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I find this pretty rational geopolitically.
South Korea: US forces are there because it's the only way to give SK credible confidence that the USA will protect them with their nuclear umbrella. SK is one of the few nuclear-latent states that could spin (hah) up a bomb pretty fast. Fun fact, Samsung is one of the few private companies in the world that could probably do it on its own.
This will be a recurring theme, but the USA has (correctly) determined that a world with less nuclear proliferation is very good for the USA. So, it puts troops in SK so they don't make their own bomb to hedge against NK/China.
Germany: similar story. Latent nuclear state who was facing an existential military threat up until the ~1980s. USA likes being one of the only big dogs with big bombs. So you put troops in Europe to keep the hoes from being scared.
Also, the USA very much likes the EU in the cuck chair. It's much easier to keep them there when you can go "no no babe, you don't need MLRS launchers and fighter jets, why don't you pay the pensioners more money and drink some soup? Daddy's got this."
Bahrain: having bases in the gulf is SO useful given that its a geopolitical flash point and choke point. this is pure upside for the USA.
Israel: unsinkable aircraft carrier near Suez, great! Constantly drags USA into conflicts with basically 0 upside for the USA that require the expenditure of massive amounts of exquisite weapons which are expensive and built in tiny qualities. What is the upside here again?
"Live weapons test zone" is probably considered more of an upside by American MIC types than you would think. In particular systems like Arrow and David's Sling (which are both co-developed by major American arms manufacturers) are helpful to the US as they increase our technology and (at least secondhand) experience with ballistic missile interception, which is very important to maintaining the relevancy of the US military pretty much everywhere, as ballistic missiles are now a pretty widespread technology.
The US buying Iron Dome (which is now also being co-produced by American contractors) to fulfill their point-defense needs is an example of that dynamic running full circle.
Ukraine was already providing that?
The USA is literally redeploying missile defense systems from Asia (remember when we were pivoting over there?).
The USA is depleting it's interceptor stocks at phenomenal rates, and while it is gently increasing production, it's nowhere near enough to replenish them quickly, especially given we'll need quite literally an order of magnitude more to 1v1 China, which is a credible threat that again, we were supposed to be pivoting to!
In my opinion, Trump's potentially crowning accomplishment was almost single handedly moving the Overton window to "fuck China" and made it basically a bi-partisan issue. When before the neoliberal ghouls were more than happy to mortgage our industrial base (and thus our civilization) to the Chinese in their relentless pursuit of "line go up". And now he's throwing that away... Why again?
Yes, it is, but when the Arrow missile program was launched in the 1980s that was not really anticipated.
We also haven't been able to test Standards in Ukraine, and we have in Israel.
Just on the Navy front, on some quick Googling, the reports are that we're looking to increase production of the SM-6 and SM-3 to a combined total of 600/year. At 100 SM-3s annually, that would allow us to replace our stockpile of around 400 in just four years. At 500 SM-6s annually, that would allow us to replace our stockpiles of 1500 in three years.
As I pointed out in my other post to you, we're increasing Patriot production to 2,000 year, which is pretty eye-watering as far as interceptors go.
Yes, one of the first things I said about this war was that that was a likely fail state.
Well, I am kicking around some theories, but I'm saving them for a top-level post I will never write at this rate.
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This is a great justification for attacking a country which (1) has leadership which regularly leads chants of "Death to America;" and (2) maintains uranium enrichment facilities in deep underground bunkers. Agreed? (I am aware that for a lot of people, it's hard to agree with this since damage to Iran is a win for Israel, but still, come on.)
So I can understand what you mean by "constantly" and "drags" can you please name the three most recent conflicts into which you believe Israel has dragged the United States?
Yes*
*The load bearing assumption is you can actually finish the job and permanently prevent this.
*Also that other latent nuclear countries don't see this and decide they need nukes asap to prevent this from happening to them.
*Also, there's a very credible argument that Iran was actually quite happy playing the game of "ooooh just you wait were totally gonna make a nuke any second now, ooooh baby it's coming" while never actually doing it. Iran could get 80% of the benefit of nukes (so they thought) for 20% of the cost by always being close but never quite getting there. Or at least that was the most rational move for them, although they're religious fanatics so hard to be 100% certain.
shit the bed so hard on security you get Oct 7th'd, resulting in the USA spending large amounts of money and things that go boom to keep you from getting MRBM'd
decide to 12 day war Iran last year, USA gets involved to sucker punch Iran with a (really cool) stealth bomber strike during negotiations. But this was worth it because we destroyed their nuclear program!...
deicide, again, to blow shit up in Iran, sucking in the USA even harder this time, resulting in the current quagmire.
Either that or set the program back significantly.
Or they might see what Iran is going through and decide to avoid the headache.
Given Iran's incessant attacks on Israel through proxies; it's threat to wipe Israel off the map; it's chanting of "death to Israel" and "death to America"'; etc., it's reasonable to think it's pretty likely that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and would be pretty likely to use them against Israel given the opportunity.
