The Military Thread

I assume that the argument for international solidarity with the weak and oppressed wouldn't convince you? Nor would the idea that with great power comes great responsbaility and as such with mild power comes mild responsibility?

If everyone was the Swiss the Nazis would never have been defeated.

Yeah I'm an interventionist, we're a rare bread these days.

It is kinda hard to sit on your hands and expect others to pick up the tab hoping things will end alright when you're one of the few capable of actually doing anything.

It is the difference between letting the intervention in Serbia and the lack of any in Rwanda.

Lack of geopolitical interest is the difference between Serbia and Rwanda; the population of the United States is sentimental, but the American military and government are not.

Rwanda happened because of sentimentalism.

It was the poor handling on the Somali civil war in 93 that put no more interventions by the public and the US and the U.N. obliged.

An idle thought, instead of deploying to support various "other peoples' wars", could the Danes instead deploy to support "other peoples' home fronts" instead? Send a battalion of soldiers to France to train and work with the French army, free up a battalion of French soldiers to deploy to Mali or Afghanistan or Belgium or whichever hotspot requires a NATO intervention? I recall the US did that for the UK during the Falklands War (given that we couldn't very easily send forces to support them directly against Argentina due to Argentina kind of also being an ally of the US...)

(Cross-posted from the Navy Thread)

Some light reading: United States Navy and World War I: 1914–1922, by Frank A. Blazich Jr., Ph D^note Who happens to also be the Civil Air Patrol National Historian, fun fact

It wasn't the US that did that during the Falklands, it was Australia, NZ and Canada I believe. You guys just offered to occupy the Falklands yourselves before finally caving and giving us spy sat data and a possible loan of an aircraft carrier (the French also gave us weapons data after Thatcher maybe threatened to nuke Argantina when talking to the French). Still it's an idea, the Germans are doing it for the French right now, they've sent German troops to Mali to cover for the French so as to free up French assets to deploy elsewhere.

edited 4th Dec '16 1:15:29 PM by Silasw

Aprilla has a really good point. The US military machine is as much a political tool as it is anything else and if you needed a reminder generals are pretty much politicians in a military uniform selected politicians not in uniform.

My understanding (which granted, I could be misremembering) was that the USAF took over the RAF's tanker commitments in Europe, which allowed the Brits to use their tankers to support the Black Buck raids.

I hadn't heard of that example but it certainly sounds like something that could have happened after the breakdown of negotiations caused the US to side with the UK. I'd be curious as to detail if you can find any, my google-foo is weak today.

edited 4th Dec '16 4:27:15 PM by Silasw

That's actually been ongoing for quite a while - it's common for Danish officers and military personnel to advise in the Baltics, particularly Estonia. I don't know if this has freed up Baltic troops elsewhere (I know they have had NATO deployments in the past, but probably not currently for obvious reasons), but the Danish Defence has been helping train the Baltic military for yonks.

For the record, I'm not arguing non-intervention (I'm very much in favor of this increase in military spending), I'm arguing that the money could be spent better if it went to strengthening our capability to deploy with the UN than by flying more sorties in Syria.

edited 5th Dec '16 7:10:41 AM by math792d

The UN is pretty usless though, just talk to the people that have served with it.

They can witness mass killings and slaughtering of villiages where there deployed and are not allowed to do a damn thing.

As such Syria is probaly a better use of funds since at least you can do things there.

As said before, this depends vastly on what country the peacekeepers come from. Although, the EU missions are more active in creating institutions and regional security.

Good heavens! Look at the time! It's Finnish independence day!

And all because the Russians couldn't Finish the job

It also depends on the UN operation in question. It is seldom as simple as "they are just ignoring this" and it involves some possibly hazardous political and military interactions with other nations in the area.

So how do the Finnish celebrate their Independence Day?

The Brazilian UN mission in Haiti was decent but everyone I spoke with said they hated it because they couldn't do jack shit about the looters and gangs without approval of the higher ups and they still had to deal with the gangs taking pot shots at them but at least they could fire back.

Get drunk. Watch the live coverage of the President receiving ambassadors and other guests of note to the presidential palace (mostly to critique their formal wear...). Watch the far-right and far-left fight each other in demonstrations that will be going around Helsinki.

It's mostly about spending the evening with family and friends though.

You know, we'll probably be joining in on the whole "get drunk and watch the president receive ambassadors" thing. Using our own president of course. I'm sure it'll prove to be very entertaining.

Alternately hilarious and horrifying — the former, as Trump makes a total ass of himself (yet again); and the latter as he throws a shit-fit over the slightest (perceived) insult. But I repeat myself...

There's also a military parade and a show going on, will post it if it shows up on youtube later.

On another note this is the 99th year of our independence. So everything from now on will be a build-up towards 100 next year.

edited 6th Dec '16 8:02:59 AM by TerminusEst

I was going to advocate celebrating the day with Molotov cocktails, snipers, Formula One racing, and endless viewing of Moomin Valley, but perhaps that would've been culturally insensitive.

Don't forget rally racing. Or should it be frozen lake car antics?

What about shanking a commie rooskie for old times sake with a Puukko?

On a more serious note, the Pentagon buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations because it feared Congress would use it to slash their budget. The Congressmen who rely on pork barrel spending to make up for completely locking up the federal government? Slashing the budget? Outside doing so by complete accident I don't see it happening.

The study in question.