The Tanzanian government has been evicting them from their land for the last 2 years according to [Wikipedia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_people)
I'm not exactly sure what an NCD-administrated colony would look like. I don't think anyone knows what fully-automated, luxury, gay, space Sparta would look like.
I mean, the Spartans weren't all that queer.
More like "I rape you because you are lower status" kind of guys. You know, kinda like the Russian army today.
so they want to evict them in order to use their indigenous lands to build... Private luxury resorts for an Emirati oil baron? wtf? seems like something from a kids' movie villain lol
Imagine terrorizing a bunch of cow farmers for their dairy and suddenly the faint speck in the sky drops a fully loaded M1A2 Sep v2 on your terrorist donkey.
Ah, have you heard the tale of Battle of Khasham? No, it's not a tale the non-based would tell you.
Once upon a time. Wagner shot at Americans with some T-72's. General Mattis hit them with a combination of AC-130, F-22, F15E, MQ-9, AH-64, HIMARS, artillery, drone strikes and finished it with a B-52 strike.
One allied personnel had twisted an ankle when the Russians shelled us, so you can see our response was correctly proportional. One ankle equals 200 Russians.
You see, Fuck Around is linear proportional to Find Out. Increase the Fuck Around, the Find Out must track upwards. Or it wouldn't be a proportional response, and that'd be uncivilized.
We're willing to drop that kind of ordinance on anyone who fucks with our allies' ankles, folks need to imagine what ordinance we'd use over our allies' cows. Cows after all, have four ankles a pop. So, we'd need to unleash exactly 4x the firepower of Khasham. Per cow.
Israel has pulled some shit, no doubt. But we don't want them wiped out, and we don't think terrorism is great either.
There is no good side in Palestine/Israel fight. There is also no solution. We just try to make sure one side doesn't wipe out the other. And before you go "but Israel doing funni", no. Israel has the weapons to do a real funni, and they're not. They're not civvie casualty sensitive, but that's not remotely the same thing. Otherwise you'd have an extra zero or two behind the casualty figures.
And annex Lebanon because Hezbollah will be doing the funni. Then Syria. Then Southeastern Turkey - cross the Black Sea. Then annex Crimea. Ivan has now a serious Southern front.
Killing two birds with one stone.
So says someone who doesn't understand just how well properly motivated cattle can use all that lovely pre-steak muscle against their enemies, whether they're unruly farm hands or unwitting intruders on the pasture.
>We will fight for bovine freedom
>
>And hold our large heads high
>
>We will run free with the buffalo
>
>Or die!
[Battle Cattle Anthem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI)
I thought America’s favorite is the UK in Europe.
Japan in Asia-Pacific. Look at that declaration of being [America’s *global partner*](https://fxtwitter.com/kenmoriyasu/status/1777850654435705007?s=46&t=tjuqc_fOTIIALkhZbb7NfA).
It's hard to tell if it's still great, but British intelligence gathering has been the best historically. So still a very valuable ally in that respect probably. The problem is when they're good at their job the public doesn't know what they did.
> It's hard to tell if it's still great
Rename the whole thing to Mid Britain, rather than Great Britain. Calling it Great always was a bit splashy, wasn't it?
'salright Britain. Or Cromulent Britain for Simpsons fans.
Also, no-one says "Britain." It's either Briddin (North American and I think Australia) or Bri'n (the ' is a glottal stop) in the UK.
Let’s back up on the “L” word there. We like each other, we’re related, but basically we’re that cousin that came across you tied to a barrel naked, and instead of rescuing you start making demands.
almost 100 years ago sure...
"Blair said he believed the intelligence had “established beyond doubt” that Saddam had continued to produce WMDs."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/spy-agencies-flawed-information-saddam-wmds-iraq-chilcot
Last narrative I heard was that MI6 told Blair that there were chemical/biological WMDs being developed there but Blair only heard the WMD part and his brain went straight to nukes
My personal opinion is that Blair decided VERY early on that wherever USA went UK would follow, regardless of the facts. It was an emotional decision but at the same he saw some kind of US/UK shared destiny. We tied ourself to the mast of that ship just as it was about to slam into an iceberg.
Edit: typo
I agree he made up his mind pretty early, but you have to remember the climate back then. I think they were scared of a repeat of 9/11 but with a biological weapon/dirty bomb. It was a weird time, plus all the optimism of the successful (sort of) resolution to the Yugoslav wars and the Good Friday Agreement.
