VP Pence Lays Out Trump's Vision For Establishing a US Space Force (nbcnews.com)

Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday laid out details for President Donald Trump's proposed new branch of the U.S. military responsible for protecting national security in outer space. From a report: In a speech at the Pentagon, Pence said the new Space Force would be established by 2020. "As President Trump has said, in his words, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space -- we must have American dominance in space. And so we will," Pence said. "Space is, in his words, a war-fighting domain just like land and air and sea." He added, "History proves that peace only comes through strength, and in the realm of outer space, the United States Space Force will be that strength in the years ahead." The Space Force would ultimately become the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces and would be equal to the other five, Pence said. The Department of Defense has prepared a report laying out the phases of creating the new branch, which will ultimately have to be reviewed and approved by Congress.

Comments

BUY SPACEX

[Spy Handler]

Elon is gonna become the biggest defense contractor on earth

Re:BUY SPACEX

[Daetrin]

Don't you mean the biggest defense contractor _off_ earth?

Re: BUY SPACEX

[datavirtue]

I'm not willing to say it's aliens.....but....it's aliens.

What about the deep see force.

[fish_in_the_c]

We should have military dominance of the deep sea as well. I mean almost NO one can go there. We need to establish a base on the moon and a colony on mars for 'security'. After all, all that nothing is a real threat.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Major communication infrastructure is in the deep sea as well. If the only way to protect our interests is to display strength, the military is going to need a serious budget increase.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Rick Schumann]

Yeah sure let's militarize every gods-be-damned thing, as if we aren't already living on the War World. Endless cycles of war, what a great way to live!

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Green Mountain Bot]

The Navy? Submarines can go pretty deep if they need to. There is no critical infrastructure on the moon or mars. But there is in space and the deep sea! Full-spectrum dominance is a real thing.

I am not sure what your comment is on about.

Modern Submarines have a maximum depth of somewhere between 2400-3000 feet. Any further, and the pressure will crush the hull. Compare that with an average ocean depth of 12,000 feet.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[apoc.famine]

Want to know how I can tell you haven't had many repeat sexual partners....?

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Insanity Defense]

1984 - "Excess" productivity transferred to continuous war so the "lower classes" can be kept poor and down trodden rather than getting an increased share in worldly goods. Nationalism cranked up to keep them accepting their poverty from the resulting continuous war.

It wasn't ALL Big Brother.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[penandpaper]

I think if you think this is bullshit then you haven't been following the topic for any amount of time. Yes, Trump is good at grabbing headlines but this topic precedes Trump by many years. Right now every branch has to manage their own use of satellites without any centralized thought to management, technological direction, or overlap. We already have a presence in space with assets to protect and a strategy to develop. The army doesn't provide the boats nor airplanes why should it be different for satellites capability?

Why bother fighting from space, with the current level of technology, it is entirely bullshit, all you have to do is shut down access to space, too easy.

Again, this just tells me you haven't been paying attention at all. The Chinese demonstrated shooting down a satellite years ago. I believe that the Russians and the Chinese are working toward expanding their ability to compromise military and commercial assets in space. Having a branch of military dedicated to understanding those threats and working to ensure that our assets in space are not compromised is the point in addition to consolidating overlapping capability that can give direction and specialization currently unable to be performed.

no idiot mud monkeys have access to space for decades to come.

And then you lost your access to space too and the capability it enhanced in addition to the economic impact in the commercial sector. Just like MAD there more to it than just "launch a missile" and the mere fact MAD existed changed strategy for various dimensions of war.

There is critical infrastructure that must be protected and ensuring that the military is organized properly to protect that and to ensure maximum lethality is the entire job of the military regardless where it is.

You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

Know what will happen because of this? Every other nation on the planet that has a space program will now be compelled to do the same. Likely won't be long before there are nuclear warheads in orbit from one country or another. So much for peaceful space exploration. More fucking Dominionist shit from Pence and the Trump administration. I hope Congress votes it down.

