Billy Ringo

Interesting perspective from a Russian that I think some people here might actually agree with!
 

Macron is a French politician, fill in your joke of choice here, but I still like it a lot better when is per-formatively amping support for Ukraine than when he is per-formatively licking Putin's boots. I take both poses with an entire shaker of salt, but the latter one still taste better.

Thank you, it honestly means a lot. I for one am enjoying the different perspectives here, even if I have my reservations or disagreements and concerns with some of them. No one is making bad or poorly structured points and I honestly find it refreshing. 

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.
 

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.
 

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.
 

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.
 

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.
 

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.
 

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.
 

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.
 

Not rambling but I would encourage you to widen your aperture - you clearly have demonstrated the potential in these discussion but I fear you remain somewhat restricted by conventional boxes.
The aim here is not to create "and all drone force" or "all APS c-drone force." and have them play smash-smash until one side wins.  The aim here is to evolve our land warfare systems to best effect. Hcrof has already outlined some very good ideas on how to do this and none of them include "and all drone force".
So I for one would stop investing in heavy metal...period.  We can find way to repurpose the metal we have, and yes, that will include protections for it.  But heavy metal - and here I am talking armor, IFVs and AFVs will need to be re-rolled to a greater or lesser degree.  So what do I want?
- C4ISR - best in the world.  I want a fully illuminated battlefield in real time that can integrate all my shooters in a cloud-like concept.  I see targets early and can pull from that cloud of a self-healing network of offensive systems.  From sub-surface, surface, air, space and cyber - I want See, Hear, Understand superiority.  With that I can beat just about anyone.
- Precision (see C4ISR).  I want a precision based force.  300 bullets means 300 kills.  I want that precision linked and able to swing on a dime to bring massed precision to any point on the battlefield.  I want to be able to melt an opponents operational system in quick time from front end to industry.
- Unmanned (see Precision and C4ISR) - I want humans doing what they do best - battlespace management.  I want fewer of them but they are the owners of the nodes, not mass.  Mass needs to be machine based because it is 1) sustainable as dead metal has much less effect on human will, 2) cheaper in the longer term (humans are very cheap in the short), 3) much less prone to errors and friction.  I want unmanned to be the front edge of battle. I want it armed with Precision and ISR.
- Fires.  Strike is not going anywhere.  If someone told me I have 5B dollars..."where do you want it?"  A good slice would be into over-the-horizon fires - guns, missiles and loitering.  I do not want an "unmanned force" - I want a Firepower Force.  See it, kill it, repeat.  I want to use fires as manouevre.  
- Infantry.  Not for mass but there is a reality that people will be needed forward. Likely paired with machines but the human brain is still the most powerful processor in the universe (that we know of) and war is still all about people.  I want light, fast and dispersed infantry.  Crawling into everything like sand up the bikini, and they can take the machines with them.
All of that means Denial at worst and crushing corrosive warfare at best.  I would take that up against any military on the planet right now.  I do not care if an opponent comes at me with f#cking dragons with wizards on them; I will be able to see and hit from so many different angles that there is no force protection in existence that will allow them to advance.  Wrap your tanks in bubble wrap, I will hit logistics back to the break rooms. Further, that advancing would be capable of terrifying offensive effects.   
I want mass precision beats everything.
Now I am not going to get that, but I want investments to take us in that direction and not backwards.  Why?  Because there is a lot more evidence coming from this war, and the ones before it, that this is the direction where things are heading. More than any way we have fought in the past. As a student of military history, I can see the writing on the wall - we are looking at a shift, again. We will continue to negotiate with the future, everyone does, but we can at least be smarter about it. 

As a side note, I hope I am articulating myself reasonably well here. I am still somewhat new here despite having lurked for an ungodly amount of time on the forum. Its certainly lovely to discuss / talk to you all!


 

According to pro Russian propaganda, the AFU has been in a 'critical' situation for years and yet nothing has really happened. This is literally just conjecture. 

