circuscritic

So what you’re saying is that Russia has no agency, and their invasion of Ukraine is NOT it imperial in nature.

In fact, they’re only seizing Ukrainian territory to add to their own, because of the United States. And that somehow negates any aspect of Russian imperialism.

Well that makes sense, because I know one thing about Russia, and that it’s definitely not a stitched together country of conquered and subjugated people’s.

Or, hear me out, maybe it’s possible for both the United States and Russia, to wage imperial wars of aggression. Just because the United States is an imperial power, that doesn’t preclude any other great powers from acting on their own delusions of empire.

Classic Ukrainian imperialism…

Also, classic enlisted soldier get rich quick scheme: dying just to get the death benefits.

Wait a minute…what now?

These will not be used to shoot down Israeli missiles…

I’m quite aware of THAAD’s capabilities, including its tracking radars, at least as far as publicly disclosed information goes.

That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about this reducing, or removing, one of Iran’s primary means of deterrence against Israeli attacks.

If Israel doesn’t have to worry about the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles, it frees them up for an even more aggressive course of action.

Unless you’re suggesting that this means Israel can, and should, continue to directly attack Iran…?

This defense enables and emboldens Israeli aggression.

It removes, or significantly reduces, the threat posed by Iranian ballistic missiles.

That means, it removes, or reduces, any deterrent effect they have, on moderating Israel.

This is not good, but less because of the risk of American KIA, and more because of how it changes the Israeli calculus.

Yes, that first but confirms the news article.

And then it talks about a deployment 5 years ago for a training exercise.

These aren’t brick and mortar buildings, they’re mobile platforms, and mobile air defense batteries redeploy all the time.

Again, I am not closed to the idea that there was US military operated THAAD system in Israel during that attack, I just can’t find any reports confirming that, or even eluding to it.

Never mind, I misread that last bit. I will take a look at it later when I have a few moments, thank you.

I’m not saying it can’t be. I’m saying I don’t believe Iran has the capabilities or stockpiles available to do so, given the other American assets in theatre, or a desire to risk killing American troops.

I suspect they’re deploying THAAD because of the failures of David’s Sling during the last missile attack.

Also, systems protect specific targets, not countries. Given the THAAD’s long track record under US operators, I would wager that the bases and targets that Iranian missiles hit, either lacked sufficient coverage, had poorly trained Israeli personnel, and/or were covered by David’s Sling.

Of course, I could be wrong, but we won’t know for many many years given how secretive Israel is on these matters.

They’re air defense operators, just like gets deployed around Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.

If you want to feel bad about anything, it’s that this will significantly reduce the likelihood that Iran can threaten Israel with ballistic missiles.

THAAD is really good at what it does, and something tells me that the Iranians aren’t going to want to waste their entire stock pile on fruitless saturation attempts. To say nothing of their concerns of killing American troops.

As in, this provides Israel even greater latitude on their quest to start a hot war with Iran, without dramatically increasing any threat to their military bases and government buildings. Well, at least not from ballistic missiles.

One way they conduct themselves is by using the politicians they’ve purchased to advocate for forming public-private partnerships, in areas where they shouldn’t exist, which they can then legally siphon off the resources from.

I disagree on the private sector aspect of this, but I agree on the democracy part. Although, I don’t really view America as true democracy at this moment in history, but that’s besides the point here.

Fusion technology is at a point in its life cycle where it needs to be a public sector project. There is no path to profitability in the near-term, that would justify private sector involvement, except as a means to extract profit from the very expensive research process of even making this technology feasible.

Not that I’m against the private sector within the nuclear power industry, in fact I’m very excited to see what they can do with SMR technology. I’m just extremely skeptical of most private-public partnerships, especially in cases like this.

Fusion reactors are incredibly complicated… This is a research reactor, with the goal of figuring out how to create sustainable fusion for real world uses by 2050.

This is not a performative action for a determinative outcome, this is aspirational and has no guarantee of achieving its goals, which is good. This type of research and science needs to be funded, even when it may fail.

Maybe this will spurn competition between powers to accelerate their own fusion reactor research, and create a virtuous cycle that accelerates this technology becoming a major source of green energy in the near, or medium-term, future.

Got to say, I hit the nail on the head here.

Made all my analysis and educated guesses about your pathologies based solely on your spree of rage trolling comments back in the technology community.

I hadn’t even bothered to look at your profile for other comments until just now…and I didn’t even have to flick the screen down any to confirm my earlier diagnoses.

Seriously, get help.

I mean, yeah, but I think that’s placing the US military on a pedestal, with the unsaid implication that they’re somehow unique in that regard.

I don’t imagine there’s many, if any, military forces on earth, who would both be used to invade and occupy foreign lands, and not make similar decisions.

No… It risks either not going boom, or some other catastrophic failure like we saw in the early days of the Ukraine war with the S300 and S400 missiles that would U-turn after launch and hit their own launcher, most likely from being improperly stored, not maintained, and/or outside of their rated service life.

I can’t speak to Trump’s rationale, but know of at least one instance where a MOAB was substituted for the normal ordinance in theatre because it was approaching it service rated shelf life.

Explosive ordinance has a shelf life, and once they’re expired, that either need to be taken out of supply for servicing, or dismantled and disposed of.

Killing another country’s civilian is not casus belli, especially when considering both countries are allied.

These terms are steeped in legal precedent and tradition, you may not agree them, or respect them, but that alone doesn’t change how they’re defined.

But that also doesn’t change the fact that this should be a serious diplomatic row with serious bilateral consequences, but so should have untold numbers of other war crimes committed against the Palestinians in general, and more specifically, against countless American citizens within the occupation zones.

Also, I’m pretty sure Joe isn’t cognizant about much lately, and I would wager that he only appears lucid when talking about events that happened 50 years ago.

$849 and $1,649? Those pricetags are so absurd that this post should be removed on principle alone, nevermind that it’s stealth marketing masquerading as an article.

Except the majority of the cutting edge R&D is done and/or funded via the public sector.

Their R&D budget priorities are more focused on things like reformulating existing drugs to extend the patents and prevent opening the market to generic manufacturers.

So yes, cheating patent laws and heavily spending on marketing and lobbying campaigns does eat into their profit margins a little bit.

But I’m not sure how that justifies their unparalleled track record of pathologically sadistic business practices, such as the one highlighted in this article.

Do you have a graph or chart for that?

It’s just complete ignorance of the Iranian political system and at some level, a buy-in on the media’s relentless anti-Iranian propaganda.

Far be it from me to defend a theocracy, or Mullahs, but…wait, I won’t they’re horrible.

However, Iran’s theocracy is far less insidious than the Gulf Monarchies, so I guess it’s better by default?

Oh, and no candidate is allowed to run unless they are signed off on by the Ayatollah, so there’s that caveat as well.

Damnit. I hate when my local city government’s finances are too fucked to pay the energy bill, but still have money for military weapons procurement.

Wait a minute…local city governments are able to purchase air launched cruise missiles and anti-tank weapons!!! And they can export them to!!!

Dude I think you might be onto something, that is pretty wild…makes you wonder what the dog catcher is really up to… probably moonlights with gig economy wetwork.