kluge

Going to speak out of school a bit - I have other jobs than just military faculty at a staff college.  I few years I came out of some higher level meetings with my boss - she is a simply brilliant civilian international lawyer type who is destine to run this country one day.  She had just got into her new job in our outfit so we were still getting to know each other.
The topic of discussion is not for here but it centered on how dangerous the world was becoming and how antiquated our Canadian theories of how it all worked were in the face of it.  Me and another military guy in the shop were going round and round on the unsolvable riddle that is Canadian Defence and Security.
Our boss broke in and said straight-faced "We should think about a strategic nuclear weapon program."  I think I peed my pants a little bit.
The old rules are buckling.  New ones will be needed.  The use of hard power, military power, as an extension of diplomacy is back on the menu, and that is not a vegan dish. 

I find a lot of this sort of analysis wrt escalation as "easy to say, very hard to do."  I do not think people fully understand what is at risk in widening this conflict.  The standard justifications are:
- Russia will never go nuclear.
- Russia will back down - they are full of BS.
- We got all the guns, what are they going to do?
Ok, I will buy the first one for arguments sake.  A functioning Russia will very likely not use the nuclear option unless we are talking foreign troops invading Russia itself. (a broken Russia is another story)  Russia may even back down.  They definitely talk a good game but so far those red lines have been pretty mobile.  And we do have a lot of military power within NATO...but herein lies the rub.  It only works if it is unified.
Professionally speaking, the single largest risk of escalation with Russia is a Russian response - controlled or otherwise - that triggers a NATO Ch 5.  We have already had errant missiles in Poland that became Ukrainian ones pretty damned quick.  If Russia starts lobbing them at a NATO nation in response to significant escalation within Russia...what happens?
Well, we essentially move to a NATO Ch 5 escalation, which will get out of hand pretty quick.  Or more likely, NATO falls apart.  An Article 5 could actually break NATO.  It could nations deciding that maybe Poland, or Estonia, or Latvia are not worth dying for.  We have had a single Article 5 declaration in the history of the alliance - 9/11.
 https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm#:~:text=NATO invoked Article 5 for,the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And most of this was intelligence sharing and overflights/port usage permissions.  NATO stayed out of Iraq in '03 completely, GWOT as a concept was not sold in its entirety in the least - even given 9/11.  ISAF in Afghanistan did not come into play until much later in that war, and a lot of NATO nations kept their forces out of combat...and that was the Taliban FFS.
I am betting that those in power have already done this calculus and know exactly how vulnerable the alliance is right now.  A lot of people on this board have been asking "well why don' they just do X?"  "It about ATACMS stupid!"  Well it is likely because they know what is actually at risk and a lot of these capabilities are just not worth those risks...at this time.  In fact a lot of those capabilities value right now is as a threat to Russia as opposed to actual use.
This war is not simple, and there are no simple solutions.  If anyone starts believing that there are you are likely missing something.

I am not sure that is true, the speaker pro tempor takes over immediately upon the speaker vacating the position to ensure that normal operations of the house continue.

You may be thinking of what happens when there is a change in power and the new house cannot conduct business until a speaker is elected.  For the last few decades a vacancy during a term is handled through the speaker pro tempor.

Sure didn't. What happened is that McCarthy went on tv all weekend and blamed the Democrats for everything...including claiming on Sunday that Democrats wanted a government shutdown after they almost unanimously saved us from the last one with less than half of the GOP votes. He then refused to even talk to them until his underlings raced all over the Hill this morning offering things Democrats knew he couldn't deliver. Even then, if McCarthy had tried just a little bit he could have managed to get some 'present' votes from Democrats to save his seat. He didn't bother and continued to publicly attack them. 
So...my mea culpa is that I had expected McCarthy to show just a bit of nous to save his job. 

Alas.
P.S. Of relevance to this board is something you won't read about much...McCarthy was trying to tie Ukraine aid directly to the most MAGA border package possible. There's no chance in hell such a bill could pass the Senate. 

