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This is really the Crux of the whole thing. No, we can't. We hypothetically can do all of those things without doing the things you find illogical, but history and reality suggest otherwise. You still seem to be in the part of your ideological journey where you think societies and the politicians they produce will make hard choices without going through hard times. I do not. I don't think it's a coincidence that as the generation that endured world war II started to lose political power, we started making all the same mistakes that lead towards the conflict I believe to be inevitable. This isn't some wacky theory I came up with on my own. You've heard it before in one of its many various wrappers. Soft times create soft men. Soft men create hard times. Hard times create hard men. Hard men create soft times. Soft times create...

I'm hearing they're looking to retire the -146. I've heard the school house is closed/closing and that they're moving to the Dassault Falcon 900? Not sure how reliable that info is.

… uh what? yes it absolutely does. What is this argument? If you piss away your stockpile which will take years to replace, you are measurably weaker, right now. Can’t believe I have to actually spell this out, but your current inventory and your ability to produce more… both matter. If current inventory was irrelevant how can we maintain a nuclear deterrent even though we haven’t built a new ICBM since 1978 and we haven’t manufactured a new nuke since 1992. We can literally do all of this without needing to bomb Kharg island 😂 idk why common sense national defense/fiscal policy and bombing Kharg island are suddenly and inextricably linked in your mind. And as I’ve said many times before, I don’t know why you do this weird thing where you say “well if you’re so smart why don’t you run for office and fix everything.” We’re debating in a forum. The onus isn’t on either of us to fix the whole world. But if you do want my policy prescription that badly it’s basically: do all the smart stuff you listed in your comment but don’t do all the really stupid parts.

To be clear, this sentence, read fully, says that bombing Kharg Island wouldn't start a war. You might call it: So... Anyways Because it doesn't matter about what you do with the munitions you have right now. All that matters is how many munitions you can continue to produce/source. In a perfect world we wouldn't need these wars and catastrophes to motivate future-oriented behavior. But we don't live in a perfect world, we live in a human world. If it hasn't become abundantly clear that the developed nations of the West will absolutely not maintain their industrial or military capacities, then you simply aren't paying attention. Jesus just look at what they've done to pilot training. And the only way that it could have been done without war/disaster was with international trade policy that incentivized "reshoring" and "friendshoring," But everybody lost their fucking minds when Trump tried to put just a fraction of the tariffs that will be required to get it done. So instead, we're going to use government spending and the inflation tax to end up with the very same effect. To be fair, Trump went about that tariff policy about as stupidly and childishly and erratically as you could possibly imagine, but stupid childish erratic leaders are just a fact of life these days (Gavin Newsom, Ken Paxton, Mandami, MTG, etc). I did not invent the Fourth Turning framework. Ray Dalio calls it the Big Cycle. Niall Ferguson says it already started as Cold War II. Even Jaime Dimon is calling for rearmament. Anyways. After Russian oil and gas was permanently disrupted thanks to the war in Ukraine, the Europeans reclassified nuclear power as green energy after decades of championing decommissioning. They adapt like everyone else, they just do it slowly and they lie through their teeth about the justification. I've said it plenty 🤷‍♂️. Look I wish anything you would do was possible. I'd love to see America stay out of messy wars, increase spending on military readiness, ensure that critical business sectors like drug production, semiconductor manufacturing, and resource mining were domestically stable, control unproductive spending on social programs for the elderly, enforce immigration policy without rioting and chaos, stop spending at deficit levels measured in trillions rather than billions, etc. As I've said before, I can't wait to see your candidacy for public office. We need someone who's smarter than Trump and knows exactly how to fix all this. Please, we need you. But that's not the world we live in. We live in the one where we will destroy ourselves for cheap TVs and the dream of global peace. Removing Iran from the chess board would be a solid enhancement for Team America. And it hasn't escalated yet, despite your suggestions. It has simply dragged-on. It definitely hasn't gone the way the administration hoped (or how I hoped, for that matter), but there's been no escalation.

Only one anecdote, on arrival into DFW maybe a year ago, aircraft ahead of us reported one at about 7000’ MSL and about a mile off his right wing, we both continued arrival to RWY36L, uneventfully. Never saw it. Funny you mention this, I’ve wondered when some idiot, maniac, terrorist, saboteur, etc… was going to fly one into an airliner, or a train, bus, ferry, etc…

Big increase in drone encounters with commercial aviation. On Monday a Jet Blue flight hit a drone on approach to JFK, a helicopter reported one in the area on the same day, and a United Flight reported a near miss (100'). I personally have had two encounters in the last year: 1. About six months ago I was flying from the PCola area down to Boca in my airplane. Passing just north of Tyndall I encountered a medium-sized drone mostly stationary north of the base at about 5000'. A friend was with me and she saw it first. No ADSB and not talking to anyone. I called approach and they did not have it on radar, a plane in trail of me reported it as well. 2. About 8 months ago departed Charleston Exec Runway 9. Approach turned turned me north then west and climbed me through the Class C. Passing 5000' My passenger and I both saw very large drone 1000' below us and clearly inside the Charleston Class C. It clearly had a gimbal payload. I called and they were not tracking it...they clearly got very worked up. Whether it is hobbyist or something more nefarious, there does seem to be an increase and it seems like a easy asymmetric attack vector towards the airline industry. What are you airline folks seeing out there?

