acrashb

A credible report that Ukraine is pulling its one ~battalion of Abrams out of active combat because current combat conditions are making them ineffective and to vulnerable, especially drones. I am filing this one firmly in the tank is dead file.

Freedom ain’t free.  Someone has to stop Russia from doing what it is doing which is definitely not “perfectly fine”.  In reality the kid did not run away, his family did when he was 16.  Now that he is 18 and of age; he is “staying away”.  I think every citizen has a duty to protect their nation in times of crisis.  A duty to protect each other when threatened.  If they cannot or will not do that then they really are no longer a nation.  This is one thing I think we have lost, and it will come back and bite us.  There is a solemn duty in being a citizen, and even a greater one in a free nation.  It is one that takes sacrifice for the greater good.  Now this kid could be from a pacifist ideology or religion, ok there are a lot of ways to fulfill this duty to serve.
What I disagree with is that is all fine for a young man like this to selfishly protect himself while his own people are suffering.  Running away to “embrace life” when Ukrainian children are dying back in Ukraine does not wash with me.  Personally I have been in two wars that really had not much to do with Canada.  We were really doing it for some greater global good (really did not turn out well in the end) but we all believed in it and honoured kids maybe a year older than this one who died in crappy places no one will remember in 50 years. The idea that one could “sit out” an atrocity like this invasion of Ukraine and still claim citizenship or ethnicity does not sit well with me at all.  It is shirking duty and letting others pay the price.   As we have discussed this kid does not even have to fight.  He can be in a support trade or work in industry or even humanitarian.  But his people and his country need him right now which is more important than how he gets to spend his twenties.  It is more important than him as an individual.  
Mark my words on this, we have more of this coming.  The future is likely going to demand more sacrifice for the greater good not less.  We will have to stand or kneel in the end.  And right now to my eyes, that young man is kneeling.

A man who can serve his country in time of war, but choses to go abroad is a deserter. Unless he's Russian of course. 

On more than a few levels to be honest.  The fact that this young (assuming healthy) man “wants to return to Ukraine” once the war is over is particularly irksome.  Essentially the young man is saying that as soon as “others fight and die for his own nation”, he is eager to return home.  Now this is one individual that Canadian overly-liberal media have glommed onto because “if it cries it leads” these days.  However, this sentiment cannot be entirely isolated given the significant number of fighting aged people who have simply run away from Ukraine while the nation fights for its life.
Meanwhile foreigners, many without any Ukrainian connections, fight and die for that nation.  Nope, does not sit well at all.

Come on, Obama's policy vs Russia was disastrous. It's hard not to see the harebrained "reset", setting various "red lines", e.g. use of gas in Syria which have come and passed ineffectually, the 2014 invasion and finally open warfare by Russian army as steps which inexorably followed from one another because of lack of any meaningful US response at the previous step. Talking hard and then not producing any stick whatsoever, big or otherwise, suggests that either the stick is so rotten that it will fall to pieces or the wrists are too limp to wield it. 

Please, Putin straight up did his previous land grab in 2014 under the current guy’s old boss (both of whom I think are decent people and have done decent jobs). I think Trump absolutely gave people pause just due to sheer uncertainty and capriciousness of his presidency. And then, just as Trump leaves office, Spring 2020 rolls around with a giant kick to everybody’s collective nutsack. And then maybe Putin, sensing his own mortality, decides to roll the dice again, since the US just backed out Afghanistan, and the guys who let 2014 happen are back in town.
And it’s not just the US. Look at France, where the traditional political parties collapsed over the last decade. Or England.

I mean, really Canada has already basically withdrawn from NATO hasn't it?  Can you be considered a serious NATO member when your government says that not only will they not spend 2% on defense but they will never spend 2%.
 

The US Congress added an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act requiring consent from 2/3rds of the Senators or an Act of Congress in order to leave NATO ( Congress passes bill to prevent the president from leaving NATO without approval (msn.com) 
A President could sort of leave by not co-operating, I suppose.  

I really wish they wouldn't do that. The only one that needs to be informed is Syrskyi. Let the Russians find out the hard way. I understand "public right to know", but there's no need to get into specifics. FFS stuff from WWII was kept secret for 50 years in the US, long after it was obsolete and of no intelligence value.

