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In Turkish news; Erdogan is blocking Youtube as well. After a clip of turkic government an mil people discussing military action across the Syrian border leaked. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26773702 quote:Im phone posting at work, so this is going to be quick, but speaking from a historical perspective and taking in what was just posted above me, I would be more worried about what the Russians know about us than what we know about the Russians through our ties to former Soviet satellites. Would you care to elaborate? I don't really have a good handle on the east-west spygame after the SU fell. Mortabis posted:Can EU nations actually afford more military spending? Many of them are even more broke than we are for a lot of the same reasons. They already have insanely high taxes (40%+ of GDP, compared to our ~25%) and are still running deficits because of generous entitlements. The EU has more than enough conventional military power to take any actual shooting war off the table for Russia. And on top of that you have the US. Granted such a war would be amateur hour for half the units involved, but it's not going to come to that anyways. The whole of the EU spends 3 timesas much as Russia in pure dollars. So it's not more money you need (although I'm totally for us getting more better stuff and manpower). It's the political capacity of getting 28 countries to march in lock step, without people trying to wiggle out of it or secure special favors and exceptions. Which just isn't going to happen right now. And that means it's the US who's going to have to get poo poo done, as per usual. one or two % up or down of EU military spending isn't going to solve the political cat herding issues. Apart from that, since most of that 40% tax rate is "free" healthcare it's only fair to count the fact that american health insurance gobbles at least a good 15% of your wage. So the amount of money left in your pocket is comparable (depending on country and profession), it's just a difference of if you prefer private or public deathpanels. Courthouse fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 19:36
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Courthouse posted:Would you care to elaborate? I don't really have a good handle on the east-west spygame after the SU fell. I'm not very familiar with the post-collapse spy games, but I could do a semi  post about some of the games that went on between the two during the cold war, and some of the CIAs failures in the cold war. However, basically the CIA is very good at 3things: 1. Violating its charter ie: being used to spy on american citizens under executive pressure. (Nixon lol but also Truman and jfk/bobby kennedy ) 2. Showing up with a briefcase full of cash for whoever decided they hate communism this week ( South America / Africa) 3. Allowing intelligence to become politizied. Im traveling for work this week through next tuesday though, so it wouldn't be until im home.
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Mar 27, 2014 20:23
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Waroduce posted:I'm not very familiar with the post-collapse spy games, but I could do a semi Wow those are some very insightful + original points u presented there. You must come across as a real knowledgeable dude at frat parties. CIA is an oxymoron amirite?
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Mar 27, 2014 20:33
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GO AIR FORCE! http://bigstory.ap.org/article/commanders-fired-nuke-missile-cheating-scandal quote:WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force fired nine mid-level nuclear commanders Thursday and will discipline dozens of junior officers at a nuclear missile base in response to an exam-cheating scandal that spanned a far longer period than originally reported.
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Mar 27, 2014 20:40
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at the date posted:Wow those are some very insightful + original points u presented there. You must come across as a real knowledgeable dude at frat parties. CIA is an oxymoron amirite? *back to lurking*
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Mar 27, 2014 20:42
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Waroduce posted:I mean my post was short, because again phone posting, but im not trying to be a douche and he asked? I can cite historical examples and compare and contrast the CIA with the KGB directorates and their satellites for all of the above and maybe we can have a discussion about it and poo poo, but if people aren't interested thats fine too. I am genuinely interested in a response to Courthouse's question.
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Mar 27, 2014 20:45
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gfanikf posted:GO AIR FORCE! Nothing can stop the US Air Force - except for ourselves
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Mar 27, 2014 21:38
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Are they trying to one-up the Navy? http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/02/05/navy-discovers-cheating-on-nuclear-reactor-tests.html
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Mar 27, 2014 22:11
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Mad Dragon posted:Are they trying to one-up the Navy? http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/02/05/navy-discovers-cheating-on-nuclear-reactor-tests.html posted:Richardson said those who compromised tests numbered fewer than 20, but he declined to state how many were suspected of being involved as an investigation continues. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/commanders-fired-nuke-missile-cheating-scandal posted:A total of 100 missile launch crew members at Malmstrom were identified as potentially involved in the cheating, but nine were cleared by investigators So far 91 - 20 with the Air Force taking a soaring lead! Who will score next is anyone's guess!
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Mar 27, 2014 22:16
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Mad Dragon posted:Are they trying to one-up the Navy? Can anyone comment if the SSBN crews are anymore dedicated to the "mission" than their Missiler or Bomber Pilot counterparts in the Air Force? In short is the Navy just better at hiding the nuclear mission rot? I mean the bomber crews had the Barksdale incident, but it's still pales to the Missile Crews in terms of constant gently caress ups. I guess part of it is Missile crews have the least "work" of the three parts of the triad, so I would suspect they could screw up far more with less...deadly consequences...than the other parts.
