I wonder what the prevalence of these IoT devices is doing to internet security. Your router firewall might prevent incoming connections, but these stupid devices are always dialing out to god knows where. Can that be used to compromise security?
I recently installed deep packet inspection in my firewall and it’s quite illuminating to see all of what’s going on. Why are devices in my home connecting to India?
I made a separate wifi network for the smart trash, they can't see each other and aren't allowed any ingress or egress. I then add individual firewall rules on a needed basis.
Every time you comment on here you show a little bit more of how little you understand of how the world works.
It is not 1945 anymore, indeed. But that's not why the US has bases in Germany. It has bases in Germany to serve as 'stationary aircraft carriers' on friendly foreign soil, which is a privilege and as part of NATO a mutual benefit and which were there on account of Russia and the Middle-East, not because Germany was still perceived as a threat or a country that needed occupation, that particular need ended well before the Unification and the withdrawal of Russians from Eastern Europe.
Tossing all of that into the grinder isn't 'making America great' it is making America smaller, much smaller. The EU has spent an absolute fortune on US military hardware in return in the past. That will end now, and this is being said out loud. EU military spending has been on the rise, but the US fraction of that spending is diminishing, and is expected to diminish further.
This will hurt the US much more than that it will help. So these are - like most MAGA inspired actions - at best own goals, at worse active aid to Putin.
You should be able to figure out the truth of this: if withdrawing 5K troops made sense outside of the context of being ostensibly as pay-back for Merz stating that the US has been humiliated by Iran - which they have, there is no doubt about it - then it would have been done so. But instead, the use of one particular word that your king is a bit sensitive to because it hits home is what set this off.
> You should be able to figure out the truth of this: if withdrawing 5K troops made sense … there is no doubt about it - then it would have been done so
If American foreign policy was rational, we wouldn’t have been involved in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now Iran. Not to mention Somalia, Kosovo, and Libya, and countless minor skirmishes. We’ve been throwing kids into the meat grinder for 75 years, and lighting dollars on fire, for no good reason. There’s no reason for us to light money on fire having bases all over the world, when we have two huge oceans to protect us.
> If American foreign policy was rational, we wouldn’t have been involved in Korea
YGBFShM.
(As to most of the others you do have a point, but hindsight is always 20-20 — and the Dem decisionmakers about Vietnam had to contend with a revanchist, Red-baiting GOP that had attacked the Dems for having "lost" China.)
> There’s no reason for us to light money on fire having bases all over the world, when we have two huge oceans to protect us.
Yes, that helped so much on the 9th of September in 2001... MAGA is a fairly direct result of those attacks.
And I think you missed Afghanistan in your little list, which was not exactly a minor skirmish. Pax Americana was a massive net positive for the United States. That the proceeds were not shared equally is not the fault of the clients, but an internal affair. A diminished United States has a non-zero risk of collapsing much like the former USSR.
Meanwhile, you're lighting money on fire in Iran right now, and lots of it (though, according to Mike you are not at war and if you were it is over, a 'special military operation' of sorts). If only there was some kind of lesson to be learned from starting wars. Meanwhile, the oil people are making out like bandits, Israel is happy, what's not to like? And who cares about the price of eggs, gas, the Epstein files or immigrants. That's so yesterday.
> Pax Americana was a massive net positive for the United States.
The claim that literally blowing up vast quantities of money has been good for America is an extraordinary one that requires extraordinary evidence. Instead, this is a statement that’s just asserted without much proof behind it.
Proponents of this theory are making a “wet streets cause rain” fallacy. America was already the world’s economic superpower at the outset of World War II. If you look at military history, there’s a lot of discussion about how the Germans were overwhelmed by America’s production and logistical capabilities. America transitioned from being an industrial superpower into becoming a military superpower. You’ve got the causation backwards.
We have had this conversation before, but I don’t recall you’ve ever squarely addressed my point.
> The claim that literally blowing up vast quantities of money has been good for America is an extraordinary one that requires extraordinary evidence.
So, if I understand you right you fail to see what a lasting peace and good relationship with allies will do for the country that brokers that peace and you require 'extraordinary evidence' because it is an extraordinary claim? Next up you're going to say that the USA should have never joined World War II or created the Marshall plan in the immediate aftermath, that's a logical extension of that argument since that's universally seen as the launch of 'Pax Americana'.
