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BahRamYou


				

				

				

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BahRamYou


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2023 December 05 02:41:55 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Again I'll plead out that this is going off an a tangent of a tanget of a tangent from my original argument- that the US is now a hyperpower in conventional terms, far beyond what it had before. We're now talking about the history of nuclear weapons deterrance during the Cold War. I only ever touched on these subjects for the sake of completeness, and I don't claim to be an expert.


It seems to me you're arguing for a basically binary view of nuclear deterrance, correct? That is, either a nation has enough nukes to deter, or it does not. A mere 300 warheads would deter all of NATO, and any more than that is simply a waste of money. That does seem to be the strategy chosen by China during the Cold War, and I suppose it worked well enough for them, but the US and USSR continued to build more and more warheads- was that just a complete waste in your thinking?


Indeed, China no longer seems to pursue that strategy. Instead, they seem to be rapidly expanding their nuclear arsenal, which seems to indicate that they do not feel safe with just a minimal deterrance- perhaps that was only driven by their 20th century poverty? The only nations that seem to rely on an absolutely minimal nuclear deterrance are the very small, poor nations like North Korea, Pakistan, and China in the 1960s. To me, that sounds like what the kids call "cope" rather than an actual strategy.


But all of this talk of the 20th century is rapidly growing out of date. Back then, we couldn't hope to hit an ICBM in flight at all, or perhaps only by detonating a counter-nuke in our own airspace. The 80s had vague plans of doing space-based missile defense, but this never worked out. Then in the 2000s we had a vague chance to hit with interceptors, but as you said it would take perhaps 1000 interceptors to hit just a few interceptors.


Nowadays? And in the near future? The math seems different. Interceptors are accurate enough that it's approaching 1 per warhead, especially with Multiple Kill Vehicle technology. MIRVs might not be super expensive, but they're not cheap either- I genuinely have no idea whether it's easier to build an interceptor or a nuclear warhead at this point. And if Golden Dome succeeds- and I see no reason why it can't!- then the calculus completely shifts, to where one orbital interceptor can take out an entire ICBM full of warheads before it has time to launch or separate.


But really, all of that is tangentiai to the real question- just how much power does the US have to influence world events with hard power right now? And the answer is, a lot. It can topple basically any government, anywhere, in a matter of weeks. In the 20th century, that would have met massive blowback from the USSR. In the early 21st century, it would have meant an endless slog against insurgents armed by Iran. Now? China seems powerless to do anything. They can't even make good propaganda like the USSR could. They could, at best, defend themselves in an all-out nuclear war like you're talking about. For anything else? The US can do what it wants.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Like all men I've had my share of both romance and rejections. I am currently in a good long-term relationship. So, no, your personal attack on me is false.


My claim was that men are still purposefully going out in real-life spaces with the intention of meeting women, while women are increasingly relying on social media to get interaction from men. That seems both obviously true in my lived experience, and also true in the evidence that you cited. You seemed to make a very strong claim that "men and women are the same" from some random reddit link about "screen time" which isn't the issue at all. Scrolling Instagram vs playing a video game is very different, when one involves getting likes and DMs from the opposite sex and the other is killing NPCs.


But I admit I get a little defensive about this stuff, because I see so many young men getting absolutely gaslit by feminist dating advice. To put this in your words, I do try and steer away from Bulverism, but this really seems like you're just a guy who argues a lot on the internet and has gotten bitter about it, and this is driving your white knighting of women and attacks on young men. Am I wrong?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Literally your own link said that women are using instagram and pinterest more, while men are doing online gaming more.  But that all gets rolled into "screen time. " Frankly i thought that was just common sense that doesn't need a source? Its not a remarkable coincidence that women and men are different.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well.. if there's anything Elon Musk is good at, its making ideas that seem silly turn into reality, right? But I fear this might be beyond even his powers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, I'm aware of that.  I was actually a hardcore liberal back then, who saw a lot of my classmates suffer from long deployments in what seemed a never ending, pointless war.


