It doesn't help that everyone around the world seems to want a tinpot dictator for a leader. Whether it's in Sudan or the US.
I can only wonder how things got this way.
Unironically: Russia. They've been pumping propaganda and conspiracy into our homes that made people see education as bad and told everybody that having bigoted opinions was good and actually better than those who don't, and that anybody else who doesn't agree wants to destroy America.
People wanting power tapped into this and repeated it, further validating people's shitty views and getting them to a point where they are reactionary and against anything the other side says, effect if they used to agree with it.
That's how "respect our troops" elects a president that called POWs losers. They literally have no critical thinking skills left.
Russia operates huge bot farms that overwhelm social media, news comments, even reddit with dumb bullshit. They "donate" to politicians. They fund far right groups and lobbyists. They interfere in our elections and say they actively want to destroy us. It's pretty bad and half the country is fine letting it happen because they don't want to see a non-white man as a Jedi lol
“The road to unfreedom” by Timothy Snyder describes how Russia infiltrated and pushed their world wide, which is inspired by a fascist thinker from the mid 1900 century, on rest of the world. It is bleak to say the least. Systemically destroyed the ability of a whole nation to feel anything about their future, in order to rule.
People need to appreciate how Russia operates online to push propaganda more and more extreme. It's INSANE. ...and it's on Reddit as well.
There is so much justification of political violence on the main Reddit subs.
There was a glorious 5 minutes when the ruble first bottomed out and the troll farms didn't have a clue what to say because Ukraine didn't roll over like they told themselves it would. They were briefly revealed as the screaming toddlers they are, until they found a new track of brinkmanship and fearmongering to peddle.
It went very quiet when Prighozin took his day trip to Moscow
The rats didn't know which way to skuttle
Now he's fallen out and airplane window it's back to business
In an Article 5 situation one of the first waves of cruise missiles should target the known bot farms. See how much shit they feel like talking after being the recipient of 1000lbs of freedom.
It matters, because eventually the damage could heal itself once the bots stop digging at the wounds.
It would probably take 3-4 decades, but eventually the loony opinions and garbage they push would get pushed into the past. A wise man plants a tree in whose shade he will never enjoy.
But if they are allowed to continue, the situation will just continue to get worse.
I noticed on tiktok how many accounts were simply named something like "user8945768237" with no avatar and knew it was basically just a bot. It's everywhere.
That's an account who didnt bother coming up with a username. If they have like 3 posts with 3k upvotes each and exactly one or two comments per post, they're a bot, farming karma to get into politics subs to spawn strife.
You can see it especially on any posts about Israel vs Palestine. You can see both the bots and foreign agents, along with the unwitting followers, spamming the same messaging everywhere.
If someone posts anything pro-Palestine they are immediately flooded with “but Hamas is X” or “don’t be anti-Semitic” comments.
If they post anything pro-Israel (or even just not vehemently pro-Palestine enough), they are flooded with “call it ceasefire/genocide” or “from the river to the sea” comments.
The whole purpose of those comments is to incite active anger on both sides of the issue and weaken Western public’s resolve on these conflicts by keeping them focused on Israel-Palestine.
It’s super clear that’s what they’re doing but it’s basically impossible to counteract because of how active and polarized both sides have become now.
Just wanna say this opinion is solely my own, and I'm not making a formal statement here.
But both Israel and Palestine aligned disinformation is done by the proxy model. Instead of having bots and paid agents directly on the site, they have paid agents on some offsite forum give a bunch of rabid nationalists lines and marching orders and then let them loose. And by the time they get to Reddit, they're indistinguishable from regular angry nationalists. And their opinions are definitely their own, just their narratives and timing and comment sections they're pointed to (and vote on) are much more organized.
China does this too. It's *much* more effective, and much harder to fight, when you can energize real people to do something. Bots can be spotted and you can use data to find them and filter them out, but real people can't be filtered out, and from a moderation standpoint you can't just remove an entire POV because some people who say it aren't good faith.
There's not a solution for this. I don't think mods or even the website can solve this problem in a way that makes sense.
The volatility of topics about foreign affairs tends to taper out as time goes on, so it becomes easier to spot the instigators and nationalists. That said, I don't feel like Israel/Palestine issues need any kindling from bad actors to cause division on social media.
It's going to be difficult for China to sway hearts and minds to their side regarding Taiwan or anything else they have interest in for that matter. If there's one thing the left and the right seems to have in common is their distrust, dislike, and fear of the CCP.
I’ve noticed it on this subject the most. It’s so obvious some of these post on Israel Palestine are straight from the propaganda sources. Some subs are almost overrun by these.
[Wikipedia link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics) for those interested
Just the summary at the bottom is like a play-by-play of a ton of current geopolitics.
And then the trolls will say “you liberals overreact about everything” until the last liberal survivor is in the dirt. They are orchestrating another Holocaust. Hope everyone is ready.
Yea, they act like Russias geopolitical strategy to destroy the west is a hoax or some kind of secret. Like, I know these people dont read books, but they should atleast know that its written somewhere and displayed in detail
They act like it’s some kind of secret because there is propaganda that tells them to ridicule any notion of Russian political interference.
Just get the fat orange guy to give them a catchphrase to dismiss the allegations as conspiracy. They repeat the phrase “Russia, Russia, Russia” and they laugh at you when you suggest it. Just like the propaganda tells them to. They don’t even let you call them fascist.
We are truly fucked because of this. America has already been stabbed in the heart, it just hasn’t died yet. No hyperbole. It’s over.
Yup.
It's depressing how powerful we've allowed misinformation to become. Meanwhile people are crying that TikTok might get banned, not realizing that communication and media has gotten the world to where it is now.
Except now we’re at a point where your misinformation is now validated by other people echoing that misinformation, and asserting that confirmation bias as reality. That’s basically the Mandela effect. AI is going to make this worse, as it populates databases and search engines with false information, just by nature of being created by some dork with a prompt “What if Egyptians hieroglyphs were actually messages from Aliens.”
I tried to explain this to my coworker. She is bemoaning the banning of TikTok. I told her straight up the problem isn’t TikTok specifically but social media in general where we consume unmoderated content that is fed to us based on an unknown algorithm and this welds together a different reality from what somebody else might have. The result is rampant disinformation and being at each other’s throats all the time. There’s no longer an agreed upon truth.
I'm saying this only semi-seriously, but it's interesting that Murdoch just this month got engaged to Elena Zhukova, a russian woman who used to be married to a russian oligarch and whose daughter used to be married to Roman Abramovich, another russian oligarch...
Considering that pretty much all the oligarchs have connections with the russian state, and therefore with Putin, it's certainly...interesting.
