The US needs a permanent and professional military. This includes all current branches (Although I am not well informed on the Space Force). They could certainly use more widely available health care, better schools, updated infrastructure and so forth. There are many calls on the public purse. Other countries also must balance priorities and all countries do so in different ways. You could, and should, certainly discuss the size, efficacy, overpoliticization and value.
China won’t make war on the U.S. or our allies – they need us as customers.
Plenty of wars have happened despite economic ties. People like to cling to the belief that economic ties prevent war but it’s a feel-good notion.
Didn’t Russia wait until the Ukraine had given up their nukes left over from the USSR before they invaded and caused a civil war there?
My amateur impression is that conflict between nations in the 21st century isn’t really fought with large standing armies. Its fought with special forces units, cyberwarfare and economics (freezing assets, sanctions, debt traps, etc).
We may need a professional military, but it seems like the nature of warfare is changing and what we need to prioritize needs to change.
I’m personally not sure why a space military unit was created rather than a military unit devoted to IT and cyberwarfare. I’m sure each branch has their own units devoted to that, but that seems way more pertinent than fighting in space.
I vaguely recall a documentary mentioning how the US had set up IT code all over Iran to basically shut the nation down if warfare broke out. A group that important should be a priority.
It probably is. Such a group would not be overanxious for publicity. I’m unaware, for example, of anyone taking public credit for Stuxnet.
This does not render conventional forces obsolete, however. Again, there is a balance between priorities that may need to be readdressed periodically.
Sure you do. It was because Trump loves glitter.*
- And because any talk of cyberwarfare would raise questions about why he allows Russia to interfere with our elections.
Pardon me but what is SFW? Sexual Function Of Women? Safe for Work? Sometime abbreviations are not helpful.
I’ll take “So Fucking What” for three hundred, Alex.
Huh. Am I the only person who doesn’t know that? I have to admit, I don’t study the latest acronyms from Twitter and Facebook. How can I know what you “with-it” kids are talking about?
Sometimes you look at the sentence and just FIO. I cannot remember having seen SFW before but was able to infer.
TEWID
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[That’s Exactly What I Did]
Start by assuming that anything with an “F” in it means “Fucking.”
Why do folks use all these acronyms and initialisms anyway considering that they aren’t commonly known? Wouldn’t it be better to err on the side of people understanding what you write?
Is it really fair to ask one’s readers to infer, guess, or Google terms that one writes? Isn’t that a bit like using some foreign words in your post and expecting that people can look them up if they don’t speak that language?
A few forums are tetchy about profanity (I have seen one with a nannybot that turns WTF into ***), so people can get into the habit of replacing phrases containing icky words with acronyms.
The American navy is apparently the second largest in the world. I’m sure many are concerned by this. It will likely result in increased spending. There are opportunity costs for not spending on other areas.