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Pentagon Concerned Russia Cultivating Sympathy Among US Troops

apdst said:
They did far worse prior to 2008, but when Obama said they weren't a threat in 2012, the Left fell right in line.
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The Russian debacle in Georgia and Chechnya didn't give any indication as to what the Russians were actually capable of. It's not surprising that neither the Bush nor Obama Administrations considered Russia their principal threat.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
The Russian debacle in Georgia and Chechnya didn't give any indication as to what the Russians were actually capable of. It's not surprising that neither the Bush nor Obama Administrations considered Russia their principal threat.
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And neither did Russia's annexation of one-third of Ukraine?

Russia didn't become a "threat" until the Russia! Russia! Russia! hoax got started.
 
apdst said:
And neither did Russia's annexation of one-third of Ukraine?

Russia didn't become a "threat" until the Russia! Russia! Russia! hoax got started.
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What? What makes you think the Obama Administration didn't consider Russia a threat after the invasion of Crimea?
 
Jredbaron96 said:
The Russian debacle in Georgia and Chechnya didn't give any indication as to what the Russians were actually capable of. ...........
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Of course, it did. It gave the west an indication of how ruthless Putin was/is.
 
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Jredbaron96 said:
What? What makes you think the Obama Administration didn't consider Russia a threat after the invasion of Crimea?
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But not everything is relative; we should not slip into collective amnesia over the Obama administration’s weak and underwhelming response to Russian aggression. Throughout his presidency, Obama consistently underestimated the challenge posed by Putin’s regime. His foreign policy was firmly grounded in the premise that Russia was not a national security threat to the United States. In 2012, Obama disparaged Mitt Romney for exaggerating the Russian threat—“the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama quipped. This breezy attitude prevailed even as Russia annexed Crimea, invaded eastern Ukraine, intervened in Syria, and hacked the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Obama’s response during these critical moments was cautious at best, and deeply misguided at worst. Even the imposition of sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine was accompanied by so much propitiation and restraint elsewhere that it didn’t deter Russia from subsequent aggression, including the risky 2016 influence operation in the United States. Obama, confident that history was on America’s side, for the duration of his time in office underestimated the damaging impact Russia could achieve through asymmetric means.

Don’t rehabilitate Obama on Russia
 
apdst said:
But not everything is relative; we should not slip into collective amnesia over the Obama administration’s weak and underwhelming response to Russian aggression. Throughout his presidency, Obama consistently underestimated the challenge posed by Putin’s regime. His foreign policy was firmly grounded in the premise that Russia was not a national security threat to the United States. In 2012, Obama disparaged Mitt Romney for exaggerating the Russian threat—“the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama quipped.
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The Obama Administration did indeed underestimate Russian tenacity prior to 2014. However, there was plenty of reason to do so. The Asian Pivot was a logical move at the time, even if it turned out ultimately to be a failure.


This breezy attitude prevailed even as Russia annexed Crimea, invaded eastern Ukraine, intervened in Syria, and hacked the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Obama’s response during these critical moments was cautious at best, and deeply misguided at worst. Even the imposition of sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine was accompanied by so much propitiation and restraint elsewhere that it didn’t deter Russia from subsequent aggression, including the risky 2016 influence operation in the United States. Obama, confident that history was on America’s side, for the duration of his time in office underestimated the damaging impact Russia could achieve through asymmetric means.

Don’t rehabilitate Obama on Russia
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The United States did all that it could realistically do in response to the Ukrainian crisis. What do you think the United States should have done?
 
lemmiwinx said:
The entire Russian election interference tale was all about blaming Hillary's loss to Trump on somebody other than herself. ............
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No, actually "The entire Russian election interference tale" was all about Russian election interference.
 
Paradoxical said:
Russia has an economy and military that is 1/10th the size of ors. Hardly a "threat" unless people are swayed by FaceBook and Instagram and political debate rooms.

That Russia changed any votes in 2016 is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. They placed a few FB ads.
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Their economy is smaller, their military is actually larger than ours, their combined reserve and active duty exceeds the us military numbers, they also exceed us military in artillery, self propelled artillery, tanks etc, they fall behind in aircraft but beat the us in number of dedicated air superiority aircraft but fall behind in multi role and transport aircraft. Their navy is nearly as large as the us navy in fleet size and due to their conscript nature russia can call up millions back into service already trained.

