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On December 29 2016 14:55 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2016 13:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2016 11:31 Tachion wrote:I was thinking it would be nice if the GOP could put up a respectable contender to Trump in the next primary election, and then I read that the last time a sitting president has lost his parties nomination for a second term was back in the 1800's. I'm really not looking forward to another general election with Trump in it. This whole last election cycle has been so vulgar and divisive. I'm constantly reminded of what USA today's editorial board wrote about Trump when they took sides in an election for the first time. He has coarsened the national dialogue. Did you ever imagine that a presidential candidate would discuss the size of his genitalia during a nationally televised Republican debate? Neither did we. Did you ever imagine a presidential candidate, one who avoided service in the military, would criticize Gold Star parents who lost a son in Iraq? Neither did we. Did you ever imagine you’d see a presidential candidate mock a disabled reporter? Neither did we. Trump’s inability or unwillingness to ignore criticism raises the specter of a president who, like Richard Nixon, would create enemies’ lists and be consumed with getting even with his critics. I just really, really hope that Trump is an outlier, and not some new norm for political discourse. While I may not have agreed with policies from past presidents, they always seemed to at the very least try to put on airs of being dignified, sophisticated, and most of all, respectable. I don't get that from Trump, I'm just left with disdain and vicarious embarrassment when i hear him talk or tweet. I honestly don't understand how anyone can be proud to have a man who acts in such a way lead and represent your country unless you're equally uncouth. On the bright side, Democrats (other than the ~30% of total Hillbots) know not to run Hillary again. Bernie's the most preferred specific option with "someone new" being the other leader. Notably it's not Clinton, Warren, Deval Patrick, or Joe Biden that Democrats would prefer in 2020 over Bernie. According to the same poll Obama and Trump have something in common, they are both more favorable than Hillary. No idea where Republicans are heading, but it seems most of the Democratic voters have learned their lesson. What poll are you referring to? In this Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll from the 21st of December, Sanders is definitely not the "most preferred specific option" for 2020 among Democrats and Independents (p. 6). Other than "someone entirely new" (66.29% excited, 20.45% indifferent, 8.79% shouldn't run (+57,5% net)), the candidate with the biggest difference between those excited and those who think (s)he shouldn't run is Biden, with 43.45% - 22.36% - 31.15% (+12,3% net). Warren comes after him with 34.19% - 23.16% - 27.00% (+7,19% net -- she also has the highest proportion of respondents who've "never heard" of her after Deval Patrick). Sanders comes after them both with 43.61% - 16.77% - 38.18% (+5,43% net). Only if you solely take into account the "excited column" and completely ignore the "shouldn't run" column does Sanders edge out Biden, and it's by one respondent out of 626. Yet he actually received the second biggest proportion of "shouldn't run" responses after HRC (who's obviously not running again).
What this tells me is that the DNC beyond the Federal level is in complete disarray. You guys need to get out of your cities and appeal to other people if you want to be anything more than just a Federal party. Republicans dominate State and local offices across the country and it showed in where their candidates came from in the last few elections.
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On December 29 2016 16:38 IyMoon wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2016 15:11 LegalLord wrote:
I'd like to see someone completely new. The Democratic establishment kind of sucks, Warren is a one-trick pony, and Sanders is something of a stubborn leftist, which is not something I am fond of. What about C Booker? His speech at the DNC was amazing
No it wasn't.
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Some of Trump's people have a serious lack of qualification. This guy negotiated real estate. I'm pretty sure the word "negotiation" doesn't make you qualified for "all international negotiation".
President-elect Donald Trump has named Jason D. Greenblatt, the Trump Organization’s chief legal officer, as special representative for international negotiations, a spokeswoman for the transition said Friday.
...
While working at the Trump Organization, Mr. Greenblatt represented Mr. Trump and his family in a wide range of matters, focusing on domestic and world-wide real-estate development and other businesses. In addition, Mr. Greenblatt served as one of the president-elect’s principal advisers on the U.S.-Israel relationship during the campaign.
WSJ
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the nuclear modernization sticker shock is overplayed. a lot of it is in the b-21 program which the dod sees as a vital strategic piece in the new air combat scheme. it's capable of nuclear strikes but also can serve as a missile truck for f35 and future unmanned platforms.
the land based missiles are not that necessary.
the subs are necessary. given new naval a2ad capabilities by china building some missile subs with better evasive properties is pretty good.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On December 29 2016 13:16 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2016 11:40 oBlade wrote:Nuclear modernization has already been an issue on the table, both because of aging technology and Russia's growing stockpile: https://theintercept.com/2016/02/23/obamas-new-rationale-for-1-trillion-nuclear-program-augurs-a-new-arms-race-with-russia/The Obama administration has historically insisted that its massive $1 trillion nuclear weapons modernization program does not represent a return to Cold War-era nuclear rivalry between Russia and the United States.
