MicroB

Well, Vance has realised that the speech he read at the Munich conference, written by a 25 year old aide googling, went down like a bucket of sick, is back pedaling, and no one likes him. There is suspicion that his whole MAGA character is an act, considering he considered Trump a Nazi. He is in fact, spineless and without a moral compass. Everyone else calling Trump a Nazi, yep, he'll jump on that bandwagon, because people will like him. Wants to be in with Trump, suddenly Trump is not a Nazi. Everyone likes him. There is supreme irony that a man married to an Indian women following a Hindoo ceremony, ranting on about freedom of religion and speech, and threats from immigrants, while his boss literally band news organisations for not renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and nothing else, a boss who wants mosques placed under surveillance (because of people praying presumably). He rails on about immigrants, because then the German Nazis, the French Quislings and that bloke Farage on GBN will all like him. Because, hey, all immigrants are associated with mass killings, yet legitimate gun owners can never be associated with the legitimate gun owners who go on the rampage, quite regularly, in American schools. Maybe issues surrounding immigration could be considered once America starts cracking down on gun owners. He makes direct attacks on the government who is kindly hosting him in their country, then refuses to give the German leader the right of reply, man to man, afterwards. Coward, hence when he decided to shaft the US government for a student loan, he chose to become a US marine fluff piece specialist (biggest risk; paper cuts). And wanting to be liked, as a 30 something at uni, acted like a 20 year old frat boy, to be liked presumably. A Trumpf administration being in chaos is no surprise. It happened before. His lovers will defend it as part of Trumpf's genius 4D-Chess, and this is how he ran his companies. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, died 8th April, 1945, Flossenberg Concentration Camp, by hanging. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/opinion/trump-executive-orders.html

