The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

Lovely...A Russian plane attacks one of our drones, and our response is the equivalent of a strongly-worded letter. And that isn't even the only attack! The Russians are playing hardball, and we are pretending that all is well, that the traditional pushing and probing of two super powers is just fine.

But it isn't. We have injected ourselves into Russia's war in Ukraine, which the last time I checked was more than 5,000 miles away from America, and right next to Russia. That's their backyard, and we just hopped the fence and are throwing rocks at their windows and trying to get their neighbors to join in. So the aggressiveness of the Russian military toward us is entirely unsurprising.

Russian Fighter Damages Another US Drone, This Time Over Syria

A Russian fighter damaged a U.S. drone over Syria earlier this week, the top Air Force commander for the region said July 25, in the latest escalation between American and Russian aircraft.

“Russian fighter aircraft flew dangerously close to a U.S. MQ-9 drone on a defeat-ISIS mission, harassing the MQ-9 and deploying flares from a position directly overhead, with only a few meters of separation between aircraft,” Air Forces Central (AFCENT) commander Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich said in a statement.

“One of the Russian flares struck the U.S. MQ-9, severely damaging its propeller,” according to Grynkewich. “Fortunately, the MQ-9 crew was able to maintain flight and safely recover the aircraft to its home base.”

After expending a big chunk of our ordnance by sending it into the gaping maw of Ukraine (to be used on the battlefield, or sold to the highest bidder), we are not in a position to provoke a conflict. Hell...we aren't even replacing it yet! Add in the insanity that "diversity" is more important to the military than actually being able to win wars, and it is entirely possible that even a small conflict in Eastern Europe or the Middle East will precipitate a much larger one, as our enemies take advantage of our weakness. Imagine a shooting war in Ukraine, Syria, and China invading Taiwan, with their lackeys in North Korea pushing a bit on the 38th parallel.

Fabulous pumps, perfect pronouns, avoiding the use of deadnames and trigger words is very nice for academics and human resources managers, but that sort of nonsense will tend to get our soldiers killed. Any focus on something other than a martial spirit, and learning to kill people and break things is anathema to a well-functioning military. but that is exactly the situation today. We aren't training our soldiers, our ships and planes are breaking down, we can't resupply them, and our political masters are hellbent on confrontation.

That is not a recipe for success.

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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