G.I. Joe

That sounds like a completely reasonable way to get new recruits up to snuff. Getting them up to the front for a few weeks, getting schooled by the veterans who've been there and are still alive to talk about it; the important stuff you need to know that doesn't come from a book, what to do, what not to do and how to stay alive. I can't think of a better way of quickly leveling up a bunch of green troops.

How about the officers and NCOs? Are the recruits under inexperienced leaders? Or is there a cadre of experienced leadership that can keep their wits about them when things get hot and give the new troops a sense of confidence?

This journalist has provided more context around Kosovo. I'll quote some relevant tweets. 
 

In case anybody missed, there is fairly decent overview of last week including analysis by Rochan Cons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ9jX7pGEjA
Nothing we wouldn't know anyway, just a nice summ up.
Yeah, and 9/11 was an inside job.
Russia is courting many countries last months, and Lavrov is probably desparate to ask them to do anything to distract West and allies. Old ethnic problems, postcolonial issues, Tiny Islands disputes, water distribution etc. All these will be played here and there, in Europe, Africa and Asia (+ probably we soon hear about new problems in South America) by RU diplomacy in order to prove that genial idea of his boss that  "Unipolar order is finished" is valid.
There will be many useful idiots in the West to believe in such crap. Russia sucks at war, but it was always perfectly recognizing and targeting Western inner fears and doubts.

Oh, that's awesome... Or, conversely:
"My definition of an optimist has to be the F-104 pilot who gave up smoking!"
-John Wiley

Oh, that's awesome... Or, conversely:
"My definition of an optimist has to be the F-104 pilot who gave up smoking!"
-John Wiley

Oh, that's awesome... Or, conversely:
"My definition of an optimist has to be the F-104 pilot who gave up smoking!"
-John Wiley

Oh, that's awesome... Or, conversely:
"My definition of an optimist has to be the F-104 pilot who gave up smoking!"
-John Wiley

If you want to think about how hard complicated human activities are to predict, look back at economic projections in 1960. It was not , I mean NOT, generally accepted that Taiwan and South Korea would become wildly prosperous and vital pillars of the world economy. There are elements of both chaos and path dependency that may limit what prediction can do. 

My favorite line for humans not properly assessing risk is "obese, sedentary, diabetic, non-seatbelt wearing middle-aged smoker very concerned about health effects of vaccines"
(edit: not to get all holier than thou, as I am drinking my 2nd diet coke of the day and god knows that can't be good for me)

I don't wish to sidetrack the discussion either, and I will say I respect your credentials (and you, based on your posts in general) so your stance does carry a fair bit of weight with me. However, I do feel it's worth pointing out that a fairly recent Pew survey showed that 79% of physicists (compared to 65% of scientists in general and 45% of American adults) support building more nuclear power plants.
And I will leave it at that, apologies for the slightly tangential post...

It seems to me that it's probably akin to the Drake equation- a fairly simplistic equation with multiple independent terms. The difficulty with Drake is that we have little idea what value to assign each of the values. Reasonable assumptions lead to wildly different outcomes, from "we're alone and always will be" to "Alan the Alien should be here next week".
In the warfare equivalent we have some idea for the factors (recruitable population, GDP, access to trade, ...) there is no certainty about the weighting for each from war to war or even month to month. For example: Allied GDP was crucial in WWI and WWII, yet all but irrelevant in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russian manpower reserves was crucial in WWII, but having no impact so far in Ukraine. Technology was overwhelmingly important at Omdurman, but irrelevant in Vietnam. And so on. We know the factors, but the damn weightings keep changing.

Ultimately, I think war is not so much about killing the enemy as it is about achieving objectives. Perhaps even more so, it is about preventing the enemy from achieving their objectives... usually the most effective way of doing so is removing their ability to achieve them. This can mean killing the enemy, but it can also mean interdiction, destroying industrial capacity, outmaneuvering them diplomatically, etc.

Excellent reporting by the BBC's former Russia correspondent Sarah Rainsford, who was kicked out of Russia before the war; I will quote only the introduction, a part about possible crimes against humanity, and the conclusion, but highly recommend reading the whole article - it should be accessible to all without a paywall unless if you're in Russia:
Ukraine's shadow army resisting Russian occupation
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62333795
"A resistance poster reads: Zaporizhzhia, land of death to the occupiers:"

Ultimately, I think war is not so much about killing the enemy as it is about achieving objectives. Perhaps even more so, it is about preventing the enemy from achieving their objectives... usually the most effective way of doing so is removing their ability to achieve them. This can mean killing the enemy, but it can also mean interdiction, destroying industrial capacity, outmaneuvering them diplomatically, etc.

****ing Orcs - - those kinds of people (referring to those who conduct torture executions and physical torture for the purpose of torture) should be dealt with immediately by their own troops in a civilized army. I’m ranting but this kind of activity has no place and only serves to remind me why Ukrainians must win this fight and win it fully. 
 