YEah their economy sucks but you probably could have looked up their own military strength instead of assuming worth in us dollars = military might, especially when they pay pennies on the dollar for equivilent to what the us spends on military gear.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
The Russian debacle in Georgia and Chechnya didn't give any indication as to what the Russians were actually capable of. It's not surprising that neither the Bush nor Obama Administrations considered Russia their principal threat.
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Georgia and chechnya were not great examples, in the first chechnya war russia was in such shambles that nuclear weapons were the only thing keeping them safe, russia won the second chechnya war albeit poorly but vastly improved over the first war by leaps and bounds.

In georgia russia had every advantage and beat the crap out of georgian forces, however the advantage the russian forces had did not directly equate to battlefield losses and victories, they performed poorly due to poor logistics that relied ona soviet union that had long before ceased to exist, and their radio systems were a mix between old soviet standard and the more modern russian standards, making coordination between russias own forces a complete nightmare. Georgia ended up so bad despite russian winning that it forces russia to reorganize it's military and logistics structure.
 
beerftw said:
Their economy is smaller, their military is actually larger than ours, their combined reserve and active duty exceeds the us military numbers, they also exceed us military in artillery, self propelled artillery, tanks etc, they fall behind in aircraft but beat the us in number of dedicated air superiority aircraft but fall behind in multi role and transport aircraft. Their navy is nearly as large as the us navy in fleet size and due to their conscript nature russia can call up millions back into service already trained.

YEah their economy sucks but you probably could have looked up their own military strength instead of assuming worth in us dollars = military might, especially when they pay pennies on the dollar for equivilent to what the us spends on military gear.
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I'll be looking under my bed for them tonight based on your scary post. I thought Halloween was over?
 
Paradoxical said:
I'll be looking under my bed for them tonight based on your scary post. I thought Halloween was over?
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If you have a russian under your bed feed him vodka and crackers, but not after midnight or else they multiply and become internet trolls.
 
Jetboogieman said:
I don't know how much stock to put in all that, but one thing I do know was there is a certain admiration among some very far right Conservatives for Putin if Conservapedia which I used to read their news stories to get a sense of what information far righties might bring to the board, most of it stemmed from Putins attack on the LGBT community, he's seen as a strong leader who took on the decedent liberal agitators trying to bring sinful ways into the mainstream and there was a ton of stories endorsing his approach.

I think deep down, many on this board want authoritarianism more than they are willing to admit or even realize, as long as they believe it'll be directed at somebody else... How do I know this?

It already exists.

The War on Drugs, The War on Terror, The warrantless surveillance, voter suppression, the amount of people on the right who endorse racial profiling, especially the way immigration is handled.

That's all for the others, not for us, it'll never be used against us, so they're perfectly comfortable endorsing these policies election after election, they're authoritarian, they're dangerous, they fly in the face of alleged "liberty" but they linger on.
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It is clear that as much as a third of this nation is incredibly desirous of extreme Right wing authoritarianism.
Part of that 1/3 is likely yearning for Right wing authoritarian theocracy.
The thing is, it is also possible to seduce a third of our country to yearn for ultra-Left authoritarianism, but that's what triggered the October Revolution of 1917, and that's what triggered the 26th of July Movement revolution in Cuba, although that revolution was a backlash against another authoritarian dictatorship on the extreme Right.

Not all revolutions that culminate in authoritarian dictatorship even start out that way, but it is very important to gauge the will of the people in the runup to these catastrophic fractures in leadership and government, because those which do start out that way yell the loudest about subjects like "freedom" or "liberty", and they wax poetic in equal measure about constitutions and leaders who were "chosen by God", and they are quick to react to aspects of the democratic process which might ensnare corrupt leadership, because they are indoctrinated to believe that failure to kow-tow 100% to their authority figures automatically labels one a dehumanized enemy who deserves no "democratic rights", rights which, in true democratic fashion would never consist of loyalty oaths at all costs to anyone, but rather, loyalty or respect to and for established constitutional wisdom and law.

That is the weathervane that tells us when we are deviating far afield of ethics, lawfulness and the very oath taken when in public service.
You cannot quite trust a weathervane to be spinning true when one group is forcing it to spin by shooting at it.
Eventually, if they are allowed to continue apace, they'll lob a rocket at it.

And tonight, that rocket is looking more and more Russian by the minute.
 
RetiredUSN said:
The Russians magically changed the thoughts of American soldiers and sailors in a single year?

The article is junk.

Go to any Navy base and ask a sailor who is the number one threat is to America outside of terrorism.

Go to any Marine camp and ask them.