Re: You idiots.

[b0s0z0ku]

Problem is that an arms race is hugely expensive, and orbiting nukes mean that one fuckup means a city gone or a large part of the country hit by EMP. Dominionist is the wrong term, more like apocalyptic.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spaaaaaacccceeeeee Fooooooorrrrccccceeeeee!
PEW PEW PEW!

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

This isn't a video game.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

Also who wants to live in a world that seems to be locked into a continual cycle of war or threat of war? Would be nice if we'd evolve past this bullshit.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what we've evolved INTO. It's the optimal solution to survival of the fittest. Nature has spoken.

Re: You idiots.

[Areyoukiddingme]

Dominionist is the wrong term, more like apocalyptic.

You seem to be unaware of what Dominionists want. A significant percentage of Dominionists interpret Biblical version, in particular Revelations, to mean that it is their duty to intentionally induce an apocalypse in order to precipitate the Second Coming of Christ. They're the Dominionists who grew out of Pentecostalism, and sometimes self-identify as adherents of "Kingdom Now" theology. Their goal is a global Christian theocracy, and they think the sole path that gets them what they want is a global holocaust, because they interpret Revelations as prophecy, and believe the prophecy demands it. These people are properly called Dominionists because they self-identify as such, in writing.

Re:You idiots.

[supremebob]

Shhhh.... you're spoiling SpaceX's plan for future profitability!

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

sez you

Re:You idiots.

[DigiShaman]

These Chinese are already doing it (anti-sat missiles), and most likely the Russians have warheads parked in orbit as well. Rick, you're professing your ignorance on this topic. All that this administration did was clear the air and tell the truth and stop pussy footing around. Super Powers are dominating all domains of access because of a single universal truth of the human condition - humanity is governed by the aggressive use of force. That's not a statement for how it should be, rather reflecting on the reality for what it is.

Re: You idiots.

[Oswald McWeany]

The only plus side from this is it may lead to technology to colonise beyond Earth... that's the only plus side I see.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

<sarcasm>Nuclear weapons = peace</sarcasm>

FTFY

Re: You idiots.

[cayenne8]

Also who wants to live in a world that seems to be locked into a continual cycle of war or threat of war? Would be nice if we'd evolve past this bullshit.

The trouble is....who (which nation) stops first and puts themselves into danger in the hopes that the other nations follow the example, vs continuing the race and eventually overcoming the weaker nations?

Re:You idiots.

[vux984]

It's worse than that. China has already demonstrated they can and will shoot down an orbiting satellite.

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

And the only take aways anyone with half a brain would have are:

a) a space based weapons platform would be a sitting duck.

b) the orbital debris from any sustained orbital conflict will make earths orbit completely inhospitable for decades. A bit of scrap the size of a pencil eraser moving at 8 km/s is going to do a number on anything in its way.

You can't "dominate" orbital space the way you can dominate air or land. All you can do is render it completely inhospitable for everyone.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

You are correct, and you're also one of the very few around here who actually understand it's a Real Thing.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

Your optimism is both endearing and saddeningly naive. :-(

Re:You idiots.

[jbengt]

Just because space would most likely become militarized in the future, is no reason to accelerate the problem. But now they will have an excuse to start speeding towards war from space.

Re: You idiots.

[sheph]

No, says history. Every country on earth was acquired by conquest. It's lovely to think we could become civilized, and move beyond that. But human nature would suggest that it's not attainable. That being the case, I'd rather the country I live in be the dominant one rather than the dominated.

Re: You idiots.

[jythie]

This was only true when conquest was cheaper than trade. This pretty much ended with the late industrial revolution, which is why today you only really see war of conquest in the most impoverished regions.

Re: You idiots.

[cayenne8]

Why the ACTUAL FUCK do you believe we have to "overcome weaker nations"? Are you also forgetting the tags around your comment?

Not saying we (as in the US) have to overcome weaker nations, but if WE (as in the US) stop our build up first, we become one of the weaker nations that other stronger nations would be very tempted to overcome.

