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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.

In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!

NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious.
Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Plansix
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States60190 Posts
April 05 2017 17:32 GMT
#145421
China is the reason no one was able to end this long ago. Their efforts to support NK in the 1950s caused the US to come to the aid of SK. The stale mate has existed ever since, with China always looming to prevent SK from dealing with NK. But now they want a unified Korea because their pet dictator got nukes and is a bat shit crazy.
I have the Honor to be your Obedient Servant, P.6
TL+ Member
LegalLord
Profile Blog Joined April 2013
United Kingdom13775 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-04-05 17:34:16
April 05 2017 17:33 GMT
#145422
On April 06 2017 02:30 On_Slaught wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 06 2017 02:09 Gahlo wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:04 Tachion wrote:
On April 06 2017 01:57 LegalLord wrote:
This is about the time that we pretty much have to take care of NK. Any later and they will probably have ICBMs that the US has no means to defend against. And it's a rogue nation that can't be trusted to secure them.

The US has a military agency specifically devoted to defense against ballistic missiles, and has interceptors ready to be deployed in California and Alaska.

Last I read, didn't those have a 70% success rating in perfect conditions?


There is a reason we haven't shit down any of these test missles shot into Japanese water and the like. I tend to lean towards the idea that we are afraid we will miss, which would be pretty catastrophic news. Still, against NK level missles we have a good chance of hitting. It's the Russian types that leave the atmosphere which are hardest to hit.

Russian missiles are obviously quite a bit better than anything the North Koreans could come up with, but the system can be defeated with a tactic as peasant and pitiful as saturation. With a handful of missiles, not even a particularly large launch.

The "perfect conditions" are... fantastic. They for example require that the exact trajectory of the missile is known. The program is a fucking disgrace.
History will sooner or later sweep the European Union away without mercy.
zlefin
Profile Blog Joined October 2012
United States7689 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-04-05 17:47:39
April 05 2017 17:45 GMT
#145423
spectra -> since american law runs off the british common law tradition, rather than the napoleonic code, it is necessarily the case that to some extent and in some sense, the courts create new law.

on korea: even wtih an alpha strike on the north, damage to south korea from artillery and such would likely be in the trillions of dollars.
Great read: http://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/ great book on democracy: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10671.html zlefin is grumpier due to long term illness. Ignoring some users.
LightSpectra
Profile Blog Joined October 2011
United States1452 Posts
April 05 2017 17:49 GMT
#145424
On April 06 2017 02:14 KwarK wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 06 2017 01:54 LightSpectra wrote:
On April 06 2017 01:50 KwarK wrote:
On April 06 2017 01:37 LightSpectra wrote:
On April 06 2017 01:22 KwarK wrote:
On April 06 2017 01:11 LightSpectra wrote:
On April 06 2017 00:55 Plansix wrote:
That is all they do. The “create new law” is when they create legal reasoning for denying the law based on constitutional guidelines or within written law. They don’t make new law whole cloth.


The SCOTUS does not pass legislation like Congress does, this is true, but it does de facto create new laws by introducing innovations into the legal system like Miranda rights or the Dred Scott decision.

On April 06 2017 01:02 KwarK wrote:
On April 06 2017 00:47 Broetchenholer wrote:
No, the judiciary system should not create new laws, they should only rule on exisiting laws. Your society needs to create it's own social contract, of course with input of the judiciary branch. Effectively, you need to make a vote to abolish (parts of) the constitution in favor of a new one. Then you find a consensus for your values and put them into law even though they may collide with the old system. That's of course hard and i don't know if that was ever done without a serious break of society. That said, i don't know any country except for the States that has been without a change of government form in the last 100 years, maybe Great Britain? Not very knowledgeable how their "Constitutional Monarchy" reformed itself. If you are lucky, Trump starts a public vote for Royalty, wins, abolishes the constitution to become King of America and when the American Revolution starts, you can create a new document

Britain doesn't have a constitution.


There is a strong argument to be made that Britain's unwritten constitution is what got them into World War I.

Bullshit. WWI was an inevitable consequence of the inability of the imperial system to accept the German superpower. The 18th Century powers divided the world between them. Then suddenly Germany appears as a superpower with industrial capacity and population that exceed that of the existing powers. The existing powers won't concede their position without war and Germany won't be relegated to an inferior status when it was quite clearly the dominant power in Europe. And so the only way Germany can realize its destiny as the premier European power is through a general European reset at the expense of the existing powers and the only way that can be done is through war.

