The more I learn about the day to day hell Ukrainian (& Russian, North Korean & contracted BRICS suckers) go through in the war in Ukraine, the more I think the West is terrifyingly out of touch with how war, insurgencies & even terrorism will happen in the future. Drones have changed everything.
It's an embarrassing failure, and the longer it goes on, the more embarrassing it is.
Also the more dangerous, though i do believe Western European countries are waking up.
To slow, and too riddled with vested foreign (US) corporate interests. There was plenty of money made during the cold War. Which was why Thatcher & co shat themselves when the wall came down. Their easily defined and controlled racket was coming to an end.
Completely lost on most Americans. Still fantasizing about fighting naval battles, dogfights, and desert storm.
This is why we should have gone all in to help Ukraine with more than just weapons & sanctions. We (the west) should have had troops on the way about three months after the invasion, if not sooner. The notion that peace can be made with Putin is nonsense & everyone knows it. We owe πΊπ¦. We promised.
A night or two after 9/11 I had a nightmare that a giant robot was walking through my city raining down bombs from a huge salt shaker in his hand. Last year I realized I had dreamed about the coming of drones.
The US government is taking pictures of protesters from Predator drones with the cursor on them and there was not a peep out of the US mainstream media.
Yeah, I dont think the calisthenics coach Pete Hegseth: "Warfighters Only! need apply" doctrine is going to keep pace with the future of conflict...
They should be changing that to βtop high scores on reaction based twitch games need applyβ
Those cute robots going through "Olympic" games recently will be the next step.
Iβll believe it when the Ukrainians say it works in their country.
So you donβt think western military is spending and testing on anti drone tech?
A better take of what i said is that i believe optimal test conditions are not the same as something that can be relied on to defend cities and troops cost effectively, and thatβs going to require use in Ukraine itself and reports by the troops that use it.
Yeah, I get that. But it does show that western forces are investing to combat the threat.
Link useful: www.gov.uk/government/n...
I think that anybody that isn't intimately involved is out of touch. It's one of the most considered and rapidly developing areas of technology, and it changes every day. Western defense contractors are in there innovating, but we do also need our warfighters learning at a similar pace.
Drones let you do war without being there. They are the universal soldier.
Effectively deployed, and with newer fibreoptic versions & solar powered βsit and wait modesβ they are also just about impossible to stop.
We are closer to the scenario where combatant AI is all thatβs left of the world.
Bring it.
The main guy to read on this strategically is John Robb, who coined the term 4th Generation Warfare to describe this situation.
At the same time, more and more civilians are dying in wars.
And actual AI (not the current marketing investment gimmick ponzi scams.) will change it further. The West, more draconian will try and restrict access & supply to software/parts and fail miserably (like the prohibition). Whilst also losing expertise technical minds due to cuts and theocratic π§΅
Theocratic wannabe despots. While this is going on during hyper inflation property collapse the non western sphere will continue to progress leaps & bounds leaving the US to its at this point inevitable byzantine death spiral and separation.
Oh, and the price of eggs will never be cheap again.
I think about this a lot. Last week alone, Poland had a Russian drone explode 100 km past its borders. I think Europe is woefully unprepared when it comes to drone warfare, and any major European city can be crippled within minutes with a coordinated drone attack.
It won't be possible within a year. Counter measures will be developed and deployed by then. Europe isn't stupid. They know Russia isn't making it past Ukraine. They'll learn from Ukraine and defend accordingly.
The economics are a problem. Drone factories can be attacked; drones can be shot out of the sky and fibres can be cut. However, the things to do this are much more expensive than the drone you intercept. Even nuclear weapons are a poor deterrent because the cost of "false flag" attacks is falling.
Counter measures are much more expensive right now. That will probably change just as quickly as drone warfare became THE thing over the course of Putin's war. Whatever Ukraine has been cooking could make war drones obsolete. Welcome to the 21st century.
I don't think Europe is stupid, but it's too cumbersome. Trump spelled out what was going to happen with Europe and NATO back in 2016, and Europe didn't start securing itself. It's been a decade and Europe's security still depends on who is in the White House.
Europe became quite a bit more secure once Russia demonstrated to the world that they are not a superpower. Ukraine is right next to Russia's main support and logistics system (trains) and the rest of Europe isn't. Do their nukes work? I assure you Russia has not been performing maintenance.
I agree it's more secure than before, but considering it's been almost a decade since Trump first appeared in office, and almost four years since the Ukraine war started (officially, at least), we're not anywhere near where we should be. We had the gift of time and we squandered it.
I know someone who has been working with the French military for a few years now developing anti-drone tech. I bet their budget has been increased...
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I was thinking this back in 2009. We are completely out of touch and out of capabilities. So much of the Ukraine + Russia footage looks and feels like WWI and earlier conflicts when more conventional weapons were banned. This tech will only get smaller, faster and more lethal.
I keep wondering what is stopping it from being used elsewhere. What is stopping it from being used to do other things like crime. It seems like a huge vulnerability that every country should be worried about. USA seems vastly out of touch, but I'm sure everyone is learning from this war.
I'm not sure where it went, but I was sent a link to an instagram reel that showed a fully functional trunk mounted turret system that is essentially rifle instead of laser, no longer available, but fully functional and mounted in a vehicle with the boot open. With full demonstration.
This is another really good channel too. www.youtube.com/@styropyro
Which West?
Have you not heard the term before?
It's debatable. An Italian scholar, Andrea Graziosi, say there are different wests. More specifically, if Baltic states, Finland, Sweden, Poland are west, they are well aware
ICYMI paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-wi...
Bingo! And we are being led by mentally deficient leaders, with no idea about how to deal with this problem.
Politicians are the last to understand anything.