IDF about to head into Iran. All part of the plan.

One saved round: Remember that time I said we were heading down the road of irreversible stupid escalations and everyone called me a TDS libtard pussy? Well now here we are talking about how we need to bomb Kharg island so that WW3 starts on our terms 🤷🏻‍♂️ Can’t make this shit up

Apologies I was not tracking you’ve been advocating for this very very bad idea for as long and as consistently as you have been. Still you haven’t explained one key part. How, in an inevitable total war with a competing power that can out-produce us, is it a good plan to waste munitions on a middle eastern sideshow and then intentionally provoke that power while you are most vulnerable in their region of influence? You’re convinced an inevitable global total war is coming. Sure I guess if we want to pretend mutually assured destruction doctrine just magically stopped existing then yeah I guess we’re gonna go to total war with China at some point. But you just said if you had your way you’d push it off 10-15 years.. so shouldn’t that mean we dont bomb Kharg island right now, since that could possibly set off the exact chain of events you want to delay? Seriously, none of this makes any sense. This is turning into you trying to out-realist everybody with apocalypse fantasies, but the arguments fall flat for two main reasons: No one other than you conceives of this war in this way. Europe isn’t going to magically start producing oil again if we blow up Kharg island. They’re just going to be further weakened. If you do think WW3 is coming, you can just say that and prep for it. Idk why it requires us to step on our own dick first

Wow, crazy thread. Stumbled on it by accident. I worked for Foglesong when he was a mere O3 flying T-33s. He was detachment commander; I think we had 4 pilots counting Bob. We didn't really have a lot of drama with him in those days tho there was some noise about friction between him and his ops officer. I guess authority went to his head tho because some of these stories...just...holy crap. We figured he was on some sort of fast track when general Creech showed up for a looksee at our little operation. Seemed highly unusual. Bob left soon after to fly F-15s. I lost track after that.

This was back in March, when we did not yet know whether or not the regime would collapse under the weight of a bombing only campaign. Now that that's clear, just blowing it all up is a more viable option. That said, I still think taking the island over would be the best answer, but politically it would probably result in a few American deaths so outright destroying it is the easier, even though less correct answer. So yeah, I've been pretty consistent. As far as depleting military resources, countries at peace that are expecting further peace do not build up their military, and they do not maintain it. Some places let it collapse faster than others, but the trend is always downward. This is a point I've made before that many of the "obviously I believe there's going to be a war again I'm just remiss to say where or when or why or if it will happen while I'm alive or while my kids are alive or while my grandkids are alive" crowd just sees as warmongering, because ultimately they believe in something I do not. A peaceful world. I want the inevitable war to start while America can still win it. There's a paradox there, because your enemies will not start a war when it is obvious that you can win. Obviously our capabilities/willpower have deteriorated to the point that some of our traditional adversaries have gotten feistier. That's not going to get better. We're not going back into the peace of the '90s. A chain of events has initiated that is going to eventually lead to a another Total war. If I had godlike powers and could control the timeline precisely, I would try to push that Total war off for about 10-15 years, while using a series of regional wars and catastrophes to continually Hammer the global supply chain in an effort to motivate Europe and the Americas to continue this brand new project of rapid de-globalization. We need to rebuild some level of industrial capacity, because that's where you make the drones and the missiles and the bombs and the ships and the planes, we need to secure enough chip fabrication capacity, which is still going to take another decade before we're caught up with Taiwan, and we need a mining Renaissance between Canada and the United States and Mexico, stripping every ounce of critical minerals that we can from the many many isolated and barren parts of our country. Then, send up the flare. Many Americans (and Europeans) are doing with China what Europe did with Germany in the late thirties. Just squeeze your eyes shut and deny the obvious message being sent by those who are not even shy about calling you their enemy. America was in a very similar cultural and political moment back then, with the Americans completely uninterested in participating in foreign affairs and large swaths of the population sympathetic to the fascists and Communists who were by any objective measure immoral governments that created misery for their people. Unfortunately for Germany and Japan, the United States was the largest manufacturing center in the world at the time, so it didn't matter that we kept our head in the sand too long and joined the fight too late. We cranked out 300,000 planes and 50,000 tanks. Who wins the war of production today? Anything that slows down the Chinese industrial machine is a win in my book.

