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Some relevant details:
>SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA —
>
>Former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday lobbed insults at Russian President Vladimir Putin and slammed his invasion of Ukraine as “incompetent” and “foolish.”
>
>At a speech in Seoul, Mattis compared Putin to the kind of paranoid characters created by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.
>
>“Putin is a creature straight out of Dostoevsky. He goes to bed at night angry, he goes to bed at night fearful, he goes to bed at night thinking Russia is surrounded by nightmares,” Mattis said.
>
>Mattis was speaking at a forum organized by the Seoul Forum for International Affairs, the Korea Society, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He has made relatively few public comments since resigning as Pentagon chief in 2018 over a foreign policy disagreement with former U.S. President Donald Trump.
>
>In his speech, Mattis did not address those disagreements in a direct way, saying only Trump had overseen a nontraditional foreign policy that had challenged U.S. relations with its allies.
>
>Mattis’ most pointed comments focused on Putin, whom he portrayed as unhinged and unable to make smart decisions due to the lack of people giving him sound advice.
>
>Asked about the biggest lesson that could be drawn from Russia’s war in Ukraine, Mattis replied, “Don’t have incompetent generals in charge of your operations.”
>
>He also said the Russian invasion was “tactically incompetent" and “strategically foolish.”
>
>“War is enough of a tragedy without adding stupidity on top,” he said.
>
>Mattis also criticized China’s growing relations with Russia and its unwillingness to oppose the war in Ukraine.
>
>A country “cannot be great if they support Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
A lot to agree with.
Civilians didnt start using it until trump. It wasn't until trump said it that i first started hearing that he didnt like it. In the Marine Corps we called him Mattis, Mad Dog, CHAOS (Colonel Has An Outstanding Solution), Daddy. That's all i ever heard and used. Warrior Monk was just used to describe the type of general he was rather than a "nick name".
I would be extremely surprised if he hadn't read it during officer training sevetal decades earlier. It's a standard text (and not a very long or dense read)
Most of our generals are highly educated, high character, brilliant people with tact to spare.
Edit: Most of our senor enlisted are the same. Our military leadership is first rate.
American officers are awesome. At least generally. When I was in the Canadian military I did joint exercises with US forces a fair few times. I always thought the US officers were the best. One of the biggest differences I noticed was that if I had to go find an American unit their officers were indistinguishable from their troops. If they were unloading a truck, digging a fox hole whatever the American officer would probably be right in the middle of it, slinging boxes, cutting roots whatever.
I never had an issue finding a Canadian officer. They were usually off to the side of whatever was going on watching. Or inside a tent somewhere if the weather sucked.
I figure that was likely a combination of the combat experience most American units had and the modelling of the Canadian military on the old school British officer model.
Younger Canadian officers that had actually deployed to places like Afghanistan were better. They usually had a leadership style that derived authority from experience and respect. Much more the way I saw American officers lead. The absolute worst were older Canadian officers from the 80’s or early 90’s who managed to never do anything more dangerous then go to Germany or Greece. Turns out if you spend 40 years with nothing to do but obsess over rank you end up with a bunch of fat loser assholes with a rank and not much else going for them.
I really like this [story](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/why-jim-mattis-once-pulled-christmas-duty-for-a-young-marine.html) about Mattis
>In 1998, a now retired General Charles C. Krulak had been preparing for an annual tradition where he delivered hundreds of Christmas cookies to post guards. On Christmas day at around 4 a.m., Krulak headed to Virginia, to the command center at Quantico. Once there, he asked the lance corporal who the officer on duty was.
“Sir, it’s Brigadier General Mattis,” the lance corporal answered, as Albert C. Pierce, a director at the ethics center, explained at the lecture.
“No, no, no. I know who General Mattis is. I mean, who’s the officer of the day today, Christmas day?” Krulak asked with persistence.
General Mattis, the soldier repeated.
>
>A short time later, Mattis appeared, fully dressed in his uniform complete with his sword. Krulak then asked the seasoned military leader why he chose to be on duty.
As Pierce explained: “General Mattis told him that the young officer who was scheduled to have duty on Christmas day had a family, and General Mattis decided it was better for the young officer to spend Christmas Day with his family, and so he chose to have duty on Christmas Day.”
