G.I. Joe

+1
Oh, how I wish we could like your posts right now...

Agreed. I certainly had no intention of casting stones, which is precisely why I used the issues Canada had with the Airborne Regiment as an example in my original post yesterday.
I also did not mean to imply that NATO and allied armed services don't still have a lot of room for improvement on screening out extremism within the ranks, as both your examples demonstrate, just that it is a goal worth striving for...

+1
Oh, how I wish we could like your posts right now...

Claims of 6 destroyed and 8 damaged aircraft
Recent satellite pictures of the airfield
 

All very true.
Frankly, though, I never got the "joke" in Ukrainians or any other Eastern Europeans using Nazi symbolism. Of course I understand them actually being Nazis even less. Because if they were consistent they would have to construct some concentration camps where they would work themselves to death. That's what the real Nazis would have done to them.
Edit: I mean, it's like Afro Americans running around with a Confederate Flag, I guess. Is that a thing?

+1
Oh, how I wish we could like your posts right now...

+1
Oh, how I wish we could like your posts right now...

Updated picture of UKR long-range drones with new model A-22 Foxbat, striking targets in Tatarstan Repuplic in 1200 km

And here is allegedly new extra-long range drone E-300 Enterprise of our "AeroDrone" company. It capable to carry 300 kg of HE and has a range 3100 km. Though it's unknown how much HE it can deliver on such range. This drone was presented in first time aboput year ago and developer have been searching a factory to manufacturing presumably in Poland. Maybe all tests already completed and soon we can see it in action
 

https://kyivindependent.com/russian-officials-report-massive-drone-attack-on-military-airfield-in-rostov-oblast/
 
Big Ukrainian drone strike on Russian military airfield near Morozovsk, Rostov. This Russian claim 40 drones, there were telegrams claiming even more. Clips show much less engaged by air defences.
 

"Will" rather reminds me of those teenage girls in the UK who thought it would be a good idea to travel to Syria and present themselves as child brides to ISIS. Its impossible for a sane person to even guess what they were thinking at the time.

Oh for principled leaders like this today… certainly not a loser in my opinion 
 

If you wish to privately reach out to talk about the ways in which proto/semi/fully fascist parties often cherry pick across traditional political lines, I'm happy to indulge in the conversation but there have been enough forays off topic lately here.

Not sure I can really agree with that...now feels like a good time to make a callback to @sburke's comment about extremism and reason. If I were running a unit in a professional armed service of a democratic nation, I wouldn't want to try to integrate a bunch of personnel who might have serious issues serving alongside and taking orders from men and women who might be of a different ethnic origin, follow a different religion (or no religion), be LGBT, etc. Far too much potential for disruption of good order and discipline.
Canada had some very unfortunate experiences back in the Eighties and Nineties after our Airborne Regiment became a "dumping ground" for personnel (often with far right tendencies) who had caused disciplinary issues elsewhere...

Not sure I can really agree with that...now feels like a good time to make a callback to @sburke's comment about extremism and reason. If I were running a unit in a professional armed service of a democratic nation, I wouldn't want to try to integrate a bunch of personnel who might have serious issues serving alongside and taking orders from men and women who might be of a different ethnic origin, follow a different religion (or no religion), be LGBT, etc. Far too much potential for disruption of good order and discipline.
Canada had some very unfortunate experiences back in the Eighties and Nineties after our Airborne Regiment became a "dumping ground" for personnel (often with far right tendencies) who had caused disciplinary issues elsewhere...

Per Baneman.....
 
 
Russian staff school forgot to mention this was supposed to be a joke. I do think Black Adder's prescription for the morale problem is dead on though, in the Russian context.

These recent videos of Russian armoured assaults are insane ! 🤯
I mean, I ( and almost everyone on this forum ) would be absolutely messing myself with worry if I even tried that in CM in a WW2 context. Are the Russian generals on drugs ?
Maybe it's just because I tend to be very logical, but I cannot wrap my head around this kind of behaviour after 2 (two !) years of seeing this sort of thing get smashed.

When the unified right wing National Corps slate only manages to get something like 2.5% of the total vote in Ukraine while rightest parties dominate Russia then this discussion gets very silly. 

It probably would be technically feasible to catapult launch an A-22 at maximum takeoff weight without overstressing the airframe, but my guess is they didn't feel it was worth the extra effort to rig up such a system. The equipment that could be stripped out during the drone conversion (seats, harnesses, radios, instruments, control columns, rudder pedals, etc.) probably already weighed more than the undercarriage. Having a look at the POH (downloaded from here), a stock A-22LS already has room for 200 kg / 440 lbs of payload, the drone conversion would probably already get that to around 225 kg / 500 lbs without major airframe modifications.

"extremist" and "reasoning" are kind of mutually exclusive.

