There is a video going around of likely pro-Turkish "moderates democratic inclusive rebels" going into a hospital and executing people. That war is far from over.
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- Thread starter bd popeye
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plawolf
Lieutenant General
Its pretty hilarious that even such high ranking US generals can be so thoughtless as to endlessly chant slogans without understanding the underlying logic behind those sayings to see if they apply.
Combat experience doesn’t make that much difference in combat. Not unless your combat training is utterly trash. Because if you are relying on your troops learning on the job in combat instead of giving them decent training beforehand, you are already royally fucked against even half competent opposition.
The main reason combat experience mattered in the past is because of the peacetime army problem. Where armies that have never been to war and never expected to go to war become lax, complacent and corrupt. It’s hard to install disciple because everyone knows it’s a waste of time and that it’s better to try and line your own pockets, because if you don’t, the guy next to you will. And the problem goes all the way to the top with generals stealing funds at a massive scale and even national procurement plans become compromised where priority is focused on the sexy big ticket items like planes and ships, and the stuff that actually win wars like training, logistics and force multipliers get neglected. The perfect case study was the Russian military before Ukraine. They basically embody the true weaknesses and risk of ‘no combat experience’.
But these issues don’t really apply to the PLA because of the ever present danger of Taiwan.
For the PLA at every level, training and war prep is taken deadly seriously because everyone knows there is a reasonable chance the balloon might go up while they are in the service, and nobody wants to be unprepared and regretting it while en route to combat against the world superpower.
This means PLA procurement, training organisation, everything is highly focused and disciplined. Thereby removing the core risks and weaknesses of armies perpetually at peace.
In this context, the PLA should actually be much better prepared than the US, since unlike the U.S., they don’t need to spend a significant proportion of their time doing low intensity patrols and ‘combat’ missions involving bombing goat herders in zero risk environments.
It’s telling that USN carrier pilots needs to undergo months of extensive retraining after combat deployments to get them back up to speed for combat operations against near peers.
What statements like this from senior US military leaders does show is a dangerous degree of arrogance and complacency where they think they are inherently better than their opponents. That means they are much less inclined to humbly review and learn the lessons of modern combat and apply that faithfully in training.
So brag away and continue to be smug American generals, China will remember your valued contribution and make a place for you in the history books as cautionary tales.
Also, I'd add there is quite a difference between failed COIN operations as "combat experience" valuable for near-peer or peer warfare. The US hasn't had a near peer or peer war in a very long ass time, if he really wants to go there and these people are still riding their Desert Storm supply of copium.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
The US has never experienced a modern naval war so it’s up in the air how they’ll handle anti-ship missile warfare. Look at what “Top Gun” was supposed to be about. Pilots were too dependent on missiles and they had to go back to learning dogfighting. Now especially with stealth fighters, they’re all about getting close enough without the enemy knowing so you can fire your missiles. The majority of US kills in the Iraq Wars were because the US had stand-off capabilities meaning the troops could safely stay at a distance while artillery, bombs, and missiles softened the enemy before the troops went in. The lopsided kills from the US wasn’t because Americans were a bunch of Rambos where each killed multiple number of enemies hence why casualties were one-sided. So what does experience get you when today’s warfare isn’t as usual.
They were also saying Tiangong wouldn't be that great or even fail miserably because they have "no experience operating a sophisticated space station like us (Soviets and Americans)".
This is just another variation of "the enemy is both too strong and too weak."
eastern Europe is firmly in the pocket of the US. if the US tells them jump they say how high. the only exception to that is Hungary. and even Orban who keeps talking about Soros has shown himself to be a staunch Zionist all just to placate the US because he knows that America is Israel.
who is that everyone? the Arab states such as Jordan, the Gulf states and Egypt are ruled by puppets of the US. if the people of these countries hate Israel then that is meaningless. the only weapon the people of these countries have are their bellies that is why the only thing they are doing is not eating KFC or Mcdonalds.
the UAE, Jordan & Egypt still refuse to severe relations with Israel and even with all that Sisi for example still has almost unanymous popularity within Egypt.
the African countries are irrelevant in the middle east. Europe with all the occasional talk against Israel from countries like Ireland is still under the thumb of America and America is Israel.
America is with Israel and India & Japan are with Israel & China is neutral. Israel is not as isolated as some people make it out to be.
you probably don't follow Arab media but the Arab media which is funded mainly by the KSA is dancing on the graves of Hamas fighters everyday and trying to blame Hamas and the Palestinians for everything bad happening in the middle east. so regardless of what the KSA government says when they pretend to support Palestine the Saudi state controled media has been trying it's best to demonize Hamas to condition the Saudi people to accept the eventual normalization with Israel once the Palestinians are defeated.
we already have HTS's answer to that.
even when Israel was bombing Syria and taking territory. Julani the leader of HTS in one of his most recent speeches after taking Damascus declared only Iran to be his enemy and didn't even mention Israel.
Turkey played Putin for a sucker and destroyed Russian efforts in Syria. Russia took 9 years to prevent the wahabis from ruling Damascus and at the end Erdogan fooled Putin with the Astana agreements and destroyed Putin's position in the middle east. and now the Qatar Turkey gas pipeline to Europe will become a reality which will help Europe become less dependant on Russia for gas and thus put more economic pressure on Russia.. how is that for "joining BRICS".
it's a bit too early to try to predict the fate of the Russian bases in Syria. we will have to wait and see. so saying they are "likely" to keep it is being quite prematurely optimistic.
at first HTS said they will not seek revenge against ex Syrian soldiers and politicians. but Julani has now said something quite contradictory. he said they will only spare those who have "no blood on their hands" but will "bring those who commited crimes against the Syrian people to justice including those who are now outside Syria and we will demand the countries hosting them to extradite them to us".
Ukraine has been losing it's statehood to Russia for like 3 years now. let's hope they will finaly actually lose it to Russia soon rather than continue "losing" it for another 3 years. because Russia's preoccupation with the Ukraine quagmire is distracting it from other hotspots which is likely what caused them to lose Syria.
Europe is a pro US institution. it's policy doesn't depend on the change of few politicians or governments.
there are no widespread sanctions on China only some tarriff increases. the west probably realizes China's economy is too capable for it to be sanctioned like that of Russia so they only target select Chinese companies like Huawei.
you talk about the SDF as if the SDF are the ones who drove into Damascus and now Trump is about to abandon them and if he does this would somehow be a win for Russia... the mission of the SDF was to prevent Syria from accessing the oil to put economic pressure on Syria.
now that Russia's ally in Syria is gone the US has no more use for these SDF people. whether the US choses to abandon them to placate Turkey or perhaps give them some autonomy is irrelevant. what matters to the US is that the 9 year Russian effort in Syria has been murdered.
Russia initially captured 20% of Ukraine with hardly 150K troops. It will be like PLA fighting in Japan logistically. now think about every chopper has 4 or 2 fuel tanks externally to support such force structure which has multiplied several time now. they have put full size surgical theatres in Mi-26. Each time Russian Bomber/attack aircraft/chopper gets airborne it is fully supported by combat search and rescue operation. this top mounted radar is the force multiplier that enable other choppers to fly low.
This scale of exercise has never been done anywhere. You can think about US intervention in Vietnam but those were low tech short range fighters/choppers. the human endurance and thinking skills not comparable.. and yes this troop number is close to mentioned in Arabic system and Russia either has outsourced the conflict or casualties far lower or both.
I havent seen any articles abt this, is this true?