It also seems as though you fail to see how the rest of the developed world perceived the USA roughly up to 2002, whereas of course some other countries had a markedly different view.
You're a lawyer, that means you should have at least basic evidentiary research skills, especially for something so well documented. I suggest you use those skills and try to steelman the argument that Pax Americana was a massive net benefit for the United States in terms of world wide power (both soft and hard), income, prestige and less directly visible benefits, and helped to make it the most wealthy nation in the world (but not on a per-capita basis, however, that's an internal affair).
But I'm not going to do your work for you, it is absolutely ridiculous that you would make a request that can only stem from something close to willful ignorance.
> America was already the world’s economic superpower at the outset of World War II.
So?
> If you look at military history, there’s a lot of discussion about how the Germans were overwhelmed by America’s production and logistical capabilities.
You do know when the US joined WWII don't you?
And you do know what the Germans were up to at the time?
And you do know that it wasn't exactly the US doing this by its lonesome?
> America transitioned from being an industrial superpower into becoming a military superpower. You’ve got the causation backwards.
America didn't have the atomic bomb, which was made possible mostly by European scientists. That in combination with switching the industrial capability to military production is what drove the super power status, the bomb is what gave everybody pause (and what led directly to the cold war). And it didn't take long for the Russians to get theirs which caused Europe to live under the threat of nuclear war and total annihilation once again.
> We have had this conversation before, but I don’t recall you’ve ever squarely addressed my point.
You don't really have a point. The USA is not larger than the rest of the world, not in the number of people and not in the economic, military or industrial power that it has. Yes, it - for now - is a superpower. But that power is rapidly diminishing and other countries - most notably China - are ascendant. Just like Ukraine has shown Russia to not deserve its super power status any more Iran just showed that beyond all doubt about the United States. All that is happening right now is that one empire is dying and another will take its place.
WWII ended 80 years ago, America came out of it with absolutely massive credit and goodwill all over the developed world. That credit and that goodwill is now spent and/or destroyed on purpose and you are presenting this as a 'good thing'?
I don’t think this issue is so settled that you just get to say “research it yourself” instead of making your case. Whether the global empire makes America as a whole richer or poorer is highly disputed. And it’s not just the distribution of the spoils as you say. The longstanding view of Americans opposed to the empire has been that the empire enriches defense contractors, but is a deadweight loss for the country as a whole. Your theory could actually change the premise of the anti-empire left significantly.
> America didn't have the atomic bomb, which was made possible mostly by European scientists. That in combination with switching the industrial capability to military production is what drove the super power status, the bomb is what gave everybody pause
But the goal isn’t to be a superpower. The goal is to be rich. America was already the richest country by far before it used that wealth to become a military superpower. In fact the GDP per capita ratio of the U.S. to France was about the same before World War II as it is today. Heck, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about how much richer Americans were than Europeans back in the 1830s.
> The longstanding view of Americans opposed to the empire has been that the empire enriches defense contractors, but is a deadweight loss for the country as a whole.
And they are right, but for the wrong reasons: yes, the MIC enriches defense contractors. That's obvious. But that's because that is how it is all set up and it need not be set up that way, that's a conscious choice by a lot of the actors. From outside of the USA that's an internal discussion, not one that we have influence on or that we directly experience the impact of. You could of course decide to raise the minimum wage, offer free health care and start treating drug abuse like a disease or a mental issue rather than as a criminal affair. But oh gollies, that sounds like socialism, and we can't have that, better if the poor stay poor and don't have any bargaining power.
> But the goal isn’t to be a superpower. The goal is to be rich.
You can't be rich as a country without having the power to stay rich unless you are a little mountain region country or riding on the coat tails of a country that is. You will need to protect your supply lines if you are an actor in a globalized world. So you have to become that country if you want to stay independent, and want to be supplied with the goods that you depend on. Alternatively you could sign a mutual defense pact but then you're right back where you started...
Some Americans are richer, just like my friend just outside of LA who drives a Ferrari. He only drives it on his own grounds (which he has plenty of) because the road that his estate borders on is so bad that he would wreck his car if he drove it and while he's wealthy he is not so wealthy that he can afford to maintain a large chunk of the local infrastructure.
Personally, I'd rather have a more modest car and a better road outside of my own grounds (or even a bike path...), and a more modest gap between the rich and the poor as well as between the rich and the middle class and the poor and the middle class.
