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Sure, we could spend 4% of GDP on the military — with huge cuts or tax hikes

Okedoke, I'll cite it for you :)

American military officials repeatedly warned about the growing mass of troops. But Russian military officials said they had no control over the fighters assembling near the river — even though American surveillance equipment monitoring radio transmissions had revealed the ground force was speaking in Russian.

OK, so the guy on the radio who the Russians were speaking to was speaking Russian. How bizarre.

That, however, does nothing to indicate how many of the people who were attacking were Russian, nor does it do anything to prove that the Russians were not exactly what they claimed to be "mercenaries" (or "Civilian military contractors" if you prefer).

:shrug: DOD reporting is pretty believable on this one. If you want to claim It's All A Conspiraceh to obviate your attempt to downplay U.S. force projection capability... well,... okay, but we have a forum for that.

I don't remember ever questioning the DOD estimate of the size of the attacking force, or even the fact that SOME members of the attacking force were Russians.

I do question the "conclusion" that the force (which was several times larger than the reported size of the Russian mercenaries known to be with it) was composed almost exclusively of Russians and I also question the "conclusion" that the US forces managed to kill a number of Russians that was someplace in excess of 200% of the Russians known to be with the attacking force.

Unless you are one of an extremely small number of Canadians (and, your claims thus far do not suggest this), I suspect you likely shouldn't be trying to bump chests on this.[/quote[

I make no claims about my military service other than to state that it exists.

But, if you need to cling to this fig leaf in order to make the Russians seem even scarier - alright; then why isn't Canada doing more to help bulk up to meet that threat?

Why would I want to make anyone "seem even scarier"?

The basic idea behind "threat analysis" is to have an ACCURATE assessment of what the threat ACTUALLY is.

Hyper-inflating a threat doesn't actually make the actual threat any greater (and the opposite is also true).

Theoretically the Canadian armed forces should be at least 500,000 active service members in order to provide the minimum generally acknowledged defence force against any country which actually has the logistical capacity to invade and attempt to conquer Canada. However the likelihood of that threat ever becoming reality is so low that it can be ignored.

Besides, the US government would get really worried if Canada has a 500,000 man military that was equipped with modern weapons and fully supplied. In fact, Canada should probably have a fairly large number of fully functional ICBMs in order to be able to defend itself against the Red Hordes. (That, however, would make the US government REALLY upset since the US government has this thing about "Socialist" governments having nuclear weapons that have the capacity to reach the United States of America.)
 
OK, so the guy on the radio who the Russians were speaking to was speaking Russian. How bizarre.

Not really. Russian ground forces tend to speak... Russian.

That, however, does nothing to indicate how many of the people who were attacking were Russian, nor does it do anything to prove that the Russians were not exactly what they claimed to be "mercenaries" (or "Civilian military contractors" if you prefer).

:shrug: if Russia wants to claim they are mercenaries when they get embarrassed, or distance themselves from them when politically useful (see: Crimea), they can do so. The point, however, stands: your claim that the US ability to project force was inferior to that of the Russians was and remains incorrect.

I don't remember ever questioning the DOD estimate of the size of the attacking force, or even the fact that SOME members of the attacking force were Russians.

I do question the "conclusion" that the force (which was several times larger than the reported size of the Russian mercenaries known to be with it) was composed almost exclusively of Russians and I also question the "conclusion" that the US forces managed to kill a number of Russians that was someplace in excess of 200% of the Russians known to be with the attacking force.

:shrug: It was the conclusion drawn, with supporting evidence.

Why would I want to make anyone "seem even scarier"?

The basic idea behind "threat analysis" is to have an ACCURATE assessment of what the threat ACTUALLY is.

Indeed it is. You will note, for example, that NATO currently cannot defend its borders.

Hyper-inflating a threat doesn't actually make the actual threat any greater (and the opposite is also true).

Theoretically the Canadian armed forces should be at least 500,000 active service members in order to provide the minimum generally acknowledged defence force against any country which actually has the logistical capacity to invade and attempt to conquer Canada. However the likelihood of that threat ever becoming reality is so low that it can be ignored.

Besides, the US government would get really worried if Canada has a 500,000 man military that was equipped with modern weapons and fully supplied. In fact, Canada should probably have a fairly large number of fully functional ICBMs in order to be able to defend itself against the Red Hordes. (That, however, would make the US government REALLY upset since the US government has this thing about "Socialist" governments having nuclear weapons that have the capacity to reach the United States of America.)

Why would we get worried about the US Government having a large military?
 
Thanks for the stab from the past before Putin annexed Crimea and messed with elections in every NATO nation. Those were good times. Romney was sure good at fortune telling.

Putin has been grooming Trump for decades and has been his only source of funds for years. It really is not a big stretch to say he is in his pocket. Mueller will know the details by now. So let's just wait and see.
Before Crimea was Georgia. And....who thought McCain was batty for bringing it up?

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Hey bro, the 90's called and they want their foreign policy back. We just need to be more flexible.

Hey, that annexation of Crimea sure is interesting, tho. I wonder where Putin got the idea that the Obama administration could be trusted to ignore commitments that would require it to apply painful force, or would back down from it's own red lines? :roll:



[emoji38] the idea that the moon landing was faked is more believable than the notion that Trump is part of some genius super-long-con. He has not the temperment, the patience, or the intelligence to pull off such a feat.

Putin takes advantage of Trump's id-first approach to foreign policy, to the detriment of US security interests and our allies. Don't throw away that point by insisting on a conspiracy theory.
Liberals are having a neoconservative moment, but are getting cocky despite being late to the party.

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Before Crimea was Georgia. And....who thought McCain was batty for bringing it up?

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There was also Putin's cooperation in the U.N. in getting sanctions against Iran and his cyber warfare on the West had not begun yet either
 
The US spends over 600BN per year on defense spending. Why? Maybe, just maybe part of the reason is because our NATO allies aren't living up to their end of the bargain. Which is why Trump has been trying to get NATO allies to increase their defense spending.

CNN ~ Which NATO members are falling short on military spending?

Is it really all that bad to expect our allies to hold up to their agreements?

Our allies are holding up to their agreements, its just that Trump is lying through his ass once again. If every single member of NATO increased defense spending we would be increasing ours also.
 
BTW, it's pretty difficult to "kill hundreds of Russians" when there weren't "hundreds of Russians" involved. The NYT article "How a 4-Hour Battle Between Russian Mercenaries and U.S. Commandos Unfolded in Syria" might give you a somewhat better idea of what happens to mercenaries when they go up against trained soldiers who are well supplied and in an established defensive position.... AND since the likely number actually killed would be 5...

:) Hi, TU! :wave: wondering if you'd seen this thread:

The Russian mercenaries at Deir-Ez-Zor
 
:) Hi, TU! :wave: wondering if you'd seen this thread:

The Russian mercenaries at Deir-Ez-Zor

Actually I hadn't. Has the information from this website with a (reasonably obvious) "agenda" been verified?

In any event, let's assume that the information is 100% correct. Does the information clearly state that 100% of "The Wagner Group" was involved? It does not.

If the information from the website is correct (and I am again assuming that it is) that reduces the "hundreds of Russians killed" to 65 (which is NOT out of line with the NY Times article) and, while I will agree that '65' IS '0.65 hundreds', that isn't the usual sense that "hundreds" is used in this type of context.
 
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