Billy Ringo

I am a veteran of two wars and have likely forgotten more about war and warfare than you based on your contributions to this thread.  
I see that you are taking a “self-imposed” vacation and will come back “when proven right”.  Well problem with that is that you have never really taken a clear position on anything.  At one moment you talk about “diplomacy and negotiation” the next “4 weeks to victory”.  You have not demonstrated any real research or citations in your contributions nor any level of recognizable expertise on the subject matter.  My, and other attempts, to explain are “too complicated” so you dismiss them.  Then when I sit down and actually try to unpack your position and why your assumptions are flawed, I get insults and name calling.  No facts.  No counter analysis.  Just “be quiet”.
So when you come back (and I am sure you will), what exactly constitutes you “being proven right”?  Have the courage to take a position and clearly define it and stop these politically motivated drive-bys.  The way you have ambiguously framed your position does not allow for you to be wrong.  If the war is still going on you can declare “I told you we should have negotiated/stated/invaded”.  If the war ends, you can claim it is because the US finally did whatever you were saying all along.
So I am calling you out.  Clearly give us three strategic “must dos” in order for this war to end.  Clear and measurable strategic actions the US and West must carry out in your deeply informed opinion.  Don’t weasel around it or try to build in wiggle room.  Here let me show you how it is done:
1.  Commitment to win the war. The US/West must continue to own the escalation ladder in this war.  They must continue steady, predictable and clear pressure on Russia through programmed support to Ukraine.  This commitment must be unambiguous and apolitical, we are in it until this is done.  No back doors or side deals.  No renormalization until Russia is out of Ukraine completely.  This is a slow steady path with no sudden movement as we thread a needle between uncontrolled escalation and stagnation/freezing conflict.  This is a long war of attrition and must be navigated as one…it will go slow until the RA collapses militarily or there is a major political shift in Russia.  Either way direct confrontation between US/West must be avoided at all costs - no hard fast win.  Further, victory must be clear and unambiguous as well.  No soft-wins for Russia just to end this. Russian defeat must be clear.
2.  Commitment to win post-war.  Reconstruction and post conflict defence and security mechanisms are a must.  No grey areas or open clauses.  We commit to rebuild Ukraine and pull it into a real security alliance that will guarantee long term security and investment.
3.  Engineer Russian negotiations with its own defeat.  Russia cannot become a failed state, yet it requires regime change.  That is very tricky to manage at the best of times.  A path to renormalization must be developed but it cannot ignore the egregious warcrimes and violations Russia has committed.  This will lead Russia out of being pulled entirely into a Chinese power sphere and provide some multipolar power manoeuvre room.
There you go.  I am on record with my position and advice.  Now if the US goes in hard next week and Russia withdraws with its tail between its legs I will be proven wrong.  If we can suddenly negotiate an end to this war that makes everyone happy, I was also wrong.  So what have you got?

To recover that "vision" and put it into effective action of some kind, the US Congress needs to take a deep breath and decide to work toward some common goals and agreements. They exist, and the Senate is better in this regard than the House. Anything substantive takes both houses, though. I'd say "the US" DOES know better but the current atmosphere is so partisan that bipartisan agreements just aren't happening, even though both parties essentially agree on something (and not just Ukraine, other topics as well). 
Dave

Russians know what is being done in their name. In fact that's why they hired putin to do it in the first place.
Russian soldiers don't want to surrender because surrender means inability to kill, loot, rape and torture human beings. Why would they want to deny themselves things they want and reasons they are here?
Sensible advice that emanates from Kyiv to people on occupied territories is to survive at any cost short of treason. There's nothing else they can do.
For someone who follows the war closely for 18 months you seem to not follow it close enough.

That has historically been how Russians got their armies to improve. In WW2 it took them two years become decent, and one more year to be good. Plotting that learning curve on this war's calendar Russians should now be somewhere at the level of Operation Uranus. Luckily, their current counteroffensive in the North-East looks more like Operation Anus, so it looks like they are learning slower.