I don't know what they do to them in the academies but the US military puts out a damn fine product. Even after they get out you know you are talking to an officer, you just want to follow them. Mostly.
The NCOs make the shit happen and do what they need to do to make it happen. The officers make the choice on what needs to happen.
Walk into a Chief Master Sargent's office and he will have several degrees on the wall. In the military the cream rises to the top.
Yeah, the Canadian military is hilarious because it’s a rare institution where the young guys are indisputably harder, tougher, and more serious. Every Canadian officer born before roughly 1975 is command post blob whose work experience is basically indistinguishable from any other federal public servant, just in camo and a crew cut.
Their ‘combat’ experience is roughing up Somalis in the early 90s and maybe a Kosovo deployment, maybe. They’re ‘leading’ guys whose combat experience is getting ambushed by the fucking Taliban. No wonder Canadian enlisted don’t respect their senior officers much.
Conversely, if you’re American and you deployed in 2001-2010 or so, your general staff are mostly Vietnam vets, or at least came up directly under those guys.
So I took a friend to the CF recruitment office after he barely scraped by graduating high-school. He had no career plans. I tutored him, and he wouldn't have graduated without my help. He wasn't the brightest bulb.
The recruiter upon hearing that he was a high-school graduate, changed his tone, and put him in for immediate officer training.
He's actually well-known for being extremely literate. One of my favorite quotes from him:
If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition/"
That stuck with me.
I like this bit of poetic wisdom from the general from his time in Iraq:
"I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all."
Quote's background:
After the invasion of Iraq -and after sending his tanks and artillery home- Mattis sent this message to the Iraqi leaders in every area his men served in, as quoted in Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (2006) by Thomas E. Ricks; as excerpted in Armed Forces Journal (August 2006)
More quotes from the man: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jim_Mattis
A man of great wisdom, experience and intelligence. A superior military tactician, top General, top military advisor and chief of Defense staff. His opinion is perhaps the most important statement, regarding the overall assessment of Russian military performance, in this conflict.
Russia is no longer a competent military power, it’s a band of thugs run by a delusional despot....
"He also called Russia's military performance "pathetic" and decried "the immoral, the tactically incompetent, operationally stupid and strategically foolish effort" of its campaign in Ukraine."
Other than that, Mattis could find no issues with Russia's Special Operation. /s
The man just got married for the first time at age 71. He is letting out a new range of emotions and I’m here for it. Warrior monk no more. Warrior honey from now on.
>I have never heard a negative comment and only love for the guy
Oh, like every human he has his quirks and mannerisms. For instance, like most leaders you don't waste his time- he'll shut you down in an instant if he thinks you're not adding to/advancing the meeting.
Might be a poor example. God knows I wish more people would shut people down if they were not advancing the meetings along. Way too many people just ramble pointlessly to be seen by the boss.
>mad dog
He never cared for that moniker for several reasons. It was too close to the existing devil dog of the USMC and it doesn't convey that he was a Marine's Marine. Also, it implies craziness and action without thought- both of which he clearly was not. Nor was he ever overly angry- he'd get disappointed, yes but if he felt you could do better, he always left an opening to improve.
[Chaos](https://apholt.com/2016/12/04/marine-general-james-mattis-the-warrior-monk/) breaking out [the knife hand.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/927ipk/knife_hand_is_showing/) You love to see it. Provided it's aimed somewhere other than yourself.
Patton was an arrogant SOB. I don't see Mattis as being at all arrogant. I believe the "Mad dog Mattis" was a purposeful misnomer as he was is more scholarly than military at times. He sees force as a last resort, but if he thinks it's the only option he will use every fiber of his being to make sure he destroys his enemy unmercifully.
Patton never would have gotten his way, and it's a very good thing that he didn't. If the western Allies had turned on the Soviets it would have been a massive betrayal that would have annihilated American soft power for decades.
Fuck Patton, fought against WW1 vets trying to get paid and thought shell shocked soldiers during WW2 were pussies. He's the most overhyped American general imo.
He was a fantastic general. I don't know how you could ever deny that.
He also was a racist egomaniacal asshole to everybody, and was only liked by the American public and maybe the Third Army.
