Information management, knowledge management, C4ISR systems, electronic attack, command & control, operations research, modeling & simulation, amphibious warfare, joint operations.
- Or nuclear weapons.
Bin Laden found in Afghanistan? Invade and occupy the whole country.
Bin Laden found in nuclear-armed Pakistan? Quietly sneak in with a handful of SOF operators to shoot him in the face then GTFO.
- >So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
Putting her in charge just means that the country will get looted by the Western Parasite Capitalist class instead of the South American Socialist Mobster class.
- > In the US, they want to fuel instability and separatism through ethnic, social and racial conflicts to keep Americans busy with holding their country together while Russia rules the world.
If they want it they can have it. Not that Russia makes enough babies to have the manpower necessary to achieve their megalomaniac dreams. Most Americans are quite isolationist; I rate Woodrow Wilson as the worst US President ever because he violated the Monroe Doctrine and dragged us into Europe's problems...which still costs us blood and treasure a century later. We have the advantage of geography: two gigantic oceans protect us East/West, a frozen forest wasteland to the North, and a stretch of desert to the South. Our homeland is unassailable by conventional means (especially if we keep our Navy well-funded) and we can also sit behind our nuclear arsenal.
>Asia would be divided with China, with countries like the Philippines and Australia left for China to invade and take over
This is a good indication someone isn't a serious thinker and is likely stuck in a WW2-ish mental framework when populations were much smaller and it was easier to "paint the map". Nobody in their right mind would genuinely attempt to invade the Philippines in the 21st century, with its population over 100 million and a history of violent insurgencies. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.
I'm familiar with the basics of Dugin's ideology but I haven't read his work yet. As I understand it, all the English translations are unofficial but I suppose they are better than waiting for a formal one.
>Arguments like this clearly show that you have been consuming Russian propaganda without pulling out a globe and a ruler to check whether there is any actual credibility to the prepackaged narratives.
I would challenge you to do the same. Not once in this discussion have you made any critical analysis of the US's actions, statements, or motivations. NOT. ONCE.
>The Romanian ABM sites lies on the direct flight path between Iran and large US military bases in Germany and makes perfect sence that the US would want to have ABM site there. The missiles at the Romanian site are unable to reach Russian missile launching sites, nor are they on their flight path.
So ABMs in Romania make perfect sense to you based on a forecast future threat of Iranian nukes (which they don't have) on Iranian missiles with ranges of 3,000km+ (which they didn't have at the time). This was a proactive, preventative measure for the US.
ABM sites in Romania could also, forecasting into the future, be home to hypersonic missiles which could engage Russian launch sites with little or no warning and completely destabilize their MAD capability. Very similar to when we stuck missiles on their doorstep in Turkey in the 1960s....ya know, that stupidly provocative decision that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis? That is a far bigger security concern for Russia than the destruction of bases in Germany is for the US. So applying your logic for justifying the US action, why shouldn't the Russians ALSO take proactive, preventative measures against that?
Here's a simple sanity check:
Does the US have legitimate national security concerns? Does Germany have legitimate national security concerns? Does Romania have legitimate national security concerns? Does Russia have legitimate national security concerns?
If your answer to the first three is "Yes" and your answer to the fourth is "No", you probably think everyone who disagrees with you is a Russian propagandist.
- > Trump antagonizes traditional EU allies, except those with authoritarian tendencies like Orban's Hungary.
Trump in his first term warned Europe about sucking on the teet of Russian natgas, and those "traditional allies" laughed in his face. He told Europe to meet its NATO treaty obligations and increase military spending, and they dragged their feet.
Now Europe's industry is struggling under substantially-increased energy input costs, and has been caught flat-footed with its armories empty while trying to subsidize the largest land conflict on the continent since WW2. An economic and quasi-military bloc with 500+ million people is begging 350 million people on another continent to protect them from a mere 140 million drunk & corrupt Russians.
....and you don't understand why Trump, who has a fragile ego and is well-known for holding grudges, is antagonistic to the feckless idiot empty-suit bureaucrats who manage Europe? He's a thin-skinned bully and now he's gonna walk all over Europe to do whatever is most advantageous (in his perception) for the US....but it's only possible because European leadership is just as weak as he thinks it is.
