Last one to post wins

[Dmanwuzhere]

The UK is a conquered nation at this point.
I mean, a butcher who refused to sell Halal meat was arrested for not doing so.
Despite his workers and patrons being assaulted.
Fook the UK.

Try that in a small town.

On a positive note, the guy who carried out orders to kill 35k of Iranian citizens recently went to the devil today.
You can't cheer, as you might get arrested for hate speech.
You wear the similarities you mentioned well.

[Meliva]

The UK is a conquered nation at this point.
I mean, a butcher who refused to sell Halal meat was arrested for not doing so.
Despite his workers and patrons being assaulted.
Fook the UK.

Try that in a small town.

On a positive note, the guy who carried out orders to kill 35k of Iranian citizens recently went to the devil today.
You can't cheer, as you might get arrested for hate speech.
You wear the similarities you mentioned well.

Oh-did another of their leaders get taken out? Not surprising-at this point, Trump Could make a calendar-each month have a different picture of a Iranian leader who got taken out. Also heard Netenhau or however you spell the Israeli leaders name might have been taken out, but not sure if that's just propaganda or not-haven't really looked into it-I know a lot of AI slop is being pushed showing Iranian triumphs-recall seeing one where it claimed they capture over a hundred Delta force soldiers-but they forgot to remove the Gemini logo in the corner

[Lachlan]

You wanna know the funny part? Maybe if Nato and other European countries weren't so lax on defense, and didn't put all their eggs in one basket for security relying on the US, they'd be able to actually deter any invasion. Weakness invites challenge. For so long European countries have gotten more and more laxed in their defense, their military spending and relying more and more on exports-exports for energy, exports for workers with immigrations, and exporting security by having US bases and less of their own military. I don't believe there was any actual plans to invade Canada or Greenland-because at the end of the day, everyone knew if a fight DID break out-Europe would not be able to hold Greenland-not likely-so by threatening to just take it- pressures them to negotiate-which they ended up doing JUST that-not to mention this also may have served as a catalyst to put a fire under their asses to start spending more on military-which helps the US also. Because once the Europeans think they can't FULLY rely on the US to cater to their security, that tends to be a good motivator for them to step up their own spending. I can't pretend to know all the hows and whys of Trump and his plans or if it's all just off a whim-but I can say this-it's getting results and bringing about change. Where it leads to? Dunno-but I'm liking it for the most part so far.

Most of that rise in defense spending happened before Trump took office and before America started acting hostile towards everyone. You are attributing that rise in defense spending as due to weakening ties between America and Europe which only really started happening last year. Regarding your point about exporting security yes that is basically true. Immigration however is a different and far more complex issue so I will not get into that.
Exporting energy however well they sort of have to. They cannot magically manifest more domestic oil and gas production. Yes they should have switched from Russia to the middle east far sooner but I think everyone thought that Russia would not escalate its invasion of Ukraine or at the very least the odds of that were unlikely.
Invading Canada would be easy for the US. Greenland not so much. I would say the Europeans have more artic trained troops, winterized armoured forces, ice breakers, planes designed for artic conditions etc. Would you guys be able to invade greenland? Absolutely but holding it especially during winter would be a challenge.

You sure have a spotty memory for timelines.
What you mean to say is no one took it seriously until he was re-elected.

2018 NATO Summit
Date: July 11, 2018
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Action: Trump urged NATO allies to double their military spending target from 2% to 4% of their GDP. He specifically criticized Germany for its defense spending, claiming it was "totally controlled by Russia."

2019 Demands
Date: March 8, 2019
Proposal: Trump suggested that countries hosting U.S. troops should pay the full cost of American military presence plus an additional 50%. This proposal aimed to increase financial contributions from allies like Germany and Japan.

2025 NATO Agreement
Date: June 26, 2025
Outcome: Following Trump's re-election, NATO members agreed to significantly increase their defense spending, with some countries committing to a target of 5% of GDP. This marked a notable shift in defense contributions among NATO allies.

I won't bore you with the long list of answers reported by the press to questions repeatedly asking DJT if he would ignore an ally that needed help but was delinquent on payments.
As they occurred, I laughed every time.

I take it your knowledge of WW2 is spotty or bankrupt.
I would put the 10th Mountain Division up against any nation's winterized infantrymen.
Our Rangers, Seals, and various special forces units are no joke in any weather.

No I mean that the Europeans did not take defense spending seriously till after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Why are you now bringing up WW2? I am aware of the 10th mountain divisions history. I simply said Europe overall has more artic trained troops than the United States. I mean countries like Finland basically have their entire army trained in artic warfare to an extent. The fact is the majority of the equipment you have in stockpiles and being actively used is less effective in cold weather unless it is modified and you have less cold weather equipment.
I know your special forces units can fight in artic conditions. I would hope they would as special forces units should be able to fight in any weather on any terrain in any condition.