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Mar 27, 2014 22:18
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drat. Air Force leading the way in test cheating and sexual assault.
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Mar 27, 2014 22:18
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gfanikf posted:Can anyone comment if the SSBN crews are anymore dedicated to the "mission" than their Missiler or Bomber Pilot counterparts in the Air Force? In short is the Navy just better at hiding the nuclear mission rot? I mean the bomber crews had the Barksdale incident, but it's still pales to the Missile Crews in terms of constant gently caress ups. I guess part of it is Missile crews have the least "work" of the three parts of the triad, so I would suspect they could screw up far more with less...deadly consequences...than the other parts. This missile test scandal is kind of an outlier although still related to the overall rot in the USAF nuke enterprise. With the other stuff (accidentally flying live nukes to Barksdale, failing a NSI because a cop was playing a game on his cell phone while guarding the WSA, etc), it was all just straight up endemic stupidity. With the test scandal, they weren't cheating because they were too stupid to pass the test (and were therefore unfit to be carrying out their duties), they were cheating because the tests were composed of nothing but gotcha games and because there was a culture of zero tolerance for anything other than 100%, in both "practice/learning" environments as well as actual evaluations. Here's an example of the kind of gotcha games that were played with the tests: "You are driving to the Missile Alert Facility after the sun has set; you therefore have your lights on and since it is a rural road you have switched on your high beams. You are on a two-lane road when a car is approaching from the opposite direction. You should ________." So let's say the standard for dimming lights is when the opposite car is within 200 meters of your vehicle. You would then answer "You should dim your lights upon coming within 200 meters of the approaching vehicle." The question continues: "Upon passing the first car, another car is heading towards you in the opposite direction. You should ________." If you answered "dim your lights upon coming within 200 meters of the approaching vehicle," you would be wrong because you were never told you went back to high beams after the first vehicle. And since you got it wrong, even if you were in a training environment you just failed the exam with negative repercussions and career impact to follow. So not only were the tests written in a completely idiotic and counterproductive way, but the consequences of failing (particularly in a training environment) were completely out of whack with how a well run training and evaluation program should operate. I'm not trying to excuse the cheating, but it's quite a bit different from "forgot to check markings on warhead, accidentally flew live nukes halfway across country." And oh by the way, that culture of gotcha games and zero tolerance for anything less than perfect was in no way isolated to Malmstrom, that's why I'm not too surprised to see that the OG/CC at F.E. Warren got fired today and I won't be surprised if there are firings at Minot in the near future.
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Mar 27, 2014 22:37
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That's doesn't sound too far off from the Navy cheating scandal. The creme de la stupidity there was the idiot typing up a cheat sheet of classified material on his home computer.
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Mar 27, 2014 23:15
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Snowdens Secret posted:That's doesn't sound too far off from the Navy cheating scandal. The creme de la stupidity there was the idiot typing up a cheat sheet of classified material on his home computer. Wait, seriously? Someone ACTUALLY did that?
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Mar 27, 2014 23:50
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 Goddamn some people are stupid.
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Mar 27, 2014 23:59
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Richard Bong posted:Wait, seriously? Someone ACTUALLY did that? The rabbit hole in the navy world goes deep, apparently. http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140204/NEWS05/302040028/Sailors-suspected-spreading-nuke-cheating-scandal
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Mar 28, 2014 00:02
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Snowdens Secret posted:That's doesn't sound too far off from the Navy cheating scandal. The creme de la stupidity there was the idiot typing up a cheat sheet of classified material on his home computer. Back in my day, babby nukes got busted all the time trying to sneak confidential training manuals home.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:20
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Courthouse posted:The EU has more than enough conventional military power to take any actual shooting war off the table for Russia. And on top of that you have the US. Granted such a war would be amateur hour for half the units involved, but it's not going to come to that anyways. The whole of the EU spends 3 timesas much as Russia in pure dollars. So it's not more money you need (although I'm totally for us getting more better stuff and manpower). We've been over this, and you're still wrong.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:23
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Richard Bong posted:Wait, seriously? Someone ACTUALLY did that? Someone did this at the AF Weapons School too.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:25
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The test they were cheating on is basically an AP chem/physics exam, so it's classified because everything is, but it's not really secret. Like I'm sure USAF guys get classified tests on how Bernoulli's principle makes planes fly or the chemical equation of their rocket fuel igniting, and they can't take notes home even though it's poo poo you can Google in ten seconds. It's also only one part (and not the last) of an extensive qual process, and it's being administered to guys that either have years of reactor operation already (including taking these tests over and over) or just qualified as students, including taking the same loving test, literally weeks before. I'm not saying its unimportant, but it's not flying live bombs cross-country or posting OPLAN details on an open comedy forum.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:26
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Snowdens Secret posted:
Yeah bro but he's read on w/ a full poly  m0t is straight up dangerous with classified information. A part of me wishes someone would have followed through with the "E-mail this idiots chain" suggestions. But then.. Hopefully he learned his lesson and nobody had to take it that far. loving idiot though.
