peter Zeihan 2020

[Zachowon]

Sometimes nation building works (looks at S. Korea, Germany, Japan), but the people in charge have to know how to do it right, instead of doing it to line their own pockets.

Very true. That also worked because it wasn't a backwards country that was always going to be horrible

But no one in the US wants to put enough thought together to make a modern Marshal Plan these days.

I wish someone would.

War is politics/diplomacy via other means.

that is true.

The political sphere will never be absent from military affairs, and will dictate it's limitations/goals/rules; this has always been, and will always be, the case in the US.

ROE is the thing that gets the military to hurt the kist because we arnt allowed to make our own judgments.
let the politicians have comtrol over what we do woth the ither governments and so on. Not telling the military how to do thier job.

Even Eisenhower as a general could not ignore the civilian government or what it wanted done about the war.

He had a lot of control in Europe, basically running the US forces there like a country. He was not really held back by the government.

Out of all of those, only A-stan was justified to begin with; we should never have been in Veitnam or Iraq.

Agreed.

Maybe if the US military stopped pretending Veitnam and Iraq were at all justified, the US public would feel less like they need to keep the military on a short leash.

We don't care about Vietnam anymore.
Not a single member serving was invovled or near that. We don't care.

The problem is, Zach doesn't want the civie government setting any rules or restrictions on the US military that have political reasoning behind them.

i dont want the government getting my brithers and sisters killed because the government cant negotiate and or leave thongs alone.
ROE was one of the biggest reasons for deaths in GWOT...

Zach wants to continue to pretend politics is not part of military matters and affairs, despite the fact politics has NEVER been absent from the military, nor is politicians/civies setting goals for the military to achieve, and then wanting oversight on how it is done, some massive burden.

the goal of the military in ww2 was to win.
that is what our goal should always be set to by the government.

militaries do not build nations, politicans do.

It mostly seems like he wants the concerns of the NCO corp to dictate US politics, not civies concerns.

no, i want the civilians to understand that we are trained and proficient to fight a war. Not to win hearts and minds of a people who hate us. Not take land only to give it up.
Not bomb strategic targets because it may look bad for the civilian populace.

winning wars isnt pretty and civilians cant handle things not heing pretty

The bigger problem in this discussion is that Zach is really bad at communicating, not even taking the time to use proper spelling and grammar, much less fully articulating ideas and carefully delineating between what he does and does not mean.

His post directly below mine could mean he agrees with exactly what I was saying, it could mean he thinks the politicians should have zero say after war is declared, it could mean any number of things.

It's bloody hard to tell.

Basically, let the military do the fighting and going at it with the aspect of we want to win.
Let the politicians figure out the aftermath.
Of course there would be more involvement from the government then that but we need less hand holding and less restrictions to be effective.

 

[S'task]

One thing Zack is complaining about is something I've seen come up numerous times regarding Afghanistan and the general war on terror beginning with the Obama administration: highly restrictive Rules of Engagement that actively inhibited mission objectives while making the area MORE dangerous for American soliders.

We're not talking about normal civilian and political oversight of the military here, we're talking politicians micromanaging the military. That's not the role of the politicians, and most don't have the expertise and knowledge to effectively manage the military, to say anything of MICROMANAGING it.

We're talking about things like prohibiting small arms automatic suppressive fire... requiring permission from senior command (who's in a different operating area and not immediately in the know) to return fire while actively being shot at. Basically RoEs that end up being so restrictive on the soldiers that they became sitting ducks for periods.

The political goal was, of course, to minimize non-combatant casualties, but in their pursuit of that they basically ended up valuing non-combatant lives more than our own soldier's lives, which both made the soldiers less effective and hurt morale.

 

[Bacle]

ROE is the thing that gets the military to hurt the kist because we arnt allowed to make our own judgments.
let the politicians have comtrol over what we do woth the ither governments and so on. Not telling the military how to do thier job.

What the military's 'job' is in any given situation is dictated by politics, is what you don't seem to get.

You joined to be a tool of the political will of the US, as did every other service member, and you/they know it, but don't like when the political reality side of the equation hits.

He had a lot of control in Europe, basically running the US forces there like a country. He was not really held back by the government.

Yes, but he still answered to the US public and public will.

We don't care about Vietnam anymore.
Not a single member serving was invovled or near that. We don't care.

What you don't get is it is not about what those in uniform think, it's what the general civie public thinks, because military answers to civies, not the other way around.

It's not about what the tools desire, it's what the tool user(s) desire.

i dont want the government getting my brithers and sisters killed because the government cant negotiate and or leave thongs alone.
ROE was one of the biggest reasons for deaths in GWOT...

Then you need to put more pressure on Congress not to use military force when not needed, or push for more unmanned platforms.

However, you have to remember the ROE's for the War on Terror were made to line the pockets of Haliburton and Bush Jr's friends, and try to 'nation build' in a place that has been fucked since the Mongols rode through.

Troop lives were not a main consideration for any of that.

the goal of the military in ww2 was to win.
that is what our goal should always be set to by the government.

militaries do not build nations, politicans do.

This isn't WW2, the world is different, and the US will never have the open ROE's it had in WW2 again, get used to it.

The military's obsession with trying to pretend every new conflict is something that WW2 ROE's are relevant too is farcical and delusional.

no, i want the civilians to understand that we are trained and proficient to fight a war. Not to win hearts and minds of a people who hate us. Not take land only to give it up.
Not bomb strategic targets because it may look bad for the civilian populace.

winning wars isnt pretty and civilians cant handle things not heing pretty

This isn't the 1940's or even 1960's, stop expecting civies to treat the modern military like the WW2 military was treated/allowed to act.

What you need is to realize that the US military's view of the world is not the same as civies, and that civies concerns are what dictate military affairs.

The US military will never enjoy the free reign of ROE's, social status, or production numbers seen in WW2, yet never seems to realize that, and keeps wanting to pretend in 1946 for internal morale.

Basically, let the military do the fighting and going at it with the aspect of we want to win.
Let the politicians figure out the aftermath.
Of course there would be more involvement from the government then that but we need less hand holding and less restrictions to be effective.

The 'aftermath' is what political ROE's are part of, you do realize.

Unless you foolishly expect the US to let the US military do whatever it wants, then have civies clean up afterwards and just deal with what mess loose ROE's created.

 

[Bacle]

One thing Zack is complaining about is something I've seen come up numerous times regarding Afghanistan and the general war on terror beginning with the Obama administration: highly restrictive Rules of Engagement that actively inhibited mission objectives while making the area MORE dangerous for American soliders.

We're not talking about normal civilian and political oversight of the military here, we're talking politicians micromanaging the military. That's not the role of the politicians, and most don't have the expertise and knowledge to effectively manage the military, to say anything of MICROMANAGING it.

We're talking about things like prohibiting small arms automatic suppressive fire... requiring permission from senior command (who's in a different operating area and not immediately in the know) to return fire while actively being shot at. Basically RoEs that end up being so restrictive on the soldiers that they became sitting ducks for periods.

The political goal was, of course, to minimize non-combatant casualties, but in their pursuit of that they basically ended up valuing non-combatant lives more than our own soldier's lives, which both made the soldiers less effective and hurt morale.

Ok, some of that makes sense to be upset about.

However, I would point out that loose ROE's are how we end up with things like Blackwater Massacres and Tillman getting friendly fired.

We have an all volunteer force, they know what they are signing up for, or at least they should, and that includes ROE's that have political goals, not troop protection, in mind.

 

[S'task]

Ok, some of that makes sense to be upset about.

However, I would point out that loose ROE's are how we end up with things like Blackwater Massacres and Tillman getting friendly fired.

We have an all volunteer force, they know what they are signing up for, or at least they should, and that includes ROE's that have political goals, not troop protection, in mind.

You can make that argument for anyone who joined post Obama administration, certainly. The Obama administration heavily politicized the RoEs and military in ways no administration before had. For those who'd signed up before though? No administration before had attempted to micromanage the RoEs as heavily as Obama did and nobody would have had any thought an Administration would be so stupid/political as to do so. The only time prior was the Vietnam war in which one of the big lessons learned was "don't let politicians micromanage military matters" and was learned by both the military AND politicians, including OPPONENTS of the Vietnam War like Bill Clinton, who didn't put anywhere near as restrictive RoEs on the military when he was President.