Recent historiography has come down pretty heavily on the side that everyone wanted to avoid WWI except Germany and that everyone made a good faith effort to avoid it except Germany and that it would have easily been avoided if Germany had made even the slightest effort to do so. But Germany could never be a global power without conflict with Britain and France, and she knew it, and therefore deliberately sought to push the continent into war.


Did you read the article I linked, KwarK? It has pretty solid evidence that the government saw the invasion of Belgium as a convenient excuse to avert a civil war over the Home Rule Bill.

It's wrong. Britain made multiple attempts to defuse the crisis which were deliberately ignored by Germany who pushed for a wider war as a matter of policy. Had Russia not stood with Serbia and Serbia been absorbed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire the German Empire would still have invaded France. It was never about Serbia, it was about Africa, India and China. The cause of the war was, quite simply, that Germany had a deliberate policy of seeking war with France and Britain. That's what it comes down to.


You've completely ignored the article and repeated your own assertions (which are not strictly contradictory with the article's thesis, by the way). If you're not going to bother even taking a peak to see what it's about then I'm not going to waste my time by responding.

The article is not an actual article by an actual historian, its conjecture by some random on a gaming forum that flies in the face of not only the consensus of actual historians but also basic historical evidence. As a random on a gaming forum myself I have sufficient authority (none, but nor does the author) to simply dispute it. If you want a better answer then offer a better article.


I don't know what "consensus of actual historians" you're talking about since the thesis is supported by I.W.F. Beckett, Patricia Jalland, George Dangerfield and others, but ok.
2006 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 3 was the greatest tournament of all time
LightSpectra
Profile Blog Joined October 2011
United States1452 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-04-05 17:53:53
April 05 2017 17:51 GMT
#145425
On April 06 2017 02:32 Plansix wrote:
China is the reason no one was able to end this long ago. Their efforts to support NK in the 1950s caused the US to come to the aid of SK. The stale mate has existed ever since, with China always looming to prevent SK from dealing with NK. But now they want a unified Korea because their pet dictator got nukes and is a bat shit crazy.


The PRC could destroy the North Korean regime whenever it wants (they're pretty much the sole economic partner), it just doesn't want tens of millions of refugees flooding across the border.

China holds all of the cards here. If any nukes are dropped it's their fault. [EDIT: Unless Trump is really as dumb as everybody has feared and decides upon a pre-emptive strike without international support.]
2006 Shinhan Bank OSL Season 3 was the greatest tournament of all time
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
April 05 2017 17:54 GMT
#145426
On April 06 2017 02:33 LegalLord wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 06 2017 02:30 On_Slaught wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:09 Gahlo wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:04 Tachion wrote:
On April 06 2017 01:57 LegalLord wrote:
This is about the time that we pretty much have to take care of NK. Any later and they will probably have ICBMs that the US has no means to defend against. And it's a rogue nation that can't be trusted to secure them.

The US has a military agency specifically devoted to defense against ballistic missiles, and has interceptors ready to be deployed in California and Alaska.

Last I read, didn't those have a 70% success rating in perfect conditions?


There is a reason we haven't shit down any of these test missles shot into Japanese water and the like. I tend to lean towards the idea that we are afraid we will miss, which would be pretty catastrophic news. Still, against NK level missles we have a good chance of hitting. It's the Russian types that leave the atmosphere which are hardest to hit.

Russian missiles are obviously quite a bit better than anything the North Koreans could come up with, but the system can be defeated with a tactic as peasant and pitiful as saturation. With a handful of missiles, not even a particularly large launch.

The "perfect conditions" are... fantastic. They for example require that the exact trajectory of the missile is known. The program is a fucking disgrace.


Hence the HELLADS, Boeing X-37 programs...
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
ImFromPortugal
Profile Joined April 2010
Portugal1368 Posts
April 05 2017 18:19 GMT
#145427
Yes im
ShoCkeyy
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
7815 Posts
April 05 2017 18:21 GMT
#145428
I think you guys discussed this, but curious if anybody read this? Wow

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/05/steve-bannon-national-security-council-role-trump-shakeup

Donald Trump’s political strategist Steve Bannon has lost his place on the national security council in a staff shakeup, documents show.

A presidential memorandum dated 4 April took Bannon, the former Breitbart News executive and chief White House link to the nationalist rightwing, off the country’s main body for foreign policy and national security decision-making. It also restores the traditional roles of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the director of national intelligence to the NSC.