Partly. The US defence spending is somewhat misleading. Much of the US defence budget is nothing to do with NATO commitments. A significant portion of the US defense is wasted. In 2023, a GAO audit found the US military had no idea where 60% of their assets were. I suspect some of those assets only existed on paper, And of the rest, if they don't know where the stuff is, they might as well not exist. Another portion of their budget goes in overseas military aid to prop up governments vital to the interests of the US, but really not at all important to NATO. The US expends significant amounts garrisioning forces in Okinawa and Korea, again, not really much to do with NATO Another aspect is nuclear weapons. About 10% of the US defence budget is spent on nuclear weapons. Within NATO, only the US, UK and France are armed with such. The UK's neclear deterrance cannot be considered truely independant. The Allied Powers required Germany to renounce neclear weapons, thus enshrining Europe's utter dependance on the US nuclear umbrella. In Afghanistan, prior to 2010, US forces were split between ISAF, the NATO led mission, and USFOR-A , which is the command that spent its time chasing around the mountains looking for a Yemeni. US contribution to ISAF at the time was 13,000 troops. Number of troops chasing a Yemeni; 18,000 While the NATO treaty required countries to spend adequate amounts on defence, its right that the level needed should be determined by each member. There is much "in kind" defence spending. The US has the advantage of using European property and facilities to preposition equipment, people facilties that it could not in the Homeland, to enable a war to be thought across the Plains of Germany and not the praries of Kansas. If not for Ramstein, Mildenhall, Redzikowo and others, the US would need to spend more in its defence budget. The purpose of these bases is not to protect the UK, Germany and Poland. For instance, US bases in the UK were vital to support US conflicts in the Middle East, infamously known for the attacks on Libya. Ramstein became familar to wounded US troops from the Middle East, providing vital medical aid is a manner that was of no benefit to Germany. If the US did not have access to Ascension and Diego Garcia, it would need to spend more on filling those capability gaps. The EU has about 1.4 million active servicemen. Europe as a whole has 1.6 million. Not including reserves. The US, not including reserves, has about 960,000 active troops.. There is clearly a disparity in spending, but what is the US doing with all that extra money. This is where that immortal line from the movie Independance Day about $30,000 toilet seats. A lot of defence spending is figuratively peed up a wall. How much was wasted on the Active Denial System, that they had to withdraw, after it came out that there were fears about the safety of eyeglass wearers (might boil your eyeballs), The military invested billions in autonomous truck systems 20 years ago which came to nothing. The military basically pays double to develop each new system put into service. Typically a spec is issued, and a competition run. 2 proposals are accepted, and each is funded by the government ("Programmes") and then a winner decided. Sometime, the Programme is fully funded, but nothing comes of it. As for US v European aid to Ukraine, that's also very complex. The US seemingly changes its mind day to day what it thinks its "owed". Currently it thinks Ukraine "owes" half a trillion USD. This comes down to accounting. Some charts show more US aid, others show more European aid. It comes down to accounting practice, so the numbers are meaningless. Much of the equiment donated to Ukraine is old. Old weaponry generally becomes less effective; it has a shelf life, then it has to disposed of. Disposing of out of data munitions is expensive. Second had clapped out old UK armoured vehicles 50 years old are trickling onto the market for pennies. The US DoD spends about $5 billion a year scrapping old equipment. The much vaunted Bradley was designed towards the end of the Vietnam war. The army didn't really want it, it entered service as part of pork barrel politics (something else that artificially inflates US defence spending). The average age of Bradleys in Ukraine is 40 year old. These have been pulled out of some storage yard in the US. They've gotten thousands of these things, and they are due to be replaced in 2029. 3700 in use, 2800 in storage. They don't have enough crews to operate them all. Other equipment seen; Dutch M113s. The M113 is over 60 years old. Javelins are lifed to 20 years, and have been in service since 1996. What was sent was all old stuff, that the US would have had to pay to replace anyhow. Same with Stormshadows; you can't use them if they are older than 12 years old, as you can't guarantee them. Germany is dragging Leopard 1s and Marders essentially from scrapyards. I think even Ferret armoured cars have been sent. If anything, a lot of the equipment sent represents a saving for the donors (on disposal costs). And its all being used to destroy the military of an adversary that they had all been purchased to defend against in the first place. Remenber NATO does not operate globally. Its restricted by treaty to north of the Tropic of Cancer. This is why there was no NATO support to the UK in 1982. The US is calculating its "bill" largely based on the replacement costs, but not replacing like for like, but replacing with better (more expensive). In general, the US is not making stuff to send to Ukraine. By presenting this as money owed, in effect, the US is expecting Ukraine to subsidise the US military. US aid of course benefits Ukraine, but arguably it also benefits the US, both from helping to degrade Russian capabilities now, thus providing for future defence savings (unless you are of the mind that the Allies should have maintained inflation adjusted levels of spend throughout the Cold War), and also because Russian success in Ukraine would also likely impact the US economically (Russia would then have large control of the global trade in grain, and hence prices),

Tankie propaganda. Churchill was never considered a dictator. The National Goverment went 10 years without election. Putin is a dying man. He will be irrelevant in the future of Ukraine, and whatever is left of Russia when its federation collapses. People like you would have thrown in the towel against the Nazis by 1942, because in 3 years, all that had happened was loss after loss after loss.