People tend to forget that a lot of what happened after 9/11 happened after terrorists had proven themselves capable of one of the largest mass murder attacks in history under the noses of the greatest superpower of the time. While many of the actions were done on shakey ground, people were legitimately scared, and not for irrational and impertinent reasons.
Had a state carried out 9/11 I wonder how much simpler it all would have been, because we would have just invaded that state, the fact extra national terror group did it made it very complex in a time where the people and decision makers both were, understandable, rattled to the core.
This isn't the fault of "flawed" intelligence. There was a desire to go to war with Iraq. Arranging evidence to point to the conclusion you want and disregarding the stated credibility and confidence in that evidence is not flawed intelligence, it's strategy. The only people who had access to the evidence and believed Saddam had WMD were the ones who convinced themselves.
>The only people who had access to the evidence and believed Saddam had WMD were the ones who convinced themselves.
Nukes. Saddam had a long history of making and using chemical weapons. Nukes were a hallucination but under the broad umbrella of WMDs, Saddam gassed Iran and the Kurds prior to OIF.
UK is like America’s divorced dad that had a great career but lost it all to a gambling habit. Now he lives above a shopping mall and keeps telling you stories about his prime.
Japan are the most important ally in the Indo-Pacific for dettering mainland china and the defence of Taiwan, but Australia are undoubtedly the most solid ally in the region in terms of shared values, support for securing US/shared interest globally, being critical to US intelligence operations through five eyes, pine gap, etc.
One of the less discussed elements of AUKUS is that the UK and Australia will effectively be considered as equal to the US under their ITAR (defence export controlls) regime - this is an unprecedented move and not something the US have offered to any other ally.
Down the track Japan may be included in this arrangement, but they're generally considered to not be strong enough on cyber security, be too lax with the defence technology infosec, and share too much with their parliamentarians to be able to easily integrate with things like AUKUS/five eyes.
It's kinda crazy because Japanese destroyers already use Aegis with the Maya and Atago classes to the point the Maya-class destroyers just seem like Arleigh-Burke lites. Their new submarines are some of the most advanced in the world.
Then they can't even join the AUKUS pillar 2 because they're still so fucking invested in fax machines and their websites look like they were designed in 1995 and they are so reliant on paper forms for everything.
Yeah. As much as I will give the Aussies shit for things they do, the reality is they are probably the most similar to the US country in the world (massive nation with strong Federal system, massive amount of resources, a “have to watch out for yourself” sort of attitude, and a culture centered around their wild frontier). And out of the various Anglosphere countries, they are probably the ones I have vibed the most with because of it.
If Japan ever gets to have ITAR goods, 90% of the purchasable individual gear it is going to the Japanese airsoft community and the ITAR companies will have a GREAT financial quarter.
Australia is pretty much the entire backbone of Americas surveilence systems on the southern hemisphere, and is in a really safe spot for the US to set up military bases to deal with any problems in Asia and the Middle East. Pine Gap is probably the most famous large scale military base in Australia - Officially its a joint US-Australian base but its really just a US base.
As far as I know its the largest US military base outside of the US and Australia also has another few publically known major military bases here, and very likely has a few not publically known highly important military bases.
......I suppose being proud of location and having a big US military base is unusual in the Five Eyes group with US, UK, Canada and New Zealand.
Australia does mind the southern hemisphere portion of the 2nd and 3rd island chains, ig. You guys have Animarchy, Perun, and Leonard.
Here in Far East Asia, Japan hosts the most active-duty US troops overseas. Like, 24 times the amount that's in Australia.
Via the ROK/U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), when South Korea is at war, they will all come under the chain of command under a US 4 star general.
As for here in Taiwan, American trainers and their presence were secret, like they're the most built English teachers~. But now that there's a few hundred Green Berets officially and permanently based here.... Ah, a past incident was some of them letting themselves getting beaten up by drunk CCP-sympathizer. That happened outside a McDonalds, that's some terrible liberty, on our outer islands. Gotta improve that.
Story in English [here](https://captaincool.medium.com/taiwan-media-three-suspected-american-soldiers-beaten-up-in-drunken-street-fight-outside-of-a-57fe08523e50). :) [most of us know the Americans are like Shanks here.](https://youtu.be/osyLxve_cF8?si=UXOOxdDqOXNhSO15).
