Are stingers even useful for LSCO?
I get the sense Ukraine us using them as the insurgency rather than the counter-insurgency
I get the sense Ukraine us using them as the insurgency rather than the counter-insurgency
Stringers are absolutely useful in LSCO. Soviet doctrine made heavy use of MANPADS (man portable air defense systems, of which Stinger counts) when they were planning for LSCO. Basically every army besides the US army (and its allies) makes heavy use of them, and the US army is different because they plan for the US Air Force to be able to clear the skies for them. Soviet doctrine embedded air defence at all levels of their army, from MANPADS to Pantsirs, Buks, and S-300s etc. This goes from man carrier to short/middle/long range.
if NATO is so loss averse and doesnt want to risk own soldiers' lives, then NATO/US doctrine should plan for proxy wars - and not blindly assume they will have air superiority everywhere
Should the next proxy war happen in LATAM/Africa/ME - I am not sure US would rush to deploy air assets.
For example - Iran/China - would US create no fly zone over these countries?
How they choose to exercise that is an exercise for you, the reader, whoever would like - not this comment.
for different factions of rebels backed by Pentagon/CIA/etc/etc
Seems like it went great.
not even talking about millions of killed/displaced refugees that are now in Europe and all over the middle east, and all the humanitarian disaster that was caused by strategic miscalculation and doctrine mismatch
Their claimed goals and incentives are rarely complete, sometimes not even true!
If you’re making the point that America and NATO could join the fight sure, but that’s a hypothetical and the reality now is that the skies in Ukraine are contested.