Unless everyone verifiably puts down their weapons at the same time....the first one to put them down alone eventually becomes a loser to the others.

Re: You idiots.

[sheph]

I'll have to look them up tonight. I've never heard of them, but from what you describe it sounds like complete heresy. Nothing in Revelations indicated that the end times can be or will be brought about by man. In fact, it says "no man knows the hour or the day" indicating it will be on God's time table. I often wonder how these groups call themselves Christians when there is nothing in scripture to substantiate what they believe.

Re:You idiots.

[AmiMoJo]

Bollocks. You can't hide nukes in orbit. The US already has anti-sat weapons too.

This would be a major escalation of it happened.

Re: You idiots.

[Nidi62]

Hey bro, what is Revelations?

Allegory for the fall of Rome that many modern-day Christians interpret as prediction of a still-to-come event.

The AC is pointing out that it's called Revelation, not Revelations.

Step into a Southern church sometime and you will even hear the pastor say "Revelations".

Re:You idiots.

[Insanity Defense]

Did he say that we were breaking out of the 'Outer Space Treaty' that was signed into effect in 1967 by the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union (as well as India, Pakistan and China later on)? That treaty forbids putting weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit, the Moon and other celestial bodies.

If the U.S. has them they are by definition NOT WMDS. If anyone else has them a pea shooter can be called a WMD. So no problem, only nations other than the U.S. can possibly be in violation of the treaty.

Re:You idiots.

[AmiMoJo]

You can't hide stuff up there.

Re: You idiots.

[outlander]

Pentecostalism, which is the predecessor of modern-day Dominionism, arose out of folk churches.

They very literally believe - as did medieval scholars - that enough biblical exegesis coupled with faith and self-abnegation will allow them to engage in divination.

Never mind that such practices are expressly condemned in old testament texts, and would have been (relatively) heretical even to the batshit english puritans who settled the east coast of North America. The current Dominionist belief structure reflects a post-enlightenment level of absolute savagery, albeit dressed up in a nice suit for Sunday, but still red in tooth and claw.

Dominionists slough off proscriptions against divination as "old testament" and claim that the personal relationship with the numinous supersedes both older rules (which, granted, were intended to maintain control over belief change) and (the scary bit) logic and reason. They claim that only 'experiential faith' is valid, and all other forms of religious observance are shams.

The truly scary bit is that the notion experiential faith expressly incorporates the validity of revelatory experiences - and the mandate that revelatory experience is to be taken as truth, and challenges to it represent heretical behavior that requires prosecution in the name of holiness. Such a system has no internal checks and brooks no challenges, and is an ideal basis for an authoritarian state. For if A has a revelation and reveals it, B and C are bound to obey it, whether it is to their benefit or not.....

Thomas Paine, who I revere, has this to say about this sort of revelation-trumps-all thinking in Part2/Sec20 of Common Sense. He was responding to earlier forms of socially-sanctioned illogic occasioned by the Great Awakening of the 1730s and 40s, led by Jonathan Edwards and

"Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between God and man, can only be applied to something which God reveals of his will to man; but though the power of the Almighty to make such a communication is necessarily admitted, because to that power all things are possible, yet the thing so revealed (if anything ever was revealed, and which, bye the bye, it is impossible to prove), is revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His account of it to another person is not revelation; and whoever puts faith in that account, puts it in the man from whom the account comes; and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed it, or he may be an impostor and may lie. There is no possible criterion whereby to judge of the truth of what he tells, for even the morality of it would be no proof of revelation. In all such cases the proper answer would be, "When it is revealed to me, I will believe it to be a revelation; but it is not, and cannot be incumbent upon me to believe it to be revelation before; neither is it proper that I should take the word of a man as the word of God, and put man in the place of God." This is the manner in which I have spoken of revelation in the former part of the Age of Reason; and which, while it reverentially admits revelation as a possible thing, because, as before said, to the Almighty all things are possible, it prevents the imposition of one man upon another, and precludes the wicked use of pretended revelation."