That the Obama administration threw that out and you seem to think that was a good thing somehow is ridiculous. We've had multiple modern military operations with looser rules of engagement that had no major issues (Desert Storm, the 90s intervention in Kosovo, the WoT prior to Obama), and even the issues you're citing are minor compared to the amount of trouble those more restrictive RoEs have caused.

Zack is right in that most Americans don't have the stomach for what war actually entails. You even rage against this tendency when it comes to the Israel/Hamas conflict where you have so many idiots demanding more and more restrain of Israel and how that's impractical. Those are the types of people who were writing the RoEs under Obama and under Biden, you know, idiot leftist operatives.

 

[Cherico]

so essentially Russia is being forced to shop around in north Korea and Iran and its giving us a peek at their hardware capability. They are likely paying for all of this with russian gold reserves. Russia is one of the biggest gold producers in the world and we have no idea how large those reserves are.

But this war is burning through them, this will likely stabalize the price of gold as the gold is laundered through international markets, it also means that the longer the war goes on the more of their reserves that the russians will burn through. Once they run out that's it they cant use gold to buy more stuff.

From there I expect to attempt to pay for things with other precious metals and direct trades. If it goes on long enough with the west squeezing them they just wont be able to get more stuff.

 

[Zachowon]

What the military's 'job' is in any given situation is dictated by politics, is what you don't seem to get.

The job of the military is very clear. To destroy and defeat the enemies of the United States. To protect our nation.
That is what our job is.

You joined to be a tool of the political will of the US, as did every other service member, and you/they know it, but don't like when the political reality side of the equation hits.

Because the politicans are the reason for the deaths we take. They are the reasons we domt get the weapons or budget or training.
Politicans don't understand. Yes there are those that served and understand. They often are the ones who make sure the military gets what it needs.
But you have people that dodged the draft or have been in politics so long they were getting us i to these bad things.

the nation is not solely that of the politicans...

Yes, but he still answered to the US public and public will.

by the time the public knew what was going on what ever he was doing had already passed because OPSEC. Even then we wernt telling the truth about any losses we took and the like so the public was all happy and for it.

What you don't get is it is not about what those in uniform think, it's what the general civie public thinks, because military answers to civies, not the other way around.

The general public has been fed lies about what life is like in the military for decades now. Honestly since Vietnam.
That is a fact.

It's not about what the tools desire, it's what the tool user(s) desire.

It is about what the tool is used for. You don't use a hammer as a screwdriver.

Then you need to put more pressure on Congress not to use military force when not needed, or push for more unmanned platforms.

when in an area as hostile as ME, it is needed, but was used in correctly.

However, you have to remember the ROE's for the War on Terror were made to line the pockets of Haliburton and Bush Jr's friends, and try to 'nation build' in a place that has been fucked since the Mongols rode through.

Our ROE under Bush was great.
It was Obama that basically destroyed us and escalated lives. Every time we had surges it was after Bush....

Troop lives were not a main consideration for any of that.

It is the sole consideration of the military outside if killing the enemy.
How to minimize losses to prevent having to wrote home.

We built Bradley's for a reason. We didn't build deathtraps like the Russians for a reason.

This isn't WW2, the world is different, and the US will never have the open ROE's it had in WW2 again, get used to it.

You mean engage an enemy that is fighting back? The ROE is engage where the enemy is either confirmed or may be. If you srnt sure get sure.
In modern combat that is easier with what we have available to us in the ISR realm.
Standard armies also domt use women and children to do thier dirty work and also dont learn your soldiers ROEs to use them against you.
Like why we often had to shoot kids and women was because they knew our ROE would not let us until it was to late.

The military's obsession with trying to pretend every new conflict is something that WW2 ROE's are relevant too is farcical and delusional.

So again, destroying the enemy where they are even if they are not directly engaged with you is bad? Because that is what that was. Hell, PID, personally Identify is a huge issu in GWOT because you don't know who is the bad guy and who isn't.
That was the issue with GWOT. Not that we wanted WW2 ROE but thay we were forced to basically act like the police. Only shoot when shot at instead of engaging an armed threat that poses a risk to you. Like we had up until Obama basically.

This isn't the 1940's or even 1960's, stop expecting civies to treat the modern military like the WW2 military was treated/allowed to act.

So we shouldn't be allowed to fight as a military and fight how our politicans who have never fought want us too?
So fight like the Russians because most ooliticans don't realize how much went into Desert Storm.

What you need is to realize that the US military's view of the world is not the same as civies, and that civies concerns are what dictate military affairs.

Civies dictate our affairs and are often misguided by lying politicans to pain the picture like we are spending to kuch and all of this.
Stop listening to what the politicans and civies say and listen to what the soldiers, the Marines, the sailors, the Airmen say.
Because civies want us to get smaller, and has mainly been the reason we have had such horrible quality of life because other things civies want keep getting pushed.

The US military will never enjoy the free reign of ROE's, social status, or production numbers seen in WW2, yet never seems to realize that, and keeps wanting to pretend in 1946 for internal morale.

The ROE adapts to the war. Our ROE is only ever generally what is needed.
What we had in GWOT was more of what police have then a military

The 'aftermath' is what political ROE's are part of, you do realize.

Unless you foolishly expect the US to let the US military do whatever it wants, then have civies clean up afterwards and just deal with what mess loose ROE's created.

It would be better all around if the military can set thr ROE due to actually knowing what and who they are fighting.

Ok, some of that makes sense to be upset about.

However, I would point out that loose ROE's are how we end up with things like Blackwater Massacres and Tillman getting friendly fired.

We have an all volunteer force, they know what they are signing up for, or at least they should, and that includes ROE's that have political goals, not troop protection, in mind.

An ROE so restrictive that basically limits us to being ducks in a barrel and makes it so in the end, you lose more of your soldiers fighting then you would normally. Restrictive ROE only makes things worse.
Letting the soldiers dictate what the ROE is based of what they are facing would. Especially during GWOT. Because the politicans eernt the ones out there knowing what the enemy is willing to do. They arnt out there having spent years learning the ins and ours of a society to make sure the amount of civies killed is minimum. But when you put ROEs that prioritize making sure you can visually confirm what is shooting at you is indeed someone shooting at you, casualties increase.
We are trained to provide accurate fire but that can't be given if we can't suppress the enemy.

You can make that argument for anyone who joined post Obama administration, certainly. The Obama administration heavily politicized the RoEs and military in ways no administration before had. For those who'd signed up before though? No administration before had attempted to micromanage the RoEs as heavily as Obama did and nobody would have had any thought an Administration would be so stupid/political as to do so. The only time prior was the Vietnam war in which one of the big lessons learned was "don't let politicians micromanage military matters" and was learned by both the military AND politicians, including OPPONENTS of the Vietnam War like Bill Clinton, who didn't put anywhere near as restrictive RoEs on the military when he was President.

That the Obama administration threw that out and you seem to think that was a good thing somehow is ridiculous. We've had multiple modern military operations with looser rules of engagement that had no major issues (Desert Storm, the 90s intervention in Kosovo, the WoT prior to Obama), and even the issues you're citing are minor compared to the amount of trouble those more restrictive RoEs have caused.

Zack is right in that most Americans don't have the stomach for what war actually entails. You even rage against this tendency when it comes to the Israel/Hamas conflict where you have so many idiots demanding more and more restrain of Israel and how that's impractical. Those are the types of people who were writing the RoEs under Obama and under Biden, you know, idiot leftist operatives.

Thank you

 

[Bacle]

You can make that argument for anyone who joined post Obama administration, certainly. The Obama administration heavily politicized the RoEs and military in ways no administration before had. For those who'd signed up before though? No administration before had attempted to micromanage the RoEs as heavily as Obama did and nobody would have had any thought an Administration would be so stupid/political as to do so. The only time prior was the Vietnam war in which one of the big lessons learned was "don't let politicians micromanage military matters" and was learned by both the military AND politicians, including OPPONENTS of the Vietnam War like Bill Clinton, who didn't put anywhere near as restrictive RoEs on the military when he was President.

