'We will not hesitate to defend ourselves': US military refuses to be threatened by Russians (regular, independent)
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I get this error. Those of us old enough to remember the Cold War occasionally do this by accident. I have done it, back then the Soviet Union seemed like a permanent threat. The end of the USSR was very shocking when it happened
I'll bet it shocked Putin, too. But deep in his heart (or maybe, not so deep), he's still a Soviet.
The US constitutions states that only the congress can declare war.
During the Cold War, we started allowing the president more authority that he was ever meant to have, meaning the president can essentially declare war. See Syria as an example; Trump authorized 50+ missiles to be fired at Syria based on Assad's treatment of his people. Read that as "based on something Assad did that has nothing to do with us."
Now, Trump can kind of get away with this since Syria isn't going to retaliate against us directly. How could he? Even when not in a civil war, Syria couldn't afford a war with the United States. So, Trump gets a pass in bombing a foreign state for essentially no reason. But had he done that to China? I mean, use your brain. Even if not open warfare, Americans would die at the hands of China.
So the question remains; should Trump have been allowed to do this based on US law? I'd argue that answer is no. If we still respected the constitution, Trump would have been impeached for that. It should be viewed as an overreach of executive power for the president to authorize a military strike or occupation that is not done purely in the name of retaliation or defense of an imminent attack (to which evidence would need to be provided by the Executive office to congress in order to justify the attack; failure to do so should result in impeachment. Period).
A. Presidents have exerted existing military forces without explicit Congressional authorization since Thomas Jefferson.
B. The War Power Act gives overt Congressional authorization to any military action the president can execute with standing forces and wrap up in 90 days. Otherwise, he has to inform the Congress officially of his actions at the 90 day point...and let them dither about it.
C. Presidents have never agreed that the War Powers Act was constitutional, but since it doesn't effectively tie their hands, they've not challenged it yet to the Supreme Court.
This sort of stuff has been going on since the '50s, nothing new at all.
Five feet is practically a mid-air collision, and probably looked a lot like one about to happen to the RC crew. The article doesn't say it, but I suspect it cut the RC's mission short.
That is a rather big deal. It's essentially an attack.
It also points out that Russian "retaliation" may not and need not occur in the same theater as the provocation.
I'd also point out that US fighters would consider a target radar lock-on to be the same thing as an actual missile release.
Hmmm. Could this be the beginning of a viable threat to US air superiority? Will the Russians just count on SAMs and play the surface to air card of will they actually put up their MiGs and Sukhois? Are they ready to actually test their MiG 31s out against our F18s,15s and 16s? The MiG 29 has been up against US aircraft before in hands other than the Russians. I'll have to check and see if we have any F22s in the region.
In air to air engagement the Russians have been a tad behind the US for a while now.Oh, still a serious threat, but a bit behind. They have upgrade their missile technology quite a bit, but so have we. Our pilots haven't had to worry about air superiority combat for a while, with missions being primarily in attack/CAS roles. If the Russians put up their MiGs and Sukhois things could get pretty interesting. Let's see the top of the line Russian birds would be their MiG 29s and upgraded versions, the MiG 31, and the Sukhoi 25s and 27s? I believe? Feel free to correct me if I am in error. Their MiG 35 is further out than our F35 with only two in testing phase.
It would behoove us to have some F22s ready should the airspace become contested in an air to air fight. Wow, how long has it been since we've sweated air to air combat in the ME? I'm sure our pilots are ready, but probably not chomping at the bit thinking about dodging SAMs from Russian manned sites. I'm thinking our pilots are better than the Russians and the Russians are not known for underestimating threats. They don't like going one on one in any combat scenario. Their tactics favor putting up superior numbers. As things stand it looks like we can get more planes in the air than they can, both land and carrier based.
The Russians may have the upper hand in Surface to Air. Not sure about that. The Navy and Air Force are no doubt on high alert/ threat condition. If we're going to poke the Bear we'll probably probe with drones to see what kind of response comes up. That would be prudent, but also expected. The Russians may hold back on drones so as not to tip their hand to much. Coming in with a squadron of f18s down lower with F22s covering them would probably have the Russians thinking things over before actually engaging. The F18s hunting SAM sites with the F22s holding out for airborne response would be a ....formibable...probe.
That would certainly be poking the Bear. It's a situation to watch. The Russians may send out probes of their own to test out our fleet defenses. Toss a Few TU 22s/25s out and see how we react. Or maybe just MiGs. Possibilities abound....
For the US Air Force, the air combat generals will have a "go big or go home" attitude. That means, they'll want to do all they can do to achieve air supremacy, including active Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD)--targeting airfields, targeting missile sites, et cetera. They're not going to be in favor of a pure fighter v fighter war because that's not the way the US Air Force is designed to operate.
POTUS has given the military the OK to do what they want. He said it in his first days in office. I can see a war to try and raise POTUS poll numbers, Reagan did it, Bush II did it. All the while the Corp. taking all our tax dollars are looking for tax cuts. Yup the GOP and POTUS perfect together
You conveniently ignored that it was Obama who got us involved there in the first place.
Given what you have stated, then Obama should have been impeached. Now that we are mired down there, Trump is doing what's needed to end it.
I didn't ignore it. I didn't bring it up because it's irrelevant. You know how Obama always complained about cleaning up Bush's mess and how Trump is always complaining about cleaning up Obama's mess. Yeah, that's the job.
It's about the office, not the person holding it. Syria is not Trump's problem, regardless of who started it. And he is not ending it, not within the constitutional framework. What he should do is pull all troops out of Syria. If he really wants to stay, he should ask congress for a declaration of war, which won't happen, since declaring war on Syria is almost like siding with ISIS. Obviously, it's not that, but there are media outlets and opponents who will spin it like that. So the lesson here is that we shouldn't be in Syria and bombing them for basically no reason is not going to get us out of Syria faster.
I didn't ignore it. I didn't bring it up because it's irrelevant. You know how Obama always complained about cleaning up Bush's mess and how Trump is always complaining about cleaning up Obama's mess. Yeah, that's the job.
It's about the office, not the person holding it. Syria is not Trump's problem, regardless of who started it. And he is not ending it, not within the constitutional framework. What he should do is pull all troops out of Syria. If he really wants to stay, he should ask congress for a declaration of war, which won't happen, since declaring war on Syria is almost like siding with ISIS. Obviously, it's not that, but there are media outlets and opponents who will spin it like that. So the lesson here is that we shouldn't be in Syria and bombing them for basically no reason is not going to get us out of Syria faster.
He doesn't need to have war declared. At this point in history, I don't know why people even bringing that up--as though it's ever stopped a president since Thomas Jefferson...who had those who wrote the Constitution right at hand as he deployed US military forces into combat without a declaration of war.
But Trump certainly ought to explain his own reasons for staying in Syria instead of immediately pulling forces out.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WaldoKitty
You conveniently ignored that it was Obama who got us involved there in the first place.
Given what you have stated, then Obama should have been impeached. Now that we are mired down there, Trump is doing what's needed to end it.
As you conveniently ignore Trump has had 5 months to get us uninvolved and done nothing to start that process. Mae up your mind, Obama either did the right thing or the wrong thing that Trump is prolonging. Which is it?
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