To be fair, Biden is almost certainly following the advice of the SecDef & Joint Chiefs.

He doesn't routinely call them stupid.

NOTE BY MOD: Actually it seems like as much of a political as a military decision (votes), but could be trying to avoid escalating the war.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 01:39 pm: Edit

Mike Grafton:

Hard to be fair, while discussing Joe Biden, but I am game to take up the challenge.

First, while a broad knowledge of foreign affairs, history, and an understanding of International education is almost certainly a requirement for the top military chiefs of the armed services, it is not actually something that military officers are certified experts in.

True, many military officers have been well educated (not just West Point or Annapolis etc.) but attended institutions to earn Masters Degrees, Doctorates, as well as professional Engineers, Historians and any number of other Professions.

It might well be worth looking at just how much education Joe Biden actually received. I suspect a BA and a law degree.

If I am correct, then absolutely, Joe Biden would have been fortunate to have the benefit of counsel.

Note: this ignores whatever decline of his cognitive and neurological abilities might, or might not occurred during his lifetime.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 04:12 pm: Edit

HALT! STEP AWAY FROM THE SWAMP!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 04:13 pm: Edit

As noted, six younger hostages who had been alive all this time were executed just before rescue by the IDF. It is not yet clear if the Israelis specifically knew the hostages were there.

Hostage relatives are screaming for Netanyahu to stop the war ON ANY TERMS and get the hostages out NOW even if it means thousand of Israelis being murdered next year and every year from now on.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 04:14 pm: Edit

Three Israeli police officers were murdered on the West Bank today.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 04:15 pm: Edit

Citizens of Moscow woke up this morning to see columns on dark smoke on the horizon. Ukrainian drones hit several oil refineries around Moscow during the night.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 05:48 pm: Edit

"
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 04:14 pm: Edit

Three Israeli police officers were murdered on the West Bank today."

Sorry to disagree - but why would Israeli police officers be in a foregion nation?
EASY, THEY WERE NOT

Equally, alot more West Bank citizens have died in the last week or so at the hands of Israeli forces. Was they murdered?
NO! THEY WERE KILLED WHILE ATTACKING ISRAELIS.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 06:13 pm: Edit

Paul,

DO NOT POST HERE FOR SEVEN DAYS. Too many of your statements are demonstrably inaccurate.

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 06:47 pm: Edit

If you build your house in another country, you should not take your old countries police forces with you.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Sunday, September 01, 2024 - 11:07 pm: Edit

I would pick sides in the ME politics only if I believed in Jesus second coming.
I mean even the good guys are not that good. Some members of the right wing Netanyahu government are extremists that happily have meetings with far right ex-nazi parties banned by the Israeli FO.
Of course these people enact bad policies.
It's gotten so bad even the head of the Shin Bet publicly complain over Jewish terrorism on the west bank, and it's perceived support from the government. Calling the developments a threat to the state.
The Guardian: "According to UN figures, there have been 1,270 settler attacks against Palestinians since 7 October, 120 of which have “led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries”."


The situation in the ME is a mess, and it is all connected. I can see why the Arab states have insisted that any regional deal must include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
To get a normalisation of relationships with Iran means no more funding to Hezbollah, but that means you also need to remove the raison d'être for that group; the Palestinian Israeli conflict.

Frankly, the only thing for outside forces (the US, the EU) to do that is not directly harmful, or with unintended consequences, is to pressure the Israelis to make constitutional changes. No matter what it is not good for a nation to have a leader stay in power to avoid being dragged to court for corruption(in this case), with the support of an extremist fraction.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, September 02, 2024 - 01:49 am: Edit

Personally, I would take reports from The Guardian and figures from the UN with a grain of salt.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, September 02, 2024 - 01:55 am: Edit

I would take anything from the Guardian or UN which is about Israel as a flat out lie. Many of those "settler attacks" led to "settlers in prison".

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Monday, September 02, 2024 - 03:39 am: Edit

Svc, yes indeed. The proper place for terrorists and no-one said anything else.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Friday, September 06, 2024 - 10:51 pm: Edit

The US military has a problem. Drones are making a lot of weaponry obsolete.

The first issue is cost. Your typical FPV drone might cost $500. In the correct place, it can destroy far more expensive equipment.