The dynamics of a Democratic House Speaker with a Republican House majority could be....  interesting. Basically nothing happens that the Speaker doesn't want to happen, and yet, he wouldn't have the majority votes without some help (which might be part of the bargain I suppose, if, and BIG if, you trust the agreement made to get there). 
Plan? I don't think there is a plan. Has anyone heard any member of Congress say "once we get rid of McCarthy, we'll nominate Rep. XYZ for Speaker?"  Hah, now that they have him out, getting someone else in is going to be tough. McCarthy only got in by the skin of his teeth as the candidate they could hold their noses and vote for after he promised them the Moon. Now what? Someone similar who will have to do the same thing.
Meanwhile the budget clock is ticking, and no Ukraine aid bill until there is a Speaker (for those not in the US, no business can be conducted until a Speaker is elected). 

Dave

It is deterrence but it is also proliferation.
The moment the world figures out that a small island government (an unrecognized one, no less!) is credibly deterring an invasion via the acquisition of weapon capable of causing mass destruction, there will be no shortage of nations lining up to do the same within a couple of years time.
Sidenote: If history is any indicator, the dam is hardly a major point of failure. It was, after all, built on a floodplain prone to catastrophic flooding. A new flood would certainly be destructive but its not like the previous ones wiped the cities off the map.
Regardless, deterrence can be achieved without the need for extra big badda boom explosions. I hear there's a scrappy country currently getting the upper hand on a modern navy while zipping around on the likes of rubber rafts and jet skis....

It is deterrence but it is also proliferation.
The moment the world figures out that a small island government (an unrecognized one, no less!) is credibly deterring an invasion via the acquisition of weapon capable of causing mass destruction, there will be no shortage of nations lining up to do the same within a couple of years time.
Sidenote: If history is any indicator, the dam is hardly a major point of failure. It was, after all, built on a floodplain prone to catastrophic flooding. A new flood would certainly be destructive but its not like the previous ones wiped the cities off the map.
Regardless, deterrence can be achieved without the need for extra big badda boom explosions. I hear there's a scrappy country currently getting the upper hand on a modern navy while zipping around on the likes of rubber rafts and jet skis....

It is deterrence but it is also proliferation.
The moment the world figures out that a small island government (an unrecognized one, no less!) is credibly deterring an invasion via the acquisition of weapon capable of causing mass destruction, there will be no shortage of nations lining up to do the same within a couple of years time.
Sidenote: If history is any indicator, the dam is hardly a major point of failure. It was, after all, built on a floodplain prone to catastrophic flooding. A new flood would certainly be destructive but its not like the previous ones wiped the cities off the map.
Regardless, deterrence can be achieved without the need for extra big badda boom explosions. I hear there's a scrappy country currently getting the upper hand on a modern navy while zipping around on the likes of rubber rafts and jet skis....

On the other other hand, IF Taiwan were able to do that, Taiwan would lose 100% of it's population. End of the two China problem. I think Xi would consider that a win.

Well said. This tracks with everything I hear and if anything, the people who follow the PRC the most closely now seem the most certain that the scenario you posit above is most likely. Xi's regime has realized that they aren't America in 1940, they are Germany in 1913. They've peaked as a power too early and their moment is passing. They are not the sort of regime that will take that philosophically. 
I would add, however that things are not hopeless for Taiwan. China has managed to deprive itself of any friends in the world and has united its neighbors as enemies. South Korea, Japan and the United States have clearly concluded that this is a war they mean to fight. 

I don't really follow this logic. What makes you think that having a weapon that theoretically could crack a big dam is going to stop an authoritarian government from its expansionist goals? The CCP has proven time and time again that they are willing to suffer huge economic hits and lose tens of millions of lives in pursuit of their political objectives. And the people of China have spent almost a century living under this regime, developing a fatalist worldview that sounds similar to how Russia watchers on this thread describe the people of Russia.
There is no critical mass of disgruntled citizens sitting on a knife edge, just waiting for a single catastrophic event to have them storm Zhongnanhai and boot out their great leader. Protests in the country are small and localized and rapidly squashed. News of them - or any kind of activity that undermines the party line - is suppressed. Dissent is largely kept behind closed doors, expressed only in close social circles. The focus for most people is staying under the radar, trying to get rich (but not so rich it will attract attention) and - for some - to get their family out. Anyone who legitimately cares about the broader success of the country and not just their own personal advancement has necessarily bought into the current political structures and thus will not challenge them in any significant way.
My current feeling is that China definitely under Xi, and probably under the CCP more broadly, is going to push Taiwan till the very end. I do not see any face-saving escape hatch at this point. Even if they cannot win the war, if they start it, they will keep fighting it, just as Russia appears to be doing in Ukraine. But for Taiwan the pre-war status quo is worse, because nobody formally recognizes it as the independent country it clearly already is, so it's already excluded from being an active player in global affairs, thanks to the overwhelming economic pressure China is able to apply to the rest of the world. Is there any wunderwaffe Taiwan could point across the Strait that would nullify that pressure? I don't think so.
In standing up to China, I think the pen will be mightier than the sword. But, of course, the CCP knows that, which is why they have invested so much into controlling the public discourse and exchange of ideas - not just in the country they govern but increasingly around the rest of the world too.