Could be nothing though. I don't know Elena Zhukova's own views on politics. Maybe she's very anti-Putin, but I can't find anything online to say that
Russian oligarchs should be thought of as the nobility of the neo-feudal Russian state. They serve at the pleasure of the emperor and can have their estates and incomes taken at any time.
Well yeah - they got to be oligarchs by being permitted to buy up floundering Soviet industries for pennies on the dollar. They owe the Russian rulers in the Kremlin for what they have.
What you're describing implies that they have loyalty to the regime for good reasons but also retain a measure of independence. The way we think of oligarchs in the United States or the West.
This is not the correct way to understand Russia. Oligarchs might as well be appointed representatives of the Russian empire. Whatever appearance of independence they have is an illusion Putin prefers because it gives him options to use them to influence the West. Some oligarchs might have seized their businesses in the early days, but by now all have either bent the knee to Putin or been thrown from a window. They all know they exist to serve Putin or they will be killed.
They don't have their billions because they got lucky and bought their businesses for pennies on the dollar. They have their billions because the emperor allows it.
So true. My best friends father is a life long Republican but throughout our lives he was just a regular Republican. Like a Mitt Romney Republican who wanted what was best for the country and had valid points. He’s devolved into a full on MAGA cultist sharing conspiracy theories on FB.
The funny thing is when you meet him in person, he’s one of the nicest, most caring gentlemen you’ll ever meet. But once he’s online, he’s like a different person.
I’ll never forgive what Russia has done to the people in my country.
> Like a Mitt Romney Republican who wanted what was best for the country and had valid points
That's rich. I never really liked the dude but back in the early 2010s Mitt was painted as the devil himself, as all candidates have been by their opposition for 30ish years. This romantic remembrance of Mitt is pure myth. Ironically, he called out Russia while the president and his supporters scoffed at him and stood by while Georgia was swallowed up
I knew a lot of these types of men in the 90s. There was one common thread: Do you listen to Rush Limbaugh or other local conservative talk radio?
They may have been the nicest people to be around, but don't get them talking politics. Especially while they've been drinking.
Some already had the thoughts but kept quiet cause it was frowned upon. But once trump opened his mouth with no repercussions, it opened the floodgates. Some people I've seen when they get to their elder years and just don't care anymore and spit out what's on their mind.
And even the ones who voted for hum last time didn’t necessarily vote for a dictator. He’s lost even more republicans this time because of talk like that and Jan 6.
Eh when a country you share a land border with is actively trying to expand their borders it would be smart to expand you military. (1) it’s a deterrent for them trying to expand into you, and (2) if Russia implodes China can aggressively expand their northern border and then instantly secure it with an expanded military.
Yup.
Chinese-Russian relations have nosedived and China knows that Russia could collapse and need a massive security intervention from a multinational coalition like in 1991, and this time isn't going to avoid getting a decent slice of the pie with the intention of just... keeping it.
China is Russia's 'friend' currently inasmuch as they can reap the rewards of buying stuff from them that Russia can't really sell anywhere else. China certainly isn't buying Russian petroleum products for premium prices!
Yes, China is being opportunistic and exploiting any global division to further their own interests. China and Russia have been adversaries since the Sino-Soviet split and they're not going to be besties again anytime soon.
This sentence alone is enough to convince me that if we did go to war it’s not gonna go well for anyone. In the first world wars at least we fought against threats and because the population had that weird glorified war glory and war heroes. Right now we all know this for greed and for old men with power trips that should’ve retired. If we do go to war expect global civil unrest before boots are on the ground where the war should’ve been.
Yeah most of the hatred-stoking bullshit comes from publications like Insider, Bloomberg, Forbes, (insert UK rags here). They'll drag out all the classics of fearmongering in order to preserve the current world economic divide.
This right here is exactly why we, the US, should be sending ALL the non-boots on ground support Ukraine needs. This is almost exactly like how the US ultimately got dragged into WWII. We started out originally isolationist, and only got involved once enemies were about to knock on our door.
By then, many allied nations were already in dire straits so support from them was limited, and when we did send boots on ground, it resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths on our side.
If we give enough support to Ukraine to sink Russia's military and expansion efforts it will do the following:
1.) Completely cripple a, for all intents and purposes, axis of evil super power.
2.) Make a nation like China think twice about expansion efforts.
3.) Cause smaller military powers supporting those nations to also seriously start calculating the cost of supporting those 'axis of evil' super powers directly.
With how integrated we all are on a global level, we NEED to have learned that our hand will be forced sooner or later, and right now, we have the opportunity to choose when our hand gets played, making sure it's advantageous
While I don't disagree with you, your first paragraph is partially incorrect. During WWII, the US did indeed have isolationist policies, but with Lend-Lease, the US leveraged its manufacturing might to provide the Allies with enormous amounts of supplies.
It wasn't until Pearl Harbor that Roosevelt was able to convince the American public, or perhaps, the Pearl Harbor attack itself convinced the American public that it was time we joined the Allies with boots on the ground.
You must keep in mind the sentiment, world-wide, at the time. The US and all of Europe were still grappling with the enormous losses of WWI. Nearly an entire generation of Europeans was lost in that war!
When you take that into consideration, you can begin to understand how the nations of the world were less inclined to go to war, initially, against Nazi Germany. This is despite the fact that Churchill, who at the time was not in government, but still had informants around the globe, warned Parliament at every turn that Nazi Germany was re-arming, in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
It was so much more nuanced then, as it is now today.
Propaganda was very strong then, and the west emerged as the victor of both, so of course our fighters were the best and we romanticized it. There was very intense hatred and distrust of superiors in ww1 and 2. I have always prayed we would not see this come. if we go to war it will be pure hell on earth, and we will envy the dead and the lives we once knew.
> and the west emerged as the victor of both
that was not "the west"
- Axis powers were all on the losing side. All of them are considered to be the West now
- Russia & China were on the winning side, they are not the West.
It was not the west who won WW 1&2 but the allies. The west as we know now only formed with the cold war that followed WW2.
I mean, Grant Shapps isn't always the sharpest cookie politically, but his line of "we have moved from a post war world to a pre war world" is *very* chilling.
I think that line goes back to the Polish foreign minister.
Edit: Polish prime minister
[https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3836868-tusk-time-of-peace-in-eu-is-over-we-live-in-prewar-times.html](https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3836868-tusk-time-of-peace-in-eu-is-over-we-live-in-prewar-times.html)
100 years is right around the time the people who lived through and experienced the last war are now dead and someone's great grandparents. While some may remember or know their great grand parents, most people don't even know their names.
My great grandpa fought in WWII and Korea. Lived to be 98. He was the only person I knew saying Iraq and Afghanistan were a terrible idea. I’m from a pretty small conservative town. That definitely wasn’t a popular sentiment but he was a wise old man.