While the revamp is likely to be seen as a victory for Trump’s second national security adviser, army lieutenant general HR McMaster, the substantive impact of the shakeup remains to be seen. A parallel security structure in the Eisenhower executive office building, known as the Strategic Initiatives Group, reports to Bannon, whose close relationship with Trump suggests continued influence in this administration.

Life?
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
April 05 2017 18:22 GMT
#145429
Either something is about to blow up/leak, or Bannon pissed off Trump.
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
farvacola
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States18826 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-04-05 18:24:57
April 05 2017 18:24 GMT
#145430
Trump removing Bannon from the NSC is the second smart thing Trump has done in office, the first being his pursuit of Mattis.
"when the Dead Kennedys found out they had skinhead fans, they literally wrote a song titled 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off'"
Mohdoo
Profile Joined August 2007
United States15686 Posts
April 05 2017 18:45 GMT
#145431
On April 06 2017 03:22 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Either something is about to blow up/leak, or Bannon pissed off Trump.


If either of these happened, why would he still be in such a high up position?
LegalLord
Profile Blog Joined April 2013
United Kingdom13775 Posts
April 05 2017 18:47 GMT
#145432
On April 06 2017 03:45 Mohdoo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 06 2017 03:22 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Either something is about to blow up/leak, or Bannon pissed off Trump.


If either of these happened, why would he still be in such a high up position?

Trump occasionally fires by sidelining.
History will sooner or later sweep the European Union away without mercy.
Amui
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada10567 Posts
April 05 2017 18:55 GMT
#145433
On April 06 2017 02:33 LegalLord wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 06 2017 02:30 On_Slaught wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:09 Gahlo wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:04 Tachion wrote:
On April 06 2017 01:57 LegalLord wrote:
This is about the time that we pretty much have to take care of NK. Any later and they will probably have ICBMs that the US has no means to defend against. And it's a rogue nation that can't be trusted to secure them.

The US has a military agency specifically devoted to defense against ballistic missiles, and has interceptors ready to be deployed in California and Alaska.

Last I read, didn't those have a 70% success rating in perfect conditions?


There is a reason we haven't shit down any of these test missles shot into Japanese water and the like. I tend to lean towards the idea that we are afraid we will miss, which would be pretty catastrophic news. Still, against NK level missles we have a good chance of hitting. It's the Russian types that leave the atmosphere which are hardest to hit.

Russian missiles are obviously quite a bit better than anything the North Koreans could come up with, but the system can be defeated with a tactic as peasant and pitiful as saturation. With a handful of missiles, not even a particularly large launch.

The "perfect conditions" are... fantastic. They for example require that the exact trajectory of the missile is known. The program is a fucking disgrace.

As far as missiles go, you can either kill it in boost phase(hard because proximity is required), coast (how do you intercept something 100km up going ~7km/s more or less tangent to you), or terminal(need a launcher near target, also very time critical). Most existing AA weapons are designed to blow up when close enough that fragmentation will probably kill(doesn't need a direct hit). An object going 7km/s will outrun an explosion, so you need to target your interceptor at an area where the missile will be in a twentieth of a second. That's 350m downrange.
Porouscloud - NA LoL
LegalLord
Profile Blog Joined April 2013
United Kingdom13775 Posts
April 05 2017 18:59 GMT
#145434
On April 06 2017 03:55 Amui wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 06 2017 02:33 LegalLord wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:30 On_Slaught wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:09 Gahlo wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:04 Tachion wrote:
On April 06 2017 01:57 LegalLord wrote:
This is about the time that we pretty much have to take care of NK. Any later and they will probably have ICBMs that the US has no means to defend against. And it's a rogue nation that can't be trusted to secure them.

The US has a military agency specifically devoted to defense against ballistic missiles, and has interceptors ready to be deployed in California and Alaska.

Last I read, didn't those have a 70% success rating in perfect conditions?


There is a reason we haven't shit down any of these test missles shot into Japanese water and the like. I tend to lean towards the idea that we are afraid we will miss, which would be pretty catastrophic news. Still, against NK level missles we have a good chance of hitting. It's the Russian types that leave the atmosphere which are hardest to hit.

Russian missiles are obviously quite a bit better than anything the North Koreans could come up with, but the system can be defeated with a tactic as peasant and pitiful as saturation. With a handful of missiles, not even a particularly large launch.

