Frosted Flake posted:

Al-Saqr posted:

i wish Pizza Hut was still good like in the 90s and not the trash heap it is today

Frosted Flake posted:

I don’t understand every military the US has a hand in being steered towards The-US-Army-But-Worse. Other than, as redneck nazghul just said, that way they pay US firms for F-16s and Humvees.

AnimeIsTrash posted:

https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/1479377517316382723

Frosted Flake posted:

Vietnam is an interesting study for an American Way of War because in theory all of these lessons were learned:

- Don’t prop up a corrupt urban regime just because they seem the most “Westernized”, you’ll lose the countryside.

- Build a real economy instead of handing money to the corrupt government.

- As any government built from the tiny core of “Westernized” people willing to work with you is corrupt, unpopular, and unable to create legitimacy, you’ll be trapped into buying off the warlords that creates outside of the capital.

- When you devote all of your efforts towards this urban, educated population because you find them those most palatable, you’ll not only continue to be estranged from the rest of the population, you also further estrange the rest of the population from them.

- Don’t rely on firepower, that will turn the population against you. Turning to this because you’re outnumbered by an increasingly hostile population, and the army you created is unable or unwilling to fight, is a signal that you’ve already lost.

There was an entire industry writing books, teaching courses, presenting papers with all of these lessons learned between 1975-2001. People made their careers in the Pentagon by proposing detailed reforms and studying these failures. It was a whole big thing. Petraeus made his career by publishing the first US Counterinsurgency Manual since Vietnam. I should also mention that between 1999-2001 several books and papers came out saying the US was deluding itself by thinking airpower or technology could win, or even decisively influence wars.

As soon as the task of setting up the “New” Iraq and Afghanistan started, all of this went out the window. I’m inclined to think the political dimension came first, and their desire for the kinds of governments they wanted to establish dictated that they would be unpopular, lavishly equip armies that wouldn’t fight, and thus rely on firepower and control of Baghdad/Kabul alone - so lose the war.

The Iraqi government that beat ISIS is one that has reasserted itself and is not stuck acting at the US’ behest. Hell, they beat ISIS because they turned to Iran and used Shia militias - obviously not the American Way of War which had created the Mechanized division routed at Mosul.

I don’t know what this says about the culture of the US military, other than it falls into the same pitfalls built into it as the IJA and Wehrmacht, and is doomed to repeat mistakes.

Cpt_Obvious posted:

Guys! We did it! We beat Russia! We're going to pizza hut!

Mr Hootington posted:

The charts are good.

Anyway
https://twitter.com/leonidragozin/status/1493625235731623937?t=O3uJ6xsd7yIIth2fTtIWXw&s=19

Frosted Flake posted:

Vietnam is an interesting study for an American Way of War because in theory all of these lessons were learned:

- Don’t prop up a corrupt urban regime just because they seem the most “Westernized”, you’ll lose the countryside.

- Build a real economy instead of handing money to the corrupt government.

- As any government built from the tiny core of “Westernized” people willing to work with you is corrupt, unpopular, and unable to create legitimacy, you’ll be trapped into buying off the warlords that creates outside of the capital.

- When you devote all of your efforts towards this urban, educated population because you find them those most palatable, you’ll not only continue to be estranged from the rest of the population, you also further estrange the rest of the population from them.

- Don’t rely on firepower, that will turn the population against you. Turning to this because you’re outnumbered by an increasingly hostile population, and the army you created is unable or unwilling to fight, is a signal that you’ve already lost.

There was an entire industry writing books, teaching courses, presenting papers with all of these lessons learned between 1975-2001. People made their careers in the Pentagon by proposing detailed reforms and studying these failures. It was a whole big thing. Petraeus made his career by publishing the first US Counterinsurgency Manual since Vietnam. I should also mention that between 1999-2001 several books and papers came out saying the US was deluding itself by thinking airpower or technology could win, or even decisively influence wars.

As soon as the task of setting up the “New” Iraq and Afghanistan started, all of this went out the window. I’m inclined to think the political dimension came first, and their desire for the kinds of governments they wanted to establish dictated that they would be unpopular, lavishly equip armies that wouldn’t fight, and thus rely on firepower and control of Baghdad/Kabul alone - so lose the war.

The Iraqi government that beat ISIS is one that has reasserted itself and is not stuck acting at the US’ behest. Hell, they beat ISIS because they turned to Iran and used Shia militias - obviously not the American Way of War which had created the Mechanized division routed at Mosul.

I realize the US relationship with Kiev is not the same, but I also think it’s why letting Canadian emigre ghouls de collectivize agriculture and write the constitution doomed them. The ideological project came first, all of the money and resources aren’t going to make it popular, the military aid won’t matter because you can’t turn them into the US Army so you’ll just have unmotivated Ukrainian conscripts with M4s, and girls’ robotics teams and NGOs in Kiev while everybody else is poor and angry.

I don’t know what this says about the culture of the US military, other than it falls into the same pitfalls built into it as the IJA and Wehrmacht, and is doomed to repeat mistakes.

synapse posted:

where else is Russia supposed to park 60% of their active military?

A Russian troll farm posted:

60% of the active duty military? I thought there were 100k troops on the border. That's 10%.

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:

You know how raising strong children means they might tell you to gently caress off one day?

Nation building is not the point. Looting and killing is the point.

Flavahbeast posted:

probably someone mixing up 'ground forces' with overall troop count

https://twitter.com/larisamlbrown/status/1493244661946728451

QUEER FRASIER posted:

lotta folks taking victory laps itt when we don’t have clean satellite photos yet!!

BULBASAUR posted:

my personal favorite part of this narrative is that Russia plans to launch an offensive in winter... in Eastern Europe

a famous place with many famous winter offensives

Atrocious Joe posted:

https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1493515518837411844?s=20&t=O4WySIpU2lLYWmDqyIvSaw

ZombieLenin posted:

To be fair, that old adage about Russian winters does not apply to the Russians. Believe it or not the Wehrmacht did not just stop shooting and freeze to death in holes during the winters on the Eastern Front. Instead the Red Army kicked their teeth in while the Germans wished they could just stop the shooting until it got warmer.

Russia and the Soviet Union, unlike the armies of Napoleon and Hitler, have a history of tremendous success during winter and a reputation for winter warfare expertise.

AnimeIsTrash posted:

They're going to replace the frog with this one

https://twitter.com/BFMTV/status/1492877081738424320

Some Guy TT posted:

finally someone brave enough to call out kissingers real crimes against humanity

https://mobile.twitter.com/isaacstonefish/status/1493585259383898112

Al-Saqr posted:

one big reason why america didn’t internalize the lessons of the Vietnam war was because the 1990 gulf war blowout happened.