I’m referring to your assertion that we need to bomb Kharg island to intentionally set off a global energy crisis which will somehow be a good thing in the long run. I don’t remember this war ever being pitched that way (fair enough, you didn’t pitch it) but I also don’t remember you ever making this point before. It seems a lot like you’re starting with your conclusion (we just need to keep bombing and escalating) and working backward from there each week with whatever the new neocon strategy du jour is. This is just a blatant straw man. No one here has ever claimed we figured out eternal world peace or that other countries around the world don’t act aggressively. Quite the opposite actually.. my argument is if we’re serious about deterring Russia and China this war has severely hampered that. We don’t have infinite money or resources and this stupid boondoggle on behalf of a foreign country pulled valuable assets away from other AORs that will take significant time to reconstitute. Rebuilding U.S. Missile Inventory: A Multiyear ProjectHigh expenditure of key munitions in Operation Epic Fury has created a window of vulnerability until inventories return to pre-war levels and then reach levels that war planners desire.Article says TLAM THAAD and Patriot stockpiles will be reconstituted by sometime between 2029 and 2031. We retasked 2 carrier strike groups from PACOM to the Middle East. Bomber task forces to anywhere other than CENTCOM are nonexistent right now. 69% of our tanker fleet is sitting at BG/PSAB. But yeah it’s probably a good idea to bomb Kharg island and risk a possible China confrontation at the exact moment our force posture in PACOM is more on the back foot than at any point in the last decade 👌

austin was a terrible sec def

F that guy. Seriously. Literally give one of the worst testimonies to Congress I've ever seen by a member of the DOD.

I don’t agree with everything Pete has done but in terms of worst SecDef ever…

Well to be fair, you're just here to scream into the void, so your questions are usually not particular consistent or honest. My "justifications" for this war are not going to be the same as the administration's, or Brabus's, or anyone else. What and who exactly are you referring to? And yeah, I'm totally crazy for thinking that we just happened to be the generation that figured out how to solve war (just like every society felt right before total war broke out). We did it, team! No big wars ever again. Don't mind the 4 year long land war in Europe or the biggest manufacturing economy building out a humongous and advancing military, they're doing all that because of peace 😂🤣

Bulgaria with their new Block 70 Vipers.

.. so we need to escalate in order to.. encourage Europe to recapitalize their energy independence, so that in some future hypothetical war that’s a foregone conclusion (in your head) our allies will be stronger? Guys these justifications are getting more and more convoluted and nonsensical. Talk about a goalpost shift.. I thought this was about an “imminent nuclear threat” to the US homeland

I pilot I have mentored since he was 14 is a TPS grad and stationed there as an IP. As late as Thursday the wreckage was still on the runway. He mentioned they got back to flying and he decided to go to Palmdale rather than do patterns and see the wreckage on every pattern. It's been tough on the entire test and bomber community, I think there legacy will live on because they touched so many lives.

This is beyond tragic. I can't claim to have known any of the crew but I'm confident I've crossed paths with atleast a few during my occasional trips to KEDW. I don't want this thread to dissipate so fast, like how the rest of the websphere has a ten second attention span. We need to keep these bros in our thoughts & prayers as long as possible.

KEND 26-12AF F-35 F-16 T-38 FAIP B-52 AFRC F-16 Bulgaria

Indeed, I am not bothered by it and see no conspiracy. Was just curious the thoughts of others. I've never seen a Chaplin throw rank around, quite the opposite. Under LOAC they have a different status anyway. Shack! Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam War, 55,000 dead American and how many other lives lost (MILLIONS). Air Campaign by numbers and sortie count which led to Bros strafing the Paul Doumer Bridge because we sold off all our bombs...the F-111...targeting breakfasts. He disastrously attempted to manage a complex human-terrain war using purely quantitative, statistical data (such as enemy body counts), while ignoring qualitative factors like morale, civilian sentiment, and enemy motivation. A LOT of writing on him in recent years...if you want to read an example of bad...look at project 100,000, his draft expansion program that lowered mental and medical standards to recruit disadvantaged young men who would have otherwise been rejected. Often cruelly referred to as "McNamara’s morons," these soldiers faced disproportionately higher casualties and severe post-war disadvantages.

If it sets off a war immediately, probably not. If it doesn't start an immediate war, but forces Europe into regaining control over their energy resources before the inevitable war comes (and it neutralizes the largest destabilizing force in the middle east), then probably so.