The Mess

[kybkh]

Christ, England just needs to build a freaking navy again. Way I read it, if they had to deploy to Falkland again it'd take nearly every active vessel they got.

[adwinistrator]

Who is this, a bingo hall winner?

This tbh. She's a qt

For your spank bank ND

America's strategic imperatives are at sea, America is a seapower, getting off the boat does not make any sense for America, 90% of the time, how does Syria imperil America's strategic interests at sea? Answer; diverting resources away from the Navy to go a dragon slaying in Syria with land based assets.

Israel is the reason, for better or worse. Now you can add Iraq and Afghanistan to that shit-mess as well. We broke it we bought it.

I agree with you but I feel that globalization has made a world war almost impossible. The world powers are so interconnected financially I'm not entirely sure world war 3 makes financial sense. What's more likely is posturing, proxy wars, and the poor folks in places like Aleppo get abused.

Case in point, the last time everyone was asserting that "globalization" was going to preclude another war of hegemonic succession was right before the First World War, and in fact, that world was far more "globalized" than now.

Back then, America was able to be isolated from the alliances and rivalries of Europe, but even though in an economic sense we might be less globalized, the "American security perimeter" now extends across the globe. Even outside of our alliances, the challenges to our influence and control in certain regions (South East Asia, Korea, Saudi Arabia) is more than enough to set of a chain of events that could bring about a global war.

I think Cheney came from the Neo-Cohen school of thought which is actually an extension of Neo-Trotskyism built on the premise they could make the Golom shape a future that may or may not have had any native American's best interest at heart because they succumbed to a form of pixie dust of their own.

I can understand why you might tie the neoconservatives to Jews, since that political movement originated with Leo Strauss and Irving Kristol, but I think you're misinterpreting the goals they had for America, and the strategies they wanted to use to achieve them.

I'll be posting an article I wrote that goes into detail on the Neoconservatives, the Project for a New American Century, their goals, how their members in the Bush administration were able to develop alternative intelligence analysis, and how they bypassed the Intelligence Community and got their intel presented to the commander-in-chief.

[Smitty-48]

Well, don't get me wrong, I think rumours of America's withdrawal from the Empire of Liberty are greatly exaggerated, I don't think the window of hegemonic succession is actually upon us just yet, I merely extrapolate the history of hegemonic orders, particularly modern since the Peace of Westphalia, and the evidence is that they all blow themselves up in the end, for one reason or another, but mostly just entropy.

They all start out as the great disruptor, feeding on the entropy of the established order, and this is why they rise, because they can be aggressive, while the old order is bound to stability, the hegemons rise as the destabilizers, but then once ensconced, they become bound to stability, and at some point, another great disruptor comes along and starts to feed on the entropy therein.

The United States set out to destroy the British Empire, and it succeeded, but in doing so, it then became a British Empire of its own.

[ssu]

Evening,

As Northern Europe is going back to the Cold War mentality and thinking, sometimes the "rearming" process can literally be about getting the equipment from military museums where the last remnants have been put on display.

Swedish military plunders museums to bring back Cold War missile system

Sweden has test-fired a resurrected Cold War-era anti-ship missile system, taking launch trucks back from museums in a bid to increase its defensive capabilities. The Swedish military, which disbanded its coastal artillery back in 2000, has now realized that the land-based systems must be returned to service. The Kustrobotbatteri 90 was the only launcher the country ever produced that was capable of firing Saab Robotsystem 15 (RBS-15) anti-ship missiles from shore.

Restoring the missile system called for a creative approach from the armed forces, Rear Admiral Thomas Engevall said. The Scania trucks from which the test-firing was carried out on Friday were recovered from military museums. “A number of the trucks still remained. We took components from existing missile boats and warships which had the same missile system,” Engevall said. The maker of the RBS-15 missile, Saab, assisted the Swedish military in putting the system back together piece by piece.“It is extremely good that we have land-based coastal missile systems back in our national defense,” Peter Hultqvist, Swedish defense minister, said as he visited the drills.

See here



Now the launcher vehicles might be old, but the RBS-15 Mk.3 missiles aren't. And one should not that they are capable also engaging land targets, hence with a range of 200km, you have a short range Cruise missile system here. For some reason no user countries aren't mentioning that the system can be used as a land-to-land missile.

The RBS15 Mk3 is a fire and forget anti-ship, sea-skimming, cruise type missile with an active radar target seeker, enabling all-weather capability. The long flight range and the extremely flexible trajectory enables attack from short distances to ranges well beyond the horizon.
The GPS-supported high precision navigation system enables the missile to be used in naval land attack missions engaging stationary targets on land such as buildings, depots, hangars, air defence sites etc.

