Inverted
mmmmmm wine
Ehh, this feels like a pretty handwaving way to dismiss the fact that the losses of aircraft and equipment are pretty high for this not being a war...
F-15E shot down over Iran
- Thread starter mikecweb
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Ehh, this feels like a pretty handwaving way to dismiss the fact that the losses of aircraft and equipment are pretty high for this not being a war...
Am talking the operational technicals, not the politics. There’s another thread for that. There’s shooting, it’s combat. War,
Inverted
mmmmmm wine
I am not making it political either. This is not a war, war was not declared. This conflict, operation, or whatever you want to call it, has had a serious loss of aircraft. Simply listing other wars and conflicts doesn't really excuse the current state of air superiority over the Middle East right now.
War: a state of armed conflict between nations or groups, generally defined. And different than a declaration of war.
Semantics aside, it’s combat. And in near-peer combat, warfare, conflict, whatever you’d like to call it, where there’s actually an equipped and trained foe, nothing is going to be a cakewalk.
Now, if you are arguing that proactive preparations and contingencies weren’t taken into account or might have been sloppy, such as the lack of force protection at an airbase where HVAA aircraft were needlessly damaged/destroyed out in the open not once, but twice, at the exact same location; there is definitely some mail that needs to be answered on that failure.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
Not quite, when it comes to military adventurism, Trump was a pretty good bet.
I didn’t vote for Trump, I think he’s pretty nutty and has shown no respect for the Constitution or the law.
That said, nothing about his first term would have suggested this scale of military action.
His use of the military in his first term was quite restrained. He promoted troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.
It’s fair to say that ISIS was defeated in Iraq and Syria, a limited conflict with stated goals. Beyond that, everything else was pretty limited in scale and duration.
I supported the Assad regime because a bad regime is better than civil war and a failed state. However, our intervention was very limited.
I get what you’re saying but think you overshot the mark when it came to his use of the military. The time to strike Iran, when there was a still a good chance for regime change, was during Trump’s first term or prior when the Iranian military had pretty moderate leadership and was ripe to replace the crazies.
Inverted
mmmmmm wine
He has literally done everything he said he wouldn't do. His projections on other presidential hopefuls have all turned into admissions and predictions on his future choices. He incessantly tweeted threats to every enemy world leader during his first term. For ANYONE to have not at least seen this coming a little bit is a freaking moron.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
I guess you don’t want to talk about his restrained and pragmatic use of military power during his first term which was pretty consistent with his desire for a more isolationist America.
If we limit the scope of the conversation to military interventionism, Trump didn’t look like the reckless actor you suggest we should have seen.
So, he waved a big stick and threatened our enemies yet was very restrained when it came to military interventions. You chose to use the word enemy. How polite should our discourse be with enemies?
I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Trump supporter, I think he has violated the Constitution, and I believe that our attack on Iran was foolhardy.
That said, it looked like you were willing to entertain a conversation about Trump’s history of military interventions. That doesn’t appear to be the case. I’m also not ready to label half the voting populace as morons.
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
His first term he had adults in the room. It was clear from the outset of his 3rd campaign that he wouldn’t have them again. All these worst impulses were evident last time, but were restrained by people like Mattis and Tillerson.