This is not the first time we have seen evidence that the Russians are depleting their Soviet legacy reserves to stay in this war.  The slow but steady downgrading of equipment and troop quality is consistent.  The impact on this war are yet unknown.  Are Ukraine and Russia in a “race to the bottom”?  Not if the West can get its act together and ramp up production of modern systems.  We can easily crush Russia in a modern force generation war, the real question is whether or not we are willing to do it.
The “so what?” for the next war is that Russia as a regional threat (side stepping the nuclear equation) has been demonstrably reduced.  The spectre of hordes of T62s and T55s is laughable in this day and age. Russian military production is constrained and they are not going to be able to rebuild a modern offensive force quickly.  In fact we are not even sure what a modern offensive force really looks like but I do feel safe to say it is not whatever Russia has left.  Next gen will demand higher levels of technology: unmanned air and ground, distributed space based capability, AI supported C4ISR, PGMs everywhere.  All that takes a lot of investment and pivoting for a Russian military industrial complex designed to make tanks and IFVs.
This projects Russia into a serious security dilemma after the war: completely re-tool after the war, or stick with former conventional metrics and try to rebuild what hey had on 21 Feb 22.  In both cases they are heavily burdened by western sanctions and pressures.  Neither is a great option or easily done in anything less than a decade.
Another metric that Russia has essentially “lost” this war - they have likely dramatically reduced strategic post-war options as a result of this as opposed to expanding them.

But isn’t a “domestic” enemy someone whose position is forbidden?  There weren’t a lot of protections granted communists in the US back during the Cold War.  For example, if one was a firm communist they were not going to be employed within the defence department.  Roll forward to modern era, devoted fundamentalist Muslims did not fare much better.  This “freedom” concept really appears to be selective when viewed through a historic lens.  Sure, a US citizen can be free to express whatever they wish, but to do so without consequences from both private and public sectors has clearly been demonstrated as false.  Once a society allows for negative consequences as a result of free speech or association, it is no longer “free”.  This inconsistency appears migratory and frankly unfairly applied historically.  Try being a black civil rights movement in the 1930s in the South.  Not a whole lot of freedom of speech and association in that period for that demographic. LGBTQ in the 50s?
So what, as it relates to this war and situation?  Within the US, and other modern democracies, I do not think this is a case of “autocratic control” but you are very correct in calling it out as a slippery slope.  I think it is a case of “when does speech and association become a threat to national security?”  When is it honest political discourse in an open and fair democracy, and when does it become too dangerous to tolerate?  Obviously sharing information on how to build and deploy a WMD should not be covered in “freedom of speech”.  Nor should sharing of classified information.  But when does political discourse cross that line?
The US currently has elected officials who are pretty actively supporting a foreign powers agenda.  To the point that they are blocking military aid to an ally in the middle of an existential war.  At what point does this stop being “open and free political discourse” and become “paid foreign lies by a domestic enemy?”
I honestly do not know.  I have watched my country wrestle with this.  I think our “hate speech” laws are in fact dangerous.  But clearly there is a point, even within free democracies where we cannot tolerate free expression.  For this war, where that line is drawn could very well impact its outcome and what the region looks like. 

100% agree, and we actually need to export more gas to keep Europe supplied. And the more we export the less the Russians can charge, regardless of who they arfe selling to. The ban was a bad idea to start with, or brilliant way to get a bit of negotiating leverage the administration will be just as happy to give back. 

I'm not sure sharing a culture war "own the libs" video is really helping make your point, unless your point is that this kind of sensationalist propaganda exists, which we already know because that's what this branch of the conversation is about.
What I hope to get from this thread, and other serious conversations on the internet, is something that sifts out examples that are cherry-picked to push an agenda, something that tries to go beyond the usual ideological points-scoring. To really understand what is going on in a way that will lead to better outcomes in the future, we need to be data-driven, we need to consider analysis from experts in the field, we need people to make cases based on evidence that can been broadly and independently corroborated.
To be clear, I have nothing against propaganda per se. It has its uses, in particular to influence people who are politically uninterested and/or ignorant. When discussing propaganda it is perfectly reasonable to say that "people can believe what they want" because the goal of propaganda is not to educate but to influence. In a country with freedom of expression and freedom of religion, we should accept that there is always some portion of the population that is going to hold convictions based purely on vibes and woo. When bad guys try to leverage the democratic power of those people, bad stuff happens, and that's the price we pay for living in a democracy. I can assure you, it does not work the same way under an authoritarian government.
But in a scholarly environment, or a professional environment, or a (mostly) serious discussion like this thread... That's where I think letting this kind of propaganda in the door is counter-productive. It might give us an insight into how people think, and how those with power are trying to influence people to think, but at the end of the day that's only one small component of the issue, and due to its sensationalist nature, it can distract from more important signals. It's more helpful and more interesting (to me) to think about the effect of this propaganda than to simply parrot it.
For example, here is a recent article discussing how LLMs can aid in disinformation campaigns: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666827024000215
Or - and apologies for the sidetrack into my own personal area of expertise - here is part of an ongoing investigation into a multi-year probably state-sponsored operation to try subvert a key piece of infrastructure used in computers and other devices all over the world: https://research.swtch.com/xz-timeline
That is what these guys are up to. I want to talk about how we can defeat that stuff, to protect the democracy and freedoms we hold dear.
Let's go back to Ukraine. Perun responds with facts to pro-Russia critics on his previous video who falsely claimed that of course the Russian export industry is suffering because that's just how it goes in war. Spoiler: that is not how it goes.
 

This actually is a good sign. The White House has something the GOP wants and Johnson seems willing to trade for it. As the US is already cranking out record amounts of fossil fuels, it's also unlikely to change much in the real world. 

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/white-house-open-ending-lng-export-pause-push-ukraine-aid-sources-say-2024-04-02/
Let the horse trading commence!
Forget the talking heads, my old friend @Vet 0369, 'follow the money' crosses all partisan lines, everywhere and at all times!