Plus he's trying to dump The Ukraine Problem in their lap because the US doesn't really have the capacity to square off against China and manage...well, possibly ANY other additional conflict. If our actions to counter China don't make any sense or seem incongruent, that's because most of the administration is simply too incompetent to get the results needed, even if they understand the nature and scope of the problem.
- >There was no "narrow window" in 1999-2007. The window for keeping Russia on a path toward becoming a normal European state closed around 1995.
Expecting Russia to ever become a "normal European state" is the main mistake. My entire point is to accept that Russia is authoritarian. Consider the examples of Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan, especially Egypt: nobody preaches liberal democracy as the solution to getting Egypt to do what we want. Instead we came to an understanding with the military elite, who we've essentially bribed (via foreign aid and other ways) to keep a lid on their population and avoid direct conflict with Israel. Figure out what the KGB-military elite want, and give it to them in exchange for a shift in their security posture. The Soviet dinosaurs want to suck the Baltic states dry? Go for it....but we want them to step up their mobilization exercises in Siberia for the next decade. And we want them to start doing joint US-Russian nuclear submarine patrols in the East China Sea. Otherwise we can't be friends....and the last time we weren't friends, it didn't end well for Russia. More carrot, less stick...but still some stick.
If it gets us one step closer to Russia's nuclear arsenal (the largest in the world with the most capable ICBMs) possibly pointing at Chinese cities instead of the West, it's worth it. The price might include "fluffing the Russian national ego". Instead US think-tankers and statesmen have done their best to trample on it....with predictable results.
One of the best opportunities for improving US-Russian relations was 9/11 and especially the 2004 Beslan school attack: there was recognition of a mutual problem of "Islamic terrorism", and coordinating to fight it was a part of thawing the adversarial relationship between the security apparatuses of the two powers. Read the joint statement from Bush and Putin from 2002:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/joint-declaration-...
then read this piece by F William Engdahl from 2006, skip to the section on US nuclear primacy:
https://apjjf.org/f-william-engdahl/2256/article
then finally read Putin's speech from the 2007 Munich Security Conference (which is when the window for improving relations closed):
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034
> For them, challenging the US and expanding Russia through coercion and war to the full territorial extent of the former Eastern Bloc is the endgame.
The former Eastern Bloc should have been Finlandized: economic intermediaries between Russia and Western Europe, with just enough domestic military capability to discourage Russian hard power, but no actual US military alliance integration to keep the Russians from getting jittery either.
> They don't give two shits about China.
Which is why after the Sino-Soviet split Russia and the Soviet Union before it always kept high-readiness divisions on the Chinese border. The Russians know that China isn't really their friend. Russia is a European country, they shouldn't be bosom buddies with the Far East.
> They want a return to the privileged heyday of the KGB-military elites in the 1970s
They were on that path, printing money selling natgas and oil to Europe.
> Antagonism toward the US lies at their very core, and no amount of buttering will change that. The possibility of cooperation is merely an illusion they sell you to blind you to the next move they make against you.
The Russians didn't unilaterally pull out of the ABM Treaty in 2002, the US did. Then we went and followed that up by announcing we wanted ABM sites on Russia's doorstep to protect Europe from "errant Iranian nuclear missiles" which was obvious bullshit.
https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/americas-abm...
Look, I understand that everyone in Eastern Europe has a well-earned eternal hatred of the Russians since you are barely a generation removed from their oppression, but do you guys not notice all the ridiculous antagonistic shit we Americans do that is entirely optional?
- If I go to a particular Sci-Hub mirror and it's down, I often go to the Wiki page to see the different TLD options. Same for checking some of my favorite Torrent trackers. I don't use Google for any controversial searches anymore, but if Wiki continues to degrade in quality, I'll really be SOL.
- We can debate the scale/scope/impact of the US's influence campaigns, but the outcomes are clear: they definitely contributed to souring US-Russian relations.
