Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)

[JagerIV]

Every objective within the AO unless told otherwise is military planned and operated. Unless the politicians have a set goal the military does what it needs to win.

But in Vietnam we basically owned the skies.

At what point in the War did the N. Vietamese stop putting up aircraft, and the AA batteries stopped shooting down American aircraft?

That is your criticism of the Russians here after all, that the Ukrainians still have AA assets and still are able to launch some planes. Therefore, I take it only took a couple weeks until the N. Vietnamese just couldn't launch any more AA against aircraft, right?

At what point did the Serbian military stop launching aircraft and shooting at American planes?

 

[Chiron]

Actually I'd say his main problem is that he just doesn't explain it very well. It's interesting that this is turning into a discussion about Vietnam, which is itself a case of how the media can effectively alter the perception people have of it vs. what the reality is. The fact is, the USAF had a list of targets that it could hit to effectively bring the North to its knees an end the conflict, but the politicians were reluctant to allow the AF to prosecute this list because they were worried about provoking WWIII, which was not an unreasonable concern. This is why stuff like "Rolling Thunder" got done instead. After much time and many lives spent, eventually the politicians agreed to let the AF go after at least some of these targets. The result of this was the Paris Peace Accords, which the communists almost immediately began to break. But since the politicians back home wanted everything to be over (thanks largely to public perception being poisoned thanks to media portrayal and the politicians' own incompetence), we go the clusterfuck that we did as we rather gracelessly withdrew ourselves from the country. Honestly Vietnam is a great case study in how the media can steer the direction of the country through controlling the public's perception of an event. It also shows us that the media being the way they are was already happening back then and is thus hardly a recent phenomenon.

North Vietnam got everything it wanted out of the Paris Peace Accords and got to keep all its gains in the South, including Khe Sanh and Dong Ha.

Which they used as spring boards to finish off the South.

Fact is, the North Vietnamese militarily defeated the US on the field of battle and ejected them from the fight in a humiliating peace deal.

No amount of dissembling changes this fact. The Peoples Army of Vietnam is still partying in our bases, parading our gear, and living comfortable retirements on the battlegrounds they won.

 

[WolfBear]

Communists take over, they are more authoritarian than the current regime and even more hostile to the West.

A Russian version of Orban or Netanyahu is more likely, IMHO.

 

[Vaermina]

^^^^ this ^^^^

When the US goes to war the US does it with a budget of "yes". The current US military budget of $782bn would bankrupt Russia.

Russia's already bankrupt.

 

[bintananth]

Russia's already bankrupt.

Morally, I'd agree with that statement.

Financially, not so much. While they can't shrug off losing seven modern destroyers due to a navigational fuck-up the way the US did in 1923 (see: The Honda Point Disaster) they certianly aren't walking around a parking lot hoping they can find some lost spare change laying on the ground.

 

[Chiron]

Russia's already bankrupt.

Uh no, its economy is still functioning and they have actual hard currency to spend. US on the other hand is in economic free fall with exploding inflation.

US will collapse before Russia does bud.

 

[King Arts]

The military sets its own objectives.
I know this from doing my fucning job

We only lost Vietnam because we literally had one hand tied behind our backs.

Had we been allowed total war status, All of that area would be using the South Vietnamese flag and not ever have been communist.

But we were literally held back because worried about WW3

Umm what are you smoking Zach? No the army does not set its own goals and targets. The targets come from the civilians. They decide who your enemies and Allie’s are and they decide other things like allowing trans or women or other policies. In every democracy the military is the bitch of the civilians government.

 

[Zachowon]

Umm what are you smoking Zach? No the army does not set its own goals and targets. The targets come from the civilians. They decide who your enemies and Allie’s are and they decide other things like allowing trans or women or other policies. In every democracy the military is the bitch of the civilians government.

Uh...
You do know policies are approved by the military in the military right?
That is what the Joint Chiefs are for....

And no. Targets during conflict are not given by the Civies unless it is a special case.
Military targets and what we use our stiff on is all military.

JAG exists to make sure we don't break international law when doing so

 

[Bacle]

Uh...
You do know policies are approved by the military in the military right?
That is what the Joint Chiefs are for....

And no. Targets during conflict are not given by the Civies unless it is a special case.
Military targets and what we use our stiff on is all military.

JAG exists to make sure we don't break international law when doing so

Those sorts of 'Special case' scenarios happen pretty often, and you know it.

Also, anything JAG doesn't like just happens behind black ink, so that qualifier is kinda pointless.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Uh...
You do know policies are approved by the military in the military right?
That is what the Joint Chiefs are for....

And no. Targets during conflict are not given by the Civies unless it is a special case.
Military targets and what we use our stiff on is all military.

JAG exists to make sure we don't break international law when doing so

War is just an extension of foreign policy.

Last time I checked, foreign policy was dictated by civilians.

Or did the US military go rogue and invade Iraq, bomb Syria, and devastate Libya?

 

[bintananth]

Uh...
You do know policies are approved by the military in the military right?
That is what the Joint Chiefs are for....

And no. Targets during conflict are not given by the Civies unless it is a special case.
Military targets and what we use our stiff on is all military.

JAG exists to make sure we don't break international law when doing so

You are completely wrong about everything except for the JAG part. The US military is on a very tight leash held by US civilians. We control your budget, we decide what you're allowed to do, what you're told to do, and you are held accountable to us.

