#American Tactical

[ekat-fandom-blog]

Danny had no idea how Vortex had caused such a big commotion that it impacted the inhabitants of Atlantis, but he had. Now he had to attend a meeting with the King and Queen of Atlantis to apologise for the inconvenience.

Meanwhile, Arthur and Mera had heard from multiple sources that the being that caused so much destruction from above the ocean was from a place called The Infinite Realms and the one they were going to have a meeting with was the High King. They'd learned that the Infinite Realms was a parallel dimension full of ghosts.

What in the world could a monarch of an afterlife want from Atlantis?

[quotesfrommyreading]

Much of the public discussion of Ukraine reveals a tendency to patronize that country and others that escaped Russian rule. As Toomas Ilves, a former president of Estonia, acidly observed, “When I was at university in the mid-1970s, no one referred to Germany as ‘the former Third Reich.’ And yet today, more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we keep on being referred to as ‘former Soviet bloc countries.’” Tropes about Ukrainian corruption abound, not without reason—but one may also legitimately ask why so many members of Congress enter the House or Senate with modest means and leave as multimillionaires, or why the children of U.S. presidents make fortunes off foreign countries, or, for that matter, why building in New York City is so infernally expensive.

The latest, richest example of Western condescension came in a report by German military intelligence that complains that although the Ukrainians are good students in their training courses, they are not following Western doctrine and, worse, are promoting officers on the basis of combat experience rather than theoretical knowledge. Similar, if less cutting, views have leaked out of the Pentagon.

Criticism by the German military of any country’s combat performance may be taken with a grain of salt. After all, the Bundeswehr has not seen serious combat in nearly eight decades. In Afghanistan, Germany was notorious for having considerably fewer than 10 percent of its thousands of in-country troops outside the wire of its forward operating bases at any time. One might further observe that when, long ago, the German army did fight wars, it, too, tended to promote experienced and successful combat leaders, as wartime armies usually do.

American complaints about the pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and its failure to achieve rapid breakthroughs are similarly misplaced. The Ukrainians indeed received a diverse array of tanks and armored vehicles, but they have far less mine-clearing equipment than they need. They tried doing it our way—attempting to pierce dense Russian defenses and break out into open territory—and paid a price. After 10 days they decided to take a different approach, more careful and incremental, and better suited to their own capabilities (particularly their precision long-range weapons) and the challenge they faced. That is, by historical standards, fast adaptation. By contrast, the United States Army took a good four years to develop an operational approach to counterinsurgency in Iraq that yielded success in defeating the remnants of the Baathist regime and al-Qaeda-oriented terrorists.

A besetting sin of big militaries, particularly America’s, is to think that their way is either the best way or the only way. As a result of this assumption, the United States builds inferior, mirror-image militaries in smaller allies facing insurgency or external threat. These forces tend to fail because they are unsuited to their environment or simply lack the resources that the U.S. military possesses in plenty. The Vietnamese and, later, the Afghan armies are good examples of this tendency—and Washington’s postwar bad-mouthing of its slaughtered clients, rather than critical self-examination of what it set them up for, is reprehensible.

The Ukrainians are now fighting a slow, patient war in which they are dismantling Russian artillery, ammunition depots, and command posts without weapons such as American ATACMS and German Taurus missiles that would make this sensible approach faster and more effective. They know far more about fighting Russians than anyone in any Western military knows, and they are experiencing a combat environment that no Western military has encountered since World War II. Modesty, never an American strong suit, is in order.

  —  Western Diplomats Need to Stop Whining About Ukraine

[itsbansheebitch]

I Have an Idea, hear me out

So both Britain and France have used Tactical Voting in the past week, yeah? What if we did something similar?

I absolutely hate Biden, but what if (share your thoughts, this is just me putting an idea on the table) we voted en mass for Biden, for the sake of keeping Trump out?

THEN (because we DO need ACTUAL change) we vote for candidates that support SOME/ALL of the issues we support. Then pick the candidate out of your choices that is most likely to win.

The only way to fight back is to organize. Not only that, but supporting candidates that support out core issues (ie, Palestine) and putting pressure on candidates that don't (contacting reps, calling officials, social media, etc).