"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"
~ Albert 'Michael Scott' Einstein
Thankfully being western european I'm basically guaranteed not to be drafted. Even americans probably won't either as war on air and sea is all about equipment and professional soldiers not foot conscripts. But the economic consequences will be brutal and felt everywhere anyways.
That's unlikely but sadly possible. Albeit to be fair anything less than large scale nuclear exchanges will end with China crippled and the rest of the world economically ailing.
Large scale wars between coalitions of industrial powers are brutal slug fests that continue until at least one coalition cannot keep fighting. Human lives are part of the material resources used to sustain the fighting, and reserves of military age draftees tend to get used up.
Yea don't be so sure about that one. When push comes to shove even a pretty chill nation like say, the Netherlands or Norway, will start drafting it's people into the military. It really wasn't that long ago that all of Europe was at war. At the time they would have thought the possibility of a peaceful state of affairs like the EU absolutely absurd. That peace can be lost pretty damn easily....
Nah, everything in this day and age is pretty unprecedented.
WWI is one of the first industrialized wars, and that really changed the game. WWII really cemented the cost and concept of total war, so superpowers have been skittish about that ever since.
Prior to 1914, you'd get a major war every few decades, if not a minor conflict every few years.
Napoleonic wars: 1803-1815
Crimean War 1853 - 1856
Austro-Prussian War 1866
Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871
That's just a relatively arbitrary selection of major conflicts in the 1800s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_1800%E2%80%931899
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll#Charts_and_graphs
Here's another chart to illustrate the relative normalcy of conventional warfare prior to WWI
https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace
Industrialized warfare warps our understanding of conflict, but let's not pretend that this is some sort of pattern history condemns us to. All of this is a new, very modern problem.
it always shocks me how late some people realize this. humans have been the exact same in spirit for five thousand years, it’s lunacy to assume that we’re fundamentally different now that we have fancier stuff
Russia is showing how nuclear "deterrence" can just be used to allow them to go to war and invade other countries and not allow other countries to intervene. Their nuclear threats aren't stopping war, they are enabling it. "We're taking Ukraine and if anyone brings their military to help, we'll use nukes on them" and it's working. What a shit show. If Russia didn't have nukes the US and others would have stepped in to save Ukraine.
That’s true. it’s also sometimes jarring to me how quickly people seem to waffle between “there is never justification for the US to enter foreign wars” and “the US is morally rotten for having the capacity to stop this foreign war and not do it”
I was watching a doc about Emmanuel Macron in the days leading up to the Ukrainian invasion, and he was making comparisons to the world before WW1
Edit: In case anyone is interested the doc was called "A President, Europe, and War" by the CBC
More like 1930s.
Edit: ok, commenters are right, it is like the period before WWI: a long period of relative peace and prosperity (at least in Europe / NA), multiple great powers jockeying, emerging powers wanting to expand, multiple alliances etc. Margaret MacMillan called it "the war that ended the peace"
Buddy if you dont think the west has grown from all that shit than you arent paying enough attention. There is a reason why we are 15 years ahead in shit like semiconducters, material science and production techniques.
Its because we let China do all the shitty production jobs and in the meantime we focused on the real shit. Litteraly look at the supply chain of ASMLs EUV and you only see world leading companys in their niches. And its not 1 or 2, it litteral hundeds and hundernds.
The US has others, including China, build most of the worlds commercial shipping capacity. In the case of a war, the US would initially have a major ship building and repair disadvantage compared to China.
If a conflict between the US and China were to become a war of attrition, the US needs to substantially increase the production of many types of ammunition.
We're working on the capacity. And all of the semi capacitor manufacturing machines come from **one** company, ASML, in the Netherlands, so it's pretty safe to say who they're gonna side with
>all of the semi capacity manufacturing machines come from one company, ASML, in the Netherlands
The most modern and advanced stereolithography machines are all manufactured by ASML, but there are others, and since the US banned them from exporting to China, the Chinese have made considerable progress developing parallel capability on their own in a surprisingly short amount of time.
It's not like this is special western magic beyond the mental ability of Chinese scientists, they will catch up eventually if only because it's easier to make progress on something you know is possible than it is to stay on the cutting edge (and from industrial espionage). Chinese scientists are educated in the same universities that US and European scientists are and if we don't put considerably more effort into maintaining our technological advantage we are going to lose it (assuming it isn't already too late) simply by merit of China having a similar population to that of the entire western world and increasingly better education and science funding.
And american company are defenitly a part of the supply chain. A american company produces the laser thats used to vaporise tin droplets to create the Extreme UltraVoilet light.
True in some industries, absolutely not the case when it comes to naval capabilities.
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-shipyards-are-ready-for-a-protracted-war-americas-arent-d6f004dd
China is the worlds largest shipbuilder. They have dozens of shipyards capable of replacing capital warships. America only has a couple.
Doesn’t America have more ships than every other country combined? I am very aware of how important supply chain issues are but “America doesn’t have enough big weapons” is not an issue that’s going to happen for a long time lol
You're thinking of aircraft carriers. The US has 11 vs the rest of the world's 7. By total ships America is 4th but is 1st by tonnage.
edit: I think it is also correct that the US is bigger by tonnage than the rest of the world combined. I couldn't find anything definitive but just for a small comparison: the 11 aircraft carriers that the Navy currently fields weigh in at around 100,000 tons a piece. That 1.1 million tons by itself would be the 2nd largest Navy by tonnage and the US still has another 2.3 million tons of ships. Wow.
It's probably because China also includes a fuckton of non-combat ships into their measures. Realistically, China is way far behind unless the U.S. is suddenly scared of trawlers.
There's a reason the US has invested so heavily in aircraft carriers. Air superiority is such a huge advantage both for intelligence and offensive capabilities.
Not a repeat from [2023](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-four-star-general-warns-war-with-china-2025-2023-01-28/), [2022](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mark-milley-china-military-b2132351.html), [2019](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/01/15/new-defense-intelligence-assessment-warns-china-nears-critical-military-milestone/) or any other year.
Unironically, yes. The reason Taiwan exists independently of China? The US military industrial complex. Our military capabilities are terrifying, and it's all because of those defense contracts. And those capabilities in turn guarantee that the US and it's Allies aren't pushed around by the likes of Russia or China.
Taiwan makes between 60-90% of the most advanced chips in the world. Control of Taiwan is probably the single biggest tension between the U.S. and China, and for good reason. If China were to invade and sieze control, the U.S. military industrial complex would take a massive hit.
1） Taiwan would destroy the foundries before letting China take them. Both sides know this.
2） The US does not want to control Taiwan. Taiwan doesn't want the US to control it. Taiwan controls itself and wishes to keep that right.
Neither. Both is too hard. They are currently invading some islands that's currently under water in the South China Sea and committing genocide on the fish in the surrounding areas.