I have been a long time lurker enjoying this thread for years and I just cannot sit by and watch a clear propaganda account spout such rubbish. I know several Ukrainians who would literally punch you in the face for suggesting that Ukraine 'should just surrender man' after the disgusting acts committed upon them. 

You claim Russia is 'fixing' its corruption when in reality its just one faction cleaning out the other. Both are neck deep in said corruption all while while new stooges are brought in. They arrested general Popov who was specifically trying to point the many flaws in the Russian military system last year (And got fired for it) and seemed to be one of the few who actually gave a damn about the lives of his soldiers. 

Russia is not fixing anything, they are just assigning fall guys and pretending nothing is wrong. 

Just as a general comment about propaganda, I have continually been impressed from page 1 that the overwhelming majority of posts have been well vetted, or if not, along the lines of "I found this, can anyone confirm?" There are people here with vast experience, and not just militarily, who aren't easily fooled by specious claims. Posting the verified facts and then getting some good discussion on what those mean is very good reading.
So basically, good job everyone, and keep it up.  I don't post too much - just mainly about things I really know a lot about, and sometimes do catchup reading, but I do read almost everything, and follow a lot of the links.
Dave

It does matter tho, Russian dual purpose equipment has been used to severely strike significant targets and under take important Russian actions to influence the war in Ukraine. It's also notable to note the degrees of escalation occurring by Ukraine, Russian nuclear capable bombers, Russian warships including submarine and submarine tender capability, now Russian radar sites in both Moldavia and southern Russia. Clearly Ukraine has been operating cautiously with planned step downs and increasing attacks accordingly due to push back or lack thereof.
Again, if Russia really is terrified of NATO moving to end the Russian regime, they wouldn't be stripping forces facing NATO including their air defense guarding against Finland and the Baltics, nor stripping the units in Kalinagrad.
If Russia is terrified of escalation and needs to warn NATO to back down, as it feels cornered why is Russia still undertaking measures to indicate maximalist aims and positions and not attempting to utilize the positions offered by the West in late 2022? If they wanna downgrade the temp, launching offensives in regions quiet since 2022 is the opposite, declaring Zelensky is illegitimate is also not seeking de-escalation.
I'm fact the measures taken indicate Russia is seeking hard line long term war in Ukraine. In these conditions, striking targets in Russia, is unavoidable.

Is it remotely possible that Putin is sacking so many high-ranking officers to use as scapegoats to help with an off-ramp to this war.  Blame it on the military leaders so the failure of this war doesn't fall on him.  Wishful thinking?

https://theins.press/en/confession/271412
Stories from the lucky ones in the meat assaults

You might be thinking 'Kelly's heroes'.............(woof woof!!!,  negative waves, etc.)
 

Now let’s not suddenly forget the real reason why China has risen to power…western greed.  We exported manufacturing and every other hard/increasingly expensive job to China because they would do it for a fraction of what western workers were demanding nor was governed by pesky workplace safety regulations.  We wanted cheap everything from Tshirts to running shoes to cellphones.  We did not admit China into the WTO until 2001 and by then we were over-invested in China for our lifestyles that no one could slow that train down:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_the_World_Trade_Organization#:~:text=China became a member of,changes to the Chinese economy.
We had started this trend back in the 80s.  There was nothing altruistic or generous about any of this, it really was simply an extension of western benign (and sometimes not) imperial doctrine.  The Western Rules Based order was really designed to keep the West on top. China figured this out and used that system to rise to power.  They did it using Western money, not charitable intent.  China conducted a series of pretty radical economic reforms and the outsourced the industry we downloaded on them to places like Bangladesh and Vietnam.  They then reinvested in their own high tech and bolstered it with an historic industrial espionage campaign.
None of this was “western misguided liberalism gone wrong” it was straight up pursuit of profit and reinforcing our own consumer based economies.  By the time we realized the problem in the mid ‘00 it was too late.  No politician, even Trump, could simply “drop China”.  Since then we have seen attempts at a gradual uncoupling but we are still too dependent on Asian manufacturing and industry, the pandemic showed this in spades.  And now we are stuck.  We either keep funding Chinese rise to power or try and roll the clock back to 1960, which we can’t do with current standards of living and economic realities.
None of this was generous or high minded.  Anymore than British rule of India was.  It was a 20th century version of economic colonization, which like a lot of colonization came back around to bite.

