… escapes prosecution due to the blossoming american oligarchy?

There’s been protests literally every day of trump’s presidency, what country are you watching? Seriously, is your main source of news not reporting on them? Because if so you should probably think about switching.

I salute your strategy of the great wall of rambling text, it truly is demoralizing at this time.

(My point exactly. And, since I lack even a shred of self awareness, here have six more paragraphs! I really tried to keep them on just one topic, at least)

First, let me say that you are correct on several points - you cannot have a land invasion or launch an occupation with air and naval assets alone. You’re also 100% correct that the US Navy does not have 1,100 F-35 Lightning II Cs, that was not what I meant to imply (afaik there are only ~105 F35Cs). Now obviously, to occupy conquered ground, you have to… occupy, the ground. This is very simple thing which, unfortunately, boats are famously ill suited to. Planes are, also, just garbage at it. I will make no attempt to deny these patently obvious facts, which I happily will cede to you without contest. Admittedly, this is a serious problem for my hypothetical invading army to overcome. Because unfortunately, the easiest way to transport large numbers of that really cool military stuff we all love, like tanks and rockets and red-blooded American heroes with red bandanas on their heads and plot armor a mile thick, is inside big planes or on big boats.

So lets just… ignore that problem. It’s inconvenient.

A nuclear supercarrier is a massive strategic asset, both physically and metaphorically. It lets you project force over a huge area that your mainland based assets simply do not have and that is absolutely invaluable in the geopolitical world. It lets you power small cities for disaster relief. And they are the most densely packed logistical hubs ever conceived. That last thing is why they’re valuable, really. Obviously they can service, fuel, coordinate and re-arm their compliment of aircraft and that alone is amazingly useful, but see, in this hypothetical invasion scenario, the most useful thing they could do would be to just…

Sit there.

No, really. Park a strike group out in the middle of the atlantic, run a tube over to an oiler, and you can keep a flight of air tankers circling overhead 24/7. Think about that, seriously, because this is what I think you’ve failed to understand the implications of. The US doesn’t particularly have the hardest troops or some innate superiority at warfare, but they are so far beyond the logistical capacity of any other nation that it’s genuinely scary.

Putting a carrier out there, a long long way away from harm, isn’t glamorous. But by doing so it enables the mainland US air assets to launch directly on missions, without a need for a forward air base. We do this all the time, too - every mission flown by a B2 Spirit takes off and lands at Whiteman Airforce Base (ranked #1 for “airbases with the most mask-off names”). Any strategic bomber is the same. So with one carrier, suddenly all ~900 of those 5th generation stealth multirole aircraft can be deployed for anything from interdiction to close air support. The limit becomes how much meth the pilot can handle and how many bombs can be strapped to one of those damn things.

THAT is what makes the US military a threat. I had a bunch more, explaining how the IRF and CRG can set up an Expeditionary Airbase in 24hrs and then just drop in C5 galaxies and what are you gonna do from there? And a bit about how most of the EU member states still use Gulf War era anti-aircraft systems, and those got merc’d by the damn F117. And a reaaaally boring bit about how the US’s Strategic Airlift capability is super duper astounding (seriously, a C5 can haul two abrams at once) which has been removed in editing, you’re welcome.

But… I honestly don’t think I need any of that. That the US can project it’s mainland-based assets into any arbitrary theater is already unbelievable. That a LCAC can carry an abrams to shore, that 24hr expeditionary airbases include utilities and fast food restaurants, that there is no EU counter to the B52’s standoff payload delivery, that the US has a damn paradrop conference table? Those are all a pale second to the reality that the US can bomb every last scrap of infrastructure you have, level your whole town, and the pilots that did it will be going home to their cliche Missouri family a few hours later. It’s the refinement of banal evil to the point that combat becomes, you know, a job. There’s nothing else like it, and it should terrify the fuck out of you because it sure as hell does me.

(I’m just ignoring everything about canada (because I’m just too tired) and what divestment means (because holy fuck nobody cares, not you, not me, nobody))

Apologies, lemmy is having a day. One moment while I sort this out…

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Ah man… Point by point breakdowns are usually the death knell of a discussion. It just spirals into longer and longer posts with less and less substance. For example:

if you understand that the US cannot invade despite their superior military

Where did I say that the US can’t invade? Ukraine has shown that nuclear deterrence is an extremely complicated subject. Would France actually be willing to end the world to save the Dutch? Nobody knows!

I am also confused about who you think Trump warned the EU against? His own America? He just wanted the EU to pay more to US industry.

Yes exactly. Trump isn’t good at this. His arguments are too small to get his fat little body off the ground. Trump, of course, says them anyways. Trump doesn’t care what humans think.

It creates a security obligation which the EU cannot fulfill towards Canada.

What’s the problem? Canada is aware of this going into it, so is the EU. It’s clearly a move that bolsters economies and not the respective militaries, at least in the near term, which is what is currently under threat. Long term, economic and military partnership between the EU and canada is blah blah blah longwinded nobody cares blah

Quite the opposite it has repeatedly pushed for more EU investment in military defense, a part of which would go to US industry.

But but but… That’s divestment. That’s doing divestment.

Etc.

Isn’t that just… miserable? All I’m doing is picking your nits, and that doesn’t really further anything because at no point does it address your thesis. I’m just batting at your arguments like a fat cat who wants you to stop bonking into it with the mouse but is too lazy to actually move off the mousepad. It doesn’t add anything, except incentive for this to turn into another boring internet slap fight. Honestly this feels like either we’re agreeing but not realizing it, or you have no experience with the military at all but don’t want to admit that (and I really do not think it’s the second option!).