But as the saying goes... when the facts change, I change my mind. I think the War on Terror bought us a lot of skill in  fighting this source of war, and I also think new technology has opened up new options we didn't have before. Just as "not every war is WW2," we shouldn't assume every war is Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan. Sometimes watt really does change


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wonder if any of the hardcore rationalists would invest in this.  O.0000001% chance that this asteroid claim becomes worth a trillion dollars at some vague point in the future.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


and even asteroid mining, which is a dubious economic proposition in the first place, doesn't really benefit from humans being in space




I had a silly thought about this. Most gold on Earth doesn't physically change hands, it just sits around in bank vaults being traded electronically. Whose to say we couldn't do the same thing in space? We could send a probe to an asteroid to mine the gold, and then just leave it there, which massively simplifies the mission. It could be traded electronically back to Earth, with some sort of discount but still worth something. You might not even have to mine it at all, simply landing there, assessing it, and staking a claim might be worth something to someone. Of course, this also opens the door to space pirates, going out there to steal the gold... but for now it's more secure than any bank vault.


(I do agree with your larger point that space colonization for humans is impossible right now, unless we see a drastic improvement in tech. The real money is sending data around LEO)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Most of what i would say is in the comments there.  There's very different types of socializing and screen time.  Women are more likely to socialize in person with a group of already exiating friends (usually all-female) and actively avoid meeting men outside. They're also using sites like instagram and pinterest the most.  Men spend their screen time on things like games, twitter, and reddit, which are only barely social, then go out active trying to meet women and get mocked when they fail.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My experience is that the problem there is mostly with women. Men still go out and attempt to meet women in person. But women stay inside using social media for 100% of their social life. Or if they do go out, they put out signals of "I'm just here to dance, do not talk to me!" as loudly as possible, while staying clustered with a tight circle of female friends and avoid male eye contact.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Aha, the Kuwaitis! Always the Kuwaitis! The number one threat to the US Air Force is... Kuwait?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You'll have to forgive if I'm writing all of this quickly and without as much effort as I should- it's just that a lot of people have been responding to me and I'm doing my best to keep up, even though all of this quickly gets into deep rabbit holes, like that 200 page report on nuclear planning that you linked me.


But that's true of anyone, I suppose. Trump doesn't have all day to sit around reading academic papers, and neither did Kennedy or McNamara or any other world leader. We all act in a combination of rational thought and political biases.


Notably, Kennedy and McNamara were in power during the 1960s, a time of considerable fear and backlash against nuclear weapons. As such, they were highly motivated to find reasons to decrease the nuclear arsenal, even while being stepping up the conventional war in Vietnam. This led, in part, to several defeats for the west- the loss in Vietnam, the occupation of Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring, and an assertion of Soviet control in Finland. That's a marked change from the 1950s, when the US had a large lead in Nuclear power, and was much less afraid to throw it around.


That second paper you linked seems to be based on the number of "crises" that occur, and draws heavily on the example of Pakistan and India with Pakistan being the weaker power yet instigating crises. I'm not sure I agree we can generalize from that- Pakistan is just an aggressive, unhinged country. But sure, maybe they're correct that having more nukes won't decrease conflicts- I'd still prefer to be on the side with more rather than fewer nukes, if such an event occurred.


In the cold war, nukes were tough to aim and essentially non-interceptable (as well as a strong chance that they might not fire at all). That led to a focus on aiming for cities, and looking for deterrance. But again, technology has changed. Most nukes would not target cities any more, but military targets and especially known missile silos or airfields. So the number of civilian losses would be much lower, and the number of second-strike weapons fired also much lower. The US could potentially decimate China's nuclear arsenal with a surprise first-strike, then shoot down most of the remaining ones fired via interceptors, and the few that get through probably hitting isolated military targets rather than major cities. That's not something I want to see but, if I was China's military, it would have me terrified. Even the vague threat of such a scenario should be enough to make them take notice. Note that, unlike China, the US has never pledged no-first-use, it's always been assumed that it can use nukes whenever necessary.


So I'm trying to strike a balance here. I'm of course not trying to say that the US is now immune from nuclear weapons, or anything like that. But the balance of power has changed there, in a way much more favorable to the US than it has since the 1950s, and we should be aware of that fact.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's crazy you just skipped over that point lol




Yes I did skip over that, because it's a deep rabbit hole of classified information, Communist-bloc boasting, vaporware, and extremely complex speculatiion about how future wars might take place. I'll freely admit that I'm not qualified to even judge the current generation of aircraft, let alone the next generation. But from where I stand, there was a lot of doubt and worry about the performance of the F35 and Ford-class carriers, but both now seem to be working marvelously. They just finished a massive military operation against Iran! China has never done anything comparable, they can only speculate and boast about how they might someday perform. My vague impression is that the J-20 has excellent range and good stealth, but is not as good in avionics and other soft factors as the F35- and there's over 1000 F-35s now compared to just 300 F-20s. Similarly, I know they're working on a next-gen stealth bomber but don't have it ready yet, whereas the US is already scaling up production of its next-gen B21.


