Ratcliffe declassified Russian intelligence assessment that claims Hillary was setting up a plan to connect Trump campaign to Russian hacking

[Mister Mumbler]

I always find it a little funny that the people who call for war seem to be the ones who understand how one would look the least.

Because I advocated for nuking their surface battle groups, and harbors with B61 bombs not atomic bombs on major cities, and only after the US has a credible ABM system to counter every one of China's nuclear triad.

Ok, so...where do you think China keeps its surface battle groups? Because you already seem to think that they are just going to be sitting on their asses in their ports in event of a war with us (which makes your indignation at the green water fleet comment earlier kinda funny), which means hitting major cities because fleets tend to be docked in them. Plus, in order for you to hit them at all requires their entire air force/air defense networks also doing nothing for you to fly actual bombs in anyway.

And all of this before we even get to the elephant in the room, ABM. Because nothing makes nuclear powers skin crawl like another nuclear power getting ABM, and for this very sentiment right here, because it's never discussed in terms of defense, but always in terms of "I want to nuke someone without all that consequences malarkey". Why do you think Russia was shitting itself in the 80's when Reagan announced the Star Wars project? (And has been the plot for most of the Metal Gear Solid series, usually espoused by the bad guy)

 

[Gergar12]

I always find it a little funny that the people who call for war seem to be the ones who understand how one would look the least.

Ok, so...where do you think China keeps its surface battle groups? Because you already seem to think that they are just going to be sitting on their asses in their ports in event of a war with us (which makes your indignation at the green water fleet comment earlier kinda funny), which means hitting major cities because fleets tend to be docked in them. Plus, in order for you to hit them at all requires their entire air force/air defense networks also doing nothing for you to fly actual bombs in anyway.

And all of this before we even get to the elephant in the room, ABM. Because nothing makes nuclear powers skin crawl like another nuclear power getting ABM, and for this very sentiment right here, because it's never discussed in terms of defense, but always in terms of "I want to nuke someone without all that consequences malarkey". Why do you think Russia was shitting itself in the 80's when Reagan announced the Star Wars project? (And has been the plot for most of the Metal Gear Solid series, usually espoused by the bad guy)

We have better stealth jets, and cruise missiles so we can pop the area denial bubble that China has.

Also, ABM is happening whether you like it or not, Russia's S500 system is a part ABM system, and the US has been increasing it's ABM capabilities.

Now I personally don't think we should nuke any civilian cities but instead, we should regime change China by destroying the CCP, and the politburo.

Also, I haven't played much of Metal Gear Solid, so I don't know much about its plot.

There's also the fact that the US keeps talking about preventing nuclear blackmail for North Korea, and Iran, that's defensive.

 

[Avnger]

We have better stealth jets, and cruise missiles so we can pop the area denial bubble that China has.

Also, ABM is happening whether you like it or not, Russia's S500 system is a part ABM system, and the US has been increasing it's ABM capabilities.

Now I personally don't think we should nuke any civilian cities but instead, we should regime change China by destroying the CCP, and the politburo.

Do you realize you sound exactly like the gung-ho pro-war politician that is manipulated into starting WW3 in every Tom Clancy novel ever? You know, the one that causes untold civilian deaths and extreme devastation across the world? They usually end up face down in a ditch by the end of the book/series too...

 

[Gergar12]

Do you realize you sound exactly like the gung-ho pro-war politician that is manipulated into starting WW3 in every Tom Clancy novel ever? You know, the one that causes untold civilian deaths and extreme devastation across the world? They usually end up face down in a ditch by the end of the book/series too...

Cool let's just let a country that

Harvests people's organ's forcefully

Puts people in concentration camps

Invades, and wants to invade countries for land

Wants to turn every country into a tributary state at best, and in into 1984 at worst with a racial superiority component

Commits human rights abuses including

jailing journalists

jailing dissenters

Religious persecution of house christens

Jailing human rights lawyers

..Go unmolested

These are the same goals as Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, and the USSR. Except China is also an economic as well as a military threat.

And Tom Clancy is dead, but Xi and his communist are very much alive.

 

[Gordon_4]

We have better stealth jets, and cruise missiles so we can pop the area denial bubble that China has.

Also, ABM is happening whether you like it or not, Russia's S500 system is a part ABM system, and the US has been increasing it's ABM capabilities.

