this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
302 points (95.8% liked)

World News

39004 readers
2966 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Archive Link

In a recent appearance on Russia's state-run television, Russian political scientist Sergey Mikheyev suggested that the country's "empire" should grow to encompass three American states.

"I want the Russian empire with Alaska, Hawaii, California, Finland, and Poland," he said, as translated by Gerashchenko for the clip he shared. "Although Poland and Finland are so stinky, I'm not sure, to be honest. We'll clean them."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I hate the US's budget for defense. It's insane. 1% of that could do so much better as social programs.

But every time someone starts talking about a foreign country invading the us it's just.... Unthinkable..

Not like "oh it will never happen, nobody would ever attack US soil again" because that's just naive. We've stuck our noses in other people's business to too long starting before any of us were alive.

But when people try to argue their point, they simply do not understand the scale of the problem.

You sum it up quite well.

Assuming you HAVE the element of surprise, which is unlikely given intelligence networks inside foreign borders, modern radar technology, observation posts scattered around antagonistic nations, sattelite surveillance... The list just goes on.

You are never getting an invasion force and supporting logistics to the united states (or any of the Americas) without the entire world knowing. You would have to build the largest hidden fleet of silent submarines the world has ever seen to get close.

Even if you magically defeated THE LARGEST navy and second largest air force, as well as the ACTUAL largest air force, you still have to deal with army, marines, coast guard, national guard, and honestly I think my local police department has equivalent equipment to what Russia runs in Ukraine. So add police to that.

And the number one problem when they somehow defeat all those will be the "more than one gun for every citizen" part. I myself have several mostly inherited ones, I know how to use them, and I'm confident in my ability to teach others how to use them effectively. And would happily do so in a foreign invasion. I won't work for the military again but I'd be happy to defend my friends and family.

The hurdles for an invasion are high in most developed countries.

The us saw those hurdles, and decided "we need them at least 5x larger and made of titanium." and went to work on the largest military in the world.

I may hate the budget, but ho boy does it make for some fun thought exercises when someone brings up foreign invasions.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Honestly, I kinda of disagree with people making the military budget their main argument. Iirc we also spend a fuck ton of money on healthcare and it's not like we have free healthcare or anything, it goes to paying off people. We should focus more on getting rid of that corrupt system and using that money on education, infrastructure development, and research.