How were these questions from the OP's "junk article poll" proposed to these families to begin with? You can ask the question in a number of ways to obtain different statistics.
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They will say China and/or Muslims(many Marines and Soldiers say this), possibly N. Korea. Many would not shout Russia first. Now the latest training actually does have Russia as a big threat, our biggest threat, with China and terrorism. But that is coming from the Pentagon.

And I just retired. Was just at a NOSC this weekend.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
 
roguenuke said:
They will say China and/or Muslims(many Marines and Soldiers say this), possibly N. Korea. Many would not shout Russia first. Now the latest training actually does have Russia as a big threat, our biggest threat, with China and terrorism. But that is coming from the Pentagon.

And I just retired. Was just at a NOSC this weekend.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
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The Op's article is suggesting a military nonchalant attitude towards Russia, and this is certainly not the case at all.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
It is clear that as much as a third of this nation is incredibly desirous of extreme Right wing authoritarianism.
Part of that 1/3 is likely yearning for Right wing authoritarian theocracy.
The thing is, it is also possible to seduce a third of our country to yearn for ultra-Left authoritarianism, but that's what triggered the October Revolution of 1917, and that's what triggered the 26th of July Movement revolution in Cuba, although that revolution was a backlash against another authoritarian dictatorship on the extreme Right.

Not all revolutions that culminate in authoritarian dictatorship even start out that way, but it is very important to gauge the will of the people in the runup to these catastrophic fractures in leadership and government, because those which do start out that way yell the loudest about subjects like "freedom" or "liberty", and they wax poetic in equal measure about constitutions and leaders who were "chosen by God", and they are quick to react to aspects of the democratic process which might ensnare corrupt leadership, because they are indoctrinated to believe that failure to kow-tow 100% to their authority figures automatically labels one a dehumanized enemy who deserves no "democratic rights", rights which, in true democratic fashion would never consist of loyalty oaths at all costs to anyone, but rather, loyalty or respect to and for established constitutional wisdom and law.

That is the weathervane that tells us when we are deviating far afield of ethics, lawfulness and the very oath taken when in public service.
You cannot quite trust a weathervane to be spinning true when one group is forcing it to spin by shooting at it.
Eventually, if they are allowed to continue apace, they'll lob a rocket at it.

And tonight, that rocket is looking more and more Russian by the minute.
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Just because you post things on an Internet message board does not make them true.

Let’s see your proof that 1/3 of Americans incredibly desirous of extreme Right wing authoritarianism. And actual proof. Not your or some other far left wing individuals opinion.

And before you get to worked in about trump being called the chosen one you might try and remember a bit back to Obama’s time in office and the leftists treated him. I have yet to see any school singing songs about trump like they did for Obama as if he was the second coming.
 
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beerftw said:
Their economy is smaller, their military is actually larger than ours, their combined reserve and active duty exceeds the us military numbers, they also exceed us military in artillery, self propelled artillery, tanks etc, they fall behind in aircraft but beat the us in number of dedicated air superiority aircraft but fall behind in multi role and transport aircraft. Their navy is nearly as large as the us navy in fleet size and due to their conscript nature russia can call up millions back into service already trained.

YEah their economy sucks but you probably could have looked up their own military strength instead of assuming worth in us dollars = military might, especially when they pay pennies on the dollar for equivilent to what the us spends on military gear.
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Russia was a convenient scapegoat when you guys were trying to keep Trump from winning and then to get him out of office but I think the ruse is worn out now. Don't you?
 
Paradoxical said:
Russia was a convenient scapegoat when you guys were trying to keep Trump from winning and then to get him out of office but I think the ruse is worn out now. Don't you?
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Man do you actually thing beerftw is a trump hater or liberal in any sense
 
RetiredUSN said:
The Op's article is suggesting a military nonchalant attitude towards Russia, and this is certainly not the case at all.
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As far as troops are concerned, this fits with the general attitude of enlisted especially those E6 and below that I've seen. Upper brass are more concerned and starting to put that up through training and focus.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
 
roguenuke said:
As far as troops are concerned, this fits with the general attitude of enlisted especially those E6 and below that I've seen. Upper brass are more concerned and starting to put that up through training and focus.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
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The surface fleet and Submariners surely don't think that way.
 
Rogue Valley said:
Pentagon Concerned Russia Cultivating Sympathy Among US Troops

f-199160-armiya_ssha.jpg

U.S. soldiers wait for a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump as he meets U.S. troops based in Osan Air Base,
South Korea, June 30, 2019.



Republicans in Congress - Nunes, Kennedy, Meadows, Jordan, Johnson, Paul are busy repeating Russian disinformation. Moscow Mitch McConnell still has not allowed a Senate vote on the House bipartisan-passed DETER Act.