 

[Vaermina]

Uh no, its economy is still functioning and they have actual hard currency to spend. US on the other hand is in economic free fall with exploding inflation.

US will collapse before Russia does bud.

You really need to stop getting all your information from Russian twitter bots...

 

[Chiron]

You really need to stop getting all your information from Russian twitter bots...

And you need to learn what an economy actually is and the difference between currency and money.

 

[Zachowon]

War is just an extension of foreign policy.

Last time I checked, foreign policy was dictated by civilians.

Or did the US military go rogue and invade Iraq, bomb Syria, and devastate Libya?

You are completely wrong about everything except for the JAG part. The US military is on a very tight leash held by US civilians. We control your budget, we decide what you're allowed to do, what you're told to do, and you are held accountable to us.

Uh...
You don't tell us how we gather intel.
You don't tell us what objectiv3s we go after. You dont write OPORDs.
We are only held on a leash when we are in garrison.
When we are down range, politics do jot matter to each individual soldier. They are focused on doing the mission.
During Desert Storm did civies help decide and plan the wholenoperation?

 

[JagerIV]

You really need to stop getting all your information from Russian twitter bots...

I would not say the US is anywhere close to bankrupt (though such things are hard to tell) but I would say the Russians aren't anywhere close to that either.

US still has the petro dollar, and a fairly large real economy to back that up. US as much as people talk about the financialization of the US economy, we still have about $5 trillion dollars of "real" industry (agriculture and industry) and probably another $5-10 Trillion that's much more support for those real industries than "pure" service industries. So, as a rough ballpark even given the most cataclysmic collapse of the financial sector, at least 60% of the economy is "real" and would still be there post collapse and could continue, even if they had to pay their workers in popsicles (product of one of our local factories).

And, since were so rich, a 40% decline in GDP "only" pushes per capita from 70k to 40k per capita. Which is much less painful than Russia's decline from 10k to 6k post USSR.

So, the US going full "we are defaulting on all our debts, sucks to be you" would still have a huge amount left over, and the capacity for extensive domestic production: we're currently run by idiots, but Trump showed we can be energy independent, and pretty quickly and trivially, when the government isn't outright getting in the way. And we have enough federalism left that in such an economic collapse, the local governments still have enough independence (probably) to go "fuck you" if the Fed demanded an economic policy that required doing something or millions freezing to death.

Russia in the similar situation that they do still have significant domestic industry and agriculture, so they can go pretty far on their own way. They also aren't literally broke in the sense they still have extensive reserves.

International Reserves of the Russian Federation (End of period) | Bank of Russia

According to the Russian Bank, they have about $630 billion in reserves, including about $130 billion worth of gold. Total current Russian imports (according to wiki, ymmv) is around $360 billion, so if total exports were cut off and had to totally pay for imports with current reserves, they theoretically have enough to keep it going for about 2 years.

 

[strunkenwhite]

So you're telling me they went among the ruins after the explosion to clean up the blood?

Because to me, the bucket of fake blood was literally splashed around to make it look like people died or were injured.

It's quite possible. But the point I'm trying to make is that the narrative there is inherently self-contradictory. There is no blood, and the blood is fake. Such a source is blatantly untrustworthy.

 

[bintananth]

Uh...
You don't tell us how we gather intel.
You don't tell us what objectiv3s we go after. You dont write OPORDs.
We are only held on a leash when we are in garrison.
When we are down range, politics do jot matter to each individual soldier. They are focused on doing the mission.
During Desert Storm did civies help decide and plan the wholenoperation?

We civies tell you what the mission is and restrict what you're allowed to do.

 

[King Arts]

Uh...
You do know policies are approved by the military in the military right?
That is what the Joint Chiefs are for....

And no. Targets during conflict are not given by the Civies unless it is a special case.
Military targets and what we use our stiff on is all military.

JAG exists to make sure we don't break international law when doing so

No the cities decide who your enemies are. Tell me Zach right now Saudi Arabia is an ally right? if the president and congress decide however to perform a police action because of political and economic issues with oil and replace the current king you would obey the order and draw up plans for a invasion of Saudi Arabia yes? Unless you are saying that you would coup the president.

 

[TheRejectionist]

No the cities decide who your enemies are. Tell me Zach right now Saudi Arabia is an ally right? if the president and congress decide however to perform a police action because of political and economic issues with oil and replace the current king you would obey the order and draw up plans for a invasion of Saudi Arabia yes? Unless you are saying that you would coup the president.

He would be fine with invading anyone as long as it's the US government telling him to and is perfectly ok with couping other countries because "we gave them a chance and they refuse it".

 

[Emperor Tippy]

Why the fuck does the west seem to want WW3?

I mean really, you do wonder if Putin is going to have to nuke Berlin before the west gets it through their thick skulls that Russia actually does see Ukraine as an existential issue and a red line that they are prepared to go all the way for.

"Nope, we shall just declare unlimited economic warfare against everything Russian. And we shall give Ukraine unlimited free weapons shipments. And we shall talk about actively providing military forces to fight in Ukraine (that is what a no fly zone is). But we aren't at war with Russia. And if Russia kills any of our people who decide to go into an active war zone to deliver weapons to one of the sides of the conflict, that will be Russia declaring war on NATO."

If this fiasco in Ukraine turns into WW3, the party responsible isn't Putin. It is NATO and the western leaders.