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Nowhere is safe

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Re: Nowhere is safe

#41

Post by ErroneousBosh »

Apes wrote: post #31
testing22321 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. When all you have is a hammer…

The theory behind the US having a large military is that it acts as a sort of fleet in being - that the US prefers other methods of engaging with countries, and having a stronger military precludes other countries from engaging militarily. In turn, having stable global relations and protected global trade provides the US with a huge economic boon to fund its large military. That's the theory anyway - our Idiot King a…

> the US prefers other methods of engaging with countries, and having a stronger military precludes other countries from engaging militarily

If the US has such a strong military why are they always begging European countries to help them with their various totally-not-a-war "actions", like most recently in Iran?

Last time the UK got into something in the Middle East with the US we lost more people to "friendly fire" than enemy action. There's no real appetite for that any more.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#42

Post by CodingJeebus »

brianjlogan wrote: post #15

Hmm... Interestingly one does not look at the solutions to de-escalate conflict. Despite the proxy wars we've had a relatively peaceful world since WW1/WW2. Please humor me here, I'm not saying the world is horror free. The emphasis I would hope would also be for improved negotiation tactics, better resource sharing and goal alignment between groups of people. Why is it that we can dream up more conflict but not peac…

> Why is it that we can dream up more conflict but not peaceful scenarios?

Sadly, war is often a driver of economic growth. WWII pulled the US economy out the Great Depression and transformed it into one of the most prosperous in human history. I'd argue that the proxy wars the US has been waging largely exist to satiate a military industrial complex that is focused on growth. Hard to grow when your business is war if there are no wars to fight.

And I'll wade into political waters. The US government has no problem waging war because it's not unpopular enough of an issue to threaten an administration. We're spending $1B a day now to fight Iran but we somehow can't find the political courage to improve healthcare or hunger here at home.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#43

Post by esseph »

dragonelite wrote: post #11
carlosjobim wrote: post #2

Do drones just appear out of thin air? Or are they made in factories, which as far as I know are "high value fixed civilian infrastructure" - which is vulnerable to attack? If drones become a big enough problem for countries like the US, then drone factories in China will be bombed, I have no doubt about that. The author is quite misguided if he thinks wars can only be fought defensively and never offensively.

You think the US will unleash nuclear holocaust of the human race for some drone parts? The US will do none of that shit because they wont be able to do it. Given the US is struggling against Iran, couldn't outproduce Russia on the battlefield yet they want to force down China which is an order of magnitude bigger than Russia.

> struggling against Iran

Idk what to tell you, but any target that seems to get marked in Iran blows the fuck up.

> couldn't outproduce Russia on the battlefield

??? What does this even mean?

It's not like the US is in a wartime economy.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#44

Post by ACCount37 »

firefoxd wrote: post #9

I often see these angles, how we should have prepared better or attacked this instead of that, or the unexpected strategy from the adversary. What about not bombing? The best safety trick the US can use is not bombing others.

[flagged]

Re: Nowhere is safe

#45

Post by stavros »

YZF wrote: post #37
firefoxd wrote: post #9

I often see these angles, how we should have prepared better or attacked this instead of that, or the unexpected strategy from the adversary. What about not bombing? The best safety trick the US can use is not bombing others.

Who did the US bomb before 9/11? Who did the US bomb before Pearl Harbor? Who did the US bomb before its embassies in East Africa were attacked? https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/east-african-embass... Who did the US bomb before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 ? I would love for nobody to bomb or kill anyone. Did Ukraine bomb Russia? Is Taiwan bombing China that declares it is going to take Tai…

> Who did the US bomb before 9/11?

Iraq, during the Gulf War.

> Who did the US bomb before Pearl Harbor?

Japan, though the US didn't bomb them, it instituted an oil embargo and asset freeze.

> Who did the US bomb before its embassies in East Africa were attacked

Iraq, during the Gulf War.

> Who did the US bomb before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 ?

Tripoli and Benghazi, Iran Air Flight 655.

I don't understand the purpose of these questions. Were you thinking the US was just minding its own business and some bad guys came and attacked it?

Re: Nowhere is safe

#46

Post by intended »

Drones have upended the unit economics of combat and made older doctrines less relevant. Drones seem to combine the benefits of missiles level payloads, aircraft level control and ability to project force over a distance.

I don’t see any technical way we can stop them - but it’s not like we stopped guns.

The drone and LLM era are the end of many things we older folk are used to. The information commons are sunk with LLMs - we simply do not have the capacity (resources, manpower, bandwidth, desire) to verify the content being churned out every second.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#47

Post by ACCount37 »

CodingJeebus wrote: post #42
brianjlogan wrote: post #15

Hmm... Interestingly one does not look at the solutions to de-escalate conflict. Despite the proxy wars we've had a relatively peaceful world since WW1/WW2. Please humor me here, I'm not saying the world is horror free. The emphasis I would hope would also be for improved negotiation tactics, better resource sharing and goal alignment between groups of people. Why is it that we can dream up more conflict but not peac…

> Why is it that we can dream up more conflict but not peaceful scenarios? Sadly, war is often a driver of economic growth. WWII pulled the US economy out the Great Depression and transformed it into one of the most prosperous in human history. I'd argue that the proxy wars the US has been waging largely exist to satiate a military industrial complex that is focused on growth. Hard to grow when your business is war i…

That's a property shared by any large scale government spending.

The difference between pouring 80B into a war and pouring the same into infrastructure is that one gives you a more developed MIC and a lot of munitions and a lot of explosions (exported), and the other gives you... infrastructure, and construction industry.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#48

Post by AndriyKunitsyn »

cortesoft wrote: post #40
AndriyKunitsyn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? The friendliest people in the US are exactly in the open carry states. NYC on the other hand has the biggest number of jerks per capita I ever seen. (No offence to all nice people from NYC, which there are still plenty.)

This really depends on what you look like. Open carry states can be very unfriendly if you look a certain way.

OK, can't argue with that. I have no first-hand experience on this, you are probably right.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#49

Post by throw310822 »

stavros wrote: post #45
YZF wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who did the US bomb before 9/11? Who did the US bomb before Pearl Harbor? Who did the US bomb before its embassies in East Africa were attacked? https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/east-african-embass... Who did the US bomb before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 ? I would love for nobody to bomb or kill anyone. Did Ukraine bomb Russia? Is Taiwan bombing China that declares it is going to take Tai…

> Who did the US bomb before 9/11? Iraq, during the Gulf War. > Who did the US bomb before Pearl Harbor? Japan, though the US didn't bomb them, it instituted an oil embargo and asset freeze. > Who did the US bomb before its embassies in East Africa were attacked Iraq, during the Gulf War. > Who did the US bomb before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 ? Tripoli and Benghazi, Iran Air Flight 655. I don't…

The US are also the major enabler of Israel's colonial expansion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This was clearly expressed by Bin Laden himself as one of the motives behind the 9/11 attacks.

> Were you thinking the US was just minding its own business and some bad guys came and attacked it

As I remember, this was exactly the way the US explained 9/11: "they hate us for our freedom".

Re: Nowhere is safe

#50

Post by maxglute »

Against subsonic, low supersonic threats, short / medium term it's still about magazine depth and interceptor economics and sheer attrition math, i.e. PRC can build cheap interceptors at scale... has magnitude more targets due to sheer size, many of which are hardened, entire underground civil/mic infrastructure etc etc.

Physically, there is nothing preventing near 100% interception rates on subsonics and low supersonics. But once high end supersonics proliferate, things get spicy.

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