Not true. I love America. I have many friends in the US military. The problem is the country is now run by criminals and nitwits. A lot of the present issues in Western societies that are so corrosive to our civic dignity relate to the events of 2008-9, when a lot of ordinary people really suffered because of the actions of others, those others who seem to have never suffered (bank bailout). Those responsible for it are now in power; Trumpf is highly symbolic of that, because the financial crisis originated in the voodoo economics that is property. The man is in debt, but seemingly not. Musk is labeled as the world's richest man, but had to borrow money to buy Twitter. I've no idea how much actual money he has. These people exist in a world of debt ordinary people cannot relate to. It was a genuine crisis in capitalism that is still playing out, and we are not sure how that is ending. One casualty is likely the United Kingdom, which I expect to cease to exist by 2035. Along the way the British will fall victim to those political forces we so resisted in the 1930s, and I think the outcome will be horrific. The US is changing, from a country that had a well founded reputation of defending the weak and defenceless ("Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore"), of equality in the face of adversity (King and many others were martyred in striving to improve the human condition), to something else. We have been in crisis for 20 years. MAGA is not a solution to that crisis. Its a symptom of that crisis (and its equivalents across Western politics) Those in power clearly don't understand what is happening, and that is fearful. Politicians didn't understand SubPrime, and yet based a lot of their policies around such voodoo economics, and "faith in the market", they are now turning to technology, without any notion what it is. Not a single politician can accurately describe what "AI" is. Neither can Musk, because he is a BullPooper, and has gotten where he is through masterful BullPoop. He is very good at raising money, which is more about if you can put on a good presentation than anything else. People actually thinks he wants to go to Mars. Now they are putting everything on AI. AI will re-industrialise America. AI will cure cancer. AI will make you rich But what if it does none of that? Lets be clear. I am big champion of AI. My job is all about AI, machine learning, neural networks, and whatever else you want to throw in the AI bucket. But those policy makers are clueless. And those clueless policy makers are destroying the reputation of America in their confusion. AI will cause the next crisis is society, and possibly an existential one. Not in a T1000 crushing the skulls of puny humans way, but a crisis in how society functions, and that society ceases to function, and we are thrown back 200 years. If we are looking for a Hollywood analogy, its less Termininator, and more Elysium. Or Children of Men, which doesn't have the Sci Fi guff. Its going to suck up so much treasure, and energy (literally and figuratively). Implicitly, it cannot help humanity as humanity is at the moment. The problem is data. AI needs data, a lot of it. Whoever has the best data "wins". Chinese data will only benefit China. US data will only benefit the US etc. So to win, China needs US data, the US needs Chinese data etc. For AI to "succeed", the notion of a nation is irrelevant. Which maybe points to how we might end up being governed. And then we end up at James Lovelock's notion of the Novocene, which goes beyond Musk's Technocracy ideology (Musk was raised in a family that believed in the Technocracy movement; the idea that elections are not needed if experts are in charge, working for the benefit of mankind). Lovelock's Novocene proposed a future where we are governed by AI, in a benevolent manner, like how we look after flowers in the garden. Electronics only really work well in the benign environment of the earth, which wouldn't exist without Life. Couple that with a VP stating he doesn't care about safety in AI, and he's setting his country up to be destroyed in that war. It will be literally defenceless by design, because a President ordered it. Its a bit like someone saying they are going to build up a merchant fleet, but we don't need a navy as building all those warships will just hold us back in buiding cargo carrier. Hence he hasn't a clue. I genuinely found his comments in germany disappointing, because I thought, irrespective of his personal moralities, he had some insight into the tech world that he previously invested in, and that part of his schtick is just an act until Trumpf croaks. But he revealed himself to be as thick as mince. And people like him will be in charge. So the events of 2008-9 has caused a crisis in leadeship competance, everywhere, with country after country making catastrophic strategic errors. The UK made a mistake in 2016, in 2020, in 2024. The US made a mistake in 2016, 2020, 2024. Russia made a potentially existential mistake in 2022. The EU, mistake after mistake. China similarly; it knew it was going to have a demographic crisis decades ago, and is facing a collapse in society. Utimately, I will point the finger at the Baby Boomers for not having enough kids. They benefited from the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation, and then didn't capitalise on that, instead preferring to have longer and longer largely useless retirements. Instead, they should have been working longer and longer, as life expectancy increased. Maybe Europe and the US will be at war with each other in the next 10 years. I really hope not. We are all in for a rough ride, and not all of us will make it. I've no idea where it will end up.

