Replies

Did it "show a paranoid and unrealistic understanding of the international issues in the real world" to "lump" Germany and Russia together on the eve of the Ribbentrop/Molotov pact which triggered World War II?

The duty of those who are charged with keeping America safe is not to listen to the bland assurances from those who have no skin in the game but to plan against even remote but threatening possibilities. In doing this they, of course, must make threat assessments and in doing that they are responsible for knowing history. Anyone who studies the history of the Russian Empire, the history of the Soviet Union, and the history of Vladimir Putin's regime must understand the inherent aggressive nature of these regimes.

Anyone today who discounts the danger of China as it muscles into the South China Sea certainly cannot be said to be planning to keep America safe in the face of threatening possibilities. Again, a quick reference to prewar Japan provides a historical model that is most "threatening."

As to the alleged "vilification" of Vladimir Putin, my neighbors here in Germany who have escaped from Ukraine do not share that view. The Poles do not share it, nor the Georgians, nor do many people in the Baltic countries. I suspect the victims of Russian hacking and cyber warfare do not share that view. The only safe attitude for a defense planner to take about Vladimir Putin is to assume an aggressive character

>As to the alleged “vilification” of Vladimir Putin, my neighbors here in Germany who have escaped from Ukraine do not share that view. The Poles do not share it, nor the Georgians, nor do many people in the Baltic countries. I suspect the victims of Russian hacking and cyber warfare do not share that view. The only safe attitude for a defense planner to take about Vladimir Putin is to assume an aggressive character

I keep getting told that no one wants to live under Russia again. Of course none of these nations appear to building Militaries strong enough to stop Russia. If Russia was such a threat, why does everyone try to pawn off their defense on the US?

Russia’s superior new weapons The Ukrainian experience serves as a deadly analogue for what might happen to U.S. artillery should we fight the Russians or a Russian surrogate. New Russian firepower systems now outrange ours by a third or more. They have improved on our steel-rain technology by developing a new generation of bomblet munitions that are filled with thermobaric explosives. These munitions generate an intense blast wave of exploding gases that are far more lethal than conventional explosives. A single volley of Russian thermobaric steel rain delivered by a single heavy-rocket-launcher battalion will annihilate anything within an area of about 350 acres. Tragically, all of America’s steel-rain munitions — millions of shells and warheads — are gone, intentionally destroyed by the past two administrations in a sacrifice to the gods of political correctness. They agreed to give up all submunition weapons after other nations (which had no steel rain) signed a treaty banning such weapons because they produce too many duds that remain on the battlefield and pose risks to civilians. Russia, China and Israel believed they had real wars to fight and ignored the treaty. As a result, a Russian heavy-rocket-launcher battalion firing steel rain produces a lethal area at least five times greater than a U.S. MLRS battalion firing conventional high-explosive warheads. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/russias-superior-new-weapons/2016/08/05/e86334ec-08c5-11e6-bdcb-0133da18418d_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.3721b766703f