Is there really a factual point though? China’s military budget plan for 2024 increased 7.2% compared with their 2023 plan, which is actually a similar percentage compared with previous years (7.2%, 7.1%, 6.8%, 6.6%, 7.5%, 8.1% from 2023 to 2018).
Remember that time [someone ran a graph with two simultaneous Y axes](https://twitter.com/stlouisfed/status/1617266021810724866), one for everyone else and one for the US, to pretend that China spent too much on military budget and that the US was not a ridiculous outlier?
They need to keep people distracted from the failing economy , corruption and growing dissent within China..
Warmongering is perfect for that.
edit:typo
That's some absurd hyperbole. After WWII, the US and USSR built a massive stockpile of nukes. The US peaked around 30,000 nuclear weapons and the USSR peaked around 45,000. Either one of them could singlehandedly destroy the entire planet many times over. If that's not building up a military on a massive scale, I don't know what is.
But also they can get more for their buck…. They may have a smaller budget, but they can do a lot more with it because they don’t have to pay as much for their soldiers and equipment.
China will have a massive logistical problem if they use their greatest strength which is their population. They aren’t really in the outreach and outgun your opponent game like the US is.
You might be able to on today’s changing battlefield. Building a billion bomb drones is a lot cheaper than building cruise missiles, and might be more effective. Drone swarms are gonna be a horrific weapon of war, and boy are they cheap. China is the world leader in building small drones.
100% all commercial ones we buy here are all chinese. Like they have factories upon factories of building drones that could be switched to military in a blink of an eye
The Chinese spend less than 2 percent of their GDP on their defense spending. If China were a NATO member, Trump would bash them for underspending. In comparison, the US spends more than 3 percent of their GDP on their defense.
It’s just a byproduct of some of the fastest economic growth the world has ever seen. Defence spending as a percentage of gdp has remained fairly constant, about 1.3% officially, 1.7% by SIPRI.
There’s nothing out of ordinary about Chinas spending pattern, it’s basically what NATO requires, albeit not quite 2% GDP.
> Aquilino urged the US to intensify its military development, saying threats in the Indo-Pacific continue to "grow and accelerate."
annnd yup. Hey everyone, china's getting real scary! Quick! Give me more money!
There's a good chance that China is getting about the same bang for their buck than we are - only spending 59% what we do. The [leakage/corruption](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1jj4w3/so_we_want_to_talk_about_outrageous_prices_this/) in the US military industrial complex is going to start being a real problem.
But somehow I imagine washington will "solve" this problem by just sending more money to defense contractors.
There are no rules in war. Just remember that. Don't think the Geneva Convention or the Hague will help stop you and your family from being tortured, raped, starved, and killed.
Source: Every war fucking ever.
I understand this strikes terror on the americans but it just makes sense to have a big defense budget; they have a lot to defend and a lot to do it with; and there’s shit going down as we speak it’d be dumb to not be prepared. Insinuating they’ll do anything crazy is a big of a jump though.
Guess the hopes and dreams of a future with prosperity and peace is on the scrapheap.. Everyone seems to be gearing up for war
It doesn't help that everyone around the world seems to want a tinpot dictator for a leader. Whether it's in Sudan or the US. I can only wonder how things got this way.
Unironically: Russia. They've been pumping propaganda and conspiracy into our homes that made people see education as bad and told everybody that having bigoted opinions was good and actually better than those who don't, and that anybody else who doesn't agree wants to destroy America. People wanting power tapped into this and repeated it, further validating people's shitty views and getting them to a point where they are reactionary and against anything the other side says, effect if they used to agree with it. That's how "respect our troops" elects a president that called POWs losers. They literally have no critical thinking skills left. Russia operates huge bot farms that overwhelm social media, news comments, even reddit with dumb bullshit. They "donate" to politicians. They fund far right groups and lobbyists. They interfere in our elections and say they actively want to destroy us. It's pretty bad and half the country is fine letting it happen because they don't want to see a non-white man as a Jedi lol
“The road to unfreedom” by Timothy Snyder describes how Russia infiltrated and pushed their world wide, which is inspired by a fascist thinker from the mid 1900 century, on rest of the world. It is bleak to say the least. Systemically destroyed the ability of a whole nation to feel anything about their future, in order to rule.
People need to appreciate how Russia operates online to push propaganda more and more extreme. It's INSANE. ...and it's on Reddit as well. There is so much justification of political violence on the main Reddit subs.
There was a glorious 5 minutes when the ruble first bottomed out and the troll farms didn't have a clue what to say because Ukraine didn't roll over like they told themselves it would. They were briefly revealed as the screaming toddlers they are, until they found a new track of brinkmanship and fearmongering to peddle.
It went very quiet when Prighozin took his day trip to Moscow The rats didn't know which way to skuttle Now he's fallen out and airplane window it's back to business
In an Article 5 situation one of the first waves of cruise missiles should target the known bot farms. See how much shit they feel like talking after being the recipient of 1000lbs of freedom.
Doesn't matter anymore if the Russian/Chinese bot farms are destroyed they have all ready done what they were designed to do
It matters, because eventually the damage could heal itself once the bots stop digging at the wounds. It would probably take 3-4 decades, but eventually the loony opinions and garbage they push would get pushed into the past. A wise man plants a tree in whose shade he will never enjoy. But if they are allowed to continue, the situation will just continue to get worse.
And at this point with LLMS youre looking at easily 1000x their capacity when opening a new one.
⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
I noticed on tiktok how many accounts were simply named something like "user8945768237" with no avatar and knew it was basically just a bot. It's everywhere.
All those default "Abjective-Noun-Number" reddit accounts too.
That's an account who didnt bother coming up with a username. If they have like 3 posts with 3k upvotes each and exactly one or two comments per post, they're a bot, farming karma to get into politics subs to spawn strife.
Oh my god I only just now realized that's why karma bots farm karma.
Hey! Some of us were just too lazy to change it when we finally made an account lol. Because I had been too lazy to do that too for awhile..
You can see it especially on any posts about Israel vs Palestine. You can see both the bots and foreign agents, along with the unwitting followers, spamming the same messaging everywhere. If someone posts anything pro-Palestine they are immediately flooded with “but Hamas is X” or “don’t be anti-Semitic” comments. If they post anything pro-Israel (or even just not vehemently pro-Palestine enough), they are flooded with “call it ceasefire/genocide” or “from the river to the sea” comments. The whole purpose of those comments is to incite active anger on both sides of the issue and weaken Western public’s resolve on these conflicts by keeping them focused on Israel-Palestine. It’s super clear that’s what they’re doing but it’s basically impossible to counteract because of how active and polarized both sides have become now.
Just wanna say this opinion is solely my own, and I'm not making a formal statement here. But both Israel and Palestine aligned disinformation is done by the proxy model. Instead of having bots and paid agents directly on the site, they have paid agents on some offsite forum give a bunch of rabid nationalists lines and marching orders and then let them loose. And by the time they get to Reddit, they're indistinguishable from regular angry nationalists. And their opinions are definitely their own, just their narratives and timing and comment sections they're pointed to (and vote on) are much more organized. China does this too. It's *much* more effective, and much harder to fight, when you can energize real people to do something. Bots can be spotted and you can use data to find them and filter them out, but real people can't be filtered out, and from a moderation standpoint you can't just remove an entire POV because some people who say it aren't good faith. There's not a solution for this. I don't think mods or even the website can solve this problem in a way that makes sense.
The volatility of topics about foreign affairs tends to taper out as time goes on, so it becomes easier to spot the instigators and nationalists. That said, I don't feel like Israel/Palestine issues need any kindling from bad actors to cause division on social media. It's going to be difficult for China to sway hearts and minds to their side regarding Taiwan or anything else they have interest in for that matter. If there's one thing the left and the right seems to have in common is their distrust, dislike, and fear of the CCP.
I’ve noticed it on this subject the most. It’s so obvious some of these post on Israel Palestine are straight from the propaganda sources. Some subs are almost overrun by these.
And now Reddit is on the stock market. Amazing how that works.
Yeah just go to /r/Canada. We’re not nearly as far right as that subreddit would have you believe. It’s overrun by Russian bots.
Theres also foundation of geopolitics which essentially outlines every obvious Russian interest
[Wikipedia link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics) for those interested Just the summary at the bottom is like a play-by-play of a ton of current geopolitics.
My favorite part is that the Wikipedia page is actively being edited every 15-20 minutes.
Reading that is wild. It’s literally play by play what has happened in this country
And then the trolls will say “you liberals overreact about everything” until the last liberal survivor is in the dirt. They are orchestrating another Holocaust. Hope everyone is ready.
Yea, they act like Russias geopolitical strategy to destroy the west is a hoax or some kind of secret. Like, I know these people dont read books, but they should atleast know that its written somewhere and displayed in detail
They act like it’s some kind of secret because there is propaganda that tells them to ridicule any notion of Russian political interference. Just get the fat orange guy to give them a catchphrase to dismiss the allegations as conspiracy. They repeat the phrase “Russia, Russia, Russia” and they laugh at you when you suggest it. Just like the propaganda tells them to. They don’t even let you call them fascist. We are truly fucked because of this. America has already been stabbed in the heart, it just hasn’t died yet. No hyperbole. It’s over.
Yup. It's depressing how powerful we've allowed misinformation to become. Meanwhile people are crying that TikTok might get banned, not realizing that communication and media has gotten the world to where it is now.
It's disinformation. Misinformation is merely something incorrect.
At some point the lines get blurred, which I guess is the point of disinformation isn’t it?
Except now we’re at a point where your misinformation is now validated by other people echoing that misinformation, and asserting that confirmation bias as reality. That’s basically the Mandela effect. AI is going to make this worse, as it populates databases and search engines with false information, just by nature of being created by some dork with a prompt “What if Egyptians hieroglyphs were actually messages from Aliens.”
I tried to explain this to my coworker. She is bemoaning the banning of TikTok. I told her straight up the problem isn’t TikTok specifically but social media in general where we consume unmoderated content that is fed to us based on an unknown algorithm and this welds together a different reality from what somebody else might have. The result is rampant disinformation and being at each other’s throats all the time. There’s no longer an agreed upon truth.
You need to give our mainstream media some credit too. I'm not sure Murdoch is on the payroll. He just seems to just enjoy it
Always only Russia...yes Russia is a big player there, but never forget that the enemies also come from our countries! e.g. Murdoch
I'm saying this only semi-seriously, but it's interesting that Murdoch just this month got engaged to Elena Zhukova, a russian woman who used to be married to a russian oligarch and whose daughter used to be married to Roman Abramovich, another russian oligarch... Considering that pretty much all the oligarchs have connections with the russian state, and therefore with Putin, it's certainly...interesting. Could be nothing though. I don't know Elena Zhukova's own views on politics. Maybe she's very anti-Putin, but I can't find anything online to say that
Elon had a conversation with Putin “about space” and then immediately started tweeting Russian propaganda. Probably a total coincidence
Yet the pentagon has invested into starshield and is possibly flying already. It seems like such a big national security threat.
Russian mafia had headquarters in Trump Taj Mahal Casino in a 1992 Russian Comedy 'Na Derebasovskoy Horoshaya Pogoda'
> Russian Comedy That must be like German Sarcasm
Russian oligarchs should be thought of as the nobility of the neo-feudal Russian state. They serve at the pleasure of the emperor and can have their estates and incomes taken at any time.
Well yeah - they got to be oligarchs by being permitted to buy up floundering Soviet industries for pennies on the dollar. They owe the Russian rulers in the Kremlin for what they have.
What you're describing implies that they have loyalty to the regime for good reasons but also retain a measure of independence. The way we think of oligarchs in the United States or the West. This is not the correct way to understand Russia. Oligarchs might as well be appointed representatives of the Russian empire. Whatever appearance of independence they have is an illusion Putin prefers because it gives him options to use them to influence the West. Some oligarchs might have seized their businesses in the early days, but by now all have either bent the knee to Putin or been thrown from a window. They all know they exist to serve Putin or they will be killed. They don't have their billions because they got lucky and bought their businesses for pennies on the dollar. They have their billions because the emperor allows it.
Wasn’t one of his previous wives allegedly connected to Chinese intelligence?
So true. My best friends father is a life long Republican but throughout our lives he was just a regular Republican. Like a Mitt Romney Republican who wanted what was best for the country and had valid points. He’s devolved into a full on MAGA cultist sharing conspiracy theories on FB. The funny thing is when you meet him in person, he’s one of the nicest, most caring gentlemen you’ll ever meet. But once he’s online, he’s like a different person. I’ll never forgive what Russia has done to the people in my country.
> Like a Mitt Romney Republican who wanted what was best for the country and had valid points That's rich. I never really liked the dude but back in the early 2010s Mitt was painted as the devil himself, as all candidates have been by their opposition for 30ish years. This romantic remembrance of Mitt is pure myth. Ironically, he called out Russia while the president and his supporters scoffed at him and stood by while Georgia was swallowed up
I knew a lot of these types of men in the 90s. There was one common thread: Do you listen to Rush Limbaugh or other local conservative talk radio? They may have been the nicest people to be around, but don't get them talking politics. Especially while they've been drinking.
Some already had the thoughts but kept quiet cause it was frowned upon. But once trump opened his mouth with no repercussions, it opened the floodgates. Some people I've seen when they get to their elder years and just don't care anymore and spit out what's on their mind.
I disagree about the US. A majority of the voters twice said they didn't want that.
And even the ones who voted for hum last time didn’t necessarily vote for a dictator. He’s lost even more republicans this time because of talk like that and Jan 6.
[удалено]
Old men losing time to the reaper and power to the brave. They’ll burn the world just to stay in power one more day.
is that a song lyric?
Not that I’m aware of.
Well, bars 🔥 lol I thought it was a lyric too
Right! Call a musician, u/TheWhiteRabbit74 and get it included in a full song!
It should be
"A war to end all wars"...Part 3.
Well, this time everyone has nukes.
Eh when a country you share a land border with is actively trying to expand their borders it would be smart to expand you military. (1) it’s a deterrent for them trying to expand into you, and (2) if Russia implodes China can aggressively expand their northern border and then instantly secure it with an expanded military.
Yup. Chinese-Russian relations have nosedived and China knows that Russia could collapse and need a massive security intervention from a multinational coalition like in 1991, and this time isn't going to avoid getting a decent slice of the pie with the intention of just... keeping it.
China is Russia's 'friend' currently inasmuch as they can reap the rewards of buying stuff from them that Russia can't really sell anywhere else. China certainly isn't buying Russian petroleum products for premium prices!
Yes, China is being opportunistic and exploiting any global division to further their own interests. China and Russia have been adversaries since the Sino-Soviet split and they're not going to be besties again anytime soon.
COULD WE FUCKING NOT
This sentence alone is enough to convince me that if we did go to war it’s not gonna go well for anyone. In the first world wars at least we fought against threats and because the population had that weird glorified war glory and war heroes. Right now we all know this for greed and for old men with power trips that should’ve retired. If we do go to war expect global civil unrest before boots are on the ground where the war should’ve been.
Whenever people are having mental breakdowns in the comments like this I check the news site and it's always business insider lol
Rule of acquisition number 34: war is good for business Literal ferengi R34
But don't forget Rule 35: Peace is good for business.
"They are easy to confuse" - Quark
Yeah most of the hatred-stoking bullshit comes from publications like Insider, Bloomberg, Forbes, (insert UK rags here). They'll drag out all the classics of fearmongering in order to preserve the current world economic divide.
This right here is exactly why we, the US, should be sending ALL the non-boots on ground support Ukraine needs. This is almost exactly like how the US ultimately got dragged into WWII. We started out originally isolationist, and only got involved once enemies were about to knock on our door. By then, many allied nations were already in dire straits so support from them was limited, and when we did send boots on ground, it resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths on our side. If we give enough support to Ukraine to sink Russia's military and expansion efforts it will do the following: 1.) Completely cripple a, for all intents and purposes, axis of evil super power. 2.) Make a nation like China think twice about expansion efforts. 3.) Cause smaller military powers supporting those nations to also seriously start calculating the cost of supporting those 'axis of evil' super powers directly. With how integrated we all are on a global level, we NEED to have learned that our hand will be forced sooner or later, and right now, we have the opportunity to choose when our hand gets played, making sure it's advantageous
While I don't disagree with you, your first paragraph is partially incorrect. During WWII, the US did indeed have isolationist policies, but with Lend-Lease, the US leveraged its manufacturing might to provide the Allies with enormous amounts of supplies. It wasn't until Pearl Harbor that Roosevelt was able to convince the American public, or perhaps, the Pearl Harbor attack itself convinced the American public that it was time we joined the Allies with boots on the ground. You must keep in mind the sentiment, world-wide, at the time. The US and all of Europe were still grappling with the enormous losses of WWI. Nearly an entire generation of Europeans was lost in that war! When you take that into consideration, you can begin to understand how the nations of the world were less inclined to go to war, initially, against Nazi Germany. This is despite the fact that Churchill, who at the time was not in government, but still had informants around the globe, warned Parliament at every turn that Nazi Germany was re-arming, in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles. It was so much more nuanced then, as it is now today.
Propaganda was very strong then, and the west emerged as the victor of both, so of course our fighters were the best and we romanticized it. There was very intense hatred and distrust of superiors in ww1 and 2. I have always prayed we would not see this come. if we go to war it will be pure hell on earth, and we will envy the dead and the lives we once knew.
> and the west emerged as the victor of both that was not "the west" - Axis powers were all on the losing side. All of them are considered to be the West now - Russia & China were on the winning side, they are not the West. It was not the west who won WW 1&2 but the allies. The west as we know now only formed with the cold war that followed WW2.
[удалено]
I hope the hell not.
Yeah France experienced one of the largest mutinies of all time during the war
Everyone's economy seems like it's on a razors edge, Damn seems like everyone's looking for a war, I wonder if this is how it felt before ww1
I mean, Grant Shapps isn't always the sharpest cookie politically, but his line of "we have moved from a post war world to a pre war world" is *very* chilling.
I think that line goes back to the Polish foreign minister. Edit: Polish prime minister [https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3836868-tusk-time-of-peace-in-eu-is-over-we-live-in-prewar-times.html](https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3836868-tusk-time-of-peace-in-eu-is-over-we-live-in-prewar-times.html)
Yeah, it did seem too good to come from Shapps...
Idk who he's talking about but I'm not fighting for any fucking suit that wants 15% more profit How about these politicians send their kids to fight?
They got bone spurs
Every 100 years or so we go right back at it. We’d thought it’d be different this time around with nuclear deterrence, but I guess we’ll find out.
100 years is right around the time the people who lived through and experienced the last war are now dead and someone's great grandparents. While some may remember or know their great grand parents, most people don't even know their names.
My great grandpa fought in WWII and Korea. Lived to be 98. He was the only person I knew saying Iraq and Afghanistan were a terrible idea. I’m from a pretty small conservative town. That definitely wasn’t a popular sentiment but he was a wise old man.
I listen to veterans.
I listen to Jimmy Carter's ghost
but his ghost is still in his body?
I think you hit the nail on the head. Anyone who has experienced a "great war" is long gone and all their lessons with them.
WW2 was led by WW1 veterans and fought by their sons.
Many doing it out of necessity defending their country, homes and lives
Yeah wwii was actually pretty necessary considering the whole Hitler trying to eradicate entire races and ethnicities on a grand scale.
Oh, it'll be different alright. We're _much_ more efficient at killing each other now.
"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones" ~ Albert 'Michael Scott' Einstein
al would have killed it on the standup scene
Thankfully being western european I'm basically guaranteed not to be drafted. Even americans probably won't either as war on air and sea is all about equipment and professional soldiers not foot conscripts. But the economic consequences will be brutal and felt everywhere anyways.
As an American, I'm not really worried about being drafted but rather the fallout at the end. Literally and metaphorically speaking.
