Veteran’s Corner
Tom Krabbenhoft
Greetings one and all, summer has escaped us too fast.
If you follow world events closely like I do you’d be very concerned about several events.
Ukraine- Ukraine has pushed into Russia and secured a foothold. They’ve launched a couple of drone attacks into the Moscow business district skyscrapers. The UK is going to let them use their long range Storm Shadow missile. The Storm Shadow is much like the US Tomahawk missile. It flies low to the ground and can pierce hardened targets. Some in the Biden administration are now advocating Ukraine be able to use our long range missile system inside Russia. Before, the agreement was that the missiles be used only inside Ukrainian borders.
I ask you this; what would our reaction be if Russian made missiles started raining down on Washington DC? The Ukrainians hitting targets inside of Russia is very short sighted. The Russians are growing tired of a war few understand or want any part of. A Ukrainian strike inside Russia may kill civilians. This kind of collateral damage could set off a flame of Russian support for the war and give them the resolve to keep fighting.
When the Battle of Britain started in WW2 Herman Goering told Hilter they could bomb the British into submission. The exact opposite happened. The Germans suffered high air casualties. British citizens became galvanized to fight. This could happen in Russia too. Sadly, history needlessly does repeat itself.
Ukraine needs to keep fighting the defensive war. Use those missiles to disrupt supply lines, troop concentrations, fuel or ammo depots etc. This will make the war even more costly for Russia. Furthermore it will make Russian citizens even more tired of war. A conflict cannot be won if the citizens do not support it. Does not matter which side you are on.
Gaza Strip- Heard recently during a debate that “for the first time in twenty years we don’t have troops in a combat zone”. Interesting as we have 40,000 in the Mideast and we are sending more.
What is going on between Iranian backed Hezbollah, Hamas and others in Isreal and the Gaza Strip is something we need to tread lightly about. The old saying goes the worse place to be in a fight, is the person breaking up the fight. Slipping in between two armed forces to separate them is disastrous. The Iranian backed bad guys would love to have US soft targets to hit. A video from the area was given to a Indiana representative the other day. It was from a service member, the troops were under heavy fire.
We currently (as I’m writing) have dispatched a “small number” of troops to the region.
I hope someone in charge is reading Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
Send your veteran-related items to me at 11btwk@gmail.com.