That the Obama administration threw that out and you seem to think that was a good thing somehow is ridiculous. We've had multiple modern military operations with looser rules of engagement that had no major issues (Desert Storm, the 90s intervention in Kosovo, the WoT prior to Obama), and even the issues you're citing are minor compared to the amount of trouble those more restrictive RoEs have caused.

Zack is right in that most Americans don't have the stomach for what war actually entails. You even rage against this tendency when it comes to the Israel/Hamas conflict where you have so many idiots demanding more and more restrain of Israel and how that's impractical. Those are the types of people who were writing the RoEs under Obama and under Biden, you know, idiot leftist operatives.

Mogadishu/Black Hawk Down called about Bill Clinton not micromanaging the military, or using political RoE's.

Plus, Bush's letting Cheney and co. run the military for him also made thing massively worse for US PR and burned a lot of international good will the US had since the end of the Cold War and after 9/11.

And why I treat the Israel and US situations differently is down to one factor; Israel's fight is effectively existential, no US conflict since WW2 has been.

If the US was in an existential war, loose RoE's make sense; neither Iraq or Veitnam were existential threats. Thus did not get the loose RoE's the US military enjoyed up till Vietnam soured people on 'letting the military do military things, civies can deal with the aftermath.' mindset.

The fact the US military doesn't seem to be able to understand they aren't getting pre-Vietnam/WW2 era RoE's back is kinda frightening.

The job of the military is very clear. To destroy and defeat the enemies of the United States. To protect our nation.
That is what our job is.

No, your job is to take orders from politicians, who decide what is a threat, what isn't, and how they want the military to handle it. And sometimes, that means RoE's that have political goals, not troop protection, in mind.

The military also to acts as labor for the Corp of Engineers construction projects state side, which doesn't require killing or combat.

That your trainers/commanders don't seem to get that and pass it down to the troops is a massive failing of military education, though I can understand why for morale purposes.

Because the politicans are the reason for the deaths we take. They are the reasons we domt get the weapons or budget or training.
Politicans don't understand. Yes there are those that served and understand. They often are the ones who make sure the military gets what it needs.
But you have people that dodged the draft or have been in politics so long they were getting us i to these bad things.

the nation is not solely that of the politicans...

A nation is not solely the military either, unless you think we should be taking ques from the Norks about domestic politics.

Also, dodging the draft for Veitnam is something many civies see as a point of pride, not a shameful thing, because of how unpopular that war was.

My own father barely managed to avoid getting drafted because we pulled out and ended the draft before his number came up.

People take pride in avoiding the shame of having been stuck fighting in Veitnam, in a war that never should have involved the US to begin with.

The French fucked us in Veitnam; they should have just left when the locals asked them too, before the commies got their hooks in the old anti-IJA partisans that Ho Chi Min commanded and made it a open combat situation.

by the time the public knew what was going on what ever he was doing had already passed because OPSEC. Even then we wernt telling the truth about any losses we took and the like so the public was all happy and for it.

I mean in his sacking/disposing of Patton to appease the Soviets and their friends in the west.

Because you forget, Patton did keep the media around him, and did say the truth about how we needed to be ready to turn the German forces back against the Soviets.

The general public has been fed lies about what life is like in the military for decades now. Honestly since Vietnam.
That is a fact.

The military feeds the public lies about itself in Veitnam, or did you forget how they government tried to hide the use of Agent Orange/Agent Purple and wanted to deny compensation to workers and civies affected by it.

The public has very good reason to doubt the military's version of Veitnam, and it didn't matter that the Tet Offensive 'failed' militarily, the fact it could happen at all showed how weak and worthless the South Vietnamese government was, as well as how oblivious US commanders were to the intel threats in the region.

That loss of trust in military commanders and our 'allies' was not just the result of media twisting things, it was because the leadership of South Vietnam no longer seemed like they were actually worth the American blood to protect, particularly drafted blood.

It is about what the tool is used for. You don't use a hammer as a screwdriver.

Except the hammer in this case seems very eager to do the screwdrivers job, or just pretend the screwdriver isn't needed.

when in an area as hostile as ME, it is needed, but was used in correctly.

Used correctly is the key here; Iraq should not have been invaded, even if A-stan did need to be dealt with.

Fuck, US invading Iraq is part of what spurred Putin to think he could get away with his attacks/invasion of Ukraine.

Our ROE under Bush was great.
It was Obama that basically destroyed us and escalated lives. Every time we had surges it was after Bush....

Bush and his daddy issues are the reason we were in Iraq to start with. Disbanding the Iraqi Army, instead of keeping it intact and paid, is what created so many skilled insurgents.

As for A-stan, we should have left once Osama was dead; after that, it's only value militarily/political was using Bagram to threaten the CCP and Russian interiors, while inflating Lockmart and Raytheon's order numbers during 'peace-time'.

It is the sole consideration of the military outside if killing the enemy.
How to minimize losses to prevent having to wrote home.

We built Bradley's for a reason. We didn't build deathtraps like the Russians for a reason.

It's not the sole consideration of the people who give the military their orders or objectives, though.

Though yes, the Bradley is proving it's worth time and again in Ukraine. Knocking out that T-90M with it's main gun, not even a TOW, was some of the best marketing for the Bradley that has ever happened.

You mean engage an enemy that is fighting back? The ROE is engage where the enemy is either confirmed or may be. If you srnt sure get sure.
In modern combat that is easier with what we have available to us in the ISR realm.
Standard armies also domt use women and children to do thier dirty work and also dont learn your soldiers ROEs to use them against you.
Like why we often had to shoot kids and women was because they knew our ROE would not let us until it was to late.

Yes, which is another reason the US military needs to be far more vocal about not wanting to be used for 'policing actions', which really aren't it's job.

Because these days the military would have civie support for not being used as cops to keep two tribes of goat-herders from killing each other.

So again, destroying the enemy where they are even if they are not directly engaged with you is bad? Because that is what that was. Hell, PID, personally Identify is a huge issu in GWOT because you don't know who is the bad guy and who isn't.
That was the issue with GWOT. Not that we wanted WW2 ROE but thay we were forced to basically act like the police. Only shoot when shot at instead of engaging an armed threat that poses a risk to you. Like we had up until Obama basically.

As I said, the US military should not be used as police in foreign nations, so I think we agree there.

So we shouldn't be allowed to fight as a military and fight how our politicans who have never fought want us too?
So fight like the Russians because most ooliticans don't realize how much went into Desert Storm.

Yes to the first part, because the US military has not earned back the trust lost in Veitnam and Iraq. Sucks, but till the military get's to the point that it has regained the institutional trust of the US people, RoEs will continue to put poitical objectives first and operate on the assumption that if the US military is not kept on a leash, it will bite more than just our enemies.

And we won't fight like Russia, because unlike in Russia, in the US military and government, you can actually pass bad news up the chain without fearing you are going to fall out a window.

Civies dictate our affairs and are often misguided by lying politicans to pain the picture like we are spending to kuch and all of this.
Stop listening to what the politicans and civies say and listen to what the soldiers, the Marines, the sailors, the Airmen say.
Because civies want us to get smaller, and has mainly been the reason we have had such horrible quality of life because other things civies want keep getting pushed.

Soldiers do not get to dictate civies affairs, and political issues have more to deal with than just military concerns.

This is not a two-way street, and everyone who signed up knows this, or should have, before they joined.

You want a better quality of life for the military, maybe stop trying to elect fiscal conservatives that have their own delusions about the modern monetary system and are living in pre-fait currency times.

The ROE adapts to the war. Our ROE is only ever generally what is needed.
What we had in GWOT was more of what police have then a military

See, that's the thing, the likelihood of Congress ever doing a Declaration of War again are low, so all the military will have is 'police actions' and 'nation building' to look forward too, along with the RoE's that come with those sorts of operations.

It would be better all around if the military can set thr ROE due to actually knowing what and who they are fighting.

Again, this requires institutional trust in the US military that simply isn't present in the US public anymore, so the leash will be kept on.

An ROE so restrictive that basically limits us to being ducks in a barrel and makes it so in the end, you lose more of your soldiers fighting then you would normally. Restrictive ROE only makes things worse.
Letting the soldiers dictate what the ROE is based of what they are facing would. Especially during GWOT. Because the politicans eernt the ones out there knowing what the enemy is willing to do. They arnt out there having spent years learning the ins and ours of a society to make sure the amount of civies killed is minimum. But when you put ROEs that prioritize making sure you can visually confirm what is shooting at you is indeed someone shooting at you, casualties increase.
We are trained to provide accurate fire but that can't be given if we can't suppress the enemy.

