War in Ukraine

[Stirlingsays]

It means that NATO with USA is over .
Trump is a traitor .

Really?....So all the US bases in Europe are being closed down then?

Errr...no.....no they aren't.

Because you're talking hyperbolic nonsense.

• In 2025, NATO members together spent roughly $1.4–1.6 trillion on defense.
• The United States accounted for about 60% of that total (around $980 billion). In earlier years the US share was often closer to two-thirds.
• The US spends more than all the other 31 allies combined.

If you think Europe is going to shun the US if a Nato country is attacked then you've been eating too many frog's legs Frenchie.

Ukraine isn't even in Nato anyway.....and Ukraine took out the clause in its constitution where it has it as an aim last month.

 

[Mark B]

In case you were wondering about the recent Starlink issues in Ukraine. SpaceX deployed a server-side countermeasure because the Ukrainians were hacking the network. With the update, if the system detects a terminal claiming to be stationary but was jumping between satellites as if the terminal was moving then the server instantly terminates the session.

When the patch went live, the Ukrainian bypass mode stopped working, causing them to cry that Elon was restricting them.

 

[silvertop]

Really?....So all the US bases in Europe are being closed down then?

Errr...no.....no they aren't.

Because you're talking hyperbolic nonsense.

• In 2025, NATO members together spent roughly $1.4–1.6 trillion on defense.
• The United States accounted for about 60% of that total (around $980 billion). In earlier years the US share was often closer to two-thirds.
• The US spends more than all the other 31 allies combined.

If you think Europe is going to shun the US if a Nato country is attacked then you've been eating too many frog's legs Frenchie.

Ukraine isn't even in Nato anyway.....and Ukraine took out the clause in its constitution where it has it as an aim last month.

Quite.

Take us and the US.

Easily the most powerful strategic military partnership on the planet. Obviously we are very much the junior partner.

However, the F35 fighter jet is about one fifth British built. The AUKUS attack subs are tri financed but will be British built. We have two huge carriers but bugger all planes which matters not as the US have an abundance of planes and are more than happy to use our platforms. The royal navy are tasked with patrolling the turbulent and Russian sub stuffed GIUK gap and have built their boats accordingly. And so on.

That is not going to end any time soon notwithstanding Trump's political hyperbolic rubbish.

It's all for his base.

 

[Stirlingsays]

Quite.

Take us and the US.

Easily the most powerful strategic military partnership on the planet. Obviously we are very much the junior partner.

However, the F35 fighter jet is about one fifth British built. The AUKUS attack subs are tri financed but will be British built. We have two huge carriers but bugger all planes which matters not as the US have an abundance of planes and are more than happy to use our platforms. The royal navy are tasked with patrolling the turbulent and Russian sub stuffed GIUK gap and have built their boats accordingly. And so on.

That is not going to end any time soon notwithstanding Trump's political hyperbolic rubbish.

It's all for his base.

A particularly nice touch there.

 

[Stirlingsays]

Trump certainly has been disruptive over allied cooperation.

However, I think a lot of people get the wool pulled over their eyes by the megaphone nature of the attention media rather than just looking at the underlying reality of western systems.

The US president is co-equal with two other levels of government, the legislative branch (Congress) and the judicial branch (federal courts, headed by the Supreme Court). The President has a certain amount of work-arounds like executive orders but those still can be challenged and only gets an amount of leeway. A powerful President requires a significant majority in the Congress, not just a small one, and that's very rare.

In a way it just affirms just how 'stratch the surface' the whole concept of democracy actually is.....Always was....It only can effect so much. The plebs get propergandised by the media into thinking they have more power than they actually do. Lobbyists and especially donors have much more power within the US system as they get to fund and thus, most of the time, restrict actual choices within two of those three brances of power....and maybe three by proxy.

Money makes the world go round and money is the root of all evil (well big money anyway) are old sayings that aren't miles off course.

However much some people dislike Trump.....and I'm not a fan of Trump 2.0 compared to what he promised....The reality is that his haters have an unrealistic view of just how much power he has.

 

[Mark B]

Quite.