Now I personally don't think we should nuke any civilian cities but instead, we should regime change China by destroying the CCP, and the politburo.

Also, I haven't played much of Metal Gear Solid, so I don't know much about its plot.

There's also the fact that the US keeps talking about preventing nuclear blackmail for North Korea, and Iran, that's defensive.

I think you’d get a kick out of Metal Gear Solid.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I believe we can make progress on getting such a system like we can get progress on removing the CCP from power. You don't know what future technologies can do. But if I am not 100% certain that a nuke won't make it through I wouldn't use it.

As for the millions of dead, it would likely only be a few thousand with B61 bombs (based on a paper I read on nuking North Korea's nukes to stop them from nuking us) if China can't nuke back.

What, China is simultaneously a terrible threat to the world the US should engage in an all out nuclear war with, and also so weak that the US can destroy them without risking a single Chinese missile hitting it's target and only causing a few thousand civilian casualties?

Yes, you can point to all sorts of legitimate concerns about China and/or its government. Starting WW3 isn't a good answer.

 

[ralfy]

I actually don't think that makes Obama worse than Trump. Obama actually made an effort to reduce civilian casualties, Trump could care less about doing so and has REVOKED Obamas rule to report civilian causalities while they are also skyrocketing. Trump has been held back by his ignorance moreso than anything else, but you should keep in mind this is the same man who has asked repeatedly why we can't use Nukes, and wants the US to build many more nukes.

It is easy to make broad statements about how everyone is bad and the same people are controlling everything but without actually having evidence of such and showing who these "people" are, it is just more conspiracy BS. Where is your evidence of any of this? Without evidence, you are just making it up.

“Several months ago, a foreign policy expert went to advise Donald Trump,” Scarborough said. “And three times he asked about the use of nuclear weapons — three times he asked. At one point, ‘If we have them, why can’t we use them?’”

"President Donald Trump asked his top national security officials to build tens of thousands of new nuclear weapons during a July 20 meeting, according to an NBC News report published on Wednesday morning. The president’s request, experts say, is simultaneously impossible and terrifying. "

Scarborough: Trump asked adviser why US can’t use nuclear weapons

“If we have them, why can’t we use them?” Trump reportedly asked.

thehill.com

"Insanity and folly": experts on Trump’s proposal to build tens of thousands of nukes

"We now know why Tillerson called Trump a moron."

www.vox.com

Don’t Forget: Civilian Casualties Are Skyrocketing Under Trump

Amid the impeachment inquiry, it’s important to remember that Donald Trump has committed other moral crimes — like the slaughter of civilians abroad.

theintercept.com

Column: Trump's brand of war is killing more civilians than before

A new U.N. report on Afghanistan shows that U.S. and Afghan government forces have killed more civilians than the Taliban this year.

www.latimes.com

Trump Revokes Obama-Era Rule on Disclosing Civilian Casualties From U.S. Airstrikes Outside War Zones (Published 2019)

In an executive order, President Trump rolled back a transparency rule that his administration had already been ignoring.

www.nytimes.com

Dear Donald Trump: This Is Why Nuclear Weapons Are Bad

And it's only Wednesday, y'all.

www.wired.com

Trump's call for a nuclear 'arms race' is the most dangerous thing he's said yet

The future US president's stance on nukes threatens to bring the world closer to the brink of a global catastrophe.

www.businessinsider.com

How to Starve Trump’s Lust for Nukes

The president can launch a missile, but he can’t buy one. Only Congress can.

www.politico.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/16/president-trump-ignores-history-nuclear-weapons-our-peril/

Reduce? The problem is that such attacks, destabilization, and onerous activities are themselves unethical! It's likely telling a rape victim that one will be gentle.

Of course, Trump is now for you no different from Obama, as they both operate with the same military industrial complex in place, not to mention a government that has been working for Wall Street since the 1980s.

 

[ralfy]

What, China is simultaneously a terrible threat to the world the US should engage in an all out nuclear war with, and also so weak that the US can destroy them without risking a single Chinese missile hitting it's target and only causing a few thousand civilian casualties?

Yes, you can point to all sorts of legitimate concerns about China and/or its government. Starting WW3 isn't a good answer.

And that's the same U.S. that the main warmonger of the world.

 

[Gergar12]

What, China is simultaneously a terrible threat to the world the US should engage in an all out nuclear war with, and also so weak that the US can destroy them without risking a single Chinese missile hitting it's target and only causing a few thousand civilian casualties?