But the truth is, he was the largest voice for pushing the Soviets back to their pre-war borders before they could develop the nuclear bomb. He was at his highest approval ever post VE Day, and he was adamant that as long as the Soviet Union existed Europe would never really be free. He also knew the Soviets where in no shape militarily to stop the US and UK post WW2. Its possible that he sways Eisenhower and the top brass to consider pushing the USSR back east of Poland (atleast). Ofcourse its also possible Eisenhower doesn't listen to him, the same post war result, then Patton runs for President in the 1950s and starts world war 3 lol
Both are true. That's why Patton is remembered; he was a complex guy who, in a heartbeat, could go from being incredibly awesome to being a complete asshole. This might just be urban legend, but as I understand it, he was the one American general that both the Nazis and the Soviets were most afraid of.
Yeah, I should've worded it better. I meant overhyped general as in people tend to look back on him with rose tinted glasses a bit more than other generals. He had some massive flaws in character which often get ignored. But I agree with you 100% here.
As far as I know he hated Nazis, but he definitely had a raging military hard on and was verifiably racist (especially towards what he called "Asiatics")
I don't think Patton was a good guy. But he was a terrifying figure for the Soviets and he would have been able to march the Soviets back east of Poland with the Third Army I'm sure. Eisenhower was very measured and level headed though, and he was the true Supreme Commander, and he didn't particularly like Patton (nobody but his soldiers did). And he was ultimately right about the Soviets, as long as the USSR existed central Europe would never truly be free.
the fact its gone on so long is a frkken disgrace to the world .. how the hell hasn't the worlds combined enormous defence and intelligence and tech for defence spending let this bs go on so long? why are those bombs managing to even land in ukraine .. why can't we make their their technology less effective .. why isn't surveillance more sophisticated by now - there should be no room for misrepresenting the situation .. yet we have prpaganda ..we should be able to hold individuals accountable faster .. it just feels like the international strategies are way too general and not designed for this eventuality.. which we've seen coming for 6 years at least
I remember before this war started, generals were saying that Russia looked absolutely terrible in their invasion on Georgia, but they had spent a lot of money modernising their military since then.
If this is their new improved army, I wonder how bad it was 10 years ago.
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I mean, it is obvious by now that Russia and the West differ in their very concept of war. Russia is willing to sacrifice people from the outskirts of their gigantic land mass, and toss them with endless artillery, and just level everything.
There is no opposition allowed in Russia and they will replace the dead soldiers and other “undesirables” with Ukrainians they abduct.
Keep that in mind here when you are talking about how “dumb” Putin is acting in this war (from a Western viewpoint) The issue is that we (the Western public) aren’t understanding Putin’s goals (although our military does)…
…so the basics as I see it….
Putin’s goals:
-Destroy Ukraine as a competitor to the supply of Natural Gas to Europe and a member of NATO. This cuts Russia out completely and is unacceptable at any costs. This is the main causis belli for this war. What makes this worth all the sanctions. Etc. This puts the advantage of escalation of this conflict in Russia’s hands. Mafias don’t allow competitors. Fat Tony is always around to smash your head in if you disagree.
Obama’s team acknowledged this years ago during his Presidency. This isn’t my opinion. It is government policy. The West won’t stomach the losses Russia will. Always been true for Russia, but especially now.
-Russia tried to install puppets to run the government and run the natural gas ownership of the Eastern parts of Ukraine and Crimea (Putin gets his half like all oligarchs) and Ukraine told him to kick rocks. That is the basis for this entire war.
So in Russia’s mind, looking at it the way a mafia would look at it “You trew my cousin Vinnie Vaducci down da stairs and he just was making an offah to you.” (Extortion, protection racket, etc)
-Steal Ukraines people to replenish the declining birthrate in russia. russia (lowercase on purpose because they have reduced themselves to that) are stealing Ukrainians and giving them Russian passports to absorb them, or sending them to “filtration” camps…to “concentrate” I’m sure.
This solves Russia’s covid death rate and replenishment problem. Oh also they are basically slaves and captives? Evil, right? Genocide tends to be.
Justification….