That being said, anything is possible. Possibly the orbits of the planets are not actually ellipses but instead circular with lots and lots of epicycles. But if one of these isolationists consistently cares only about the US connection to Israel, well, there's a reasonable conclusion to be drawn.
This is a good example of what I mean. The US spends a large amount of money and things on various other countries' defense. And yet for some reason, (some of) these isolationists only object when it's Israel.
It was reported in the news that part of the reason the US got involved was lobbying by Saudi leadership. If this turns out to be true (and it seems very likely to be true) I wonder how these isolationists will react.
I can't tell if you're obliquity refering to me as an "isolationist" and then also, amusingly, doing the same thing anti-Semites do where they don't say "it's the Jews" they just do things like (((this))) but instead you're implying I'm an anti-semite.
As an aside, there's a joke here calling someone an (((isolationist))) but I can't quite figure it out.
Anyway. If you want to call me an anti-semite you should, and then we can argue about that :)
I genuinely hope that they do. Especially now that they've showed Iran the "ooooh I'll build one any day now" isn't an option for them.
My priors are that they won't do a good job at this. Given in June 2024 we did this already and claimed massive victory over their nuclear program and that was a lie.
It's true. We will find out over the next 20 year which way this goes.
I think we will have to fundamentally agree to disagree here. I have an incredibly hard time believing that after expending such a ridiculous amount of blood and treasure to get nukes, they'd immediately turn around and attempt to land one on Tel-Aviv in exchange for having the Persian homeland turned into an irradiated wasteland. Further, I have hard time believing the 100s of humans required to execute a nuclear launch would all be fine with their moms/dad's/wives/kids/cousins/friends all getting glassed to MAYBE nuke Israel.
I also think Iran getting a nuke is step 1 of a very long chain even if we assume the entire Iranian military complex's only burning desire is getting nuked in exchange for hurting Israel once. Iran having a handful of nuclear devices means they can make scary noises, but they have to deliver them. And so far all I've seen is Iranian missiles get shot down 100 different ways. And Iran is so compromised by Mossad if they were launching a nuke, they know Israel would know very quickly, and they only get 1 shot. So they need, basically at minimum, hundreds of hardened launch sites, significantly more sophisticated re-entry vehicles, and probably MIRVs. All of which are significantly further down the tech tree than "basic nuclear device".
Yes, and much like Trump used to, I think that it's too much. I remember at one point Trump was making noises about nuclear disarmament.
“You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”
He continued, “We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive.”
One of the greatest things he's ever said. I doubt he remembers saying it, but he's right.
Then fuck Saudi Arabia as well. Fight Iran yourself if you want to. Don't drag us into it.
I am a single issue geopolitical thinker. China. China China China. Every single thing we do I look at through the lens of "how does this help our rapidly deteriorating relative strength in the Pacific?"
And right now the answer is "it's massively detrimental because we're using up interceptors, airframes, money, and energy that all will be needed to counter a rapidly powering up China"
I don't have strong feelings towards Israel in a vacuum. I don't have a problem with Jews (if all cultures valued education as much as Jews do, the human race would be WAY better off).
I do have strong feelings of America weakening itself for a country that won't help versus China, for a conflict that will literally never end.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Can you show me where I referred to you as an isolationist?
Well here are a couple hypothetical scenarios for you.
You are the Prime Minister of Israel and a nuclear bomb explodes in Ariel. You are 80% sure it was the Iranians behind it. Would you turn the Persian homeland into an irradiated wasteland?
You are the Prime Minister of Israel and a nuclear bomb explodes in Arial. You are 100% sure it was Iran, but Iran is claiming that the attack was made by a rogue commander. Would you turn the Persian homeland into an irradiated wasteland?
Ok fine, but we are talking about isolationists. If someone makes the isolationist argument against expenditures to support Israel in a selective way, it's telling.
Fine, but I'm pretty confident that a lot of these supposed isolationist types would react in muted terms to such a revelation.
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Once upon a time, yes. Not anymore. Alas.
:(
Your green party might be the stupidest of all the western political parties that call themselves that, and the Canadian one is left by a woman who thinks wifi causes cancer.
Isn't Elizabeth May out?
She had to come back because her replacement turned out to be too insane even in terms of internal cohesion, nevermind electability.
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The U.S. Green Party would like a word- it swings back and forth between generic retard left and nutty woo woo granola conspiracy theorists.
The British one seems pretty batshit, what with being somehow both fanatically culturally-progressive and also Islamist.
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While they did manage to doom Germany to economic and demographic destruction in the near-future, I don't think it's fair to blame the party. They just carried out the will of millions of voters. And did so very well. So well in fact that they got what they wanted without even being part of the government at the time!
Blame the Germans. They ruined Germany.
Words cannot describe how much the median western voter pisses me off
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Maybe all these solar panels can be converted into a giant Archimedes' Mirror?
If they're CSP rather than photovoltaic, well, they're already halfway there.
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