The US is falling back on the mantra that it doesn't have friends, only interests. Cock-face Vance was right on one thing, Europe and the US are no longer aligned in terms of strategic alignment. The US has basically abandoned the principles of the Atlantic Charter, where the US and UK agreed that neither country would seek territorial expansion, and both countries would seek to free occupied countries from the Nazi jackboot, and allow them to determine their own form of government, Essentially, both agreed to deploy their power as a force for good globally, echoing the West Africa Squadron that Imperial Britain deployed for an astonishing 60 years to fight the scourge of slavery. Western European states, through the Coal Union, EEC, EC, and EU, broadly echoed that policy. People forgot that prior to 1939, the borders in Europe were not a settled thing. We fought and killed each other over lines drawn on a map. For Western Europe, that was all settled in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The final play was the collapse of Yugoslavia. Europe hasn't changed. The US, for now, has changed. A US First policy now means the US does not see itself as a Force for Good in the world. It no longer cares about how it is perceived. Everythin the US now does is guided by the principle; does this benefit the US. The US is now an expansionist country, seeking to expand the territories under its control, by force if necessary, as that will benefit the US. It has no interest in ending the Ukraine War for the benefit of Ukraine or indeed Russia. It only has an interest in ending that war because it benefits the US. If Roosevelt had taken that view, he would have determined it was not to the benefit of the US to send troops to Europe, or to fight across the Pacific, and that it would have been far better to make a deal with the Axis Powers. But he didn't take that view. His actions saved countless millions of the defenceless and oppressed. But for him there would not now be a Jewish people. In the new Dog eat Dog world, where does "Europe" go. its now seen as a terrible strategic mistake by the UK to exit the EU, as it assumed there would always be a strong transatlantic NATO to guarantee the security of Europe and the maritime trade routes north of the Tropic of Cancer, to offset a pan-European military. That's all gone now. This is how it must have felt after the collapse of the League of Nations. Friends became enemies. In WW1, Japan was an ally of the West. 20 years later, it was brutally massacring troops of its old friends. Europe gets criticised for how much it spends on the military. But that's not the only measure. Combined, Europe has 1.9 million active troops. The EU alone has 1.3 million. By comparison, the number of active US uniformed is less than 1 million. So how does Europe have more troops but spend less? I have no doubt Europe needs to spend more, but not at the primitive levels suggested by the Whitehouse Dimwit. The US is demanding Europe to increase spending inline with its own highly corrupt approach to defence procurement. https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-sessions-open-probe-into-department-of-defense-after-failing-gao-audit-for-fifth-time/ They don't even know where 61% of their stuff actually is. I bet a lot of that stuff only exists on paper. They might as well not exist if they don't know where it is. The power of the US military might be exaggerated. If the US becomes a more introspective country, then they might end up looking at themselves more. And these things might come true. Having lived in the US for many years, looking back, I can recall statements of a sort I would never hear in my country. For instance, I heard it many times, from people in the South, the Midwest (eg Missouri), that Californians weren't considered "real Americans", that they were "wierd". In my country, there will be people who don't feel British; Scottish, Irish, Welsh nationalists, and that's fine. But I never heard it cut the other way; "the Scots aren't proper British because they vote differently to me", The Yugoslav Civil war genuinely shocked people. This was a sophisticated society, with an apparent rule of law, similar aspirations in life to me, and apparently living in a happy federation of equals. Of course it turned out some were more equal than others. What shocked was the barbarity, the return of scenes we had seen in WW2, of massacres, concentration camps, destroyed cities, in modern European cities, not in some 3rd World Hell Hole. Since then, we've become somewhat immune to such scenes, We shouldn't be. The Ukraine is another example; two sophisticated societies not reproducing WW2 but now WW1. I saw shocking inequalities in the US. In North Mississippi, seeing near Oxford what I can only describe as shanty towns was a shock. There is massive wealth inequality, I think greater than what you see in Europe, mostly based on race, but not entirely. MAGA is a symptom of that, But I think the MAGA politicians don't realise what they have unleashed, and they won't be able to control it, because, frankly, they can't deliver.

The logic that "America" in this context refers to the collective North and South American continents only applies if the Gulf of Mexico actually bordered South American land. It doesn't. The Gulf of Mexico is defined as a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ociean, bordered by the US Gulf coast, the Mexican east coast, Cuba and the Caribbean sea. Cuba is not part of the South American continent. Therefore, for the renaming to make sense for non-nationalistic reasons, it should be the Gulf of North America. The Arab states renamed the Persian Gulf the "Arabian Gulf" over 60 years ago. The main driver for this was that the Arabs felt the Iranians were too pro-Israeli. 60 years on, only those who kowtow to Wahabist Saudi Arabia call it the "Arabian Gulf". Outside of the Gulf region, there is only one country that does that.

