The General US Politics Thread

Not really? Typhoons can't carry out proper ground strikes nor are they safe from Russian AA, which is unequivocally the best in the world by a loooong way.

Those tanks haven't seen action in years and given the current state of the German military there's a serious question as to whether they're even operational or not. And the logistics no longer exist. Anything that involved the Americans or the English is no longer something the EU can use in this scenario. They can't move the bodies to the Baltics.

The EU is simply not prepared to fight any serious conflict, least of all with the Russians.

edited 27th Jul '16 1:37:59 PM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?

A good article about cyber-security and its necessity in the voting process in November. Basically, we either need far better security for voting machines and online voting, or we should go back to paper processing, even if it takes longer to count the votes.

Now, some of those problems can likely be fixed, but it'll take time and money and effort and that gives the Russians a free hand for at least a while.

@kkhohoho - Assuming the "useful idiot" interpretation, a theoretical President Trump doesn't even have to do anything. The President is the military commander-in-chief so if the president says don't do anything, there's not much the military can do; they can either do nothing (which is good for Putin) or they can mutiny and chaos happens (which is good for Putin).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Russian_military_aircraft Total of fighting air frames: 708. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_European_Union

Total number of fighting air frames - without counting the brits, mind: 1835.

And the pilots are trained rather better, the airplanes themselves are better, the avionics are better. That's not "a free hand". That is "We used to have an airforce, then we threw it away".

Ground force disparity is at least as bad.

Any attack would be entirely premised on the idea that europe would not fight. Because if europe responds in any way whatsoever other than "fuck the baltics" every last russian soldier that left the territory of the Russian federation winds up captured or dead on the field of battle.

It's a fool indeed that plans a war based on the premise that the enemy will not fight. Putin is not a fool.

It's a fairly safe assumption right now. Especially since for the Russians to be as decisively outnumbered as you list there, the whole EU would have to join a war, and there's no guarantees that'll happen.

How many of those planes are actually combat capable considering Germany's entire Torando fleet was grounded? How many have stealth technology? None? Then they will be destroyed by S-400 systems.

How many pilots has the EU actually sent in proper combat missions? Because the Russians now have soldiers with direct combat experience from at least three conflicts.

How many of those planes are even capable of mounting the proper SEAD type weaponry needed to even have a hope of making it past the S-400 SAMs?

Oh really when?

No one's saying that Trump isn't a complete moron with absolutely disastrous policy positions (where he has any consistent policy positions at all). But Putin is far from the only unsavory world leader that he's expressed admiration for, nor is being extremely friendly to Putin's Russia the only completely ridiculous foreign policy position he's taken.

Ultimately, it doesn't actually matter why he has the positions he does — they're equally terrible whether they're born of malice or stupidity. But seriously, seriously, can you actually imagine Donald Trump keeping his status as a Russian agent secret? He'd be talking about his friends in Moscow and his special relationship with the Kremlin every third breath. He'd be trotting it out as an example of his fantastic foreign relation credentials. He wouldn't be able to shut up about it.

Unless you're suggesting he's some kind of elite KGB agent that's spent the last several decades building up a cover identity as a freakish orange-skinned business mogul, at which point we've officially reached tinfoil hat territory.

That's an exaggeration. Trump is certainly dangerous, but he's not going to cause the end of the world as we know it. The American system of government is specifically designed to keep that sort of thing from happening. Even if the Republican party ends up with control of all three branches of government, it's unlikely that he'd be able to get a filibuster-proof majority in both houses of Congress — and in the very worst case, that situation would last for a maximum of two years until the midterm elections rolled around and every single member of Congress and a third of the Senate is up for grabs. Even someone as artfully incompetent as Trump can only do so much in two years — burning all of Western civilization to the ground is a long and painful process, not something that happens overnight.

All of which is assuming the worst case scenario, which isn't likely to come to pass. I honestly don't even think that Trump is going to win the election.

That's only true when you're talking about a third world conflict. Russia would be pushing right into Europe's backyard.

