Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

The State Dept was supposed to have meeting with North Korea over Korean War remains. The North Koreans stood them up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korean-officials-no-show-for-meeting-about-us-troop-remains/2018/07/12/9624d114-85ae-11e8-8589-5bb6b89e3772_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.35db84d9e280

[millenwasmyfavorite]

The State Dept was supposed to have meeting with North Korea over Korean War remains. The North Koreans stood them up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korean-officials-no-show-for-meeting-about-us-troop-remains/2018/07/12/9624d114-85ae-11e8-8589-5bb6b89e3772_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.35db84d9e280

The most bizarre thing about this is our administration has mastered political gaslighting, yet clearly cannot recognize it when the tactic is used on them

[Kapture1]

This is a waste of time, are we supposed to trust the word of a man that was fucking around on his wife when he contradicts the IG report by saying he exhibited no bias in his actions?

[Jeff Buchanan]

It would genuinely be really interesting to see what European and Canadian military spending would be like in a post-NATO world. Obviously the US isn't the only place where the mil-ind complex is a serious issue, but if the process started with threat assessment and designing modern militaries around those threats, one could see a lot of good coming from that process. A chance to fully rethink how Western/liberal countries approach techenhanced types of threats and weapons, rather than an evolving reaction.

This is why I have no problems with Trump's apparent disdain and gloves off approach to the NATO alliance. I've been involved, although long ago, with strategic planning in the European theater. I was a Captain at the time and much more tactically oriented than strategic. I also thought most of the strategic planning of the day was massively outdated and my counterparts by rank, ie., the younger sorts, agreed with me. The generals and their kiss ass staffs continued to build plans around the threat of a massive armor and artillery campaign mounted by the Russians despite the collapse of the Soviet Union. More forward looking thinking was just scratching the surface of questions involving how to defend against state and non-state actors conducting unconventional warfare. We have fully come to this place and yet the NATO alliance continues to use fundamentally the same threat from the East that was used in the 80s. My view is that most of this is based on the need to justify certain types of military spending - the F35 is a good example - and reflects a political climate that assumes liberal, democratic nation states will prevail and behave responsibly because of globalization and all that term implies.

I think events in the last decade have shown, first, that massive spending on hardware ill-equipped to wage unconventional warfare is wasteful and inefficient. Moreover the assumptions I mention in the preceding paragraph are incorrect.

[AlabamAlum]

This is a waste of time, are we supposed to trust the word of a man that was fucking around on his wife when he contradicts the IG report by saying he exhibited no bias in his actions?

So, 'fucking around on your wife' makes you untrustworthy? Throwing that particular stone coukd end up also hitting someone you support in the Oval Office.

[Ghengis Jon]

The State Dept was supposed to have meeting with North Korea over Korean War remains. The North Koreans stood them up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korean-officials-no-show-for-meeting-about-us-troop-remains/2018/07/12/9624d114-85ae-11e8-8589-5bb6b89e3772_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.35db84d9e280

Another win for PDJT !

[CGVT]

So, 'fucking around on your wife' makes you untrustworthy? Throwing that particular stone coukd end up also hitting someone you support in the Oval Office.

Haha. What a dumbass. Since I blocked Krapture, I am only reminded of his stupidity when someone quotes him. Of course, I miss occasional unintentional comedy gold like this, but it this is a much better thread now. So there's that.

[millenwasmyfavorite]

This is why I have no problems with Trump's apparent disdain and gloves off approach to the NATO alliance. I've been involved, although long ago, with strategic planning in the European theater. I was a Captain at the time and much more tactically oriented than strategic. I also thought most of the strategic planning of the day was massively outdated and my counterparts by rank, ie., the younger sorts, agreed with me. The generals and their kiss ass staffs continued to build plans around the threat of a massive armor and artillery campaign mounted by the Russians despite the collapse of the Soviet Union. More forward looking thinking was just scratching the surface of questions involving how to defend against state and non-state actors conducting unconventional warfare. We have fully come to this place and yet the NATO alliance continues to use fundamentally the same threat from the East that was used in the 80s. My view is that most of this is based on the need to justify certain types of military spending - the F35 is a good example - and reflects a political climate that assumes liberal, democratic nation states will prevail and behave responsibly because of globalization and all that term implies.

I think events in the last decade have shown, first, that massive spending on hardware ill-equipped to wage unconventional warfare is wasteful and inefficient. Moreover the assumptions I mention in the preceding paragraph are incorrect.

Unforturtunately, the insights gleaned from tactical/strategic disparity are hardly the driving force for criticism of NATO and our role in it. Trump has demonstrated a much greater interest in platform bolstering as evidenced by his last spending bill allocation to DoD.

Its fine if the critique of NATO is lack of equitable contribution, but:

-the set expectation by Trump is unrealistic

-money saved by Trump will likely be shoved into platform arms races

-he certainly won't be fueling the agencies who are often tasked with unconventional warfare ops as he shits on them daily.

[Kapture1]

Oh no, CG blocked me haha. Fucking snowflake

[Kapture1]

So, 'fucking around on your wife' makes you untrustworthy? Throwing that particular stone coukd end up also hitting someone you support in the Oval Office.

I didnt vote for Trump for his stellar record with women... or truth telling for that matter. The fact that he is following through is a nice suprise and a departure from nearly every other president that promised a list of shit and never followed through.

[millenwasmyfavorite]

Oh no, CG blocked me haha. Fucking snowflake

You have done the same, coward.

[hack]

Jeff, do you think a disruption of administrative continuity would help? Sometimes it's necessary to throw out the old institution and recreate the same thing with the same mandate in order to get the updated approach required.

[froot loops]

It is funny, I'm sure Kapture is enraged that CGVT has him on ignore. He is probably raging like Stephen Miller, instead of throwing eighty dollar sushi away he is tossing the daily 5 dollar frappacino he buys just to own the libs. Now he knows, every time he wants to rebut CGVT it falls on deaf ears. He is powerless to do anything.

[AlabamAlum]

I didnt vote for Trump for his stellar record with women... or truth telling for that matter. The fact that he is following through is a nice suprise and a departure from nearly every other president that promised a list of shit and never followed through.

So, cheating on a wife makes him untrustworthy but not Trump? Oh come on.

[Ghengis Jon]

Well then, why did you vote for Chump? Not because he's an adulterer, not because he's a pathological liar, and you are surprised he actually followed through with some of his campaign threats. So why did you vote for him? Because he destroyed many lives and small businesses with his casino swindles? Because he thinks some Nazis are good people? Because he admires brutal dictators like Putin and Kim? You find bragging about sexual assault an admirable characteristic? Or is it because you wanted a traitor in the Oval Office?