The unlimited overland flight capability in combination with the high-resolution radar target seeker enables the operator to engage targets close to land and among islands. The advanced signal processing ensures a high target selection and discrimination capability, even in crowded surface situations.

The last thing mentioned was for the earlier anti-ship missiles the problem in littoral warfare: a target vessel in an archipelago was an extremely difficult target and basically the first (second?) generation anti-ship missiles needed that open sea to pick their targets from the water.

[Hwen Hoshino]

Well, don't get me wrong, I think rumours of America's withdrawal from the Empire of Liberty are greatly exaggerated, I don't think the window of hegemonic succession is actually upon us just yet, I merely extrapolate the history of hegemonic orders, particularly modern since the Peace of Westphalia, and the evidence is that they all blow themselves up in the end, for one reason or another, but mostly just entropy.

They all start out as the great disruptor, feeding on the entropy of the established order, and this is why they rise, because they can be aggressive, while the old order is bound to stability, the hegemons rise as the destabilizers, but then once ensconced, they become bound to stability, and at some point, another great disruptor comes along and starts to feed on the entropy therein.

The United States set out to destroy the British Empire, and it succeeded, but in doing so, it then became a British Empire of its own.

I think American culture is unique in it's ability to spread ideas. Good look trying to convince hard hustling Bulgarians, Botswanans, Latvians etc.. about the coolness of Confucianism.People might just not give a flying fuck about the Hegemon's cultural values making their ''style'' and institutions/institutional structure a hard sell.

[Smitty-48]

I think American culture is unique in it's ability to spread ideas.

Yes, all hegemon's do that as well, the British did that too, but you see, what happens is, you spread your ideas, and then everybody adopts them, and then pretty soon, you're getting beaten at your own game, this is what happened to the British, America out Britished the British, the British spread their ideas, but then they got complacent, happy fat and lazy, and just like America now, they weren't hustling anymore, it was America who became the hustlers, and tell you right now, when it comes to hustling, the Chinese people are kicking the American peoples asses now, it's not the Bulgaria's of the world you have to worry about, Bulgaria is not a hegemonic challenger and never will be.

To wit, Shanghai is more like New York was when America was rising, than New York is like now, New York doesn't hustle, they just got a trillion dollar bailout for blowing themselves up.

[TheReal_ND]

Posting in comfy thread. I was going to come here to post foreign hardware when I got bored anyway.

[Hwen Hoshino]

Yes, all hegemon's do that as well, the British did that too, but you see, what happens is, you spread your ideas, and then everybody adopts them, and then pretty soon, you're getting beaten at your own game, this is what happened to the British, America out Britished the British, the British spread their ideas, but then they got complacent, happy fat and lazy, and just like America now, they weren't hustling anymore, it was America who became the hustlers, and tell you right now, when it comes to hustling, the Chinese people are kicking the American peoples asses now, it's not the Bulgaria's of the world you have to worry about, Bulgaria is not a hegemonic challenger and never will be.

Why does face culture even exist in China if they are such hustlers? Other countries got rid of their gun rights. No other country backs up it's freedom of speech with guns in civilian hands. The idea that other countries are more American than America is stupid. Outside of the giant debt in what way is China kicking USA ass? I am not worried about the Bulgars or China, i just said the Chinese way is way harder to spread than the American way.

[TheReal_ND]

Why does face culture even exist in China if they are such hustlers?

Not exclusive to China but peculiarly it becomes a form of transaction to them. The two things you juxtaposed are not mutually exclusive, in fact just the opposite.

[Smitty-48]

Why does face culture even exist in China if they are such hustlers? Other countries got rid of their gun rights. No other country backs up it's freedom of speech with guns in civilian hands. The idea that other countries are more American than America is stupid. Outside of the giant debt in what way is China kicking USA ass? I am not worried about the Bulgars or China, i just said the Chinese way is way harder to spread than the American way.

The idea that America is a nation of yeoman farmers defending their homesteads with their rifles, is a cartoon, America is an imperial hegemon ruling over its own people by a corptocracy as opressive and corrupt as the Chinese Communists, with more of its people imprisoned therein, but in Shanghai, you have the dynamism where the people can hustle to the top of the heap, as Americans used to in America's heyday, whereas now in America, most people have about the same economic mobility as a Chinese peasant, in fact, the Chinese peasant will hustle up a better play than the American now, Americans ain't the go getters they used to be, and they're not even encouraged to be anymore, rhetorically perhaps, but if they actually try to go out and hustle, suddenly they find the game is more rigged in America than it is even in Communist China.

The Chinese in Shanghai may not be more politically free than Americans, but they're more economically free to be rich than Americans in New York.