> Nuclear weapons are a MAD red line that will result in total annihilation of the attacker. They are only useful in a defensive capacity.
Also in a "if I'm going down, everyone else is going down with me", which is Ian's strategy in this war (for good reasons). If the IRGC had nukes, and was severely threatened (like, killing the Supreme Leader and threatening to kill all of the replacements until they bend to the US/Israel will), they might have decided to go out "with style".
Yes, but the whole point of having nukes as a deterrent is that the US wouldn't have arbitrarily killed their leader in the first place. "If i'm going down, everyone else is going down" is the feature, not a bug.
To be clear I don't like the idea of MAD one bit. But this is indeed how it's meant to work.
> No data falling into wrong hands, no left behind rootkits, no ransome threats etc
You won't necessarily be able to know that the data hasn't already been exfiltrated and that the backups aren't post-compromise. Or that by restoring the backup you won't get back to the state that allowed them to get in in the first place.
> But already unable to defend itself from Russia, EU countries
I'm sorry, but this is just crazy talk. Russia cannot enforce its will on Ukraine, one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in Europe, with a (at time of invasion) relatively small and underequipped army. Yes it has grown through conscription, has been equipped by foreign and domestic supplies, has made some brilliant advances in tech and tactics... but when it was attacked, it was weak. And Russia lost its best troops and equipment failing to defat that.
Why would anyone think that the Russia that cannot defeat Ukraine would fare better against Poland? Let alone French warning strike nukes, or French, British, German troops and planes and what not.
It’s funny how you basically explain precisely why the war in Ukraine has gone on so long but refuse to recognize it.
As Russia’s economy has continually reshaped over the last 4 years there has been increasingly a domestic demand for war. You point out all the evidence yourself:
> Yes it has grown through conscription, has been equipped by foreign and domestic supplies, has made some brilliant advances in tech and tactics...
Russia (well its oligarchs and rulers) has increasingly benefited from perpetual war. Yes, soon it will need to switch positions to expansion to maintain its economy, but this situation in Iran presents a perfect opportunity if things play it Russia’s interests.
You also will find that if you paid any attention to European politics over the years this is a serious topic to all leaders there.
But I don’t mind if you’re not convinced, I had similar people on hacker news unconvinced Russia could sustain operations in Russia longer than a few months because they were doing so poorly… 4 years ago.
> Russia (well its oligarchs and rulers) has increasingly benefited from perpetual war
No it has not. It has a ballooning debt crisis (at different levels - regions, military contractors, banks) which will pop at some point; the budget is so unbalanced they're projecting to reduce military spending (unlikely), increase taxes, and still have a pretty heavy deficit. They've been given the gift of the Strait of Hormuz being closed, so oil and gas revenues will grow, which will definitely buy them more time. But they are running against a clock, and they cannot win in Ukraine.
> You also will find that if you paid any attention to European politics over the years this is a serious topic to all leaders there.
Yes, because Russia only responds to strength, so you need to be strong militarily to be able to dissuade them from attacking you. That doesn't mean that realistically they have a chance of winning any conflict.
> Europe in general has been tightening up their rules / taxes / laws around startups / companies especially tech and remote.
Like? Care to provide any specific examples? "Europe" is a continent composed of various countries, most of which have been doing a lot to make it easier for startups and companies in general.
I'm still just so surprised any time I encounter people who think AI will be overall good for humanity
I pretty strongly think it will only benefit the rich and powerful while further oppressing and devaluing everyone else. I tend to think this is an obvious outcome and it would be obviously very bad (for most of us)
So I wonder if you just think you will be one of the few who benefit at the expense of others, or do you truly believe AI will benefit all of humanity?
> So I wonder if you just think you will be one of the few who benefit at the expense of others
It's not a zero sum game, IMO. It will benefit some, be neutral for others, negative for others.
For instance, improved productivity could be good (and doesn't have to result in layoffs, Jevon's paradox will come into play, IMO, with increased demand). Easier/better/faster scientific research could be good too. Not everyone would benefit from those, but not everyone has to for it to be generally good.
Autonomous AI-powered drone swarms could be bad, or could result in a Mutually Assured Destruction stalemate.
