Apelham

@VincentB755 The full faith and credit of the US govt underpins the dollar. Noone invests in US Securities because of Article 5...

- La crédibilité de l’article 5 soutient le dollar. Le statut de monnaie de réserve mondiale repose sur la garantie sécuritaire américaine aux échanges mondiaux. Les routes maritimes sécurisées par la marine américaine, c’est ce qui justifie que le monde entier détienne des

Ah oui là c’est un autre niveau, sauf que les bases & troupes américaines & la protection nucléaire servent à plusieurs choses qui sert directement la puissance américaine : 1) Le parapluie nucléaire n’est pas un cadeau aux alliés. C’est le mécanisme qui empêche l’Allemagne,

@VincentB755 It would take Japan less than a year to make a nuclear weapon. South Korea maybe a bit longer, but depending on the allies, proliferation wouldn't be as bad as you make it out to be.

le Japon et la Corée du Sud de développer leurs propres armes nucléaires. Une prolifération nucléaire alliée serait un cauchemar stratégique pour Washington.

1. If its a door, why does Europe get a say in whether it stays open or closed, and what goes thru it? 2. More than a few Countries willing to help/host. Poland, Hungary, Romania, maybe Greece. Israel would be a willing partner for sure. 3. Britain provides ~ 10-15% of the Five Eyes intel, but it's a very good 10-15%. Australia and New Zealand couldn't be replaced by South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines? 4. France has an independent Arsenal. The UK Arsenal is US Built and US maintained Trident D5's. If/When the new Dreadnought come into service to replace the current Vanguards, those missiles will move over. 5. If Europe goes it alone, they aren't producing anything in the numbers they need to replace American systems in a few years. France makes 25 rafales a year. The UK shut down it's Typhoon line. How many international partners is it relying on for the GCAP? How is Europe going to project any of its power when it no longer has the capability to do so if the US were to leave? And that's just the tip of the procurement Iceberg. And thats a two way street. 6. What alternative currencies are out there? Should you divest from US Securities, while not impossible to do, what are you replacing them with that is just as stable? 7. A few countries answered the call when the phone rang. Others acted like there was interference on the line and they couldn't quite hear what was being said. Some countries did the bare minimum, and I understand why. Lately, it seems being an ally is conditional, and not in just what they are doing to help, but in how they are actively making things harder. 8. Including equities and Corporate debt, foreign investors around the world hold 26.88 Trillion dollars in US securities. U.S. Treasury securities are the world's preferred sovereign debt instrument. The preferred currency for world trade is still the dollar. America still has the largest GDP, it's the worlds largest importer of goods, and the second largest exporter of goods. That doesn't change if it leaves NATO. NATO used to have a seat at the table, America sat at the head. Then in 1992, Europe started making choices that have had some very adverse consequences today (As did the US), and when Europe started to get called out on some of these things, it's laughed at the messenger and ignored the message. America still sits at the head of the table. Some seats at that table have new occupants. A lot of Europe has been relegated to the folding tables you set up in the other rooms, yet a few still think they are at the big table. Without NATO, yes, America loses some stuff. Empire is not anywhere near the top of that list...