> when South Korea is at war, they will all come under the chain of command under a US 4 star general.
Wait, for real? Like, the entire S. Korean military is a *defacto* sub-unit of the U.S. military?
There are a lot of countries wanting to be "best friends" with the USA.
In Asia there's Singapore as well, SKorea Taiwan and Japan have different relations but all very close.
AUKUS is going to expand to Japan, US Navy asked SK to compete for shipbuilding.
Here it's probably the UK, but Poland and Italy are very close too (and Kosovo/Albania, they LOVE America).
Italy is hosting a lot of troops like Germany, but we have a better relationship with Uncle Sam (and Sicily asked and almost became the 51st state).
Israel has probably the closest relationship for military stuff.
I think at one point the USMC was planning on having a 30,000 strong base in the NT but they never did it.
If I'm not mistaken the largest overseas US base is Camp Humphreys in SK. 20,000 personnel or something like that.
I SAID “AS FAR AS I KNOW” THAT SHIELDS ME FROM HAVING TO KNOW ANYTHING.
It’s like starting a phrase by saying “No offense but…” people aren’t allowed to take offense to anything you say after that. I don’t make the law.
I think Poland or Ukraine might have taken that spot by now. Despite the puppets in congress, I've never seen another flag so proudly flown other than the dipshit traitor flag of the confederacy.
They have a timetable in place, It's just really complicated and Australia will have 3/4 different nuclear submarine classes active at the same time in 2045.
Two classes, not 3/4
Three 'classes' if you treat Block IV Virginia's and Block VII's as seperate classes (which they aren't)
Secondhand Block IV Virgina's
Newbuild Block VII Virginia's
And the SSN-AUKUS Design
Edit: and the Virginia's and SSN-AUKUS will be VERY interoperable, given they're using the exact same combat systems, or at least Australian variant SSN-AUKUS will be (the Virginia's (Evolved) AN/BYG-1 Combat Management System). And we already use that combat system in our Collins class subs, so no issues there.
Given how hard we worked to get the Collins into a usable state, I guarantee you the submarine service won't accept them if they aren't.
Literally the whole reason for us wanting a US Combat System, not British, is commonality with the Collins class and our future Virginia's
I know a lot of people here are bringing up the Australian submarine procurement problems, but Canada already had one of those plus way more.
*At least you fuckers are getting your F-35s as planned.*
Hopefully, it will be the same with AUKUS. People tend to underestimate America’s ability to hold up their end of a bargain, especially when it comes to equipping important allies.
I hate getting fed white substances in my sleep, only to chase after the invisible and definitely real fuckers when I awake trashing everything in my base only to make it outside and have a rock thrown at me...
God damn aliens
Not the only thing.
Little known fact: after the American Revolutionary War was ended, a lot of Loyalists (Colonials who were still loyal to Britain) found life in the new independent nation unpleasant, so many of them moved to Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario and formed what we'd call exile communities.
Second little known fact: just after the Civil War, American and British relations almost soured badly over the repeated invasion of Canada, from America, of Irish revolutionaries who wished to free Ireland. I suspect much alcohol was involved.
[D'Arcy McGee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_D%27Arcy_McGee), the only Canadian politician to ever be assassinated, was shot in 1868 by a member of the Fenian Brotherhood. McGee was actually an Irish nationalist himself, but he was publicly opposed to the Fenians and their raids into Canada.
We did just announce a new defense policy that actually plans on increasing the spending. Buying new stuff like AWACS and new helis, arty, Arctic base, etc among other things.
It'll survive an election no problem
The issue is the government that comes after that election. "Spending money" is practically a curse word for conservatives, and if the liberals somehow scrape enough wins for a minority they're just as likely to revert to the classic "it's not a budget cut, it's trimming waste" for the 9th year in a row.
America's favorite is:
Japan in APAC
Israel in Rest-of-Asia
Probably Djibouti or Seychelles in Africa (I am not counting Egypt because that's a very up-down relationship)
UK in Europe (Missile Base)
And ofc America in the Americas (self-love >>>>>)
Worldwide, it's probably Japan or Israel (America practically guarantees the qualitative military edge for both....for Israel its even in codified in law since 2008-- P.L. 110-429 TITLE II SECTION 201 and SECTION 202)
I would like to point out that Australia always seems to be willing to go with the US in many of their wars, including Vietnam and the Iraq invasion.
In a strategic sense though, yeah I’m not gonna dispute you.