So much for freedom of speech. Wait for the US Government to start insisting on current Allies to do the same in documentation.

I agree with the content of that video. Trump is clearly a terrible negotiator who created a myth, that served him well in the world of show business. And he perputated that myth during election campaigns, boasting he would fix things. And now you have the dimension of Musk being in the Whitehouse, apparently getting things "done". Trump wants the deal, as he sees it, done quickly. But there is an added dimension, that ties into the worst case scenario (which is the best case for Russia), and that's Trumps's word diarrhea; he has an opinion on everything, and can't hold back. Do the Russian's, and their America-watchers take him seriously? Or do they consider the tone of what is coming out of the US government , in the round. Rubio is clearly an intelligent guy, but spineless' one moment he's saying that Trump speaks like a businessman, and that;s just his style, the next moment he's completely backing his words. But now you have a new defence secretary. Rumsfeld was always famous for his phraseology; he was awkward, but you knew what he meant. This new guy, the Russians have no idea who he is. He's been trained to be a speaking head on TV, to spout opinions and soundbites, which is what he did at the Nato summit, because he knew it would sound good back home, rather than keeping such frank words to behind closed doors. The worry is words matter. Does Putin interpret Trump as being disinterested in Ukraine, and Europe. Wars are often started by misunderstandings. Allegedly WW1 started because the Germans couldn't stop the troop trains going to the Eastern front. If Putin decided to occupy some of the Baltic states, or part of Poland, to unify with the Kalingrad Enclave, or moves against Moldova, involving action on Romanian territory (and Romanians I know utterly detest Russia), what then? He does it because he thinks Trump isn't bothered? Mod”s edit- I have corrected misspelt name, If you don’t want posts removed please post names correctly.

Its a difficult war to judge who is losing. No one is winning of course. Until Germany lost WW1, it wasn't losing. In WW1, both sides poured men and materiel into a front line that never moved. Once Russia pulled out, you would have thought that Germany would have the advantage. But it didn't. There was no surrender, just an Armistice. A fly on the wall in Spring 1918 would have concluded that German advances was a turn in the war to thekiir advantage. But what that fly on the wall wouldn't have realised in Spring 1918, was that by summer 1918, the German army was exhausted, its reserves spent, and domestic discontent at home as the effects of blockades (aka sanctions) were beginning to hit the civilian population). And by the Autumn, Germany agreed, without argument, to all the extreme terms of the armistice. Only with the benefit of hindsight do we realise the sequnce. Pack animals still have their use, in terrains where vehicles cannot operate, such as high up in the mountains. Dontetsk is pretty flat really, and it (was) covered in fairly decent roads. Of course, the appearance of donkeys might just mean its the appearance of donkeys, and has no significance. I doubt Russia is running out of 4-wheeled vehicles. So if donkeys means anything, it might mean they are starting to ration their refined fuels. The Russian government is still trying to maintain a pretence of normality in Moscow and St Petersburg. People are not getting rounded up in the streets and pressganged. They read about mobilisation in faraway parts of Russia and how convicts are being called up. Because mobilisation is in other parts of Russia, they don't really know anyone directly affected by the war. They are still going on beach holidays to Thailand and Turkey. Ukrainian hits on refineries is obviously having some effect on availability of Russian petroleum products; probably not as much as people think. Some is for lucrative export, some is earmarked for industry, some for public transport, some for the consumer market, and some for the miitary. The donkeys might be a sign of things being squeezed, so we ought to next see rationing of consumer supplies, and lines appearing at Russian gas stations. What Youtuber "Inside Russia" calls the second phase, when Russia starts turning in on itself, and blaming internal issues for difficulties. One signal being picked up is increasing "non-payment"; businesses not paying their bills. This is quite a Russian thing last seen in the last days of the Soviet Union, and during the early Yeltsin years. The government stops paying contractors. The contractors stop paying their suppliers, and down it goes. We should be applying more pressure to Putin's proverbial neck at this time. The war isn't going to end by Ukraine winning, anymore than the British and French Armies never had a victory parade in Berlin in 1918. Its going to end when Russia wants it to end. Right now, the Americans seem to want it to end on Putin's terms, where he achieves everything but the complete capitulation of Kyiv. Aggression is rewarded, because anything else is apparently "not realistic". China has now stopped buying coal off Russia, a big loss of income. North Korean troops, those that are left, are apparently going home. Iran is probably navel gazing now after the loss of Syria and Lebanon. What is curious is Belarus. Belarus recently had elections, a rigged outcome, but no widespread protests like l ast time. So why isn't the Belarus leader coming to brother Putin's aid, with the offer of troops, and equipment? In December 2024, Belarus and Russia concluded a mutual defense pact. There are around 5-6 brigades of Ukrainians in Kursk, just down the road from Belarus, but now they are dug in, so Russia really needs 15-20 brigades to get them out, which is why they haven't so far, and they have been sending in the Reluctant-Suicide Korean troops, and reputedly Yemeni laborers. Why aren't there hoardes of Iranian Revolutionary Guards joining the "good fight"? Spring is coming. Russia spent the winter, instead of regrouping, reequipping, trying to advance a few kms here, a few kms there. Both sides are clearly exhausted, and desertion rates for both are going up. The quality of the Russian equipment is worsening. Their refurbishment centres are a long long way back in the rear (the tank factories are all on the other side of the Urals, ever since Moscow was nearly over run in WW2). On the contrary, Ukraine's rear is not so far back. Both sides are facing spares shortages; there are mixed reports on the Ukrainian side, with the pro-Russian sites reporting its all gone to pot, but others give a different view. https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2151722/lithuania-becomes-repair-hub-for-german-tanks-damaged-on-battlefield-in-ukraine Who knows. Russian spares shortages are due to sanctions (more modern Russian tanks had Thales range finding systems, now no longer available) and likely corruption. Spares shortages in the west seems to be down to corporate disagreements rather than any inability to actually make the parts.