Trump thinks Europe needs NATO more than America does. His generals know better. Here’s what the US loses without it. 1. Its European base network Over 50 US military bases across Europe housing 84,000 troops. Ramstein in Germany is the largest US air base outside America and the hub for every US operation in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk is home to the only US F-35 wing in Europe, the same base the F-15 shot down over Iran last week flew from. These aren’t gifts to Europe. They are America’s front door to the rest of the world. 2. The geography it can never replace The US sits thousands of miles from every major conflict zone on earth. Europe puts American forces within striking distance of the Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel, the Arctic and Russia’s western border. No aircraft carrier replaces an entire continent. Without European bases America is projecting power across two oceans from a single landmass. That is not a superpower posture, it is an island. 3. Its intelligence network GCHQ, MI6 and European intelligence agencies feed directly into US operations. Five Eyes gives America more global surveillance reach than any other arrangement in history. Lose NATO and that pipeline closes. 4. Two allied nuclear powers The UK and France have independent nuclear arsenals. Outside NATO those weapons are no longer guaranteed to be on America’s side. That is two fewer nuclear powers in your corner. 5. Its arms export market European NATO members are America’s biggest weapons customers. F-35s, Apaches and Patriot missiles, hundreds of billions in contracts. If Europe goes it alone they buy European. Lockheed Martin and Boeing lose their biggest export market overnight. 6. The dollar’s global dominance NATO helps underpins the security order that keeps allies trading in dollars and holding dollar reserves. Collapse that alliance and the shift to alternative currencies accelerates. No single advantage matters more to American prosperity. 7. A trillion-dollar insurance policy 31 other countries have a legal obligation to fight for America if attacked. The only time Article 5 was ever triggered was to defend the US after 9/11. Over 1,100 allied soldiers died in Afghanistan answering that call. No other country on earth has anything close to this. 8. Its seat at the head of the table NATO makes America the leader of the free world. Without it the US is just another big country with a big army stranded between two oceans with no allies. China and Russia would celebrate for a decade.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Without NATO, America doesn’t gain independence. It loses an empire.

@monsterhunter45 @Manhattva Iran right about now

@Manhattva They're absolutely delusional. We kill people 500 to 1, and only quit once a critical mass of America's democrats cry about it. Then the survivors of the country we stomped on crawl out of the rubble and talk shit.

Ok.

@BlackWordBound So are more than a few Japanese

@Apelham8 Fair, I guess I am calling for the formal revocation of Article 9

The fact that Germany was allowed to remilitarize and not Japan is not only an outdated framework, it's a massive liability for both the USA and Japan today Strong alliances are built by having strong allies

@gham1985 @TheJackArn @Cernovich The Red Army wouldn't have won with out American Lend Lease.

@Apelham8 @TheJackArn @Cernovich Another war that achieved nothing. Well done America. You haven't won a war since WW2 and you needed the Red Army to get that done.

We controlled Afghanistan. White guilt meant we didn’t rule it like a colony. We wage wars in the worst way possible. Either be Rome or don’t go over. Our military is unlike any other. You are a third worldist. I am an American Supremacist.

@gham1985 @TheJackArn @Cernovich Look, just cause Australia couldn't beat the emu's is no reason to get that upset at militaries who are mostly competent at what they are supposed to do...

@Apelham8 @TheJackArn @Cernovich Sorry, I forgot how impressive and strong it was on day 1. Only the United States of Israel can target and double tap a school full of children and call it winning. Disgusting.

@gham1985 @TheJackArn @Cernovich

@TheJackArn @Cernovich The world just witnessed a beat down. And it's not Iran on it's knees. Your retarded leader Trump has left you looking weak and exposed. 17 military bases in 40day wiped off the map. Warning after warning ignored. Iran now controls the strait Americans are fuckin delusional.

@virtusnobilitas @SandyofCthulhu There were more people than Ford, who was a well known anti semite before the war even started; and Bush responsible for rearming the Reich.

@Apelham8 @SandyofCthulhu Mais la mecanisation du reich par henry ford et les financements de preston bush de hitler et du NSDAP pour leur accession au pouvoir, est la decision à regarder en premier. Alors tu vas continuer à chier sur les morts. Je vais continuer à rappeler quelle race de vipére tu fais.

France suffers from this because of their poor performance in WW2. To be fair, if not for the Channel, Britain would absolutely have been overrun as well. As the "history guy" at Ensemble Studios I had to constantly fight against the "haw haw France always surrenders" jokesters. It helped that France before the Crimean War was pretty redoubtable. I'd point out that France fought all of Europe for 20 years under Napoleon, and for 14 years under Louix XIV. So that's obviously not a wimp. I insisted that we do Joan of Arc in Age 2, in part as an antidote to the fact that Americans who've heard of the Hundred Years War usually only hear about Crecy and Agincourt because Britain harps endlessly about those, rather than Castillon, Patay, or Formigny which were disasters for the British. But yeah there's a reasy why for almost 200 years every single war in Europe was based on stopping France from conquering everyone else.