Okay, here, how about I say: “Current US forces in the EU are not and never have been an occupying force - they could be casually sidelined by parking a big truck in front of the gates and stopping the beer delivery” and you please try to believe me. Not even joking, like, you’re right and it’s 100% true, I promise, and I have not argued anything else at any point. The forces the US stations in Europe (with the possible exception of some of the air assets at German-hosted bases like Ramstein) have no significant conventional defensive ability, they’re all sigint, liaison and a guard for the nukes. They could be rolled over by a determined enough girlscout troop (probably not by the boyscouts, though…).

Everyone knows that.

If you cross cancel the nukes from both sides in this hypothetical scenario (because it’s no fun to speculate when the end state is “absolutely everyone dies forever”) you’re left with a coalition of economically and culturally extremely powerful countries that just utterly lack a response to realities like “seven carrier strike groups” or “more than a thousand F35s”. Any hypothetical US occupation of the EU would obviously devolve into the exact kind of guerilla/insurgent warfare the US absolutely sucks at, but that doesn’t matter if this lunatic admin decides to have ROEs that are really relaxed about things like ‘civilians’. You just cannot win a war of attrition with the US right now, it’s pretty doubtful even the other superpowers could (that’s why they’re going the election interference route…) and provoking one by attacking US tripwire bases would be suicidal.

I feel like I should point out here that I do not like this. I’m not proud about this shit, honestly I’m too busy worrying about the “my country is burning down around me and I haven’t even got a bucket with which to staunch the flames” thing. But, the good news is (not for me I admit) that any significant mobilization to invade the EU will trigger a civil war in the US. To say that the idea ‘is as popular as giving children syphilis’ is to do a disservice to hyperbole. So I guess take heart that they’d have to roll over a great many americans (including me) before they ever get off the mainland.
…
Well, okay, these fuckers would happily do that (honestly they’d probably consider it a bonus), but the tree of moral victory is watered with the blood of martyrs. And fertilized with the paste their corpses have been ground into. And probably guided on a trellis made from what few bones weren’t ground into powder.
…
Or something, idk. This is getting dumb. I just really hope there’ll never be a chance for me to be proven right.

(It is late and I am tired, so I apologize if this comes accross as rude or similar. I’m really not trying to be.)

Invading across an ocean is hard, you need to be able to move significant forces in or nearby before hostilities start or face no resistance in the initial landing.

This isn’t WWII though, opposed landings aren’t something anyone still does. Besides that, in this hypothetical scenario everyone has nukes. It’s really just an exercise in how much aggression each side will tolerate before someone escalates to that point.

Look I’m not disagreeing with the broad sentiment that the EU needs to get it’s shit together and divest from the US militarily – the US has been practically begging for that since clinton, hell obama, biden and trump all warned against this exact fascist-takeover america-unreliable scenario. I also for sure am not assuming the US will not be the aggressor. I mean, we’re even threatening the EU with annexation right now. I seriously doubt it’ll get to that point, but it’s by no means ruled out.

Things like adding canada to the EU are excellent strategic moves, since it not only gives the EU an ally with many friendly airbases across the ocean but, waaaaay more importantly, it gives them economic strength with which to batter the US and bolster their own economies. This is an economic war, and the US probably won’t win it. Hoorayyy?

Originally, I live in the US now. While I’m all for EU countries breaking military ties with the US, no really that is a super important move, open warfare with American forces would be suicide. The US has been the lynchpin of NATO for decades, and is tied in to every layer of the EU military apparatus. There isn’t parity with the american military in any way with respect to this, and it’s the kind of strategic disadvantage that can’t be overcome without legislative reform and many years of buildup. At the moment, especially with trump helming this shithole, any government asking the US to vacate it’s bases will need to do so with the understanding that they only have economic resources to fall back on if the US just says “no”.

Yeah, because open warfare with the US is a great geopolitical move that will end super well for everyone except russia. 100% no russian victory in fomenting that particular brand of chaos. nope.

Seems like uh… maybe a strike is in order? Maybe?

Were this true, we wouldn’t be discussing it. This is not an issue from hundreds of years ago, this is the reality lived by more than a billion people every day. There are places where attacks from feral dog packs are a present concern (example, example), there’s countless reports about this it truly is not difficult to verify. How would you approach this, if you had less than $2.15/day to survive on? A thrown rock is a great deal more effective at addressing the problem than even the most fervent moralizing.

I’ve faced a lot more hardship than you

The playgrounds I grew up on could only be visited while armed guards were there. That many children in once place made too tempting a target to be left otherwise unprotected.

… How would you prefer it were done?

“It’s tragic that in ignorance there truly is bliss; we can never cherish it while we have it, but we still mourn it’s passing when we lose it.”

Throwing a rock to protect your food is humanity at it’s most fundamental level. It’s the reason we were able to develop as a species. When you’re reduced to that point, you do not have the luxury of extending your morality to the things that threaten you and yours. I’m sorry you have to confront this today, but this is the reality of life for most people in the world. It’s despicable by your standards, but your standards have gone generations without facing extreme hardship. I sincerely hope you never have more experience with the subject than discussing it online.

Bills must be paid by Wednesday, or else.

… or else what, exactly? There seems to be a whole lot of sternly worded judicial opinions, but can they actually do anything to enforce said decisions??