Re:You idiots.

[outlander]

Agreed.

a: absolutely true

b: The ablation cascade - e.g., the diffusion into a more evenly distributed quantity of orbiting bits moving very fast - would kill spaceflight for hundreds of years, at best. There's nothing that can protect a launch vehicle moving through such a cloud of small pieces, at least not now. It makes Asteroids look dead simple....

c. Why militarize space when it can be commercialized? I for one want to spend a vacation in a weightless space station. That would be amazing....

Re: You idiots.

[deviated_prevert]

I'll have to look them up tonight. I've never heard of them, but from what you describe it sounds like complete heresy. Nothing in Revelations indicated that the end times can be or will be brought about by man. In fact, it says "no man knows the hour or the day" indicating it will be on God's time table. I often wonder how these groups call themselves Christians when there is nothing in scripture to substantiate what they believe.

One little ditty from Revelation that seems to be conveniently skipped by the American religious right these days is the following one in quotes. The Mennonites are keenly aware of this prophecy and it is the one that is turning out to be most current.

"The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”

I was modded down for this post rather quickly for being "off topic" but to me at least, it seems that taking care of the earth and all the creatures that are upon it is job one and we are failing at miserably.

Cooperative space exploration and science does not have to include military function, and our very industrial base does not need to be in future mostly created for destructive ends. The optimism during the Vietnam war created by the peaceful aspects of the space race that landed us on the moon could be repeated. The entire human race could become united and excited by both the rapid advancement of ecologically sound industrial and agricultural practices and experiments in space farming technology and the future necessary expansion of live off this planet. The technologies necessary for environmentally sound agriculture on this planet and in outer space are closely related. Our current greenhouse technologies are primitive, instead we are fucking things up royally and wasting precious petroleum based polymers and hydrocarbon based fuels on automotive tech and plastic packaging.

Either we smarten up and learn to use our resources wisely or we will have to deal with idiots like Trump rolling back the clock to primitive technologies that consume ridiculous amounts of resources just to put a few boots with guns in space! And BTW nuclear weapons that just go bang are essentially useless in space unless they are emp pulse based and even so they are far too costly to refine into the cheap weapons of directed emp necessary for space warfare. But developing the technology to use nuclear resources exclusively for space based energy sources is a hell of a lot more sensible than experimenting with nuclear devices in the atmosphere to say the least. If we are to advance technologically it will eventually be in space but first we have to advance past the mindless greed of today's consumerism and the endless wars it creates.

Why not use the USAF?

[b0s0z0ku]

Why not use the USAF instead of creating another parallel bureaucracy? Better yet, why not merge all of the branches (cut out the Coast Guard and put it back under DoT control) and share as much bureaucracy as possible?

It's not like we don't have domestic issues (crumbling roads, health care, education, etc) to spend money on. Cut taxes, cut the debt, or start spending money on things that benefit people other than military contractors.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, then they couldn't ask for a 20% increase in defense spending. This is like Bush creating DHS. Creating new agencies or military branches are a great way to funnel cash to your buds, not the previous guy's buds. There is a good argument that there is already too much duplication among the existing branches.

There is also the issue that most of the modern problems in international relations cannot be solved by killing people better. Imagine a world where schools, hospitals, and economic development were the lead in American influence in the world instead of bullets and bombs.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[gtall]

Many in the DoD are against the new Guardians of the Galaxy force (haven't been able to recruit a talking raccoon). Most likely what will happen is the DoD will bury the new force in study committees, plan proposals, etc. in that dork leaves office. Hopefully, we won't be left with a religious nutjob like Pence. And even if they do stand up a new force, the Air Force and the Navy will be gunning to reabsorb it over time.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[ScentCone]

The Air Force already does a lot of this. But there's tons of overlap with other branch activities and very much so with other agencies. Consolidating this sort of thing under one branch focused on that activity makes sense. In the same way it makes sense for the Navy to run the boats, rather than for the Army to float their own troop carriers. The Coast Guard, at first blush, looks like a redundant mini-Navy, but their mission is very different. Hence it's its own branch.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[penandpaper]

The calls for a separate branch specific for space have been around a lot longer than Trump.

Grrrr! Impetuous boy!

[DredJohn]

Prince Vultan: Ah, well; who wants to live forever?

Only good for one thing

[djbckr]

This is rhetoric for one thing and one thing only: Lucrative Government Contracts.

Re:Only good for one thing

[jeff4747]

No, you're forgetting the most important thing: It would put Trump's name in the history books as the guy who created the Space Force.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

Start an arms race in the ONLY fucking military area you're NOT superior than the rest of the planet combined. You could simply lean back and be Number 1. On water, land and sea, nobody can hold a candle to your military power and in space there's the Outer Space Treaty that everyone who could even remotely matter signed and heeds.

The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke. Russia has man rated rockets to launch them. China has man rated rockets to launch them. The EU... doesn't need man rated rockets to launch them 'cause where they launch, nobody gives a crap when the nuke comes back down prematurely.

Pence, we all know the worth of your brain is that of your name, but did you have to prove so blatantly that you're basically only an assassination insurance for Trump? I.e. "think twice before shooting me, 'cause then this bozo is prez!"

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[EvilSS]

The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke

You mean besides the almost 400 Minuteman III ICBMs? Did we forget how ICBMs actually work? Or the Minotaur V?

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[OrangeTide]

The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke. Russia has man rated rockets to launch them.

Never in history has anyone taken a manned rocket to detonate a nuclear warhead. I can't say that it was never on the drawing board, but it seems like a bonehead idea.

The US's ICBMs fly up to around 1100 km before reentering to strike their targets. That's just above the maximum altitude of the old Shuttle Orbiter, and well beyond the typical operational altitude for most Shuttle missions (320 km).

Can Russia fly higher? probably. But is that a requirement for nukes in space? clearly not. In fact the highest test explosion was at 540 km, and yet about half of the known tests were under 100 km.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

Trust me, to launch a nuclear warhead in peace time into an orbit, you DO want man rated equipment. You want a rocket that has a chance of exploding on the way up that is as close to zero as you can possibly get. First, because it could be kinda hard to all the residents of Florida that America's Wang just got uninhabitable due to fallout.

And then there's that unfortunate "what goes up, must come down" part where you could make it halfway around the globe before your rocket fails and it lands where it makes diplomacy really, really complicated.

Sure, when launching ICBMs in a nuclear war scenario, that all is very negligible. I mean, we ARE already in a potential fallout situation and whether it's your nuke or the Russian one, who gives a fuck? But in a peace scenario, you do NOT want that warhead to come down anywhere unplanned.

And I think I already pointed out why ICBMs make very poor orbital rockets. ICBMs fly ballistic. That's kinda short of what you need for an orbital shot. Going into orbit isn't about going higher. It's about going faster.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[lgw]

ICBMs are designed to hit a target anywhere in the world, which in general means they can put a payload into low orbit if needed. And the payloads are all several times the mass of the nuclear warheads, due to countermeasures against interceptors. You could easily launch a warhead in a package that let you choose when to de-orbit.

So, yeah, sure, you might have some 'splainin to do if you did something that simple, but we certainly have the rockets.

Militarized space

[DrYak]

Likely won't be long before there are nuclear warheads in orbit from one country or another. So much for peaceful space exploration.

First, nuke in orbit aren't necessary when you can deal damage by the sheer kinetic energy when de-orbiting things. There's a reason why controlled deorbit aim for the Nemo point.
(Also nukes in orbit would be violating several international treaties, but I wouldn't be surprised if some rulers decided to wipe their asses with those)

Now, the most important part : You might have not noticed, but despite several decade of space conquest, there hasn't been much actual *fighting* going on in space. Most of the weapons sent into space where for the specific use of survival among the wild-life if the return capsule gets lost in the middle of nowhere (some of these lost cosmonauts where complaining of hearing wolves and bears dangerously close to the capsule during night-time, while waiting to make contact with the retrival team).

The thing which space has been used a LOT for is for intelligence and spying.

The first thing that is going to happen if other countries try to militarize their space program is high resolution camera pointing at all the place that the US won't allow to be photographed with their own satellites plus ability to jam any communication satellite that adversaries might be relying on.

What about the uniforms?

[mmmVenison]

Will there be redshirts? Oh my god I hope there are Redshirts.

Mexico?

[ZipprHead]

Is Mexico going to pay for this too?

Re:Mexico?

[GunJah]

Of course not.
Trump will make the Aliens pay for it, as surely as Mexico will pay for the wall.

Big beautiful rockets...

[Drethon]

We'll have big beautiful rockets! And the Martians will pay for them.! And they will be flown by the most elite astronauts, but the true elites are all of you right here who voted for me! And...cough...sputter

Sorry, can't keep that up.

Needs approval of Comgress ...

[CaptainDork]

... how's that working out for the Wall?

Re:Needs approval of Comgress ...

[CaptainDork]

Indeed.

[July 1 2018] Trump's border wall not worth government shutdown, say lawmakers

money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

We got people who can't afford to go to the doctor, but these jackoffs want to play outer space.

Deficits exploding, but they're acting like we got money to burn. Wages going down for working people, and these geniuses think they're going to put jackbooted space troopers on Mars. Probably have a big Trump parade up there, too.

I mean, Pence is a guy who thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old and there's no evolution, but he's spearheading a Space Force that's going to be paid for with money borrowed from China, with whom we just started a trade war. Oh, we are so fucked.

Re:money to burn

[Straif]

Almost the entirety of the "Space Force" exists today but they are spread across multiple DoD and Intelligence groups so this isn't a huge expansion of the defense budget, more a realignment of existing expenditures. Over time it could even save money through consolidation. It's not even like this is a new proposal it's just the first time the Executive Branch bothered listening.

It's main proposed purpose is to protect the US (and it's allies) from space based attacks which are not primarily of a physical nature but more technological. There looking to develop better defense of satellite and earth based communications, GPS systems and physical space based equipment as well as develop tech that may be able to interfere with those same systems as used by the 'enemy'.

It's not like this is way out there either as China has already made claims about some of their satellite based 'defensive' capabilities.

A lot of these projects are already funded but due to various agencies priorities the money doesn't necessarily get spent in those areas. This will create an agency that ensures the money appropriated for space based defense gets spent on space defense.

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

so this isn't a huge expansion of the defense budget, more a realignment of existing expenditures.

Horseshit. There's already been a $120 billion increase in the defense budget this year, and the DoD has already requested another $12 billion just to begin the process of realignment. Have you ever heard of an additional government agency that didn't cost more money? How much do you think it cost just to put on Pence's little ceremony today announcing the Space Force? How much will the grand military parade Trump is planning for November cost taxpayers (and China)?

It's main proposed purpose is to protect the US (and it's allies) from space based attacks which are not primarily of a physical nature but more technological.

OK, so we're going to be protected from the Klingon empire. Noted.

It's not like this is way out there either as China has already made claims about some of their satellite based 'defensive' capabilities.

You know that additional $120 billion that we're spending on the military this year? It's almost entirely borrowed from China. Goddamn, man, do you not see the folly of going into debt to the country so you can build defenses against that country?

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

In the past I would've strongly agreed with your point about borrowing money from China, but the truth is, they have borrowed from China in US dollars, meaning the debt can be effectively wiped at any time. The 2008 financial crisis most drove home this fact for me, in that Chinese holdings were significantly devalued through all the quantitative easing.

