I don’t know much about naval radar, is it actually the case that the moskva was misdirected by a drone and that got them to focus their radar in the wrong direction while the missiles were coming from the other direction? If so it seems like that’s a one-shot deal and the Russians know not to fall for it again, but if it was something else, a technical limitation of Russia’s naval radar technology (&c), the Ukrainians could potentially sink the rest of the black sea fleet (constrained by how many of these Neptune missiles they have, which I gather is not a huge number).
Is this basically accurate? The fact that they didn’t immediately light up more boats implies it was probably the former?
there’s an intercepted radio call between two officers who are discussing briefly that moskva is hit. i listened to it, but the conversation doesn’t totally say they were distracted like that. one officer says they must have had a way to target moskva somehow, mentions that they had been tracking a drone earlier, and speculates that perhaps that drone provided guidance. but again that’s the only open source intel on moskva that implies it. perhaps there’s more, but the officer could also be reading something in the tealeaves.
Let’s say someone walks in to the local recruiter’s office and says, “I’d like to join the Army”.
So, I assume at that point they would ask questions and make the person fill out forms and such. Let’s say it comes out that this person has a PhD in English Literature. What happens to them? Do they automatically get put on the officer path? Do they get to choose?
Also does the actual degree matter? What if instead of English it was a PhD in Arabic Linguistics?
EDIT: How much overlap in rank is there? Is the highest NCO lower rank than the lowest commissioned officer. Or can an NCO go high enough that he is above some (or even most) commissioned officers.
Regarding off-ramps, Putin can just dig in and reinforce his current position including whatever gains he’s been able to make any time he wants. He could then declare victory, let things quiet down, and lick his wounds. He can “negotiate” and cry about sanctions and NATO threats while he prepares for the next round. But he won’t do that right now because he sees a good chance to get more. He’ll keep going until he estimates he can’t make additional gains.
It’s definitely different based on your background. For me as a full doctor, I’d start off as a captain. If I had joined in medical school, it’d be a second lieutenant. It’s a 10-14 week training program on top of whatever medical stuff you do for the full army. 2 weeks for reserve.
One issue I haven’t seen mentioned much is that Ukraine will almost surely demand control of sufficient territory that they maintain access to the sea of azov. That means Russia loses its land bridge to Crimea. I don’t see Putin being inclined to accept that without true necessity.
for the guy with the phd, they would probably point you to the officer training school route. The military is dumb in a lot of things, but they are smart enough to know that a guy with a phd in english literature is probably going to be a better candidate for learning how to analyze intel or do other officer-level stuff, on top of being ill-suited to fixing planes or being an infantry troop.
For the kid just out of HS, they will give you some aptitude tests like the ASVAB to see what might suit you best, then you enlist as a private or airman and get shipped off to basic training. Officers go to “basic training” too, but it’s called Officer Training School and isn’t as grunt oriented. In OTS you learn military history and doctrine and stuff, and they don’t bother to teach that to the enlisted guys in basic training.
Other routes to becoming an officer is going to a service academy (which is what I did) and you graduate as the lowest rank of officer, or ROTC, where you go to a normal school with a scholarship and also graduate as the lowest rank of officer.
Doctors and Lawyers can join, like CN said, after school/passing the bar and they come in as a captain (which is the 3rd officer rank)
As for the degree mattering, if you want to fly a plane or command a tank (officer jobs) or be an intel analyst, it doesn’t really matter. If you want to be an engineer, it does.
as for ranks, the lowest officer technically outranks the chief master sergeant of the air force, but they would be an idiot to not defer to them.
Scholz is still mum what if any weapons will be delivered to Ukraine. It might only be financial help and this money will only be available when the next budget is passed in the summer. Not only is it months away, Ukraine doesn’t need money. They need heavy weapons.
Scholz gets criticized from his own coalition partners as well as the conservative opposition. It’s a mystery to me what he’s trying to achieve.
Curiously the German press isn’t reporting much about this at all. I have to do a lot of scrolling through several newspaper sites to even find some information about it at all.
Practically, that will mostly be decided by who is where when the music stops. Unfortunately, I think that’s up to Putin. Bill Cosby used to say parents don’t care about justice, they just want quiet. Despite the source, I think it’s true in this case that the West will be happy enough when the shooting dies down and Ukraine won’t have a choice.
Hypothetically, let’s say that after they suggest officer training school, you insist you want to go the enlisted route. Do they accept you or or not? I only assume this is possible based on watching Forrest Gump (i.e., graduated college but enlisted).
What happens if you show up at the recruiter’s office having never graduated high school, does that mean you can’t even enlist?
Why is this true:
It appears that the current Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force has bachelor’s degree, so I guess she must have found this to be true.
I think this is probably closer to the truth than people want to believe. Again, it’s realpolitik. Sure, in theory the Ukranians would have the ultimate say on an agreement at the end of hostilities but in reality NATO will basically tell them “this is a good deal, you should take it, it would, uh, like, be extremely bad if all these weapon shipments stopped suddenly, right?”
This is another aspect of war with modern technology and equipment. You need baseline competency from pretty much all troops. That the US has universal k-12 education is not only important for advanced capitalism, it’s also a component of modern military capability.
Nukes have really screwed up relative military analysis, because nuclear arsenals override all kinds of deficiencies. Even if we can TKO Russia in conventional war, they can just use nukes to “avoid losing”. Their battlefield nuke doctrine suggests an awareness that they get their ass kicked in any large scale conventional war.
So analysis of military conflict with Russia ends up being about their potential for nuclear response rather than competence.
It’s like playing poker with a mega fish who hates losing and has a gun. How much loss will he sustain before he just shoots you instead of playing poker, even if he knows he’ll be shot back? Or, more generally, moving from playing a board game to flipping over the board.
It leaves me at a loss. I guess we’re just stuck with massive retaliation as a known consequence.
But Ukraine needs solid ports to export its grain, neon, and steel, and Odessa likely isn’t enough. NATO knows that. Ukraine will also need some of the massive natural gas reserves in the east and black sea.
Point is, I don’t think the West would pressure to end the war on unsustainable terms.
NATO may not have as much leverage as they’d like. Their policies are driven by public opinion to a large degree and so far Zelenskyy has been absolutely crushing the global PR game. You could easily lose an election right now in many places by getting on the wrong side of public opinion over Ukraine.