America is fundamentally broken

Author: Swagnarok

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#31
Greyparrot
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@Savant
Ukraine is fighting with a lot of foreign weapons. You can assign a big portion of Russian deaths to American equipment.
Which is about as useful to Americans as the amount of dry ducks.

Military capability has nothing to do with whether the war is worth fighting.
It kinda does. If we had the capability to win in Afghanistan, we wouldn't be talking about why it was worth or not worth to surrender.
#32
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@Greyparrot
If we had the capability to win in Afghanistan, we wouldn't be talking about why it was worth or not worth to surrender.
America did win. Then they got bored and left. Killing a bunch of Middle Easterners is something the US military has never failed at.
#33
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@Savant
When the Pentagon can’t pass an audit year after year, I have some serious doubts about where all the trillions are going and whether the U.S. military tiger is as sharp as it looks on paper. 

We’ve seen $800 billion annual budgets struggle to achieve decisive outcomes in places like Afghanistan and Syria. We have recruitment shortfalls, maintenance backlogs, and bloated defense contracts with minimal to no oversight. So while the U.S. still outspends the next 10 countries combined, you have to admit that capability and effectiveness are not the same thing. And you really have to question the metrics you use for capability.

If we’re going to talk about Ukraine being the gold standard for military capability, we should first ask whether our own military is actually running like a precision well-oiled capable machine, or just burning money with no clear direction. Capability isn't just what you buy on paper, it's how effectively you use it. And with the Pentagon failing audits year after year, and failing to achieve any real substantial military goals, I think it's more than fair to question whether USA has real strategic military strength or if the Pentagon is just propping up the illusion of it to keep the money flowing.
#34
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@Greyparrot
struggle to achieve decisive outcomes in places like Afghanistan and Syria
That's because the bar for decisive outcomes has gotten higher. It's not like countries throughout history were good at ensuring human rights, turning dictatorships into functional democracies, or fighting in an "ethical" way. They didn't care about those things. By historical standards, America's military capability blows everything else out of the water. Put America against any other country, past or present, in an all-out fight to the death with no nukes, and the US will hold out better.

the Pentagon failing audits year after year
Inefficient and wasteful? Sure. That doesn't stop them from hitting the hardest. The gap in budget and technology is too great. Also compare to Russia and China, both of which have a lot of corruption and incompetence. The issue with audits is that democracies actually have standards they can fail. Kim Jong Un is accountable to no one, but his military is significantly weaker.
#35
ADreamOfLiberty
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@Savant
The issue with audits is that democracies actually have standards they can fail. Kim Jong Un is accountable to no one, but his military is significantly weaker.
If we could pay what Kim Jong Un "pays" to get the military power he does have, we should have 20x the power we do now.

He's built operational nuclear weapons with what (on keynesian paper) would be the GDP of Montana.


There isn't much to work with in NK, but what little there is can be micromanaged. Similar to how the soviet space program and most of the other things they succeeded at worked.

They basically found a team of geniuses, motivated them on a case by case basis, and gave them whatever they asked for.

Absolutely unscalable, and that's why it was a hilarious juxtaposition to their general quality of life that they could be the first to put a man in orbit and yet they could not manage to provide mailmen working motorcycles (among a million other examples).


What we have in the west is what would be a very prosperous free market that is being enslaved to create a great wall of teats for the corrupt and useless.

By sheer force of statistics, some of them produce something useful... two years late and 500% over budget. Just in time to assure us that its obsolete and needs to be replaced with something better. It doesn't help to have audits if there is no consequence for failing them.
#36
TheGreatSunGod
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@ADreamOfLiberty
If we could pay what Kim Jong Un "pays" to get the military power he does have, we should have 20x the power we do now.

He's built operational nuclear weapons with what (on keynesian paper) would be the GDP of Montana.
Not just nuclear weapons. Also, hundreds of ICBMs. Only 8 countries in the world have ICBMs because its the most expensive and most important missile technology there is.
#37
Shila
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@TheGreatSunGod
Not just nuclear weapons. Also, hundreds of ICBMs. Only 8 countries in the world have ICBMs because it’s the most expensive and most important missile technology there is.
Now N.Korea is learning to use them in Ukraine. Perfect timing.
#38
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@Swagnarok
Trump himself is inept, that should go without saying. But he has empowered technocrats who know how to run organizations efficiently. Even cabinet officials with no such experience, like Hegseth, and perhaps those with genuinely insane beliefs like RFK Jr., may be more inclined to give competent outsiders a seat at the decision-making table and break through intergenerational cycles of groupthink.
Not a single thing any of the individuals Trump filled his cabinet with have shown us demonstrates a willingness to give competent people a seat anywhere near this administration, in fact that seems to be a disqualifier. The first and only qualifier here is subservience to Trump's whims, that's the opposite.

They might make everything worse. But for the first time since this crisis began, our chances of staving off civilizational collapse by the middle of the 21st century are greater than zero. By analogy, America is a patient with otherwise untreatable cancer and a firm offers them an experimental drug that'll either cure them or kill them faster. That's our current predicament.
The Trump administration isn't analogous to an experimental drug, it's more like homeothapy.  The problems we face are massively complicated and complex problems require complex solutions, yet every answer Trump provides fits on a bumper sticker or as a rally chant.

I give him credit though, his strategy definitely worked. He recognized that he could never in a million years stand toe to toe when it comes to persuasion through offering a real vision and a plan for the country, so instead he just rilled everyone up to believe the country was on the literal brink of collapse and only he could save it, thereby giving everyone the excuse they need to look past the fact that he is so transparently incompetent and unfit.
#39
zedvictor4
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@Savant
In the past 25 years, probably the worst US decision was to go fighting goat herders in Afghanistan, in the vain hope that it would bring an end to global terrorism and avenge the twin towers event.

The best decision was giving up and pulling out...Leaving the place just about the same as when you first arrived.

And then you re-elected Trump.

The US could be a great and good, global super-power...But you just keep fucking people off by, doing the most dumb ass things.

You seem to forget that you  make up less than 4.5% of the World population.

Clever stupid gene.


#40
Shila
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@zedvictor4
In the past 25 years, probably the worst US decision was to go fighting goat herders in Afghanistan, in the vain hope that it would bring an end to global terrorism and avenge the twin towers event.

The best decision was giving up and pulling out...Leaving the place just about the same as when you first arrived.

And then you re-elected Trump.
Trump wants to attack Greenland because it’s Taliban free.
#41
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@zedvictor4

The US could be a great and good, global super-power...But you just keep fucking people off by, doing the most dumb ass things.
Well stated !
#42
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@FLRW
@Shila
Thanks FLRW.


And for sure, no Taliban...But don't underestimate Greenlanders.

They're proficient at shooting Seals at long range, in sub-zero conditions.


And clever Mr Vance wasn't quite expecting sub-zero temperatures to be quite so sub-zero. Ha Ha.

But what should we expect from a bloke that keeps forgetting his own name?


#43
Shila
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@zedvictor4
But what should we expect from a bloke that keeps forgetting his own name?
Maybe that is why they chose Greenland because it’s an easy name to remember .