So this post and the one above it are what we like to call “losing the bubble”.  You have let your passion for Ukraine cloud objective strategic thinking to the point that you are proposing a denial of reality to insert one of your own that matches that passion.  In blunt terms, if you were on my staff I would be thinking you need a vacation and maybe a posting away for awhile.
1.  We cannot simply discount/avoid/wave away the risks of a full on Russian political and social collapse.  First off it is not “impossible” or even improbable given we have a rigid autocratic political mechanism that has been under significant strain for some time now.  Russia has collapsed in the past (twice in the past century and a bit) and can do so again.  
2.  The consequences of a Russian collapse cannot simply be waived away either.  At best we get a stable regime quickly grabbing power so that the centralized control apparatus stays in place.  That regime will need to 1) have clean enough hands to do an honest deal with, and 2) be supportive in stopping this war.  That is a tall order. Follow on scenarios of a Russian collapse and its impacts get worse from there and we have gone into them many times.  You are essentially so gripped with the Ukrainian cause that you have simply stated “ignore them” with neither proof or logic on why to do so beyond “well it hasn’t happened yet, so it will never happen”.
3.  By your metrics Ukrainian security is not guaranteed outside of a full Russian collapse and regime change.  Nothing would stop Russia from lobbing missiles even if it was forced back to 2014 lines.  So we are back to “we need a full Russian collapse to ‘win’ but ignore the consequences of that collapse because = ‘love Ukraine’.” That makes no sense nor does it address the scenarios where a collapsed Russia poses as greater risk to Ukraine than what they are dealing with now. 
4.  There are plenty examples of frozen conflict where an enduring peace and security were guaranteed: Korea, Cyprus and Former Yugoslavia, to name a few.  Like Israel right now, there is always risk of reemergence of warfare but we can manage that.  So immediately writing off any and all other peace scenarios is not only extremist narrative, it is dangerously reductive thinking.  This is not how high levels of diplomacy, defence and security or economics think about the world, it is how college students on a campus do.
5.  Your position and thesis essentially start with a conclusion and then build a logic model theory of success that only supports that conclusion.  Ukraine must have total victory, all other outcomes are defeats.  Further the West must support Ukraine in this venture to the point that it will risk the total political and social collapse of a nuclear power.  We are to sidestep all that risk for Ukraine.  What happens if we get to 2014 lines and Russia does not quit?  Do we need to go into Russia proper?  This nearly happened in Korea/China in 1950, this was how MacArther talked himself into nuclear weapons and a massive Chinese reaction.
6. We all support Ukraine and want a victory here.  But..and you really need to sit down and think about this…Ukraine is damned important, but it is not that important.  We are not going to start WW3 over Ukraine - even as we skirt around it.  We would be talking hundreds of millions of deaths, even if the thing stayed conventional.  We have 8 billion people on this planet and keeping them all alive takes a lot of energy and resources.  We built a highly complex and integrated system to keep the whole dance going.  One war breaks out between Ukraine and Russia and we already have people starving to death in Africa. Imagine a full on conflagration that drags in NATO. Iran and possibly China.  I am sorry but we could easily go with plan A, which was likely the plan on 24 Feb 22: continue to support Ukrainian resistance, fall back to NATO lines, drop a new Iron Curtain, and fund the hell out of NATO - in fact there are likely big winners in this scenario who know it.  We won the First Cold War, we can take our chances on a Second.
So, no, total 2014 lines are not the only victory in this war by a long shot.  In fact those territorial lines might not even mean victory if they were attainable.  We are very likely looking at a stop line, like in 2014, somewhere in the middle.  Then we will get some sort of shaky ceasefire that we will need to exploit, quickly.  We need to set the conditions to strategically deny Ukraine from Russia.  We know Russia can be deterred, this is why we do not have deep strikes into Poland happening.  We will need to move that deterrence line.  We will likely have to pound Russia until it drops its ridiculous negotiating position and we can land on something more reasonable.  Whether that will take a full on collapse is unknown, we can only hope if it does that we are looking at a soft collapse of political position and not social controls within Russia.
Finally, framing the war the way you have supports Russia.  You are making this war nearly unwinnable via these maximalist rhetoric.  As such, a reader of this thread could easily walk away agreeing with you but arriving at a very different conclusion - unwinnable war = GTFO, because we have already seen this movie twice in the last 20 years.  Which is exactly what Russia wants.
You have narrowed down the acceptable narrative only to those ardent extremist viewpoints that agree with you.  By leaving no middle ground you violate a core component of war: negotiation.  There is no negotiation in your position and that immediately sets off warning bells.  We hear this everyday now coming from all sorts of corners over so many issues.  I vehemently disagree with your analysis, narrative and conclusions based on this fact alone.