[Dmanwuzhere]

The U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division and the 10th Mountain Division, are among the best military forces equipped for Arctic conditions in the world. Their specialized training and focus on cold-weather operations are essential for effective performance in such achallenging environment.
I mention WW2 because that's when and where the 10th was invented.

I have a lil question for you.
Why do you think American guns dont function in extreme cold temps?

Both of the aforementioned special units would kick the Danes azzez on a bad day mid-winter.
Americans make quite a few weapons, from pistols to automatic rifles, that excel in cold environments.

[Meliva]

Honestly, even if we gave it to him that we DIDN"T have a lot of solid gear for arctic conditions-the US is a economic juggernaut-if we switch to a war economy and start producing what we need, that would change really damn quickly-add in the fact that we could ALSO bomb the shit out of most other nations factories with our larger navy and airforce, and well, wouldn't be long til the other side would be lacking proper equipment and not the US. There is a reason why our help was SO crucial in BOTH World Wars-even BEFORE we sent troops over, it was our factories that helped keep the Allies in the fight. Most of Europe has no navy-since many of them are landlocked-and even those who aren't don't tend to have impressive navies-the UK being the one with the biggest last I remember-and even their navy is pretty far behind the US. COmbine that with our larger airforce, once we claim the skies, we then can claim the seas, and then with both the Sky and Sea in our hand, Europe can't keep fighting on an Island like Greenland-any troops there would be cut off.

[Lachlan]

The U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division and the 10th Mountain Division, are among the best military forces equipped for Arctic conditions in the world. Their specialized training and focus on cold-weather operations are essential for effective performance in such achallenging environment.
I mention WW2 because that's when and where the 10th was invented.

I have a lil question for you.
Why do you think American guns dont function in extreme cold temps?

Both of the aforementioned special units would kick the Danes azzez on a bad day mid-winter.
Americans make quite a few weapons, from pistols to automatic rifles, that excel in cold environments.

Golly who would have thought that elite special forces units would be able to easily defeat regular army personnel? Except that is exactly what special forces are designed for.
Anyway I know those 2 divisions train for artic conditions.

Your question about guns I cannot answer from a firsthand perspective as I have never fired a gun in real life. Doing a quick google search it lists material expansion and contraction as metal expands and contracts in different weather conditions, ammunition performance (this one I did not know), apparently in cold weather conditions the propellant in in cold weather will apparently affect burn rate resulting in slightly less than optimal pressure and velocity, moisture accumulation (although I think this is more a long term issue from my limited knowledge of firearms) and finally the one I did know about which is improper lubrication can result in guns jamming. All that does seem correct I think.

[Lachlan]

Honestly, even if we gave it to him that we DIDN"T have a lot of solid gear for arctic conditions-the US is a economic juggernaut-if we switch to a war economy and start producing what we need, that would change really damn quickly-add in the fact that we could ALSO bomb the shit out of most other nations factories with our larger navy and airforce, and well, wouldn't be long til the other side would be lacking proper equipment and not the US. There is a reason why our help was SO crucial in BOTH World Wars-even BEFORE we sent troops over, it was our factories that helped keep the Allies in the fight. Most of Europe has no navy-since many of them are landlocked-and even those who aren't don't tend to have impressive navies-the UK being the one with the biggest last I remember-and even their navy is pretty far behind the US. COmbine that with our larger airforce, once we claim the skies, we then can claim the seas, and then with both the Sky and Sea in our hand, Europe can't keep fighting on an Island like Greenland-any troops there would be cut off.

Sure that is true but I am working under the assumption that most countries will cut trade and therefore resources from the United States weakening your economy. Would that stop you? No it would not at least in the short and medium term but at least from my point of view as an outsider I don't think the American public would be like yay war with Europe and would object to the extreme financial cost of attacking your still technical allies and significant negative effects on your economy. Not to mention Russia and China would take the opportunity to strengthen their position and it would be an almost certainty that China would then invade Taiwan.
Which is why I say politically and militarily America's position in Asia at the moment is weakening because your political and military strength is focused on Iran.

[Lachlan]

Australia absolutely could jump its defense spending up today. Politics is stopping it from happening, not poverty.
Blah blah blah Putin this and that.
Ukraine might not have been attacked so soundly if idiots hadn't threatened to put them in NATO.
I mean, you have to attack before they join if you are against them joining.
Kinda dumb to do it after.