The second issue is the procurement cycle. The development of drone weaponry over the last 30 months in Ukraine has been tremendous. We started with spy drones, Bayraktars (which at the time were highly effective), and a few FPV drones, which at the time they called "Kamikaze drones". We now have: spy drones, FPV drones, flamethrower drones, long-range strike drones, jet strike drones, grenade dropper drones, Vampire drones (AKA Baba Yaga), metal detector drones (for finding mines), help-the-enemy-to-surrender drones, multiple classes of land drones, multiple classes of naval drones, and probably ten other types I'm forgetting. And Bayraktars are now useless.

I'm not sure the US military could develop a widget in under 10 years.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 03:41 am: Edit

Another problem is production. It occurred to me yesterday that instead of stockpiles of weapons it would make more sense to have stockpiles of factories. Perhaps dual use factories?

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 10:53 am: Edit

The Australian pizza-box drones are designed to be easily stockpiled for emergency services. Basically the cardboard bodies are intended to be stored flat and then you just fold them and add the hardware when you need them. I can tell you from personal experience working for Domino's that you can store a huge number of flattened pizza boxes in a small space. So you may see stockpiles of parts, or raw materials and 3-D printing machines, and not so much stockpiling of stuff that degrades over time like batteries and explosives.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 03:03 pm: Edit

You misunderstand the Military procurement process.

PEACETIME it is slow, expensive and bureaucratic.

When needed it can be lightning fast.
https://www.army.mil/article/77913/new_rapid_fielding_initiative_for_brigade_combat_teams

When I was building the main repair facility in Afghanistan we had a shop (Allied Trades) that built custom stuff to order. Some beared SF guy might wander in a say, "I need a mount to shoot my PKM from the right rear seat of a hi lux." And we'd invent one. He use it and his unit would give us feedback on it. Several iterations later it would be pronounced good (weeks not years) and we'd create detailed CAD CAM specs and they'd get cranked out as needed.

On another project years later a certain secret thing needed a fix that wasn't in the manual. We got our pilots, maintainers and the military together and proposed a solution. This went up the chain to the O7 in charge of this secret thing and was approved to use in 1 week.

And we built all kinds of "hillbilly armor" kits for the old HMMVs.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 04:11 am: Edit

The electronics for FPV drones are going to be a bottleneck, simply because of the complexity of making the chips for them. Modifying an existing drone for combat use can be done fast, but making the electronics can have a lot of lead time. Makes sense to stockpile those parts

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 05:58 am: Edit

I don’t think I would want to be in a battle position in a war where drones can drop hand grenades.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 08:02 am: Edit

Science fiction has become reality, again!

--Mike

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 08:06 am: Edit

Welcome to the new world.

I have watched several videos of Ukrainian drones spotting and then pursuing individual Russian soldiers who realize there was a drone after them.

Several tried running, a couple tried shooting the drone before it got into close proximity… then blank screen when it apparently detonated.

Very similar to a zombie attack, only the drones are much faster and smaller targets.

Much more scary than most science fiction.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 11:17 am: Edit

There is a bit of the David Drake Book "The Forlorn Hope" where he discusses drones in a high tech future. In his canon, ADA is so powerful everything has to fly Nape of the Earth and combatants shoot down any satellites so there is no BLOS comms.

His solution is for drones to fly random preprogramed courses and execute pop ups to download data. Data is reviewed by high level AIs to find interesting anomalies, and Indirect Fire saturates places where drones "disappear."

I happen to think this is Drakes best "army" book.
https://www.amazon.com/Forlorn-Hope-David-Drake/dp/0765356465

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 10:34 pm: Edit

Would it be fair to guess that the humble shotgun will see an ever increasing presence in a drone saturated battle field?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, September 09, 2024 - 07:41 am: Edit

UNAUTHORIZED POST

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, September 09, 2024 - 11:00 am: Edit

Israel tried the "leave the Palestinians by removing settlements" gambit in Gaza. We all know how well that worked.

Personally, I think Israel should recognize Gaza and the West Bank as two sovereign nations. And tell each of them that mischief coming from their territory will result in a DECLARATION of war. A war which will be waged until the leadership formally surrenders, in writing. Surrender terms will NOT be generous and may involve the PALESTININS having to remove some of their citizens. Leaders will go on trial (like Nurenburg) and will NOT ever be traded.

Taking hostages will result in ANOTHER invasion, mass destruction, and surrender with more stuff lost.

For example, Jerusalem might be surrendered by the Palestinians. Or the Dome of the Rock. Or just a 500 meter buffer zone on the border. All of those things lost are gone FOREVER. And the Palestinians will be responsible for removing their citizens not Israel.

PLENTY of modern examples exist, including lands lost by Germany, Italy, Japan, etc.