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Voroxpete

@ Voroxpete @sh.itjust.works

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3 yr. ago

  • U.S. could hold a 'red card' over Canada's Gripen fighter jet option

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  • Imagine you and twenty of your friends have ganged up on someone in a fight. Would feel exactly as confident if they were armed with a knife as you would if they were armed with nothing?

    It's not always about being able to win the fight. Sometimes it's just about making the fight costly enough that the other party decides its not worth it.

    This, by the way, is exactly why our military is still pushing for the F-35, despite the very high political costs and risks that it now comes with. When you get down to the brass tacks of what an air war between Canada and Russia would look like, the unavoidable factor is that Russia simply does not have any 5th gen fighters. Even on paper their only claimed 5th gen simply isn't. The specs they've announced for the Su-57 it barely qualify as stealthy. And it's well known that Russia overstates their specs (whereas NATO tends to understate ours). We also know from what's been happening Ukraine that Russian radar is dogshit.

    Everything in Russia's current air fleet, including their grand total of 6 "5th gen" fighters, would get stomped into the ground by an F-35. Stealth is a huge force multiplier. When you can kill the enemy without them even seeing you, it's not even a fight, it's just a turkey shoot. Even a small fleet of F-35s would inflict unimaginable damage on the Russian air force. They'd be limited only by their ability to maintain locations to launch from, and their available supply of fuel, parts and munitions.

    Something like that dramatically alters the calculations when it comes to considering any kind of attack.

  • U.S. could hold a 'red card' over Canada's Gripen fighter jet option

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  • Canada's geography isn't exactly conducive to relying on anti-air systems alone. It's the same reason Trump's golden dome is a fantasy; he's trying to recreate Iron Dome, but Iron Dome only works because Isreal is tiny. Canada isn't.

    There's also a huge cost to air defense systems. Just for some rough perspective, a single Patriot missile system costs as much as 10 F-35s. A Patriot covers a radius of about 160km, an F-35, without midair refueling, covers a radius of about 1800km.

    You simply cannot create the same kind of air defence network with ground batteries only as you can with aerial interceptors, and when you need to cover a country as large as ours that makes a huge difference. Far from being a fraction of the cost, your proposal would actually be orders magnitude more expensive.

    Even when you throw drones into the picture they're simply not going to adjust that calculation in any meaningful way. A drone capable of intercepting enemy aircraft or missiles as effectively as a fighter plane is going to cost as much as a fighter plane. There's really no avoiding that.

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • Well, I'll grant you that.

  • Back to back to back to back (to back) war losers

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  • They didn't, either time. But reality got in the way of the meme so OP ignored it.

    The first Iraq war was an unqualified success. There's really no way around that. Should they have gone the whole way and removed Saddam from power? Maybe. But the goal of the war was to protect Kuwait and that goal was accomplished.

    The second Iraq war was stupid, unnecessary, messy, pointless, badly mismanaged, and came at a staggeringly high cost. But it was successful. They achieved the regime change they wanted and ultimately created a puppet state in the Middle East. They're using Iraqi bases right now in their attacks on Iran, something that would not possible if that war had been a failure.

    Doesn't make it a good idea. Getting what you want isn't great if you massively overpay for it.

    Afghanistan, on the other hand, absolutely counts as a loss. The US got nothing that they wanted - it didn't even lead to the death of Bin Laden since he was hiding out in Pakistan - and wasted a tonne of lives and resources to ultimately just put the country back in the hands of the Taliban and give them a whole bunch of military hardware.

  • Gen-Z identical twins model civility as political foes

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  • "Heartwarming! One twin wants to feed all trans people into a giant meat grinder, other wants to raise minimum wage by $0.25, but they still get along despite their differences!"

  • Canada PM Carney says unable to rule out military role in Iran war

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  • Yeah, it was a ridiculous question in the first place. Asking someone to speculate about every single possible future scenario that could ever be imagined is pointless and stupid. Carney gave the only reasonable answer possible under the circumstances.

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • Oh come off it. Like any of us can afford jamon ibérico.

