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Reading that politico article from a while back had me thinking, how effective is the American nuclear trinity still anyway? I remember back in the oughts there was some chatter that America's silos were falling apart and relied on ancient, outdated technology so they pledged billions to update it, but I could see that being pure grift that never got out of the planning stages. What planes can even deliver nukes anymore? Presumably the subs are still fine when they aren't crashing into poo poo. Not that nuclear weapons need to work to accomplish their primary function, but there's hope that the world could be saved from an American freak out over losing a war when it turned out their 50-year-old silos don't actually work anymore.
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Jun 16, 2023 23:48
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Considering the navy can't seem to fully staff their ships they might as well have the Koreans/Japanese sail them too.
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Jul 15, 2023 00:02
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Karia posted:The term "warfighter" is clearly dated and won't inspire Gen Z to serve their country and protect freedom. More importantly, it does not accurately reflect the flexibility that modern combat requires. We need a new term that better encompasses the reality that soldiers face on the ground. Instead of single large wars against defined enemies, global conflicts are now composed of numerous smaller encounters with constantly shifting battleground and opponents. And the term "fighter" brings to mind someone like Rocky Balboa lashing out with his bare hands, rather than modern soldiers who employ cutting-edge communications and weapons technology. In honor of  I vote for Warfacer. Kids these days can't wait to face war and become Warfacers!
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Jul 16, 2023 08:01
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People worried about Bidens crazy rhetoric about Israel are overestimate US capability I think. Even multiple aircraft carriers launching planes seem unlikely to add that much ordinance to what the Israelis are already dropping. Bombing the rubble of already bombed hospitals has diminishing returns. Any significant help would be on the ground and it took years to prepare to invade Iraq for the second time and our invasion was nearly unopposed so getting troops in place to invade Gaza wouldn't be that much easier. The US was still constantly short on material goods in 03 and even this forum was donating to troops like it was a school bake sale. The American empire is dramatically weaker today than it was in 2003 and that was before we shipped off so much to Ukraine. Hell it's crazy to think how much weaker the empire is now than it was when it lost wars in Vietnam and Korea. Actually, aren't militaries worldwide generally weaker than they were in the 20th century (except China)? The advantages of the additional technology seem much less significant than the loss of industrial capability or switching from bigger more destructive systems to smaller ones focused on assisting special operations. You certainly seem to see this in Israel where they lost combat capability over 50 years to focus on bully boy poo poo and protecting their conscripts. This just matters the most to the US because no other country wants to fight wars thousands of miles from their border.
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Oct 12, 2023 00:09
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I'm sure the MIC is pitching single use military hardware. You don't have to do maintenance if you just throw it away when it breaks! Think of the savings!
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Oct 13, 2023 12:24
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animist posted:i kinda doubt a carrier will actually get engaged but if one does it would be funny It would be pretty funny if instead of the two US carriers France got involved and lost its only aircraft carrier to a drone lol.
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Oct 17, 2023 23:27
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NAFO is so cringey it triggers my embarrassment anxiety worse than the office.
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Oct 18, 2023 07:27
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Yeah please let silicon valley grifters get all over our nuclear arsenal and turn them into web 3.0 apps with always on drm that runs entirely on Chinese hardware. It's a good thing for the safety of the world if the nukes are quietly rendered entirely useless (assuming some of the old hardware does work and the whole thing isn't already a contractor scam).
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Oct 20, 2023 08:16
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It's been like two decades since I read Starship Troopers but I recall the plot being a bit similar to that. The main imperial troops were a special forces / terrorist unit that would insert into places and sneak around wrecking poo poo and causing mayhem until the locals agreed to whatever political situation. Then the bugs show up and you can't terrorize them into submission so they had to learn to fight properly again. Pretty similar to today's imperial troops.
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Oct 26, 2023 05:00
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I had another thought about a US-Iran war. The Iraqi army that invaded Iran was probably dramatically stronger at sustained conventional warfare than anything the US could cobble together. Their initial push seemed reasonably organized and they didn't lack for supplies. Their morale didn't crumble for quite a while. Considering it was on their own border they had no trouble getting 100k+ troops into combat. Despite some of the political turmoil Iran has had recently it isn't anything compared to how chaotic Iran was at the time still sorting out the revolution. Not to mention Iran is less diplomatically isolated now. While the whole rotten structure of the Iranian government didn't collapse when the Iraqis kicked in the door (as they thought), I'm sure that will be exactly what happens with the US does it. No reason the US can't go to war/special military operation whenever the lich kings decide.
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Oct 27, 2023 04:54
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biceps crimes posted:wtf is a self-defense strike It's also called Sending A Message or just strengthening our posture. Not blowing up people in any way
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Oct 27, 2023 06:14
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Nixon's presidency was probably to the left in domestic politics of every president that came after him. Like he started the EPA, did a lot for Native Americans (more than any president I can think of except maybe John Quincy Adams), and tried to fight inflation for normal Americans. Yes yes he also did a thousand terrible things too especially in foreign policy. This is not an exoneration of Nixon, but a condemnation of every president since. I agree that the US does take credit for the cheat code nature of its circumstances, but I also do think elites have gotten dumber over the decades and I think it's because the fail son pipeline has gotten stronger. You always had useless spawn of the elites, but the elite private schools through ivy league to board of some pet company/NGO/non-profit/whatever seems to be streamlined to ensure everyone is maximally dumb and useless. It's how you can have someone so painfully stupid as Trump that has sons that are somehow even dumber and lack even the basic playground cruel cunning of their father. None of Bush Sr's kids were anything but useless even the Prince Who Was Promised (Jeb). etc
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Oct 27, 2023 22:58
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This sounds like the old bullshit meme about republicans falling in line and democrats falling in love. The democrats run a far tighter party than the republicans. The republicans party establishment wanted to stop trump from becoming the candidate and they couldn't do it while the dems easily manipulated the process to control the candidacy. Fighting over the republican speaker position has been a total circus while dems fell in line hard even the supposed freshmen insurgents. The dems just use the old chaos excuse when there are policies they don't care about, but when it's time for foreign policy, defense spending, or lobbyist goals suddenly that chaos evaporates. Both parties are lockstep on foreign policy with almost no air between them and will always ignore what their supporters say. Isolationism has been broadly popular in the US since the founding, but today neither party tolerates anything but full-throated support for empire. Whatever dumb gently caress starve the beast rhetoric republicans might use when campaigning it has never affected defense spending or foreign policy (even back to Reagan). There have always been two federal governments. The domestic social safety net federal governments which dems say is far too weak to accomplish much and republicans say they want to dismantle. Then there's the foreign policy/border/justice/intelligence federal government that both parties love and want to dump unlimited money into and will never consider cutting any programs.
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Oct 28, 2023 23:42
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The Oldest Man posted:"The US is doing it for profit" is too rational; that's 20 years ago poo poo. That's Dick Cheney poo poo. The US government today is a rabid animal, it doesn't know why it kills anymore, it just does. This is it. The US isn't seizing resources or collecting treasure. The US just blows poo poo up so some failson political appointee can feel slightly better about their job or some lanyard can feel like they are being sufficiently serious. crepeface posted:it does kinda look like the IMEC that biden announced at the g20 Is this about building a new line or just simplifying customs? Because lmao if the US is involved in building the rail lines that'll never happen. Even subcontracting in another country I bet it ends up a total clusterfuck. The rail line near my house that was supposed to be built already just keeps getting pushed back. Connecting one Seattle suburb to another is going to be the work of decades. Getting from Seattle to a nearby town is a dream only our children can possibly realize.
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Nov 1, 2023 11:19
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I figured they'd do the opposite and make everyone special forces. Tier 1 operator cook going full kinetic on meal planning
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Nov 2, 2023 05:19
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lmao reposting from the Palestinian thread https://twitter.com/quantian1/status/1719875339906683002 We need to immediately dump more of the defense budget on silicon valley grifters. We cannot allow an app store gap to develop even vs our allies. 
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Nov 2, 2023 05:35
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Best Friends posted:The draft has social implications that are antithetical to neoliberalism (there is a society, society can do things to you, you can do things to society). the US will have mass formations of noncitizen mercenaries long before ever reintroducing the draft imo. Yeah, better integrating foreign mercs is more on brand for the founding fathers' hardon for Roman stuff. I don't think you can turn contemporary Americans into soldiers and trying to do so would break the country even without any kind of organized resistance to the draft.
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Nov 2, 2023 23:43
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DancingShade posted:McDonald's entire legal team are on the next bus to the frontline the moment they file suit. lol who has more political power in the US than high paid lawyers likely from the upper class to order this? This idea of a press gang is way different than some politician encouraging Justice department goons to go kidnap hippies protestors since no one cares about the protestors. This would be against the wishes of people with real power like the finance industry. The military wouldn't even want to do this because the upper echelons are all careerist climbers aiming for their cushy defense industry jobs. We're a very long way from Curtis Lemay screaming about nuking commies at any chance he got. General Powerpoint is not dreaming of endless rows of marching imperial soldiers but their next convention at a golf resort. Lockheed wouldn't even want us fighting abroad with a large drafted force because that might encourage spending on practical arms that make less profit compared to high tech wonder weapons with a profit margin so large it can barely be computed. They also risk those weapons failing in a visible way. Even America getting attacked in 9/11 and the grand ambitions of the PNAC didn't make anyone want to rock the boat. War needed to be done cheap and easy. Bombing innocent people is Good and Moral because it maximizes spending without any of these problems.
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Nov 3, 2023 04:38
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DancingShade posted:All you need is American brand Zelensky. There is no troublesome law that cannot be re-written, removed, suspended, replaced or outright ignored. Might makes right. Who would prop up an American Zelensky like we propped him up? Americans like to do everything abroad so it's risk free. This reminds me of the weird fantasies of liberals about being dominated by rural Trump voters driving into their suburbs. They forget Trump voters are dumb useless Americans just like them. Maybe they work themselves into some shithead cruelty occasionally but only if it's zero personal risk as mostly they just want to post.
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Nov 3, 2023 05:38
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Trabisnikof posted:america, as it stands, is unable to send in troops to do jungle patrols like vietnam, because it is more profitable to send in lovely rear end remote control robots that break down constantly. a world where the usa has a draft is so politically distinct from the current power dynamic as to fundamentally define a new era. It is interesting that people a decade or two ago worried robots would allow the US to wage proper wars without a concern for politically dangerous casualties. However, the useless grifters produced drones that are too expensive and lovely to do much of anything different than cruise missiles or manned aircraft already could. They can still bomb random people and cause mayhem but the limitations of air power remain. With how poorly the US recruits anymore it benefits from options that require less pilots but it's not transformative. Instead it seems like it's actually insurgent forces that have benefited from the development of drones. The US has always had aircraft to bomb and recon, but now insurgents can have an air force in a box doing those roles too. Hamas has been getting more effective use out of drones than Israel. I know the MIC wishes it could get unlimited contracts for robot soldiers, but that'd require some degree of competence so I guess they'll just have to be satisfied by unlimited contracts for boat ubers and such.
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Nov 3, 2023 06:53
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Best Friends posted:it is genuinely weird that the US makes the coast guard (effectively) a branch of the military. I don’t think anyone else does that. whatever it is it’s a US insanity. Is there another country that has three different independent air forces (4 if you count army helicopters) that compete for funding and barely cooperate on equipment? America is a global leader in finding new ways to waste money and be poorly organized. I'm sure making the coast guard part of the military made someone money and/or was a maneuver in some pointless bureaucratic war. That's why a space force that can't get to space is so on brand for us.
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Nov 4, 2023 05:38
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gradenko_2000 posted:the latter part of James William Gibson's "The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam" has some great stuff about this Despite the somewhat goofy title (many years later its funny to think of Vietnam as a 'techno war') this is a really good book and worth the read.
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Nov 4, 2023 23:30
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I thought I remembered stories back during Syria war heydays that the US was running low on pilots and flyable planes (maintenance backlog) and so had to rely on artillery more than they expected. My hometown is next to one of the few (or maybe only) still working US artillery schools and people that still live there have been talking for a decade or two of how little you hear the guns anymore. As annoying as the firing was (and depending on which side of town it could be loud as gently caress) the town itself is pretty dependent on being an army town so the base closing has always been a nervous rumor. I presume the US is training artillerists a lot less than they used to.
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Nov 6, 2023 00:14
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frozenphil posted:I did not realize people born in Lawton ever learned how to read. Congrats! Only when I escaped. Geronimo's ghost as revenge prevents it within the city limits. Such a hosed city. It's bounded by an artillery range, a hotdog factory, and a tire factory (the hotdog factory smells the worst). Nearby are outsourced prisons from other states, munitions factory, some silos, oil pipelines/storage. When other states go nimby Oklahoma says please in my backyard since they don't have anything else. Of course, the history of the state is also hosed since it was like okay we've found the literally shittiest part of the country let's force all the Native Americans to live there. Then a bit later the gov was like nevermind we won't even let them have the lovely part and the stupid college mascot the Sooners celebrates this.
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Nov 6, 2023 05:15
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Frosted Flake posted:So these specific ones are NBC reconnaissance vehicles, which all major militaries have, and are intended to carry around specialists in a WW3 scenario to detect what weapons of mass destruction are in use. So, for example, they have Bhangmeters to detect battlefield nuclear weapons and attempt to classify their type and yield. I do find it kinda funny to think of a WW3 where countries are being flattened by nuclear hellfire left and right and within that chaos some random assholes are driving around in their janky NBC recon vehicle to determine exactly what the yield of those strikes were because drat it that was their assigned mission. Relateledly in this Pivot To China stuff I've never heard anyone suggest that ceding space to China might be a bad idea. It seems like there would be some obvious problems with a peer rival owning the space above your head. As I recall the most capable of the various anti-ballistic missile systems were actually space based but they were cancelled presumably for requiring too much actual engineering and not enough graft. It makes sense to me as I'd expect destroying a missile in the mid course phase is more doable than terminal and that'd be before a missile MIRVs. I remember reading somewhere that Rods From God might not be as easy as it seemed in scifi, but I'd think a space based nuclear arsenal would be a pretty big deal for being a more credible first strike. The assumption is that you'll always have lengthy warning on a nuclear strike from the big ballistic launch you can't hide but dropping from space would presumably hide that and give the target a lot less time to get their nukes in the air. I also know China has anti-ship non-nuclear ballistic missiles and while they would be very effective the counterargument is that no country is going to believe them saying 'bro these are just anti-ship missiles no nukes are on them I swear' when those big launches go off. Basing them in space seems to solve that problem. Letting China setup whatever they want in space because the US is limited to rocket delivered satellites and asking rich guys to ride on their dick rockets seems like a bad idea if you care about America being able to nuke another country (not me please fund a revamped app store based nuclear trinity). With all the launches China is doing to support their space station and prep for moon stuff it's not like it'd be as obvious as it was back before their space program was running full steam. The US will always be able to hit back with the sub part of the trinity if nothing else (presuming the launch tube isn't filled with decades of beer bottles) so US always has credible response but that isn't the same when they want to be the aggressor.
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Nov 8, 2023 00:57
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atelier morgan posted:if there was any reason whatsoever to militarize space (beyond what it is already, with imagery and positioning satellites ofc) we would have done it a long time ago This whole line of thinking seems to assume the US makes considered rational decisions on long term development strategies when there's been no evidence of that for decades. Plenty of space projects looked promising and got abandoned for quirks of bureaucracy rather than ethics or impossibility. It's not like America took a long sober look at space before abandoning it and said yep this will never be useful. Working backwards from that assumption seems dodgy. I'm also pretty doubtful the US is tracking every object every country sends into space carefully, even rivals, when it can't even track who owns all of its defense subcontractors. Every article on space command gives the impression of underfunded chaos trying to do anything at all. Any steady hand on the till ideas about the US military seem outdated.
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Nov 8, 2023 06:19
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quote:command now does not have the procurement funds to remove the cannon and to either patch up the hole or replace the weapon They only get a trillion dollars a year so it makes sense they couldn't slide any funds over from somewhere else. It's actually quite an optimistic assessment of the future if the military thinks it'll be spending less time leisurely murdering helpless people below them in the future.
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Nov 8, 2023 06:30
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Since I think America lacks the capacity anymore to fight any kind of conventional war I do wonder how tempted leadership would be to use nuclear weapons against someone who can't retaliate like Iran. If Iran makes the empire look impotent and our usual strategy of endless bombing goes nowhere when it's a country with functioning air defenses and forces so we actually start losing an awful lot of expensive pilots and planes even if we're "winning" where else can they turn. We can try to bomb them with money via cruise missiles but it's unlikely to make much of a military impact. Maybe that'd be enough for America to plausibly declare victory and go home to celebrate.
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Nov 14, 2023 03:43
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Real hurthling! posted:we get israel to bomb them and act hurt and surprised that they hid their bomb from us and then we tell israel they better not do it again or we'll be course with them in a letter. there is always the chance Israel actually does it if hez gets involved and starts tearing them up too. They'd have to do something to look muscular and they seem worse than the US at making remotely rational decisions. I wonder if even that would be a bridge too far for our tame Arab leaders trying to ignore Gaza. Lots of MSM pieces about how not every nuclear blast is the same and a sophisticated modern nuke is completely fine to use on a city and really just more efficient and economical compared to the comparable number of conventional bombs.
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Nov 14, 2023 04:21
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Actually listening to Churchill's speeches is funny because the quotes used everywhere seem to support the idea of him being some great orator. The sections are fine enough rousing pro-war speeches and sound good coming from actors, but actual Churchill speaking sounds like the alcoholic he was. More like someone's tedious drunken uncle about to pass out and barely knows what he is saying rambling on and on. We shall fight on the.. landing grounds?
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Nov 14, 2023 04:40
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Optimistic to think America will still be making big budget movies then. Might have to see how China, Korea, whoever feels about Trump in their history books. Maybe he'll be remembered fondly for his part in loving up the empire. AI generated Ben Kingsley as Trump whose dumb inane statements get reinterpreted as enigmatic childlike wisdom. Either way I could definitely see Biden/Trump being used as dueling grandpas of the aging empire in movies.
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Nov 14, 2023 06:33
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Orange Devil posted:
I didn't know this and that's interesting considering how huge the strategic bombing campaigns by the US ended up being. Then after WW2 strategic bombing has been a major part of US strategy.
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Nov 14, 2023 12:21
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Growing threat of North Korea? Are they expected to invade the Philippines or something now? Though if either Korea wants to invade Japan that should be considered acceptable war reparations since they were never held accountable.
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Nov 14, 2023 22:33
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I know the couple million in costs per pilot from training used to be thought a significant expense but if you are talking about them flying a 75+ million dollar plane  I expect some Western country will reinvent mercenaries as app gig workers before long. The US military isn't full of foreign mercs they are just more efficient and use per task independent contractors. Plus with "mercenaries" it might imply they are part of a mercenary company, but these guys will be independent who definitely don't get any benefits and you don't have to worry about them if they get captured or shot. Shoulda read the EULA more thoroughly. Maybe the IDF will come up with it as a way to get their infantry screen. Individual soldiers can outsource getting out of the tank to gig workers. Though Palestinians used to do the poo poo jobs in their economy so that might be a problem unless they want to accidentally turn over their military to Hamas in a goofy bugs bunny kinda way. Those Indian workers they are sending in to take over the poo poo jobs need to be wary of new gig options.
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Nov 15, 2023 00:28
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Is there not a two-seater f35 option? If it is one plane to replace everything I thought that would be an option since doesn't that come up sometimes?sullat posted:IIRC during the occupation of Iraq a lot of military contractors would hire pacific islanders but wouldn't tell them they were going to work on US bases in Iraq until they were there and their passports were securely locked away. They just needed the innovation to add a few billion dollars of Silicon Valley app grifting on top of that.
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Nov 15, 2023 01:03
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What happens to your network centric warfare if global communications are disrupted? The Chinese idea of having an extra guy in a fighter plane nearby seems a hell of a lot better.
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Nov 15, 2023 01:19
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The best Clancy-style WW3 book I ever read was like 10-ish years ago and I don't recall the title, but it had hacking of network centric warfare as a major component of the Chinese attack (with minimal Russian help). It seems actually more credible the dumber everything gets. As I recall there's some political standoff going on and the pacific fleet is deployed so it isn't the usual perfidious oriental random surprise attack, but the Chinese still manage to completely wipe the US in the initial phase. They had been slowly hacking all the various US systems either through hardware backdoors or by using unsecured devices people inevitably take everywhere like cell phones, mp3 players, flash drives etc to hack air gapped systems (like the Iranian nuclear plant hack). At zero hour they turn off all that poo poo. They had also been laboriously mapping all US military satellites and they take those out manually instead of something like nuclear EMP blasts that gently caress everyone. They even cap some American who was randomly at the ISS which I thought was funny. Since absolutely all US hardware is thoroughly networked it is helpless and they annihilate the pacific fleet and any planes in US bases in Asia are destroyed. Little of the anti-missile/etc network backup options actually worked when required (not that different from the IDF getting hosed when their network lines were cut). The only place they engage with troops is Hawaii where a force lands and takes the bases there. By the time the US gets everything back up and can get randy about nuclear options the Chinese offer the current status of the US kicked out of Asia and the pacific as a fait accompli peace. No goofy invasion of California or anything. Since they were careful to avoid disruption to other countries as they could and a full total WW3 means the end of global trade, other countries and the business community scream at the US to accept (this was before we made Europe thoroughly our bitch again). This is to setup a goofy Expendables/ BSG third act where a bunch of old guys come out of retirement to get the old cold war ships running again. They head off and gloriously defeat the Chinese in Hawaii. I think the peace does happen basically the same but at least the US keeps Hawaii so they don't have to redo all the flags. Considering how it is constantly revealed that so much in the defense industry has been quietly outsourced to China via cheap rear end contractors and how poorly most contemporary US hardware works it isn't that far-fetched. Really the most implausible idea is that the Chinese have to bother attacking us and won't just wait for us to own-goal ourselves to death.
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Nov 15, 2023 02:06
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Do we have to use any of the dick rocket companies to launch satellites or does the gov still have that capacity? Presumably any private company has shareholders who also do business in China and they can be told to knock it off any time China likes.
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Nov 15, 2023 02:53
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The Voice of Labor posted:aren't they all? There are dick looking rockets and then there are dick rockets. Some rockets that look like penises help you do poo poo in space and others just let rich guys pretend to gently caress space. If there's a phallus free space future we're pretty far from it.
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Nov 15, 2023 03:28
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:You know what, I gotta come back to the pricetag of the wingman drones. Yeah plus defense projects at this stage are always way under priced. It's like those car commercials that say MSRP starts at X and they mean without extras like AC, radio, and more than 1 seat (the no engine cost of the F35 thrown around is hilarious). Once there's enough sunk cost it'll balloon. You know also when comparing the cost they'll go with the most high ball cost of training a pilot possible plus maybe some dollar value for political cost so they can confidently state the drone is cheaper and worth pursuing. I know the American MIC can innovate in the cheap drone space to make sure it's better than cheap: behold American luxury drones
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Nov 15, 2023 04:27
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