lol. Yup, talk about SuperGrover's TDS.

Trump is the republican party now. He's by far the biggest fund raiser, favorite vs the field for the 2024 nomination etc. I understand his record is so poor it cannot be defended directly and you simply have to cry when his name is brought up but until republicans find a new person or ideology (like they did in 2010 with neo-conservatism--->tea party) Trump/Trumpism is relevant politically.

Rightwing media etc for ~10+yrs you couldn't go 5mins w/o hearing about Obama/the Clintons destroying the world.

I had a childhood friend call me weekly for 8yrs str8 to ***** about Obama. The first or second time I made a snarky comment about trump he said dude you know I hate talking about politics--why don't you run for office if you care so much lol

So what? He brought up Biden, in a Biden thread. and the first thing you can think of is “Trump”. You have TDS. It’s ok, a lot of libs have it, so don’t be embarrassed by your condition. The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem.

The argument (like most) is going completely over your head. Republican claims about Biden’s mental state are bad faith. I just explained why and the proof involves Trump. That’s it.

You have TDS, if you want to admit it or not. I’m sorry you can’t accept this fact.

Again, I'm explaining why certain attacks on Biden don't make any sense. Why do you think you are unable to understand and engage on that? I wouldn't think that requires a college education, which I know is becoming rare in right wing circles.

Please seek help for your TDS. It’s never too late to ask for help.

I've refrained from commenting on the AUKUS situation with France until I read up on it.

I couldn't find much other than just... wow, Biden's FP instincts really are terrible. France has been hyper sensitive about their status as secondary power and the inferiority of their military hardware since hm... Charles de Gaulle was president? At least give them a heads up and an empty promise to bring them in later.

That's funny, I imagine if someone else brokered the same deal there would be people praising thinking of "America First".

Biden made a deal to build subs for Australia. France is mad they lost the contract. C'est la vie.

I just went to the old trump thread and the first 2 posts of yours I saw were about biden

Right.

Just like pre 2016 election when Trump fans screamed constantly and without stopping 'What about Hillary's health?

Why not just focus on Hillary's health without bringing up Trump? Just make the case for health while Trumpsters just keep repeating over and over the same garbage.

No, sorry SuperGrover, no one has to play that game anymore.

It Trumpsters are going to complain about someone like Obama "golfing too much" as a way to diminish him, the way to counter that is not to try and argue Obama spent a reasonable amount of hours on the golf course. The way to counter that is to say 'if you think Obama was bad, understand Trump was much worse'.

If they want to argue Hillary health is too bad to be POTUS, in 2016, show them how bad Trump's health was as he was raced to the hospital.

As they try to hyper focus on Biden saying his missteps with words proves he is demented and should not be in power and ruling, prove that Trump by the same measure is far worse.

Because none of us have to pretend that Trumpsters are not doing this dishonestly in an attempt to say 'the other person is unfit' and thus Trump should get in.

TDS is an obsessive worship of Trump. Seeing him as unable to do wrong. Seeing faults in others, while being unable to see he has 10X the same faults.

That is the "derangement" that is associated with Trump. Not rightful critique of him.

No one on this forum is more riddled with TDS than you.

he should ban tiktok since china bans facebook and others but he is weak n useless

Benghazi !!!!

Have you read this forum?

I posted on this in the Uk thread. It''s part of one of the most important geopolitcal stories of our age. The reshaping of gloabl alliances, the rise of china, the future of Europe etc is happening.

The main reason I was against Brexit btw as it was inevitable that the Uk would move closer to the USA orbit instead of becoming part of Europe developing as a counterweight. It's not just France who are shocked, the EU had persuaded themselves that the UK would be the ones isolated by brexit but it may well be the EU that is left behind unless it can get it's act togther as it is now scambling to try to do - much harder without the UK. Not least because many EU countries wont want France as a single dominant force. The big question is will Germany make the leap back to being an active military power or will they still rely on the USA which may effectively mean relying on the UK a lot as well.

Obviously the USA's main issues was the fat contract and the French elections have a lot to do with the squealing but the shock is real. UK is a smaller power but as a swing power it's massive.

re Biden, this isn't political instincts, this is brute reality politics.

US doesn’t really care much about the money part. LMT was involved with the French subs too. Technology transfer and strategic implications are alway more important.

Biden and Boris probably actually do want Aussies to have nuclear subs to counter China. If France hasn’t struggled so much to field it’s own nuclear subs and could actually sell nuclear subs to Australia, quite possible this nuclear sub deal never happens

While it is certainly true that diplomatic and foreign relations play a major part, you saw arms exports regulated even in the economic laissez-faire days of the 1800s, it is still very much a business. Money plays a big part, these is an enormous industrial sector with a lot of corporate interest involved.

Some of the big arms-dealing countries might be allies in other arenas, but the business itself is one of fierce competition. France has expanded its weapons manufacture industry and exports very aggressively over the last decade, and they've done so by out-competing others.