The hugely expensive undertaking, which calls for a slew of new cruise missiles, ICBMs, nuclear submarines, and long-range bombers over the next three decades, has been widely panned by critics as “wasteful,” “unsustainable,” “unaffordable,” and “a fantasy.”
The administration has pointed to aging missile silos, 1950s-era bombers, and other outdated technology to justify the spending, describing the steps as intended to maintain present capabilities going forward — not bulking up to prepare for a future confrontation.
Last year, speaking to NATO allies, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter insisted that “the Cold War playbook … is not suitable for the 21st century.”
But President Obama’s defense budget request for 2017 includes language that makes it clear that nuclear “modernization” really is about Russia after all.
The budget request explicitly cites Russian aggression, saying, “We are countering Russia’s aggressive policies through investments in a broad range of capabilities … [including] our nuclear arsenal.”
In December, Brian McKeon, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, testified before Congress: “We are investing in the technologies that are most relevant to Russia’s provocations … to both deter nuclear attacks and reassure our allies.”
The public acknowledgement that Russia is the impetus for U.S. modernization has critics concerned the Cold War-era superpowers are now engaged in a “modernization” arms race.
"Deter nuclear attacks" you mean waste a trillion dollars on a program that will never work instead of spending money on improving strike capabilities? To be fair they intend to improve those too - and that's perfectly valid and necessary. Doing so towards "first strike capability" against Russia would be a massive failure though. Edit: looking over the actual details of the spending it looks like an awfully wasteful vanity project that won't do much good. Obama is basically proposing and funding rebuilding new shit instead of making incremental and inexpensive upgrades to existing nuclear weapons, and the price tag is ballooning very quickly. Also going for arsenal size over improved strike capabilities. Those who said Trump's statement was stupid, you can rest easy knowing Obama is doing what Trump got widely panned for proposing. Living Trump's dream.
I could be for taking apart the nuclear triad and keeping just the missile subs. That's more than enough for nuclear retaliation. We have super overkill for MAD.
I still feel like Trump rhetoric has a lot of dissonance with standard Republican rhetoric.
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The US has always been too fond of sub-based missiles, too un-fond of developing good ICBM capabilities. Subs are fine but there's no reason to believe that Russia/China couldn't at some point in the future develop advanced sonar capabilities that render them significantly less viable.
On December 30 2016 01:59 oneofthem wrote:
the nuclear modernization sticker shock is overplayed. a lot of it is in the b-21 program which the dod sees as a vital strategic piece in the new air combat scheme. it's capable of nuclear strikes but also can serve as a missile truck for f35 and future unmanned platforms.
A lot of the cost is in replacing older but still quite advanced submarines and aircraft with newer versions of the exact same thing while scrapping the older shit. Also in expansion of quantity over improving strike power.
On December 30 2016 01:59 oneofthem wrote:
the land based missiles are not that necessary.
I mean, I guess you could throw some things out if you want, but the US has always been pretty behind the times on land-based launchers. Fixed silos are kinda sucky.
On December 30 2016 01:59 oneofthem wrote:
the subs are necessary. given new naval a2d2 capabilities by china building some missile subs with better evasive properties is pretty good.
A2/AD you mean?
The US should certainly invest more in diversifying its nuclear stock and less on building unfeasible missile defense systems that are more provocative than effective, or larger capacities that will expand the maintenance costs more than anything else. In the last however many years of building "missile defense" they have made jack shit for progress.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
we have hypersonic stuff but those are on the dark budget.
subs are just way better than land nowadays with improved missiles. back in the day subs were seen as not as reliable as land based, but with improved missile accuracy and range, this is not really true.
the same technologies used in stealthing a missile sub can go into the next gen attack subs and so on so there is more bang for the buck for the development investment on subs.
edit: a2ad yea
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I'm not particularly sold on the value of stealth in general. The price tags border on absurdity, the programs tend to get cancelled for being too expensive, which drives up the effective per-unit cost due to a lack of economy of scale (including R&D, the F-22s are $340 million a pop, about the price of an entire S-400 system). Plus they tend to have high maintenance costs.