Switching off once you mention that insult. Try someone else with that lazy rubbish. You have no idea of my faith. I literally don't care whether you read my posts or not, hence, I hardly ever respond to comments about my posts. Its like talking to the dead. The rest of your post reads like someone who believes Communist drivel.

Trum will do a deal with Putin, involving cash, to extra minerals from occupied Ukrainian territory, so that Musk doesn't have to buy them from China, so he can go to Mars. Trump his gagging to return overseas Russian reserves back to Putin. Tanks are basically big tractors. They are really not that sophisticated. They can be made at pace, in quantity, depending how you spec them. The losses of Abrams/Challengers/Leopards in that war against $100 FPV drones shows they are just as vulnerable as 70 year old hulls.. Putin is not building 4000 tanks from scratch. Hulls are refurbished. America hasn't made a new tank for decades. Instead, existing hulls are pulled from storage, and refurbished, and presented as new. The UK is fielding Challenger 3 tanks, to replace Challenger 2s. These are refurbished Challenger 2s, which were introduced around about 2002-3. Challenger 2s replaced Challenger 1s, which came in the mid-80s as the result of a canceled Iranian contract. Russia has anywhere between 5000-10,000 hulls in storage. No one really knows. There are about 3000 MBTs in Western Europe, most of them varying grades of Leopard tank; the US pulled out the last of their tanks a decade ago. The US tanks sitting in a desert storage yard might as well not exist. If it all kicked off in Poland, Russia would not be sitting around watching the news of tanks in the US being readied and shipped across thr Atlantic. It is of course a war of attrition; in someways, the conflict in Ukraine is one of the last acts of events sparked by a Duke getting shot in Sarajevo in 1914. The resulting conflict unleashed disruption in the European landscape that lasted into the 90s, with the dissolution of Yugoslavia, a nation borne out of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire (because of the Great War). Or so we thought. Because the last act is the dissolution of that last Empire; Russia. After Ukraine, we will see Chechenya and others get antsy. The war in Ukraine will see the grin;ding away, on both sides, of equipment built and designed for this very conflict. If Russia runs out of tanks, then we would have run out of tanks, and MBTs won't really matter then. Then Putin brings out the big guns, the nukes, which will test NATO resolve. If Putin demands the surrender of Warsaw, or he nukes it, I expect Trump to be clapping from the sidelines, claiming the Poles were bad hombres, and he never liked them. But I'd rather those tanks being ground away around the mining towns of Donetsk rather than the plains of Germany. Which goes to the reason why the US invested in the defence of Europe; Europe was supposed to be where WW3 happened, not the US homeland. Europe accepted that happenchance of geography. Quid pro quo.