For the rest of it... well, I'm not sure what you expect me to say. Obviously they're a large, industrialized country which has been rapidly building up its military lately. Obviously it would be quite difficult to fight such a nation in their own backyard. But they have no means to project force overseas in any way close to what the US can, or even what the USSR could at its peak. All they can really do is defend their own local space and hope to deter us from directly attacking them. That report seems to be about them hardening their airfields, which is a good way for them to survive being bombed, but still not a great sign when your airfields are being bombed. It's far from clear that they even want to attack Taiwan, and there's a vast diversity of opinions on that, but I think most experts agree it would be an extremely difficult invasion for them- but of course US military leaders must take it seriously, and may play up that threat as an excuse to increase their own budgets.


Even if China did take over Taiwan... frankly, so what? It's a small island with no natural resources, far away from anything. It's only strategic asset is their chips factory, and that's rapidly being diversified. Iran is of much more strategic importance, and we just took that without breaking a sweat.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But at the end of the day, they do have this huge pool of talented engineers




They do, and I have tremendous respect for China's ability to do high tech manufacturing at massive scale. But I still argue that they're a step behind the US in terms of the most cutting edge tech. We see this in many areas- stealth, radar, targetting, cyberwarfare, AI, and now space launch. We will if they ever manage to catch up and surpass us in one of those fields. But they better do so soon, because their population is rapidly aging.




Imagine facing an army of 20 Million at the front




We arguably did just face that! If you count Iran's Basij force of 25 million reservists. But it doesn't matter how big their army is, no one moves without command and logistical support. And they're also not zombies, they're not going to march themselves off to die in North Korea if they have a choice.


(but yes, I am perhaps speaking too lightly and glibly. I'm sure the people in the Pentagon take this a lot more seriously than I am. But still... just imagine the possibilities...)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I seriously doubt this is the case, and I don't actually think this dynamic shows up in geopoliticking. If MAD is being deployed and the costs of a first strike are far too high on either side, then the "freedom of action" argument clearly fails.




I would argue that it shows up quite frequently, and in fact was at the heart of Cold-war decision making. The acoup article on it was good. Having more nukes, more delivery systems, and also more defense systems, allows us to push the "red lines" forward to control borderline territories. Having fewer, and using them only as a last-ditch resort, means that countries struggle to project force outside their boundaries, as China does today.  It's not about evaluating the number of dead, it's about the chance of starting such a war. The USSR in contrast was able to invade prague and dominate eastern Europe, secure that the US would never risk war over some distant city. But now, the calculus is on the opposite foot- there's no way the PRC would risk nuclear war to protect Tehran, or even Pyongyang.




It has, at least on paper, several advantages over THAAD;




That seems like a rather fear-mongering article, essentially taking all of China's claims at face-value despite a complete lack of tests, while assuming that the US can't do anything in response (eg, using satellites to increase tracking range instead of relying solely on THAAD). It's probably written to encourage more spending on missile defense. But yes, I do agree that THAAD isn't a huge central point for this discussion, it's just one of many weapons systems where the US now enjoys a considerable advantage that it never had before.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Currently you're burning through interceptors and, if this is not AI fog of war slop, even losing F-15s (alledegely to friendly fire, I presume due to lack of relevant training. Should have called upon Ukrainians to teach you guys air defense). But long term, Iran is poised to lose the war, of course, so the sense of invulnerability will be restored.




What F-15s were lost? Is this something Russian or Chinese media is saying? Everything I've read says that the US has lost absolutely zero planes so far, just a few unfortunate men on a base in Kuwait that was struck by a missile. But other than that one incident, US missile defense in this conflict has been outstanding.




I don't want to say there's nothing to multipolar agenda, obviously China prefers Iran to remain a thorn in the US/Israeli side and also to buy cheaper oil. But that's a benefit of bounded and not great value, and ineptitude and duplicity of the mullah regime qualifies it further.




Sure, I never claimed that there's some great love affair between China and Iran. It was always just a partnership of convenience. Nonetheless, it was a real partnership, and I'm not how China is going to deal with the loss of this oil supply, on top of the loss of Venezuela. I suppose they'll just become even more dependant on Russia, just as Russia is dependant on the money they get from selling oil and gas to China. But if that link is broken, both nations fall apart.




