Posted on 08/14/2008 5:47:46 PM PDT by Flavius
Gori/Tbilisi - The troopers of Russia's 58th Army, fresh from chasing their US-trained Georgian opponents out of South Ossetia, are just in love with their NATO-issue loot.
'Check out this war trophy,' a T-62 tank commander named Viktor proudly pointed out to a Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reporter. 'A real NATO-standard bayonet!'
(Excerpt) Read more at monstersandcritics.com ...
Unless Russia just used its worst equipment, worst commanders and worst troops then they aren't superior to us in any way. As far as COIN the Georgians have the boots on the ground.
Not necessarily. Israel was able to defeat the Syrian air defenses going after their nuke facility. USSR hasn’t been able to do the same to the Georgian air defenses.
We could easily use OUR air superiority there. We have the refueling capability, and the combat effectiveness to take off from a NATO country and assist this country in need.
It wouldn’t take us too long to get air superiority there, while the Georgian troops re-secure THEIR territory.
Jude, there are currently Infantry units in Iraq that haven’t fired their weapons in combat in over 4 MONTHS! Not very busy there anymore, thank God.
I’m on rotation to go next FY somewhere. I’m willing again to go. If we end up fighting Ruskies, so be it. That’s the fight I expected when I signed on in 1986!
The fight against Russia wouldn’t be a COIN fight. That would be fighting the last war again.
ME! I am in favor of it!
We are working hard, but not maxed out. Three tours to Iraq in 7 years for me hasn’t been that bad, but the infantry bubbas are obviously hurting more. I have no desire for a force-on-force live fire drill with the Russians, but there are other ways. I was only half kidding about the EFPs. The best way to fight this is the same as we did in Central America; arm and train your allies. If we end up in a shooting war in direct conflict with Russia it would be very bad and could result in a truly WWIII scenario. Especially with that sociopath Putin at the helm.
You are saying that you want a war with Russia?
Good for you old timer !! Glad to see those knees are still working.
What I am saying is that they have been at war with us through proxy (Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Nicaragua, Venazuela, NK, Cuba, Vietnam, China, basically any trouble spot in the world), consistently since the end of WW2. Not all war has to be a shooting war as I’m sure you can deduce from the examples above.
The current state of their military is extremely weak, if the reports of dozens of broken down tanks, 20+ aircraft shot down, naval fleet that is rusted and in disrepair can be believed.
They have nukes are are probably trying to position them as far forward as possible. At the same time, their closest neighbors want nothing to do with them. Those neighbors being the Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia, Hungary, Croatia, etc. They’ve been under the Russky boot and they don’t want to go back to that.
Now is when we could show Georgia the type of support we could provide to our allies. Bring in our aircraft, knock out CCCP anti-air threats, take out their rusty armor, let the Georgian’s on the ground retake their country.
No draft needed, because CCCP knows our nukes aren’t rusty and no matter how aggressive Putin gets he really doesn’t want to face that threat.
We have pussy-footed around the problem for generations. It is time to kill the threat to our way of life.
Do you really think our military is “weak” right now? Hell we are just getting a taste for the fight! Just as we start kicking tail in Iraq, the bad guys give up and turn political.
The Marines, and soldiers that spent their days OUTSIDE of the wire in Iraq know the score, they know where the bad ju-ju has been coming from since the beginning.
Are you that small minded NOT to see it?
I think our military is the best in the world. I have never said otherwise, either directly or indirectly.
What I do think is that an attack on Russian troops could easily end up in a nuclear war and if that happened, the best military in the world or not, it would be a nightmare. In other words, nukes are the great equalizer.
As far as the war with proxy, other than China and maybe a couple of others, I think you make some good points. They could probably say the same about our support of other countries, such as the former countries that were part of the USSR.
There is no easy answer, that’s for darn sure.
take care.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.