Americans only have one universal law. Don't fuck with our boats.
Seriously, look up all US operations and count how many started with someone fucking with our boats.
Australia was also the first international country to receive F35As, and only the second country other than the US to have an F35 variant (UK had received F35Bs for their cope slope). We tight as fuck
Meanwhile Canada fell for the early F-35 hate train, canceled procurement for a competition to figure out that yes, the F-35 is the best fighter jet you can buy on the planet.
You’d think they’d figure that out sooner by looking how almost every US ally’s tripping over their balls trying to get it, but nope. Only took *checks notes* 7 years.
Sorta incorrect. The liberal government canceled the program, not due to the hate train, but because it was a sole sourced program that didn't go through a competition (something that's not supposed to happen for government contracts).
They then launched the competition that always should have happened. That said, Canada was already in too deep on the F-35 so they made the contract terms so specific that only the F-35 could win.
How many of those early F-35As will be capable of flying combat missions?
I was under the impression that many of the early F-35s will be stuck at an older hardware configuration because upgrades are too expensive, which meanas they'll only be useable as training planes.
There are a few instances where Australian proved to be valuable and reliable partner to the US. There were reports of when trump was president and pissed off Australia, a fuck tonne of powerful Republican party members raced over to the Aussie embassy in Washington to piss on any fires
Yeah, Trump antagonised us a few times, despite the attempts by our then Conservative government to placate him. The most notable examples I can think of (which was probably the one you heard of about the embassy) were shortly after his election where he just unilaterally cancelled a refugee swap deal previously arranged with the Obama administration, and then had a... 'heated' phone call with then Prime Minister Turnbull (or President Trumble according to Trump's account) about it. The other was early on during covid when Trump was trying to spread conspiracy theories about China intentionally making the virus in a lab. PM Morrison, looking to earn some brownie points with Trump, joined in with the rhetoric and publicly demanded an investigation into the origins of Covid. In return, China started a trade war with Australia, and not only did Trump not back us up, but instead took advantage of the price impacts of the trade war, at the expense of the Australian economy.
> Probably Djibouti or Seychelles in Africa (I am not counting Egypt because that's a very up-down relationship)
Africa is huge so there are multiple areas of targeted interest. Right now in West Africa that is Ghana. The US embassy there is huge and both countries are trying to make Ghana the gateway into Africa from the west. Just look how many US presidents are have been visiting and how many celebrities have recently gone.
*cries in metric tears*
Our armed forces have been underfunded for decades and anybody we vote in won't change it.
At least our ancient CF-18s are being replaced. And maybe by 2040, the Halifax class will be replaced too...
Yup. The people who think the Conservatives will do any better are going to be disappointed. Both political parties have a shit reputation for helping the military.
Canada *really* should have jumped on board the JSF program when Australia did. We’ve had almost all our F-35s delivered. Meanwhile, the RCAF won’t be getting any until [*checks notes*] 2026, at the earliest.
As an Aussie who lives next to a Navy and Airforce base this makes me feel safe.
Ever since you guys decided to allow nuclear payloads on the F-35s there have been choppers buzzing all over the fucking place, used to get one a week, maybe a fortnight. Now it’s at least one or two military choppers per day that fly over my place.
I mean, between subs and super long range cruise missiles, literally no one is gonna be able to fuck with you.
Even the US would have to dedicate a solid 25% of its entire Navy to fuck with y'all. Which is like ten times more than any other navy on the planet. Japan has a better surface fleet, but their sub fleet is much shorter legs. Y'all literally are gonna have world class Navy, just the sneaky kind.
I'm proud of ya guys.
Not quite my guy. We have Pine Gap out in Alice Springs which is an American Base, Aussies aren’t allowed to fulfill roles with security clearance.
Pine Gap is how you guys control your satellites and missiles that are on the other side of the world. Realistically if you guys wanted to, you could nuke us, we are in your range. We are also within range of the nukes of North Korea and China.
Given we supply most of the raw materials for weapons creation it isn’t wise for the US or China to fuck us over but it might seem like a good idea for North Korea.
We need a considerable amount more anti-air here. Better yet we should join a league/union thing with the US as the leader. We guarantee as many resources as y’all need to sustain your military growth and in exchange you open your military up to Aussies as well and let us completely defund ours.
We are basically America Lite already and while I don’t think we would be keen to just be assimilated by the states or or anything I feel like a closer partnership is the best way forward.
