kluge

This is all part of PiS campaign rhetoric, don't take all of this too seriously, especially grandour narrations of "New Marshall plan", "PL-UA Union" etc. This is the same bonkers as Macron's "Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok", Scholz "Zeitenwende" and similar. Politicians playing their dirty games to score some domestic points or pretending to formulate some kind of coherent vision, they are everywhere roughly the same.
Elections are in November, but already campaign is in full swing, very dirty and brutal. Especially close to finish we can witness increased Russian infuence, too; for example lately main military commentators noticed they are subject of very vigorous attacks by what looks like entire trolls farms. Expect scandals, more leaks of documents, bots working heavily on social division etc. It's already very bad in this respect and every month it gets worse.

there are always people that care about others/the world and the ones that care about themselves. It frightens me that a generation of the ones that care about themselves works in finance, it scares me to hell when they start to work in tech and silicon valley. I get horrified and actually start to loose hope when these start to work at farms.

That's a weird graph - it mixes branch of employment with enlistment channels, meaning that by design there is some unknowable proportion of either undercounting (if each number represents a unique individual) or double counting (if, say, the convicts are also counted in PMC )

Diagram of Russian radars and EW assets, destroyed month-by-month. Look at peaks, they preceded to UKR offensives in next month. And look at number of destroyed assets in March of 2023. Looks like we are close, but probably weather and delays with heavy ammunition deliveries delayed the start

So from the “you’re doing it wrong” file:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/the-white-papers-exclusive-report-challenges-ukrainian-tactics-used-against-russia-1.6355219
Has anyone here actually found a copy of this document?  I have searched and came up with a blank.  I am immediately suspicious when authors refuse to identify themselves.  
While I have no doubt the UA has substantial after action and learning points, this smacks of “well if you only fought like us…without air supremacy, without land power supremacy, without sea control and facing a peer force who is better equipped than any military force the west has faced since Korea…you would have won already.”
As I have said many times, given similar strategic or operational conditions I seriously doubt “more western C2 or ‘combined arms’” would have done much better.  I also am entirely convinced that if we were in a war facing the UA right now - again where air denial was in place, our loses would be so high that the shock would have likely led to a political withdrawal.  For example, as was noted by the Atlantic Counsel paper: how does one “combined arms” against ATGMs that have a 4.5 km range and 80%+ success rate?
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Game-Changers-or-Little-Change-Lessons-for-Land-War-in-Ukraine-.pdf

Even if we could develop APS umbrellas, they are going to be making a lot of noise in protecting our mass, which is hot and highly visible. We manage to create a great ATGM wall - which is a tall freakin ask when one considers sub-munitions, stand-off and decoys.  But let’s say for a second we could do it.  Well it will feel great for about 5 mins before the long range fires come lobbing in.  A combination of unmanned loitering, artillery and high trajectory missiles…we don’t have an answer for that.  And this is before we start talking UGVs, freakin EFPs with legs and a brain.
So in a fight against a comparably UA empowered force we are talking adversaries ISR outside the theatre so “no touchy” or we run escalation.  So we create a force protection dome to protect our combined arms mass. Surprise is dead at that point.  And we would need to load up the FP to the point it starts to get uneconomical to try and protect those same formations.  Logistics and technical support, sustainment etc all stack up really fast to try and build a mobile Iron Dome.  There will come a point that trying to defend our current formations stops making sense.  We are not there yet but I can definitely see it from here.
As to AirPower and “the might of NATO”, c’mon we are at risk of sucking and blowing at the same time here.  On one hand we are 20 minutes from running out of munitions and equipment to support this war, but in a comparable next-war, we now would have bottomless weight?  We would not be stumped at Bakhmut for months…because we likely would have run out of ammo in the first 6 months before we ever got to Bakhmut.
As to AirPower, good lord, Russia had the 3rd largest Air Force in the world and got stumped hard: https://www.wdmma.org/russian-air-force.php
At the higher ends of readiness (always a contentious one for Russia) they have as many fixed wing aircraft as the Gulf War:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign
Orxy has Russia with only 79 aircraft lost, so a pretty small fraction of their fleet.  Yet we are not seeing a lot of Russian air action beyond lobbing well back from front lines.  The reason for this, cited by many, is denial.  Air forces are like navies, extremely expensive and insanely long build times.  No one is going to throw them into a denied space because the costs just get too high.  Does anyone think that if entry costs escalate in a NATO war to the level we see in Ukraine that “national caveat” light are not going to light up like an Xmas tree?
 