This is again an issue of the US military should not be used as cops in foreign nations, and should not be expected to operate like cops when the people they are policing have been killing each other since Hammurabi was ruling the area.

 

[DarthOne]

You can make that argument for anyone who joined post Obama administration, certainly. The Obama administration heavily politicized the RoEs and military in ways no administration before had. For those who'd signed up before though? No administration before had attempted to micromanage the RoEs as heavily as Obama did and nobody would have had any thought an Administration would be so stupid/political as to do so. The only time prior was the Vietnam war in which one of the big lessons learned was "don't let politicians micromanage military matters" and was learned by both the military AND politicians, including OPPONENTS of the Vietnam War like Bill Clinton, who didn't put anywhere near as restrictive RoEs on the military when he was President.

That the Obama administration threw that out and you seem to think that was a good thing somehow is ridiculous. We've had multiple modern military operations with looser rules of engagement that had no major issues (Desert Storm, the 90s intervention in Kosovo, the WoT prior to Obama), and even the issues you're citing are minor compared to the amount of trouble those more restrictive RoEs have caused.

Zack is right in that most Americans don't have the stomach for what war actually entails. You even rage against this tendency when it comes to the Israel/Hamas conflict where you have so many idiots demanding more and more restrain of Israel and how that's impractical. Those are the types of people who were writing the RoEs under Obama and under Biden, you know, idiot leftist operatives.

So once again, things we're seeing now had their start thanks to the Obama administration.

That man is going to be the Woodrow Wilson of our time for those who study presidents. Except worse then Wilson and his hate of everything non-democratic and non- WASP.

 

[PeaceMaker 03]

ROE is a joke and it is not a civil issue, or if it is it is even worse.
If ROE is a civilian issue then as currently used the civilian government does not care about protecting US citizens who are military members.

Americans always have a right to self-defense.
Granted I have thought about this a lot after having to tell soldiers not to engage the people trying to kill them because of ROE.

If you do not want soldiers to break things and people do not have them
Deploy.

…. because the US military has not earned back the trust lost in Vietnam and Iraq. Sucks, but till the military get's to the point that it has regained the institutional trust of the US people

The US military was the most trusted organization in the US government as per the entire organization.

Ironic, that the military gets the blame here when it is the civilian authority that determines what the military attempts to achieve and how they do it.

Do notice that more American soldiers went WIA/KIA in Afghanistan while Obama was in office with his ROE. Yet somehow no hourly causality reports across all media when Obama was in office…..

 

[strunkenwhite]

It was Obama that basically destroyed us and escalated lives. Every time we had surges it was after Bush....

What surges are you referring to?

 

[Zachowon]

Mogadishu/Black Hawk Down called about Bill Clinton not micromanaging the military, or using political RoE's.

That was because the operation went wrong due to ither factors not at all due to the government

Plus, Bush's letting Cheney and co. run the military for him also made thing massively worse for US PR and burned a lot of international good will the US had since the end of the Cold War and after 9/11.

Like what exactly?

And why I treat the Israel and US situations differently is down to one factor; Israel's fight is effectively existential, no US conflict since WW2 has been.

Okay and? That doesn't mean the US should fight restricted

If the US was in an existential war, loose RoE's make sense; neither Iraq or Veitnam were existential threats. Thus did not get the loose RoE's the US military enjoyed up till Vietnam soured people on 'letting the military do military things, civies can deal with the aftermath.' mindset.

You mean the ROEs that prevented needless deaths? The ones that allowed us to dominate the enemy?
An enemy known to hide among the people and use them as members (the VC). And we still were facing them woth kid globes because we wernt allowed to actually gain anything in Nam.

The fact the US military doesn't seem to be able to understand they aren't getting pre-Vietnam/WW2 era RoE's back is kinda frightening.

What kind of ROE are you thinking we want? To bomb cities into rubble? Something we don't do anymore because we favor precision over numerical destruction. Desert Storm and the 03 invasion proves that we can deal more damage with surgical strikes then leveling a city.

ROE oretains more on the infantry side of "hey, that guy has a gun and is everything we know to be a ba guy. Let's shoot him so he isn't a threat" where as the ROE we were forced to use was "hey that guy has a gun, but it isn't shooting or aimed at us yet, and the kids next to him seem to also have guns and or a bomb. We have to wait for them to get within a certain distance and or get shit at before we can do anything"

No, your job is to take orders from politicians, who decide what is a threat, what isn't, and how they want the military to handle it. And sometimes, that means RoE's that have political goals, not troop protection, in mind.

What political goals overrode troop safety? The troops are how you fight and if you don't favor thier survival you get more people unlikely to obey such orders.
ROEs are broken because of stupid orders from politicans who think "those poor goat farmers who have been killing our soldiers! We must make sure they are 100 percent the bad guy's. Thay means if they drop thier weapons and run they are no longer a threat! And must be freed!"

The military also to acts as labor for the Corp of Engineers construction projects state side, which doesn't require killing or combat.

The corps of engineers is actually a DoD group you know.....it is in the name US Army Corps of Engineers.... the military isn't the labor for it as it IS the CoE....

That your trainers/commanders don't seem to get that and pass it down to the troops is a massive failing of military education, though I can understand why for morale purposes.

what? You saying we should get a civics class instead of training to destroy the adversaries of the United States?
The entirety of the US Militaries job is to he a weapon. A means to make sure we are able to keep our nation and the world (in some terms. I am not for world policing but it is a simple term to go with for now) from our adversaries hands.
Infantry train to kill the bad guy's. Pilots train to fly thier aircraft and do thier jobs. Intel trains and does thier job constantly.
Engineers do thiers.
It is a day to day life for us, we do this because we wat to and it allows us to further improve our lives after woods with experience many can't get without paying for it.

A nation is not solely the military either, unless you think we should be taking ques from the Norks about domestic politics.

No, not at all. But thr Military is a fundamental part of it

Also, dodging the draft for Veitnam is something many civies see as a point of pride, not a shameful thing, because of how unpopular that war was.

*Looks at statistics of Vietnam.* 70% of all casualties were volunteers. With 91 percent if the USMC being volunteers.
the Army was the only one with damn near half and half casualties wise for draftees and enlisted. And it counted all from KIA to WIA.
Overall draftees killed thiugh? Only roughly 30% of the casualties were draftees. And only 25% of the fighting force were draftees...

My own father barely managed to avoid getting drafted because we pulled out and ended the draft before his number came up.

My grandfather served before Nam and got medically discharged in 62. That's how he got out of it. My other grandfather served in Korea.
Did my grandfather lose buddies in Nam after he left? Yes. Does he resent the government for it? Not really as they all volunteered instead if drafted.

People take pride in avoiding the shame of having been stuck fighting in Veitnam, in a war that never should have involved the US to begin with.

They were less likely to end up in Nam then in some garrison because it was easier to have draftees do menial tasks compared to all the stuff necessary to fight

The French fucked us in Veitnam; they should have just left when the locals asked them too, before the commies got their hooks in the old anti-IJA partisans that Ho Chi Min commanded and made it a open combat situation.

oh I agree with you here.

I mean in his sacking/disposing of Patton to appease the Soviets and their friends in the west.

eh, to a degree. He himself had to play politics to ensure friendship, but he almost got Monty fired at one point so he was more then willing to sack generals of they were not doing what needed to be done.

Because you forget, Patton did keep the media around him, and did say the truth about how we needed to be ready to turn the German forces back against the Soviets.

I mean yes. But at the same time the world was not ready for what would have been a more disasterous war and the fact that the Russians were already building thier own nuke would not have been good.

The military feeds the public lies about itself in Veitnam, or did you forget how they government tried to hide the use of Agent Orange/Agent Purple and wanted to deny compensation to workers and civies affected by it.

I mean, the VA just recently agreed to have Agent Orange be accounted for any cancer.
But not a single soul in the military cares about Nam.

The public has very good reason to doubt the military's version of Veitnam, and it didn't matter that the Tet Offensive 'failed' militarily, the fact it could happen at all showed how weak and worthless the South Vietnamese government was, as well as how oblivious US commanders were to the intel threats in the region.