If it really comes down to a major conflict, the power to declare war rests with Congress, not the president. If Congress declares war and passes legislation saying that the US will defend Europe, and the President refuses to order the military to defend Europe, then the President is in violation of the law and can be impeached and removed from office. And again, that's assuming the absolutely worst scenario possible.

People in this thread are getting hysterical beyond all reason. Trump's bad, but he's not that bad. Chill out a little, seriously.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Actually Trump has gone on a lot about how such great friends he is with Putin personally in this election.

Oh really when?

But the projections of Europe and Russia getting into a hot war IS losing the Baltic, which recent NATO training exercises showed a lack of preparedness to properly defending the Baltic countries.

The Russians would lose the war if they tried to push for Berlin but they'd get Warsaw and Prague and strategist on both sides know it, which means the Russians wouldn't try to push too far into Western Europe and the US+EU wouldn't let the Russians get past Poland.

Whoever the prospects of losing the Baltic countries could grant a net loss to Europe and US so no one is really considering letting the Russians take over.

B-b-b-b-b-b-but the chances of an open war without nuclear escalation is damn low but high enough to keep everyone worried.

@Garcon maybe more fit for the Military Thread but currently the Russians have like 150 S-400 launchers counting all variants, which is hardly enough to ground all EU's airforce, specially with France and GB not having a neutered and forsaken AF.

edited 27th Jul '16 2:09:48 PM by AngelusNox

Inter arma enim silent leges

@ Garcon: Do you seriously think the Russians could be at the English Channel in week, or a month at most?

Keep Rolling On

No I think they'd take the Baltics then watch the EU collapse and tear itself to pieces.

Honestly outside of the Baltics I can't imagine them pushing too hard into Europe. Southeast Asia, The Middle East, and Africa though, maybe. We'll probably see them operating much more openly there without NATO supporting the locals.

edited 27th Jul '16 2:08:40 PM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?

Traditionally, at least, the President asks Congress to declare war. Doing so without the President's support would be unprecedented.

Edit: Yaknow, I wouldn't completely count out the British from a theoretical fight vs Russia, even with the specter of Brexit. They have been at the receiving end of an autocrat's attempt to take over Europe before. There are still people alive that lived through it. They won't have forgotten.

An open land war with Russia might even be a reminder why the Brits hitched up with the EU in the first place.

edited 27th Jul '16 2:16:34 PM by Elle

Lets be honest, were we ever called to defend the Baltics most of the left would be screaming at us to abandon them to the Russians in order to "save civilization from nuclear war." That and the US is evil so any country that fights us must be good Also protesting US foreign policy is like the 3rd favorite thing the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic party likes to do, after complaining how much they hate capitalism on their iPhones, and disjointed rants on Facebook about how "the establishment" is corrupt.

As for the Europeans around half of them won't fight for the Baltic's even if the US is involved, and that half includes Germany, which is very irksome seeing as Nato's whole mission for most of the Cold War was to defend them from the Soviets. Frankly, after the shit those countries have pulled with the refugees,and their conservatism, most of Europe would probably be glad to see the east fall to the Russians. "Let somebody else mind the idiots", the might say.

edited 27th Jul '16 2:19:41 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

That is - as I just said - a plan based on the premise that the enemy will not fight you. Which is a very special kind of stupid. Plan's for battle need to take into account what the enemy can do, not what you think he will do, or you loose the war the first time you make an error of judgement.

... Frankly, I think they would likely be forced to. Germany is pacifistic, not stupid. Putin got away with grabbing the Crimea, and is making trouble in the Ukraine. A move on the baltics would simply just be read as "will stop when stopped". Not to mention the various forces stationed there pretty much to die and force the hand of their politicians at home.

This isn't a sure thing - politicians have been strategically stupid a lot lately, but nobody sane in the Russian government would count on europe just folding despite having better "cards".

edited 27th Jul '16 2:26:41 PM by Izeinsummer

What I actually think is that if faced with the possibility of open war, Putin would back down in a hurry. It better serves his interests to manipulate things with the cover of plausible deniability then only send military in under some plausible-sounding pretext where it's unlikely he'll meet resistance.