Discounting the fraction of the economy involved in fossil fuels and agriculture (a generous choice), I'd say the US would end up roughly as complex as China.




Why do you discount fossil fuels and agriculture? Both of those fields are actually quite technologically advanced in the US. We're not some 3rd world nation doing subsistance agriculture or relying on foreign companies to drill oil for us. Those are some of the most crucial and high-tech fields in the economy! Meanwhile, the areas which China exports to us are in manufacturing, which is something we are actively trying to increase. Many Americans would consider it a great boon to have more manufacturing jobs and less imports from China. But if the US stops exporting food and oil to China, I don't see how China replaces those.




Currently estimated at 600 warheads, vs American stockpile of 3700. It's a completely sufficient deterrence. You glibly dismiss 50-90 million dead Americans, I suspect that's a lowball but the point is that you're unlikely to destroy China either, for all the memes about Three Gorges Dam.




No I don't glibly dismiss it at all, I simply recognize the reality that the US now has far more relative power in nuclear weapons than it had at any time in the Cold War, when the USSR generally had more warheads. It's not about fighting China directly, it's about gaining operational freedom to act in other areas, as I wrote here . If China wants to invade Taiwan, they must be terrified that it would end up in a nuclear war with the US. The US can freely act against other countries with no such worry about China.




What I want to say is that this isn't just a funny hypothetical. "How do we fight China" is the question on the mind of American planners,




America has many planners, who can plan a great deal of actions. That's how we fight Venezuela, and Iran, and aid Ukraine, and perhaps take down Cuba, and who knows what else, all simultaneously. Because we are a world power with global concerns. That is rather different from the state of China, which has to spend 50 years worrying about how it can take over some small offshore island because it represents a huge political threat to the legitimacy of their government. But sure, we can also plan for how to win a war against China, that's a fun hypothetical for our military planners to consider :). Starving them of oil seems like a good first step.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But as some Gulf states recently found out, it also paints a bit of a target on your back for anyone who wants to strike back at the US but can't.




Did it? It seems like they were barely damaged by this at all, despite Iran launching everything they could. The US missile defense tech held strong, and now they've had a major regional threat removed. It seems like being a US ally is a great deal for them! Soon, virtually all of the Middle East will be firm US allies, which rather amazing when you think about what it was like a few decades ago.




So the outcome of a nuclear war with China after you spend 5% of your GDP on missile defense might be that you manage to H-bomb all of China's big cities, and they only manage to nuke LA from subs and NYC by smuggling in a nuke in a container ship. So instead, China decides to nuke Japan, South Korea, Australia plus any other countries in the Pacific which host US military. Which then motivates your remaining allies in Europe to swiftly kick you out before you get them nuked when you repeat that game with Russia.






At the end of the day, you might have thrown China back a decade (because for a regime change, you would need an invasion, and I simply do not see that happening) while only having lost your empire and tanked the global economy. Do you think Trump would win the mid-terms under these circumstances?




I would simply not go to war with China, but continue to topple every other tinpot dictatorship around the world, to create a worldwide network of US aligned states while completely isolating China. Meanwhile, we continue to increase our space tech advantage, and utterly starve them of fossil fuels. In that case, yes, I think Trump and future Republicans would easily win elections.


Meanwhile Europe keeps asking us for more military aid in Ukraine to deal with Russia. Well, it's obvious that we could destroy the Russian conventional forces if we wanted to, it's only really a question of how we manage their nuclear threat. So this provides us a convenient excuse to increase our nuclear defense.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I see it less in terms of "winning" the nuclear war, and more in terms of "which side has more freedom of action?" Having more nukes (as well as more ways of delivering them) buys the US considerablly more freedom of action. China is forced to evaluate everything as an all-or-nothing war for survival; the US has considerably more flexibility.


Notably, during the Korean war when we were actively fighting with China, we still didn't dare attack China directly for fear of triggering a nuclear war. Similarly, during the Vietnam War, they were able to supply North Vietnam freely with weapons and support- the US had to go out of its way to avoid hurting China or the USSR. That no longer seems to be the case- as long as we're not actually attacking China directly, the US seems to have considerable freedom of action to do what it wants. We can stop their investments in South America, stop their oil purchases from Iran, ban their tech companies, and even topple governments that they were on friendly terms with. Even if we were to go invade North Korea tomorrow, what do you think China would do about it?