It is comments like this, which pull in politics for no related reason without fear of retribution that lead some of our members to believe that there are different rules depending on which side of the aisle you sit.  

I am not a fan of any of the candidates we have, but I have to wonder if the results would be the same if the post referenced Biden's supposed dementia?

Dear Gawd, this one is so absolutely extreme that it straddles that line between genius and insanity.
 

Yes. It is. Interestingly though, not necessarily for crowd control by law enforcement. In war, yes, it's banned.
Yeah, the training was fun. 🙂  Stay in the shed to prove your mask works, and then take off your mask to show what happens without the mask (I guess to prove that the mask really works and it wasn't just a harmless steam sauna). Got the message for sure.
Dave

Ok, I don’t intend to get into or start an off topic political discussion, but I have to respond to this. Unfortunately, we in the U.S. are living in a blatantly partisan political environment. The Democratic Party are just as partisan as the Republican Party, and will pull the same crap. They are mostly more concerned about getting a leg-up over, and embarrassing the other party than doing the “right thing” for the American people and its allies. The two extremes of the parties have driven out all of the “old moderates.” Yes, the Republicans have their MTGs, but the Democrats have their AOCs. Both are equally destructive to the process.
I keep hearing about how disruptive Republican Mitch McGovern was as the Senate Majority Leader, but everyone seems to forget about Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who refused to allow a single proposed bill that was proposed or passed by a Republican House, to go to the Senate floor for a vote.
I’m really sick and tired of the extremely partisan comments and camouflaged attacks that are constantly being posted by Liberals and Conservatives on this supposedly neutral Forum Thread. How about everyone who is doing it, stop and consider whether whether or not the Left and Right Wing garbage they are posting is appropriate to this thread.

Ukraine has ordered 10 000 Turkish Hatsan BTS-12 hunter semi-automatic rifles shooting with buckshot for anti-drone purpose. 4000 already deliverd to Ukriane. Reportedly rifle passed tests and was accepted. 
 

Some possibility of why Johnson changed his blockade stance.
 

This is a bad take my friend.  I don't really want to go 'there', but the simple fact is that the open US border is a feature not a bug and the Senate version of border security had several poison pills in it that would make things worse.  The issue I have is that House demands for border security is an exercise in tilting at windmills.  It doesn't matter how many 'extra' border patrol agents you have if all you are doing is catching and releasing people into the US after they swim over the Rio Grande.  It doesn't matter how many laws are on the books if the enforcement agency chooses to look the other way.
Oh, but why would the current administration want an open border you might ask?  That's tinfoil hat wingnut stuff right there.  ASL is gong completely off the rails.  Let's just count the reasons.
1. The number of seats in the House is determined by population.  Guess what?  It's not determined by population of US citizens because citizenship is not determined by the census.  Therefore if someone from China crosses the border between California and Mexico that Chinese citizen counts towards the population of California in terms of Congressional apportionment.  As of the 2020 census, there are 761,169 people per congressional district.  If you let 10 million 'migrants' into the US that's approximately 13 seats in congress.  Guess where the 'migrants' tend to go?  Sanctuary cities.  Guess where the sanctuary cities are?  Democratic strongholds.
2. Why just stop at counting non citizens in the census?  Why not just let them vote even if they aren't citizens?  In California non citizens are issued driver's licenses.  Various local Democratic strongholds have passed laws allowing non citizens to vote.  The example in the video from DC below is just one example, but there are others.  Oh, but those are just for local elections - yeah, and guess what else is on the ballot when the local elections are being held.  One would think that the citizens of Washington DC wouldn't want the Russian ambassador voting who becomes the mayor, but here we are.
3. If you can't pass a law allowing non citizens to vote though - how about just making it difficult to sort out who is a citizen and who isn't a citizen?  Use voter registration laws that don't require full social security numbers (some states only require the last four digits or they decide not to verify a social security number) and use the US attorney general's office to sue states trying to pass voter ID laws.  Who is the least likely person to have an ID in the United States?  A non citizen of course.
4. If you are someone who is of a mind to swim the Rio Grande and you know which political party is handing you cash then who are you going to vote for in the next election (even though you shouldn't be able to vote, but if you are a non citizen and you want to vote in an election where the democratic party is in control - well we should be welcoming to our 'migrant' friends).  New York City is giving every 'migrant' a government debit card with a 1000 bucks a month on it, along with other benefits totaling somewhere around 2400 bucks a month I think - I'm going from memory here.