Sounds straight up 19th century British Army,  just before the Big One,when an army's  experience was wide but also limited to limited wars. 
Still, there s better,  institutional forward thinking these days. 

A Ukrainian tanker who is having serious mechanical problems with his captured T72B3 phones and trolls Uralvagonzavod tech support
 

I think this is a pretty good summary of what's likely to happen:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/01/McCarthy-Gaetz-speakership-battle-00119355
My one caveat is that I think it overstates Gaetz's influence when/if he loses the first motion to vacate. 
 

I think you are giving Russia way too much credit here. Sure, Russia wants us to believe they have a hand in everything. But in reality people are quite capable of doing stupid things or things that are in Russia's interest without being paid by Putin or swayed by propaganda. And then, of course, people just do things that are in their own self-interest that just happen to align with Russia's interest. IMHO, ascribing everything to Russian manipulation makes them bigger than they are (which is also in Russia's interest) and prevents analysing the what the real motives are.

A friend and I have substantial experience in this area and I figured it might be worth a stab (many years ago we had an unsuccessful embedded hardware startup), as there is a relatively small band of frequencies used by the majority of small drones. You need to cover 700-1300mhz and the two WiFi ranges and you are solid (so an RTL-SDR and then a wifi chip), and I’m pretty sure it’d be easy to classify drones roughly by frequency and by the signals sent over the wire (at least for WiFi enthusiasts like us). This is an EE grad student semester project in terms of complexity level for a prototype. Productionizing it would cost $50-200k.
As I posited many pages ago, I think there’s a realistic, near-term path to build an anti-radition drone to go after drone operators or drones in the air themselves. You take the above signal detector + some basic computer vision setup running on something like a rasberry pi, and have it go after a certain signal. Tracking the drone is easier because of the omni antenna and larger signal (sending video) and the fact it is moving so triangulation is easier even with one antenna.
Edit: Think of this as counter-battery, but for drones.

In the modern era, I disagree.  C4ISR and precision means one can essentially unravel transportation infrastructure.  Air superiority and supremacy likely don't apply either, you need only ensure you are not entirely denied.  It is less about hitting rail -however if the RA had concentrated on bridges, which they could target from Google Earth, it would have been a start- it is about destroying systems.  In fact EBO sprung out of the failures of the strategic bombing campaigns; don't hit everything, hit that one thing to get an effect.
So you hit the entire system.  Repair/maint depots.  Line controls and switching infra.  The individual trains themselves.  Transport nodes.  Energy supplies.  Then you start targeting the people with the expertise to run the rail line, they are legitimate targets if those lines are part of the war effort.  A snowstorm can cripple a rail line, so can a modern deep strike campaign.
So I suspect the shortfall on the Russian side was C4ISR for precise targeting and "know how".  I am betting Russia does not have a centralized operational targeting enterprise - a bunch of stovepiped and untrusting commanders all doing "something" to show the boss they are onside.  I don't think they had the resolution to hit individual trains or precise targets.  They had enough missiles and 18+ months.  
My concern is that these latest hits are demonstration of more precise targeting.  Which means they got their act together, got lucky or someone is pumping them really high res ISR - could be all three.  None of that is good news.

Some real derring-do:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-jet-ski-raid-crimea-russians-dead-9h2gzckpj

Exit polls should be outlawed...

Yeah. The Senate will pass it.

Maybe, since the House Republican leadership was willing to break from the MAGA Republicans in order to avert a shutdown and opt for a bipartisan continuing resolution bill, a similar bipartisan measure to renew funding for Ukraine has a chance in the near future.

Suffering from lack of armored vehicles for huge number of new-formed brigades, Ukrainian industry have started in 2023 serial production of BMP-1LB - as claimed IFV (but indeed just tracked APC), based on MT-LBu hull
MT-LB and larger variant MT-LBu in own time were producing in Kharkiv - it's still unknown how much of MT-LBu still in appropriate conditions for remaking. MT-LBu is a paltform for wide number of special military vehicles like artillery control vehicles (1V12 complex: 1V13/14/15), air defense command posts, EW vehicles etc. Likely sharp change of artillery spotting and fire control methods, using of lighter vehicles for this -  even in comparison with ATO times allowed to release many of 1V12 complex vehicles to remake it into APCs (but maybe it still in service at least formally, I can't say, but I didn't see them already long time, using by own purpose). Also maybe some number of vehicles were taken from storages. 
But what we receieve it is really "сheap and cheerful"
What main changes were done:
- special equipment and other things inside were removed to furnish a compartment for infantry. Now vehicle instead 5-6 men can accomodate 10-11 men (driver, gunner, squad leader/vehicle commander and 7-8 soldiers)
- RWS with 14,5 mm KPVT HMG was set in rear part. RWS equipped with day optic and thermal sight. The place of gunner is in infantry compartment


- From the back side enough wide door is made. It's not apparel, but soldiers say disembarking through it quite normal. 

- 14 mm front- and 7-mm side hull armor of original vehicle was too weak, so additional spaced armor plates were mounted
 But these changes have own "back side of medal", which significantly reduced combat value of this vehcile
- KPVT is very sensitive to contamination. Because HMG in RWS is open, the dirt easily gets on the weapon. The system of bullet feeding is also badly designed, so HMG has a big chance to jam both because of dirt and feeding. Because of no more coax MG, in case of jamming/damaging by enemy fire of RWS, this vehicle turned out unarmed.
- Russian YaMZ engines of these vehicles already too old. After refurbishing they have 50 hours of test, but this insufficiently - during the movement engines often fail as well as gearbox
- Increaces weight because of additional armor, RWS and more people inside much more reduced capabilities of old engines. On the paved road BMP-1LB still can give 50 km/h, but on the ground it speed sometime is about speed of infantryman walk. Overheating of engine and increased weight makes maneuvers on this vehicle very hard (tracks also have problems)  
The cost of this behemoth is 380 000 $, and about half of this cost is RWS, assemling abroad, possibly by foreign manufacturer (but maybe and Ukrainian). It quality leaves much to be desired. In comparison, the cost of M113, which much better than this ersatz is about 300 000$
Looks like these armored headache got several 6x th brigades, which counted as "mechanized", but mostly on the paper. One of visually confirmed loss of BMP-1LB was spotted in Kreminna area in June - vehcle was damaged and abandoned because of close hit of likely 500 kg bomb
 

Lol. You've sort of described a reverse slope, except for offence rather than defence. In other words, "ground dictates." As it /always/ has ...

The breach of the main defensive line and subsequent battles have mostly all been located in a narrow, shallow valley. The geography limits the exposure of Ukranian forces at the bottom of the valley to direct fire and observation. Conveniently there's also a well built set of fortifications that provides excellent cover for infantry.
I suspect that Ukraine is able to freely operate drones in that area because the valley provides a degree of protection from jamming, so long as the drones fly low enough (< 50-100 ft) such that they are out of the LOS of various EW systems. An EW system covering that valley would need to be within 1km of Ukranian positions and wouldn't last terribly long.
 

Kevin is that you?
Re the forever war comment I think there's a couple of points that make this quite different to previous interventions.
Ukraine wants the help it's receiving and wants western partners to be involved. This time russia is directly involved and not sitting safely behind a proxy. Diminishing russia's ability to be a general pain the *** on the world stage is a big win for everyone (except russia). Better to spend treasure than your own servicemen's lives And those are just the obvious ones.

That's an interesting opinion on what's going on.  Except that we're spending nearly 800 BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR on our military.  OMG we're going broke because we used ~5% of our already spent money to actually try to do something, militarily, that will help the world be a better place.   What cumulative effect on our country??  This is just utter horses-t.  If we had just stood by & let Putin win in UKR would he then decide to not try to poison all the world's democracies?  Would he not use fossil fuels to extort europe every time he wanted to?  This is tankie nonsense.
We have mountains of gear gathering dust and that's a huge portion of what we've sent.
And just because I am on a rant on this:  How about we turn this around by saying "those that want to freeze the conflict haven't given any thought to the cumulative effect on the world of pulling Putin's *** out of the fire".  Gawd this makes my blood boil.