The Battle of France was poor performance on the part of the French, for a variety of reasons. The premier European Army at the time, according to punditry at the time, getting beaten by a numerically inferior opponent in 40ish days is nowhere near the definition of "Good". I respect the fact the French Army found itself it was in a fight it wasn't prepared for, and did the best they could in very difficult circumstances. That's a situation armies have found themselves in repeatedly thru out history. If you honestly believe thats some how diminishing their sacrifice, or somehow insulting those who died, thats a you problem.

@Apelham8 @SandyofCthulhu Présumer ? J'affirme que t'as aucun respect pour les morts en soutenant que leur sacrifice(mai-juin 1940) fut une pauvre performance. On ne parle pas là des politiques, des preparatifs, ou de toutes les decisions des 20ans qui ont précédés. Mais bien de leur combat. Premièrement.

Hence my use of "post 1918"... I've opened plenty of books on this subject. Kier book on doctrine between the wars, philpotts Anglo defense compendium, Posens books on British, German and French doctrines between the wars, and a few others as well. Do you want to quit assuming and start participating or no?

@Apelham8 @SandyofCthulhu Vietnam and afgha We are talking of USA. Not flipflop jiha' oowwww wait. Open a book of history. If you dont understand that you cant judge the 30's without the 20's in mind, i cant do anything for you but to remind you, you are just disrespecting the fallen From worse perspectiv

@virtusnobilitas @SandyofCthulhu We talking about France, not the Poles... What post 1918 decisions do you want to talk about? How both Germany and France looked at what happened in the first world War, and how it influenced their decision making on how to prepare for the next war?

@Apelham8 @SandyofCthulhu + in your hollywood ww2 version Non of you look at any decision from 1918 to 1940. But are trash talking the men who fought in first line against nazis full forces, without hope nor solutions. In a war that you are proud of the defeat of their opponent. Devide & conqueer

@alexthechick If they use all the water, peoples trees might start dying...

Y'all.

@elwheeler2 @Ryanbottomson @Alonso_GD It does. Now, who enforces any violations?

@Ryanbottomson @Alonso_GD

A reminder: if you are a US pilot and you are ordered to nuke a civilian target or bomb a nuclear power plant with the goal of producing a nuclear disaster affecting civilians, you have a legal duty to refuse to comply with such an order

@elwheeler2 @Ryanbottomson @Alonso_GD It does. Now, who enforces any violations?

@Ryanbottomson @Alonso_GD It’s like you didn’t even read us law

@bunch0numbas @johnkonrad How do you say "Rashomon" in Australian?

@johnkonrad Hes not arrested for killing Taliban. He's arrested for killing innocent civilians deliberately and premeditated. He was reported by his fellow soldiers. He specifically being prosecuted because there is evidence he specifically commited the crime. This is very simple stuff.

