Bearstronaut

That's not the actual Igor Girkin.

Apparently we never learn. Before the ANA it was the ARVN. Before the ARVN it was the ROKA. Although we stayed in South Korea long enough that the ROKs were able to develop their own successful military industrial complex and would likely be successful in a war (at extremely high cost) against the DPRK without us. That would not have been true had we dipped out of the ROK back in say, the 1970s.

Umm, what? What about the early Muslim Caliphates? The Mongols? The Ottoman Empire? The Spanish Empire? All projected more power than the insular Han Chinese and the Mongols even conquered China.

We went and died in the hundreds of thousands for the French and British twice last century.

There's been plenty of examples of a weak and brittle nation on the brink of collapse over the past half century. Afghanistan and South Vietnam being the most obvious examples. Ukraine reminds me more of South Korea than either of those countries. Definitely not perfect to be sure but with a strong sense of national will and the determination to fight for their country. Hell, Ukraine is even better than the ROK was. People are seriously talking about Zelensky losing an election during an existential war while absolutely nobody would have thought that about Rhee Syngman or Park Chung-hee.

Not really. It all tastes pretty similar and it's not like there is a ton of different options here in the US (and I'm sure the UK is similar).

Korean pepper paste is delicious. I always have some in my fridge.

I am fluent but I'm not a native speaker and my accent definitely doesn't sound North Korea.

The small sign in between the two windows is backwards. Also, it's funny that the other sign just says "Red Pepper Paste".

You are correct.

To be completely honest I think millions upon millions of Americans would be perfectly willing to sacrifice our prison population and poverty-stricken ethnic minorities to the jaws of war.

Speaking of, does anyone know what ever happened to the dude in the famous VDV song? Did he die gloriously in the SMO? /s

Someone read/watched The Expanse books/tv series.

Looks like the IDF is going in tonight. Will be an interesting weekend, to put it lightly.

"But what else are we gonna do with all those warrant officers we gave ten year ADSOs to?" -HQDA

Do you think the IDF losing a bunch of tanks and AFVs to Hamas when they inevitably push into Gaza will have any affect on the calculus? Or will they handwave it away with the "urban warfare" excuse?

North Korea is my area of expertise and I am VERY surprised that they were willing to part with what they seem to have sent to Russia. I'm pretty curious to know what they received in return.

Fair enough. Maybe 1917 works better. The Entente had figured out that what they had done in 1915 and 1916 wasn't working and were experimenting but still hadn't figured out how to achieve that elusive breakthrough. Although historical analogies never align 100%.

It seems to me that Ukraine has realized that what the game is and is fighting like it is 1918 and the Russians are still fighting in 1915.

@Mr.X is also working on his own CMRT battle-pack of several campaigns. I think he is shooting for a release of before Christmas.

We call them cope cages but if nothing else it still prevents a drone from flying over and dropping a grenade down an open hatch.

That's what I mean. Send everyone through advanced infantry training like the Marines send everyone to SOI after basic. I went to language school, AIT, and then straight to an intel brigade in Korea. I was a NCO by the time I got assigned to a BCT and I could count the number of days I had spent "in the field" after basic on my fingers. Then it was "ok SGT Bearstronaut, you're tactical now so do tactical stuff."

Having been a combat support soldier I never understood why the US Army didn't do what the USMC does and send every soldier through infantry school after basic training. I can only guess that due to the size of the army it would be cost prohibitive. My job in a maneuver brigade was basically on the FLOT but my dudes and I had few of the same skills as the infantry or cav troopers of the unit we were attached too. I mean sure, we could fire our own rifles well enough and maybe man a M249 in a pinch but that was about it. This led to resentment as the maneuver guys felt like they had to "babysit" us, which they kind of did.

When I was in Korea in 2019 my battalion's (an intelligence unit) retention NCO was a former infantry Staff Sergeant. In the US Army retention is an actual MOS that you can reclass to at a certain point in your career and is a pretty cushy gig as far as I know. Anyways, I was talking to him one day and I asked how he preferred doing retention in an intel unit over being an infantryman. He told me that he much preferred not going to the field all the time or the random busy work of a garrison maneuver unit but that he really missed shooting at people. I, who the closest I have been to combat was 3 weeks at a ROKA base on the DMZ, expressed surprise and a little concern at that statement. He said "dude, it's hard to explain but getting in a firefight and shooting at people is fun as s**t." Of course, counter-insurgency in Afghanistan is an entirely different beast than a full-on LSCO fight against Russia.

It's a real Catch-22 because while you are absolutely correct the "possibilities" of AI and autonomous war machines scares the crap out of me.