Take us and the US.

Easily the most powerful strategic military partnership on the planet. Obviously we are very much the junior partner.

However, the F35 fighter jet is about one fifth British built. The AUKUS attack subs are tri financed but will be British built. We have two huge carriers but bugger all planes which matters not as the US have an abundance of planes and are more than happy to use our platforms. The royal navy are tasked with patrolling the turbulent and Russian sub stuffed GIUK gap and have built their boats accordingly. And so on.

That is not going to end any time soon notwithstanding Trump's political hyperbolic rubbish.

It's all for his base.

What Trump wants out of NATO is the same thing that every US President has been whining about for decades, for the other nations in NATO to meet their defense obligation. This isn't a new issue, it has been an ongoing one for a while (from 2005: Sharing-and Reducing-the Military Burden - FPIF)

They said it in private while he says it in public. They were polite about it while Trump gets child like glee in pointing it out that Europe is all talk and little action when it comes to defense spending.

1. Previous presidents made the threat to curb US involvement in Europe but no one took them seriously. Very few people don't take Trump seriously when it comes to his willingness to pull back US forces from Europe.

Depends on you are defining the use of the word rhetoric. If you are using the classic definition of utilizing all available means of persuasion in any given situation to achieve a goal then I agree. If you are defining it as meaningless speech that he won't do then I absolutely disagree as he has already shown a willingness to pull US forces out of countries that don't want to hold up their end of the deal.

It isn't just for his base, the majority of Americans support the rest of NATO meeting their defense contributions and that has been true for decades. I have noticed that he mentions it less then he did before for the majority of NATO, primarily focusing on two nations that do not actually meet it, Spain and Canada.

 

[Mark B]

Trump certainly has been disruptive over allied coopration.

However, I think a lot of people get the wool pulled over their eyes by the megaphone nature of the attention media rather than just looking at the underlying reality of western systems.

The US president is co-equal with two other levels of government, the legislative branch (Congress) and the judicial branch (federal courts, headed by the Supreme Court). The President has a certain amount of work-arounds like executive orders but those still can be challenged and only gets an amount of leeway. A powerful President requires a significant majority in the Congress, not just a small one, and that's very rare.

In a way it just affirms just how 'stratch the surface' the whole concept of democracy actually is.....Always was....It only can effect so much. The plebs get propergandised by the media into thinking they have more power than they actually do. Lobbyists and especially donors have much more power within the US system as they get to fund and thus, most of the time, restrict actual choices within two of those three brances of power....and maybe three by proxy.

Money makes the world go round and money is the root of all evil (well big money anyway) are old sayings that aren't miles off course.

However much some people dislike Trump.....and I'm not a fan of Trump 2.0 compared to what he promised....The reality is that his haters have an unrealistic view of just how much power he has.

People don't realize how little US policy actually changes, both foreign and domestic, from President to President even when switching parties.

There is a fantastic reason for this that I had explained to me by a Senior Director from the Bush NSC, the people at the top switch by party but the people who write and execute the policies do not. It is like changing the color of your car and expecting it to be different. Same engine, same result.

The US system has built in safeguards because of its distrust of the federal government. The states have more power so that the actual authorities of the executive are fairly limited in scope.

While here have ben some good things to come from 2.0, the childish immaturity hasn't really helped anything other then be entertaining at times. There have been multiple times where I have agreed with what he was doing but didn't think the trolling was going to help the situation at all.

 

[silvertop]

Trump certainly has been disruptive over allied cooperation.

However, I think a lot of people get the wool pulled over their eyes by the megaphone nature of the attention media rather than just looking at the underlying reality of western systems.

The US president is co-equal with two other levels of government, the legislative branch (Congress) and the judicial branch (federal courts, headed by the Supreme Court). The President has a certain amount of work-arounds like executive orders but those still can be challenged and only gets an amount of leeway. A powerful President requires a significant majority in the Congress, not just a small one, and that's very rare.