Their general advantage seems to be partial, rather than total, vulnerability to A2/AD systems but the cost of the defensive systems seems to be substantially smaller than the cost of the fancy new stealth tech.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the reality is that these new area denial systems have drastically limited the effectiveness of last gen platforms for power projection. perhaps unmanned systems or longer range strike vehicles are better than stealth if we look at the problem right now, but these were not mature enough in the 90's when the planners looked at the situation. the alternative is to take a gap in readiness and just hope adversaries don't do anything before your drone army gets built but that's never really an option for a u.s. military that is very committed to maintaining force size.
in terms of cost, taking the total lifecycle cost of platforms that will be in service for at least 50 years is going to give you big numbers, but per unit the programs that have scale economy are comparable to older gen. the scale economy problem is well understood and is behind the decision to build a lot of f35s and ssbn-x, for fear of a f-22 situation. these new toys are designed with lower maintenance in mind, but whether that is successful is another story.
stealth is obviously not total impunity but it's vastly superior to upgrading legacy platforms. with how good access denial is, f-16s and f-18s are becoming very vulnerable.
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I agree with oneofthem. All air combat now in days takes place over the horizon. Stealth, which will only improve, is an obvious answer to help with the long ranged combat equation, in air, water, or land.
We are in a strange place though. Older models are definitely 'obsolete' and there is no point in bringing them back. At the same time new aircraft, like the JSF, take so damn long to get operational that by the time they're in the field they are basically already obsolete.
Drones are the future.
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On December 29 2016 15:16 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2016 14:55 kwizach wrote:On December 29 2016 13:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2016 11:31 Tachion wrote:I was thinking it would be nice if the GOP could put up a respectable contender to Trump in the next primary election, and then I read that the last time a sitting president has lost his parties nomination for a second term was back in the 1800's. I'm really not looking forward to another general election with Trump in it. This whole last election cycle has been so vulgar and divisive. I'm constantly reminded of what USA today's editorial board wrote about Trump when they took sides in an election for the first time. He has coarsened the national dialogue. Did you ever imagine that a presidential candidate would discuss the size of his genitalia during a nationally televised Republican debate? Neither did we. Did you ever imagine a presidential candidate, one who avoided service in the military, would criticize Gold Star parents who lost a son in Iraq? Neither did we. Did you ever imagine you’d see a presidential candidate mock a disabled reporter? Neither did we. Trump’s inability or unwillingness to ignore criticism raises the specter of a president who, like Richard Nixon, would create enemies’ lists and be consumed with getting even with his critics. I just really, really hope that Trump is an outlier, and not some new norm for political discourse. While I may not have agreed with policies from past presidents, they always seemed to at the very least try to put on airs of being dignified, sophisticated, and most of all, respectable. I don't get that from Trump, I'm just left with disdain and vicarious embarrassment when i hear him talk or tweet. I honestly don't understand how anyone can be proud to have a man who acts in such a way lead and represent your country unless you're equally uncouth. On the bright side, Democrats (other than the ~30% of total Hillbots) know not to run Hillary again. Bernie's the most preferred specific option with "someone new" being the other leader. Notably it's not Clinton, Warren, Deval Patrick, or Joe Biden that Democrats would prefer in 2020 over Bernie. According to the same poll Obama and Trump have something in common, they are both more favorable than Hillary. No idea where Republicans are heading, but it seems most of the Democratic voters have learned their lesson. What poll are you referring to? In this Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll from the 21st of December, Sanders is definitely not the "most preferred specific option" for 2020 among Democrats and Independents (p. 6). Other than "someone entirely new" (66.29% excited, 20.45% indifferent, 8.79% shouldn't run (+57,5% net)), the candidate with the biggest difference between those excited and those who think (s)he shouldn't run is Biden, with 43.45% - 22.36% - 31.15% (+12,3% net). Warren comes after him with 34.19% - 23.16% - 27.00% (+7,19% net -- she also has the highest proportion of respondents who've "never heard" of her after Deval Patrick). Sanders comes after them both with 43.61% - 16.77% - 38.18% (+5,43% net). Only if you solely take into account the "excited column" and completely ignore the "shouldn't run" column does Sanders edge out Biden, and it's by one respondent out of 626. Yet he actually received the second biggest proportion of "shouldn't run" responses after HRC (who's obviously not running again). I guess I should have said the person with the most Democrats excited for them to run. "someone entirely new" is a funny category though, one wonders if it's merely an "entirely new" vessel (seems almost mythical) or direction in general. Are you sure about the bold part though?
Bernie will be 145 years old in 2020. Running at age 80 or so is not a great idea.
I think the democrats will win 2018 and have new talents to chose from for the presidential elections two years later. Remember that nobody really knew of Obama in 2004...
