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US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

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Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#981
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not for a second believe Trump thinks this all up himself. I'm not one for conspiracies, but I'm wondering how large the group using him as a mouthpiece really is.

That's the thing. Trump's actions make no sense unless you view them through the lens that he's driving the agenda of Putin. Then again, even if a global nuclear war broke out, some of his loyalists would still be convinced that Trump is playing some sort of 3D chess and that it's all going according to his masterful plan.

Maybe. I also think men like Bannon want to work towards a society not quite unlike The Handmaids Tale. I recently watched the Grab documentary, and seeing how much of the food production and water resources has been sold off to Saudis and China, and it's also has to be of the reasons Putin wants that specific part of Ukraine. It does explain to me why a lot of countries are starting to gear up.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#983

Trump just destroyed US advanced arms export. He is efficient at tearing things down, gotta give him that.

A guy who can bankrupt his own casinos is the opposite of whatever a good chief executive officer is.

That always fascinates me. I genuinely don't see how anyone could lose money running a business where people just turn up expecting to lose thousands of dollars for very little in return

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#984
post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because only the USA has agency in this world. Russia didn't choose to invade and Ukrainians didn't choose to defend themselves. As someone from Europe this lack of perspective you showing here is exactly why we are tired of the US atm.

I’d say you lack perspective, this war started in 2014 not when Russia crossed the border. Russia’s agency isn’t going to extend to ignoring existential threats.

How exactly was NATO or Ukraine an existential threat? In what way?

You can’t just say “existential threat” and justify everything thing you do while repeating that you’re protecting yourself from [imaginary] “existential threats”

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#985

I find some of the comments I’ve read today in this thread somewhat enlightening - there is intelligent conversation about the capabilities of the American hardware and its software. The sophistication of the F-35 cannot be debated. But the rest of the world doesn’t trust the US anymore, so it doesn’t matter how good it is - people would gladly explore a worse product because they see it as lower risk. That’s the rea…

> We don’t want the US’ stuff anymore I wonder why this sentiment is not reflected in stock prices. It seems like major defense companies are close to ATH and keep growing. Not trying to argue, just wonder what is the reason for it.

Because nothing the OP stated is true... The difference between a superior product in war is the difference between winning and losing, not a cost control mechanism. a f35 would destroy a fleet of other aircraft, VTOL land on an aircraft carrier, and be launching a second volley before any other aircraft even had radar signature of the f35.

>We don’t want the US’ stuff anymore and the only thing that can save that relationship is full software control.

This is not how this works... You do have full software control when doing deals of this size. However, that does not mean that you have to provide software updates. The program in question is about find the different frequency's the russians are using so the f-16 can continue it's jamming capabilities. This is not "Full source control" It's whether the US should be using US Cyber Assets to be manually update the frequency's detected.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#986
post #908

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the guy, but I find myself having to point this out to all of my doom-minded American friends. Yes, Trump is a criminal idiot, but one positive, probably unintended effect is that the world becomes more, in the words of Taleb, anti-fragile. As an American I am thrilled that Europe is becoming more united, more pragmatic, and more self-reliant. Our relationship is not over, it is just changing, and Europe…

The American order that stood for decades was anti-fragile. Everyone outsourced their defense to some reasonable degree, so no one was strong enough to pose an existential threat to anyone else, so we could all afford to be off guard. Now every actor needs to have the strength to deter all others, which means everyone gets stronger, which means everyone needs even more strength to deter others, or deterrence simply b…

England, France, Israel... They all had nukes the entire time. What you are claiming sounds good but does not align with reality. You are overstating both the degree to which things have changed as well as overstating the degree to which the alliances have changed (i.e. Europe is still Europe. Poland won't be arming itself to protect against Germany or France, etc).

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#987

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the guy, but I find myself having to point this out to all of my doom-minded American friends. Yes, Trump is a criminal idiot, but one positive, probably unintended effect is that the world becomes more, in the words of Taleb, anti-fragile. As an American I am thrilled that Europe is becoming more united, more pragmatic, and more self-reliant. Our relationship is not over, it is just changing, and Europe…

Multi-polarity isn't anti-fragility. Multi-polarity is bad with no redeeming qualities, you get more war and more nuclear proliferation.

