Dougie93

That is why Ivan has to go underwater up the Potomac, as how else is he going to slip past SBIRS?

Most people are philistines. Maybe the RDS-220 was bigger in terms of yield, but the grainy Soviet footage didn't do it justice, whereas through the power of Hollywood caliber film making, Castle Bravo is one of the most terrifying yet beautiful things I've ever seen.

I like the idea of popping another Castle Bravo in the South Pacific, that is the only thing that got the public's attention, and when that went underground they went back to sleep again.

Just look what they are doing to Vice-Admiral Norman, the Liberal Party of Canada is literally trying to destroy him, just for doing his job and trying to save the RCN. That's what happens if you, if try to defy Liberal Party of Canada disarmament by stealth.

But like I say, I don't do utopian policy making. We are where we are, 15 minutes notice to launch, that is not the time to consult the NDP as to what to do about it. I also think it would be a political win for the Americans to say that they don't do countervalue anymore, they're not going to target population centers because that would be pointless destruction for its own sake, and instead they are going to deploy a much more formidable, and as a result credible, super counterforce only deterrent.

And I support that, because on this I am with the Neocons, and in fact, MAD is derp, utopian policy making. That being said, no half measures, inciting an escalation and then not following through is worst of both worlds, if you're going counterforce, go all the way, because once you start down the path, you need to be able to back it up, to the brink.

It doesn't matter what you say the purpose of something is, a counterforce option is a counterforce option, and they know it when they see it. You can tell the Russians not to deploy INF's cause the Aegis Ashore in Poland and Romania can load nuclear TLAM's "but they aren't loaded right naow", but pretty sure that's not going to convince them.

Somebody forgot to tell the Pentagon, because they are still building a counterforce option, slowly but surely, by default.

So Canada doesn't have the leadership to field a basically capable and functioning military, which is the underpinning of everything in terms of being a sovereign Westphalian State, but you expect me to have undying allegiance to this?

Oh I know, it's a confluence of technological and economic displacements wherein the Russians keep falling further and further behind, but because asymmetry in the Balance of Terror can cause irrational responses, ill thought out maneuvers, and reckless gambits, what the main purpose of anything is irrelevant to unintended consequences. For example the Soviets were gaga for Castro, they viewed him as a romantic figure, a young turk to breathe live into the World Socialist Revolution, so they got caught up in that and irrationally felt like they needed to defend him. Then they figured they could put missiles in Cuba and America would just get over it, missiles in Turkey, missiles in Cuba, quid pro quo. But that's not how America reacted, America reacted to "Nuclear Pearl Harbour". . . . . . and then you're away to the races and where is goes nobody knows and once the ball is rolling it's hard to stop.

Loyalty to DND? No way, no loyalty to DND me, any service member who is loyal to DND is suffering from abused wife syndrome. In terms of loyalty to the regiment, trust me, I wish I could save it, but the only way to save it would be to give it to someone else who would actually care for it. Quite sure the Australian defence department would treat the RCR way better than DND does. Have you seen the Aussies lately? RAR's kit is better than CANSOFCOM's

Case in point, you could get out of the Canadian Army and join the Australian Army and your still serving the same Soveriegn, Head of State and Commander-in-Chief. It's not my fault Canadians think they live in a republic. /shrugs

I'm terms of peacenik, I'm no peacenik, but Canada as a country is, I didn't want to get rid of our warfighting capability, they did. In terms of my chain of loyalty, well, VRI says it all. Victoria is my Queen and Empress, through her heirs and successors, Pro Patria is to the Crown at Buckingham Palace, where the Commander-in-Chief is, there is no particular requirement to be loyal to Canadian Confederation in the Commonwealth.

But nobody except the Russians and the USA are likely to incite a strategic exchange on a grand scale, so I tend to pay attention to them. If India and Pakistan blow each other up, that's actually quite survivable for civilization as we know it. Assuming it didn't escalate laterally into a vortex.

I mean, if you combine Big Data to find dispersed and concealed targets by probability to narrow their locations down, with Prompt Global Strike, Aegis Ashore with TLAM option, and comprehensive BMD? That's a counterforce force, there is no other reason to have that except in support of a counterforce, and that is what set the Russians off in the first place.

But those MIRV's are legacy platforms, technology is not static, the whole concept of Prompt Global Strike is ICBM quick response with PGM accuracy, they haven't even started building the next generation of MIRV's yet, but at some point they will on the current Cold War 2.0 trajectory.

Could not engage, there was only 200,000 troops in the British Army and most of them were for India and the Far East.

But only a strategic exchange is a existential threat, and only a countervalue strategic exchange is end of civilization, so while less likely, that remains the primary threat. Not even in a deliberate sense, but in the sense that they climb the escalatory ladder again and get themselves wrapped up in a pretzel at the brink, and then somebody makes a mistake, which at hair trigger alert, could be difficult to un ring that bell once rung.

The breaking point for me was the Somalia Inquiry, I didn't serve in the Airborne and I understood the problems there, but that wasn't the point, the point was they blamed everything on the lowest ranks and then when it came time to examine the negligence of the chain of command, they promptly shut it down. So they throw you under the bus to save their careers was the message to me. Again, message received.

I was gung ho when I joined the army, but by the end of the 90's I wasn't gung ho anymore, because they had basically dismantled the army all around me and gutted the logistics tail. Message to me from the Canadian people being; "we don't care about our army, we don't want an army". Message received, don't come crying to me now.

And to the larger point, if Canada cannot tolerate the loss of 152 KIA, which was kind of the case, then what kind of wars can we even fight anymore? Because 152 KIA in 12 years is light casualties by any military measure. This is why I don't want to spend $20+ billion for a supposed warfighting army, and instead go to an armed constabulary formalized, because that's what we got now anyways, just with some really expensive kit sprinkled around here and there.

Well I'm not trying to sell you anything, I don't care what others say about it on the internet, I just have my view of it, but I can't say that a KIA is devastating, devastating to me is like losing your wife, or a child, losing a troop is the price of doing business, that's the job, that's what we signed up for, with eyes wide open hand on bible in front of the Queen.

No need to apologize, I'm not upset, I just don't understand what it is you want me to say.

Never said you didn't, so why do you keep going on about it? I gave you my experience of it, what do you want?

The personalities of the regiments was perfectly expressed by their sub units detached as Commandos to the Airborne Regiment. You go into the RCR 3 Cdo shacks, and they were all packing and repacking their kit and polishing their boots. You go into the R22eR Premiere Cdo Shacks, and they were all eating popcorn while watching Beverly Hills 90210 in French. Then you go to the PPCLI 2 Cdo shacks, and its like jail, broken beer bottles piled up in the garbage cans and the sound of weights crashing in the gym.