How to be dangerous by Bruce Lee...

Must do advice in a jacked up world.

Are we living in an age when every time we go into the public we have to be in a Cooper's state of yellow and ready to move to his orange at the blink of an eye?

I think so...But that is gonna take practice and is tiring.  It will however prevent "accidents", "mistakes", and "oh shit" moments.

PT-91 Twardy tanks trained alongside U.S. Marine Corps M1A1 Abrams tanks during Exercise Saber Strike 17.

Buckingham Palace Fly Over by the RAF....

Don't know why they're doing this fly over but I find it interesting that I read earlier this week that the R1 Sentinel was going to be axed but they're still including it in this publicity op.

The RAF much like the Aussie Air Force is soon to be a shadow of its former self.

Unpopular question but it needs to be asked.

Can they even provide enough air power to guarantee national sovereignty? Can they credibly zoom out to the North Sea and deter aerial intruders?

Open Comment Post. Jun 17, 2017

US Navy Destroyer Crashes Merchant Ship at Japan Sea USS Fitzgerald Collides Merchant Vessel

Thanks to Razvan for the link!



Ship is taking on water?  Supposedly not in danger of sinking?  Injured Sailors?

Hmm.  Operations off the coast of N. Korea and accidents are bound to happen especially during "enhanced" preparations/drills.

Still.  That won't buff out.  I'm talking about the damage to the ship and the damage to the Skippers career.

Thailand Domestically Built 8X8 Armoured Wheeled Vehicle Testing

Note:  I love their writing.  It looks more like art than a form of communication and is it me or does this seem like an inefficient design...the engine layout seems...off.  It seems to stretch from here to yonder!

US Army Captain says country's military 'not best in the world anymore'

via Independent.

A US Army Captain has said that the American military is perhaps not the best in the world because it is "not as prepared or ready for combat as their multinational partners".

Captain J Scott Metz wrote in an Army professional journal that he feels other countries' troops are "now tactically better than we are at company level and below because we do not train enough at home station".

He includes allies and "some potential enemies" as better prepared than US forces. 

Story here. 

You've heard me beat on this drum before, but I gotta do it again.  Our strategy of "forward presence" is wrecking the force!

I don't know if its an attempt to justify money or if someone somewhere actually believes that penny packets of servicemembers actually deter aggression but the health of the force is now in the balance.

No one in the Pentagon dares say it but we're on the tipping point of a hollow force.  

The announcement of 4k troops to Afghanistan today might be the very thing to damage it so badly that it takes a decade to rebuild.  We seriously need to rethink this drink before its too late.

Australian Prime Minister openly mocks Trump...

Yeah.  Listen to it all.

If Trump was smart he would retaliate.  He would teach that Prime Minister a lesson and use him as a demonstration to the rest of the world.

Cancel all joint military exercises.

Pull US troops from Australia.

Cancel all intel and tech sharing.

Slow walk/delay/put up roadblocks to any trade agreements.

In short if Trump had balls he'd make this guy hurt and force him to get on his knees and apologize.  It won't happen...but it should.

Is the Senate crazy? Additional sanctions on Russia now?

via Reuters.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Friday it was checking information that a Russian air strike near the Syrian city of Raqqa may have killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in late May.

The air strike was launched after the Russian forces in Syria received intelligence that a meeting of Islamic State leaders was being planned, the ministry said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.

"On May 28, after drones were used to confirm the information on the place and time of the meeting of IS leaders, between 00:35 and 00:45, Russian air forces launched a strike on the command point where the leaders were located," the statement said.

"According to the information which is now being checked via various channels, also present at the meeting was Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was eliminated as a result of the strike," the ministry said.

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said it could not confirm the Russian report that Baghdadi may have been killed.

The strike is believed to have killed several other senior leaders of the group, as well as around 30 field commanders and up to 300 of their personal guards, the Russian defense ministry statement said.

What is the Senate thinking?  Is madman/neo-con McCain so in love with the cold war that he can't see future possibilities?

The Russians are helping end the ISIS threat.  I have my doubts about the wisdom of removing Assad from power (we've seen what happens when you remove dictators in that region of the world...it never ends with calm and democracy, more like chaos and preventable deaths) but even if its the "right" thing to do it can wait till later.

So where are we.

The Russians are helping kill ISIS, seem to have moderated Hezbollah to a certain degree, it should be easier for them to keep Iran in a cage than it is for us...and we still have that shit storm called Afghanistan that we could use their help with.

So what does the Senate do?  They vote to impose additional sanctions?  Can they not think strategically for just a minute?  Why the Defense Dept isn't saying cool your jets is beyond me considering they (the Russians) just assisted on the Jordan border just a few days ago, but they're quiet as church mice.

Last but not least they kill the ISIS head just a few hours after the Senate votes.

We need better, smarter Congress Critters cause the ones we have just aren't getting it.

HuffPost Writer: ‘Violent Resistance’ Needs to Be Organized for It to Work

via Free Beacon.

HuffPost writer Jesse Benn tweeted Wednesday that violent resistance must be organized to work.

The tweet came after a gunman opened fire on Republican lawmakers early Wednesday morning. The gunman shot five people: House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R., La.), two Capitol Police officers, a congressional aide, and a lobbyist. The hospital treating some of the victims released a statement that said Scalise was still in critical condition. The gunman was shot and taken to the hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

Benn wrote that violent resistance needed to be organized and that individual acts of resistance were "counterproductive/ineffective," but still understandable.

Story here. 

I usually laugh at most folks when they talk about a "modern" day civil war.  That's usually a thinly veiled appeal toward a race war and the thinking that they will stomp all opposition that crosses their path.

Yeah. Right!

But this.  This is starting to make me think that the "resistance" is really trying to kick something off.  Violent resistance needs to be organized and individual acts of resistance are counterproductive?

That's talk for either a military type formation or a terrorist cell.

A little sauce for the goose.  This is a "mainstream" writer for Huffington Post.  If this is what the "elite" in the movement are thinking then what's being said by the grungies behind closed doors?

Someone, somewhere better work hard to tamp down the temperature or else it could get nasty.

1-12 Cav Chargers, 3rd Brigade Combat Team (pics)...

U.S. Pacific Marines tested their marksmanship skills against 18 countries in the Australian Army Skills at Arms Meeting

These skills tests are becoming a bit annoying.

Why compete if the goal isn't to win but to build "jointness"?  If you want to simply call it a training evolution ok, but don't hold back cause you want to "encourage" the locals.

With that said why even have a base in Australia.  Why partner with them? We can do better and a base in North Australia is too far away to do much good.  Better to have a secure locale without the international headache by developing something in Alaska (which would offer the dual benefit of covering the Pacific and the Arctic...if the passage does open up we're gonna need Marines up there anyway!).

We need to rethink our base in Australia.  Does it make sense?  Is it too far away to actually be worthwhile?