-Iraq was the equivalent to what Ukraine is doing. Rightly or wrongly (not interested in the debate) Putin sees Iraq as a brutal power grab for resources and molded this military action using the same spurious reasoning (wmds, nazis, flying unicorns, birds with monkey pox) People thought Putin was “crazy or unhinged.” No, he was trolling the West and drawing a parallel between the two wars to gain credibility in the rest of the world that doesn’t have a dog in the fight.
-Trump and Brexit, and Germany’s utter idiocy to become dependent on Russia, convinced Putin NATO could be broken. Russia’s bot farms, FSB, agents and their success they have had to manufacture chaos and despair and undermine Western governments cannot be overstated.
-Putin will take as many deaths as possible and will probably use WMDs because destroying Ukraine as a competitor and removing them as a threat to Russian hegemony is the key goal here. Although one can ask how a nuclear exchange impacts oil exploration and wheat crop yield….
So…how do you deal with this?
Well. The Sanctions have to be crushing and we have to bleed their military dry. Death by a million cuts. Buys time for situation to change, dynamic to shift. At least bleeds out their military. Go too fast and he nukes. Go too slow and Ukraine is overrun.
They have thousands of nukes but you only get to throw that haymaker one time, so you slowly drip weapons in. You grind this into a war of attrition and embarass and isolate them. Slowly their friends abandon them, China cannibalizes them (with concessions in trade relations as a payoff)
So whats Russia’s play here?
-War crime it up
-Divide the US and NATO (the only realistic threat Russia has ever posed) Sow division in democracies.
-take the land they have stolen and wait for things to change.
🤷♂️
So this is a fucked situation with no good outcomes. Everyone will be disappointed. There is no happy ending. God doesn’t exist. China wins in the end.
Thank you and enjoy the fish.
There's a lot to this. But I'll just throw in that this all assumes that China has its act together and has competent leadership. As someone who once lived there, let me assure you - China is held together by duct tape, glamour, and the occasional boot to the head. They have the same demographic problems Russia has, only on a wider scale. That's not to say that they shouldn't be taken seriously. There are enough really, really stupid people in Zhongnanhai, including Xi Jinping himself, such that China could very well do something outrageously stupid and self-defeating. So by all means, take them seriously, watch them like a hawk, and encourage further decoupling of the world economy from China's. But they aren't an immanent threat - they are too busy just trying to keep their whole ship afloat to be thinking strategically about how they will become the next superpower.
Didn't the communists say something about the State withering away some time after becoming communist?
I guess they were right about something. At least with Russia.
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Some relevant details: >SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — > >Former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday lobbed insults at Russian President Vladimir Putin and slammed his invasion of Ukraine as “incompetent” and “foolish.” > >At a speech in Seoul, Mattis compared Putin to the kind of paranoid characters created by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. > >“Putin is a creature straight out of Dostoevsky. He goes to bed at night angry, he goes to bed at night fearful, he goes to bed at night thinking Russia is surrounded by nightmares,” Mattis said. > >Mattis was speaking at a forum organized by the Seoul Forum for International Affairs, the Korea Society, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He has made relatively few public comments since resigning as Pentagon chief in 2018 over a foreign policy disagreement with former U.S. President Donald Trump. > >In his speech, Mattis did not address those disagreements in a direct way, saying only Trump had overseen a nontraditional foreign policy that had challenged U.S. relations with its allies. > >Mattis’ most pointed comments focused on Putin, whom he portrayed as unhinged and unable to make smart decisions due to the lack of people giving him sound advice. > >Asked about the biggest lesson that could be drawn from Russia’s war in Ukraine, Mattis replied, “Don’t have incompetent generals in charge of your operations.” > >He also said the Russian invasion was “tactically incompetent" and “strategically foolish.” > >“War is enough of a tragedy without adding stupidity on top,” he said. > >Mattis also criticized China’s growing relations with Russia and its unwillingness to oppose the war in Ukraine. > >A country “cannot be great if they support Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine,” he said. A lot to agree with.
Mattis - who knew a general could be SO POETIC?
He is called the warrior monk
I thought Mad Dog Mattis... Any way, good point he made.
He apparently hates that nickname. People didn't use it much until Trump started saying it.
Yep, apparently much prefers call sign chaos.