I think service should be voluntary until that alone doesn't fill the need. When volunteers can't cover it, then the draft is perfectly fine. I agree that those that are pacifist or conscientious objectors should be allowed to fulfil non combat roles. I personally don't want to be in a foxhole next to someone who isn't there to fight, and believe that anyone else on the line would have the same opinion. With that being said, anyone who fails to answer the call and flees their country should have their citizenship revoked for life and not be allowed back in for any reason. I know it sounds harsh, but especially in an existential conflict like this one I think it is fitting. It is your choice to flee, but in doing so you should no longer get to identify with that country or nationality. It is an insult to all of those that stay and suffer, whether in the military or not, for that person to continue to have the rights of the others without shouldering the responsibility.
As the CPT said, there seems to be a disconnect between rights and responsibilities in a lot of nations nowadays. Freedom isn't free and those rights come with a price tag from time to time. 

Freedom ain’t free.  Someone has to stop Russia from doing what it is doing which is definitely not “perfectly fine”.  In reality the kid did not run away, his family did when he was 16.  Now that he is 18 and of age; he is “staying away”.  I think every citizen has a duty to protect their nation in times of crisis.  A duty to protect each other when threatened.  If they cannot or will not do that then they really are no longer a nation.  This is one thing I think we have lost, and it will come back and bite us.  There is a solemn duty in being a citizen, and even a greater one in a free nation.  It is one that takes sacrifice for the greater good.  Now this kid could be from a pacifist ideology or religion, ok there are a lot of ways to fulfill this duty to serve.
What I disagree with is that is all fine for a young man like this to selfishly protect himself while his own people are suffering.  Running away to “embrace life” when Ukrainian children are dying back in Ukraine does not wash with me.  Personally I have been in two wars that really had not much to do with Canada.  We were really doing it for some greater global good (really did not turn out well in the end) but we all believed in it and honoured kids maybe a year older than this one who died in crappy places no one will remember in 50 years. The idea that one could “sit out” an atrocity like this invasion of Ukraine and still claim citizenship or ethnicity does not sit well with me at all.  It is shirking duty and letting others pay the price.   As we have discussed this kid does not even have to fight.  He can be in a support trade or work in industry or even humanitarian.  But his people and his country need him right now which is more important than how he gets to spend his twenties.  It is more important than him as an individual.  
Mark my words on this, we have more of this coming.  The future is likely going to demand more sacrifice for the greater good not less.  We will have to stand or kneel in the end.  And right now to my eyes, that young man is kneeling.