5. I'm posting against my better judgement because I know how this forum tilts.  How someone reacts to this post will probably be determined by whether or not you like Republicans.  However, if a political party in your country - wherever you may be from - is willing to try and cement a permanent hold on political power through the use of non citizens I think most would object to that if you were on the receiving end of that political strategy.  Even traditional Democrat voting blocks are starting to shift.
 

Possibly because he bashed the threads into mush? Just a thought 🤣
They do seem to be trying to fuze rounds but it obviously is not going well, to say the least. 
The one with the view down inside appears to be empty, completely empty. You should just see an open area just big enough for the base of the fuze. Looks like you can see all the way to the base. That one will only hurt if it actually hits you, like a 1700s cannonball.
That guy in the cartoon is at least trying to not destroy everything. See how the screwdriver is at the side - trying to get it to turn, not smash everything. 
[edit] Looking at the cartoon again, he's doing it wrong. The screwdriver should be on the other side. "Righty tighty, lefty loosey"
Dave

My guess is that it's confusing us because it is actually one of those known-to-be-meaningless punishment tasks the army likes to give miscreants like scrubbing the urinal with a toothbrush.
Otherwise, bafflement 😄

Because there is so much talk about US support and the bills being presented to Congress:
 
 

Because there is so much talk about US support and the bills being presented to Congress:
 
 

"Today, only amateurs steal elections on election-day."
Free and fair elections are impossible when the ruling party (ab)uses government power to fund political campaigning, banning the opposition from campaigning, and imprisoning or outlawing oppositions politicians from running in elections... or just straight up murdering them.

Some "homefront" news. Maybe we have heard of the recent fires at the American and British 155mm munitions factories?
Might be just a coincidence, but...
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/generalbundesanwalt-ermittelt-zwei-mutmassliche-russische-saboteure-in-bayern-verhaftet-a-0115bebd-195a-41fb-83be-da8d642045cd
In Germany, two Russo-Germans have been arrested for espionage and sabotage. They are accused of taking pictures of American and German military installations in Bavaria (one of which is a training facility for Ukrainians on Abrams tanks) and planning to use explosives to disrupt military support transports en route to Ukraine. 
Both of them were in contact with the FSB and one of them was member of a Russian militia unit which operated in Donetzk / Donbas 2014 to 2017. The unit is considered a terrorist group in Germany, so that Russo-German is also accused of membership in a terrorist organisation.
 
 

Not sure how comfortable I would be in a row boat of or Cessna around an active CWIS but fair points.  I think these problems are definitely going to have problems, some unintended and some very much intended.  Some bad actors will gleefully employ them on civilians to terrorize and as part of an overall genocidal campaign.  In reality there is no real difference between a cruise missile striking a civilian housing complex and a cruise missile carrying a bunch of assassination drones.  The drones will be far more effective and vicious but are basically doing the same job.
I am saying that banning fully autonomous drones is a fools errand.  Hell, regulating them is going to be pretty damned hard.  Why?  Because they are potential war-winners right now.  Unmanned systems of all types are deterministic of outcomes.  As such they become, in an existential war, non-negotiable.  Some nations will try and remain on high horses - no doubt Canada will - but this will be as hypocritical as the nuclear equation.  Canada has no nuclear weapons and shakes a finger in haughty disapproval of them, but our very survival has rested upon the safety of the US nuclear umbrella…that we are not even paying for.  Unmanned will be the same beast in many ways.  Some nations will reject them but will be first in line to have them protect any troop contributions to a western coalition.
The one thing I do not know is if unmanned stand as a 3rd shift in the nature of war yet.  Their impact on the battlefield is pretty much undeniable by this point.

I think it is very safe to say that NATO (and pretty much all western) doctrine is going to need major re-writes after this war.