Rant over. On a side note, does anyone have any recent crowdfunding or support links that they would like to share? 

Corporate leadership has decided that chess metaphors are no longer appropriate and are not to be used going forward.  Everyone please use the approved Lord of the Rings metaphors for this conflict in all future memos.
Sincerely, 
Metaphor Management Committee

@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."

It is my experience that general media coverage of specialized topics often veers into cringe-worthiness. On this forum, we can probably all relate to frustration with the Reporters' Standard Definition of "Tank:" a military vehicle that is not obviously a truck, a "jeep," an aircraft or a ship... I have also often thought that the world will be a better place when reporters learn the subtle, nuanced difference in meaning between the phrases "science proves!" and "one study suggests..."
And for a hilariously egregious example, see this blog post by British paleontologist (and paleoartist) Mark Witton about how an illustration he did for a paper on evidence that a shark preyed (or scavenged) on a (presumably swimming or drowned) pterosaur got taken badly out of context...

It is my experience that general media coverage of specialized topics often veers into cringe-worthiness. On this forum, we can probably all relate to frustration with the Reporters' Standard Definition of "Tank:" a military vehicle that is not obviously a truck, a "jeep," an aircraft or a ship... I have also often thought that the world will be a better place when reporters learn the subtle, nuanced difference in meaning between the phrases "science proves!" and "one study suggests..."
And for a hilariously egregious example, see this blog post by British paleontologist (and paleoartist) Mark Witton about how an illustration he did for a paper on evidence that a shark preyed (or scavenged) on a (presumably swimming or drowned) pterosaur got taken badly out of context...

It is my experience that general media coverage of specialized topics often veers into cringe-worthiness. On this forum, we can probably all relate to frustration with the Reporters' Standard Definition of "Tank:" a military vehicle that is not obviously a truck, a "jeep," an aircraft or a ship... I have also often thought that the world will be a better place when reporters learn the subtle, nuanced difference in meaning between the phrases "science proves!" and "one study suggests..."
And for a hilariously egregious example, see this blog post by British paleontologist (and paleoartist) Mark Witton about how an illustration he did for a paper on evidence that a shark preyed (or scavenged) on a (presumably swimming or drowned) pterosaur got taken badly out of context...

It is my experience that general media coverage of specialized topics often veers into cringe-worthiness. On this forum, we can probably all relate to frustration with the Reporters' Standard Definition of "Tank:" a military vehicle that is not obviously a truck, a "jeep," an aircraft or a ship... I have also often thought that the world will be a better place when reporters learn the subtle, nuanced difference in meaning between the phrases "science proves!" and "one study suggests..."
And for a hilariously egregious example, see this blog post by British paleontologist (and paleoartist) Mark Witton about how an illustration he did for a paper on evidence that a shark preyed (or scavenged) on a (presumably swimming or drowned) pterosaur got taken badly out of context...

It is my experience that general media coverage of specialized topics often veers into cringe-worthiness. On this forum, we can probably all relate to frustration with the Reporters' Standard Definition of "Tank:" a military vehicle that is not obviously a truck, a "jeep," an aircraft or a ship... I have also often thought that the world will be a better place when reporters learn the subtle, nuanced difference in meaning between the phrases "science proves!" and "one study suggests..."
And for a hilariously egregious example, see this blog post by British paleontologist (and paleoartist) Mark Witton about how an illustration he did for a paper on evidence that a shark preyed (or scavenged) on a (presumably swimming or drowned) pterosaur got taken badly out of context...

(Un)fortunately this project consisted mostly of CV-90 chassis, a bit of cardboard and a whole lot of marketing. Apart from it being nowhere near even the prototype stage, the whole idea was conceived in times when the heavy vehicles were out of fashion and everybody was trying to substitute them with something lighter (meaning cheaper). After war in Ukraine broke out, we are back to proper tanks and IFVs.

It is my experience that general media coverage of specialized topics often veers into cringe-worthiness. On this forum, we can probably all relate to frustration with the Reporters' Standard Definition of "Tank:" a military vehicle that is not obviously a truck, a "jeep," an aircraft or a ship... I have also often thought that the world will be a better place when reporters learn the subtle, nuanced difference in meaning between the phrases "science proves!" and "one study suggests..."
And for a hilariously egregious example, see this blog post by British paleontologist (and paleoartist) Mark Witton about how an illustration he did for a paper on evidence that a shark preyed (or scavenged) on a (presumably swimming or drowned) pterosaur got taken badly out of context...

Depends. Topics I have some expertise in feel usually varying degrees of cringe worthy to me. Don't believe a word of what they write about physics related stuff. For politics they are quite good, though. (Or I just don't have enough knowledge to see the cringe worthiness 😉)