America has had the option to spread its riches to the people but instead had the people rack up ever larger debt whilst pampering the lucky few. That works - for a while - but in the end it sets the stage for a confrontation between the haves and the have nots. The MAGA movement is ultimately a mis-direction effort to do a smash and grab to make the rich a lot richer still because the clock is running out. It's a bit like the sheep voting for the wolves, they talk so convincing, we should at least give them a chance.
> You can't be rich as a country without having the power to stay rich unless you are a little mountain region country or riding on the coat tails of a country that is.
Countries become rich because of stable, competent institutions, not because they can maintain a military empire.
Ireland, Singapore are both examples of this.
> You will need to protect your supply lines if you are an actor in a globalized world. So you have to become that country if you want to stay independent, and want to be supplied with the goods that you depend on.
Protect supply lines from whom? how are military bases in Turkey, Germany, Poland, etc protecting "supply lines"?
one of the most important supply lines for europe (hydrocarbons from russia) has been stifled for the past 4 years - why havent our bases or military been able to keep it open?
similarly, why are our numerous bases in Middle East failing to protect supply lines?
i would argue that in both those cases, our aggressive military expansion (nato, israel expansion + gulf bases) caused the closure of those critical supply lines.
> Protect supply lines from whom? how are military bases in Turkey, Germany, Poland, etc protecting "supply lines"?
Because they are on friendly territory that remains friendly on account of that. Mutual defense again, coupled with some more history. Why do you think the USA wants to use its bases in Europe for the war against Iran?
> i would argue that in both those cases, our aggressive military expansion (nato, israel expansion + gulf bases) caused the closure of those critical supply lines.
NATO is not 'aggressive military expansion' even though Trump seems to think it should be. As for Israel, that really is a US problem, Israel in part became the belligerent that it is today because it has been shielded and supported militarily well beyond defense. This is going to cause trouble for at least another century, maybe more.
> I understand you right you fail to see what a lasting peace and good relationship with allies will do for the country that brokers that peace and you require 'extraordinary evidence' because it is an extraordinary claim? Next up you're going to say that the USA should have never joined World War II or created the Marshall plan in the immediate aftermath, that's a logical extension of that argument since that's universally seen as the launch of 'Pax Americana'.
I don't agree with him a lot of the time but I think his request is reasonable and I share his skepticism about the idea that US military presence and interventions are somehow beneficial
to the American's wellbeing, both the median American and the polity as a whole.
why should i not be skeptical? the first order effects of military are inherently destructive - why should i assume that having more military makes anyones lives better? its not obvious at all and requires a better explanation IMO.
Yes, you are right that the first order effects of the military are inherently destructive, that's why you should use them with restraint. In that sense the military is no different than other tools: use with caution and read the manual first.
But that has nothing to do with ill advised adventures of conquest, it has everything to do with mutual defense. Not to put too fine a point on it: it has nothing to do with invading Iraq or Iran because you feel like you have been given an excuse to do that which you've been hungry for. Gulf war I was somewhat justified (it really was defense), episode II was bonkers, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and lots of others were not a good use of the military from the start, and we can debate over the effectiveness of the outcome for many reasons.
More military does not make anyone's lives better if you use them to invade. But mutual defense is a very useful thing in a multi polar world. If you can trust your partners to not suddenly go 'might makes right'.
So, it looks like you have your work cut out for you then: how to make sure that America as a whole profits from its exports rather than just a select few individuals. Because if you toss out the concept of weapons exports as a whole because you are turning inwards then you're going to have to find a lot of people in the job queues.
now Germany has a choice - to spend hundreds of billions for conventionally armed military to defend itself and still face risks of war or just a few billions to develop and produce nukes (using already existing Pu from the power plants) and have everlasting peace. Germans are rational people as i heard.
The nuke is a tricky thing: deterring many scenarios like a full scale invasion, but a risk of mutual suicide when the enemy also has it. As a matter of fact it does not stop from "hybrid war", there are so many possibilities to harm a country (disorganize society, promote a friendly leader, attack critical infrastructures,...). So having nukes certainly increases security in many cases but is not sufficient to have everlasting peace !
How many military bases does the US have in Switzerland again?
Oh, the number is zero?