The "perfect conditions" are... fantastic. They for example require that the exact trajectory of the missile is known. The program is a fucking disgrace.

As far as missiles go, you can either kill it in boost phase(hard because proximity is required), coast (how do you intercept something 100km up going ~7km/s more or less tangent to you), or terminal(need a launcher near target, also very time critical). Most existing AA weapons are designed to blow up when close enough that fragmentation will probably kill(doesn't need a direct hit). An object going 7km/s will outrun an explosion, so you need to target your interceptor at an area where the missile will be in a twentieth of a second. That's 350m downrange.

Yeah, that's the basic problem as I talked about in my earlier post.

Long story short, though, the US's missile defense system really doesn't have anywhere near the reliability it would need under real circumstances. The working assumption should be that an ICBM would be able to hit the US if launched.
History will sooner or later sweep the European Union away without mercy.
WolfintheSheep
Profile Joined June 2011
Canada14127 Posts
April 05 2017 19:06 GMT
#145435
On April 06 2017 03:59 LegalLord wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 06 2017 03:55 Amui wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:33 LegalLord wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:30 On_Slaught wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:09 Gahlo wrote:
On April 06 2017 02:04 Tachion wrote:
On April 06 2017 01:57 LegalLord wrote:
This is about the time that we pretty much have to take care of NK. Any later and they will probably have ICBMs that the US has no means to defend against. And it's a rogue nation that can't be trusted to secure them.

The US has a military agency specifically devoted to defense against ballistic missiles, and has interceptors ready to be deployed in California and Alaska.

Last I read, didn't those have a 70% success rating in perfect conditions?


There is a reason we haven't shit down any of these test missles shot into Japanese water and the like. I tend to lean towards the idea that we are afraid we will miss, which would be pretty catastrophic news. Still, against NK level missles we have a good chance of hitting. It's the Russian types that leave the atmosphere which are hardest to hit.

Russian missiles are obviously quite a bit better than anything the North Koreans could come up with, but the system can be defeated with a tactic as peasant and pitiful as saturation. With a handful of missiles, not even a particularly large launch.

The "perfect conditions" are... fantastic. They for example require that the exact trajectory of the missile is known. The program is a fucking disgrace.

As far as missiles go, you can either kill it in boost phase(hard because proximity is required), coast (how do you intercept something 100km up going ~7km/s more or less tangent to you), or terminal(need a launcher near target, also very time critical). Most existing AA weapons are designed to blow up when close enough that fragmentation will probably kill(doesn't need a direct hit). An object going 7km/s will outrun an explosion, so you need to target your interceptor at an area where the missile will be in a twentieth of a second. That's 350m downrange.

Yeah, that's the basic problem as I talked about in my earlier post.

Long story short, though, the US's missile defense system really doesn't have anywhere near the reliability it would need under real circumstances. The working assumption should be that an ICBM would be able to hit the US if launched.

I would be somewhat horrified if a lot of people assumed the opposite.
Average means I'm better than half of you.
Philoctetes
Profile Joined March 2017
Netherlands77 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-04-05 19:16:17
April 05 2017 19:13 GMT
#145436
I am actually shocked at Trump denouncing a chemical weapons attack. And not even a remark that he knows it is ISIS, and not Assad, because 'he is like a very smart person'.
I wonder how much he had to be talked into doing that, though.



As for missiles intercepting missiles. I have never seen evidence that it is possible. The faster and the smaller they are, the more unlikely.

I have high doubts about Patriot. Even more about the absurd claims about Iron Dome. And hitting something that goes 7 km/s or faster, extremely unlikely.
LegalLord
Profile Blog Joined April 2013
United Kingdom13775 Posts
April 05 2017 19:15 GMT
#145437
They probably took his phone away and said he could have it back as soon as he read what they wrote down on the notecard verbatim.
History will sooner or later sweep the European Union away without mercy.
Sermokala
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States13925 Posts
April 05 2017 19:32 GMT
#145438
On April 06 2017 04:13 Philoctetes wrote:
I am actually shocked at Trump denouncing a chemical weapons attack. And not even a remark that he knows it is ISIS, and not Assad, because 'he is like a very smart person'.
I wonder how much he had to be talked into doing that, though.



As for missiles intercepting missiles. I have never seen evidence that it is possible. The faster and the smaller they are, the more unlikely.

I have high doubts about Patriot. Even more about the absurd claims about Iron Dome. And hitting something that goes 7 km/s or faster, extremely unlikely.

