How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[kimbosbread]

2 minutes ago, dan/california said:

I am fairly certain there are not enough people with masters degrees in radio frequency engineering to staff those companies in the entire U.S., much less the military. The Pentagon is going to have to start waving full ride scholarships at bright high schoolers to fill those roles in the longterm.

The military can’t get enough of the type people it wants at any education level, unfortunately. Very smart full-spectrum frequency analysis systems seem like a serious $$$ for a nu-defense startup. Way less sexy than a drone swarm, but still very useful and lucrative.

[The_Capt]

46 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Also, I think it’s intellectually dishonest to avoid criticism of the efforts taken by saying any criticism is denigrating. Imperfect efforts are that: Imperfect. We deliberately chose a path, against loud objections from many quarters. Obviously we lack a coherent strategy and goals, but we could have taken many smaller, obvious steps that would make our present lives easier (Flying Tigers 2.0, more Bradleys, ATACMS sooner).

I think criticism is not only merited, it is essentially within any democracy. However, that criticism should be well informed. As to strategy, to my eyes is is fairly coherent - keep this war in box (Contain), smother Russia on many fronts while keeping this war in a box, and use Ukraine as the primary proxy vehicle…all supported by economic pressure (as best we can make it). The end state is to ensure Russia loses “enough” and Ukraine wins “enough”.  As to the “smaller obvious” steps, I think you could be seeing these in hindsight. More tactical capability likely was not going to fundamentally change the state of this war. Ukraine could not absorb the scope and scale of any of it to create a different outcome. Further, keep in mind the US has to work with allies in the region. So some of these now-obvious steps might have been very large hurdles earlier on in the war.

And criticism has to cut both ways. The US and West could have definitely done more/done better, however, it also could have done a lot worse. What did we do right? What can we learn from that? What opportunities did we seize? Let’s make sure we do that again?

The more I read into it, and the more look back at how it all unfolded - I have to honest, there was no quick and easy way to knock Russia out of this war without the whole thing quickly escalating out of the box. We are not living. The best timeline - the one where Priggy and Putin run to each other on the steps of the Kremlin and after wet kisses, they run to the helicopter and fly away to the love of their lives. Putin tossing out a ceasefire and peace agreement, sprinting breathlessly, holding Priggy’s hand- is not the one we are living. But we are not on the darkest timeline either. This war had the hallmarks of “quagmire” about a month in…and it stuck to it.

[chrisl]

25 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Meh not if it is a small one 1kft up, or you drop a phone into a tree or something.

Seeing nothing of interest there is just as good as seeing the drone.

25 minutes ago, dan/california said:

You could aways go land it on top of tall building before you turn it on. Monitoring your backfield for cells towers you don't think should be there is just going to be one more thing on the infinite check list of a brigade's EW company.

I am fairly certain there are not enough people with masters degrees in radio frequency engineering to staff those companies in the entire U.S., much less the military. The Pentagon is going to have to start waving full ride scholarships at bright high schoolers to fill those roles in the longterm. 

 

Waving scholarships isn't what the pentagon needs to do - they need to wave competitive salaries.  Top GS salaries are nowhere near even middling industry salaries for engineering.

[kimbosbread]

3 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Waving scholarships isn't what the pentagon needs to do - they need to wave competitive salaries.  Top GS salaries are nowhere near even middling industry salaries for engineering.

The only alternative is offer the opportunity to do cool stuff, ie flying jets and helicopters and special forces. But how do you make what is basically a highly educated radio operator position sexy? There are no groupies for that, and there aren’t big $$$ positions after you leave the military.

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, kimbosbread said:

Eh, I think the end of non proliferation is pretty bad, and the fact that lots of our allies think we have no fortitude… not good either.

Also, I think it’s intellectually dishonest to avoid criticism of the efforts taken by saying any criticism is denigrating. Imperfect efforts are that: Imperfect. We deliberately chose a path, against loud objections from many quarters. Obviously we lack a coherent strategy and goals, but we could have taken many smaller, obvious steps that would make our present lives easier (Flying Tigers 2.0, more Bradleys, ATACMS sooner).

Moreover, when we say all criticism is denigrating, we lose the ability to identify how we can improve. DC needs to look long and hard at every choice we’ve made (and ones we avoided) because the ugly consequences of our approach are going to rear their head soon all over the place.  What are we going to do when China seizes the nearest Taiwanese islands? Stick our heads up our asses and pretend we can contain the problem?

As you are answering a series of arguments I didn't make and asserting facts that are not in evidence I'm going to go get a beer with a buddy and wish you the best of luck.

