ABigGuy4U
22hr ago
That’s what second strike capability is for, to maintain the threat of MAD even if a stealth first strike successfully eliminates one of the parties. Russia maintains second strike capability in two ways: 12 nuclear submarines (nuclear here meaning armed with nuclear weapons, not just nuclear powered) and a system of road mobile ICBM launchers that would be dispersed out into the Siberian countryside in the likely event of a conflict. Both the submarines and the road launchers carry high-yield warheads that are designed for counter-value attacks, that is destroying enemy cities and economic targets, not just the enemy’s nuclear weapons. Each submarine carries sixteen missiles each carrying four half-megaton warheads. Meaning that just one surviving submarine could destroy most of the major US cities east of the Mississippi River, or all the capitols of Western Europe. And like @functor was saying, there are systems in place to allow for launch even if the political leadership is dead. The United States has similar capabilities, both in the launch infrastructure and backup launch authority.
ABigGuy4U
1d ago
Mostly because she promotes herself that way. Zegler could have certainly downplayed her Colombian ancestry.
If you want a counter-example, look at Anya Taylor-Joy who despite being a double minority (Ayylmao-Latina) mostly just bills herself as white.
ABigGuy4U
2d ago
I have noticed that for a site centered on the Culture War we hardly ever actually discuss cultural works.
ABigGuy4U
3d ago
The problem is a lot of the nuclear facilities are so deep underground even the largest conventional bunker busters wouldn’t be able to touch them. It’s like NORAD, bored into the side of a mountain. If you’re going for a clean sweep, nuclear might be your only option.
ABigGuy4U
3d ago
Yes, unfortunately Scott’s original anthropological definition has gotten filed off over the years and it’s just used as a shorthand for Republican and Democrat. If we’re using the term correctly, almost everyone on this board is Blue Tribe, even the most right wing among us.
ABigGuy4U
3d ago
My tinfoil hat is tingling. I wonder if modern examination techniques would have shown something the powers that be didn’t want them to.
ABigGuy4U
3d ago
The Biden administration was planning a strike against Iran a few months before the election but cancelled it when a leaker blew the whistle on it. Despite the hysterical articles about Iran being six months away from a bomb every two weeks since 1986, they genuinely are getting close to one. Technically they are already past it. They have a bomb design, and enough fissile material for two or three, they just haven’t bothered to build one yet for strategic reasons. Israel is pretty skilled at gumming up the works, but that only works to a point. Iranian Uranium enrichment is about to take off, they have an entire line of centrifuges that are just about to start up.
It’s Iran’s only major strategic card left now that Hezbollah has been wrecked.
ABigGuy4U
4d ago
The United States is massing B-2 Spirit stealth bombers on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Reports suggest there are now between 7-9 B-2 bombers on the island. This is roughly 40 percent of all B-2 bombers in service. The B-2 is a stealth heavy bomber designed to penetrate heavily defended airspace. Although this type of bomber it could be used for strikes against Houthi forces, this force concentration is more likely designed to be used for a direct strike against Iran. There are some less certain indications that W-76 nuclear warheads are also being moved to Diego Garcia. It has long been theorized that Iranian nuclear facilities are too far underground to be destroyed by a conventional strike.
The fact that you are (justifiably) a fan of Better Rim Kim doesn’t justify your filthy addiction.
ABigGuy4U
5d ago
Please don’t. I had to stuff an entire can of Zyn packs into my mouth just to answer your question.
Israel’s TFR is generally higher than it’s neighbors.
It is not, thoughbeit. The fertility rate of the Palestinian territories is 3.44. Gaza is 3.88. While that’s down from a whopping 7 in 1990 that’s still almost double of Israel’s. Egypt is 2.88. Syria, despite being in the middle of a horrific civil war, is 2.70. Iraq is 3.88. The only country Israel is keeping up with is Lebanon. Unfortunately it seems western culture has a more deleterious effect on fertility rates than several million smart bombs do.
ABigGuy4U
5d ago
And if their adversary and neighbor was North Korea that would be pretty good. But they have the misfortune of being in conflict with one of the few remaining fertile groups on the planet.