If we combine these two ideas (Biden + Left leaning locals) we can use a similar strategy that Britain and France did. Keep in mind, the far-right party in France (actual self proclaimed nazis) we predicted to win, but the left and center collaborated, which kick the far-right party to the back.

It IS NOT ideal, but I think strategy is the number one priority this election.

PLUS, when talking about this to friends, remember that when you vote, you voting for (or against) an administration. Talk about the BIG PICTURE and what people have actually done, not just said.

If this idea seems shitty, again, turning up the heat is always an option. I live in a college town and they are already ready to go. Multiple Pro-Palestine displays were in town and there was a small protest on campus. turning up the heat is always an option.

We don't HAVE to be happy about this, but we still have to vote. of course, if Biden ends up stepping down and someone takes his place, the plan would change to support whoever that person is.

This is mostly me spitballing, so feel free to share your thoughts below or add on to the idea.

[true-bluesargent]

i know the state of the democracies in the uk and in the us right now are terrible, but i can't even fathom being able to vote and NOT doing it. people fought and died for these rights! there are people all over the world right now who can't vote at all or who don't live in a free democracy! and people who have the right and the ability to vote who live in two of the most privileged countries in the world are going to let the opportunity pass? what is wrong with you all? i can't even believe it

[alwaysbewoke]

[nocternalrandomness]

"These are just a few of my favorite things"

[b-hell-patriotic]

[mqfx]

your only ch2 excerpt for the day i think bc the liege lord's busy on tuesdays

[suncattle]

I don't trust no fuckin body that doesn't question or criticize their own government

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

extensive knowledge of military vehicles, but only in the context of kaiju movies where they employ the worst tactics imaginable and get crushed like toys

[flockofdoves]

its so weird how so many people, even people on like. forums for people supposedly into names, will act like it cruel to give a child any name that isnt in the top 200 baby names for the US like having people occasionally mispronounce your kids name or remark that they've never heard of it before is the worst thing you could possibly do to them

and then some of them try to deflect against the obvious racism and xenophobia of their attitude by being like 'well of course its ok to name your kid something from your culture as long as its easy enough for the people around you to pronounce and spell' as if that makes it any better

like is being into names for you really just like . 'should i name my kid james or henry' lmao.

[shadow-riley]

I just found out that Tactical Hand Signals (like army or whatever) use some ASL and my deaf ass is happy <3

[mbat]

okay im so annoyed why am i remembering there being an episode of something most likely animated for kids where someone (a guy?) somehow learns a tactic to make people do whatever they want by like. if they ask someone to do something and that person says no, they then ask "okay, is there a world in which you do do that?" and somehow that makes people do that thing, until someone else calls them out for it because thats weird to do

i could swear its something i watched within the last 3 years but idk if that necessarily means its from that time, but probably

[aeide-thea]

i'm never knowingly going to reblog a post that includes the phrase 'touch grass,' and that's not because i don't think it can be psychologically beneficial to get in some outdoor time if possible—i went for a walk earlier! it was great!—or to take a break from conversations that are getting you wound up, but because i think that particular wording generally reveals two things:

first, that the writer is speaking not from a place of genuine concern and sympathy, but from judgmental impatience à la 'get therapy,' which—i too have felt judgmental and impatient in my time, god knows! but when i feel that way i try to go unpack those feelings in private with a thoughtful friend, instead of pretending they constitute a source of wisdom or a helpful sort of energy to direct at people, you know? and i'm definitely not particularly interested in boosting a ventpost from someone else—who pretty clearly hasn't bothered to take the breather they're urging on others, if they're making little digs like that—as if it were actually sincere, carefully-reasoned advice.

and second, that the writer's argument embraces some seriously sloppy assumptions, which pretty immediately undermines my trust in the rest of their analysis—i mean, there's absolutely no guarantee someone's local scene will be any less parochial, just because it's playing out irl! there's also not actually a clean divide between 'people who spend time in the Real World' and 'people who spend time on the internet, which is for porn losers,' as demonstrated by a number of phenomena including, again, the aforementioned grass-recommenders' own presence right here on tumblr…

anyway. obviously we all have our own particular lines we draw around particular rhetoric that bugs us! these are just some reasons why that particular phrasing bugs me.

[nocternalrandomness]

A member of the Kentucky ANG 123rd Special Tactics Squadron jumping at the Louisville Airshow

[b-hell-patriotic]