acrashb

It does not really matter what they have to say now. Their reputation as a human rights organization is shattered now that they are blaming the victim for defending themselves.
All the kings horses and all the kings men won't be able to put Amnesty International's reputation together again.

So a once widely respected organization destroys itself in one fell swoop.  Nice job RU bot/CEO.  Maybe they should bring in Noam Chomsky also.  I have a feeling their grass roots contibutors will mostly be pulling out.  But Putin will happily make up the difference.  This org is now dead to me. 
 

If by "two major foreign needs" we mean a two-theatre war, I don't think that's correct, as the significant post-cold war drawdowns speak against it.  So I googled.  It turns out that no president has really changed the two-theatre war model, so it comes down to desire vs. capability.  From the Britannica article, "some analysts believed that the two-theatre war strategy, though still officially upheld by the Pentagon, was effectively relinquished in the 2000s in favour of a more realistic assessment and a leaner military".  This is sadly vague (it could include panzermartin as one of the 'some' analysts), but jives with what I know, and the article overall shows a trend to reduce multi-theatre capability, as do others with credible pedigrees.  
Things have change significantly from WWII / Cold War to now.  The desire for the much-vaunted "peace dividend" with the fall of the USSR has reduced capabilities.
But if you mean "funnelling weapons, training and ISR" to two major theatres, sure, that's well within the US / West's capability.
Absolutely.  China's window to take Taiwan will open and then close (for economic and demographic reasons) at some point; during that period, if they are in any way emboldened they will do it, or try to do it.
Preventing that is necessary to a) avoid a new domino effect and b) prevent either the destruction of the bulk of the world's integrated circuit capacity (essential to modern life) or the capture and hostage-holding of said capacity.
Having said that, the "try to do it" may be inevitable based on China's domestic political needs and assessments, in which case our option is to stage things such that an attempt would be quickly unsuccessful.

If by "two major foreign needs" we mean a two-theatre war, I don't think that's correct, as the significant post-cold war drawdowns speak against it.  So I googled.  It turns out that no president has really changed the two-theatre war model, so it comes down to desire vs. capability.  From the Britannica article, "some analysts believed that the two-theatre war strategy, though still officially upheld by the Pentagon, was effectively relinquished in the 2000s in favour of a more realistic assessment and a leaner military".  This is sadly vague (it could include panzermartin as one of the 'some' analysts), but jives with what I know, and the article overall shows a trend to reduce multi-theatre capability, as do others with credible pedigrees.  
Things have change significantly from WWII / Cold War to now.  The desire for the much-vaunted "peace dividend" with the fall of the USSR has reduced capabilities.
But if you mean "funnelling weapons, training and ISR" to two major theatres, sure, that's well within the US / West's capability.
Absolutely.  China's window to take Taiwan will open and then close (for economic and demographic reasons) at some point; during that period, if they are in any way emboldened they will do it, or try to do it.
Preventing that is necessary to a) avoid a new domino effect and b) prevent either the destruction of the bulk of the world's integrated circuit capacity (essential to modern life) or the capture and hostage-holding of said capacity.
Having said that, the "try to do it" may be inevitable based on China's domestic political needs and assessments, in which case our option is to stage things such that an attempt would be quickly unsuccessful.

OK, I gotta give you that.  After much praying and reading of scripture, it appears I overstated my case.
I agree w you that airplanes are not false gods.  They are gods but are lesser gods relative to The Most Exalted High Gods (tracked armored vehicles).    Wheeled armored vehicles are the offspring of High Gods w mortals, so are demi-gods.  😃

As usual you're turning things around. China has been conducting aggressive and threatening exercises against Taiwan for years and has continued to do so since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Perhaps Ukraine wouldn't have been invaded if Pelosi or Biden would have visit Kiev at the beginning of this year.
But yeah, let's blame the Americans. 😉

Beautiful video.  Damn, I love tanks.  Always have, always will.  Even russian-designed tanks (as long as they fly UKR flag).  I think tanks are not obsolete, because God loves tanks.  If he did not love them, he would not have made them so beautiful. 
Lots of people like airplanes, but they worship a false god. Tanks are God's chosen war machines. 