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On December 30 2016 03:31 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2016 15:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2016 14:55 kwizach wrote:On December 29 2016 13:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 29 2016 11:31 Tachion wrote:I was thinking it would be nice if the GOP could put up a respectable contender to Trump in the next primary election, and then I read that the last time a sitting president has lost his parties nomination for a second term was back in the 1800's. I'm really not looking forward to another general election with Trump in it. This whole last election cycle has been so vulgar and divisive. I'm constantly reminded of what USA today's editorial board wrote about Trump when they took sides in an election for the first time. He has coarsened the national dialogue. Did you ever imagine that a presidential candidate would discuss the size of his genitalia during a nationally televised Republican debate? Neither did we. Did you ever imagine a presidential candidate, one who avoided service in the military, would criticize Gold Star parents who lost a son in Iraq? Neither did we. Did you ever imagine you’d see a presidential candidate mock a disabled reporter? Neither did we. Trump’s inability or unwillingness to ignore criticism raises the specter of a president who, like Richard Nixon, would create enemies’ lists and be consumed with getting even with his critics. I just really, really hope that Trump is an outlier, and not some new norm for political discourse. While I may not have agreed with policies from past presidents, they always seemed to at the very least try to put on airs of being dignified, sophisticated, and most of all, respectable. I don't get that from Trump, I'm just left with disdain and vicarious embarrassment when i hear him talk or tweet. I honestly don't understand how anyone can be proud to have a man who acts in such a way lead and represent your country unless you're equally uncouth. On the bright side, Democrats (other than the ~30% of total Hillbots) know not to run Hillary again. Bernie's the most preferred specific option with "someone new" being the other leader. Notably it's not Clinton, Warren, Deval Patrick, or Joe Biden that Democrats would prefer in 2020 over Bernie. According to the same poll Obama and Trump have something in common, they are both more favorable than Hillary. No idea where Republicans are heading, but it seems most of the Democratic voters have learned their lesson. What poll are you referring to? In this Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll from the 21st of December, Sanders is definitely not the "most preferred specific option" for 2020 among Democrats and Independents (p. 6). Other than "someone entirely new" (66.29% excited, 20.45% indifferent, 8.79% shouldn't run (+57,5% net)), the candidate with the biggest difference between those excited and those who think (s)he shouldn't run is Biden, with 43.45% - 22.36% - 31.15% (+12,3% net). Warren comes after him with 34.19% - 23.16% - 27.00% (+7,19% net -- she also has the highest proportion of respondents who've "never heard" of her after Deval Patrick). Sanders comes after them both with 43.61% - 16.77% - 38.18% (+5,43% net). Only if you solely take into account the "excited column" and completely ignore the "shouldn't run" column does Sanders edge out Biden, and it's by one respondent out of 626. Yet he actually received the second biggest proportion of "shouldn't run" responses after HRC (who's obviously not running again). I guess I should have said the person with the most Democrats excited for them to run. "someone entirely new" is a funny category though, one wonders if it's merely an "entirely new" vessel (seems almost mythical) or direction in general. Are you sure about the bold part though? Bernie will be 145 years old in 2020. Running at age 80 or so is not a great idea. I think the democrats will win 2018 and have new talents to chose from for the presidential elections two years later. Remember that nobody really knew of Obama in 2004...
Yeah, hope and change candidates with little to no political record are the future.
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Drones are useful but also not a replacement for standard airplanes. You can see the RQ-170 incident in Iran where Iran stole an advanced drone and made a copy. The countermeasures are cheap hax which should be troubling. I had a longer post earlier on the problem of drones but I'm on mobile so I'm not going to dig it out.
The US's biggest weak point right now is its absurd costs for everything. It doesn't know how to drive down costs and has commitments everywhere.
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I can't recall which company it was (Raytheon or Lockheed maybe), but I remember reading that every single aircraft or new tech in R&D was unmanned or related to unmanned aircraft. Likely this is the case at all the big boys, like Boeing and Northrup Grumman, as well.
And yes, I see them replacing all planes eventually.
I definitely agree costs are out of control in general.
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I think people are really sleeping on the potential of a 2020 Joe biden "come to daddy" run. He can bring back the firewall real easy and roll back the demographic decline on the working white the dems are feeling right now.
Not to mention hes got that meme magic that trump wish's he didn't need a frog for.
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Bill Gates should run in 2020.
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We are definitely reaching the peak of disminsing returns in how we advance military tech for the cost. Throwing endless money at the military isn't going to work for much longer, especially considering how much less other countries can spend while still keeping reasonably up.
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Sanctions on Russia incoming...the Trump Org and Exxon have immediate interest in them being lifted. How will this play out?
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EPT