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Mar 28, 2014 01:48
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Didnt someone actually get in trouble for violating opsec on the forums?
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Mar 28, 2014 01:56
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Obama Africanus posted:Yeah bro but he's read on w/ a full poly He's that idiot bragging about his TS clearance to uninterested college girls.
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Mar 28, 2014 02:06
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Ultimate Shrek Fan posted:Didnt someone actually get in trouble for violating opsec on the forums? Supposedly there was a guy who worked with nuclear material detection for DHS who posted something along the lines of "I work with nuclear material detection for DHS, but I can't really talk about it, I like these booty-shakin' gifs though" and they found his body in the East River a week later E: vvv close enough Snowdens Secret fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Mar 28, 2014 |
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Mar 28, 2014 02:53
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Ultimate Shrek Fan posted:Didnt someone actually get in trouble for violating opsec on the forums? DefenseSupportParty posted a thread about his neato job as a nuclear detonation detect guy with the AF. He was brought in for questioning and basically had his life ruined, was given a medical discharge from the AF for depression, and eventually committed suicide.
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Mar 28, 2014 02:58
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rip
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Mar 28, 2014 03:04
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Snowdens Secret posted:That's doesn't sound too far off from the Navy cheating scandal. The creme de la stupidity there was the idiot typing up a cheat sheet of classified material on his home computer. You'll notice in the article in the AF cheating scandal there's a couple individuals who are still subject to an additional criminal investigation involving unauthorized use of classified information...apparently a small amount of the cheating stuff involved classified material, and these idiots were sending it via SMS. So there's some endemic stupidity with the cheating thing too. Snowdens Secret posted:posting OPLAN details on an open comedy forum. lol
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Mar 28, 2014 03:13
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psydude posted:DefenseSupportParty posted a thread about his neato job as a nuclear detonation detect guy with the AF. He was brought in for questioning and basically had his life ruined, was given a medical discharge from the AF for depression, and eventually committed suicide.
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Mar 28, 2014 04:29
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Another article about Germany's (and by extension Europe's) energy mess: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/25/germanys_green_elephant A careful reader will note all the 'successes' listed are completely circular and meaningless. However, quote:...it hasn't come cheaply. Renewable energy has been pushed so relentlessly, in a country not blessed with renewable resources, that the bill is getting enormous. This year, German consumers will spend about 23 billion euros propping up solar and wind power, up from 13 billion euros just two years ago. That comes through a government-mandated surcharge on electricity bills for residential consumers and small and medium-sized businesses. While the government once said the surcharge would never exceed 35 euros per megawatt hour, this year it will top 60 euros per megawatt hour. Big, energy-intensive firms are exempt from the renewables surcharge, which is the reason that European Union competition officials are looking into the question of unfair state aid for those firms. Meanwhile, regular households and small and medium sized businesses have little choice but to pay the higher bills. These numbers obviously all predate the Ukraine kerfuffle, so expect all of these to just get worse and worse
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Mar 28, 2014 07:09
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Apparently France is going through with the sale of helicopter destroyers to Russia because they're totally like civilian ships with no military purpose guys! http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140319/DEFREG01/303190028/French-DM-Cancellation-Carrier-Sale-Russia-an-Extreme-Measure- Edit: whoops I guess this is actually like a week old; I only just read about it in a Japanese newspaper and thought it was a new development.
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Mar 28, 2014 07:39
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LimburgLimbo posted:Apparently France is going through with the sale of helicopter destroyers to Russia because they're totally like civilian ships with no military purpose guys! Even though I don't have a WWIII boner, something about this really makes me wanna see VDV deployed from these ships just wrecking Mediterranean coast of France (despite really wanting to travel to Provence).
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Mar 28, 2014 09:07
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Snowdens Secret posted:Another article about Germany's (and by extension Europe's) energy mess: So essentially Germany has in fact hosed itself by shutting down the reactors?