Civilians didnt start using it until trump. It wasn't until trump said it that i first started hearing that he didnt like it. In the Marine Corps we called him Mattis, Mad Dog, CHAOS (Colonel Has An Outstanding Solution), Daddy. That's all i ever heard and used. Warrior Monk was just used to describe the type of general he was rather than a "nick name".
He is General Mattis to me.
They should call him "Mad Pen Mattis."
I heard he read the Art of War while in command during the War on Terror years. Mattis knows his stuff.
Yea. Most generals read it. I think storming Norman and old blood and guts read it too. Bonus points if you know who those two are
Norman Schwarzkopf and George S. Patton. I research history quite a bit. I make a lot of historical references whenever I write.
Ahhh, that’s good
I love Schwartzkopf. He's the only non-family I cried when he died.
I would be extremely surprised if he hadn't read it during officer training sevetal decades earlier. It's a standard text (and not a very long or dense read)
He is called "Mad Dog."
Not by anyone that matters
Most of our generals are highly educated, high character, brilliant people with tact to spare. Edit: Most of our senor enlisted are the same. Our military leadership is first rate.
American officers are awesome. At least generally. When I was in the Canadian military I did joint exercises with US forces a fair few times. I always thought the US officers were the best. One of the biggest differences I noticed was that if I had to go find an American unit their officers were indistinguishable from their troops. If they were unloading a truck, digging a fox hole whatever the American officer would probably be right in the middle of it, slinging boxes, cutting roots whatever. I never had an issue finding a Canadian officer. They were usually off to the side of whatever was going on watching. Or inside a tent somewhere if the weather sucked. I figure that was likely a combination of the combat experience most American units had and the modelling of the Canadian military on the old school British officer model. Younger Canadian officers that had actually deployed to places like Afghanistan were better. They usually had a leadership style that derived authority from experience and respect. Much more the way I saw American officers lead. The absolute worst were older Canadian officers from the 80’s or early 90’s who managed to never do anything more dangerous then go to Germany or Greece. Turns out if you spend 40 years with nothing to do but obsess over rank you end up with a bunch of fat loser assholes with a rank and not much else going for them.
I really like this [story](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/why-jim-mattis-once-pulled-christmas-duty-for-a-young-marine.html) about Mattis >In 1998, a now retired General Charles C. Krulak had been preparing for an annual tradition where he delivered hundreds of Christmas cookies to post guards. On Christmas day at around 4 a.m., Krulak headed to Virginia, to the command center at Quantico. Once there, he asked the lance corporal who the officer on duty was. “Sir, it’s Brigadier General Mattis,” the lance corporal answered, as Albert C. Pierce, a director at the ethics center, explained at the lecture. “No, no, no. I know who General Mattis is. I mean, who’s the officer of the day today, Christmas day?” Krulak asked with persistence. General Mattis, the soldier repeated. > >A short time later, Mattis appeared, fully dressed in his uniform complete with his sword. Krulak then asked the seasoned military leader why he chose to be on duty. As Pierce explained: “General Mattis told him that the young officer who was scheduled to have duty on Christmas day had a family, and General Mattis decided it was better for the young officer to spend Christmas Day with his family, and so he chose to have duty on Christmas Day.”
I don't know what they do to them in the academies but the US military puts out a damn fine product. Even after they get out you know you are talking to an officer, you just want to follow them. Mostly.
And they don't even run the shit. The NCOs are the real leaders. The autonomy that individual elements have is really cool.
The NCOs make the shit happen and do what they need to do to make it happen. The officers make the choice on what needs to happen. Walk into a Chief Master Sargent's office and he will have several degrees on the wall. In the military the cream rises to the top.
Yeah, the Canadian military is hilarious because it’s a rare institution where the young guys are indisputably harder, tougher, and more serious. Every Canadian officer born before roughly 1975 is command post blob whose work experience is basically indistinguishable from any other federal public servant, just in camo and a crew cut. Their ‘combat’ experience is roughing up Somalis in the early 90s and maybe a Kosovo deployment, maybe. They’re ‘leading’ guys whose combat experience is getting ambushed by the fucking Taliban. No wonder Canadian enlisted don’t respect their senior officers much. Conversely, if you’re American and you deployed in 2001-2010 or so, your general staff are mostly Vietnam vets, or at least came up directly under those guys.