I would have attacked them if I could, we already support their broke azzes why would we make it mandatory?
Zelensky also would have taunted until he got smacked then demand defense... fook zelensky

Ukraine ended the treaty that was in place for the Crimea action from Putin, as NATO membership was being tossed out there.
Russia as a whole never agreed to the 1954 decision by Nikita Khrushchev taking Crimea from them and giving it to Ukraine. Also, 96 percent of Crimeans wanted to be with Russia. The handling of Crimea residents before Zelensky was bad. I see no reason to see that changing had Putin not annexed it.

As for stealth drone fighters, Lockheed Martin has them coming soon, ours will pair with US and allied fighters easily.
https://warwingsdaily.com/lockheed-pres ... -fighters/

Your subs are coming on a layaway program, which I certainly do not approve of. 30 years of payments is like welfare. Y'all have wasted plenty of dough, and if you can't pay for 1 every couple years fook ya, but my government is nicer than I am, so it is what it is.

6 good subs and 11 cheap frigates not even hunter class in 2040 ... yay you. Big help you will be. Of course, it doesn't matter as big poppa USA is expected to handle anything you can't.

Oh, and I will always bring up China, as when you mention Russia, you have to mention China, as they are best buds for now.

Money is 100% a problem. We do not have the money to spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on defense. We are in the top 15 countries in defense spending and only a little bit behind countries with much larger populations to draw from.
Which brings me to my second point. An increase in defense spending is useless without the manpower to staff our vessels and crew our bases. We simply do not have the population base to support it. Maintaining high enough recruitment rates is becoming an increasingly challenging problem for many countries. Thankfully that downward trend of recruitment in Australia has stopped. To be honest though I think it is that standards in recruitment are too high especially if you are running short of people. Like if someone is a little bit unfit I think instead of rejecting them you should accept them, train them up and once they finish training they will meet your standards. Like between 2024 and 2025 a little over 7000 people were recruited to the ADF which is up about 15% I believe. But then they were saying they were still 1000 short of their recruitment target. 75,000 people applied during that time and I'm thinking surely there were 1000 more people in the 60,000+ other applicants you could have recruited? Sure some would be completely ineligible due to eyesight, hearing or mental stability issues but I am sure some of those 60,000+ applicants could have been recruited.
As for our ships I think it is due to mismanagement. After the collins subs were built, Australia should have had another project in the works like building the destroyers sooner, then the new frigates, then new subs and kept demand consistent and steady but instead the government delayed and revised and then all those skilled shipbuilders were not getting worked and went of to other countries.
But again like I say it isn't like we have the resources or the manpower to magic up a huge navy with people to crew it.
We have helped in other ways such as our rare earths mineral deal which will cut your dependency on china down. In my view it is not really our military which is our main help to you guys but our natural resources and bases which you guys use that are far enough away from china to be safe from anything except long range missiles.
Where is this 30 years of payments stuff for the drone subs? I do not see anything about that anywhere as far as my quick google search is concerned.

I don't do quick Google searches; you kinda have to have a network of military deep divers that research some of the craziest chit. I'm sure if I went looking long enough, I could tell you the percentage of your military that picks its nose on Thursdays.

I could give you a short list of links, but I don't encourage laziness, and honestly, each link isn't the magic news site I may visit 20 to find an answer or even 50 before I give up for the day, as I don't have the time for drawn-out searches, but I refuse to use google as its a left leaning source. I use Duck Duck Go, if I google at all as they rarely disappoint and remove or edit commentary based on political views.

I completely missed this. I am actually sort of lying I don't use google. I use the norton private browser from the norton antivirus company. Not sure if you know the company. Apparently it has better security than google chrome and microsoft edge because the more common security problems they have do not exist with this browser and it has better encryption and all that stuff.
I am not sure which search engine it uses as a base though as I am pretty sure norton has not developed a seperate browser engine but sort of just piggy backs of I presume google chrome or microsoft edge.
Yes it is a big problem how some search engines are biased more towards one thing than the other. I think this will only get worse as more and more people use ai.
I think there is a possibility that when I search something up compared to you it comes up with different sites due to me being in Australia and you in the US. I don't have time to do extensive deep dives and explore the deepest corners of the internet. I mean one small search turns up thousands of results. I think what both of us need to keep in mind as well that some websites may give inaccurate information or you are biased to listening to websites that support your views. I am sure even if you, Mel and I may not mean to do that I know we all do this to some extent.

