good while now. That has to cut back on our capabilities. Other NATO countries have been spending less.

I see many talking about the former Presidents comments, but this was a brilliant time to make his move. We can fire off the cruise missiles, or basically do little other than slap sanctions. Bottom line, we aren't going to risk all out war with Russia. Seriously, what are we going to do?

The steps needed should have already been in place. Everything has been cut back.

So look at the sanctions...nobody is talking about our markets starting to drop by leaps and bounds or the price of oil skyrocketing. Any sanctions imposed also sanction the American people.

I guess the XL pipeline and oil from Canada and the Dakota's would be looking pretty good right now....but, we gutted all of that

Especially the ones that that think they're entitled to free housing, healthcare, education, cell phones, food, etc.

Heh! 90% of international wargaming is a bunch of radio checks where units are just trying to figure out how to talk to each other. The rest of it is basically a walk-through at 3/4 speed.

It's far more equivalent to a corporate team-building outing to the go-kart track than it is a simulation of combat.

I don’t get where you guys think our spending is the problem.

Every office I’ve been in for major weapon systems has had more than the budget it needs.

The C-17s on base run crazy amounts of flights at the end of September for no reason to burn off their fuel to ensure they have the same amount for the next year.

I’ve seen efforts where we tried out a sensor that has no business being tried out on the platform it was being tested on, but brought $20+M to the company who proposed the effort.

We’ve been hemorrhaging money to Boeing for the KC-46 which they’re running nearly just as corruptly as their 737-MAX, hemorrhaging money to Lockheed to get the F-35 right.

Are there some areas where we have shortfalls. I’m sure there are, but our overall spending is most assuredly not the problem.

Just like The Blitz

The Russians probably add in vodka breaks as well.

Sorry, I’m just catching up on a bunch of stuff here. I think it’d be important at this point to send a carrier group to the South China Sea if we don’t have one there already.

I saw that was an angle Faux News was promoting. Well Done.

aye you remember those field days? or the navy equivalent?

those card games and sports arguments got intense!

We've been at war, but not with adversaries like Russia's actual military. We haven't had to fight to maintain dominance in the air in Afghanistan. It's a different fight.

Right but the same is true for Russia as well.

Georgia and Kazakhstan isn’t exactly the US, Britain, or Germany.

And again, If this goes down, we’re not doing anything alone. We know their will be a multinational response if the military gets involved.

There’s no guarantee that China helps russia. That means russia has to rely on…Belarus. So Russia has to worry about different countries from different aspect of the map with American military running strat.

Remember, Putin’s biggest hope is like Purp said: hoping for a weak government with a weak response.

He knows that any conflict with NATO against Russia will end will a L. He’s banking on the assumption that The EU is too divided and weak to take direct action against him.

It should not be lost on anyone that Putin made a nuclear threat against the west last night in his declaration of war. That, alongside a FULL SCALE invasion of Ukraine that started a full 5 seconds after his speech ended. If he takes the entire country of Ukraine, I don't think the UN or world allies will allow it to stand. Talking heads late last night were saying Russia has a history of taking territory and not being able to hold it long term. They said this as if they were contemplating how the world will look with a long term occupation of Ukraine. But after WWII and the similarities here, I can't see the world allowing this to stand. I just can't see it. But I never thought I would see us abandon allies (Kurds) in the field, or leave Afghanistan like we did either. So, I won't be surprised regardless of the response. Nobody I know wants to start WW3, but I'm not sure Putin is leaving any wiggle room here.

WWIII is not an option as it only serves as suicide.

Putin will take all or a portion of Ukraine, whatever he wants.

Next, as we cut him off from the world with sanctions, he will begin cyber attacks on the Wests infrastructure and financial systems.

Be sure to print out any online financial statements you have so you have hard copies for the future.

Who is going to be the Ronald Reagan of this generation? I don't see anyone currently elected that can fill those shoes.

Send in some drone to drop cases of Vodka, wait a few hours then we can just go tip them over. War over. Oh damn, they aren't cows.

what I really said:
"A main reason we were successful with WW1/2 was that we stayed out of it and gave our manufacturers a chance to build up production"



What I really said:
"we are at a very low spend point vs our GDP."



- yes. I do. I also understand the value of practice.

War Games are real military exercises carried out to test or improve tactical expertise. They use real munitions amo etc and how they would communicate with each other etc not... a "call of duty" (your words) video games



Do you realize that Russia just did this to Ukraine right without a single Russian boot on the ground right in Ukraine?



Try reading what I wrote. My comments have been the same. You are attempting to twist/change my words and that is making you feel like I am all over the place. The reality is that you are all over the place.

There's two nearby enough.

I've seen few things more serious than war, or a deployment Spades tournament.


Fields days were every day at sea, man. Sweepers multiple times a day, fresh water wash downs of main deck weekly. Always bustin rust and doing surface preservation. Doing PMS daily on every bit of equipment on board to the point of slushing grease off of cables and re-greasing them - entire spools off the winches. Every other month.

The Navy today outsources everything to civilian contractors. They don't maintain their own stuff any longer.