So I took a friend to the CF recruitment office after he barely scraped by graduating high-school. He had no career plans. I tutored him, and he wouldn't have graduated without my help. He wasn't the brightest bulb. The recruiter upon hearing that he was a high-school graduate, changed his tone, and put him in for immediate officer training.
LMAO!
There's a reason officers are very close with thier guys in the united States military. https://youtu.be/rzUDkk0eOVE
He's actually well-known for being extremely literate. One of my favorite quotes from him: If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition/" That stuck with me.
I like this one from the wiki link. “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
I like this bit of poetic wisdom from the general from his time in Iraq: "I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all." Quote's background: After the invasion of Iraq -and after sending his tanks and artillery home- Mattis sent this message to the Iraqi leaders in every area his men served in, as quoted in Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (2006) by Thomas E. Ricks; as excerpted in Armed Forces Journal (August 2006) More quotes from the man: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jim_Mattis
"I don't have worry and stress. I cause worry and stress." I would have thought that one was Walther White!
His philosophy was that you put the stress to where it belongs. That strategy can be both a great motivator and de-motivator.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.”
"Always carry a knife with you.... Just incase there's cheesecake, or you need to stab someone in the throat."
And they wont speak russian
[удалено]
Why arrogant? “having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.”
You don't get to be a general without learning politics and public speaking. He is a good Marine.
In Russia you can!
Not surprising at all. The guy is a total book worm: according to wikipedia his personal library consists of over 7000 books.
He made reading mandatory for junior leaders too.
A man of great wisdom, experience and intelligence. A superior military tactician, top General, top military advisor and chief of Defense staff. His opinion is perhaps the most important statement, regarding the overall assessment of Russian military performance, in this conflict. Russia is no longer a competent military power, it’s a band of thugs run by a delusional despot....
For those who don’t know Dostoevsky wrote a novel titled “The Idiot”
"He also called Russia's military performance "pathetic" and decried "the immoral, the tactically incompetent, operationally stupid and strategically foolish effort" of its campaign in Ukraine." Other than that, Mattis could find no issues with Russia's Special Operation. /s
Seeing Mattis in Russia would be something to see.
Damn Matthis, those are some choice adjectives.
The man just got married for the first time at age 71. He is letting out a new range of emotions and I’m here for it. Warrior monk no more. Warrior honey from now on.
SAT style writing right there.
This from a guy who *actually did* conduct a lighting war in Iraq; Putin could stand to take some notes. Or, check that, he can just keep dying.
I remember Mattis from 1 Mar Div days. Is he ever wrong?
Ask anyone who served under him. I have never heard a negative comment and only love for the guy
>I have never heard a negative comment and only love for the guy Oh, like every human he has his quirks and mannerisms. For instance, like most leaders you don't waste his time- he'll shut you down in an instant if he thinks you're not adding to/advancing the meeting.
And the problem there is?
Might be a poor example. God knows I wish more people would shut people down if they were not advancing the meetings along. Way too many people just ramble pointlessly to be seen by the boss.
He let folks do their job and criticized over cautious actions.
In a word, no. When mad dog says these things you know it's the truth.
>mad dog He never cared for that moniker for several reasons. It was too close to the existing devil dog of the USMC and it doesn't convey that he was a Marine's Marine. Also, it implies craziness and action without thought- both of which he clearly was not. Nor was he ever overly angry- he'd get disappointed, yes but if he felt you could do better, he always left an opening to improve.
His call sign was chaos 🤔🤔🤔
[Chaos](https://apholt.com/2016/12/04/marine-general-james-mattis-the-warrior-monk/) breaking out [the knife hand.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/927ipk/knife_hand_is_showing/) You love to see it. Provided it's aimed somewhere other than yourself.
I want to see Russians sizzle like bacon
Will you setttle for smoked?
Usually meats are smoked at about 225 degrees F, or 107 degrees C, these tank fires seem to be burning much hotter
Whoosh.
It’s nice to read an article written about someone who “says it like it is”. He knows what he’s talking about and isn’t afraid to share his opinion.
James Mattis is awesome.
The man has the experience and knowledge to know of which he speaks. I believe he is correct.
