Monday, January 24, 2022

China appears to be ramping up penetrations of Taiwan's airspace.

Mali demands Denmark withdraw its Special Forces

So much for winning hearts and minds. I wonder what this is all about. Need Special Ops if you're fighting an active insurgency.

F-35 mishap at sea...7 Sailors injured, Pilot ejected...

 

Warning to my readers on the Ukraine crisis...

 Just a note of warning to my readers.

When you have as many troops, ships and aircraft operating in relatively close proximity to "threat" forces things can go sideways quick.

Think about it.

All it takes is one glory seeking Company Commander operating on the border to start a fire fight that could escalate.

One fighter pilot digging his fangs into the floor board of his jet and takes a seemingly provocative move by the threat to start a furball.

At sea all it takes is a navigation error mixed with bravado on one or both sides and we could see weapons free.

The moves by NATO nations are in response to Russian actions but they're still riddled with risk.

One mistake.  One hot head.  One person on either side having a really bad day or suffering an "oh shit" moment could kick this thing off in a way no one is expecting.

France, Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands deploy additional ships and aircraft to the Baltics and Eastern Europe amid tensions with Russia.

 

UAE Air Defenses are engaging multiple targets



Open Comment Post. 24 Jan 2022

Two of Algeria's locally developed Yabhon united 40 drone, renamed as "Algeria 54" and "Algeria 55"

 

via Warplanes Reditt

Sunday, January 23, 2022

War Drums Are Beating...Biden Weighs Deploying Thousands of Troops to Eastern Europe and Baltics

 via NY Times

President Biden is considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials.

The move would signal a major pivot for the Biden administration, which up until recently was taking a restrained stance on Ukraine, out of fear of provoking Russia into invading. But as President Vladimir V. Putin has ramped up his threatening actions toward Ukraine, and talks between American and Russian officials have failed to discourage him, the administration is now moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy.

In a meeting on Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Mr. Biden with several options that would shift American military assets much closer to Mr. Putin’s doorstep, the administration officials said. The options include sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate.

Here 

If they pick the high end and deploy 5K troops and increase it tenfold that means we're looking at a freaking Corps going back to Europe.

So much for the pivot.

This is crazy.

The pivot to the Pacific will at least get half hearted attention if the European allies start crying.  Additionally that will take anticipated help (especially the British and I believe the Italians and French) off the table.  They'll be more concerned with what's going on in their own backyard rather than worry about happenings half a world away.

The Army's modernization is saved, the big Navy plus up will be delayed (probably not a bad thing...I don't think they have any idea how to deal with the Chinese Navy) and the Marine Corps moves to the back burner because the action is in Europe.

I don't know if Putin anticipated this move but if he did and he's cooperating with China then we're screwed.

We can't defend the entire free world at this moment. Something has got to give.  

AND THAT IS THE PROBLEM!

At the end of the day we're just going to have to prioritize. That means someone will be left on a short limb with either Russia or China trying to wood chip the whole tree.

Someone's about to have a very bad day!