What will happen if China "beats" the US (presumably over Taiwan)? The US wants to onshore chip production anyhow. Its about to probably slap huge tariffs on Taiwan anyhow. So sad of course for the Taiwanese, but life will go on. re NATO Aritcle 5 as of yesterday, given what the Fox announcer said to other defence leaders, is over. The North Atlantic Charter is consigned to the dustbin of history. It cuts both ways. Article 5 refers to operations north of the Tropic of Cancer. NATO members have no obligation it seems to return requests to help the US in its conflict with China over a country that makes lots of bicycles. In 2001, NATO members answered US calls for help. There was a NATO mission in Afghanistan. Some US troops were part of that, most were not. There are incidents of NATO troops being killed because those US troops outside of the NATO mission refused to help as they were spending all their time trying to find a Yemeni who was in Pakistan all along. That dichotomy reveals the issue about the US defence budget. Of course, European countries should spend a bit more, but for the last 80 years, the US has made sure that European countries couldn't arm themselves appropriately. Germany wasn't allowed to become a nuclear power. Maybe it should now. The US dictated NATO defence standards and interoperability, which really did reduce the capacity of the European defence industry. And then with NATO members buy US equipment at above market rates, the quality is sometimes shoddy, eg the fairly useless Naval version of the F35, which has caused enormous equipment delays. The unfriendly language used by the US leadership, directly threatening unprovoked military action against two NATO allies, suggesting it will allow Russia to attack other members, isn't really winning friends in defence procurement. The US is now seen as an unreliable ally, never to be trusted. So, European and Korean defence industries will benefit. US defence industry will lose, losing jobs in mostly red states Afghanistan illustrated the issue with US defence spending vis a vie NATO. Most NATO countries spend their defence budget in a collective European defence. France and the UK have a much reduced non-European role (the reason why NATO did not help the UK against the Argentinian right wing junta in 1982 was because the Falklands are a long way south of the Trpoic of Cancer). The US defence budget consists of giving away vast amounts of materiel to some pretty shonky countries, and then you lose much of it (Afghanistan, but you did much the same in Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Vietnam). You spend vaqst amounts of cash chasing mad mullahs around some desert. You have thousands of troops stationed for inexplicable reasons in Japan. You have lots sitting in South Korea, as you are pooing your pants over North Korea. You have troops who regularly pop up in Liberia, presumably because of the collective guilt you feel as a nation for exiling some of your former slaves to that disease riddled hellhole. There is a lot of activity by the US miitary that has nothing to do with Europe, and which artificially elevates the US defence spending, which is double the level, as a % of GDP of both the British and Roman empires at their peak. The US is very lucky, by an accident of geography, that it hasn't seen an invasion by a foreign power for 200 years. When the two greatest leaders of the 20th Century, Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, met on the USS Augusta, in 1941, they both agreed to these noble principles; Both countries agreed not to seek territorial expansion; to seek the liberalization of international trade; to establish freedom of the seas, to set international labour, economic, and welfare standards. a committment to supporting the restoration of self-governments for all countries that had been occupied during the war allowing all peoples to choose their own form of government 84 years on, the Germanic dunce in the Whitehouse has taken an enormous dump on that first principle, and the next, and the next. As for the fourth, he'd quite happily seem Americans consigned to sweatshops making $ t-shirts that are American made. He's selling Ukraine down the river, just like Chamberlain did

Most of the RWE deposits are in the fascist Russia occupied regions. Most of the kit the US has transferred to Ukraine is obsolete equipment that they would have had to dispose of any. The "cost" to the US is the Pentagon buying lots of shiney replacements. Its like me having a £500 banger. Its ok for A to B, probably will struggle through next year's MOT, but its better than the neighbour's Lada. I give it to you, and treat myself to a £60k Boxster. You now owe me £60k because you forced me to buy a Boxster. Give me your house and wife.