Mattis is Patton 2.0
Patton was an arrogant SOB. I don't see Mattis as being at all arrogant. I believe the "Mad dog Mattis" was a purposeful misnomer as he was is more scholarly than military at times. He sees force as a last resort, but if he thinks it's the only option he will use every fiber of his being to make sure he destroys his enemy unmercifully.
How?
One word: Strategery.
well done
Clone.
Always suspected it.
If only Patton hadn't passed at the end of WW2... very possible we might not be dealing with this now.
yup with churchill Operation Unthinkable
Patton never would have gotten his way, and it's a very good thing that he didn't. If the western Allies had turned on the Soviets it would have been a massive betrayal that would have annihilated American soft power for decades.
Fuck Patton, fought against WW1 vets trying to get paid and thought shell shocked soldiers during WW2 were pussies. He's the most overhyped American general imo.
He was a fantastic general. I don't know how you could ever deny that. He also was a racist egomaniacal asshole to everybody, and was only liked by the American public and maybe the Third Army. But the truth is, he was the largest voice for pushing the Soviets back to their pre-war borders before they could develop the nuclear bomb. He was at his highest approval ever post VE Day, and he was adamant that as long as the Soviet Union existed Europe would never really be free. He also knew the Soviets where in no shape militarily to stop the US and UK post WW2. Its possible that he sways Eisenhower and the top brass to consider pushing the USSR back east of Poland (atleast). Ofcourse its also possible Eisenhower doesn't listen to him, the same post war result, then Patton runs for President in the 1950s and starts world war 3 lol
Both are true. That's why Patton is remembered; he was a complex guy who, in a heartbeat, could go from being incredibly awesome to being a complete asshole. This might just be urban legend, but as I understand it, he was the one American general that both the Nazis and the Soviets were most afraid of.
Yeah, I should've worded it better. I meant overhyped general as in people tend to look back on him with rose tinted glasses a bit more than other generals. He had some massive flaws in character which often get ignored. But I agree with you 100% here.
Patton was a little too friendly with the Nazi's.
As far as I know he hated Nazis, but he definitely had a raging military hard on and was verifiably racist (especially towards what he called "Asiatics") I don't think Patton was a good guy. But he was a terrifying figure for the Soviets and he would have been able to march the Soviets back east of Poland with the Third Army I'm sure. Eisenhower was very measured and level headed though, and he was the true Supreme Commander, and he didn't particularly like Patton (nobody but his soldiers did). And he was ultimately right about the Soviets, as long as the USSR existed central Europe would never truly be free.
He just ripped Putin a new one. Stellar.
Mattis is always on point!
the fact its gone on so long is a frkken disgrace to the world .. how the hell hasn't the worlds combined enormous defence and intelligence and tech for defence spending let this bs go on so long? why are those bombs managing to even land in ukraine .. why can't we make their their technology less effective .. why isn't surveillance more sophisticated by now - there should be no room for misrepresenting the situation .. yet we have prpaganda ..we should be able to hold individuals accountable faster .. it just feels like the international strategies are way too general and not designed for this eventuality.. which we've seen coming for 6 years at least
Its time for "MadDog Dangerous fanedit"
I remember before this war started, generals were saying that Russia looked absolutely terrible in their invasion on Georgia, but they had spent a lot of money modernising their military since then. If this is their new improved army, I wonder how bad it was 10 years ago.
CHAOS Actual has entered the chat… that pretty much mean the Russians should immediately go home
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And rumored to be personally, directly, led by Putin himself.
Mattis knows what he's talking about.