Have you ever thought what happens to the dollar if the US 'wipes" it's debt? Which countries are going to buy it's treasuries? And if China should suddenly stop buying US treasuries? Economic pain like nobody knows. And if China were to start selling those securities it has? Game over, Rover.

Finally

[thegarbz]

We can nuke it from orbit!

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[penandpaper]

Uh. No. Peace through strength has been around ever since there was military strategy. Sun Tzu had some good thoughts about it.

"If their forces are substantial, prepare for them; if their forces are strong, avoid them."

"The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities...It is best to win without fighting."

"In peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace. The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence under no circumstances can it be neglected."

What do you think would have happened if in 1939 the allies had stronger militarizes than Germany? What would have happened if the allies had adapted to the technological advancements instead of fighting the previous world war?

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[ShanghaiBill]

Germany was quite peaceful in 1939, thanks to its strong military and authoritarian government.

Yet Germany lost the subsequent war.

The biggest "winner" of both world wars was the country that had done the least to prepare for them: The United States of America.

After WW2, America switched to much higher military spending, and higher levels of preparation. Results: Korea - tie, Vietnam - lost, Afghanistan - lost, Iraq - lost.

The problem with high military spending, is that it makes it easy to initiate stupid wars.

Ronny Ray-Gun will finally get his Star Wars

[jandrese]

This was a giant boondoggle in the 80s, and it's just as stupid today. I have no doubt Trump has visions of X-Wings flying around protecting America from space Muslims but it's completely divorced from the reality of the world. Is he worried that he's not building up debt fast enough? That's absolutely not a problem thanks to his disastrous tax bill.

This, so much This.

[rsilvergun]

Trump is more than a bit of a clown, but Pence scares me. He actually believes the crap he spouts. If the media was doing it's job his radical religious beliefs would have been front and center during the campaign. If he had his way we'd go back the the 50s with mandatory prayer in schools (yes, that was a thing until a SCOTUS decision shut it down).

Only if it involves WMDs

[Theaetetus]

It only happens if the US issues formal notice that it is withdrawing from the Outer Space Treaty. The Outer Space Treaty forbids weapons of mass destruction anywhere above the Earth, to include installations on other celestial bodies. Warmongers like to try to claim this only forbids nuclear bombs, and therefore allows kinetic bombardment. This is some bullshit of the highest order. A megaton explosion is mass destruction regardless of how it was initiated.

As you note, the OST only outlaws WMDs in space, but low size kinetic or energy weapons - i.e. satellite destroyers - are not banned. And yes, taking out an enemy's GPS satellites would be a terrible idea due to the Kessler Syndrome it would lead to, but it's not explicitly or implicitly against the treaty.

Similarly, you could put armed guards on your station or moon base without violating the OST.

Re:No, when he said "illegal aliens", ...

[sheph]

We're gonna need a bigger wall.

Build A Stupid Fence

[JimSadler]

Building a globe shaped fence that protects the US from any attack from space makes about as much sense as a fence on the Mexican border. So here we have a president who claims the US can not afford medical care for all but claims we must have a military service that will eat the national budget a nightmare. The sick part is that if another nation attacked us from space we could still exterminate them with our current weapons based on land and seas.

Dominionists think God is working through Trump

[rsilvergun]

Seriously, this is what they tell their flocks. It doesn't matter how immoral Trump is because God is working through him. To me that's just like saying "The Ends Justify The Means". But there's a literal Pimp running for office with the GOP in Nevada (he runs the brothels) and he's overwhelmingly supported by Evangelicals because, and I kid you not, "He tell's it like it is".

The right wing in America aren't thinking about policy, they're letting feelings get the better of them. Republicans have vastly superior branding, so anyone who's ignoring policy and just listening to their "gut" is going to throw in with them. This is why policies like a Legalized Pot, Living Minimum Wage, Ending the Wars & Medicare for All can consistently poll in the high 60s and low 70s but never pass.

Suck, suck, suck

[Snufu]

Forget nukes, will there be giant vacuum cleaners?