'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
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Re: 'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
#2[flagged]
Re: 'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
#3US government is stealing money payed by Switzerland for F-35s. Basically Switzerland bought 5 patriot batteries but the USA couldn't deliver so they cancelled payments. Then the USA took payment for the F-35s and applied that as patriot battery payments then came back and said "sorry our f-35 deal has to be renegotiated and you have to pay 2x the original deal". Switzerland lost about 1.3 billion francs - 1.5B$ - so far.
And yet Switzerland is still going through with the deal but just buying half as many planes.
Re: 'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
#4US government is stealing money payed by Switzerland for F-35s. Basically Switzerland bought 5 patriot batteries but the USA couldn't deliver so they cancelled payments. Then the USA took payment for the F-35s and applied that as patriot battery payments then came back and said "sorry our f-35 deal has to be renegotiated and you have to pay 2x the original deal". Switzerland lost about 1.3 billion francs - 1.5B$ - so…
The least terrible option under the circumstances. Any single European country going in either the pivot-to-armed-independence or pivot-to-alliance-with-China route without the rest of Europe buying in to the move is doomed to failure, even before you consider that a couple EU members are very in favour of the status quo.
Re: 'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
#5Sounds like my recent trip to Oklahoma
Re: 'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
#6US government is stealing money payed by Switzerland for F-35s. Basically Switzerland bought 5 patriot batteries but the USA couldn't deliver so they cancelled payments. Then the USA took payment for the F-35s and applied that as patriot battery payments then came back and said "sorry our f-35 deal has to be renegotiated and you have to pay 2x the original deal". Switzerland lost about 1.3 billion francs - 1.5B$ - so…
The least terrible option under the circumstances. Any single European country going in either the pivot-to-armed-independence or pivot-to-alliance-with-China route without the rest of Europe buying in to the move is doomed to failure, even before you consider that a couple EU members are very in favour of the status quo.
I wish we had leaders who understood the value of soft power.
Oh well, guess we’ve blown up nearly a century of diplomacy to placate some narcissists.
Re: 'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
The least terrible option under the circumstances. Any single European country going in either the pivot-to-armed-independence or pivot-to-alliance-with-China route without the rest of Europe buying in to the move is doomed to failure, even before you consider that a couple EU members are very in favour of the status quo.
I wish we had leaders who understood the value of soft power. Oh well, guess we’ve blown up nearly a century of diplomacy to placate some narcissists.
The Iran war demonstrates a lack of understanding of the basic arithmetic of hard power. Iran is 3X to 5X Iraq, depending on what dimension of an invasion plan you're thinking of. Failure to gather at least 3X the resources applied to Iraq means certain failure.
The vandalization of US soft power mechanisms by Musk and others comes into this too. Nobody else is willing to jump into this mess and get dragged down with us.
Re: 'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
#8[flagged]
[flagged]
Re: 'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish we had leaders who understood the value of soft power. Oh well, guess we’ve blown up nearly a century of diplomacy to placate some narcissists.
The Iran war demonstrates a lack of understanding of the basic arithmetic of hard power. Iran is 3X to 5X Iraq, depending on what dimension of an invasion plan you're thinking of. Failure to gather at least 3X the resources applied to Iraq means certain failure. The vandalization of US soft power mechanisms by Musk and others comes into this too. Nobody else is willing to jump into this mess and get dragged down with…
I've also been shocked at the abandonment of US soft power. While I see many possibilities for what is really going on (including the left and right narratives, and a few others) what seems most likely is that the previous hegemony power system was built on oil and gas industrial productivity -> military might - hard power - and the world is transitioning to a new hard power paradigm and during these transitions soft power becomes less relevant/important (at least to the hegemony).
One could argue soft power would extend a weakening hegemony, but maybe only to a point?
Regardless of whatever the US leaders are saying at any given time, it seems to me (as an outsider) that their actual actions, regardless of Democrat/Republican, continually benefit China's long term prosperity.
But I only see what I'm shown, and I have no idea what I don't know... So all I can really do is shrug.
Re: 'They shot all their weapons; they trashed their ships; they ran out of money'
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Iran war demonstrates a lack of understanding of the basic arithmetic of hard power. Iran is 3X to 5X Iraq, depending on what dimension of an invasion plan you're thinking of. Failure to gather at least 3X the resources applied to Iraq means certain failure. The vandalization of US soft power mechanisms by Musk and others comes into this too. Nobody else is willing to jump into this mess and get dragged down with…
I've also been shocked at the abandonment of US soft power. While I see many possibilities for what is really going on (including the left and right narratives, and a few others) what seems most likely is that the previous hegemony power system was built on oil and gas industrial productivity -> military might - hard power - and the world is transitioning to a new hard power paradigm and during these transitions soft…
Military might depends either on domestic retention of a skilled machine tools workforce (as Iran has) or the mass import of a skilled foreign machine tools workforce (as Russia did before 2022, their munitions industry was the Siemens corporation's single biggest customer).
Look at the example of the failed munitions plant in Texas in the last two years for what happens without either of the above.