Yes, you can point to all sorts of legitimate concerns about China and/or its government. Starting WW3 isn't a good answer.

They are growing as a conventional threat, but as a nuclear threat as well as abeit less so.

I am pretty sure that's what Neville Chamberlain thought about World War 2, and what FDR's socialists and lefty people thought about the Cold War.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

We have better stealth jets, and cruise missiles so we can pop the area denial bubble that China has.

F-117A Shot down by Yugoslav army, 1999

And while yes, stealth technology has come a long way since 1999, that's not my point. My point is actually in another, earlier story involving the USAF. Around the end of the Korean war, they finally made a breakthrough into AA missile tech that could be fitted onto planes. They figured, after trials and such, that these new missiles gave their fighter aircraft so much range and tech advantage over enemy fighters that US pilots would never even see enemy planes, and so removed the 20mm cannons they had been putting on earlier fighters from Korea. So when Vietnam rolls around and they finally get to take their shiny new toys out to play, they found their missiles that performed so well in trials did a lot worse in actual combat scenarios, and led to an old, propeller driven, cannon armed Skyraider to score the first air-to-air kill during the war, and led to them going back and putting guns back in their other planes. The point is, you can never know how good your military tech is because, most of the time, you aren't actually using it against an actual enemy. No plan survives contact with the enemy and all that, you know?

Also, ABM is happening whether you like it or not, Russia's S500 system is a part ABM system, and the US has been increasing it's ABM capabilities.

There's also the fact that the US keeps talking about preventing nuclear blackmail for North Korea, and Iran, that's defensive.

And you say this like you aren't worried, which you should be. Why do you think the only times nuclear weapons have been dropped was their debut in Japan? 'cause it definitely hasn't been the UN. The entire Cold War was one long race between the US and the USSR to achieve that magical "can nuke enemy to shit while not getting nuked back" ratio that would make them "win". And besides, the hot shit is no longer ICBM's anyway, it's the new developments in hypersonic missiles. Basically cruise missiles on steroids to worry about now. And as far as the 'nuclear blackmail' is, it's less about their capabilities of launching ICBMs at us, but more that they can distribute nukes around to unsavory groups who then smuggle them in and just detonate them in our borders.

Now I personally don't think we should nuke any civilian cities but instead, we should regime change China by destroying the CCP, and the politburo.

Ok, again, do you seriously think they keep their important military and political targets on a super villain volcano island out in the pacific ocean, because those are again sitting right in the middle of civilian cities.

Also, I haven't played much of Metal Gear Solid, so I don't know much about its plot.

You don't even need to know that much; the titular "Metal Gear" is a bipedal, mobile nuclear missile launch platform that could move undetected into firing range and launch it's payload before the enemy knew what was going on.

 

[lil devils x]

Reduce? The problem is that such attacks, destabilization, and onerous activities are themselves unethical! It's likely telling a rape victim that one will be gentle.

Of course, Trump is now for you no different from Obama, as they both operate with the same military industrial complex in place, not to mention a government that has been working for Wall Street since the 1980s.

It actually makes Trump WORSE than Obama because he removed the requirement to report civilian casualties at all, so they are not a priority at all now.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I am pretty sure that's what Neville Chamberlain thought about World War 2,

That it'd be the worst war humanity had ever seen? Yes, I'm pretty sure he did think that. Turns out to have been right.

And besides, the hot shit is no longer ICBM's anyway, it's the new developments in hypersonic missiles. Basically cruise missiles on steroids to worry about now.

Bit off-topic, but I believe that's been greatly overhyped.

 

[Gergar12]

F-117A Shot down by Yugoslav army, 1999

And while yes, stealth technology has come a long way since 1999, that's not my point. My point is actually in another, earlier story involving the USAF. Around the end of the Korean war, they finally made a breakthrough into AA missile tech that could be fitted onto planes. They figured, after trials and such, that these new missiles gave their fighter aircraft so much range and tech advantage over enemy fighters that US pilots would never even see enemy planes, and so removed the 20mm cannons they had been putting on earlier fighters from Korea. So when Vietnam rolls around and they finally get to take their shiny new toys out to play, they found their missiles that performed so well in trials did a lot worse in actual combat scenarios, and led to an old, propeller driven, cannon armed Skyraider to score the first air-to-air kill during the war, and led to them going back and putting guns back in their other planes. The point is, you can never know how good your military tech is because, most of the time, you aren't actually using it against an actual enemy. No plan survives contact with the enemy and all that, you know?


