241–250 of 382 posts
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I mean Canada just depends on the USA for nearly all it's defense. The USA isn't going to let anyone invade Canada or Mexico.
I don't know if you've been paying attention, but the head of the USA has threatened on numerous occasions to invade Canada.
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The largest volunteer army in the world is the US Army. Please provide evidence that enlistees can specifically be truck drivers if they choose to be.
What a silly question. I don't need to provide you any evidence. Just walk down to your local recruiting office and ask. If you tell them that you want to enlist but will only do so if they guarantee a truck driver MOS on your contact then they'll absolutely take you unless they've already hit their limit for that fiscal year. HN is so weird sometimes. Like half the users seem to be aggressively ignorant of stuff tha…
It's not obvious to me that the Army won't do whatever it wants with you once you've taken the shilling. I was interested so asked Gemini, so subject to the usual LLM caveats, here's the reply:
"It is possible to join the U.S. Army and be guaranteed a position as a truck driver, provided you meet all the qualifications.
This guarantee is part of the enlistment contract. The specific job you're asking about is known as MOS 88M, or Motor Transport Operator.
[...]
What "Guaranteed" Means
When you have 88M in your contract, the Army guarantees you a slot at the Advanced Individual Training (AIT) for that job.
You will first complete Basic Combat Training (BCT), which is about 10 weeks.
After graduating from BCT, you will go to 88M AIT, which is approximately 7 weeks long, located at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
During AIT, you will be trained to operate and maintain the Army's fleet of vehicles, including Humvees, light/medium/heavy trucks, and tractor-trailers.
The guarantee is for the training. You must successfully pass both BCT and 88M AIT to officially become a Motor Transport Operator."
* The article speaks of this personnel like reservists, but could the training also apply to helping defend public infrastructure and institutions, where they work? (For example, if there ever be a need to quickly hand out firearms on-site, or if ever there was a need for random people to know how to observe and report threats?) * Could this training be practice, before mass military training of most adult citizens?
Can't quite imagine the threat that would cause a need for this in Canada, but sure. Edit: I guess in the north the training would be useful for polar bear defence...
> Could this training be practice, before mass military training of most adult citizens?
Probably not politically viable unless we were invaded (and border conflicts in unpopulated areas don't count). Not logistically viable after the US invades us, and they are the only contender.
Maybe you could manage to make a volunteer based reserve program attractive enough to get a significant fraction of adult citizens? If you could that might be politically viable. I doubt the current government is anywhere near ambitious enough to try.
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It is simply raising the costs for any potential invasion. When a wannabe imperialist thinks, he can get something easy, he will take it. If he thinks, there will be unknown risks and costs .. he might not.
It will not raise any cost, these "soldiers" will pose zero threat.
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Maybe I wouldn't be very useful in combat but maybe I can peel potatoes or mop the floors in case of an invasion. I am thinking it frees up someone who is "combat ready" from kitchen or janitor duty. It helps, right?
except they say the training will include firearms and drone flight.
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That's not how it works in any NATO military. Truck drivers and other logistics troops generally never went through any sort of advanced combat training. They can be retrained for another MOS with sufficient time but not quickly enough for any sort of crisis. And in volunteer forces, the troops driving trucks are generally doing that because they specifically enlisted to do that job.
The largest volunteer army in the world is the US Army. Please provide evidence that enlistees can specifically be truck drivers if they choose to be.
How much useful combat skills can be taught in only a week? It seems like an extremely low estimate on the training needed to play a useful role in the military.
A week is gonna be mostly "here's how to function in our organization, this is our trade specific vocabulary, here's a rifle and how you use it" You use your D-grade troops like that for behind the lines security. You use them to check papers at checkpoints, round up dissidents, keep people from taking pot shots at your supply lines, etc, etc, the kind of stuff you don't need expensive professional infantry[1] or eve…
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It would probably take you a week just to be competent maintaining the rifle let alone shooting it.
Ok, it does not though. I have taught people with no experience and it takes <10 hours to get to making hits at 300-400 yards. Basic maintenance takes even less time to teach
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I mean, it's entirely possible that a historic quirk 300+ years ago leads to an increasingly distant relationship today. It's definitely possible to intepret this the way Russia speaks about Ukraine - "They shouldn't even be a country *except for a historical quirk", but a charitable interpretation would be more along the lines of "things could have gone slightly differently and we'd be countrymen, but instead we bro…
After this past year of US political discourse, you'll forgive me for not extending the benefit of the doubt anymore.
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If Mexico wants to deter America, their best bet by far is to pose a credible insurgency threat. And in that regard, between the number of Mexican nationals and sympathizers in America, the number of guns in Mexico, the national pride of the Mexican people, and their established proficiency with asymmetric warfare (at least from their cartel elements)... I think they've got their bases well covered. Mexicans have the…
Except America has shown that it would rather chew through all it's resources and capability than accept that "The public here doesn't want you, that wont change, go home and save the effort" How many people in the middle east did we blow up or kill? For 20 years. For a supposed outcome we had no chance of ever getting. Multiple presidents even. The deterrence effect of an occupation didn't stop Russia, did not stop…