How did this parochial eejit get elected? https://buddycarter.house.gov/uploadedfiles/redwhitebluelandact.pdf

Second lowest since 100d approval ratings started. But polls don't mean anything.

Surprised the rezident tankies haven't brought up stories about how the US and UK forces used pack animals in Afghanistan (for a completely different reason, mind). Indeed, the German Army has specialist mule troops

No, a Russian told me that. https://www.banki.ru/products/autocredits/ Автокредиты в 2025 году в банках: как выбрать и от чего зависит процентная ставка Loans industry collapsing

Its moot. Car loan rates are 30%+. Russians can't afford to buy cars, but when they can, they are preferring the inflated price Chinese cars. Current Ladas are based in modern Renaults, so quite decent, but they lack ABS modules, airbags and emissions controls. VWs built in the last few years are pretty terrible/

Very early in my scientific career, before defence research, I was a research fellow in one of the Gulf coast marine research labs. They didn't excellent work, considering the paltry funding they received. Coming from the UK, I'd imagined it would be similar, where industry and academia work closely together in the sciences for mutual benefit. Where I was was home to most the world's top chemical companies plus the oil companies. One of the oil companies, the one with a religious symbol, gave an annual grant to the lab where I worked. In return, they asked for an Open Day, so the public could see how much they supported local marine research. The oil company actually had zero interest in the research projects. When Deepwater Horizon happened, one of the issues was no one had a good baseline of what the Gulf was like before, because there had been so little funding. Local people became very interested; the fisheries are very important to the local economies, both for commerical fishing, but also for the tourism it attracts. All of that was under threat. I'm pleased to say BP suddenly became very interested in the research these labs did.

There are no Indians living in Mexico, outside of the Embassy.

Only for US viewers, in the ROW, its reduced to the bit in brackets, an after thought. The President is now banning press agencies from the White House who have an editorial policy that he doesn't like. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ap-reporter-ban-b2696578.html So much for Freedom of Speech. This is the sort of thing the Wahabi Extremists (the same extremists who inspired 911) in Saudi Arabia did, when they got the US Navy to kowtow to them, and started calling the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf. Trumpf missed a trick not naming it after himsef. People could have thought of him while they took a slash into it.

No Chinamen in US. No railroads No big push Westwards. Cannibals in the Rockies. No US. Otherwise, complete and utter testicles to suggest the PLA would be waiting off the coast of British Colombia were it not for the US Coastguard. I take it you believe that the film "Battle Beneath the Earth" was an accurate portrayal of things to come.

Please explain and share the real polls. Or is Trumpf's 53% poll fake. And literally, I can prove I am more conservative that you. I have a card to prove it. You don't have a card do you?

It creates opportunity for China to gain influence at the expense of lost US influence. Two Super Powers are in competition to win hearts and minds. The Russians are out of this game. The US wants Pax Americana, peace on its terms, but the Chinese have a different motivation; they really have no interest in promoting their ideologies or culture. I suspect they are still miffed that the British made them into a nation of opium addicts. And to them, we, British, Americans, we all look alike. One extreme example of the results of the US backing away from foreign policy is Afghanistan. After the Soviets pulled out, there was a power vacuum; the US had supported one faction in the fight, then cut them off. 12 years later, 2 airliners slammed into the World Trade Center, and one into the Pentagon. Propping up Massod would have been way cheaper than everything that followed 911. Arguably, Vietnam was the same; Nixon abandoned his South Vietnamese allies, with the result that thousands died in re-education camps, and there were waves of refugees.

We're not at the key 100 days yet, but Trumpf is on course for the second lowest first 100 days Approval Rating since Approval ratings were first recorded. At least he's 4 points up on that loser from 2017. Most US Presidents are given the benefit of the doubt when they first enter office, except that loser of a number 45. Most people don't want a US President to actually fail. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/presidential-job-approval-ratings