[MSBoxer]

17 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Waving scholarships isn't what the pentagon needs to do - they need to wave competitive salaries.  Top GS salaries are nowhere near even middling industry salaries for engineering.

Here is a possible fix that absolutely nobody will agree with.  Exempt active-duty military pay from federal income tax, still tax other income such as investment dividends or revenue from rental properties, just exempt their pay.  This will immediately increase their take-home pay.  Maybe not up to the private sector, but closer.

[dan/california]

38 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Seeing nothing of interest there is just as good as seeing the drone.

Waving scholarships isn't what the pentagon needs to do - they need to wave competitive salaries.  Top GS salaries are nowhere near even middling industry salaries for engineering.

See below

31 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

The only alternative is offer the opportunity to do cool stuff, ie flying jets and helicopters and special forces. But how do you make what is basically a highly educated radio operator position sexy? There are no groupies for that, and there aren’t big $$$ positions after you leave the military.

The other incentive that came to mind is to offer full retirement benefits after ten years of active duty service, with some sort emergency call up clause for another ten or fifteen years. In the real world Kimosbread is probably right, what you need is a really good AI based system that can do enough of the processing to make it manageable for the guy you are probably going to get, instead of the guy you want. But there are inherent vulnerabilities there.

[ArmouredTopHat]

Not tied to the conflict, but its important given the context of recent talk about Military Aircraft being usable despite good air defences.

F-35 not only penetrated likely Iranian airspace but were able to strike targets with impunity, showing the importance of stealth on such cutting edge platforms. Iranian AD is not exactly minor either (it includes S-300 among other things) and was especially concentrated around Tehran. Some Russians might be sweating just a little bit more now...

Edited 2 hours ago by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

Drone wars continue to evolve, wit the Russians testing an evasion function on their UAVs to make it a little more difficult for them to be destroyed. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

Some serious up armouring of the Leopard 1A5s taking place.

[Offshoot]

8 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Drone wars continue to evolve, wit the Russians testing an evasion function on their UAVs to make it a little more difficult for them to be destroyed. 

I wonder how much this will actually help. An ISR UAV that is busy evading is not doing its job. Now you don't even have to get close and blow up the UAV and lose the FPV drone - you just need to buzz it. Clearly Ukraine has figured out how to locate these UAVs, so swamping and mobbing them shouldn't be too hard.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

Overall I think Russia is more a negative for China than a positive. Russia has become the new "sick man of Europe".  Not exactly comforting when this is your major partner.

Yeah, every time we dive into the question about China's view of this I keep coming back to them probably being pretty unhappy about it.  Sure, they get a Russia as a client state, but it's a client that's a proven unreliable partner and who might not be able to pay its bills.  And even if it does, it's not in Western currency.  If this were happening in a vacuum then it would certainly be a benefit to China.

However, this is only one aspect.

I'm sure China is not happy with the thought of a failed state along it's massive border.  Especially one with WMD of various sorts.  For sure I'm not happy about this thought and my country doesn't have any border.

China is also probably disheartened by how well Western weaponry works and how difficult it is to defeat it.  I'm not talking about silly things like tanks, I'm talking about things like Storm Shadow and Patriot.  Cripes, the US just tested a precision weapon that can take out a ship from something like 150km away.  Having the US, in particular, making more of this stuff is absolutely not good.

What's also not good is discussions like we're having now.  We're saying "well, Russia is going to be a non-issue for 10 years, so let's concentrate on the threat from China".  That's absolutely the opposite of what they want. 

Steve

[sburke]

23 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

China is also probably disheartened by how well Western weaponry works and how difficult it is to defeat it.  I'm not talking about silly things like tanks, I'm talking about things like Storm Shadow and Patriot.  Cripes, the US just tested a precision weapon that can take out a ship from something like 150km away.  Having the US, in particular, making more of this stuff is absolutely not good.

What's also not good is discussions like we're having now.  We're saying "well, Russia is going to be a non-issue for 10 years, so let's concentrate on the threat from China".  That's absolutely the opposite of what they want. 

Steve

US to launch satellite jammers against China and Russia next year - Bloomberg

The US has developed a powerful electronic warfare system against Chinese and Russian satellites. It will be launched next year, according to Bloomberg.

The system, developed by L3Harris Technologies Inc. and known as Meadowlands, is a lighter, mobile version of a "Counter Communications System" that was declared operational in 2020.

Lukashenko warns of war if Russia attempts to annex Belarus

The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, in an interview with Russia's media Izvestia has threatened war if Russia attempts to annex Belarus.