How much of the last 40 years have we been without a major war or "police action"? I don't think the world was as stable as you thought it was.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#988

I find some of the comments I’ve read today in this thread somewhat enlightening - there is intelligent conversation about the capabilities of the American hardware and its software. The sophistication of the F-35 cannot be debated. But the rest of the world doesn’t trust the US anymore, so it doesn’t matter how good it is - people would gladly explore a worse product because they see it as lower risk. That’s the rea…

While this might be the thinking of many critical citizens, I would hope that this translates into political and governmental action. This is unfortunately not an automatism.

One problem remains if politics decide to scrap the F-35 deal in Germany:

While the Eurofighter was an alternative to the F-35, it is not certified to carry tactical nuclear weapons. The phased-out Tornado was the go to platform for this particular scenario.

Source: German Luftwaffe personel

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#989

I find some of the comments I’ve read today in this thread somewhat enlightening - there is intelligent conversation about the capabilities of the American hardware and its software. The sophistication of the F-35 cannot be debated. But the rest of the world doesn’t trust the US anymore, so it doesn’t matter how good it is - people would gladly explore a worse product because they see it as lower risk. That’s the rea…

It's getting the point where people are actively avoiding USA made goods as a protest. To tell you the truth, it's not as hard to do as avoiding Chinese made goods so I think America is going to lose out massively. Right now as it stands today, I feel a lot less guilty about buying Chinese than I have in the past. Not because China is "better" but because supporting the current regime feels just as not, if not more m…

Yeah, I was surprised to find myself concluding that "tech" is, to me, quite literally the only hiccup.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#990
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only been 2 months. America in free fall.

Middle finger politics at work, brought about and cheered on by evangelical christians.

This is a political bubble view if I've ever seen one. Evangelical Christians (those that are practicing and going to church regularly and very zealous in their beliefs) make up a tiny minority of those currently aligning with the right, and many are fervent never Trump'ers and prefer a Romney or Bush type Republican. They've simply lost their voice within the party. Most "conservatives" are okay with gay marriage and abortion up to a 22-24 week term (about the point where the fetus can experience pain). Devout religious practice by every survey and measure has fallen into the minority in the US and the country is largely agnostic at best if not in profession, then in practice. They don't care about the

The middle finger is by a larger portion of the working blue collar middle class that has had their economic base wiped out by free trade or trade policies like negative tariff's (ex: China subsidizes shipping of products to the US, hiding the true costs and incentivizing higher carbon/energy consumption practices like shipping raw products overseas to be processed and shipped back, its why you can ship something from Shenzhen for 30 cents when it costs $50-$80 to send the same small item the other way). The few manufacturing facilities and industries here view this as a hostile predatory business practice, similar to when Walmart or chain moves in, cuts prices to cost/loss, drives local competition out of business, then raises prices after they're gone to at or above what the prior businesses sold at. You'll never see this reported on because its a practice that benefits the very rich and people in cities who like cheap goods and don't care where it came from. They view this trade war as a return shots to a war or attacks that's been ongoing for 20 years.

If you frame this as anything outside of working class politics or rural vs metropolitan you're still viewing politics from a view point of 30 years ago. People in rural or less populated areas don't care if people in NYC pay more for goods. They've had their entire economic infrastructure ripped out from under them and were told to learn to code or move to an expensive city or something after they're already barely surviving. They've seen the cost of living raise as they're outcompeted in lower cost housing segments by an influx of migrants who need housing and buy up/rent out the few affordable lower cost areas of a city or location to live. Meanwhile everyone living in the nice neighborhoods thinks its all racism and enjoys the novel new ethnic restaurants popping up. They're experiencing none of the downsides and all of the upsides so find it easy to say its entirely xenophobia. People not affected by it at the same levels in academic or corporate jobs are able to talk in idealist terms about how great these things are because they don't have to deal with the base realities of the issue or fentanyl epidemic, etc. So yes, that segment of the population is very much in a mood of "if we have to suffer, you'll suffer too until you start giving a shit about us instead of entirely what just benefits you". Whether or not this is entirely correct or nuanced doesn't matter. That's the overwhelming sentiment. If you still keep thinking of politics from the viewpoint of what's discussed in bars and dinner tables in cities with a population >500k or everyone in your friend group has a 4 year degree and gets their politics from major outlets, you're dealing with outdated information and context. Even highly educated conservative pundits who live in high population density areas don't get it and have struggled to catch up with the huge shift over the last 10 years.

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