The reason it happend was because we were not allowed at all to push on the offensive and take any part of North Vietnam. And the South Vietnamese lasted fir what, 2 years after we left? That was with us cutting supplies as well. So it was more like they just didn't have the support needed and a government to scared to get the Chinese or Russians to intervene like in Korea.

That loss of trust in military commanders and our 'allies' was not just the result of media twisting things, it was because the leadership of South Vietnam no longer seemed like they were actually worth the American blood to protect, particularly drafted blood.

Again, draftees made up very little of the actual fighting force and has been a large lie the media has been pushing to make us seem worse then we were.
And the media twisting things has always been the key to why things were worse for the military overseas. Hanoi Hanna os an example of the media being used by our adversaries to demoralize the troops.
Do you think the media ever showed what happend to troops to cause them to act the way they did? Showed the fighting the VC were doing?
Or how about Jane Fonda going and posing eith the NVA and basically making it seem like the military were the had guys.
you are shwoing your leftist roots.

Except the hammer in this case seems very eager to do the screwdrivers job, or just pretend the screwdriver isn't needed.

it isn't needed when it isn't needed. The screwdriver tends to prevent the hammer from being effective.
Point being, look at how effective we were against ISIS under Trump compared to Obama and Biden.

Used correctly is the key here; Iraq should not have been invaded, even if A-stan did need to be dealt with.

I mean, I agree Iraq didn't need to he invaded.

Fuck, US invading Iraq is part of what spurred Putin to think he could get away with his attacks/invasion of Ukraine.

Eh, not really no. We at least had partial justification for knowing how Sadam was treating minorities in his nation (gassing kurds), and the fact that he did have WMDs at one point.
Sure by the time we found them they were bad but it took us awhile to find them.

Bush and his daddy issues are the reason we were in Iraq to start with. Disbanding the Iraqi Army, instead of keeping it intact and paid, is what created so many skilled insurgents.

I mean, this is true.

As for A-stan, we should have left once Osama was dead; after that, it's only value militarily/political was using Bagram to threaten the CCP and Russian interiors, while inflating Lockmart and Raytheon's order numbers during 'peace-time'.

we should have just told Pakistan to fuck off early on after we found out Osama was there and killed him then. A-stan could have easily been just a speed bump and the Taliban/AQ completely wiped out had we wanted to do it by going into Pakistan

It's not the sole consideration of the people who give the military their orders or objectives, though.

Which is a bad thing. What is more important then your citizens surviving contact with the enemy? Good fefes thay get thrown back at you when they kill a whole fucking squad to a suicide bomb?

Though yes, the Bradley is proving it's worth time and again in Ukraine. Knocking out that T-90M with it's main gun, not even a TOW, was some of the best marketing for the Bradley that has ever happened.

Yep, and jt has always been a powerhouse. The entirety of the US MIC even at its worse has wanted protection of its forces above all else.

Yes, which is another reason the US military needs to be far more vocal about not wanting to be used for 'policing actions', which really aren't it's job.

I agree. It is not our job to do policing unless you only task the MPs and security focused military jobs to do it.

Because these days the military would have civie support for not being used as cops to keep two tribes of goat-herders from killing each other.

I agree here. We shouldn't be used as police.

As I said, the US military should not be used as police in foreign nations, so I think we agree there.

This is something we can definitely agree on and has been hurting us for awhile. That was the biggest issue with us being out there was policing after trying to nation build. No disagreement on this part

Yes to the first part, because the US military has not earned back the trust lost in Veitnam and Iraq. Sucks, but till the military get's to the point that it has regained the institutional trust of the US people, RoEs will continue to put poitical objectives first and operate on the assumption that if the US military is not kept on a leash, it will bite more than just our enemies.

Vietnam no longer rucking matters to the military. That was what, 50 something years ago by this point? Almost 60? Not a single soldier alive has served since then, and the longest serving were born around the time of Vietnam.
We, do, not, care because it has no bearing on how we do anything these days.

And we won't fight like Russia, because unlike in Russia, in the US military and government, you can actually pass bad news up the chain without fearing you are going to fall out a window.

yes, and that is something that we still have issued with to a degree, but not to the point thay ot will be hidden until war breaks out.
Usually the ones hiding it are a few officers want our numbers to look better but will get found out in audits or on exercises when the vehicles need to be sent somewhere.
In the US military it will get found out eventually.
Privates talk.

Soldiers do not get to dictate civies affairs, and political issues have more to deal with than just military concerns.

Correct, but yet they get to dictate everything we do without any actual consideration for the ones whose lives are the military?

This is not a two-way street, and everyone who signed up knows this, or should have, before they joined.

I mean yes, but that doesn't mean we can go to congresscritters and complain because that is our right and is actively encouraged by the military

You want a better quality of life for the military, maybe stop trying to elect fiscal conservatives that have their own delusions about the modern monetary system and are living in pre-fait currency times.

or we stop electing democrats and elect people who actively care about the military like 90% of Republicans. And maybe we have some balls on Congress to give us raises every year that are in the double digit percentage instead if max of like 6. 8 percent is best fir inflation at minimum, we got six....
Fiscal conservatives have nothing to do with that and people who seem to only care about thier own pockets do.
Often times 11% has been put onto the bills, and it always gets chopped down.

because people would rather spend more money on green things domestically then help those who want to defend thier country

See, that's the thing, the likelihood of Congress ever doing a Declaration of War again are low, so all the military will have is 'police actions' and 'nation building' to look forward too, along with the RoE's that come with those sorts of operations.

Nit 100 percent true.
Remember the president can send us to do actions fir 60 to 90 days depending on what it is and no need for war to be declared.
For instance, we send troops to support Ukraine. War would not be declared.
Now, if Nato were to be attacked war would be declared due to treaties.
Same with Phillipines or Taiwan or Korea or Japan...
It depends on situation and what is going on.

Again, this requires institutional trust in the US military that simply isn't present in the US public anymore, so the leash will be kept on.

and that leash will end with us having a massive blow to our nation because we srnt allowed to have freedom.

This is again an issue of the US military should not be used as cops in foreign nations, and should not be expected to operate like cops when the people they are policing have been killing each other since Hammurabi was ruling the area.

Oh I know. Let us fight a opponent that isn't a civilian one day a combatant the next and then a civie again.

ROE is a joke and it is not a civil issue, or if it is it is even worse.
If ROE is a civilian issue then as currently used the civilian government does not care about protecting US citizens who are military members.

Americans always have a right to self-defense.
Granted I have thought about this a lot after having to tell soldiers not to engage the people trying to kill them because of ROE.

If you do not want soldiers to break things and people do not have them
Deploy.

…. because the US military has not earned back the trust lost in Vietnam and Iraq. Sucks, but till the military get's to the point that it has regained the institutional trust of the US people

The US military was the most trusted organization in the US government as per the entire organization.

Ironic, that the military gets the blame here when it is the civilian authority that determines what the military attempts to achieve and how they do it.

Do notice that more American soldiers went WIA/KIA in Afghanistan while Obama was in office with his ROE. Yet somehow no hourly causality reports across all media when Obama was in office…..

Yes. We are never allowed to fight like a military but glorified police

What surges are you referring to?

I have often heard it referred as the surge of 08 by those who were in atbthe time so that is what I was referring to.
Thanks for that!
I also did some more, it was A-stan that has the major resurgence after Obama and then the 2011 pull out that brought us back into Iraq against ISIS.
Bit thanks for the correction.

 

[Bacle]

That was because the operation went wrong due to ither factors not at all due to the government

So you never heard about how Clinton denied AC-130 support to the operation, despite the commanders request, or how we had a platoon of Abram's in Somalia that the locals hated, but that Clinton pulled out for 'hearts and minds' reasons before the event went down?

Like what exactly?

Abu Gahrib, the Blackwater shit, the lies about the WMDs (more specifically the yellowcake uranium that was a farce, not the old, busted chem shit we found), and how we just wanted to ignore local history to try to force democracy on a nation/people who did not understand it the way the west does.

All of that burned international good will.