[Joe982]

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

 

Lukashenko warns of war if Russia attempts to annex Belarus

The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, in an interview with Russia's media Izvestia has threatened war if Russia attempts to annex Belarus.

 

This implies that Putin has brought up the issue with Lukashenko. And people speculated about it sometime in the last 2 years.

I too will speculate in that there may have been some movement on the issue within Belarus and Lukashenko has found out about it.

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[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Offshoot said:

I wonder how much this will actually help. An ISR UAV that is busy evading is not doing its job. Now you don't even have to get close and blow up the UAV and lose the FPV drone - you just need to buzz it. Clearly Ukraine has figured out how to locate these UAVs, so swamping and mobbing them shouldn't be too hard.

This works because of the lag in the FPV control system. Autonomous control of the last 200 meters will solve this problem easily. The FPV is inherently more maneuverable than the recon drone, this is the simplest case of an autonomously controlled intercept that you can think of, or close to it anyway.

21 minutes ago, Joe982 said:

 

This implies that Putin has brought up the issue with Lukashenko. And people speculated about it sometime in the last 2 years.

I too will speculate in that there may have been some movement on the issue within Belarus and Lukashenko has found out about it.

.

 

 

 

 

If Lukashenko asks to join NATO to avoid the bear hug I will die laughing. It is rather more likely that Lukashenko"falls" out of a window, and the number 2 guy requests to be annexed. Honestly that would be pretty funny, too. Although someone ought to finally set up a real partisan resistance movement in Belarus, anything to make Putin stretch that little bit more that snaps the elastic.

[alison]

2 hours ago, MSBoxer said:

Here is a possible fix that absolutely nobody will agree with.  Exempt active-duty military pay from federal income tax, still tax other income such as investment dividends or revenue from rental properties, just exempt their pay.  This will immediately increase their take-home pay.  Maybe not up to the private sector, but closer.

You underestimate how much money is being thrown at tech industry workers, especially in the US. Salaries in tech are obscene. These days people straight out of college people are expecting six figures. People with a couple decades under their belts expect to be millionaires and already set up for early retirement, should they so choose. A commonly-shared page in tech industry circles is https://www.levels.fyi/. Just plug FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) or Microsoft any of your favorite Silicon Valley brands in there and prepare to be appalled.

Now, to be fair, if you dig for lesser-known companies, or if you look at salaries outside of Bay Area, NYC, LA, Seattle, Austin, Research Triangle etc it does come somewhat down to earth. But if the best the US military can offer to nerds is a tax-free salary equivalent to a smalltown job at an obscure company in a niche vertical, that's not going to appeal to the best and brightest, especially not the subset of those who care more about money than social responsibility, which quite frankly is a significant portion, especially when they're young.

This article popped up on social media again recently. It's 5 years old but pretty sure nothing has changed: https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/fish-out-of-water-how-the-military-is-an-impossible-place-for-hackers-and-what-to-do-about-it/ The suggestion is to treat tech workers in the military like doctors. Personally I think that is massively overvaluing the work we do, but that's where the world is at right now. The sad truth is that a military doctor track is still not a lot of money or benefits compared to what the private sector is offering.

I think the way the US government is trying to swing it nowadays is public-private partnerships. The most obvious examples are stuff like SpaceX and (going back a few years) Blackwater, both doing jobs in theory US government workers should or could have done if the funding was there. But there are loads of other companies that are part of the military industrial complex or at least provide a lot of services to the military that the government is happy to contract with. Personally I am not sure this is a good route to take. On one hand we have historical privateers who - surprise - turned into pirates when the government no longer saw a use for them. On the other hand we have contemporary authoritarian countries that place party representatives directly into big business to monitor and control what they are doing. Not saying that the US can or will go in one of those directions, but it does make me wary.

Perhaps I just listened to a few too many episodes of that NSA recruiting podcast which mentions these partnerships in every episode. There's something a little creepy about the primary surveillance apparatus of the world's most powerful country openly discussing public-private partnerships with an industry that has produced the world's richest and most powerful surveillance capitalism networks. It's all well and good to emphasize "the mission" for people who actually do feel social responsibility, but those people were presumably already working as public servants in the first place. Speaking as someone who has spent their entire life in the tech industry, working across four continents, and only one of those roles in the public service, my sense is that the overwhelming motivation of tech workers everywhere is the pursuit of money. Perhaps that's true of all workers in all industries? In any case I'm not sure it results in great military outcomes. Witness Russia in this current war.

 

Edited 46 minutes ago by alison