This tweet sums up what I think of this report by Amnesty International.
On a related note I will not be donating any money to this organization anytime soon or maybe ever.
I do plan to donate even more money directly to the Ukrainian military. 😀

Clearly I am not getting through here.  I am not proposing a complete numbers based theory of warfare…that died with Jomini and the thinkers of his era.  Nor can war entirely be based on scientific method, here we often fall down in the West.
That all said, war is not a voodoo art or entirely a set of dice rolls either.  We can, and should do more to try and develop more nuanced theories of a central human enterprise, or we all know the risks involved.  I completely disagree with the “ce sera” or “it is too hard” position as it traps us into planning for the last war and strategies built on hope, which never work out.
Gains can be made, and better ideas are out there - we can war better.

Can you please stop these posts.
They do not add anything to this thread.
Best regards
Thomm

1. No phalanx jokes or comments for the above?  I am rather disappointed.
2. On Aragorn2002's point, I think he was specifically looking at UKR's choice to chip away at the Kherson-region bridges instead of a more concentrated, sudden attack.  In that context, it would seem much better shock value and much less time for the enemy to counter if done swiftly and suddenly.  So if UKR didn't do this, my only idea for why is that they are concerned for the thousands of UKR civilians and want to entice the russians to retreat instead of holding hostages and starving civilians.  Militarily, I think Aragorn's right on wanting the bridges down quickly and w/o warning.
3. Metaphor Management Committee:  While LOTR is the official vehicle for metaphors, Game of Thrones is permitted if done appropiately (like GrigB, above).  Those using GOT metaphors must keep in mind the immense emotional damage caused by season 8 and should avoid content that might trigger a trauma response in millions of angry, hurting people.  
 

Now, look what the time is:
 

@Aragorn2002
I would like to make a correction to the widespread misuse of chess as a metaphor, but not for pedantic reasons - I think it's something worth keeping in mind when playing CM or any other tactical wargame:
Most chess games between grandmasters end in a draw. You do not win at chess by outsmarting your opponent; you win by waiting for him or her to make a mistake, and capitalizing on it. If neither player makes a mistake - and grandmasters rarely make mistakes - the game ends in a draw.
From Wikipedia:
"In chess games played at the top level, a draw is the most common outcome of a game: of around 22,000 games published in The Week in Chess played between 1999 and 2002 by players with a FIDE Elo rating of 2500 or above, 55 percent were draws. According to chess analyst Jeff Sonas, although an upward draw rate trend can be observed in general master-level play since the beginning of the 20th century, it is currently "holding pretty steady around 50%, and is only increasing at a very slow rate". Draw rate of elite grandmasters, rated more than 2750 Elo, is, however, significantly higher, surpassing 70% in 2017 and 2018.
In top-level correspondence chess under ICCF, where computer assistance is allowed, the draw rate is much higher than in the over-the-board chess: of 1512 games played in the World Championship finals and the Candidates' sections between 2010 and 2013, 82.3% ended in a draw. Since that time, draw rate in top-level correspondence play has been rising steadily, reaching 97% in 2019."

In this case I propose
a) that "winning" was defined to narrowly if we focus on a battle and not the war; and
b) we don't have to fight to destroy the enemies' capability to fight.  First, capability is only one part it - there is Will and Energy and one more to be affected (see the_capt) as well.  Further, capability can be degraded by non-kinetic methods, like comprehensive sanctions, as we are seeing in real-time right now.
In the case of the current war, if RA retreats from Kherson in a disorderly manner and without bridging assets, they will leave their heavy equipment and vehicles behind.  Pretty destruction of capability there, with little or no fighting, which would be a great outcome.  And it would seriously affect Will for the next fight.
If fighting is an objective, I propose that the objective is actually an method layer on one or more underpinning objectives. 
In the Bismark case the underpinning objective was unification - the chosen method.  It would have been better if unification could have been achieved without fighting (not say it could have been, I don't know, just that any possible alternative would have been better). 
In the bar/street fighter example, sure, some guys (usually guys) just plain like fighting because of some underpinning objective (e.g., adrenaline rush, dominance over others, etc.) So what do get from fighting and how could they get that without actually fighting?  That would be better.  I brought street fighting in, so I guess you can comment on it, I should have stuck to warfare and policy
Sometimes war is necessary (see the French vis-a-vis Bismark) but winning without fighting is better - if it is possible.  
I made a fairly absolute statement and am being called on it.  Fair enough.  Even if someone develops a corner case where the statement is incorrect, I'm pretty comfortable with it as close-enough-to-absolute and invariably good guidance.
 

