2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (Part 1)

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3267819-cia-director-us-cant-take-lightly-possibility-of-russia-using-nuclear-weapons/

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Needs an update…

updated

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THAT is the exact opposite of fighting smart. Its like tipping over the chess board when you’re losing.

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What better way to keep NATO off of your border for the next decade or so?

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Thanks for that link, it really underlines what a huge win for Ukraine this makes and what a loss—both logistical and symbolic—it represents for Russia. First time Russia lost a flagship since the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905.

It’s also got me thinking about how the U.S. military has spent so much of its resources over the last few generations building giant capital ships like nuclear aircraft carriers—seemingly invincible fortresses of the sea but still conceived in a time when missile technology wasn’t even close to what it is now and it would have been hard to conceive losing such a ship to an adversary with a fraction of the resources.

If and when we get into our next full-scale shooting war with another nation state those things are all going to have big fat targets painted on their hulls.

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“Moskva” of course is Russian for “Moscow” but maybe the ship was named after the river not the city. (Rimshot.)

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Today’s reading is on the Millennium Challenge (2002) wargames exercise, and Lt. Gen Paul Van Riper, who understood exactly this point 20 years ago. Van Ripper led the Red team.

Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue’s approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue’s fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces’ electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue’s six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue’s navy was “sunk” by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue’s inability to detect them as well as expected.

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I vaguely remember reading about that at the time, pretty ridiculous how they kept changing the parameters of the exercise to ensure that the exercise ended with the conventional U.S. forces on top instead of using the exercise as an opportunity to better prepare for an asymmetrical fight against a dedicated adversary.

Another good summary here:

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Wait what

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Or was it just Putin’s tooth pick?

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That story is from a Russian news agency so who the hell knows, but it’s some pretty bad publicity either way.

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HOW ELSE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO RESOLVE THIS PROBLEM BEFORE THE NEXT ELECTION :crazy_face:

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Safekeeping. Now they’ll always know where it is.

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guess-who

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Re: “…a military exercise that reminded the U.S. military that the enemy doesn’t always do what you want it to do.”

It’s been my experience that military exercises are designed to sell weapons and weapon platforms.

“What do you mean we lost?”

“We’ll, if you had x and y and z things would have turned out differently “

“Let’s run that again Bob, only this time throw in a squadron of F35s.”

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I’ve never served in the military but I did watch the opening sequence of Iron Man so I guess that checks out.

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Many defense contractors use Hollywood-like presentations to make those sales. You jest but it’s happening.

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Oh, I believe it. And Hollywood itself is a big part of the problem. I honestly believe that Congress likely never would have authorized so much on the F-35 program (current taxpayer cost estimate: $1.7 Trillion) if Top Gun hadn’t got everyone so hot and bothered about fighter jets in the late 1980s.

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My mother was sitting in church before Easter mass one year, and overheard a conversation behind her.

“You know, we should travel to Jerusalem some day”
“Yeah, we can go see where Jesus is buried”

…maybe missing something… :person_shrugging:

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