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • Doesn't matter, because if Trump blocks trade with Spain, EU law requires that they shut down all trade with the US, period. Unified Trade Policy; you don't get to make individual trade deals with EU member states, and you don't get to selectively accept or reject trade with EU member states. It's all or nothing. It would be like someone trying to block all trade with Alabama.

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • Correct. The USSC rejected his claim to be able to impose unlimited tariffs (under a law that says no such thing), which forced him to then rely on an entirely different law that potentially offers him the ability to impose much more restricted tariffs; 15%, for 90 days, and he has to impose them equally across all trading partners. Which is threatening to upend a bunch of the deals they already made.

    It's also likely not legal either, but it'll have to go through the courts again. This time around it's because the law he's now using only applies where there is a "balance of payments" issue; basically, where the US is in danger of running out of actual physical money to make payments with. This literally cannot happen with fiat currencies; it's a law that was designed to handle issues that can only occur with precious metal backed currencies. This a very real problem that used to happen. I think the most famous example I can bring to mind is the Opium Wars, which basically happened because Britain was buying so much tea from China, while selling them almost nothing in return, that they were running out silver to pay the Chinese with.

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • This is the only comment here that matters. Nothing has happened. Nothing will happen, because Trump is going to piss his pants and scream and moan, and then all of his advisors are going to explain to him for the sixteenth time that the only want to cut off trade with Spain is to cut off trade with the entire EU. No more Ferraris and Lambos. No more guns for their Abrams tanks. No more French cheese and wine. No more US trade to a market of 450 million comparatively wealthy people.

    Even the actual headline of the article reads "Trump to cut off all US trade with Spain over refusal to use military bases in Iran war". Because it hasn't happened yet. And it won't. It's just another empty threat from a pathetic, brainless coward.

  • U.S. could hold a 'red card' over Canada's Gripen fighter jet option

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  • If they go that far, then yes, the only reasonable response would be to stop any purchases of US equipment altogether.

    I doubt they will, for that exact reason. It's the kind of hardball move I'm sure Trump would very much like to pull, but I'm also sure that his handlers / diaper changers recognize how damaging it would be, not just to any future sales to Canada, but future sales across the world. Nobody wants to buy from a store that constantly changes or refuses to honour their own terms of service. There are already concerns that the US might stop offering firmware updates to buyers of the F-35, but those concern are at least hypothetical, currently. If they pull this "red card" it very much stops being hypothetical. Maybe you sell a few more units to buyers who are currently locked in (that might even include Canada), but you lose basically any future business from everyone who has better options.

  • list challenge: starting with the oldest game you genuinely appreciate, ending with the current year, can you list atleast one game per year?

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  • As in, list from memory? List games that you actually played? Or just games you think are good?

  • U.S. Opens Military Action in Ecuador Against ‘Terrorist Organizations’

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  • Listen, the Epstein files are really big. That's gonna need a lot of distracting.

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • The legal authority part is far less of an issue. Governments have the power to control what does or does not cross their borders. Trump's authority in that regard isn't infinite, but he does have access to a number of legal mechanisms that could likely enable, at the very least, a temporary pause on trade. It would likely turn into another supreme court fight like the stuff with the tariffs. But, perversely, shutting off trade entirely with a country, rather than tariffing it, is actually more likely to fall within the framing of the IEEPA, for one thing. It grants the president the authority to "regulate" trade under certain conditions. It was ruled that this doesn't include tariffs - that's a power of Congress - but simply saying "Nothing crosses our border" might actually be a more clear cut case of "regulating" (ie, controlling).

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • Good thing it's not actually happening then.

    Thanks to their unified trade policy, the only way for Trump to cut off trade with Spain is to cut off trade with the entire EU. I seriously doubt he's willing to do that.

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • It actually won't, because it's not going to happen. The only way you can cut trade with one EU member is by cutting trade with all EU members, and he's not going to do that.

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • And unless he's willing to cut all trade with the EU, he can't. The EU's unified trade policy says that you can only trade with one member on the same terms that you trade with all other members.

  • Donald Trump cuts all US trade with Spain over Iran war dispute

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  • Holding up the line

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  • Why would you use an image as a meme format if you didn't know where it came from? That's an incredibly bad way to communicate. You're basically saying "Yes your Honor, but you see I was deliberately being an idiot." Like, that doesn't make it better.