And you say this like you aren't worried, which you should be. Why do you think the only times nuclear weapons have been dropped was their debut in Japan? 'cause it definitely hasn't been the UN. The entire Cold War was one long race between the US and the USSR to achieve that magical "can nuke enemy to shit while not getting nuked back" ratio that would make them "win". And besides, the hot shit is no longer ICBM's anyway, it's the new developments in hypersonic missiles. Basically cruise missiles on steroids to worry about now. And as far as the 'nuclear blackmail' is, it's less about their capabilities of launching ICBMs at us, but more that they can distribute nukes around to unsavory groups who then smuggle them in and just detonate them in our borders.


Ok, again, do you seriously think they keep their important military and political targets on a super villain volcano island out in the pacific ocean, because those are again sitting right in the middle of civilian cities.


You don't even need to know that much; the titular "Metal Gear" is a bipedal, mobile nuclear missile launch platform that could move undetected into firing range and launch it's payload before the enemy knew what was going on.

Hypersonics are an expensive batch, and ICBMS are already hypersonic, they all can be countered in theory by DEWs or directed energy weapons.

Also, a lot of the Han Chinese populace who make up about 90% of the population are quite nationalistic.

Also the F-22 was already used in Syria to provide air cover to defend US special forces from Russian Mercs, and Assad's Shia thugs.

 

[Gergar12]

That it'd be the worst war humanity had ever seen? Yes, I'm pretty sure he did think that. Turns out to have been right.



Bit off-topic, but I believe that's been greatly overhyped.

Chamberlain was a coward who should have ordered the military to revamp its tactics.

 

[Gordon_4]

Chamberlain was a coward who should have ordered the military to revamp its tactics.

Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister of a Britain that had fought the Great War not 20 years prior. It fucking sucked in a way war probably hadn't sucked within living memory. No one wanted to go through that shit again, and lacking psychic powers or Hitler being engaging in some James Bond levels of villainous idiocy and revealing to Chamberlain at the Munich Conference the full length and breadth of his intended monstrosity, did what he felt was the best he could do with what he had.

He was wrong, but that doesn't make him a coward. Merely unfortunate.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Chamberlain was a coward who should have ordered the military to revamp its tactics.

He did, the British economy was still in a bad place, but they did rearm, as best they could, in case of a war.

The war came (that is, the "coward" Chamberlain declared war on Germany, alongside France and other nations), nothing happened (in the West) for a few months, then the Germans conquered everyone in western Europe that opposed them (and some that didn't), except the UK, because their forces could hide behind the Channel and wonder if the Germans were going to invade.

As an aside, why is Chamberlain condemned for not declaring war against Germany before 1939, and not everyone else who also didn't (that is, everyone else)?

 

[ralfy]

It actually makes Trump WORSE than Obama because he removed the requirement to report civilian casualties at all, so they are not a priority at all now.

One is worse for removing the requirement for civilian casualties caused by the other. Your level of logic is incredible!

 

[Thaluikhain]

One is worse for removing the requirement for civilian casualties caused by the other. Your level of logic is incredible!

Only if stating the one is worse is dismissing the problems of the other, which might well be the case, but I don't think lil devil x meant that.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Cool let's just let a country that

Harvests people's organ's forcefully

Puts people in concentration camps

Invades, and wants to invade countries for land

Wants to turn every country into a tributary state at best, and in into 1984 at worst with a racial superiority component

Commits human rights abuses including

jailing journalists

jailing dissenters

Religious persecution of house christens

Jailing human rights lawyers

..Go unmolested

Sounds pretty similar to the United States.

 

[Iron]

The nuclear fallout alone would leave millions dead. You'd be betting thermonuclear apocalypse on a "credible" ABM system without taking into account that no system is foolproof (or stealth bombing, or nuclear subs...) A single nuke going through your fantastical system would leave any one city in the west coast wiped off the map. Five years ago, China had about 300 nukes. You sure you wanna take the bet that the US could nuke China and not suffer getting nuked itself?

Dude this isn't Fallout universe, fallout doesn't work that way. Chernobyl meltdown was way more toxic than any nuclear warhead and there weren't so many dead, they just moved out of the irradiated zones.