And he has done it before. Georgia. Ukraine. Proxy fighting in Syria.

Just popping in briefly to ask how the DNC went. Genuine question, just want to know how Hillary's odds are looking. Not looking for doomsaying about the Trumpocalypse.

Bernie or Bust protests have been confined to the fringe so far and aside from the first day (with Debbie Weisman Schultz forced to resign over the wikileaked emails) there's been little disruption. Bernie's fully cooperating with Hillary; he got most of the platform points he wanted. The tone has been everything Trump's convention wasn't.

Can we let go of the myth that Trump's just saying things that will get him elected? That ship sailed when he overshadowed the FBI Director's presentation on the Clinton email investigation by praising Saddam Hussein. Trump is not saying things to get him elected. He is saying things that no sane person would ever think any American would support from their candidate.

No politician would ever think, "Asking an enemy of the United States to attack my political rivals, there's a move that will make me very popular with the constituents and ensure my election." That's asinine.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

FiveThirtyEight has Clinton the 60-40 favorite in it's polls-plus model, which takes into account the expected post-convention bounces (as it hasn't moved much in the past month, it basically means Trump's most recent erasure of Clinton's lead in the polls was about what was expected).

Georgia started the 2008 war and Ukraine was neither a full invasion, an open war or against an EU or NATO member.

Everybody acts like the US is the only nuclear nation in NATO, the U.K. a hasn't even left the EU yet and the French still have nukes, they'll probably build a number more if the UK and US abandon them.

Also Jack once again your assumption that the left would instantly oppose a defensive war to protect a democracy from a dictatorship is silly, you seem to think that the entire left are the 10% of former Sander's supporters who won't vote for Clinton. The left includes Hillary Clinton, so I don't know where you get this idea that the left are pacifists from.

Putin isn't stupid, NATO might well collapse under a Trump presidency but unless the EU collapses before a war Putin isn't going to start one, he's not going to start a war with a nuclear power, likewise it's not like European leaders are idiots, we tried the "let him take over just a few small European countries and I'm sure he'll be happy." thing before and it didn't work out.

Russian troops would be stopped at the border of any EU country because we know how it ends otherwise. The Poles would defend the Baltics out of fear of being next, the Germans aren't going to abandon the Poles and the French aren't going to abandon the Germans. Euroepan leaders know this, Putin knows this.

edited 27th Jul '16 2:36:02 PM by Silasw

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran

Except Trump's not a politician. He's a businessman. And to someone like Trump, the general idea might be, 'Asking an enemy of the United States to attack my political rivals, there's a move that will take a good chunk of attention away from the DNC and put it back on me, because any publicity is good publicity."

edited 27th Jul '16 2:39:53 PM by kkhohoho

Doctor Who — Long Way Around: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13536044/1/Doctor-Who-Long-Way-Around

Fact of the matter is, many if not most of Trump's admirers also admire Putin, and essentially want someone like him as their leader — an uncompromising, "tough" leader who doesn't give a shit about what other countries think of him and takes what he wants, when he wants it. In supporting Trump, they're essentially hoping to get a Putin for America.

Granted, I think the comparison is actually pretty unflattering to Putin, since he's a pretty intelligent guy who at least had a long history of civil service before becoming president, and did prove himself capable of improving Russia's economy from the post-Soviet collapse chaos. I don't believe Trump would accomplish anything like that.

http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/trump-clinton-poll-los-angeles-times/2016/07/27/id/740785/

Oh, fucking hell!

Is it worth us making a thread specifically for 2016 polls to be posted in and people to freak out over them? We're getting this daily and it keeps making us circle back to explaining how polls are not reliable, how daily polls mean little, how Trump gaining a temporary lead isn't going to explode the planet, how Clinton hasn't opener her war chest yet but Trump has been using his media war chest the entire time.

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran