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U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

e360.yale.edu

331–340 of 540 posts

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have military hegemony, then why can't we open the strait of Hormuz?

Because it would require a boots on the ground invasion to occupy the entire portion of Iran overlooking the Strait. The strait is physically open but no insurance company will cover massive oil carriers because they are so easy to hit with small weaponry from the ridges of Iran.

Why doesn't the US government just insure them itself then? A quarter of a billion dollars is a major risk to an insurance company with no internal capacity to mitigate the risk itself, but it's not even a rounding error in the federal budget and the US government would then be expressing confidence in the ability of its own military to ensure safe passage.

And even if they had to pay a claim, it would cost the population less than the higher gas prices, since increasing supply lowers the market price for all supply, not just the incremental units.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many million graduate students do you need to give the US the military hegemony and political influence over allies and adversaries that the F-35 program provides ? Looked at from a policy maker's viewpoint, things look very different.

Does the F35 do that? Wasn't Iran shooting those down recently? If there's anything Iran has taught us it's that airpower doesn't win wars, allies do. The US will leave the middle east with their tail between their legs. This is the beginning of the end of the American Empire. For the privilege of spending enormous sums of treasure flying around dropping bombs on brown people what did we get? I would have rather seen…

> Does the F35 do that? Wasn't Iran shooting those down recently?

No. One was damaged by ground fire and landed at a US base.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/f-35a-lands-after-taking-f...

You may be thinking of the F-15s shot down by Kuwaiti "friendly fire".

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazy thing is that the oil companies confessed to a misinformation campaign and at least publicly talked about change/reform (of course, they're still oil exploration/refinement companies so not abandoning that). But they did discuss responsible use of fossil fuels in transition towards renewables. But Trump was fooled and is more committed than ever to the since-abandoned misinformation campaign. It took on a b…

The Mauna Loa CO2 data is still up.[1] Trump tried to kill off the CO2 measuring, but that doesn't seem to have happened. The Mauna Loa data goes back to 1958, measured at the same point, far from any CO2 sources. 315ppm in 1958, 441ppm today, and almost a noise free curve with mild seasonal variations. Clearest trend in global warming. [1] https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt [2] https://www.c…

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Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#334
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't assume that this is about cost cutting. If the goal were saving money, the cheapest option by far would be to leave the hardware in the water and just stop funding the monitoring. Instead the plan is an expensive operation to send ships out to extract 900+ instruments from under two miles of ocean. It's clear that this is driven by performative climate denialism and a pro fossil fuel stance. The Trump admi…

But… why? Climate change is very much real and even stubborn deep-right voters like my father now ‘believe’ in it. Ok, some people make some cash. But wouldn’t they anyway? I don’t understand this need to keep pandering to a minority and to destroy ecosystems.

Tribalism.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but we still couldn't have stopped them with our vaunted carrier-based power projection, or with our exhausted ABM capabilities. US Naval doctrine has been a paper tiger ever since that Millenium Challenge exercise.

US military deterrence has been a paper tiger ever since Biden told Iran "don't" [1], and Iran did, and Biden did not respond. Now whoever the sitting US president would be - Trump or anybody else - must restore that deterrence. There is no nice or easy way to do that. The last time the US had to do that was during WW2 and the enemies were not floating heavy, extended media campaigns and funding US universities at th…

The Millenium Challenge was 2002, predating Biden by about 20 years, and was the same year Iran was named as part of the "Axis of Evil".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil#2002_State_of_the...

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#336
post #75

What really puts all of this into perspective for me is I work in academia and one of my friends works for a defense contractor. He told me the maintenance cost per flight hour of F-35 was a bit more than $40k, which is significantly more than I make in a year as a grad student. It's crazy basic science is what's been the focus of so many cuts while it's so cheap.

Because it’s an excuse, the trump admin is lying. All the time, you should never take them at their words. They have never been about cutting costs. Just look at Trump deficit. They are very openly going after science because it goes against the fake reality they are selling to their cult members

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#337
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazy thing is that the oil companies confessed to a misinformation campaign and at least publicly talked about change/reform (of course, they're still oil exploration/refinement companies so not abandoning that). But they did discuss responsible use of fossil fuels in transition towards renewables. But Trump was fooled and is more committed than ever to the since-abandoned misinformation campaign. It took on a b…

I don't think Trump was "fooled" by anything. His policy positions reflect what makes him and his cronies money, and what keeps him in power. That's it. He doesn't care about truth or correctness. Just money and power.

I submit that the "is malice or incompetence" heuristic can be broken by pathological inputs which result in an indefinite runtime, and that we've encountered some of them in the last decade.

The correct response when that happens is to say "both" until/unless the perpetrators want to plead just one or the other.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they didn’t want the retribution that would follow. That’s what protection looks like. Assured destruction when it’s not mutual is pretty motivating.

Sure, but we still couldn't have stopped them with our vaunted carrier-based power projection, or with our exhausted ABM capabilities. US Naval doctrine has been a paper tiger ever since that Millenium Challenge exercise.

Not being able to stop random killings or destruction from small arms fire has nothing to do with military power projection.

Military power projection is the reason the US was able to destroy a significant portion of Iranian leadership, nuclear infrastructure, and weapons infrastructure with no retaliation from Iran back in the US nor any pushback from any of Irans allies.

Military hegemony has nothing to do with being a perfect police force that can stop anything from happening anywhere.

>but we still couldn't have stopped them with our vaunted carrier-based power projection, or with our exhausted ABM capabilities.

Who is “we”? Your account started posting nothing but anti-US stances and pro-China/Iran stances since this conflict began.

Re: U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the F35 do that? Wasn't Iran shooting those down recently? If there's anything Iran has taught us it's that airpower doesn't win wars, allies do. The US will leave the middle east with their tail between their legs. This is the beginning of the end of the American Empire. For the privilege of spending enormous sums of treasure flying around dropping bombs on brown people what did we get? I would have rather seen…

I'm sorry, but this is like the most ignorant take ever. The world is essentially one life supported regime away from having a level of stability in the middle east that has quite literally never been achieved. Iran and their regional proxies have been almost the only source of middle eastern discontent in the last two decades. The stability of the region is already vastly improved from any time in the past and the d…

>The world is essentially one life supported regime away from having a level of stability in the middle east that has quite literally never been achieved.

Agreed, but I wouldn't call Israel a regime.

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