Arms transfers took a big hit in 2020 (Report by SIPRI), and I'm wagering that plays a big part in why we see this fight for a big contract and also why it is making more waves than usual. Delivering a big weapon system like this is far more than just that delivery of vessels. It is analogous to switching operating systems in your computer, it has a huge impact on your choice of suppliers for a lot of related systems in the surrounding organization, both operationally and logistically. Especially when you go from diesel-electric to nuclear-powered submarines, this will be an especially dramatic change. Contrary to popular belief, it isn't a case of "one better than the other" (rather they are better at different things). It will be a completely different doctrine in Australian naval defense and warfare and will impact future needs, imports and deals greatly.

It is hardly a "nothing to see here" scenario, but it isn't the first time some of the big five in arms exports (US, Russia, France, Spain and Germany) have stepped on each-others toes and it will certainly not be the last.

It is in fact routine to snipe arms deals. That only goes to show how extraordinary France’s reaction is.

The proposed French diesel-electric submarines, which are not what a first-class navy would want (because they are not true submarines, relying on air-breathing diesel engines to charge their batteries while on patrol), were quite mind-bendingly expensive for the limited capability they offered. The provisional contract had a number of 'gates' in it, meaning the French-led consortium had to meet certain criteria to ensure continued Australian interest, and the design review of the proposed submarines in January did not meet with the Australian government's approval. And it is certainly in US and British interests that Australia should possess a significant counter to the expanding Chinese navy.

So the Australians spoke to the Americans and the British, who are believed to run the best nuclear submarine fleets, and of course a small number of fast, long-endurance nuclear submarines can do the job of a larger number of World War II U-boats (which is what diesel-electrics are) any day. The Australians do not appear to have violated the contract by speaking to other bidders.

The French are understandably annoyed, because they were going to rake in distinctly first-class money (like $60 billion) for distinctly second-rate equipment, but mainly they're angry because 'the Anglosphere' has put a dent in their amour-propre, and naturally they always hate it when that happens. They're still cross about Waterloo, y'know.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...rs-2021-09-21/

This could have been a straightforward issue about submarines. It didn't have to include the UK at all.

Instead the UK have been included and a defense alliance has been formed that is likely to be hugely significant because it's such an important arena and it includes the usa. AI, cyber and other advanced technology sharing may well turn out to be a far more significant part of this than the nuclear tech.

France's best bet if it wants to remain significant might be to try to join. The other play is to try to get the EU to step up but that's going to be a tough slog.

While there might be issues with this specific contract, diesel-electrics aren't "worse", they do some things better and some things worse. Operational range, longevity of patrols and sustained and high submerged speed are things nuclear submarines do exceptionally well, which obviously plays a huge part for Australia with its vast oceanic territory, which provides a strong case for having a blue water navy.

But while a nuclear submarine is certainly more stealthy than a diesel-electric running on diesel power, the opposite is true when it runs on electric propulsion; the most stealthy submarines in the world are submerged diesel-electrics, a pretty big point as submarines have no defenses apart from stealth (a submariner I worked with referred to it as the "world's most aggressive weapons platform"). They are more ideal platforms for coastal operations compared to a nuclear submarine, as an example. It depends on your requirements for doctrine which one is best here.

Nuclear submarines are far larger (nuclear coolant pumps do not come in convenient sizes just yet), they are far more crew intensive, require a type of land-based logistics that make them easier to monitor for foreign intelligence, are far more expensive to buy and maintain and on overhauls of the nuclear-system can means years, not months of being out of service.

And let's face it, contracts for big weapon systems pretty much invariably have issues. While that shouldn't stop someone from abandoning a bad deal, it's probably naive to think things are going to be free of issues with the new one.

A nuclear submarine remains submerged for the entire duration of the patrol. A diesel-electric must cruise mostly on the surface, which makes it highly detectable and vulnerable, particularly given the increased capability of anti-submarine aircraft since World War II.

The Australians were perfectly entitled to use the 'gate' in the contract to drop out of the deal, and any navy faced with that kind of patrol area and that kind of potential opponent would obviously be wise to select nuclear hunter-killers if they can be afforded and supported (and Australia does seem to have the finance and the existing nuclear tech to provide the fuel).

Strangely, the French have not set fire to their underwear and broken their pearl-strings and fallen on their fainting-couch over the fiasco of the sale of Rafale jets to India. India, after a protracted competition, agreed to buy 126 Rafales, 108 to be built in India with priceless 'technology transfer' to enable this, amid considerable claims of corruption, then the Indians put the whole thing out to tender again, then they finally bought just 36 machines, all made in France.

God knows what that was all about, but the French are well used to international arms deals, and well used to greasing palms to ease the process and sometimes losing out, so they took it in their stride. Of course the Aussie submarine deal was worth rather more than the Rafale deal, so its failure has caused bigger problems for French politicians and their paymasters / patrons.

Although the British relied on 'technology transfer' from the US to design their nuclear subs, the British Astute class submarines are considered superior to the US Virginia class in some respects (they require a much smaller crew for one thing, and they may be markedly less detectable), so the US may have wanted British input to sweet the Australia deal, the Australians also being familiar with the British for historical reasons.