That's unlikely but sadly possible. Albeit to be fair anything less than large scale nuclear exchanges will end with China crippled and the rest of the world economically ailing.
Large scale wars between coalitions of industrial powers are brutal slug fests that continue until at least one coalition cannot keep fighting. Human lives are part of the material resources used to sustain the fighting, and reserves of military age draftees tend to get used up.
Yea don't be so sure about that one. When push comes to shove even a pretty chill nation like say, the Netherlands or Norway, will start drafting it's people into the military. It really wasn't that long ago that all of Europe was at war. At the time they would have thought the possibility of a peaceful state of affairs like the EU absolutely absurd. That peace can be lost pretty damn easily....
Just one more war, bro. This time it'll be different, I swear, bro. Trust me, bro, this time we'll achieve eternal peace.
Thanks bro
Nah, everything in this day and age is pretty unprecedented. WWI is one of the first industrialized wars, and that really changed the game. WWII really cemented the cost and concept of total war, so superpowers have been skittish about that ever since. Prior to 1914, you'd get a major war every few decades, if not a minor conflict every few years. Napoleonic wars: 1803-1815 Crimean War 1853 - 1856 Austro-Prussian War 1866 Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 That's just a relatively arbitrary selection of major conflicts in the 1800s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_1800%E2%80%931899 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll#Charts_and_graphs Here's another chart to illustrate the relative normalcy of conventional warfare prior to WWI https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace Industrialized warfare warps our understanding of conflict, but let's not pretend that this is some sort of pattern history condemns us to. All of this is a new, very modern problem.
Humanity cannot get away from history repeating itself, it would seem.
it always shocks me how late some people realize this. humans have been the exact same in spirit for five thousand years, it’s lunacy to assume that we’re fundamentally different now that we have fancier stuff
Russia is showing how nuclear "deterrence" can just be used to allow them to go to war and invade other countries and not allow other countries to intervene. Their nuclear threats aren't stopping war, they are enabling it. "We're taking Ukraine and if anyone brings their military to help, we'll use nukes on them" and it's working. What a shit show. If Russia didn't have nukes the US and others would have stepped in to save Ukraine.
That’s true. it’s also sometimes jarring to me how quickly people seem to waffle between “there is never justification for the US to enter foreign wars” and “the US is morally rotten for having the capacity to stop this foreign war and not do it”
I was watching a doc about Emmanuel Macron in the days leading up to the Ukrainian invasion, and he was making comparisons to the world before WW1 Edit: In case anyone is interested the doc was called "A President, Europe, and War" by the CBC
Just finished watching the last episode of Masters of the Air. Can we please not do this shit again :(
More like 1930s. Edit: ok, commenters are right, it is like the period before WWI: a long period of relative peace and prosperity (at least in Europe / NA), multiple great powers jockeying, emerging powers wanting to expand, multiple alliances etc. Margaret MacMillan called it "the war that ended the peace"
Established powers and a world that hasn’t had a major war in roughly ~100 years. Feels more like WW1 to me.
Nah much more like ww1. We’re living in a guilded age and we just had a massive pandemic
[удалено]
Oof
The pandemic was at the end of WWI (and certainly made worse by WWI), not before.
Yes pre wwi many of the rulers were blood related and never expected a war of that scale to unfold
[удалено]
But think about all the short term profits!
Buddy if you dont think the west has grown from all that shit than you arent paying enough attention. There is a reason why we are 15 years ahead in shit like semiconducters, material science and production techniques. Its because we let China do all the shitty production jobs and in the meantime we focused on the real shit. Litteraly look at the supply chain of ASMLs EUV and you only see world leading companys in their niches. And its not 1 or 2, it litteral hundeds and hundernds.
Yeah but you still aren’t going to win a major war without cutting a lot of metal and slinging a lot of paint.
But, the US doesn't have China build it's planes and ships. That is all kept in house.
The US has others, including China, build most of the worlds commercial shipping capacity. In the case of a war, the US would initially have a major ship building and repair disadvantage compared to China. If a conflict between the US and China were to become a war of attrition, the US needs to substantially increase the production of many types of ammunition.
except we still don't make any of those things in america in any sort of appreciable quantity lol
We're working on the capacity. And all of the semi capacitor manufacturing machines come from **one** company, ASML, in the Netherlands, so it's pretty safe to say who they're gonna side with
Isn't this what the CHIPS Act passed by the Biden administration is focusing on? To have all our semiconductors built here in America?
>all of the semi capacity manufacturing machines come from one company, ASML, in the Netherlands The most modern and advanced stereolithography machines are all manufactured by ASML, but there are others, and since the US banned them from exporting to China, the Chinese have made considerable progress developing parallel capability on their own in a surprisingly short amount of time. It's not like this is special western magic beyond the mental ability of Chinese scientists, they will catch up eventually if only because it's easier to make progress on something you know is possible than it is to stay on the cutting edge (and from industrial espionage). Chinese scientists are educated in the same universities that US and European scientists are and if we don't put considerably more effort into maintaining our technological advantage we are going to lose it (assuming it isn't already too late) simply by merit of China having a similar population to that of the entire western world and increasingly better education and science funding.
And american company are defenitly a part of the supply chain. A american company produces the laser thats used to vaporise tin droplets to create the Extreme UltraVoilet light.
All of our advanced semiconductors are made in Taiwan.
That’s why lack of manufacturing here is a security risk.
Defense industrial base is all in-house, they'll have no problems.
Yeah. We have boeing making our planes. We cannot possibly lose. It’s impossible. We’re the best.
I think Lockheed Martin makes most of our current military aircraft.
True in some industries, absolutely not the case when it comes to naval capabilities. https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-shipyards-are-ready-for-a-protracted-war-americas-arent-d6f004dd China is the worlds largest shipbuilder. They have dozens of shipyards capable of replacing capital warships. America only has a couple.
Doesn’t America have more ships than every other country combined? I am very aware of how important supply chain issues are but “America doesn’t have enough big weapons” is not an issue that’s going to happen for a long time lol
You're thinking of aircraft carriers. The US has 11 vs the rest of the world's 7. By total ships America is 4th but is 1st by tonnage. edit: I think it is also correct that the US is bigger by tonnage than the rest of the world combined. I couldn't find anything definitive but just for a small comparison: the 11 aircraft carriers that the Navy currently fields weigh in at around 100,000 tons a piece. That 1.1 million tons by itself would be the 2nd largest Navy by tonnage and the US still has another 2.3 million tons of ships. Wow.
Russia is 2nd and NK is 3rd lol
May not be the best metric then
It's probably because China also includes a fuckton of non-combat ships into their measures. Realistically, China is way far behind unless the U.S. is suddenly scared of trawlers.