And that's just for now. Despite their considerable advances in many fields of technology, China still lags behind the US in aerospace tech. The Hongqi-19 has never been tested in combat, and does not seem to be particularly more advanced than THAAD. If the US continues to invest in ground based defense like THAAD, plus gets a working space defense working through Golden Dome...  China rapidly runs out of options to hurt the US. But I suppose they can just scale up mass production of nukes, like the USSR did in the 80s... how did that work out for them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"Soft Power" has an abysmal record, methinks. I do think Trump prefers the carrot to the stick, but the stick gets results.




I'm starting to question if there's even a difference between the two. In the words of Osama bin Laden: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse." Hard power naturally creates its own soft power, as people flock to support the winner. And its hard to look "cool" with just soft power when you keep losing every direct fight.


I think that for a long time people thought that the US was relatively toothless, as nations like Iran publically insulted us and sponsored asymmetric warfare against us. That led to a lot of people taking the leftist line that the US was imperialist, corrupt, evil, etc. Well, no more- it turns out that when you just go in and knock over dictators, people like you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, I think people are underestimating what a big deal it is to change the regime of Iran. Even if it had no broader reaching effects, we're talking about a very large and old center of civilization. Nobody really cared much what happened in Afghanistan, but people are going to start caring about Iran once relations open up and we can go visit there and talk to them as normal human beings.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure, that's the conventional wisdom. I've heard that sort of thing all my life, that Korea, Vietnam, etc. prove the limits of what strategic bombing can accomplishment. But I'm not so sure that's a universal truth, or simply a limit of 20th century technology.  It's sort of like how electric cars were always slow and useless, until suddenly they weren't. Previous wars involved bombing wildly and indescriminately, with the US first being unable to hit its targets (most of the 20th century) and then struggling to identify just who it should be targeting (most of the war on terror). It no longer has that limitation- It knew exactly where all the key leaders of Iran were, and targetted them very precisely in the first day of the war. It can continue to do this as long as anyone in Iran tries to resist. But so far there hasn't been any organized resistance, and the Iranian people seem pretty happy that their dictator is gone.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I didn't mean to say that attacking China would be easy. I meant that Trump has supreme command of the US military and he can order that if he so chooses. I agree it would be crazy but there's really no one who can prevent such a war if he's really determined.


More likely I see him continuing to go after small 3rd world dictatorships that he can topple within a week. So maybe North Korea.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's always this two-step dance about what exactly the SCO is. I think the legal details are unimportant, since these aren't countries that are going to be follow the exact letter of any treaty. The fact remains that they were cooperating, and Iran was one of very few countries directly helping China, and now they're gone. All China has left is, what, Myanmar and North Korea? Good luck with that. Any country that starts helping them too much because of "Belt and Road" or whatever can easily be "convinced" to change their ways by US military power.




How many Americans can Russia and China kill? 30 million? 40? 50? 90? It would be the greatest catastrophe in American history by far.




Notice how even your largest numbers still fall far short of total annihilation. The fear during the cold war was that they might kill everyone, with just a few scattered survivors living in underground bunkers. Now the best they could possibly hope for is just massacring some cities, while the US would certainly survive and overwhelmingly destroy them in response.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Aegis and THAAD are both fully capable of hitting a ballistic missile in terminal approach, they just need enough missiles to  hit all the warheads. Or we could shoot in midcourse with GMD, and we are developing the possibility for even boost phase kills with Golden Dome. Until now, the US was willing to play along with MAD and leave itself vulnerable, but there's no reason it should continue like that forever.  North Korea especially should be feeling nervous right now.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My understanding is that all of the Houthi missiles and drones came from Iran. So it makes sense that bombing Houthis wouldn't really stop the missile attacks, at least not without completely genociding them which the US was obviously unwilling to do. But with Iran's regime gone, the Houthi's will no longer have a source of weapons. This clears up a lot of problems if you can simply stop the weapons at the source, instead of trying to target every single insurgent.


But yes, maybe I'm wrong and Iran is still firing missiles all over the place forever, in which case this looks horrible for Trump and the USA as a whole.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why do you think we need to do central planning? I don't see how that helps anyone.


The US military is no longer just a hammer. It's very much a smart hammer, honed by 20 years of the global war on terror and cyber/intel development. That helps a lot if you need to find insurgents, or shoot down an ICBM.