I keep telling people that if you see dark, heavy clouds blowing your way, there's a nine in ten chance it's going to rain - so take an umbrella or bring along your shampoo.
What lights my fuse is when they tell me, "You have no way of knowing that."
People will just continue to trip over the same crack in the sidewalk - for centuries.
This Old Gray Badger wants full magazines, and full munitions stores, because when you need them, you need them now, and you need the ability to stomp on the foeman, and you want to be able to expend plenty of ammunition, and you want the magazines and depots full, when you are done, because you never know what the future holds. See Pearl Harbor, and September 11th.
The NATO countries have nearly always been unserious about such things. Remember the Germans laughing up their sleeves when our CINC told them they had to start paying?
I'm with Badger; we need to restock ammo yesterday. Will we? Given the feckless rulers we have now I rather doubt it.
My last tour in uniform was at a NATO command. I retired to get us out of there, partially because the command wasn't serious about it's supposed purpose.
One of the very few things I found value in was STANAG; common specs for all manner of important things. I remember the STANAG shop begging for money and influence, when another NATO entity who shall remain nameless said "We don't do much but we have lots of travel money, may we come visit?"
The persistent call to supply Ukraine with ATACMS is another "problem" that is not being solved for reasons of pure mass and availability; the disinclination to allow Ukraine to strike at operational and theater strategic targets in Russia proper to avoid "escalation" is a smoke screen. We haven't made any new ATACMS in 10+ years and our own wartime requirements (likely woefully underestimated) just for the Korean Peninsula scenarios plus our small but significant expenditures as part of INHERENT RESOLVE have made this another "challenge" (i.e., there are no problems, only challenges, don't you know) that needs to be examined carefully.
“Maybe they were just planning on using their air force for air shows.”
I suspect the unstated purpose of those air forces at the time was to provide They Who Must with their procurement rake-offs.
Good article, as usual.
Thank you for your first two paragraphs.
I keep telling people that if you see dark, heavy clouds blowing your way, there's a nine in ten chance it's going to rain - so take an umbrella or bring along your shampoo.
What lights my fuse is when they tell me, "You have no way of knowing that."
People will just continue to trip over the same crack in the sidewalk - for centuries.
This Old Gray Badger wants full magazines, and full munitions stores, because when you need them, you need them now, and you need the ability to stomp on the foeman, and you want to be able to expend plenty of ammunition, and you want the magazines and depots full, when you are done, because you never know what the future holds. See Pearl Harbor, and September 11th.
The NATO countries have nearly always been unserious about such things. Remember the Germans laughing up their sleeves when our CINC told them they had to start paying?
I'm with Badger; we need to restock ammo yesterday. Will we? Given the feckless rulers we have now I rather doubt it.
My last tour in uniform was at a NATO command. I retired to get us out of there, partially because the command wasn't serious about it's supposed purpose.
One of the very few things I found value in was STANAG; common specs for all manner of important things. I remember the STANAG shop begging for money and influence, when another NATO entity who shall remain nameless said "We don't do much but we have lots of travel money, may we come visit?"
The persistent call to supply Ukraine with ATACMS is another "problem" that is not being solved for reasons of pure mass and availability; the disinclination to allow Ukraine to strike at operational and theater strategic targets in Russia proper to avoid "escalation" is a smoke screen. We haven't made any new ATACMS in 10+ years and our own wartime requirements (likely woefully underestimated) just for the Korean Peninsula scenarios plus our small but significant expenditures as part of INHERENT RESOLVE have made this another "challenge" (i.e., there are no problems, only challenges, don't you know) that needs to be examined carefully.