Okay and? That doesn't mean the US should fight restricted

From a political perspective, yes actually, it does; the US and international public is more accepting of 'light' US casualties than seeing another case of 'droned an aid worker because we didn't check well enough' appearing on the international news.

Dead civies hurt US international PR, dead US soldiers don't, and that's something I don't think the military wants to admit to it's troops.

You mean the ROEs that prevented needless deaths? The ones that allowed us to dominate the enemy?
An enemy known to hide among the people and use them as members (the VC). And we still were facing them woth kid globes because we wernt allowed to actually gain anything in Nam.

What kind of ROE are you thinking we want? To bomb cities into rubble? Something we don't do anymore because we favor precision over numerical destruction. Desert Storm and the 03 invasion proves that we can deal more damage with surgical strikes then leveling a city.

As I said above, dead international civies hurt the main US political goals more than dead US solders do.

That is political reality, and post-Bush Jr. ROE's reflect this.

ROE oretains more on the infantry side of "hey, that guy has a gun and is everything we know to be a ba guy. Let's shoot him so he isn't a threat" where as the ROE we were forced to use was "hey that guy has a gun, but it isn't shooting or aimed at us yet, and the kids next to him seem to also have guns and or a bomb. We have to wait for them to get within a certain distance and or get shit at before we can do anything"

What political goals overrode troop safety? The troops are how you fight and if you don't favor thier survival you get more people unlikely to obey such orders.
ROEs are broken because of stupid orders from politicans who think "those poor goat farmers who have been killing our soldiers! We must make sure they are 100 percent the bad guy's. Thay means if they drop thier weapons and run they are no longer a threat! And must be freed!"

Again, political considerations mean dead international civies hurt US political goals more than dead US troops.

I know that's not a happy thought, but it is reality.

The corps of engineers is actually a DoD group you know.....it is in the name US Army Corps of Engineers.... the military isn't the labor for it as it IS the CoE....

Yes, Corp of Engineers is DoD, and one of the best reasons for a standing military.

what? You saying we should get a civics class instead of training to destroy the adversaries of the United States?

Yes.

Both are needed, since US public schools are skimping on civics education, and soldiers do not stop being citizens who need to know how their nations civie government is supposed to operate.

Maybe if US public schools did a better civics education, it wouldn't be necessary, but since they aren't doing their job, military education programs may need to do it for them, for new recruits.

The entirety of the US Militaries job is to he a weapon. A means to make sure we are able to keep our nation and the world (in some terms. I am not for world policing but it is a simple term to go with for now) from our adversaries hands.
Infantry train to kill the bad guy's. Pilots train to fly thier aircraft and do thier jobs. Intel trains and does thier job constantly.
Engineers do thiers.
It is a day to day life for us, we do this because we wat to and it allows us to further improve our lives after woods with experience many can't get without paying for it.

Unfortunately, that's the ideal, not the reality, and illogical political reasoning and demands can pull snowjobs on those who do not have a grasp of US civics.

You want to have better ROEs, then the military needs to have more civics minded soldiers who can try to make RoE's that fit political needs, and soldier protection, better than soldiers who do not have a civics education.

More civic's minded soldiers also mean more soldiers who want to either stay in long term, or become politicians to bring veteran experience to politics.

*Looks at statistics of Vietnam.* 70% of all casualties were volunteers. With 91 percent if the USMC being volunteers.
the Army was the only one with damn near half and half casualties wise for draftees and enlisted. And it counted all from KIA to WIA.
Overall draftees killed thiugh? Only roughly 30% of the casualties were draftees. And only 25% of the fighting force were draftees...

Percentages matter less than the fact any unwilling draftee died in Veitnam, when it comes to public perception of the war at the time.

Veitnam killed the draft, because the US populace was done with letting themselves be forced to fight in wars they did not want. Even just being forced into uniform for garrison duty was no longer going to be accepted, because it still put unwilling people into uniform and the US was done with that, even if technically Selective Service still exists in terms of paperwork.

My grandfather served before Nam and got medically discharged in 62. That's how he got out of it. My other grandfather served in Korea.
Did my grandfather lose buddies in Nam after he left? Yes. Does he resent the government for it? Not really as they all volunteered instead if drafted.

Yes, volunteers often have a different view of things than those who were drafted.

They were less likely to end up in Nam then in some garrison because it was easier to have draftees do menial tasks compared to all the stuff necessary to fight

Again, percentages forced into uniform for garrison vs forced to fight/die in Veitnam doesn't matter, the fact any unwilling American was forced to fight in/for South Veitnam does.

I mean yes. But at the same time the world was not ready for what would have been a more disasterous war and the fact that the Russians were already building thier own nuke would not have been good.

We had multiple years before the Soviets would have the bomb at that point, there was a window of opportunity to move against Stalin, and Patton saw that, but was punished for admitting as much.

I mean, the VA just recently agreed to have Agent Orange be accounted for any cancer.
But not a single soul in the military cares about Nam.

Again, it's not whether those in the military care, it's whether it impacts civie political calculus that determines what orders/objectives the military is given.

Veitnam still matters to civies, whether you like it or not.

The reason it happend was because we were not allowed at all to push on the offensive and take any part of North Vietnam. And the South Vietnamese lasted fir what, 2 years after we left? That was with us cutting supplies as well. So it was more like they just didn't have the support needed and a government to scared to get the Chinese or Russians to intervene like in Korea.

Yes, the US military was not allowed to invade the north, because it was not a 'war', it was another glorified police action and invading the north would have hurt the negotiations going on in Paris (the same one Nixon torpedo'd for his own political gain).

Again, draftees made up very little of the actual fighting force and has been a large lie the media has been pushing to make us seem worse then we were.

And again, percentages don't matter, the fact any unwilling American blood was shed to protect the South Vietnamese gov does matter, from a PR perspective.

And the media twisting things has always been the key to why things were worse for the military overseas. Hanoi Hanna os an example of the media being used by our adversaries to demoralize the troops.
Do you think the media ever showed what happend to troops to cause them to act the way they did? Showed the fighting the VC were doing?
Or how about Jane Fonda going and posing eith the NVA and basically making it seem like the military were the had guys.

Eh, what Fonda did was pretty shit, not going to disagree.

However, please do not pretend the military was being honest with the US people about Veitnam, and that is was only 'media twisting things' that turned the public against the war.

The feelings that came out of the US public after the Tet Offensive weren't some new thing, it's just that instead other anti-war side being attacked by those in power, this time the anti-war side had the US media on their side, instead of in the Pentagon's pocket (which is what the Pentagon had been used to).

you are shwoing your leftist roots.

And you are showing that conservative need to defend the Veitnam 'War', for the sake of military morale and the feelings of some vets, is a continued issue for the GOP base.

The Dems aren't stupid enough to try to defend what happened in Veitnam, and successful parts of the GOP have not tried to defend it either.

it isn't needed when it isn't needed. The screwdriver tends to prevent the hammer from being effective.
Point being, look at how effective we were against ISIS under Trump compared to Obama and Biden.

And yet the DoD still disobeyed Trump about pulling troops out of Syria, and numerous other cases of the DoD ignoring/undermining Trump for political reasons.

The DoD leadership are politicians too, not soldiers with some more clout, and operate in the political worlds rules more than the DoDs.

Eh, not really no. We at least had partial justification for knowing how Sadam was treating minorities in his nation (gassing kurds), and the fact that he did have WMDs at one point.
Sure by the time we found them they were bad but it took us awhile to find them.

The Yellowcake was a lie, a big one, and the nerve gas/bio agents were the secondary bit, and even those came out to be effectively so worthless that Saddam was not even close to using them on US or giving them to Osama, as was claimed to the US public.

Which is a bad thing. What is more important then your citizens surviving contact with the enemy? Good fefes thay get thrown back at you when they kill a whole fucking squad to a suicide bomb?

Political good will with international partners can be more important than your own troops survival, in political calculus.

As I said above, US political goals are hurt more by dead international civies than by dead US troops.

Vietnam no longer rucking matters to the military. That was what, 50 something years ago by this point? Almost 60? Not a single soldier alive has served since then, and the longest serving were born around the time of Vietnam.
We, do, not, care because it has no bearing on how we do anything these days.