Something is really bothering me about the Ben Roberts-Smith case. Nobody likes being a hypocrite. Unlike most, I actually go for a walk when I suspect myself of being one. On one hand, this prosecution stinks of liberal bias. Out of thousands of potential war crimes cases the social justice warrior police chief could have pursued, she picked THE most decorated soldier on the entire continent. That isn’t justice. That’s a public humiliation ritual. On the other hand, I do believe actual war criminals should stand trial regardless of rank or honors. And I know what’s coming: “John, Roberts-Smith already lost the 2023 defamation case. Justice Besanko found he committed the murders.” Yes. On the balance of probabilities. 51 percent. That’s the civil standard. Criminal conviction requires 99 percent. The same fragile evidence that barely cleared a coin flip is now supposed to send a man to prison for life. Here’s why my post is not hypocrisy. When the school got hit in Iran weeks ago, I said mistakes aren’t war crimes, but if it was intentional or grossly negligent, someone should be court-martialed. That strike is recent. Physical. Investigable. The Roberts-Smith allegations are 20 years old. And here’s what the Brereton Inquiry, for all its 510 witnesses & four years of work, could never get: No crime scene access. The Taliban didn’t let investigators into Uruzgan. No Afghan witnesses interviewed. No secured scene. No blood-spatter analysis. No DNA No autopsies. No recovered bodies. No weapons tied to victims. The investigators themselves admitted they “lacked access to Afghan crime scenes and were missing the physical evidence that would normally anchor a murder prosecution.” So what’s left? Memory. Twenty-year-old memory from men in the fog of war. The science is unambiguous. Countless research studies confirms memory is reconstructive: later suggestion, media exposure, and repeated questioning distort it. This is the textbook misinformation effect. Confidence and accuracy decouple within months, let alone decades. Studies on soldiers who suffer PTSD show the gaps get even larger. I admittedly don’t know 🇦🇺 law but US courts admit decades-old testimony but warn juries it is inherently fragile, not scientific proof. Australia is treating it as load-bearing concrete. The media says “20 former soldiers testified against him.” Fine. Was all their testimony actually against him? How clear was it? Did 20 people watch him murder a civilian in broad daylight? And even if they did, you still have to prove the dead man wasn’t Taliban. In Uruzgan. In 2009. Without a body. Some will say I’m being pedantic. Yes. I. Am. Because Ben Roberts-Smith was charged with murder, and under war-crimes law the same act can be framed as murder, willful killing, or killing a person hors de combat depending on the framing. How it gets framed sets precedent for every future war. And here’s the question nobody in Canberra wants asked: Why is the trigger-puller in the dock while the officers who wrote the rules of engagement, approved the missions, and signed the after-action reports keep their pensions? The Victoria Cross winner hangs. The chain of command walks. Past “War crime” cases with more hard evidence remain “unsolved” That isn’t accountability. That’s a scapegoat ritual. You do not get a Victoria Cross just for killing. You get it for extraordinary gallantry, valour, self-sacrifice & devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy. And here is what Australia just told every soldier watching: the reward for a VC is fame which will make you a target for future show trials built on 20-year-old memories, prosecuted by a police chief with no combat but more ribbons on her uniform than you. If murder can be proven without hard evidence decades later. That isn’t justice even if he is guilty. Proof of guilt matters. That’s a Marxist humiliation ceremony leading to national strategic disarmament by lawfare.

The Former Yugoslavian states didn't use Nato help? Ukraine wasn't using NATO help? Merchant ships in the Gulf a few years ago weren't using NATO help? France didn't use American help in Africa? Come on now... As I asked before, if the Battle of France wasn't a shameful result, what was it in your opinion?

@Apelham8 @SandyofCthulhu 23k to much for a terrorist action following an inside job, to justify war with real motivation closer from hydrocarbons. USA is the only nation who ever used NATO help. & you trying to change topic. Topic: claim that 1st battle of france is a shame. Look at your military history

France had 23k troops deployed to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. They weren't there to play accordians, we're they? As I understand it they did a pretty good job, I know their special forces were very well regarded. The US didn't ask for help, the North Atlantic Council did that on its own initiative. And even then it was Politcally...Unsavory to a few counties. Norway in particular, not sure why. And the US helped France more than a few times. Operation Serval and Barkhane as an example. If US defeats are laughable, French defeats are what?

@Apelham8 @SandyofCthulhu Afgha is your war not ours. We were there only because you called for help. The only nation who ever needed nato help : USA. Lool Indochina is bigger than vietnam and a glorious defeat. Expeditionary corps vs them. Glorious. Your defeats are laughtable. US military history is.

@virtusnobilitas @SandyofCthulhu France was in both of those countries too, weren't they?

@Apelham8 @SandyofCthulhu And any if it is a pride in comparisson to vietnam or afgha by your army. Including first battle of france. So what, are you un civilian individual for your first comment ?