Its actually the faster and larger they are the more unlikly. You're talking about a really big launch vehicle for an ICBM and the common tactic for anti air missles is to blow up in front of the target and destroy the target through a clowd of shrapnel. This is thrown out the window with ICBM's due to its incredible speed and kinetic energy able to just plow through the shrapnel and keep going to the target. Anything large enough to knock it out and you get a problem of it picking up enough speed to reach the target and anything smaller isn't going to take the thing out. The star wars project was never going to get off the ground due to a lack of technology but it still remains the best idea we have so far for taking out these space fairing craft so far.

God forbid what will happen with SCRAMJET aided craft in a decade or three.
A wise man will say that he knows nothing. We're gona party like its 2752 Hail Dark Brandon
KwarK
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States42656 Posts
April 05 2017 19:33 GMT
#145439
I have so, so much contempt for authoritarian SJWs. That is all. Not enough to stop believing in liberal issues that I believe are ideologically moral causes just to spite them, but enough that it'd leave a bad taste in my mouth to win because it means they also win.
ModeratorThe angels have the phone box
LegalLord
Profile Blog Joined April 2013
United Kingdom13775 Posts
April 05 2017 19:33 GMT
#145440
A pointy-beaked F-35B Lightning II idles noisily on a runway at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in southern Maryland. Suddenly the plane roars to life and sprints a mere 300 feet before abruptly lifting off and soaring into a cloudless, late-winter sky over Chesapeake Bay. A while later it zooms back into view, slows to a hover over the runway like a helicopter, then drops straight down to the concrete, where it lands with a gentle bounce.

A U.S. Marine Corps test pilot is manning the controls. If he were Air Force or Navy, his version of the military’s highly anticipated new fighter jet wouldn’t have this capacity to take off and land on a dime—though it would come with other custom features. This is why Air Force Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan, who’s in charge of overseeing the acquisition of the F-35, brought three plastic models of the fighter jet to a December 2016 meeting with Donald Trump at his Florida residence.

Bogdan, a tall former test pilot who speaks in a raspy, authoritative voice, has been working with Lockheed Martin Corp., the plane’s manufacturer and the country’s largest defense contractor, since 2012. Nine days before their meeting, Trump had called Bogdan’s program “out of control” in a tweet, so the three-star general knew that at Mar-a-Lago, the president-elect would put him on the spot. But what he didn’t anticipate was Trump’s eagerness to demonstrate his own knowledge of aviation. Trump talked with pride about his personal Boeing 757, Bogdan says. “Anything about airplanes, he’s excited about, and he told me that the first time we met.”

Amid the gold-inlaid, high-ceilinged splendor of the Jazz Age château in Palm Beach, Bogdan explained the F-35’s advanced sensor system and stealth capability. Trump listened respectfully, but the next day he was back on Twitter, complaining about the plane’s “tremendous cost and cost overruns.” To Bogdan’s continued surprise, in the days before the inauguration, Trump twice telephoned the general at his office in an austere Pentagon annex in Arlington, Va. He wanted to discuss the allegations he’d heard that the F-35’s performance fell short of existing fighters. Bogdan hastened to reassure Trump that those claims were “myths,” “misinformation,” or “old information”—none of them worth believing.

On Jan. 30, his 10th day as president, Trump markedly changed his tone. He took credit for knocking $600 million off the price of the latest batch of 90 fighters and told reporters the F-35 was “a great plane.” Since then, he’s made the F-35 an emblem of his dealmaking prowess. During his Feb. 28 address to a joint session of Congress, the president boasted he’d “saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by bringing down the price of the fantastic new F-35 jet fighter.”

In truth, thanks to Bogdan’s negotiations with Lockheed, prices were going to fall with or without Trump’s intervention. And the plane, discounts notwithstanding, is still on its way to becoming the priciest military procurement in U.S. history. Trump’s self-congratulation serves as a distraction from the larger issue troubling the fighter jet: its performance. While the Pentagon’s official line is that, after years of difficulties, the F-35 is meeting high expectations, skeptics both outside and within the military say it’s turning out to be a two-decades-in-the-making, trillion-dollar mistake.

Source

A nice, somewhat long article, on the massive trillion-dollar boondoggle that has won over every skeptic with sufficient jobs in their home state. At least everyone who stands to benefit from a trillion being sunk into the program says that it's worth it.
History will sooner or later sweep the European Union away without mercy.
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