Neither of those two factors match up with reality.  
Ukraine is employing a distributed and dispersed C4ISR system linked into western ISR which is outside the theatre.  This means that MANPADs and IADs get cued well out on incoming Russian strike packages early and accurately.  They have enough time to reposition and wait.  We do not have SEAD for passive MANPADs, we have some c-measures but they have not frankly been tested in these environments.  The EW planes cannot blind space-based assets, and OS built on civie IT networks.  And once someone puts a Starstreak on a UAS that MANPAD could hit up past 30k feet.  I am not convinced we could get full air superiority, let alone supremacy, below 20k and might even lose it to denial (A2AD) above that.  Then we are high altitude bombing which comes with so much legal risk as to make CAS nearly impossible.  Troops on the ground would do better with indirect fires and tac UAS to be honest.
ATGMs - “APS will save us”.  Well not from top-down (yet), nor submunitions or decoys.  And last I checked we were not putting those systems on every logistics truck, which is a problem as our tanks need gas too.  I have seen a lot of tank lusters working overtime to show how the tank can be protected and completely ignoring the fact that the tank is just the end of a capability system that reaches back to production lines.
As to western bias, sure.  Almost unavoidable.  But in CMs favour, the battlefield results of Russian armour are not far off how badly they get mauled in CMBS.  In fact the shortfalls in CM are that it was probably too generous with respect to indirect fires and lethality.

Assuming the public info on Russian force dispositions is reasonably accurate and hasn't drastically changed in the past month, the RAF forces at Vuhledar are under the command of the Eastern Military District. The RAF forces at Tokmak and the area to the west of it are under the command of the Southern Military District.
It doesn't make much sense to pressure one command only to switch directions and hit a completely different command.
Better to focus on the forces of the SMD and SMD alone. For reference, the "hinge" between the forces of the SMD and EMD might be more in the vicinity of Polohy.
A better "distraction" would convince the commander of the SMD to commit its reserve to an area under the purview of the SMD but away from the main thrust.

Assuming the public info on Russian force dispositions is reasonably accurate and hasn't drastically changed in the past month, the RAF forces at Vuhledar are under the command of the Eastern Military District. The RAF forces at Tokmak and the area to the west of it are under the command of the Southern Military District.
It doesn't make much sense to pressure one command only to switch directions and hit a completely different command.
Better to focus on the forces of the SMD and SMD alone. For reference, the "hinge" between the forces of the SMD and EMD might be more in the vicinity of Polohy.
A better "distraction" would convince the commander of the SMD to commit its reserve to an area under the purview of the SMD but away from the main thrust.

Assuming the public info on Russian force dispositions is reasonably accurate and hasn't drastically changed in the past month, the RAF forces at Vuhledar are under the command of the Eastern Military District. The RAF forces at Tokmak and the area to the west of it are under the command of the Southern Military District.
It doesn't make much sense to pressure one command only to switch directions and hit a completely different command.
Better to focus on the forces of the SMD and SMD alone. For reference, the "hinge" between the forces of the SMD and EMD might be more in the vicinity of Polohy.
A better "distraction" would convince the commander of the SMD to commit its reserve to an area under the purview of the SMD but away from the main thrust.

"just wanted to inform some of his friends about what’s going on"
 I've seen this a couple times and it seems to be put forward as almost an excuse. What a crock.
It's been 2 years, but I'd say this is not just on him. There is something in the overall classified info handling of the organization that is not working, and lax. Where I was there were so many controls:
a. The entire floor I worked on was a classified repository. No phones, no cameras, no recording devices, no smartwatches, no iPods - nothing with ANY memory of any kind allowed past the combo lock door. There were small lockers outside in the elevator lobby. Everyone had their own assigned to lock up their stuff and there were a bunch for visitors - drop your stuff, take the key. 
b. Inside that Closed Area (that's what it's called), classified computers are in a separate room you have to have access to.
    1.  It's physically impossible to write anything to CD/DVD or USB.
    2. There is a printer, and you can print out things, and you have to log into the printer and it logs the files that are printed, which is routinely audited.
    3. The computer system is routinely (like weekly) audited and if you had tried to access something that you don't have access to, questions will be asked. Most of the time it's innocent. You actually did need to look up something but don't have access to something that you really did need. So you have to put in a request. Your department manager has sign off on it certifying you have a need to know.
    4. If you for some reason DO need something written to CD/DVD there is a group of about 5 people in the company who will do that and provide it, again, requested and management approval. No one else can even physically do it, let alone by rules.
All of the above is for up to Confidential-Restricted Data (Restricted Data is nuclear information, whether propulsion or weapons).
For Secret and Top Secret, there is a separate Closed Area INSIDE the Closed Area. There is a two man rule. Again, NOTHING with any memory allowed inside. Nothing can leave. If you take something out of a file, it either has to be returned and logged back in, or destroyed. You cannot take anything inside to make notes with. There is marked papers inside to make notes and it stays inside.
For disposal, there are burn bags for media, and bins for shredding. The shredding is by an outside contractor, but the locked bins (Like curbside trash bins) are brought to the back door and security watches as they are loaded into the truck sized shredder.
At the door/gate, you can bring in a lunchbox and on the way home it will be checked (randomly). 
I'll stop here, but as you can see, there has to be a significant breakdown in the implementation of procedures for someone to create a security breach like this.  I thought a little context on how it's SUPPOSED to be done might be useful.  Everyone where I worked took security very seriously.  
I'd wager there is more to come after a thorough review of the organization's security procedures. We may or may not hear much about that, unless it's discovered he had active accomplices.
One caveat - this is all where I worked or visited (national labs). The problems at the White House are different. It's obvious from what has happened these last several years that security procedures are "different" there. Rules for thee and not for me.