In a way it just affirms just how 'stratch the surface' the whole concept of democracy actually is.....Always was....It only can effect so much. The plebs get propergandised by the media into thinking they have more power than they actually do. Lobbyists and especially donors have much more power within the US system as they get to fund and thus, most of the time, restrict actual choices within two of those three brances of power....and maybe three by proxy.

Money makes the world go round and money is the root of all evil (well big money anyway) are old sayings that aren't miles off course.

However much some people dislike Trump.....and I'm not a fan of Trump 2.0 compared to what he promised....The reality is that his haters have an unrealistic view of just how much power he has.

All factually unarguable but you can still feel anger at many of his comments given who he is and who will blindly believe him

 

[Stirlingsays]

All factually unarguable but you can still feel anger at many of his comments given who he is and who will blindly believe him

I felt anger whenever Biden told me that white men were the problem in the world....stuck trannies into military leadership and everything else that sick party believes in.

But yeah, Trump annoys me when he talks like a bully, acts the idiot and lies to boot.

But it was the US democrat Wisbech types who ensured that Trump was elected a second term because they couldn't let him just wander off the stage and instead had to try to jail him.

Maybe it would be President DeSantis now....because I could never see a world where Biden's DEI hire won.

 

[Mark B]

All factually unarguable but you can still feel anger at many of his comments given who he is and who will blindly believe him

I know a fair amount of MAGA fans and the numbers who actually believe everything he says are very few. I will also say that those people who do blindly follow him tend to have a the IQ of moron (50-70 points) and lack the ability to see anything different at which point do you really blame someone who is mentally incapable of making a better choice for the choices that they make?

I will also say that even the MAGA types get angry with him, the difference is is that they focus on his positives and just deal with his other stupidity.

 

[silvertop]

I know a fair amount of MAGA fans and the numbers who actually believe everything he says are very few. I will also say that those people who do blindly follow him tend to have a the IQ of moron (50-70 points) and lack the ability to see anything different at which point do you really blame someone who is mentally incapable of making a better choice for the choices that they make?

I will also say that even the MAGA types get angry with him, the difference is is that they focus on his positives and just deal with his other stupidity.

Which I guess says as much about the poverty of the opposition than the strength of Trump that so many are still willing to cherry-pick the so called good bits from Trump's message (and ignore the lunacy) than risk a Democrat government.

 

[cryrst]

Which I guess says as much about the poverty of the opposition than the strength of Trump that so many are still willing to cherry-pick the so called good bits from Trump's message (and ignore the lunacy) than risk a Democrat government.

Well it’s an advance on Labour as their good bits only help
Immigrants and benefits claimants.
Hmg lunacy is actually their policies in total, unless you are looking for cheaper fuel 🤣

 

[Mark B]

Which I guess says as much about the poverty of the opposition than the strength of Trump that so many are still willing to cherry-pick the so called good bits from Trump's message (and ignore the lunacy) than risk a Democrat government.

That is the key right there, who he has gone against and the time period we are currently in. He is one of the worst candidates to ever run, he just managed to run at a time when people were sick of the mainstream parties openly lying to them about obvious things (DEI, border security, can a boy be girl, everyone white is racist, etc...) and he was able to capitalize. And one of the biggest things for him is that he never apologize for it so it sold the message whether he actually believed in it or not.

His opponents also try to paint him as a Nazi which doesn't help the situation because while he is rude and offensive, it doesn't come close to the Nazi bar so he comes across as "not that bad" by comparison even though he does some WTF things because of the comparison is so extreme.

I've never voted for the guy, but I can understand why so many Americans did. The scary part for Europeans is what comes next because while Trump acts like he hates Europeans, Vance actually does.

 

[silvertop]

What Trump wants out of NATO is the same thing that every US President has been whining about for decades, for the other nations in NATO to meet their defense obligation. This isn't a new issue, it has been an ongoing one for a while (from 2005: Sharing-and Reducing-the Military Burden - FPIF)

They said it in private while he says it in public. They were polite about it while Trump gets child like glee in pointing it out that Europe is all talk and little action when it comes to defense spending.

1. Previous presidents made the threat to curb US involvement in Europe but no one took them seriously. Very few people don't take Trump seriously when it comes to his willingness to pull back US forces from Europe.

Depends on you are defining the use of the word rhetoric. If you are using the classic definition of utilizing all available means of persuasion in any given situation to achieve a goal then I agree. If you are defining it as meaningless speech that he won't do then I absolutely disagree as he has already shown a willingness to pull US forces out of countries that don't want to hold up their end of the deal.

It isn't just for his base, the majority of Americans support the rest of NATO meeting their defense contributions and that has been true for decades. I have noticed that he mentions it less then he did before for the majority of NATO, primarily focusing on two nations that do not actually meet it, Spain and Canada.

It may be on a political level and frankly I could not agree more. We are never going to match the decades earned tech skills or massive economies of scale of the USA, although we may come close if the Europeans (and Canadians, Anzacs?) pool and work as a cohesive collective.

More realistically, the least we can do is achieve, say, 3% GDP defence spend across all NATO member states and move towards that ideal.

Thus, there are on-off proposals for the British and the Dutch on amphibious landing ships; the Royal Navy is working closely with the Norwegians on destroyers; the UK, Australia and the USA will build a hatful of attack subs; and the UK, Italy and Japan (with Canada and Germany as participating parties) are well advanced on a 6th gen fighter jet.

But I have said it above and I will say it again. The USA has never had a gun held to its head. It could have withdrawn all military presence in Europe whenever it pleased, especially as part of the Peace Dividend. That it did not says more about Industrial Military vested interests in the USA and US power projection that your country propping up "ungrateful" Europeans as Hegseth disingenuously asserts to please his base.

The cost of maintaining the military bases throughout Europe is eye-watering; but what it lost on the swings it gained on the roundabouts (not sure you have that expression?). To simplify matters into a populist message of "free loading" Europeans is complete bollox. Utter drivel issued as fodder for the base.

 

[PalazioVecchio]

I know a fair amount of MAGA fans and the numbers who actually believe everything he says are very few. I will also say that those people who do blindly follow him tend to have a the IQ of moron (50-70 points)

so more clever than the Biden supporters then ?

 

[silvertop]

That is the key right there, who he has gone against and the time period we are currently in. He is one of the worst candidates to ever run, he just managed to run at a time when people were sick of the mainstream parties openly lying to them about obvious things (DEI, border security, can a boy be girl, everyone white is racist, etc...) and he was able to capitalize. And one of the biggest things for him is that he never apologize for it so it sold the message whether he actually believed in it or not.

His opponents also try to paint him as a Nazi which doesn't help the situation because while he is rude and offensive, it doesn't come close to the Nazi bar so he comes across as "not that bad" by comparison even though he does some WTF things because of the comparison is so extreme.

I've never voted for the guy, but I can understand why so many Americans did. The scary part for Europeans is what comes next because while Trump acts like he hates Europeans, Vance actually does.

We live in a world of social media and soundbites. It wins the day.

Thus, about one third of those who voted (pretty much all of them post on here!) are staunch Eurosceptics and will have always voted Leave at the Brexit referendum. About one third would never have left in a million years and voted Remain. The other shifting third were either persuaded by either side's arguments - but why more shift to Leave than Remain? My take is that they were baffled by Remains' urbane arguments but chose Leave as they encapsulated their arguments into 2 catchy phrases. "Take back control" and "project fear". The popular after dinner speaker Boris Johnson was placed on a lectern and simply repeated those phrases in response to any question. It worked.

Likewise Trump. One madcap phrase after another and he generates political traction that infuriates and probably embarrasses many, but which has his MAGA faithful frothing with joy and - critically - keeps his message relevant and current.

Trump is a NAZI to the extent that he relies for his political life on providing simple people with simple easily digestible solutions for highly complex and nuanced issues. Hitler's message was the horrific racial purity dogma as a solution to all Germany's problems. Modern nationalist populism, including from Trump, has similarly focused on attacks to American white cultural supremacy, thus aping the appeal of national socialism, albeit in the context of controlling immigration rather than attacking minority populations who had co-existed with ethnic Germans for centuries. They are, of course, a long distance apart on method.

On Vance, if he came to power, he would have to control his Euroscepticism given Europe's collective power and trading strength. You can only be so much of an ass hole to those you have been closely allied to for decades before its unravelling begins to hurt you.

 

[Mark B]

It may be on a political level and frankly I could not agree more. We are never going to match the decades earned tech skills or massive economies of scale of the USA, although we may come close if the Europeans (and Canadians, Anzacs?) pool and work as a cohesive collective.

More realistically, the least we can do is achieve, say, 3% GDP defence spend across all NATO member states and move towards that ideal.

Thus, there are on-off proposals for the British and the Dutch on amphibious landing ships; the Royal Navy is working closely with the Norwegians on destroyers; the UK, Australia and the USA will build a hatful of attack subs; and the UK, Italy and Japan (with Canada and Germany as participating parties) are well advanced on a 6th gen fighter jet.

But I have said it above and I will say it again. The USA has never had a gun held to its head. It could have withdrawn all military presence in Europe whenever it pleased, especially as part of the Peace Dividend. That it did not says more about Industrial Military vested interests in the USA and US power projection that your country propping up "ungrateful" Europeans as Hegseth disingenuously asserts to please his base.

The cost of maintaining the military bases throughout Europe is eye-watering; but what it lost on the swings it gained on the roundabouts (not sure you have that expression?). To simplify matters into a populist message of "free loading" Europeans is complete bollox. Utter drivel issued as fodder for the base.

I agree, 3% is realistic, maybe 3.5% if they push it. The 5% future goal is asinine as only the Baltics are currently over it and Poland is really close as well and that is tied directly to the Russian threat while a nations like Spain and Canada are lying about getting to 3%.

Anzacs won't pull with the rest of Europe although they will with the UK. The Kiwi economy is dying and the Aussies are too tied into the US to really care about a Europe who (except the UK), probably aren't coming with anything meaningful to help the Aussies against China so there is little of value in it for them with the European mainland for anything but photo ops.

Like you mention, I did see that the Australians received a brief on GCAP. I wouldn't be surprised if they request formal observer status. I also would be shocked if they buy anything in Gen 6 before 2050. I also expect them to go heavy on the MQ-28 program as well which will allow their F35s to meet some of the future Gen 6 requirements through its loyal wingman.

I agree, no gun to its head. The influence of the WWII generations on keeping forces in Europe held strong for decades and even afterwards it was a US decision to maintain those forces there when European countries asked them to stay. I will say that the military industrial complex (MIC) isn't nearly as influential overseas as it is stateside. That is primarily do to it being easier to field new equipment in the US then overseas, which is why the stateside units have newer equipment then those forward deployed. It was the MIC who was pushing for those overseas units to come back to the US so they could be inactivity and their funding put into wonder weapons, they Neocons were the ones fighting back against it. But as you have said, it was an American choice to stay.

I refer to Pete as the Platoon Leader of Defense because he never matured past being a First Lieutenant. I have no issue with his focus on physical fitness and the removing of DEI from the military, it is only the minor 99.99% of other statements that he makes I think are retarded.

Nope, swings around the roundabouts is not a common American use term, but thanks to google, I understand what it means now. 🙂

It has two functions, one to reinforce to Americans that they are not being taken advantage of by NATO and the other function is to actually stop some NATO countries from taking advantage of NATO by not investing. It is a legit issue that he has brought up and I'll give the guy credit as it has helped (along with a boost of Russian fear) in increasing European defense budgets.

 

[Mark B]

so more clever than the Biden supporters then ?

Biden supporters are really odd in that they primarily fall in two bins in regards to regards to intelligence. College educated white women and uneducated minorities.

I have sympathy for the uneducated in making their choices, the educated ones tend to be book smart but logic deficient as they are ones who can speak eloquently on why illegals should be given entrance and then freak out when they are bused to their neighbors.

 

[Mark B]

We live in a world of social media and soundbites. It wins the day.

Thus, about one third of those who voted (pretty much all of them post on here!) are staunch Eurosceptics and will have always voted Leave at the Brexit referendum. About one third would never have left in a million years and voted Remain. The other shifting third were either persuaded by either side's arguments - but why more shift to Leave than Remain? My take is that they were baffled by Remains' urbane arguments but chose Leave as they encapsulated their arguments into 2 catchy phrases. "Take back control" and "project fear". The popular after dinner speaker Boris Johnson was placed on a lectern and simply repeated those phrases in response to any question. It worked.

Likewise Trump. One madcap phrase after another and he generates political traction that infuriates and probably embarrasses many, but which has his MAGA faithful frothing with joy and - critically - keeps his message relevant and current.

Trump is a NAZI to the extent that he relies for his political life on providing simple people with simple easily digestible solutions for highly complex and nuanced issues. Hitler's message was the horrific racial purity dogma as a solution to all Germany's problems. Modern nationalist populism, including from Trump, has similarly focused on attacks to American white cultural supremacy, thus aping the appeal of national socialism, albeit in the context of controlling immigration rather than attacking minority populations who had co-existed with ethnic Germans for centuries. They are, of course, a long distance apart on method.

On Vance, if he came to power, he would have to control his Euroscepticism given Europe's collective power and trading strength. You can only be so much of an ass hole to those you have been closely allied to for decades before its unravelling begins to hurt you.

The reality is that people throughout history have rarely paid attention to the long version and have tended to enjoy the short and direct abridged version that they could remember. This isn't a modern problem.

Trump isn't nearly the white cultural supremacist that modern liberal media portrays him to be. No one with that many Arab and Jewish friends could be. Is he is an A-hole? Absolutely, just not the racist that he gets portrayed as. He's an American capitalist, money and the American flag.

Looking at it economically, you won't want to hear this but Vance could tell them to F off and there is almost nothing the Europeans could do that wouldn't hurt them more then it hurt the US. The US is on its own economic existence at this point that we have never seen in global history and the majority of its revenue is internally driven. Combined with its resource availability, geography and regulations and the EU just isn't capable of competing. So in 2008, the EU economy was larger than the U.S. economy ($19.3 trillion vs. $14.8 trillion). Today the EU economy is roughly 71% and that percentage is dropping annually. Between Chinese dumping, EU regulations, social welfare spending and now increased defense spending, Europe is in a whole lot of trouble.

Now do I think that Vance will do that? No, I think Vance is a used car salesman and will be a snarky jerk at times but overall it will actually be more in trying to keep European economies up then trying to destroy them.

 

[silvertop]

The reality is that people throughout history have rarely paid attention to the long version and have tended to enjoy the short and direct abridged version that they could remember. This isn't a modern problem.

Trump isn't nearly the white cultural supremacist that modern liberal media portrays him to be. No one with that many Arab and Jewish friends could be. Is he is an A-hole? Absolutely, just not the racist that he gets portrayed as. He's an American capitalist, money and the American flag.

Looking at it economically, you won't want to hear this but Vance could tell them to F off and there is almost nothing the Europeans could do that wouldn't hurt them more then it hurt the US. The US is on its own economic existence at this point that we have never seen in global history and the majority of its revenue is internally driven. Combined with its resource availability, geography and regulations and the EU just isn't capable of competing. So in 2008, the EU economy was larger than the U.S. economy ($19.3 trillion vs. $14.8 trillion). Today the EU economy is roughly 71% and that percentage is dropping annually. Between Chinese dumping, EU regulations, social welfare spending and now increased defense spending, Europe is in a whole lot of trouble.

Now do I think that Vance will do that? No, I think Vance is a used car salesman and will be a snarky jerk at times but overall it will actually be more in trying to keep European economies up then trying to destroy them.

That's undeniable. The US has for many years benefited from its huge internal inward facing economy that largely protects it from external shocks. Trouble is, for the rest of us, that when it sneezes, we all get a cold.

Yup, Europe is in decline. However, it is far from irrelevant; and the US needs to remember that, culturally, it has a great deal more in common with us than with most of the emerging markets. There may actually be better reasons for US strength in allying itself with this old horse than with others, notwithstanding the length of our teeth.