They could roll in with tanks, if enough pro-Russian parties came into power in the EU. The Baltic countries are not very big. Creating a situation where an Article 5 is called by a small country, but not answered, would be the ideal result.
Let’s also not forget that Putin has only done a very limited amount of mobilization so far.
Yeah, that’s a good point.
Seemed to me that pilot could’ve nailed him any time he wanted. Dude wasn’t exactly moving like Batman out there. If you’re really trying to get him, it’s not like you lose anything if you actually try to hit him and he ducks, you just come back around. No actual benefit to toying with him.
Getting him to surrender is a benefit though. Saves a drone, and gets you a prisoner you can milk for intelligence and maybe swap in the future. Prisoners are an asset, and it is beneficial to collect them when possible.
Yeeesh. I get the impression the drone operator really, really wants this guy to just surrender so he doesn’t have to waste the drone on him, but the guy just won’t…
Gave him every opportunity, while the guy is alone, and just looks lost, confused and hungry.
… does he think that will make more Brazilians have good feelings about Bolsonaro?
Minor quibble, but Rafale does not make a cutting-edge fighter. The US, Russia and China all make 5th gen fighters. France does not yet, they mostly make 4.5. Before long here, the 5’s won’t be cutting edge anymore and we’ll all be on to 6th gen.
Prior to the recent decade, peer on peer warfare was considered pretty unlikely overall, where COIN was the big thing everyone was worried about.
Here in the US anyway. I’m not sure what priorities the British have and how much budget they have to throw at them.
More that “obsolete” doesn’t mean useless. It just means its unable to adequately fulfill all the roles in all of the potential situations that the British may want for their arty. It can still perform a lot though.
Plenty of obsolete things can still be very useful.
You know … at a certain level, I respect the dedication. Go big or go home I suppose.
I’m not sure the cauldron strategy is as viable as it was in the past. This isn’t the Red Army of Stalin’s day, this army retreats en masse when you shatter its lines, as we saw in the Kharkiv offensive a couple years ago.
Do their missiles and big drones have inertial guidance? If not, more jamming systems could work really well.
The big challenge is the multiple entrenched lines of Russian defense. Minefields covered by artillery and drones are difficult to penetrate, especially when you have to pierce several in a row.
It’s good to see more tanks going, having more materiel is better than having less materiel. But I’d also like to see more pledges of aircraft. The jets have been doing good, important work, and we do have more that we can give.
Ultimately the war is never going to be won by some huge Ukrainian ground push to Moscow or something though. It’ll be won by slowly grinding the Russian war economy down, somewhat similar to how Germany was defeated in WW1. Turns out these full-scale war things are horrendously resource-intensive, and nobody gets infinite resources… I think the Russian wealth fund is down to less than half its liquid assets, if I remember right?
tbf, Grant was pretty ruthless in his post-war pursuit of Confederate holdouts. He didn’t have them shot, though, they were mostly hung.
The problem is that it is very hard to eradicate an idea violently. It just goes into hiding and bides its time, unless you just want to do a full genocide or something. I mean, it’s not like people stand up and volunteer for their own execution when they know certain folks are being executed.
Frankly, if the goal of the administrations was to be helpful to Russia’s offensive, then halting shipments while muddying the waters with inconsistent messaging would be an excellent way to accomplish that.
Stop the shipments, but lie about it and say that you will ship more in the future. Then just never actually do that. This keeps them hoping for shipments that will never actually arrive.
edit: Another possibility here is that the Def Sec Hegseth does not want to help Ukraine, but Trump himself does not actually care one way or another, and thus could be convinced to overrule his Def Sec.
Tough to say.
Even when I see Elrond in LotR, that’s actually just Agent Smith in a funny costume.
That isn’t about me being smart. Really it’s just about reading the article.
You can’t just say
delete all images off of each device
and seriously expect me to not point out that’s not what the article says, after I specifically asked that. Either information is accurate, or it is not. Factuality is important, especially these days. It’s not some minor detail, either, had all the images been deleted, it’s likely my overall argument would’ve been incorrect based on the actual evidence.
Then it is no longer necessary to keep bringing it up. It’s frustrating when everyone pretends I’m trying to defend Israeli positions or something instead of simply pointing out that in this one particular case, it’s unlikely to be some coverup conspiracy despite everyone’s rabid wishes for it to be one. The IDF commits plenty of war crimes, but that does not make everything they do another one.
I frankly don’t care if I convince you or not. I am not trying to sell something. I am, however, not going to be swayed away from what I think is correct, either. You all are absolutely trying to sell something, and I ain’t buying.
Yes, for the third time, the intimidation was very egregious. I have not been talking about the intimidation, except to say it is extreme and wrong. I have been talking about photo deletion, and how militaries feel about photography, not just in Israel, but lots of places.
Regarding where the actual combat is occuring and where the fronts are, maybe you’re right, I’m not sure on that part. It doesn’t change any procedures around opsec, though. An army guy isn’t going to make a judgement about what he should do based on where his base is, he’s just going to follow whatever doctrine his superiors give him for opsec, which in the IDF is probably very harsh. I have a feeling the IDF does not limit it only to the very frontmost positions, especially when a drone is not limited to only targeting those.
Forward positions are forward positions, it doesn’t need to be top secret for basic no-photography rules to apply.
I agree that all the harassment and intimidation was egregious, though. That part has nothing to do with security in any way I can think of.
They’re headed in that direction, but not yet. Their pop is 143 mil roughly, and the Ukrainian estimates are a little over 1 mil Russian casualties last I heard.