And again, whether it matters to those already in the military is not important, whether it is still relevant to US civies and political goals/reasoning is.

yes, and that is something that we still have issued with to a degree, but not to the point thay ot will be hidden until war breaks out.
Usually the ones hiding it are a few officers want our numbers to look better but will get found out in audits or on exercises when the vehicles need to be sent somewhere.
In the US military it will get found out eventually.
Privates talk.

Yes, and this is a saving grace of our military.

Correct, but yet they get to dictate everything we do without any actual consideration for the ones whose lives are the military?

Yes, because there is no oath politicians sign or declare that says they have to care about US troop lives more than political concerns.

Tools are replacable, political concerns are often not.

I mean yes, but that doesn't mean we can go to congresscritters and complain because that is our right and is actively encouraged by the military

Which is another saving grace.

or we stop electing democrats and elect people who actively care about the military like 90% of Republicans. And maybe we have some balls on Congress to give us raises every year that are in the double digit percentage instead if max of like 6. 8 percent is best fir inflation at minimum, we got six....
Fiscal conservatives have nothing to do with that and people who seem to only care about thier own pockets do.
Often times 11% has been put onto the bills, and it always gets chopped down.

The Dems could be better on military funding, but look at how many people on the Right still operate in pre-fiat currency mindsets and thus plan military budgets accordingly.

Money printer gonna keep going 'brrr', might as well help boost the military with it, given the CVNs are the real thing that backs the USD.

because people would rather spend more money on green things domestically then help those who want to defend thier country

Yes, the radical greens are a problem, and for more than just the US military.

Nit 100 percent true.
Remember the president can send us to do actions fir 60 to 90 days depending on what it is and no need for war to be declared.
For instance, we send troops to support Ukraine. War would not be declared.
Now, if Nato were to be attacked war would be declared due to treaties.
Same with Phillipines or Taiwan or Korea or Japan...
It depends on situation and what is going on.

Yes, the 60-90 exception does exist, and has been used before.

However, that sort of stuff also pisses off US civies, and feels like a Executive end-run around US public consent towards military matters.

and that leash will end with us having a massive blow to our nation because we srnt allowed to have freedom.

Very possibly, yes.

Them's the breaks, and the price(s) of how dysfunctional and mistrusted the US gov and military have become by the US populace, do to their own ego and infighting.

It may take a slap in the face to whole US and a major blow to us for the delusions and illusions about how we should use our military to fall away.

 

[PeaceMaker 03]

Dead civies hurt US international PR, dead US soldiers don't, and that's something I don't think the military wants to admit to it's troops.

Not “the military wants to admit”, but the civilian administration wants to admit to the American public, whose sons and daughters died when they did not have too.
Why to score points with all the countries not paying for their own defense and protecting their international trade.

 

[Zachowon]

So you never heard about how Clinton denied AC-130 support to the operation, despite the commanders request, or how we had a platoon of Abram's in Somalia that the locals hated, but that Clinton pulled out for 'hearts and minds' reasons before the event went down?

Abrams woul be a horrid idea because urban does not work woth tank.
And a C130 in a heavy civilian area also not a good idea.
Because even woth the less restrictive ROE we still wernt just gonna open fire on civilians.

Abu Gahrib, the Blackwater shit, the lies about the WMDs (more specifically the yellowcake uranium that was a farce, not the old, busted chem shit we found), and how we just wanted to ignore local history to try to force democracy on a nation/people who did not understand it the way the west does.

Abi Gahrib was mainly a CIA thing but yes we were invovled.
That whole thing is not good.
Blackwater is not military.
They had chemical weapons which counts and had used thm in the past befire we invaded.
and the later is literallt due to politics nothing at all due to the military.

All of that burned international good will.

so...two things which were literally nothing about the military and instead the government....

From a political perspective, yes actually, it does; the US and international public is more accepting of 'light' US casualties than seeing another case of 'droned an aid worker because we didn't check well enough' appearing on the international news.

as we have seen in Gaza. Aid worker doesn't mean they wernt invovled in attacks.
But hey, what ever makes the military look bad.

Dead civies hurt US international PR, dead US soldiers don't, and that's something I don't think the military wants to admit to it's troops.

Dead soldiers seemed to hurt US PR more then a bunch if dead Afghanis two years ago...

As I said above, dead international civies hurt the main US political goals more than dead US solders do.

Again, the 13 killed in Kabul disagree

That is political reality, and post-Bush Jr. ROE's reflect this.

It was the better ROE but because the media didn't like the fact we were fighting back....

Again, political considerations mean dead international civies hurt US political goals more than dead US troops.

civilians that put themselves in said situations and arnt always civilians.
Because in GWOT a civilian one day is a potential enemy and vice versa.
The ROE of engaging when knowing the enemy has a weapon should mean more.

I know that's not a happy thought, but it is reality.

Because the media cares more about a bunch of immigrants then American citizens in its own country so of course they would complain someone died fighting against us.

Yes, Corp of Engineers is DoD, and one of the best reasons for a standing military.

Oh yeah

Yes.

Both are needed, since US public schools are skimping on civics education, and soldiers do not stop being citizens who need to know how their nations civie government is supposed to operate.

Maybe if US public schools did a better civics education, it wouldn't be necessary, but since they aren't doing their job, military education programs may need to do it for them, for new recruits.

Bacle, you are basically asking what is already a stressful long time for new recruits (army and Marines are out and about a lot compared to other branches but the amount of stuff learned is insane) you are asking them to include what equates would be making every basic a month longer at least to account for a boring class we already have enough off.
Include things like I had a 6 month long AIT which was basically school as is and it is not a fun time.

We have no need to know civics unless one wants to stay in long term and get a degree. How does knowing civics help the infantry grunt or the tank crewman? It doesn't.
Bacle, you are treating us like we are not a physically and mentally demanding job that isnt a norml 9-5.
we are trained to do our jobs, we arnt trained to be invovled in civics. Because we are trained to kill for our country not talk diplomatic things with people. That is the State department.

Unfortunately, that's the ideal, not the reality, and illogical political reasoning and demands can pull snowjobs on those who do not have a grasp of US civics.

We do not have time to learn civics in the enlisted side.

You want to have better ROEs, then the military needs to have more civics minded soldiers who can try to make RoE's that fit political needs, and soldier protection, better than soldiers who do not have a civics education.

That is what officers are for. Enlisted or the ones on the ground doing the fighting. Junior officers are generally there with them, but that is all the civics we need.

More civic's minded soldiers also mean more soldiers who want to either stay in long term, or become politicians to bring veteran experience to politics.

More soldiers that learn civics LEAVE early then stay in because of how bad the bureaucracy is the longer you stay in.

Percentages matter less than the fact any unwilling draftee died in Veitnam, when it comes to public perception of the war at the time.

Okay cool. Dismiss the 75% of volunteers who were there and 70% that died.

Veitnam killed the draft, because the US populace was done with letting themselves be forced to fight in wars they did not want. Even just being forced into uniform for garrison duty was no longer going to be accepted, because it still put unwilling people into uniform and the US was done with that, even if technically Selective Service still exists in terms of paperwork.

I mean yes it did, but draftees were not the main fighting force....which is what is often pushed by the left and the media.

Yes, volunteers often have a different view of things than those who were drafted.

Obviously.

Again, percentages forced into uniform for garrison vs forced to fight/die in Veitnam doesn't matter, the fact any unwilling American was forced to fight in/for South Veitnam does.

The numbers of draftees is outweighed by thay of the volunteers.
acting like the few comparatively drafted service members equates to the large number more if vokunteers is sick.

We had multiple years before the Soviets would have the bomb at that point, there was a window of opportunity to move against Stalin, and Patton saw that, but was punished for admitting as much.

yes...move a worn iut and exhausted force across what...1800km if not more against anither veteran fighting force that OUTNUMBERED your own.
add in the fact we wernt guranteed to hsve allied support in that.

Again, it's not whether those in the military care, it's whether it impacts civie political calculus that determines what orders/objectives the military is given.

the civie political status that did the pull out of A-stan? That one?

Veitnam still matters to civies, whether you like it or not.

You are the only person who ever brings up vientam. MODERN media doesnt bring up nam...

Yes, the US military was not allowed to invade the north, because it was not a 'war', it was another glorified police action and invading the north would have hurt the negotiations going on in Paris (the same one Nixon torpedo'd for his own political gain).

we wernt allowed to go north even before then in fear of bringing in the soviets and the chinese.

And again, percentages don't matter, the fact any unwilling American blood was shed to protect the South Vietnamese gov does matter, from a PR perspective.

percentages matter. Because the PR made it seem like it was draftees who were the massive numbers killed.

Eh, what Fonda did was pretty shit, not going to disagree.

The fact that she was welcomed and loved by US media for it should tell you what they thought of the war and the soldiers fighting

However, please do not pretend the military was being honest with the US people about Veitnam, and that is was only 'media twisting things' that turned the public against the war.

Agent Orange? Yeah that was bad. Outside of that? The media made it seem like all we did was murder women and children and were just there to murder.

The feelings that came out of the US public after the Tet Offensive weren't some new thing, it's just that instead other anti-war side being attacked by those in power, this time the anti-war side had the US media on their side, instead of in the Pentagon's pocket (which is what the Pentagon had been used to).

The media was against the military from day one during the war.....
The tet offensive was a huge win for the US

And you are showing that conservative need to defend the Veitnam 'War', for the sake of military morale and the feelings of some vets, is a continued issue for the GOP base

The war was stupid. We didnt need it but dont paint it as this humiliation of the US military when it was more of one fir the US Government

The Dems aren't stupid enough to try to defend what happened in Veitnam, and successful parts of the GOP have not tried to defend it either.

i literally dont know a single person whondefneds Vietnam in any sense besides our government fucked us over there.

And yet the DoD still disobeyed Trump about pulling troops out of Syria, and numerous other cases of the DoD ignoring/undermining Trump for political reasons.

yes, the highest levels that should have been court martialled.

The DoD leadership are politicians too, not soldiers with some more clout, and operate in the political worlds rules more than the DoDs.

while true. They are supposed to navigate it not he apart of it.

The Yellowcake was a lie, a big one, and the nerve gas/bio agents were the secondary bit, and even those came out to be effectively so worthless that Saddam was not even close to using them on US or giving them to Osama, as was claimed to the US public.

Because he made sure they were buried and hidden and by the time we found them they were. Because had he used them against us it would have been worse for him.

Political good will with international partners can be more important than your own troops survival, in political calculus.

How.
"Oh we lost two dozen troops but some goat farmers lived, even thiugh he had nothing important to protect and our guys are pretty sure he caused the ambush"
Or "a bunch of guys are attacking us and we cant figure iut who they are, so we cant shoot them as they may be used against us politcally"
the last didnt happen but could have because of how many times we are thrown under the bus for some politicans feelings.

Feelings have no place in war bacle.
that is how you get 20 years of nation building.

As I said above, US political goals are hurt more by dead international civies than by dead US troops.

niy really no. Dead US citizens mean more to the general US populace over some foreign people.
compare how the US reacts to an attack oj a ally over seas vs an attack on us.

And again, whether it matters to those already in the military is not important, whether it is still relevant to US civies and political goals/reasoning is.

so...literally only caring about poltiucal will of the civies who often times have no idea what is actually going on and will gladly change funding ro support some socialist bullshit pushed as great?

This is the issue. Military matters arnt addressed by the civilian government because they dont see it necessary to address without having soke ulterior motive.

Yes, and this is a saving grace of our military.

PNN knows all.

Yes, because there is no oath politicians sign or declare that says they have to care about US troop lives more than political concerns.

the fact that we are US citizens and oftej times thier constituents means a lot.
small towns especially love thier vets and word spreads fast in places like the south.

Tools are replacable, political concerns are often not.

politcal concerns that have absolutely nothing to do woth the military butbyet force us to be something we are not.

Which is another saving grace.

He'll I will be probably writing to mine here soon.

The Dems could be better on military funding, but look at how many people on the Right still operate in pre-fiat currency mindsets and thus plan military budgets accordingly.

That doesn't matter Bacle, it is the fact that the dems are almost always the ones causing us to have less money as a service member because they do not care about getting us living wages.
Don't blame the right when very few are actually responsible for any lack of pay increases and is almost solely dems.

Money printer gonna keep going 'brrr', might as well help boost the military with it, given the CVNs are the real thing that backs the USD.

Force the world to use our money one way or another.

Yes, the radical greens are a problem, and for more than just the US military.

they are a problem with the entirety of our political landscape

Yes, the 60-90 exception does exist, and has been used before.

and is viable

However, that sort of stuff also pisses off US civies, and feels like a Executive end-run around US public consent towards military matters.

I mean It can feel that way, but we don't have time in sole cases to wait for congress to decide to declare war.
If we are attacked for instance we will want to strike as soon as possible before our attackers have time to recoup and prepare.

Very possibly, yes.

Them's the breaks, and the price(s) of how dysfunctional and mistrusted the US gov and military have become by the US populace, do to their own ego and infighting.

It may take a slap in the face to whole US and a major blow to us for the delusions and illusions about how we should use our military to fall away.

The fact is. That leash is both a burden and a good thing. It is a burden ecause it goes against the entirety of the fighting force for some politicians to look nice.
It is good because we don't go and immediately destroy those we see as threats....iran..

 

[History Learner]

At least our military can fight

 

[Poe]

This has nothing to do with being able to fight. Iran played the game adequately by swooping in as the US pulled back after 2011 and filing that power vacuum.

 

[History Learner]

You can make that argument for anyone who joined post Obama administration, certainly. The Obama administration heavily politicized the RoEs and military in ways no administration before had. For those who'd signed up before though? No administration before had attempted to micromanage the RoEs as heavily as Obama did and nobody would have had any thought an Administration would be so stupid/political as to do so. The only time prior was the Vietnam war in which one of the big lessons learned was "don't let politicians micromanage military matters" and was learned by both the military AND politicians, including OPPONENTS of the Vietnam War like Bill Clinton, who didn't put anywhere near as restrictive RoEs on the military when he was President.

That the Obama administration threw that out and you seem to think that was a good thing somehow is ridiculous. We've had multiple modern military operations with looser rules of engagement that had no major issues (Desert Storm, the 90s intervention in Kosovo, the WoT prior to Obama), and even the issues you're citing are minor compared to the amount of trouble those more restrictive RoEs have caused.

Zack is right in that most Americans don't have the stomach for what war actually entails. You even rage against this tendency when it comes to the Israel/Hamas conflict where you have so many idiots demanding more and more restrain of Israel and how that's impractical. Those are the types of people who were writing the RoEs under Obama and under Biden, you know, idiot leftist operatives.

So once again, things we're seeing now had their start thanks to the Obama administration.

That man is going to be the Woodrow Wilson of our time for those who study presidents. Except worse then Wilson and his hate of everything non-democratic and non- WASP.

I'd highly encourage you both to go read SIGAR reports on the Afghanistan War; the ROE thing was a cope, the Taliban was already reconstituted and gaining ground by Bush II's Second Term. A lot of you are Zoomers and thus way too young to remember those days with any clarity, but Afghanistan was already going downhill by 2008, before Obama was President:

On April 27, President Karzai escaped another attempt on his life: gunmen opened fire during a military parade celebrating the nation's victory and liberation from the eight-year occupation of the Soviet Union. The firefight lasted about a quarter of an hour, with 3 dead and over 10 wounded.[1]​

​

As of September 11, 2008 has been the deadliest year for US forces since the start of the war with 113 deaths.[2] Early September also marked the first time the war spilled over on to Pakistani territory.[3] The year was also the deadliest for several European countries in Afghanistan. ​

 

[History Learner]

This has nothing to do with being able to fight. Iran played the game adequately by swooping in as the US pulled back after 2011 and filing that power vacuum.

Iran was supplying and supporting the Shia insurgents the whole time.

Being able to fight, however, is more esoteric as a topic. Nobody disputes the U.S. ability to kill people, but as the report goes into detail, what good does that serve when you categorically fail at your strategic objectives, empower your main rival in the region and so exhaust the American public with 4,000 casualties that they retreat into isolationism?

 

[Poe]

Being able to fight, however, is more esoteric as a topic.

Maybe, but you're responding to a comment that was specifically about being able to fight. The US can also supply other countries with the fuel and weapons to make war, across oceans as we see in Ukraine, so I'm not sure you've proven anything with the write up about Iran being able to do so for its neighbor.