Germany? Well guess what, the US has a very prominent airbase and listening station in Ramstein and a bunch of other military installations there. Also: History.
But none of that benefits Germany that much. Being in aliance like NATO with duty for mutual protection benefits them, but american military basis are setup primary for american benefit.
Germany would want them in Poland or such, near to Russia which is an actual threat.
Isn’t the main benefit to America of bases in Germany connected to its commitment to defend European security? If the U.S. didn’t have NATO obligations, how much would it benefit from having German bases?
There was a brief unfortunate episode a couple of hundred years ago, when the US was as little over twenty years old.
Some Africans started capturing American citizens and ships, maybe enslaving some, etc. Really quite unpleasant. The US eventually decided that its best option was invading Morocco.
It didn't have a commitment to defend anyone nearby, except the many Americans who traded all over the world.
The US has worldwide trade and interests now too, more so than in 1805.
To be able to take territory when it wants something like greenland? Cause speaking about NATO, exactly one country triggerend article 5 and then threatened other members.
Second, more to the point they have rather large military hospital there. It is also used as a safe place to transfer troops through or have them ready for outside of eu operations.
Commitment to European security would be to not support Russia. Or soldiers in Poland and Latvia. As of now, European countries paid for missiles and US is refusing to deliver.
America complained and pressured whenever Europeans bought arms from non american manufacturers. Thr first time it started to matter for real, it stopped delivering.
Switzerland benefits from being surrounded by well protected neighbors. They also try to be MAD without being mad, they will just blow up all the roads and retreat to the mountains if they are invaded.
Do you think Germany doesn’t have nukes? I’ve always assumed it’s like Japan. They don’t “have nukes.” Just all the parts to make a nuke in five minutes.
Of course making an actual bomb is extremely easy especially when you have Pu from the power plants. And Germany has great stealth cruise missiles which potentially can carry those warheads. Yet actually making and possessing a nuclear arsenal is still a pretty large continuous endeavor - all the facilities for producing and storing of the warheads and delivery missiles, the security for that infrastructure, the ongoing technical maintenance of the weapons, all the people of what is, though small, still basically a separate branch of military, maintenance of the readiness level, integration of these weapons into overall military strategy and training exercises, etc.
It is still much cheaper and more effective than a large conventional army, yet sufficiently large and complex to not be doable overnight, so a political situation is required which would allow to, still very quickly, do it.
For 90s kids who remember their parents having people over, parties were really like that! Obviously without the drama and comedy. But people would come over and socialize and not be glued to screens. And we have data that things have changed dramatically. In 1990, 55% of men reported having six or more close friends. In 2021 it was down to 27%. The percentage of men who have no close friends is up by a factor of five, to 15%.
> But people would come over and socialize and not be glued to screens. And we have data that things have changed dramatically.
My wife and I are moderately social with diverse groups of friends. I haven't been to a party where guests were glued to screens in years.
I can think of a few, but they were so uninteresting that we didn't prioritize future events with those people. Why would I spend my limited free time hanging out with people who don't want to socialize?
Thinking back, those people probably think that staring at phones at social events is just what people do, so it was okay. When you don't see your friend group self-selecting into a bubble of people with shared beliefs and behaviors, you think everything around you is how everyone in the world operates.
I remember back in the early 80s my father knew the drummer or bassist of some "A-minus-list" up and coming 80s band (the actual band escapes me, maybe Poison way before "Every Rose Has Its Thorn") and he convinced the band to hang out at his house and jam. Well I remember the whole small town Pennsylvania community showed up and it was a total ripper. I never properly capitalized on the cool-kid-cred I should have gotten from that night.
America can’t solve this problem democratically. Trump has taught the GOP you can win elections through targeted bribery (e.g. No Taxes on Tips), avoiding hard decisions (e.g. no cuts to entitlements), and distracting people with expensive spectacle. Meanwhile, Democrats are a collection of interest groups held together by patronage. In the recent election, Democrats were knee-capped because inflation made it impossible to promise expensive new programs. With expanding benefits off the table as a carrot, Trump was able to make big gains among Democrat groups (e.g. Bangladeshi immigrants in Queens, Muslim immigrants in Michigan) that lean more conservative on issues other than government welfare.
That leaves everyone dealing in fictions: the fiction that you can reduce debt by cutting taxes, the fiction you can reduce debt by increasing spending, and fictions about how much you really balance the books by targeting only “billionaires” instead of taxing the middle class.
