Not really....they've been working on it for almost 50 years. They got the original "peaceful" nuclear tech and support from both Russia and China in the 60s. Then in the 90s President Clinton gave them "peaceful" nuclear tech so that they'd stop their weapons program. Then they stole some of Pakistan's nuclear tech. Over the next decade they were able to develop nuclear bomb technology. Since 2006 they've been trying to mate them to missiles (making them lighter, more efficient, etc). We had a shot with the death of Kim Jong Il to do some, uh, eradication, but didn't. Over the last 5 years they've had at least 5 nuclear tests, in addition to all of the missile fire tests they've had over the last decade. Allowing open proliferation of nuclear missile tech by countries without the gov't to responsibly handle them (and I'm kind of looking at Pakistan, too) leads to things like this morning. If we'd eradicated their ability to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles and disarmed their nuclear weapons program, today's tweet would've been a huge joke.
Some great points and it's something I struggle with. I fully acknowledge that there are some terrible plights in the world and some, even most can be corrected to some great degree through US intervention. At least, I hope that's the case. But the burden is great to be the ones to correct worldwide injustices. We select some nations to help while we let other situations fester. Why, well because the ones we insert ourselves into are most likely to affect us in some way, financially, politically or militarily. But what happens over time? In many cases our insertion into foreign conflicts produces unstable governments and militia forces that are able to capitalize on the perception of that the US is an unclean actor. So as propped up governments fail, they are often replaced by forces that despise the US. As we do move closer to easier production of weapons of mass destruction, I think it behooves us to have as few enemies worldwide as possible. It's certainly not always our choice who is or is not our enemy, but we have definitely done a few things over the years to further the likelihood that some terrorist nations and/or governments will consider us the enemy. I don't know how to strike a balance, but moving away from military-style conflicts seems like a prudent step. Of course, not in all cases, but I would like to move in that direction. And all of that is without even looking at the financial implications of playing world cop. And then there is the human toll. There are some great things that come from the Military too, like we educated and highly motivated professionals who learned their skills in the military. And there are tons of communities that have been built up and put onto self sustaining pathways through the leadership of our military. I guess there are just many plusses and minuses and I'm just not convinced that we shouldn't start pairing back our role as world cop.
WTF? Rejuvenated how? BrianFromWA, do you think the navy is rejuvenated? How is the NK threat resolved? If anything, the Navy has had an unusually large number of fuckups on Trump's watch (I don't blame Trump for those - but I don't see evidence of rejuvenation either). barfo
Oh, and by the way, although I don't know much about the nuclear programs or any other weapon systems, I do have a bit of inside knowledge on one particular biological threat simply because I used to work on it in a laboratory setting. I had nothing to do with weaponizing the agent, but we were studying it simply because it mimicked a different disease pathway that we were interested in. Anyways, I know that this particular biological agent is extremely easy to produce and weaponization would be relatively easy, at least on the scale of targeting 10'000's of thousands of citizens. scaling up from that would be difficult. My point is that there are a myriad of weapons that we need to worry about and nuclear is but one. And technology will help some more than others, but it's disingenuous to suggest that over the coming decades these weapons won't be much easier to produce by fewer people with less resources. Some may take much longer, but whatever weapons (most likely biological) prove to be the easiest to produce will become the ones we have to worry about the soonest.
No. I think that his plans, if they come to fruition, would do wonders. Having 350 ships instead of 270 would be mammoth and would alleviate some of the root causes of the fuckups you talk about (optempo too high for skilled and trained sailors, leadership worried about saying "no" to civilians, etc.) by sheer sharing of responsibility. I think that, by-and-large anecdotally, sailors and officers are happier with someone who'll "talk tough and be tougher" with bad people around the world than those who appease, but the military generally runs conservative so it's not a surprise that there's "rejuvenation".
Biological weaponry is generally off the table for nation-states b/c of the Geneva Protocol. Aside from that, it's hard to weaponize other than in a "terrorist"-type scenario (London and Tokyo subways, for instance). Missile delivery is pretty hard for bio (and even some chem) agents. B/c it's against the Geneva Protocol, b/c we have reciprocity with nuclear weapons for any chem or bio or nuclear attack, and b/c we'd be fully justified, I don't expect that anyone should be surprised when someone is annihilated if bio agents are used against us.
Amazing that we can go to war with Iran over WMDs that never existed and NOT go to war with NK when we know they DO!
Thats fine for NK which although we call kim jong-un crazy he is more likely a sane actor. but what about religious zealots who get their hands on bio/chem agents? Isn't it perhaps better to not be at the top of their kill list from day one? By the way, I'm partially arguing with you because I think this way but partially its just trying to grow. It's a very complex topic and I have conflicting beliefs.
They were likely developing them. Had we not intervened, they would have been as armed as North Korea. We are where we are with North Korea because we just always kicked the can down the road (along with Clinton giving them the Nuclear technology)
I'm by no means saying this is easy. You introspection and questions are welcome, which is why I'm trying to not give flip answers over them. We, as America, are on top of the kill list and will be until we cease to care. We have the most money (kinda), the biggest military, the most cultural gravity and the ability to back up just about whatever we want. We're the 1927 Yankees, the '77 Canadiens, the Celtics of the 60's all rolled into one. We may drop a game/battle/limited war here and there, but our national existence has never been in question. In the deepest, darkest days of Vietnam America was still rolling. Getting overrun at 10-1 odds at the Chosin reservoir? America still moved on. Guys getting hit by IEDs in Kabul? Doesn't affect your life. And that's how (at least the folks I'm generally around) we want it. Now, many times we use our power for good. Sometimes we haven't. That's more a factor of poor leadership that systematic hate or racism. KJU may be a sane actor, but he's not one that we can predict (other than that he will likely act insane.) He killed his step-brother to consolidate power. He saw on video that a general wasn't crying enough at his father's funeral, so he chained him to a post and used mortars to obliterate him. The family was sent to a "labor camp". He routinely flaunts his disdain for the UN and has committed acts of war upon S. Korea. "Religious zealots" have had their hands on chem and bio gear since at least the 80's in Iran. The Tokyo Sarin attacks in 1995 (before much of the "Islamic Terrorism Revolution" in the West) were perpetuated by scientists and engineers. ISIS is much more likely to use something dumb but deadly, like Chlorine gas attacks or something.
OK, so a couple followups. What about the financial strain our defense spending puts on the US? Do you see that lowering in the future as tech allows us to require fewer soldiers in harms way? Do you think the US will constantly be fighting off small and mid sized attacks like USS Cole or 911, or do you think my fear of larger scale attacks either through conventional or unconventional warfare will become increasingly more likely? And, is there anything the US can do to deescalate these international threats long term or are there just too many Jong-Un's out there?
I was using it ironically, if that makes it better. I too find the constant utterance of the aforementioned phrase quite detestable.
