FlyingWolf

Its about financial security. We've all heard it over-and-over that America subsidizes the security of Europe, so much so that we blow off its impacts as insignificant... they are not. The primary reason these countries are able to maintain welfare states is because we do this. The primary reason America is in significant debt is because we have subsidized so much of the world (defense and otherwise), and asked almost nothing in return. This is a core Christian value, not sustainable in a national policy context. It is no small thing. Every time someone highlights something another country has better, its drawing on this reality. Greenland is an extension of this conflict. Its important to position against China/Russia in the artic, but we can't subsidize European defense again without potential upside, there is no potential upside on offer from Europe right now. They want the US protection and all the resources.

A Brit walking through the vanilla pro-US-defense-of-Ukraine perspective was not very compelling for me. I've still got mixed thoughts about this, but the Europeans thinking more about their own defense strikes me as a pretty big silver lining.

Hah, ironic avatar

*Small Cruise Missile has entered the chat*

Well layed out thoughts here, you largely supported my intuited fears. What is a middle class man to do in such a world? Best I can figure, its buy arable land and ammo, but more practical advice would be appreciate.

Simply put: Effective CAS requires and provides high situational awareness coupled with rapid, precise, and accurate fires. The AC-130 and A-10 reign supreme here. Other measures of performance matter a lot too, of course (range/endurance/magazine depth/hardened target legality/CDE/survivability/cost/etc). These additional factors all define how much, where, and when effective CAS can be provided, and some other platforms beat out the AC-130 and A-10 in some of these. This discussion is ultimately about how much do we buy in to a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none platform (F-35) vs specialize and diversify… as many others have already alluded to. I am a proponent of maintaining some specialization/diversification.

https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/hundreds-of-fighting-age-chinese

Put a HAAR pod on one side and the laser testbed version of the AC-130J could basically do all of this... Haven't seen rocket pods done yet, does JATO count? Gun out the right hand side though... Blasphemous Edit: Fixed the meme for ya

Starship Troopers had a lot of compelling ideas packaged in that cheezy-but-entertaining veneer. I, for one, vote we adopt using "Sir" regardless of gender.

Nah... Do you not believe in drug cartels? You seriously dont think people in the military "join or work together"? Conspiracies happen all the time, they are fundamental to the concept of society itself. Often we call it politics. Sure, the wizard behind the curtain concept is unrealistic. Its often groups of likeminded individuals who have convinced themselves they are the good guys and fall back to ends-justify-the-means philosophy.

You must have had an incredibly interesting career, with all the insight you bring across topics. Well deserved rocking chair status. On this one... spot on. It troubles me greatly.

My personal conjecture/anecdote supported theory: AO is one of Slife's moves to try to end the AC-130.

We're looking at the highest inflationary environment in most of our lifetimes, big airline hiring at the beginning of a long term surge, and omicron likely signaling endemic C-19. All on the heels of a dramatically poor take rate last year. You would think an adjustment to the contract offering would be a no-brainer... but who knows, maybe we need to fail catastrophically before we change.

Can you support this claim? I'm onboard that its clear there is a few week delay in full reporting. I haven't seen convincing evidence of underreporting. Closest I've seen is comparion of C-19 deaths vs excess deaths, which was a weak argument given the numerous other causes of death that could reasonably spike due to individual and organizational covid fear responses. (ex delaying care for critical conditions, deaths of despair).

Yes, though that is not how it was originally sold, nor is it how it works with all vaccines/viruses. and it begs the question... Which presents more evolutionary pressure to a virus: partially inhospitable immune systems or unprepared ones? I don't know, it probably depends on particular variables, and there is some evidence partially effective vaccines may encourage mutations. There is a line of argument out there that the unvaccinated are causing the mutations, but the opposite may be more true here. It will probably be a while yet before we know.