The only problem that exists is spending too much money. They could fix this overnight if people were willing to give up public entitlements and healthcare support. But they aren’t willing to so the US will eventually see hyper inflation or less likely bankruptcy
No, you can also raise taxes. The deficit is 4% of GDP. If we raised taxes by 4% of GDP, we'd still be less than the OECD average. We'd be the same as Australia, which is the second lowest-tax Anglosphere country.
We are spending 3 trillion extra dollars than we take in taxes per year. That means taxes would go up by 75 percent. Even then it doesn’t matter because we will spend even more. Everyone agrees to spend, no one agrees to cut
I must have been looking at old data, but it looks like $1.9 trillion in FY2026. So that's 6.5% of GDP rather than 4% like I said above. Taxes as a percentage of GDP is currently about 25%, so going up to 31.5% would be a 26% jump. Not great, but not catastrophic.
But I agree that if we raised taxes we would just spend more. :(
If taxes are raised then the people have to pay for the services, which is exactly what they don't want to have to do. That is the whole appeal of having those services — that they are, for all intents and purposes, free.
I mean this is the problem with half a century of global-hegemony-fueled debt binging. We could balance the budget our taxes would still be $2.7 trillion lower than what they would be if we were at the EU average.
Taxes would have to go up so dramatically that people would completely be protesting in the streets and rioting. Governments always just print more money instead. Which is why we are at the spot we are at.
That would be irrational. Even the UK and France spend 2% of GDP on defense, and they live under America's shield. Cutting our spending down to their level would save $400 billion/year. That's not peanuts, but that's only 1/3 of the deficit.
Having sufficient capacity for violence is indispensable for the existence of a state. You need a military so you can kill people in other countries, and you need police so you can maintain an internal monopoly on violence. You can't have state-funded preschool if you don't have a state. The Ukrainians unfortunately are learning this the hard way right now.
> Even the UK and France spend 2% of GDP on defense, and they live under America's shield.
You mean: America lives under the UK and France's shield. The last time that US soldiers died to defend France or the UK is a long time ago, much more recently French and UK soldiers died for (amongst others) the USA. Not that anybody seems to remember.
Oh and on a per-capita basis more people from the UK died in the Gulf war than from the USA.
But this isn't a matter of keeping score it is standing together and at least trying to maintain some kind of world order. One problem with that is that you may have to refrain from threatening your allies with invasion.
Re: "You can't have state-funded preschool if you don't have a state" - USA is protected by two immense oceans right and left and two huge, weak and pliable neighbors up and down. From all sides USA is well protected without spending hundreds of billions anually. About ballistic missiles threat - USA already has 1,200 nuclear warheads deployed in various forms (submarine, air force, ground silos) so MADD takes care of that.
With 2% of GDP USA would take care of all its defense needs. USA does not need 11 aircraft carrier groups, about 100 nuclear-powered submarines, about 2,000 jet fighters, only God knows how many destroyers, to protect itself.
I agree the US could take care of its defense needs with 2% of GDP. But that would be a 40% cut, not a 90% cut. What we wouldn't be able to do is commit to protecting Europe or backstopping global capitalism.
> What we wouldn't be able to do is commit to protecting Europe or backstopping global capitalism.
We voted "America First" just recently. The 10% of the current budget should be enough to protect us against Canada and Mexico... except of course that budget is not for defense...
Who would ever want to invade the US? You would be destroying nearly everything of value because half the US economy is based on financial services. And it would make middle eastern insurgencies seem like childs play compared to the 10x higher gun ownership rate with better and more modern firearms in the US with a far higher percentage of practiced shooters and veterans.
Effectively, no one. The CCP doesn’t have the logistics capability or manpower to manage the largest occupation in the history of the world from half a world away.
They can and do want to destabilize American hegemony, but that doesn’t necessitate an end to the American state. My read is they prefer something like the British model for ex-imperials.
It also doesn’t appear on the ALL CAPS list of campaign priorities: https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/. The word “debt” doesn’t appear anywhere in the document. And the word “deficit” appears just once in the context of the trade deficit.
Trump was the first candidate to release a list of itemized priorities in small words and ALL CAPS so the average dumbass could understand. There are many, many things you can say about this list. But it’s very hard to inject ambiguity into what he was running on.
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