He does, and it boils down to "win without fighting".  On a 1-on-1 level, if I can convince a guy - through either de-escalation or escalation - not to swing at me and then to leave the area, I win.  If war is a 'mere continuation of policy by other means', then if one side can communicate to the other that it is time to go, and they do, they the first side wins without firing a shot or with firing fewer shots - their policy goes forward.  So in the south china sea, if the US and other nations stop the FON missions, then China has won in that theatre (without firing a shot).
It is _always_ better to win without fighting, either 1-on-1 or in full on kinetic warfare.
1) sometimes it is earmarks, sometimes it is, as you say, a poison pill.  Earmarks are to flow the spoils of taxation to one's district to ensure re-election, poison pills are to disadvantage one's opponent through generation of outrage.  I think most democracies have this to one extent or another; certainly in Canada the ruling party will give bills pretty names and then excoriate people opposed to toxic inclusions and/or consequences, and many financial provisions are oriented towards friendly ridings or against opposition ridings.
Earmarks were temporarily banned in 2011, but are so popular (with Congress critters and their constituents) that they have made a comeback. They are at least somewhat transparent.
Poison pills existing in every democracy and will never go away.  The only control is free press / speech and an educated populace.
2) I call it "vibrant democracy".  Not pretty, but better than the alternatives.
 

It's rather the other way round: in chess, you hit as hard as possible. There are only two parties - a zero-sum game. Your win is the loss of the other.
In war, there are more parties and people have to live on the battlefield afterwards. If this war had been chess, Russia would have just nuked Ukraine into oblivion.

It is also worth pointing out that in the US, a bill is never single topic they often contain multiple other pieces of legislation which are in no way connected to the main goal of the bill.  Legislators who vote against a bill may be all for the primary, but cannot support one or more of the "side issues".

During election years we often see "poison pills" inserted into seemingly benign legislation.  This allows one party to smear the other by stating "They voted against providing healthcare to veterans" without mentioning that there was a poison pill which would ban guns, or take away free school lunches.  This is just an example I made up, but the point is to make voting for a popular bill impossible to swallow for a candidate during a re-election campaign.

Yes, we are that screwed up

I am not saying that this was the case for the 20 republicans who voted against the bill, just pointing out that things are seldom as simple as they seem in Washington.

I’ve always been incredulous regarding Chechen “blocking” troops existing, but if a Russian junior officer can get executed for the mere act of protecting a civilian from death on the literal first day of the invasion, when one would think discipline would be at the highest point…..
huh, actually a Lt. Colonel ordered them killed. And the troops obeyed without question. On the first ****ing day of the invasion. Christ. I was thinking a fragging incident happened but this is way beyond that. On 2nd thought maybe blocking troops isn’t so outlandish to occur, firing on their own. 

+1     Sounds like a good title for a scenario. 

If you meet one turn around and run.  War when is viewed as history it seems so clear - when you are living one it is a chaotic mess with nothing but shades of grey in every direction.

Sorry for banality, but this is most approriate answer, mate (and I would say in longer time there is a lot more hope now. BTW. I find this book more and more relevant seeing this war progressing.):

I don't want to take the thread OT either, so leaving this here without comment - as factual as it gets:
F1 driver says 'what happens in Alberta is a crime,' feels responsibility to speak about climate change
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/sebastian-vettel-oilsands-alberta-climate-change-1.6493309
"Sebastian Vettel arrived at the Montreal Grand Prix wearing his thoughts about climate change on his T-shirt.
The Formula One star from Germany arrived at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in a T-shirt with "Stop Mining Tar Sands," and "Canada's Climate Crime" under the picture of a pipeline. He's wearing a helmet with the same slogan this weekend.
"I think what happens in Alberta is a crime because you chop down a lot of trees and you basically destroy the place just to extract oil and the manner of doing it with the tarsands, oilsands mining, is horrible for nature," Vettel said, when asked about the T-shirt at a news conference Friday.
...
His team Aston Martin is sponsored by Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil giant Aramco."

I think it would be naive to assume Russian and Saudi interests would not quietly and monetarily support....Russian and Saudi interests in other countries.  You've got a former German PM in Moscow as recently as...today. 
Starting to wonder if Godwin's Law is now being tied to Trump instead of Hitler.