I think you and Mel are more right leaning and I am more left leaning meaning we do not agree on many things but I think it is important that I see a little bit of why you think about an issue differently compared to what I do and vice versa as I believe this gives people in general a bit more of a balanced view of the world (even if I believe what you think sometimes is nuts). I think I recall at some point you (maybe?)said that sometimes younger generations when they encounter someone with an opposing view they like to basically cancel or remove their opinion which I disagree with and try my best to avoid. I honestly think this is why political divides and extremism in almost every country seems to be getting worse as people are afraid or unwilling to discuss issues in a relatively respectful and civil manner with people that have opposing views to you anymore.

[Meliva]

Sure that is true but I am working under the assumption that most countries will cut trade and therefore resources from the United States weakening your economy. Would that stop you? No it would not at least in the short and medium term but at least from my point of view as an outsider I don't think the American public would be like yay war with Europe and would object to the extreme financial cost of attacking your still technical allies and significant negative effects on your economy. Not to mention Russia and China would take the opportunity to strengthen their position and it would be an almost certainty that China would then invade Taiwan.
Which is why I say politically and militarily America's position in Asia at the moment is weakening because your political and military strength is focused on Iran.

Sure-that will also hurt Europe just as much if not more then it hurts the US though. See, the US, is really lucky, in the fact that, we have JUST about everything locally. We got oil. We got farmland. We got factories. I believe the only real thing we lack is rare earth metals-we have them I believe but not enough to meet demand without exports. The US is the world's BIGGEST Importer. And 2nd biggest Exporter. Which means, cutting off trade would hurt the EU or whoever does it, a LOT more then it does the US-that's why threatening to Tariff other nations is such an effective tool-yes, it hurts the US-but it hurts the other country a LOT bloody more-which pressures them to negotiate-with the US having the better position. We also have a large enough military we can beat Iran and still have forces elsewhere-and let's not forget that it's not like our allies in Asia are weak-if anything they're a lot more capable then the ones we got in Europe-probably because they're next door to China-while most of Europe has grown rather soft and lazy being so far away from any hostile nations. Russia has its hands full with Ukraine still-and China is largely a paper tiger-with plenty of neighbors who would help us put it in check if needed.

[Dmanwuzhere]

The U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division and the 10th Mountain Division, are among the best military forces equipped for Arctic conditions in the world. Their specialized training and focus on cold-weather operations are essential for effective performance in such achallenging environment.
I mention WW2 because that's when and where the 10th was invented.

I have a lil question for you.
Why do you think American guns dont function in extreme cold temps?

Both of the aforementioned special units would kick the Danes azzez on a bad day mid-winter.
Americans make quite a few weapons, from pistols to automatic rifles, that excel in cold environments.

Golly who would have thought that elite special forces units would be able to easily defeat regular army personnel? Except that is exactly what special forces are designed for.
Anyway I know those 2 divisions train for artic conditions.

Your question about guns I cannot answer from a firsthand perspective as I have never fired a gun in real life. Doing a quick google search it lists material expansion and contraction as metal expands and contracts in different weather conditions, ammunition performance (this one I did not know), apparently in cold weather conditions the propellant in in cold weather will apparently affect burn rate resulting in slightly less than optimal pressure and velocity, moisture accumulation (although I think this is more a long term issue from my limited knowledge of firearms) and finally the one I did know about which is improper lubrication can result in guns jamming. All that does seem correct I think.

Definitely a Google-based answer, now explain how the Danes and other sub zero inhabitants have bypassed using steel and gunpowder in their firearm manufacturing process.
You can Google a tad more to find out that to combat the barriers you mentioned, there are simple routines that decent gun owners would exhibit routinely, and our military would follow religiously.
Our military offers free training for our soldiers at 3 levels: mandatory for special forces and optional for others who are interested.
1. personal movement in sub-zero conditions. This teaches clothing techniques and heat management. ground insulation and how to navigate in snowy and icy conditions.
2 combat in sub-zero conditions, which includes cold weather survival, reconnaissance, and technology integration
3 Medical care in subzero conditions, which teaches medics to operate effectively in subzero conditions.
The last is conducted in Norway, lol, but the other two are conducted here in Alaska and Vermont, where we have comparable winters.

I taught Bushcraft in my younger years at Blackwater Forest to pilots at Eglin Air Force base, so pilots could not just survive if downed but thrive off the land in different shelters based on terrain and greenery available with a knife as a starting tool.
That was a six-week course with no base or home living in between.
I mention that to give you an idea of how dedicated our soldiers are to learn optional skills as well as their mandatory field-related skills.
While the course was designed for pilots, it was attended by Marines and Army members who just wanted another possibly useful skill under their belt.

I could have made that a career, but the road I chose to follow was way bumpier and taught a whole host of craziness to unlearn as I matured into the me now