On the training post: a lot of what is in that story rings true.  The issue, which we have pointed out here before, is that western troops have no frame of reference for this war.  The more I hear descriptions of company operations in this war, the more they sound like a SOF action as far as C4ISR goes.  A GF Comd does pretty much what they are describing as a Company Comds role in this war - pulls back and manages the engagement from a pan C4ISR node.  Conventional military experience does not do this.  Tactical commanders get more feeds but pretty much fill the same roles as they did 30-40 years ago.  The Battalion TOC has changed a lot but the mass use of UAS for ISR is still not at the forefront.
The offensive focus also rings true.  I got into an argument a long while back on modern war and the offensive doctrine of most western militaries.  A lot of doctrine was built during the Cold War and then adapted to the insurgency wars we fought over the last 30 years.  The few times we went conventional, the opponent was so overmatched that we kind of confirmed a false positive - offensive primacy.  This war is showing the holes in that theory.  This is a war of Denial - drones and artillery.  That takes a fundamentally different training approach.
We all “yay’ed” when western troops began training support, and we still add a lot of value in some skill areas.  However, we may very well be teaching  bad lessons.  For example, that well documented and broadcasted failed minefield breach back in Jun. To my eyes it was a textbook western mechanized breach.  It looks like it got stopped by enemy UAS, a couple helicopters, a few ATGM teams and some pretty tepid artillery.  Our minefield breaching doctrine has not been refreshed since the Cold War and it ran headlong into 2023 reality.  Our impulse is to declare “well the UA is doing it wrong,”. Of course this assumes we actually know how to do it right in the first place.
I can only hope the AAR process is firmly in place and is capturing these observations.  However, in most cases the AAR guys are cut from the same corporate cloth as the training delivery guys so there are going to be biases to overcome.  We likely need to adapt the training significantly.  SOF may need to take over infantry tactics training because the reality is closer to their environment than our conventional experience.  However, SOF are pretty low density.  Conventional can focus on equipment (eg “night driving”), it still does this better than anyone else.
I have brought up the point on this war being as much about competitive learning as much as about actual warfare before.  The UA learns very fast, Russians slower…but they do learn.  The question is, “how fast are western militaries learning?”  They are part of this war too, they make up a significant portion of the Ukrainian force generation stream.  As such they should be in a direct feedback loop from the front line. We need to be learning at a better pace than the Russians - “EOD is taboo” (likely because we have framed them as exclusively a COIN thing).  This will mean breaking out of our own boxes, which is a damned hard thing to do at the best of times.  In reality we should be getting then UA to train us on how to train them.

Something good to hear said and reported on as far as the US political front goes.
 

Steve. In my view support for Ukraine (give them all thy need) is solid and enthusiastic among House and Senate republicans.  There is a small outspoken minority opposed, however the strength of feeling amongst those in favour will not permit compromise. In other words support for Ukraine is non-negotiable. The big risk in the US is change of President.  
 

One thing I could add to this. That 10% may (or will) force the leadership to propose a vote to cease aid to Ukraine, but it will not pass either the House or Senate, based on current feelings among Representatives and Senators. There currently are more than enough to support aid to Ukraine, with supporters coming from both parties. That could also lead the 10% to force a leadership battle, even though they did what the 10% wanted, but it failed (the reasoning being the leadership cannot lead).
Democracy can be very messy 🙂
Dave 

Senator Romney on Ukraine. Absolutely 100% solid.

Not so fast. Our TGs write UKR command of advancing brigades concerned with such rapid withdrawal of Russians - this can be a trap with flank strikes and artillery hammering of narrow front from all sides, so UKR troops should to expand own flanks enough in order to not to be cut off and encirlced. I notice, in Novoprokopivka in front of our troops already not Territorial troops mobiks and tired units of 42nd MRD, but fresh VDV units - 108th regimemt and two battalions of 56th regiment of 7th air-assault division. This is serious opponent. 
Western partners say to us "Go, go, go! Winter is coming". I wish to our generals big patience and don't command to our troops in own turn "go, go, go!" like in June...

I think that will be the first take and I vehemently disagree. Regular Russians actually supported Prigozhin and Wagner. The hard core Ukraine war folks did so intensely. Utkin and Prigozhin were nationalist heroes. The vox populi will be that they were killed because they tried to win. Add in that it says state capacity is a total mess. 

The Ukrainian response to all of this "advice" should consist of one sentence. "The U.S. Air Force is welcome to show up any time." 

