Pentagon's #2 Civilian gets it!

As terrible as Russia’s war in Ukraine is, it pales in comparison to a potential fight against China, the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian said | @DefTechPat https://t.co/15xcEufRkX

— Defense One (@DefenseOne) April 8, 2022

Reality!

War is terrible and innocents die everyday.

Which brings me to the civilian deaths in Ukraine.  Horrible.  Terrible.

I've seen the pics and they're heartbreaking.  But its war.  Even worse?  You go to certain parts of this country and you'll see the same everyday.  War just focuses the attention of the masses and its harder to tune it out (unlike local crimes of violence).

Which brings me to this.

Why the disconnect?

I watch the talking heads on the news and they're talking about the massive civilian casualties.  Again, I get it.  If it bleeds it leads. Additionally there appears to be a concerted effort to rally public opinion behind the Ukrainian effort.  Again I get it.

BUT!

This is modern warfare.  It's gonna be ugly.  It's gonna be horrible and civilians that decide to become combatants..as well as those that don't will suffer.

People point to this being the first major such and such in Europe since WW2 seem to forget that WW2 saw Europe ravaged.

What we did to Dresden was almost biblical destruction.  We did the same to Tokyo in Japan.

Russia has bombarded cities, but we utterly destroyed them the last time we were in peer combat.

Now I circle back to what the Pentagon #2 is saying.

I've wondered why the American military is supposedly gearing up for a big fight with China but I see little evidence that the other parts of govt are hardening up to deal with the ravages of war.

We might not be hit kinetically but we will certainly suffer some type of cyber attack.  The power system being shut off in either the winter or summer on either coast will cost many deaths, not to mention the societal chaos that will come with it.

I think the only good thing that will come out of the Ukraine/Russia war will be the realization that real deal nation state war will be nothing like we saw in Iraq/Afghanistan or what they're dealing with in Syria.

It will be massive, it will be uncontained/extremely difficult to contain and the best that can be hoped for is that it doesn't spiral into a global affair.

Of course this brings me to my final pet peeve with this conflict. If we do indeed find ourselves crossing swords with China, we've already used up our economic bullets.  Every sanction used will be studied and EVERY country will be looking to insulate themselves from the effects.

China is matching us and we shot  one of our shells a bit early.