https://onukdefence.co.uk/military-capability/are-uk-aircraft-carriers-vital-or-white-elephants/ - ain’t just my analysis!

Ukrainian expedition means he can break his fiscal rules. Reeves is about to do something drastic anyway, and what better way to reinvest capital than with UK arms production too? Military industrial complex is a hell of a drug

Ways for floundering statesmen to get a ratings bump: go to war. Why does this always give a boost to incumbents?

Scholz and Macron both ready too? Le grand armée marches again! Germany with an election this year, and they are less keen on troops for obvious reasons. Macron will support, seen his ratings?

But none will go in whilst it is still hot. Meaning Putin doesn’t care, he’s likely to get Crimea and Donbas out of this, and be ready to re-arm for Moldova. Too little too late for this war from the European leaders, and it took fucking Trump to get them to not even agree anything yet!

The long game, get England back for 1812!

Aircraft carriers have been useful about once since 1945. The Falklands. A war fought in the middle of nowhere about a tiny island that nobody really needs. The last colonial battle. Every other conflict has been better served from ground bases. The gulf wars could easily have been served almost exclusively from Cyprus for instance.

So usefulness: not so much, mostly offensive

Costs: exorbitant. Massive issues with the most recent pair in the UK. And don’t buy Japanese (or anyone else’s) exceptionalism. These things are money pits in hardware, manpower, training, testing, supplying, fueling, maintenance, and repairs.

Modern day defence capabilities: almost fuck all. No anti missile defences, no anti AUV, anti-submarine is usually a heli on board. With glide bombs being de jure primary weapons currently and them having a range of approximately 70Km. Combined with the threat of hypersonic missiles. Usually housing vast quantities of marines too.

These things are massive white elephants, obvious targets, expensive to boot. Why the fuck would you convert a destroyer? (Even one as obviously not a destroyer)

Only getting rid of them next year I’m pretty sure. And initial problems of reliability but not these days. With phenomenal thermal efficiency from tiny engines

I use Arch BTW. And my jeans are quite large

Only an idiot would think that Ukraine would actually have half a trillion dollars worth, and that they’d give it all to the USA even if USA blackmail them here. Zelensky will say lots right now to persuade the orange one. But he also won’t be in power after the war to see it through, very few leaders are retained after any way.

Ukrainian neutrality was effectively guaranteed by America, UK, and Russia when they gave up their nukes. And there is also an economic clause to this agreement

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

I’ve got a bell, spring, and pull handle. It’s genuinely amazing

Or: does Trump view them as right wing? They would all claim to be centerists. It isn’t about my viewpoint, Trump lacks natural allies in major economies

Me obviously, it certainly isn’t anyone else

No right wing in power is what I meant, why else do you think Musk is bigging up the afd? If Germany and USA bilaterally stop supporting Ukraine then it’s game over. Only 1 and they are Russian pawns, a blame game ensues. 2 and it’s “Ukraine needs to accept Russian rule, they are historically Russian”

I very much agree, but the UK has shown that it wants to be a bully itself by pulling out of the EU. Trump parallels with the rise of the third Reich, and appeasement politicians were proven wrong in the 30s. But until Trump literally invades we won’t see anyone really stand-up is my bet. The economics are what is dictating this ultimately. Don’t be in deficit to America

Well you can see he hasn’t yet done a huge amount in Europe at all. Including Ukraine, which he once boasted about solving day one. I suspect due to no right wing parties in UK, France, or Germany he lacks enough leverage to actually do much. In addition, the US tech markets are almost wholesale extracting wealth out of the EU with their services and guess who is his right hand man?

He may well fuck this all up yet, or run out of culture wars BS with his current neighbours, and so turn his view to Europe. But he’s also old, how much bandwidth does he have to deal with it too? Palestine, South Africa, Mexico, Canada - and that’s just this week! Isn’t he supposed to be making America great again?

100% we won’t see Starmer engaging with this whilst Trump is dithering. And why should he? Canada turning to us after being spurned by America isn’t a good look. Especially as we would then risk the orange one’s wrath

When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will
- Frederic Bastiat

I prefer jerboa

How would you solve it then? I’m not saying Ofcom are right, but should it be left wholly on parents to police the whole internet?

Great news indeed then, go Mastodon!

Lemmy has the same issues I believe. Lots of people not exactly happy with the two core devs either

Given the concern, it would be good to be explicit in the blog post. What other assets does it genuinely need? The code is open source, people are free to host instances