> improved productivity could be good (and doesn't have to result in layoffs
It already has resulted in layoffs and one of the weakest job markets we've seen in ages
Executives could not have used it as an excuse for layoffs faster, they practically tripped over themselves trying to use it as an excuse to lay people off
No, a zero sum game would require for the "winners" to take it from the "losers", and there is a limited amount to go around. If there is a majority of "winners" by expanding, some neutral, some negative, that is not a zero sum game.
On the contrary, Netflix would have been decent because WB is bigger than them (in terms of IP, existing content, brands, etc) and would have probably (at least that's what they said publicly) left it mostly alone. And it's weird how people assume that just because Netflix produce a ton of content, all of it is low quality. A lot of it is for people half paying attention, but there is plenty of actually good stuff. Them having WB would improve them on both fronts.
Nepo baby is coming with a political angle and wants control of the news media part of WB. The American media landscape is already without much competition nor diversity in political views, now there would practically be none.
The good Netflix movies are small diamonds in a swamp of garbage. Most of the content is the equivalent of fast food for movies with a political agenda.
WB has not been immune to the political angle but they at least care about their IP and produce decent content.
Of course Netflix would have used WB IP and Netflix’s “state of the art” movie making machine to maximise the value of the WB IP.
TBH I don’t care about the WB news media part through I’m not sure if they will really destroy it just to align with their political views. If they make CNN like Fox News the viewers will just leave.
The right move for Netflix from a shareholder’s perspective would be to get into the short drama movies that are popular in China and recently the US too. That would allow them to cover the whole garbage media spectrum and make a lot of money.
> The good Netflix movies are small diamonds in a swamp of garbage. Most of the content is the equivalent of fast food for movies with a political agenda.
What political agenda? Are gays existing in movies political for you or what do you mean?
And again, Netflix have to play a numbers game. They need to have enough content for people not to leave them. That doesn't mean they don't also have genuine quality content like Better Call Saul, Peaky Blinders, Kaleidoscope, etc.
> TBH I don’t care about the WB news media part through I’m not sure if they will really destroy it just to align with their political views
They already started, appointing a political hack to be head of CBS, and CBS have already quickly turned very politically biased. Why wouldn't they do the same to CNN?
Wildly dependent on your definition of "modern", which mostly depends on your potential adversary. The Russia/Ukraine, and the new war in the Gulf have shown numerous ways in which 4th generation jets, and more importantly cheaper missiles and even more cheap drones can perform supression of enemy air defences and/or air support. Unless you're fighting the US or China, 4th gen jets are plenty. And even against US and US defended locations, cheap drones and missiles have been able to influct some pretty serious damage to critical infrastructure (like extremely expensive and rare radar systems). An adversary not crippled by extreme sanctions and corruption for decades might have been able to achieve even more, even with the total lack of airpower.
4th generation aircraft are not sustainable in modern combat without a wide array of assistance from EW etc. The losses of aircraft in Ukraine on both sides are horrifying. The only reasons the Ukrainians persist is because they have no choice. The Russians can sit outside of the Ukrainian engagement range and lob semi-smart bombs, or air to air missiles at any Ukrainian aircraft that show up on their radar.
The real reason stealth is needed is as a counter to GBAD. Modern anti-aircraft missiles are incredible lethal.
"4th generation aircraft are not sustainable in modern combat without a wide array of assistance from EW etc. "
But isn't that true of the F35 as well?
On it's own, I doubt it would survive much longer on the eastern front in Ukraine.
In Iran the F-35 also did not fly around freely while the ground radars were active. They had to be taken out first. For that stealth was probably useful (and in general it is).
But it is not making them invisible - and cheap sensors and AI is likely to counter it soon. Because sensors and analysis will get better over time and sensors also better and cheaper. But the stealth will remain largely the same. It cannot really be upgraded for existing jets.
The F-35 is one of the most advanced EW platforms currently flying. That’s the main reason everyone wants it. It has an exceptional ability to detect modern threats and self-protect against them.
By all accounts the F-35 did fly freely over Iran but the weaponry for killing ground radars are all long-range stand-off weapons so that 4th gen aircraft can use them. Many times those weapons are cued by stealth aircraft within range of the ground radars but launched by 4th gen carrying them from farther away. This is pretty standard US doctrine.
The F-35 specifically was designed for environments like Ukraine. The combat there is shaped by the lack of capability like that from either side.
> cheap sensors and AI is likely to counter it soon.
