Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

19fortyfive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 218 posts

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#91

Post by cwp »

wombatmobile wrote: post #49

War is in part an expression of technological competitive advantage. Nth generation weaponry is expensive because technology requires the best minds, materials, and facilities that money can buy. But what if for the same money, or less, we could buy something even better? How much does peace cost? Has anybody ever costed it? For example, what could $2 trillion have bought in Iraq, Portland, or Jerusalem if it had bee…

Well, it's not like nobody has ever thought of that before. The best we've been able to do is deterrence, which requires developing advanced weapons like aircraft carriers, stealth fighters and nukes.

I know this isn't what you had in mind, but the world is about to find out what it's like to not have superpowers interfering in their affairs. The US doesn't really have any need for troops abroad: the Cold War is over, the War on Terror is over, and there's plenty of oil at home. Americans have noticed that depending on foreign manufacturing for key products like medicines and microchips isn't so great when trade is disrupted, and there are going to be a lot more disruptions without the US military to stabilize things. That's going to cause America to do more manufacturing at home and further disengage with the world.

That's not exactly peace, but at least it's not war.

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#92

Post by LatteLazy »

dimitar wrote: post #79
wombatmobile wrote: post #49

War is in part an expression of technological competitive advantage. Nth generation weaponry is expensive because technology requires the best minds, materials, and facilities that money can buy. But what if for the same money, or less, we could buy something even better? How much does peace cost? Has anybody ever costed it? For example, what could $2 trillion have bought in Iraq, Portland, or Jerusalem if it had bee…

Si vis pacem, para bellum Military budgets are peace spending. Wars begin when politicians think they can achieve goals easily using arms - see Germany's plans in the World Wars, Saddam's invasion of Iran, Russia's invasion of Ukraine after the 2013 revolution or most wars really. Having strong armed forces and military alliances are an insurance policy against being invaded.

There isn't a linear relationship here. If our militaries were 50% weaker, we'd have thought twice before iraq 2 and we wouldn't be rattling the sabre at iran would we? So right now, for the US and allies, more preparing for war means more (pointless, wasteful) wars...

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#93

Post by bnastic »

paganel wrote: post #17
spockz wrote: post #11

How is this affected by the new pact between US, UK, and Australia? The news here made it appears as that caused some bad blood between EU and the US/UK.

It’s mostly France with the bad blood, as they lost a lucrative submarine deal.

I can’t remember a single military project involving France and the UK that didn’t end up with them parting ways. From NATO, for a while, to eurofighter/rafale

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#94

Post by ClumsyPilot »

toxik wrote: post #85
jabl wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an European taxpayer, I'm certainly concerned that resources are wasted. OTOH, Putin has time and again proved that he's a belligerent crook entirely willing to expand his territory any time his neighbors show weakness. Much as I wish it were different, Europe must be able to mount a credible defense, with or without the USA.

You are surely aware that France and the UK have nukes. That seems like a pretty strong deterrent.

Salami tactics - https://youtu.be/o861Ka9TtT4

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#95

Post by curuinor »

cwp wrote: post #91
wombatmobile wrote: post #49

War is in part an expression of technological competitive advantage. Nth generation weaponry is expensive because technology requires the best minds, materials, and facilities that money can buy. But what if for the same money, or less, we could buy something even better? How much does peace cost? Has anybody ever costed it? For example, what could $2 trillion have bought in Iraq, Portland, or Jerusalem if it had bee…

Well, it's not like nobody has ever thought of that before. The best we've been able to do is deterrence, which requires developing advanced weapons like aircraft carriers, stealth fighters and nukes. I know this isn't what you had in mind, but the world is about to find out what it's like to not have superpowers interfering in their affairs. The US doesn't really have any need for troops abroad: the Cold War is over…

if you don't have hegemony, you have the balance of powers: if you don't have the balance of powers, you have hegemony. if we're getting out from hegemony we'll go into the balance of powers (you can sort of see this in the everyone-surrounding-the-prc's reaction to the prc: everyone gangs up together to balance out the putative new hegemon)

you need total consensus down to the last man for pacifism to work. works great in groups of 10 people, not so much with groups of 2 billion: you need to credibly threaten the insane yelling person while making sure you're not the insane yelling person yourself

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#96

Post by wombatmobile »

cwp wrote: post #91
wombatmobile wrote: post #49

War is in part an expression of technological competitive advantage. Nth generation weaponry is expensive because technology requires the best minds, materials, and facilities that money can buy. But what if for the same money, or less, we could buy something even better? How much does peace cost? Has anybody ever costed it? For example, what could $2 trillion have bought in Iraq, Portland, or Jerusalem if it had bee…

Well, it's not like nobody has ever thought of that before. The best we've been able to do is deterrence, which requires developing advanced weapons like aircraft carriers, stealth fighters and nukes. I know this isn't what you had in mind, but the world is about to find out what it's like to not have superpowers interfering in their affairs. The US doesn't really have any need for troops abroad: the Cold War is over…

> Well, it's not like nobody has ever thought of that before.

Naturally. What we haven't done before is invested in tools. We've invested trillions to make tools for advertising, but almost nothing to make tools for achieving peace.

> The best we've been able to do is deterrence, which requires developing advanced weapons like aircraft carriers, stealth fighters and nukes.

I'm not suggesting war or deterrence can be obsoleted. Human nature is what it is.

What if for every $1 trillion of sticks, we had $1 trillion of carrots?

50 years from now, what if the 3rd generation carrots scaled better than the sticks, which don't scale at all?

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#97

Post by jhrozek »

Apocryphon wrote: post #33
ARandomerDude wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the defense world. These are sophisticated defense engineering hotspots who collaborate to make up for not having America's money.

Why then and not France, Germany, the Netherlands, etc.?

Sweden is producing its own domestic fighter jets to this day (Saab Gripen). It’s latest generation was unveiled in 2017. So they have the experience but my assumption is that developing a next gen fighter is just too expensive and wasteful for such a small country.

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#98

Post by koonsolo »

wombatmobile wrote: post #49

War is in part an expression of technological competitive advantage. Nth generation weaponry is expensive because technology requires the best minds, materials, and facilities that money can buy. But what if for the same money, or less, we could buy something even better? How much does peace cost? Has anybody ever costed it? For example, what could $2 trillion have bought in Iraq, Portland, or Jerusalem if it had bee…

If you have something of value and you cannot protect it, someone will take it from you. That is just how the world works.

So how will you protect yourself? You cannot just convert eveyone to zen buddhism. You will have to find a way to protect yourself, so you can say: here is the limit that you cannot cross.

Peace can only exist when a powerful entity enforces it.

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#99

Post by c048 »

curuinor wrote: post #95
cwp wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not like nobody has ever thought of that before. The best we've been able to do is deterrence, which requires developing advanced weapons like aircraft carriers, stealth fighters and nukes. I know this isn't what you had in mind, but the world is about to find out what it's like to not have superpowers interfering in their affairs. The US doesn't really have any need for troops abroad: the Cold War is over…

if you don't have hegemony, you have the balance of powers: if you don't have the balance of powers, you have hegemony. if we're getting out from hegemony we'll go into the balance of powers (you can sort of see this in the everyone-surrounding-the-prc's reaction to the prc: everyone gangs up together to balance out the putative new hegemon) you need total consensus down to the last man for pacifism to work. works gr…

Balance of power caused millennia of war in Europe. Forming a hegemony has lead to almost 80 years of peace.

Large wars haven't been a thing since the dominance of the US and been pushed further and further to the periphery, especially since the end of the cold war.

Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?

#100

Post by stedaniels »

koonsolo wrote: post #98
wombatmobile wrote: post #49

War is in part an expression of technological competitive advantage. Nth generation weaponry is expensive because technology requires the best minds, materials, and facilities that money can buy. But what if for the same money, or less, we could buy something even better? How much does peace cost? Has anybody ever costed it? For example, what could $2 trillion have bought in Iraq, Portland, or Jerusalem if it had bee…

If you have something of value and you cannot protect it, someone will take it from you. That is just how the world works. So how will you protect yourself? You cannot just convert eveyone to zen buddhism. You will have to find a way to protect yourself, so you can say: here is the limit that you cannot cross. Peace can only exist when a powerful entity enforces it.

That isn't "just how the world works", that's how a subset of people in the world behave.
Post reply on HN