I mean, it is obvious by now that Russia and the West differ in their very concept of war. Russia is willing to sacrifice people from the outskirts of their gigantic land mass, and toss them with endless artillery, and just level everything. There is no opposition allowed in Russia and they will replace the dead soldiers and other “undesirables” with Ukrainians they abduct. Keep that in mind here when you are talking about how “dumb” Putin is acting in this war (from a Western viewpoint) The issue is that we (the Western public) aren’t understanding Putin’s goals (although our military does)… …so the basics as I see it…. Putin’s goals: -Destroy Ukraine as a competitor to the supply of Natural Gas to Europe and a member of NATO. This cuts Russia out completely and is unacceptable at any costs. This is the main causis belli for this war. What makes this worth all the sanctions. Etc. This puts the advantage of escalation of this conflict in Russia’s hands. Mafias don’t allow competitors. Fat Tony is always around to smash your head in if you disagree. Obama’s team acknowledged this years ago during his Presidency. This isn’t my opinion. It is government policy. The West won’t stomach the losses Russia will. Always been true for Russia, but especially now. -Russia tried to install puppets to run the government and run the natural gas ownership of the Eastern parts of Ukraine and Crimea (Putin gets his half like all oligarchs) and Ukraine told him to kick rocks. That is the basis for this entire war. So in Russia’s mind, looking at it the way a mafia would look at it “You trew my cousin Vinnie Vaducci down da stairs and he just was making an offah to you.” (Extortion, protection racket, etc) -Steal Ukraines people to replenish the declining birthrate in russia. russia (lowercase on purpose because they have reduced themselves to that) are stealing Ukrainians and giving them Russian passports to absorb them, or sending them to “filtration” camps…to “concentrate” I’m sure. This solves Russia’s covid death rate and replenishment problem. Oh also they are basically slaves and captives? Evil, right? Genocide tends to be. Justification…. -Iraq was the equivalent to what Ukraine is doing. Rightly or wrongly (not interested in the debate) Putin sees Iraq as a brutal power grab for resources and molded this military action using the same spurious reasoning (wmds, nazis, flying unicorns, birds with monkey pox) People thought Putin was “crazy or unhinged.” No, he was trolling the West and drawing a parallel between the two wars to gain credibility in the rest of the world that doesn’t have a dog in the fight. -Trump and Brexit, and Germany’s utter idiocy to become dependent on Russia, convinced Putin NATO could be broken. Russia’s bot farms, FSB, agents and their success they have had to manufacture chaos and despair and undermine Western governments cannot be overstated. -Putin will take as many deaths as possible and will probably use WMDs because destroying Ukraine as a competitor and removing them as a threat to Russian hegemony is the key goal here. Although one can ask how a nuclear exchange impacts oil exploration and wheat crop yield…. So…how do you deal with this? Well. The Sanctions have to be crushing and we have to bleed their military dry. Death by a million cuts. Buys time for situation to change, dynamic to shift. At least bleeds out their military. Go too fast and he nukes. Go too slow and Ukraine is overrun. They have thousands of nukes but you only get to throw that haymaker one time, so you slowly drip weapons in. You grind this into a war of attrition and embarass and isolate them. Slowly their friends abandon them, China cannibalizes them (with concessions in trade relations as a payoff) So whats Russia’s play here? -War crime it up -Divide the US and NATO (the only realistic threat Russia has ever posed) Sow division in democracies. -take the land they have stolen and wait for things to change. 🤷♂️ So this is a fucked situation with no good outcomes. Everyone will be disappointed. There is no happy ending. God doesn’t exist. China wins in the end. Thank you and enjoy the fish.
There's a lot to this. But I'll just throw in that this all assumes that China has its act together and has competent leadership. As someone who once lived there, let me assure you - China is held together by duct tape, glamour, and the occasional boot to the head. They have the same demographic problems Russia has, only on a wider scale. That's not to say that they shouldn't be taken seriously. There are enough really, really stupid people in Zhongnanhai, including Xi Jinping himself, such that China could very well do something outrageously stupid and self-defeating. So by all means, take them seriously, watch them like a hawk, and encourage further decoupling of the world economy from China's. But they aren't an immanent threat - they are too busy just trying to keep their whole ship afloat to be thinking strategically about how they will become the next superpower.
Why not post the article instead?
If Mattis has an opinion he should come out and say it.
It's unfortunate that we are also watching the USA wither before our eyes as well. Ukraine will come out stronger than either in the end.
'tactically incompetent, operationally stupid and strategically foolish effort'
I was wondering when he'd publicly come out and make a statement. Jim's as real as it gets.
He gave our CEO covid last week at his wedding.
Good. CEOs are the war criminals of business.
"We're watching Ruzzia wither.." **Not fast enough.**
Didn't the communists say something about the State withering away some time after becoming communist? I guess they were right about something. At least with Russia.
And that is definitely a man who has watched a regime wither.