Here's why I consider this whole issue important, and it has very little to do with self-determination in Ukraine:
China is the greatest adversary the US has ever faced. Greater than the Soviet Union, IMO. We will need help from every major nation on the planet if we really intend to remain the hegemonic superpower. We had a narrow window circa 1999-2007 where we could have integrated an Authoritarian Russia into a security and economic framework that would put China in a vulnerable strategic position. We failed because we went full-bore on the ideological "Liberal democracy uber alles!" agenda, which was doomed to fail in Russia and has now wasted the monumental accomplishment of the Sino-Soviet Split. The Eurasian landmass is now dominated by China-Russia-Iran, three powers with internal lines of communication. Read Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard, and what we've done is exactly how to LOSE the game.
https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/36/36669B789... Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an "antihegemonic" coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower. Averting this contingency, however remote it may be, will require a display of U.S. geostrategic skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously.
Well golly-gee-willikers, I daresay we've thoroughly punted that into the stands.
Note that ZBig goes on to prescribe solutions that I heavily disagree with. But he was able to cogently articulate the problem.
- Are you suggesting that the Russians were using __ The Guardian __ as part of an influence campaign....in 2004? That's an extraordinary claim, for which you present no supporting evidence while blasting the article for being "short on facts". Pot, kettle, black. Here's Radio Free Europe on the subject:
https://www.rferl.org/a/1058543.html it specifically calls out amounts paid to organizations in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine via the National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded via Congress and the State Department.
>Besides, did you know that the Kuchma government sent Ukrainian soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq
Yes, I know that. I bring it up anytime somebody says "Ukraine never invaded anybody!"
> Why would the US government want to overthrow a sympathetic regime?
To replace a sympathetic leader they DON'T control with an even more sympathetic leader they DO control. Wresting control of the political apparatus in a state often outlasts any singular "elected" Executive.
- US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev (The Guardian, Nov2004) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
Do you think fomenting revolution in Russia's near-abroad sphere of influence was helpful or harmful for turning Russia into an ally?
- >NATO expands because it's in NATO's interest to do so.
I highly recommend reading the 1997 US Senate debate about NATO expansion. There were a number of experienced statesmen who vehemently disagreed that NATO expansion was in NATO's interest.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-105shrg46832/html/C...
> A world of where rule of law is the norm and invasions are deterred is preferable.
Except we don't have that world. From Iraq in 2003 to especially the NATO air campaign in Libya in 2011, we've long since demonstrated that there are no rules, and invasions have no consequences.
- plays world's smallest violin
Here in the First Island Chain we've had Chinese drones buzzing our military installations since before COVID.
In Afghanistan, Yemen, or Somalia, the sound of drones buzzing overhead usually means an entire family is about to get murdered because ONE guy's pattern of behaviors pegged him as a "terrorist" in some computer system.
Europeans are just finally being shaken out of their false sense of security and don't know how to handle it.
- sigh
I like KDE but I'm still running X11 on Void Linux, partly because I just don't feel like trying to switch over to Wayland and reconfigure my two systems.
- I dunno, I would think AT LEAST Jackie Chan is a household name due to the Rush Hour movies, and for anyone who grew up watching Hong Kong action flicks, they'd probably also know Jet Li at least, and Donnie Yen, Michelle Yeoh, and maybe Bolo Yeung and Sammo Hung too.
- For anyone else who enjoyed The Raid, the sub-genre of graphic and brutally violent Indonesian action movies is a gem.
The Raid 2; The Night Comes For Us; The Shadow Strays....those should get anyone started going down the rabbit hole.
- >If you look at Germany, its manufacturing sector is in decline, and this is the country's strength.
German manufacturing is in decline because it relied on dirt-cheap Russian energy. It's not cost competitive otherwise.
https://www.energyconnects.com/news/gas-lng/2025/february/ge... Europe has spent three painful years weaning itself off gas from the east with the biggest impact felt in Germany, the region’s biggest economy. German industry was built on cheap Russian gas and rising energy prices have already trammeled growth and forced some manufacturers to move production abroad.
- >If Gaza stopped attacking, Israel would live in peace with it.
The fate of West Bank Palestinians clearly proves that to be an outright lie.
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/... Halfway through 2023 at least 156 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli action in the West Bank – more than in the whole of 2022 and the highest yearly total since the end of the second Intifada in 2004. At least 28 children are among those killed and thousands more civilians have been injured.
- https://github.com/agent0ai/agent-zero
I'm leaning towards this one myself but I'm still early in researching alternatives.