It is also important to keep in mind that the frontlines are only one place this war is being fought.  There are many dimensions to this conflict and in the others, Russia may be losing faster than the physical frontline in Ukraine.  Financial, diplomatic etc.  The Russian economy is tanking and the manipulation Russia has done to delay that has run out of steam.  Meanwhile Russian industry for the war is sucking the wind out of whatever was left in the civilian side.  Russian air transport is increasingly becoming a game of roulette - sure you can fly but we might not have brakes when we land... fasten that seatbelt!  On the diplomatic side Russia is pretty much isolated to the most despised nations on the planet with China likely weighing the value of this friendship every day.  The Russian military export business is pretty much gone. Not only has their weaponry shown to be deficient, but they are also having difficulty buying it back due to the lack of foreign currency and the effect of sanctions.
All this has got to be having an affect internally.  We may not have visibility but there is no way this is not causing stress within Russian power circles.

One thing that I think many on this Forum don’t realize is that talk is cheap, especially from “chicken hawks” as many of us here who HAVE served tend to call those who talk a tough fight, but have never been put in a position to have to back up their words with actions. The most honest answer when asked what one would do in a situation is, I’ve never been exposed to that situation so I honestly don’t know what I would, only what I would hope to do. Even a person who has been in a situation never knows, but can only hope to handle it as before. This is because one might be a hero when dry, warm, well-fed, and have dry feet, but be a coward when wet, cold, hungry, and be standing in mud up to their ankles.
we all think we can be a Rambo or a Florence Nightingale, but never know if we can until AFTER the situation is over! And the whole subject is WAY OFF TOPIC in this thread.

Do you think it is worth fighting for being a citizen of Ukraine or subject of Putin? That is a consequence of being on this or that side of a border, just a different one.

The Russo-Ukraine War shows precisely why this point of view, while ostensibly based on deep,universal insights, springs from a very specific set of circumstances. Namely, one where one's country and nation is free of any actual danger.
Apologies for saying the obvious, but it seems necessary. A country is a territorial pollitical organisation within which lives a group of people, called a nation. If you do not care about your country, you do not care about whether that group of people - including you-  is self governed, or subjected to other country, therefore another nation. Alternatively, you do not care whether your nation gets to use a particular territory, or is deprived of it by another nation - thus impacting e.g. the natural resources, trade routes, etc. avaliable to the group, which includes you. 
Not caring for your country does not therefore make much rational sense, because things which affect your country affect you, your family, your descendants, etc. It seems to me, that in fact, people say "I couldn't care less about my country" because either they consider the risk of having to defend their country as practically non-existent and therefore they do not seriously think about it, or at the back of their minds there lies is an unspoken assumption, that it does not matter whether you are German, French, or Dutch. I am not sure, but I am not going to dispute that about those 3 countries. However, it is absolutely clear to me that it is crucially important whether you are Ukrainian or Russian, as this war abundantly proves.
And as regards the random lines on the map called Ukraine, they decide e.g. whether the nation called Ukrainians will have access to ports of the Azov sea and able to export their grain through them. Or whether the Crimean Penninsula will be within those random lines, or on the other side of random lines and therefore under the control of whoever at the time is the tyrant of Russia, threatening the nation of Ukrainians with naval invasion. By defending those lines on map they are defending their future well-being. The position "I support your right to decide for yourselves but Ido not support your fight for the borders" is self-contradictory and thus obviously wrong, because the right to decide for themselves obviously includes the right to decide how to develop Ukrainian land. 
 

I didn't do 2 tours in Iraq to make somebody rich. I went to fight terrorists. You will find the vast majority of my felllow military members went for the same reason. 