Dave

Did I ever tell you I was once doing some BFC work research inline and I happened across my own name in the middle of a government document? Not someone with the same name but me. It was the oddest thing.

Kiddo probably got a secondment or posting to another unit (or a higher HQ) to fill a vacancy, or provide surge capacity required by the extra work because of Ukraine.
Providing that non-permanent capability is kind of what the NG is for, after all.

I'm reading a book at the moment, Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine by Owen Matthews.
https://www.amazon.com/Overreach-Inside-Russias-Against-Ukraine-ebook/dp/B0B79FVY1J
One thing I read last night, which I had wondered about at the time was why the US stopped Poland sending some 1980s era Mig fighter jets back I think it was in May last year or thereabouts. I mean it just didn't make sense to me.
According to the author, there was a backdoor between the US and China where China asked the US to stop the handover of these aircraft in exchange for China putting pressure on Russia to take nuclear weapons off the agenda.
I don't know if it's true or not. But if so, it's interesting. Sometimes the US is juggling interests that are not visible to us at the time.
 

Amazing that a world power is being humiliated by a kid in the air national guard who liked to share documents with teenage kids, the kind of teenage kids who think it's funny to say the N word with a hard -ER and other slurs. 
A key reason why I despise certain gamers, particularly the Eugen Wargame community and prefer the folks at Battlefront who are at least, folks who act like adults
 

The most logical explanation: he was de facto assistant charged with using printer and higher computer functions like PowerPoint (perhaps even doing presentations himself) because his older superiors were not "technical" enough to manage them.

LOL...geolocated due to a kitchen countertop.  

oh lord, his parents' kitchen countertop:
 

No, this was a private discord server for teen / young adult gamers who were into racism and guns.  The apparent leaker was the admin. Some of the material made it from there to a Minecraft server.

No, but someone has to sift the data and compile the reports. Do you think Gen Jack Ripper is going to be doing that himself?

For all we know he works for someone who doesn't deal with computers and has him print everything out to read/review/trash.  It's not so common anymore, but it wasn't so long ago that there were managers who would have their secretaries print their email then dictate replies or handwrite and have the secretaries transcribe.  
That's less likely with emails now, but not too unusual with reports and presentations, and they could be printed for an officer who likes to read them on paper instead of a screen. It wouldn't raise any eyebrows, and then he can make off with some of the paper copies if they don't have some other audit mechanism to make sure that everything that gets printed is either stored properly or destroyed.  If the data were never printed it would be easier to restrict and track access by login.  If it's encrypted at-rest it would be possible to keep him from being able to see it, even if his boss could read it on a tablet or laptop by having the appropriate permissions and password or key.
 

AFAIK he only got access to printed out hardcopies, not to digital documents. Makes you wonder how that alone was possible.

Probably an effort to make sure that frontal armor bug is truly quashed. Research on the actual thing 🤣

Steve did you get a deal on a used Russian tank?
Russian tank captured by Ukrainian forces turns up at Louisiana truck stop (yahoo.com)
A Russian tank used in the assault on Ukraine has mysteriously appeared at a truck stop in the US.
The T-90 tank is thought to have been captured last September by Ukraine’s 92nd Separate Mechanised Brigade, after being used in fighting in the Kharkiv region of north west Ukraine.
The combat vehicle was left on a low loader in the parking lot of a restaurant in the state of Louisiana.
Local reports suggest that after the truck towing the tank broke down, the vehicle was left at Peto’s Travel Center and Casino in Roanoke, Louisiana, next to US Interstate 10.

I would be surprised if there were burn bags, that sounds like a bad solution, I would expect that hard copies are shredded instead to destroy them instantly when they are no longer needed.
That is how we do it from where I am from, we also have to register all S and TS hard copies and sign for them to be able to take them away. I thought that was common sense, but apparently not.