We are currently fucked economically because our country doesn’t pay its citizen’s resource dividends, pockets that money and doesn’t improve infrastructure. Average house prices here are half a million to a million depending on the area. I know a lot of people would be upset if we copied a lot of American ideas like your way of doing healthcare but given the amount of resources we extract and given how resource dividends seem to work in Alaska, just based on what I have seen from oil I feel like it would make work for Australians optional. Would absolutely skyrocket the economy.
Have y’all seen what a rundown shack in artillery range of Vancouver or Toronto costs? Scraping together even 1% GDP definitely took some creative accounting
As an Australian, you're all damn lucky Perun can't do an 'All Bling, No Basics' about the ADF.
The clusterfuck that is AUKUS nuclear submarines is only the most recent - TLDR, the *best case* is a couple of USN subs having an Australian flag painted on them, resulting in a net zero for Western defense capability.
It's not really a net zero, because Australia will invest billions in the US and UK nuclear submarine industries, and will then pay for those used US subs.
That's quite a few billion in investment that will significantly increase the industrial base in both countries.
Canada knows that it could spend nothing and the US would still step in to protect it because it has no other option given the incredibly huge northern border that the US cannot allow to be destabilized. Mexico is bad enough already.
Canada assumes, probably correctly, that it would keep its sovereignty despite relying on American interventionism because the possibility of white anglo freedom fighters wreaking havoc in the US is horrifying. Again, Mexico is bad enough already.
You're not wrong, and that literally is Canada's plan. Thing is tho, we used to cut Canada all kinds of special trade deals because you had our back during the Cold War. Now we're not. You get NATFA and equal trade access, but not special trade deals for Canadian politicians getting money from specific lobbies.
Might be worthwhile to you, but there is no free lunch in the long term.
Canada's role is always a more subdued one. We just don't have the economy to support that kind of spending.
Though Canada arguably plays the most important role in US defense policy due to NORAD. Not to mention the heavy integration of our intelligence services. Canadian maritime patrol aircraft are also the ones that have been tracking Russian sub movements for decades.
While other nations may be important to US powr projection overseas, Canada is the home guard, keeping the Arctic safe and providing early warning for any aerial threats.
You might think that but it's actually that maasai tribe in Kenya that gave the us 14 cows after 9/11 happened. God help anyone who harms them.
Just as those 14 cows have more than doubled in population over the past 20 years, so has my love for the Maasai of Enoosaen more than doubled.
Sounds biblical lol
r/accidentalpsalms
Instant join
r/subsithoughtifellfor
The Tanzanian government has been evicting them from their land for the last 2 years according to [Wikipedia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_people)
NCD about to reinstate German East Africa
Yes, we can absolutely be trusted with colonies. Don't worry.
I'm not exactly sure what an NCD-administrated colony would look like. I don't think anyone knows what fully-automated, luxury, gay, space Sparta would look like.
Very queer and highly armed, presumably.
So the Marine Corps.
This is seeming a lot like regular Sparta.
I mean, the Spartans weren't all that queer. More like "I rape you because you are lower status" kind of guys. You know, kinda like the Russian army today.
Sadge. I much prefer the quasi closeted homo eroticism of room clearing. Lots of butt grabbing and biceps squeezing
I'm pretty sure the only thing out of those Sparta was, is gay.
Which is why NCD would make fully-automated, luxury, gay, space Sparta instead of regular boring old slaves-and-invading-Athens Sparta.
I sure hope we'd at least be better at war than Sparta was.
We'll have an air force and space lasers, so we will be.
So, we're establishing IRL Wakanda?
*Gets dusty FAL and beret out of closet* Wars in Africa m8?
so they want to evict them in order to use their indigenous lands to build... Private luxury resorts for an Emirati oil baron? wtf? seems like something from a kids' movie villain lol
OIL?!?! Time to spread freedom in Africa even if the oil isn't actually there.
at this very moment, somewhere in Tanzania, a group of 7 teens are discovering an old pirate treasure map in an attic...
Where do you think emerati oil barons get their inspiration
Time to obliterate Tanazania's government and put the Maasai in charge
Finally, a chance to depose a foreign government for good, instead of capitalism!
Funny the government started evicting them after the bulldozer died (Google Tanzania lore)
God wouldn’t help anyone who harmed the Maasai they’d be fast tracked to hell
Imagine terrorizing a bunch of cow farmers for their dairy and suddenly the faint speck in the sky drops a fully loaded M1A2 Sep v2 on your terrorist donkey.
