I believe Ryan Macbeth had a line on this, that leaving Afghanistan was a signal that America will cut and run. Russia, China, and Iran saw that.
This is just like the video games industry targeting steam.
They could spend less and make more by simply trying to copy and improve upon Steam instead of taking Valve to court every time they notice their line going down.
You can snicker though, that’s allowed.
The USA has depleted it’s missile stockpiles
It has no ability to project power in the eastern hemisphere and will not for at least a few years
I’ve read it. I just don’t get the math. Are the trillions primarily open, not golden toilets and secret ufo labs? How do we spend this much and not live up to the story about being able to fight half the world with a hand tied behind our backs? Where are my fucking tax dollars?
You know where your tax dollars are. They’ve gone to overpaying for nearly everything by like an order of magnitude because that’s how the rich launder their money: sweet, sweet government contracts. And all the private contracts they generate in turn.
Being upset about how your taxes are being spent should be pretty low on the American priority list though. The government’s owned by organizations, for starters…
Source for the depletion of stockpiles?
Edit: Thank you guys, good reads. I appreciate it
I don’t have a link for you, but I remember reading that the US+allies have used far more Patriot missiles over the past couple months than Ukraine has used over the past four years. Apparently, this was a major motivation behind Ukraine offering to send specialists to help intercept Shahed drones: They saw the massive waste of Patriot missiles and realised it would impact their ability to get ahold of more.
Journalists and experts (both pro- and anti-war) were citing this months ago when everybody was talking about how expensive the war has been and how much was spent or used up in a day that could take years to replace. Since it’s old news now, I’m fuzzy on the details (might be mostly interceptors to stop drones?) but a simple search brings up results like these from major media (NYT, BBC, etc.), independent media, and beyond:
They could have just helped Ukraine…
When the US was just helping them (even though they could have done much more), it showed the world that the US and it’s allies were unified and willing to defend. That was way more terrifying for any opposing power… Now any opposing power are laughing at what they see about the US. They are now even less afraid than they have ever been since the end of the 2nd world war.
Even the US miraculously elect a acompetent leader for the next president, everyone know they can just wait for the next dumb guy to come in and wreck things up. They’ve had multiple now, each one dumber than the last, I don’t believe Trump is the worst, we can’t see the future.
I don’t believe Trump is the worst
No, no, he is the worst…
so far.
Yeah I don’t want to see the next guy…
Vance would be worse than Trump.
He has no charm at all. Trump is also now currently throwing him under the bus for all of the negotiations in Iran, lol. Vance will have no power.
Trump is CE, Vance is LE.
Ah, the copium war
In an extremely backwards sense, America going into a senseless war that they thought they’d have in the bag, then losing, is sort of a deterrent.
It’s a perfect display of what would or could happen if China lets its hubris get to it and invades Taiwan.
I could liken it to watching someone you know getting blackout drunk and needing their stomach pumped at the hospital, keeping you away from the booze.
It’s a perfect display of what would or could happen if China lets its hubris get to it and invades Taiwan.
That kinda depends if China has millitary leaders as incompetent as Hegseth being directed by an incompetent narcissist like Trump.
Or if they have purged the upper ranks of anyone competent and replaced them with yes-men.
They did just have a huge military purge.
Just like the US.
Meh… it seems to me like authoritarian regimes are basically designed to promote yes-men and nepotism. The whole premise for an authoritarian regime is that your power is secured by being the strongest guy with a the strongest, most loyal friends. By design, an authoritarian leader can never inherently trust their subordinates, because they don’t have any wide-reaching popular mandate to rule. That, combined with the fact that being the top dog is lucrative as fuck, means that only people the leader trusts are ever getting promoted to key positions.
You could also flip it: If an authoritarian leader constantly promotes people that oppose them to key positions, it’s a matter of time before one of those people gains enough support to initiate a power struggle. If they lose, they’re replaced, and if they win, you have a coup - rinse and repeat.
Basically, a functioning autocracy is incapable of having genuine opposition. It’s more or less a part of the feature-set.
“If you dont do what I want, im gonna harm myself and others.”