ABigGuy4U
6d ago
I suspect the Signal leak is an intentional limited hangout to cover up the movement of aircraft for a potential strike on Iran.
ABigGuy4U
7d ago
Israel’s fertility is terrible with the exception of the Haredim, who refuse to hold productive jobs or serve in the military.
ABigGuy4U
9d ago
There’s one theory that I think is ridiculous but fun called Tartaria, where people claim that the buildings from the 1892 World’s Fair in Chicago were actually from a super advanced ancient civilization in the Americas
ABigGuy4U
9d ago
If Canada joined the United States each province would probably be a separate state.
They thought that the wind was going to be blowing in this direction permanently, and that they had better get on the Revolution’s good side by joining up early. And to be fair, a lot of people on this site also thought that the Revolution had won and this was the new permanent state of affairs.
ABigGuy4U
10d ago
What's wrong with sight words?
Because you are limited to knowing words you have memorized like they’re hieroglyphs, so when you grow up and you run into new words like “xylocarp” or “gubernatorial” you effectively can’t read or pronounce them. Which caps your reading level at sub-high school and leaves you unable to quickly parse large volumes of difficult text.
ABigGuy4U
10d ago
Also increasingly the illegal immigrants aren’t coming from the same countries and ethnic groups as the Hispanics already in the United States. Most of the people in Mexico who want to be in the United States and have the means to do so already are. There is a pretty big cultural gulf between Mexicans and Puerto Ricans on the one side, and Guatemalans and Venezuelans on the other. And increasingly, while the illegal immigrants are coming across the Mexican border, they aren’t even from the Americas.
ABigGuy4U
10d ago
Trump squandered hard won leverage for nothing in return.
Trump doesn’t have any leverage, because Biden and Zelensky spent the last three years pissing all the leverage away. The Kursk salient just got rolled, probably to the tune of 30,000 Ukrainian casualties. There are multiple Russian breakouts happening on the Pokrovsk, Kupyansk and Zaprozhia axes. Ukraine’s power and transport infrastructure has been destroyed along with much of their air defense. We are probably looking at the complete collapse of eastern Ukraine in the next four months. Belarus is mobilizing for an incursion into Western Ukraine this September. Short of rounding up NATO and sending half a million troops to directly enter the war, what exactly can Trump do here? Putin has zero incentive to agree to any kind of real ceasefire, because he’s about to win the war.
ABigGuy4U
11d ago
But young men in the United States of all races share pretty similar grievances, namely “I can’t get a good job”. Also, while Democrats used to strategically confine their contempt to white men, increasingly they can’t help themselves from going guns-hot against anyone who was born male and didn’t transition. So political platforms that are designed to appeal to white men are increasingly picking up other demographics as well.
It’s the Motte, so of course the topic that really kicks off the fedposting is libraries
I suspect it’s that boomers of all political stripes are more used to actually doing something instead of just making angry posts online.
ABigGuy4U
11d ago
Human sacrifice was mostly just a Mesoamerican thing, and usually just the big regional power players, not the small tribes living under their boot heel. The tribes living in what is now the United States were pretty peaceful internally, but yes, eye-wateringly intense torture of POWs and the rape of women was a common part of inter-tribal warfare. Of course we are talking about over two hundred different tribes, and quite a few of them were genuinely very peaceful to both other tribes and white settlers. Others were very warlike.
Both sides have ways around this, they just aren’t well publicized because they are scary and unconstitutional. If President Reagan and his government had been eliminated in a first strike, retaliatory launch orders would be given out by an unelected triumvirate headed by Dick Cheney, hidden in bunker in the Appalachian mountains. If the Soviet presidium had been wiped out launch codes would have been dispensed by a Soviet AI called Dead Hand, hidden in a bunker in the Urals. After the Cold War both sides of course scrambled to claim that neither of these systems were actually used, but I’m sure modern classified equivalents exist. Neither the American or Russian deep states are going to gamble the fate of the country on the President getting hustled out of bed in time.
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