If somebody wants to search black cat in dark room, especially if realy no cat in this room, this is his right. For Eastern European countries, military aspect in their cultures always played important role in upbringing. I think, not a last role in "phenomenon" of fierce Ukrainian resistance played "military culture" memory with an attitude "I have an obligation to be defender of my land", different youth scout and paramilitary organisations, upbringing low-level leaders. Alas, contemporary western culture with it's negative aspects like "life for enjoying and consumption", globalization moods "Nations don't exist, I'm citizen of Universe", leftism, libertarianism etc significantly undermined nation readiness to fight. Now in Ukrainian society more and more we are hearing voices (and this is not only Russian PsyOps): "Why I have to go at the war! Only professionals must to go! I was born to enjoy a life, not to die on minefields! They havn't a right to force me to fight! This is violation of my human rights! If Russians come I will defend my family - we just relocate them to other country, but you closed borders for men, violating my basic human rights to choose a safe place for life!"
When about week ago was published a photos of daughter of marine, fallen in 2020 - three years ago, where she was 10 y.o with a portray of his father and today's photo, where she is 13 y.o with sniper rifle as a cadete of military college, huge number of "snowflakes" and "human right defenders" started to faint "OMG! Little girl with a weapon! It's unacceptable!" Maybe this is a reason why in EU so low level of people, who ready to fight with a wepon for their countries. If education system try to upbrings kids as "snowflakes in rose unicorn kingdom", keeping them from "unwanted stresses, violence, militarism, hard situations" etc. then even usual mountain trip with a tent without a bed and toilet turned out for many of them in dangerous challenge, not speaking of to readiness to engage with a war reality. 
So, I'm for "golden mean clever militarism" in youth upbringing. This is a question of nation health and future stability of countries.
https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/
  

Autonomous flying is way easier than autonomous flying- we already have this, and it used every day- autopilot. Obviously there is reliance on GPS and INS, but it’s way different than being on a road and having to worry about obstacles and traffic. If GPS is jammed, poverty INS and simple airspeed calculations and a compass will get you close to where you need to go- especially if you fly higher up on a clear day, or just in straight line. And then simple image recognition to look for tarmac/flying vehicles. If you can get to the target 80% of the time, that’s great. No AI needed.
If you can’t make it to an airflield, ditch on an empty road and make a hole it in it and hope someone gets a flat tire.
In terms of target selection, if Russia has kids at a military airport in a war, I don’t think anybody is going to complain if they get killed. Maybe amnesty, but they have shown their true colors of course.
Detecting helicopters vs decoys, if you have an even halfway decent onboard camera and the equivalent of an iphone CPU, that’s plenty of horsepower to do image recognition. You don’t need an LLM or deep learning or anything crazy. Again, no AI needed. Same goes for detecting an airfield.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/china-now-sells-fewer-goods-to-the-us-than-mexico-or-canada-do/ar-AA1eXT0N?rc=1&ocid=socialshare&cvid=9d99c6d2b63c446881a696f3081e2664&ei=20
Chinese imports to the US down 25% YTD since last year.  That's a big shift, more pressure on the Chinese government, less US dependence on China, and more diversity in the US supply chain. 
 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/china-now-sells-fewer-goods-to-the-us-than-mexico-or-canada-do/ar-AA1eXT0N?rc=1&ocid=socialshare&cvid=9d99c6d2b63c446881a696f3081e2664&ei=20
Chinese imports to the US down 25% YTD since last year.  That's a big shift, more pressure on the Chinese government, less US dependence on China, and more diversity in the US supply chain. 
 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/china-now-sells-fewer-goods-to-the-us-than-mexico-or-canada-do/ar-AA1eXT0N?rc=1&ocid=socialshare&cvid=9d99c6d2b63c446881a696f3081e2664&ei=20
Chinese imports to the US down 25% YTD since last year.  That's a big shift, more pressure on the Chinese government, less US dependence on China, and more diversity in the US supply chain. 
 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/china-now-sells-fewer-goods-to-the-us-than-mexico-or-canada-do/ar-AA1eXT0N?rc=1&ocid=socialshare&cvid=9d99c6d2b63c446881a696f3081e2664&ei=20
Chinese imports to the US down 25% YTD since last year.  That's a big shift, more pressure on the Chinese government, less US dependence on China, and more diversity in the US supply chain. 
 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/china-now-sells-fewer-goods-to-the-us-than-mexico-or-canada-do/ar-AA1eXT0N?rc=1&ocid=socialshare&cvid=9d99c6d2b63c446881a696f3081e2664&ei=20
Chinese imports to the US down 25% YTD since last year.  That's a big shift, more pressure on the Chinese government, less US dependence on China, and more diversity in the US supply chain. 
 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/china-now-sells-fewer-goods-to-the-us-than-mexico-or-canada-do/ar-AA1eXT0N?rc=1&ocid=socialshare&cvid=9d99c6d2b63c446881a696f3081e2664&ei=20
Chinese imports to the US down 25% YTD since last year.  That's a big shift, more pressure on the Chinese government, less US dependence on China, and more diversity in the US supply chain.