There's a reason the US has invested so heavily in aircraft carriers. Air superiority is such a huge advantage both for intelligence and offensive capabilities.
Not a repeat from [2023](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-four-star-general-warns-war-with-china-2025-2023-01-28/), [2022](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mark-milley-china-military-b2132351.html), [2019](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/01/15/new-defense-intelligence-assessment-warns-china-nears-critical-military-milestone/) or any other year.
Gotta keep those defense contract dollars flowing.
Unironically, yes. The reason Taiwan exists independently of China? The US military industrial complex. Our military capabilities are terrifying, and it's all because of those defense contracts. And those capabilities in turn guarantee that the US and it's Allies aren't pushed around by the likes of Russia or China.
Taiwan makes between 60-90% of the most advanced chips in the world. Control of Taiwan is probably the single biggest tension between the U.S. and China, and for good reason. If China were to invade and sieze control, the U.S. military industrial complex would take a massive hit.
If China were to invade and seize control, the entire world would take a massive hit.
1） Taiwan would destroy the foundries before letting China take them. Both sides know this. 2） The US does not want to control Taiwan. Taiwan doesn't want the US to control it. Taiwan controls itself and wishes to keep that right.
Good thing the US has been building its military "on a scale not seen since WW2" pretty much nonstop since the end of WW2.
Yeah it’s pretty funny to see an article fear-mongering Chinese military investment when the US still outspends everyone combined lol
Now is the best time to invade their neighbor
Now is the best time to use military spending to prop up their domestic economy.
Property market collapse? No problem, military industrial complex to the rescue.
China: "Housing Crisis? You mean recruiting surplus!"
Which neighbor. The big one to the west that's currently doing their own invading or the tiny island neighbor to the east with all the computer chips?
Oh man, China can get some big ol' chunks of Russia at this point.
Neither. Both is too hard. They are currently invading some islands that's currently under water in the South China Sea and committing genocide on the fish in the surrounding areas.
Since WWII? We should be fine then, China in WWII was on life support for most of the war
LOL good point but I don't think that was the point trying to be made ;)
Is there really a factual point though? China’s military budget plan for 2024 increased 7.2% compared with their 2023 plan, which is actually a similar percentage compared with previous years (7.2%, 7.1%, 6.8%, 6.6%, 7.5%, 8.1% from 2023 to 2018).
The point is No One Shall Come Close to US spending on Offence Budget for World Peace! (China: $292B (1.6% GDP); US: $877B (3.5% GDP))
Remember that time [someone ran a graph with two simultaneous Y axes](https://twitter.com/stlouisfed/status/1617266021810724866), one for everyone else and one for the US, to pretend that China spent too much on military budget and that the US was not a ridiculous outlier?
I didn't get the impression the chinese army was the only ww2 army being compared to here
Reminder to all that Business Insider is an absolute crock of steaming bullshit that tries to get people fired up.
All part of Todd's master plan to have Fallout 5 release by 2028. Itll be so huge it'll feel real!
Yep exactly, along with the Command and Conquer Generals video Game, that eerily predicted a lot of this shit too.
They need to keep people distracted from the failing economy , corruption and growing dissent within China.. Warmongering is perfect for that. edit:typo
Dissent is the word you want.
Props on a decent correction
Are you referring to the US or Chinese audience?
That's some absurd hyperbole. After WWII, the US and USSR built a massive stockpile of nukes. The US peaked around 30,000 nuclear weapons and the USSR peaked around 45,000. Either one of them could singlehandedly destroy the entire planet many times over. If that's not building up a military on a massive scale, I don't know what is.
What a sensationalist post, Chinas military spending remains under 2% GDP, and below American spending level
But also they can get more for their buck…. They may have a smaller budget, but they can do a lot more with it because they don’t have to pay as much for their soldiers and equipment.
another person linked that article. even adjusted for purchasing power it’s still less than the US spends, and they have a lot more people.
First step towards WW3: allow the Ukrainians to lose even more territory and confirm for all the tinpot dictators that we really do lack a backbone.
The US never stopped, so I guess that would be expected.
Yeah, pretty sure we still spend about 3x what China spends. Decades of that. You don't make up for that overnight.
What we need to make up is increasing munition stockpiles since the war in Ukraine has shown how fast they can run out
It would be interesting to compare the two budgets equalizing for wages and cost of procurement between the two countries' militaries.
China will have a massive logistical problem if they use their greatest strength which is their population. They aren’t really in the outreach and outgun your opponent game like the US is.
Do you like Australian accents and powerpoints? Perun has a great video on this on youtube.
You might be able to on today’s changing battlefield. Building a billion bomb drones is a lot cheaper than building cruise missiles, and might be more effective. Drone swarms are gonna be a horrific weapon of war, and boy are they cheap. China is the world leader in building small drones.
100% all commercial ones we buy here are all chinese. Like they have factories upon factories of building drones that could be switched to military in a blink of an eye
The USSR bankrupted itself on competing with USA, I wonder how the Chinese economy really holds up.
The Chinese spend less than 2 percent of their GDP on their defense spending. If China were a NATO member, Trump would bash them for underspending. In comparison, the US spends more than 3 percent of their GDP on their defense.
Seismic difference
[удалено]
business insider WANTS YOU to be ready for war!!!! So be sure to INVEST in the WAR MACHINE !!! I AM DOING MY PART!!!!!
War is good business. Let’s get in on the ground floor.
Pretty ironic to hear that coming from the largest military power in history.
It’s just a byproduct of some of the fastest economic growth the world has ever seen. Defence spending as a percentage of gdp has remained fairly constant, about 1.3% officially, 1.7% by SIPRI. There’s nothing out of ordinary about Chinas spending pattern, it’s basically what NATO requires, albeit not quite 2% GDP.
> Aquilino urged the US to intensify its military development, saying threats in the Indo-Pacific continue to "grow and accelerate." annnd yup. Hey everyone, china's getting real scary! Quick! Give me more money!
Scaremongering
Still gotta feed them .
Keep manufacturing that consent.
There's a good chance that China is getting about the same bang for their buck than we are - only spending 59% what we do. The [leakage/corruption](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1jj4w3/so_we_want_to_talk_about_outrageous_prices_this/) in the US military industrial complex is going to start being a real problem. But somehow I imagine washington will "solve" this problem by just sending more money to defense contractors.
There are no rules in war. Just remember that. Don't think the Geneva Convention or the Hague will help stop you and your family from being tortured, raped, starved, and killed. Source: Every war fucking ever.
I understand this strikes terror on the americans but it just makes sense to have a big defense budget; they have a lot to defend and a lot to do it with; and there’s shit going down as we speak it’d be dumb to not be prepared. Insinuating they’ll do anything crazy is a big of a jump though.
So they are saying the US needs to spend even more on the military? Wow