The burning question is what decision would AI make in Pearl Harbor. Would it have said flock of birds? Would it be keying in on flocks of birds instead?
That's my point. Any battlefield today is "modern", but militaries operate with what they have. From Russia to the Houthis passing via the Houthis, we've seen insane amounts of damage done on "a modern battlefield" with anything from Cold War era equipment to cheap drones assembled by a terrorist group living in the mountains with no industrial base.
Yes, if the US wants to fight China, and vice versa, it needs 5th gen jets. Everyone else doesn't need them. They're nice to have to make your job easier (like Israel vs Iran), but don't guarantee you anything (like Israel vs Iran).
4th generation jets are not designed to survive denied airspace. They're still useful; both sides in Ukraine are using 4th gen jets for air patrol, SEAD, escorts, intercepts and standoff munition launches.
Presuming that state of affairs will persist though is fraught.
It's quite likely that in about 5 years most military installations will have a mix of weapons to intercept those systems - and depending on a number of factors you could easily end up back at low performance drones being so reliably intercepted as to be a waste of munitions to deploy.
WW1 after all was based on exactly this thinking: surely the volume of an army would overcome the machine gun.
> It's quite likely that in about 5 years most military installations will have a mix of weapons to intercept those systems - and depending on a number of factors you could easily end up back at low performance drones being so reliably intercepted as to be a waste of munitions to deploy.
That's unlikely. Anti-drone defences will only improve, yes, but autonomous drone swarms numbering in the thousands to tens of thousands are doable today, and few weapons systems can handle the rate of launch/fire required to combat that. Especially if there are follow-up waves mixing drones and heavy missiles against which your anti-drone defences wouldn't be enough.
> WW1 after all was based on exactly this thinking: surely the volume of an army would overcome the machine gun.
But building a cheap kamikaze drone costs much less than building a human.
Define cheap and multiply by thousands. Ukrainian front line drones stopped being DJIs years ago.
They're now much closer to $3000 USD+ at the low end for an ISR vehicle. $8000+ for the more capable FPV kamikazes is the estimate for Russian models.
Which is comparable to a 155mm artillery shell. But with a lot less payload.
There's already literally millions of drones being produced and used per year in that conflict - and they've made a big impact, but the stability of the frontline also reveals that the impact of "swarms" is hardly overpowering (the obsession with them is also weird - if you had thousands of assets in the air, the last thing you'd do is put them all close together).
As Iran shows, you don't need overpowering. You need to hit the enemy where it hurts them, like strategic infrastructure.
> "swarms" ... (the obsession with them is also weird - if you had thousands of assets in the air, the last thing you'd do is put them all close together)
On the contrary, a swarm allows you to overwhelm the enemy air defences, which allows you to hit targets, including those same air defences, without having to disable them first. Cf. Iran destroying a THAAD radar.
Right - until anti-air measures designed to deal with voluminous relatively low performance threats get deployed. There's a reason Ukraine has been rolling out old school anti-aircraft and flak guns, and the modern variants are now starting to be produced - i.e. area effect microwave weapons and high energy lasers. Systems which aren't very useful if your adversary is highly capable, but which are effective if your adversary is relatively fragile. Again: volume turned out to be relatively useless in WW1 when the adversary had well placed machine guns.
But it's also an apples to oranges comparison: THAAD is in no way designed to intercept drone threats. The story here is closer to the US started a fight without actually investing in the sort of defenses which would deal with it - i.e. with a rack of Ukranian interceptor drones as part of the air defenses, the THAAD radar likely makes it.
The EU didn't have anything to do with the destruction of any industry, really. And especially none with Nokia?? Terrible product decision making destroyed Nokia's consumer business, not the EU. But Nokia and Ericsson are still there and quite strong in networking. You just don't see them because they're not consumer oriented businesses.
Also, there are many industries still flourishing across the EU. Airbus, Renault, Zeiss, ASML, ThyssenKrupp, Saint-Gobain, Nestle, Siemens, Sanofi, IKEA, Inditex, Schneider Electric, etc etc etc.
Also in a "if I'm going down, everyone else is going down with me", which is Ian's strategy in this war (for good reasons). If the IRGC had nukes, and was severely threatened (like, killing the Supreme Leader and threatening to kill all of the replacements until they bend to the US/Israel will), they might have decided to go out "with style".
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