- >Then I checked Russo-Georgian War articles, this time at least the century and war was correct in Elonopedia. But again, right from the start it is incredibly biased towards Russia. Elonopedia completely omits the initial attack make bu Russian forces at 01 Aug 2008, skip a week and presents war as if it was initiated by Georgians, following Kremlin propaganda line.
The EU isn't exactly known for being Kremlin propagandists. Here is the link to the 700-page international fact-finding report they published in 2009: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/hudoc_38263_08_Ann...
This Radio Free Europe article is a decent summary of the report: https://www.rferl.org/a/EU_Report_On_2008_War_Tilts_Against_...
Why do you think the international team of Europeans would leave out something like an August 1st attack by Russian forces? Why would the US-funded media outlet for Europe (RFE/RFL) parrot the report's position that the conflict was overwhelmingly Georgia's fault?
"The Mission is not in a position to consider as sufficiently substantiated the Georgian claim concerning a large-scale Russian military incursion into South Ossetia before 8 August 2008."
Can you share the evidence you have that supports your position that Russia attacked on 01 August? The EU concluded that was unsubstantiated.
- If you really wanna scramble the language grammar, incorporate Enochian tables somehow:
https://archive.org/details/JohnDeesFiveBooksOfMysterJosephH...
- >That's the theory, but has it ever worked?
It kinda worked in Syria. The combination of sanctions, plus squatting on sovereign Syrian territory and preventing the government from generating income eventually left Assad's military so hollowed out that that the Turkish-backed rebel faction led by former Al Qaeda members was able to essentially drive to Damascus with minimal resistance.
- Perhaps my point wasn't clear enough:
"If Israel isn't a European colonial project, then why are all of the Israeli heads of state European?"
> They and other non-Muslims were treated as second class citizens and forced to pay jizyah tax every year.
If they were paying the jizya then they weren't paying the zakat. Jizya also typically exempted People of the Book from military service.
- Have you considered that the rest of world is increasingly looking at the Likud Party the same way you view Nazi Germany? Israel is desperately in need of a forceful re-education program. Unfortunately, being a nuclear-armed state makes regime change extremely difficult to achieve on any reasonable timeframe.
- Why are all of Israel's prime ministers either first or second generation immigrants of European persuasion? If so much of the population is either local to Palestine or at least the Middle East in general, shouldn't that be reflected in the highest echelons of power?
Yair Lapid might be considered third generation as both him and his mother were born in Tel Aviv, while his father is Yugoslavian.
- Heh, interesting you call this "Contact Us Jail". I met sales and engineering staff from EdgeCortix at DSEI Japan 2025, and was very enthusiastic to pick up some of their products as alternatives to the Hailo-8L RPi cards.
So far....nothing. Not even an ETA on when they will be shipping hardware.
- You would give someone your PHONE to go buy a snack for you across the street? And tell them your screen unlock combo?
Dumping some coins out of my coinpurse is far superior analog, low-tech Access Control to my money.
- > I assume if you really want this data for military purposes
Typically we are using NGA 1m DTED for the terrain elevation data but I don't recall off the top of my head who usually supplies the imagery layers. We'll pull multiple map types from a WMS Server, including raster maps like FAA VFR mapsheets for our Area of Operations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTED
- I don't have a link handy, but I recall seeing on YT a clip of Luttrell basically outright stating that the Navy "handed him the book pre-written" in an interview.
- >Carrying 20,000 yen in cash is easy when it's 2x 10,000 notes, but when it's a mix including coins, it's a pain.
Carry a coinpurse. I use an old faux-suede Samsung camera pouch.[1] Plus it's fun when someone is running an errand for you, like getting you a snack from the konbini across the street, and you plop your coinpurse on the desk with a thud, then pour out a handful of 500-yen coins and say "this should cover it", like a feudal lord.
[1] kinda like this: https://www.amazon.ie/DFVmobile-Samsung-Galaxy-Camera-Closur...
- The US economy has a degree of energy and raw materials independence that Europe lacks. No amount of replacement IT development will compensate for the weak European position regarding essential low-level feeder inputs to their overall economy.
Remember when we bombed Yemen and in the Signal chat they laughed about killing a High-Value Target while he was visiting his girlfriend? Sounds like this section would apply for her.