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US special operations leaders are having to do more with less and learning from the war in Ukraine
AP ^ | May 11, 2024 | LOLITA C. BALDOR

Posted on 05/11/2024 9:23:18 AM PDT by McGruff

Forced to do more with less and learning from the war in Ukraine, U.S. special operations commanders are juggling how to add more high-tech experts to their teams while still cutting their overall forces by about 5,000 troops over the next five years.

The conflicting pressures are forcing a broader restructuring of the commando teams, which are often deployed for high-risk counterterrorism missions and other sensitive operations around the world. The changes under consideration are being influenced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including lessons learned by British special operations forces there.

...

The United States is “taking a lot of lessons learned out of the experience in Ukraine, mostly through the eyes of our U.K. special operations partners, who not only have done that in their formations, but they’ve also learned very quickly that they needed other elements of their joint force,” he told The Associated Press in an interview.

(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Ukraine; War
KEYWORDS: americanpravda; associatedhamas; associatedpravda; fuldamaximus; lolitacbaldor
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To: ansel12
"The article is about adding experts and technicians, skills, not about equipment."

"Gee thanks, Dad!"


21 posted on 05/11/2024 11:53:54 AM PDT by moovova ("The NEXT ELECTION is the most important election of our lifetimes!“ LOL...)
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To: moovova

No need to go nasty, you seemed to think it was about a shortage of equipment.


22 posted on 05/11/2024 11:59:25 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: PGR88

Basically, the US military has evolved into a modern version of the 1890s military chasing Geronimo and his Apaches around the mountains. We have spent the better part of three decades fighting nations that essentially have no militaries.
And after chasing Indians and Mexicans, we were utterly unprepared for WWI.
Todays military is an embarrassing fat and woke and feminine shadow of our forces in the Reagan era. That was a high testosterone, lean and dangerous force. Navy fighter planes had loud paint schemes, and looked like they were practically daring anyone to pick a fight.

It would be hard to rebuild that capability of the 80s force. You can buy equipment, but you cannot buy aggression and good leaders. You really can’t do it with our woke pussified leaders who excel in MBA and diplomacy and faggotry.

And judging from history, things won’t be fixed until we get a modern Pearl Harbor and Kasserine Pass.
It’s always taken a nasty wake up call.


23 posted on 05/11/2024 11:59:49 AM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: ansel12

That was my intelligent reasoning, and not claimed to be related to the article.

You are of course free to disbelieve with however many gallons of vampiressVicky/CIA/deepState koolaid you have and contintue to imbibe


24 posted on 05/11/2024 12:04:17 PM PDT by A strike (There is no tyranny that cannot be justified by 'climate change')
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To: Reverend Wright

You think that the Trump voter base is “pretending” that “significant” numbers of American troops have not been in Ukraine since Russia first invaded?

I don’t even know what you mean with all that, why would anyone be pretending anything, and why would the strongest Trump voters of conservatives over 60 be pretending?

What is a ‘significant number” anyway, and why not just post who is ther and has been since the invasion started?


25 posted on 05/11/2024 12:08:05 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: A strike

There is no reason for you to start with the nasty troll attacks.


26 posted on 05/11/2024 12:09:26 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: DesertRhino

The problem with a modern Pearl Harbor, given an attack by a peer opponent, is one of time. Modern war has the potential of inflicting a deadly blow far sooner than what it would take to flush incompetent leadership from reins of power.

In WW2 and civil war we could find the correct men because eventually they would show up.

We might still have those men, somewhere, but it would be a rush to find them before lasting damage has been done.


27 posted on 05/11/2024 12:10:17 PM PDT by VetoBill
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To: VetoBill; DesertRhino; All

” In WW2 and civil war we could find the correct men because eventually they would show up.

We might still have those men, somewhere, but it would be a rush to find them before lasting damage has been done. “


I don’t think the manpower is available, now. At the end of WW2 the USA had 60 percent of age 18-29 in the US military.

Today the US military says that only 23 percent of the 17-24 population is even capable of military service.

And every Western country is exactly the same.

https://www.allsides.com/news/2023-03-05-0853/defense-and-security-almost-80-percent-americans-aged-17-24-unfit-military


28 posted on 05/11/2024 12:21:36 PM PDT by Reverend Wright ( Everything touched by progressives, dies !)
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To: ansel12

I wish to apologize to your sensitivities, however to do so would also acknowledge your premise.


29 posted on 05/11/2024 12:54:54 PM PDT by A strike (There is no tyranny that cannot be justified by 'climate change')
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To: ansel12

Poor baby...


30 posted on 05/11/2024 1:27:01 PM PDT by moovova ("The NEXT ELECTION is the most important election of our lifetimes!“ LOL...)
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To: Reverend Wright

“””””Today the US military says that only 23 percent of the 17-24 population is even capable of military service.”””””

