Ukraine is an excellent reminder that trench warfare sucks and is a manpower and resource drain for both sides. One guy in a fighter jet is probably 1000000x more effective than a guy in a trench. One guided munition has the capability to decapitate an entire government.

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jrumbut 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

We are also protected on both sides by an ocean. If Canada and Mexico were hostile powers then we would be investing more in artillery shells and less in fighter jets.

Germany and North Korea are accessible by land to hostile powers, so their situation is very different.

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esseph 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> One guy in a fighter jet is probably 1000000x more effective than a guy in a trench

A guy in a trench with a $25,000 electro-optical/thermal MANPAD can now snipe a $100+ million dollar 5th gen stealth fighter flying low and fast.

To decapitate a government you'd just need a roughly $500 drone you can make at home and some homemade explosives. Bonus points if you harden it from electronic attack and use INS and optical terrain recognition for navigation and image analysis for final targeting.

Basically a 13 year old with an afternoon and some time in the library.

It's a weird time.

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zeristor 2 days ago | parent [-]

With this tech advantage what is there to stop Ukraine advancing into half of Russia?

Russia is a nuclear power, I’m not sure if they’ve missed the moment or the fact so much was spent on its upkeep it was a magnet for corruption and all the rocket fuel has been replaced with pipe cleaner.

The thing that really annoys me is there’s lots of great Russian people, and Putin has herded them off of a cliff. Where does Russia go from here, or can Russia go?

A myriad of warlords? The Russian East disintegrates and China comes in to reclaim the land Russia took after the Boxer Rebellion 150 years ago?

	▲	wildzzz 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Manpower is the major resource necessary to take ground. You can bomb everything from the sky or from artillery far away but you don't control the land until you can put boots on the ground to defend it. Even if you manage to drone every Russian in Crimea, you don't own it until you can move in and defend your claim.
	▲	Gud 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Many parts of Russia were independent kingdoms only recently. Probably (hopefully!) Russia will disintegrate into its smaller pieces.

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booleandilemma 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Unless it's the government of Iran, apparently.

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mrits 2 days ago | parent [-]

Are you referring to the new government Iran that took over after their leadership has been removed?

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anton1982t 2 days ago | parent [-]

They're likely referring to the government that controls Hormuz straight.

	▲	mrits 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Does saying obviously false statements make you feel better about yourself?