Turns out that fighting a peer competitor is very different from bombing defenceless people
The NATO style of fighting, so heavily reliant on controlling the skies, has also only been tested in recent years in arenas where the alliance had air superiority, experts say.
"No living member of NATO armed forces has experienced combat close to what Ukrainians have experienced over the past 18 months," Davis Ellison, a strategic analyst with the Hague Center for Security Studies (HCSS), told Newsweek.
"The NATO way of land warfare has never been seriously tested against a major state adversary, despite decades of investment and training," he added.
Were you in the military?
I was but not in the USA, sometimes we would do training with them either as peers or to be Opposition Force
What's your impression of the people there? Troops, officers?
In one word, stubborn. The officers I saw ranged from assholes (who salutes in the field?) to normal nerds with a history degree. The enlisted was really diverse, it ranged from frat bro types, wanna-be the bad guy from avatar 2 types, guys waiting for their contracts to end, guys who joined for their greencard which I think is particularly fucked up systemically, and a couple of nerds sprinkled in too. The officers didn't really interact much with the troops off duty which was a bit strange for me, usually where I'm from while they still have separate messes it wouldn't be unusual for an officer to be invited in after an exercise by their subordinates.
Thank you