That isn’t 100% accurate, what they say is that for enlistment standards at that moment in time, standards are flexible and vary from period to period and branch to branch.


31 posted on 05/11/2024 1:35:09 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: DesertRhino

“And judging from history, things won’t be fixed until we get a modern Pearl Harbor and Kasserine Pass.”

Task Force Smith was another disaster for our unprepared soldiers.


32 posted on 05/11/2024 1:52:09 PM PDT by rxh4n1
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To: ansel12; All
"That isn’t 100% accurate, what they say is that for enlistment standards at that moment in time, standards are flexible and vary from period to period and branch to branch."

--------------

Well, you have a point there.

The standards increase during wartime which means that even more than 77 percent will fail.

"The test’s standards have generally toughened during times of war, and softened during times of peace, and the difference between these poles has roughly translated into the difference between a focus on combat readiness, and a focus on general fitness."

https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/military/history-of-the-armys-pt-test/

33 posted on 05/11/2024 2:04:12 PM PDT by Reverend Wright ( Everything touched by progressives, dies !)
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To: Reverend Wright

The point is about enlistment standards, not the physical standards for the GIs within the military that can and do change during wartime.

Standards frequently go up and down for enlistments and frequently drop during wartime.


34 posted on 05/11/2024 2:24:10 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: T.B. Yoits

Can’t say I disagree.

I have a son in the USN and I think he’s decided to get out after his 4 years.

I don’t want him to get tangled up in these BS conflicts which are really just about money and power.

No one seriously believes it anymore: “democracy, human rights, sovereignty...” These are silly battle cries used to motivate the masses while our entire Middle East strategy is built around a despot kingdom Saudi Arabia, while we give a single party communist regime, the PRC, most favored trade status year after year...

Of the 251 military operations post 1991, maybe a handful can be argued to be about true self-defense/national security for us. The rest?

***The expeditionary, offensive (but we often lie and pretend it’s defensive), without Congressional approval, often in secrecy, where no one can articulate a true national security argument for us, has become the norm.***

***The military intervention where US policy makers CANNOT tell the average American how this war will make them more free, safe, or wealthy, has become the norm.***

These are military campaigns at the behest of special interests that stand to profit from them. That simple.

Irony, it was the left in the 60s, 70s and 80s that screamed “no blood for oil,” called us a “hegemony” and “world policeman,” which said that war should be a last resort and not used for economic gain. Back then, we actually were fighting a real enemy in the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union. Today, it is under leftist leaders, like Obama, Biden, in Europe (Macron, Scholz...) where they called Reagan a “Saber Rattler” that are quick to use force and almost always for economic gain, we propagandize and censor our own public... Funny-

In fact, today you basically do not even hear anything about the idea of a just war anymore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory

Today, we just superficially gloss over this idea with our policy makers throwing out some cliche’s of how our enemy is the bad guy, slap a label on them, and use a bunch of unsolicited qualifying remarks that do not even make any sense to describe the situation.

Ukraine is the PERFECT example. The justification for war today is as silly and shallow, funny really, as something from a Monty Python show. Literally nothing holds up under scrutiny, neither the arguments for why Russia is this evil empire (we provoked Russia: we lied, we cheated, we broke numerous promises and are hypocrites in expecting them to accept what we never would) and bad guy, nor why we are defending Ukraine for democracy, sovereignty and human rights none of which are real either. You just need to throw around some slogans, it doesn’t matter if they are entirely baseless, the people don’t know better and the MSM won’t really look to hard.


35 posted on 05/12/2024 8:58:47 AM PDT by Red6
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To: A strike
hmmm, an admission of NATO forces on the ground in Ukraine

Concurring bump.

36 posted on 05/12/2024 9:04:26 AM PDT by mac_truck (aide toi et dieu t'aidera)
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To: Red6

The problem with your post for many is that you hit upon the truth about what is going on.

These globalist wars are for setting up the world government. People are purposely deluded into believing their brand of democracy like it is a good thing, Notice how they always scream that people are fighting for “our democracy”.

Yeah they are, they are being sacrificed to fight for he globalist fake democracy that either bullies, instigates coups of rightful leaders who disagree, or for out and out war if needed to advance the evil.

They will keep doing this until they they own every last smidgen of mother earth. They will kill using pandemics, wars, famines, assassinations, even nukes, until they get what they want.

They have stepped on the gas in recent years and as we speak are concocting plots against humanity.

My son was in the Navy during the Clinton years and did two stints. Then he got out. I am glad he doesn’t have to serve under this evil cabal for reasons that have nothing to do with actual freedom and safety for Americans.


37 posted on 05/12/2024 9:33:22 AM PDT by dforest ( )
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