US military personnel should wean themselves from the Fox News addiction.
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Once Trump is gone then “We, the People” can boot out or charge any Russian sympathizers/agents.
 
Rogue Valley said:
Pentagon Concerned Russia Cultivating Sympathy Among US Troops

f-199160-armiya_ssha.jpg

U.S. soldiers wait for a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump as he meets U.S. troops based in Osan Air Base,
South Korea, June 30, 2019.



Republicans in Congress - Nunes, Kennedy, Meadows, Jordan, Johnson, Paul are busy repeating Russian disinformation. Moscow Mitch McConnell still has not allowed a Senate vote on the House bipartisan-passed DETER Act.

US military personnel should wean themselves from the Fox News addiction.
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Partisan BS from the democrats!! An attack on republicans and FOX news!

Remember what Muller found:

Mueller Report, Volume I, page 66, second paragraph:
[In particular,] the investigation examined whether these contacts involved or resulted in coordination or a conspiracy with the
Trump Campaign and Russia, including with respect to Russia providing assistance to the Campaign in exchange for any sort of favorable treatment in the future. Based on the available information, the investigation did not establish such coordination.


Shifting back to Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia! :lamo
 
RetiredUSN said:
The surface fleet and Submariners surely don't think that way.
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They have for quite some time. The Navy/higher ups in DOD are working on changing that, but it may take awhile. Russia hasn't done anything directly against the US in ages. Against other countries, yes. But Iran and NK have done much more. Even China has been more openly aggressive towards us in the last 2 decades.

And Russia has recently adopted some Christian/conservative policies that some in the military agree with.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
 
roguenuke said:
They have for quite some time. The Navy/higher ups in DOD are working on changing that, but it may take awhile. Russia hasn't done anything directly against the US in ages. Against other countries, yes. But Iran and NK have done much more. Even China has been more openly aggressive towards us in the last 2 decades.

And Russia has recently adopted some Christian/conservative policies that some in the military agree with.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
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LOL....the navy is training 24/7 against Russian tactics.

Not once in 32+ years living here in Navy town have I ever heard anything like what the article stated.......it's BS
 
braindrain said:
Just because you post things on an Internet message board does not make them true.

Let’s see your proof that 1/3 of Americans incredibly desirous of extreme Right wing authoritarianism. And actual proof. Not your or some other far left wing individuals opinion.

And before you get to worked in about trump being called the chosen one you might try and remember a bit back to Obama’s time in office and the leftists treated him. I have yet to see any school singing songs about trump like they did for Obama as if he was the second coming.
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Pew Research Center
@pewresearch
· Dec 2
The share of Republicans who say presidents could operate more effectively if they did not have to worry so much about Congress and the courts increased 16 percentage points over the past year, from 27% in March 2018 to 43% this past July. Republicans Now Are More Open to the Idea of Expanding Presidential Power | Pew Research Center
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When you say that "unitary executive" is a great idea, that's also being desirous of authoritarianism.

pew-1575388874.png


Do I have to now go dig up the thousands of posts in which Trump supporters, right wing pundits and phony historians like Beck and Prager run around yelling about how "America is not a democracy", too?
Should I pull up a former Trump Federal Reserve pick talking about how he regards democracy as two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner? Never mind that Athenian style mob democracy was only tried once, 2500 years ago, Stephen Moore almost equates it with communism.

Shunting Congress and the courts aside and declaring "The Age of the Unitary Executive" is tantamount to negating two entire branches of government and reducing them to a rubber stamp.
It is Constitutional rot, and it's one more in a long line of attacks on our most important document.

You either have your mind already made up, or you still have some bit of intellectual curiosity, enough that you'll go see for yourself.
Therefore, anything that I offer here is just a hint that there may be something to the growing trend toward authoritarianism.
Of course, if you are an authoritarian, then none of this will sound out of place to you anyway.

And the ones who sang songs about Obama were fans of authoritarianism, too, by the way. How many of them were there?
Maybe you could do us all a favor and show us just how many schools were engaging in authoritarian Obama worship...you know, like approximate figures?

Or was it maybe just a one-off, like the kids being ordered to worship a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush at "Jesus Camp".



It's okay, I understand that you're so frightened by this news that you felt you had to pull the WHATABOUTISM trigger.
I understand that you may be put off by the fact that conservatives are abandoning the Republican Party, and all that remains are the hardcore last ditch Trump worshippers who will take it to the wall for him at any costs, even if it means aligning with Putin, too.
 
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