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Mar 28, 2014 09:24
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Wait, so germany finds that they cannot provision demand side energy with a devastating science project? How was this problem created in the first place? Do they not offer electrical engineering in german universities anymore?
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Mar 28, 2014 10:26
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Politics.
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Mar 28, 2014 10:35
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Denazification broke their little aryan brains.
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Mar 28, 2014 10:53
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/25/russia_s_window_of_opportunity_in_ukrainequote:If Putin decides to send in his troops, he has a narrow window in which to act. The winter of 2014 in Russia and Ukraine was relatively mild with little snow, while the spring is early and warm. The soil is drying rapidly, meaning that it will soon be possible to move heavy vehicles off of highways and into fields in southern areas of Ukraine close to the Black and Azov Seas. A key date is April 1, which marks the beginning of the Russia's spring conscript call-up, when some 130,000 troops drafted a year earlier will have to be mustered out as replacements arrive. This would leave the Russian airborne troops, marines, and army brigades with many conscripts that have served half a year or not at all, drastically reducing battle readiness. The better-trained one-year conscripts can be kept in the ranks for a couple of months but no longer. Otherwise they'll start demanding to be sent home, and morale will slip. As a result, Russia's conventional military will regain reasonable battle-readiness only around August or September 2014, giving the Ukrainians ample time to get their act together. Some tweets (no clue of the accuracy) have claimed the forces gathered north of Kiev have been identified as specific "regime protector" units - the elite super-loyal ones usually kept close to Moscow in case of a coup attempt - and as such are unlikely to be kept in the field for long.
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Mar 28, 2014 15:18
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Snowdens Secret posted:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/25/russia_s_window_of_opportunity_in_ukraine What are the regime protector units in the case of Russia? I mean Saudi National Guard is KSA's version (or is it the Saudi Royal Guard Regiment?). I'm just wondering the specific units in the case of Russia, because I've never heard of their "Republican Guard" variants before.
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Mar 28, 2014 15:27
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ming-the-mazdaless posted:Wait, so germany finds that they cannot provision demand side energy with a devastating science project? How was this problem created in the first place? Do they not offer electrical engineering in german universities anymore? There has been a lot of cart before horse thinking in energy politics. And a lot of long term plans that require the world economy to continue on a pre-08 trajectory. But mostly it's that the environmental parallel agendas require shutting down both fossil and nuclear power, and either agenda refuses to take into account the other one when calculating their numbers.. Germany has actually been planning to slash subsidies to renewables by a full third back in January. Which pretty much means abandoning the 2020 carbon emission goals. There have been murmurs that between the carbon emission goal, Russia, the Hessen(?) state court ruling the plant shut downs were not entirely legal, and Japan planning to restart their plants despite Fukushima being the reason for the German shutdowns in the first place, there may be sufficient political capital for nuclear to come back. But I have yet to see anyone saying to officially. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24914-germanys-energy-revolution-on-verge-of-collapse.html#.UzWHm8bTrck http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21598714-government-and-voters-are-putting-economics-atoms-opening-way-japan-restart
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Mar 28, 2014 15:46
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gfanikf posted:What are the regime protector units in the case of Russia? I mean Saudi National Guard is KSA's version (or is it the Saudi Royal Guard Regiment?). I'm just wondering the specific units in the case of Russia, because I've never heard of their "Republican Guard" variants before. Quoting tweets is such a pain in the rear end quote:Units massing on #Ukraine border are also "regime preservation" force; Putin won't have them that far from Moscow 4 long without good cause. Again I have no idea how much of that is armchair BS and there's Rus tweeters in there talking about USA's 'regime protector' forces so it may all be tinfoil nonsense E: so that'd be these guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_Guards_Kantemirovskaya_Tank_Division And these guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Guards_Tamanskaya_Motor_Rifle_Division Also the newest ECM units: http://dumskaya.net/news/na-byvshej-ukrainskoj-baze-v-krymu-obosnovalis-n-034132/
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Mar 28, 2014 15:46
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Doublepostin' so I don't have to keep editing: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles...0294243784.html quote:WASHINGTON—Russian troops massing near Ukraine are actively concealing their positions and establishing supply lines that could be used in a prolonged deployment, ratcheting up concerns that Moscow is preparing for another major incursion and not conducting exercises as it claims, U.S. officials said. STEALTH TARPS  IF ONLY WE'D BOUGHT GRIPENSSeriously that's a doubling of publicly released estimates in, what, three days? Snowdens Secret fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Mar 28, 2014 |
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Mar 28, 2014 15:57
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