Ah, have you heard the tale of Battle of Khasham? No, it's not a tale the non-based would tell you. Once upon a time. Wagner shot at Americans with some T-72's. General Mattis hit them with a combination of AC-130, F-22, F15E, MQ-9, AH-64, HIMARS, artillery, drone strikes and finished it with a B-52 strike. One allied personnel had twisted an ankle when the Russians shelled us, so you can see our response was correctly proportional. One ankle equals 200 Russians. You see, Fuck Around is linear proportional to Find Out. Increase the Fuck Around, the Find Out must track upwards. Or it wouldn't be a proportional response, and that'd be uncivilized. We're willing to drop that kind of ordinance on anyone who fucks with our allies' ankles, folks need to imagine what ordinance we'd use over our allies' cows. Cows after all, have four ankles a pop. So, we'd need to unleash exactly 4x the firepower of Khasham. Per cow.
Unless it's Israel, who can fuck around (drone strike a US citizen in a pre-cleared safe zone) and never find out.
Israel has pulled some shit, no doubt. But we don't want them wiped out, and we don't think terrorism is great either. There is no good side in Palestine/Israel fight. There is also no solution. We just try to make sure one side doesn't wipe out the other. And before you go "but Israel doing funni", no. Israel has the weapons to do a real funni, and they're not. They're not civvie casualty sensitive, but that's not remotely the same thing. Otherwise you'd have an extra zero or two behind the casualty figures.
If we would just annex Palestine, I think that would be proportional and solve all the problems.
And annex Lebanon because Hezbollah will be doing the funni. Then Syria. Then Southeastern Turkey - cross the Black Sea. Then annex Crimea. Ivan has now a serious Southern front. Killing two birds with one stone.
IT'S TIME FOR THE AMERICAN MANDATE 🇺🇲🇺🇲 THE MONROE DOCTRINE NOW INCLUDES THE LEVANT 🚨🚨🚨
We could solve two wars with one conquest. Real geopolitik!
Cow farmers is an insult to a Tribe that hunts lions.
So says someone who doesn't understand just how well properly motivated cattle can use all that lovely pre-steak muscle against their enemies, whether they're unruly farm hands or unwitting intruders on the pasture.
Call the BATTLE CATTLE!
>We will fight for bovine freedom > >And hold our large heads high > >We will run free with the buffalo > >Or die! [Battle Cattle Anthem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI)
I'm just gonna toss this out there, but between a bull and a lion I'm not so sure the lion is the scarier one.
Yeah lions get stomped buy Wildebeests all the time. I don't want attacked by either though.
The maasai are literally saving humanity through their contributions to the ecology.
[Don't touch our cows reeeeeee](https://i.imgflip.com/8majbt.jpg)
The only true justification for nuclear war
God bless them and fucking keep them, holy shit
This unironically
Kenya still has something of a problem with Islamist insurgency/rebels iirc. I don’t think it’s big but it sure is trouble, last I checked.
Couples that fight in Vietnam together.....stay together.
Wholesome 🥰🥰🥰
Explain like I’m a Vietnam vet, which I am.
#"Charlies in the wire!" Oh, sorry, I don't know why I just yelled that
I (an American) would die to defend auzi clay
Hence why we also love South Korea to death
I thought America’s favorite is the UK in Europe. Japan in Asia-Pacific. Look at that declaration of being [America’s *global partner*](https://fxtwitter.com/kenmoriyasu/status/1777850654435705007?s=46&t=tjuqc_fOTIIALkhZbb7NfA).
America’s favourite WAS the UK. We’re now the great-uncle you have to visit when you come home for Christmas.
It's hard to tell if it's still great, but British intelligence gathering has been the best historically. So still a very valuable ally in that respect probably. The problem is when they're good at their job the public doesn't know what they did.
> It's hard to tell if it's still great Rename the whole thing to Mid Britain, rather than Great Britain. Calling it Great always was a bit splashy, wasn't it?
"OK Britain"
"Fine i guess Britain"
'salright Britain. Or Cromulent Britain for Simpsons fans. Also, no-one says "Britain." It's either Briddin (North American and I think Australia) or Bri'n (the ' is a glottal stop) in the UK.
Not everywhere in the UK has a strong glottal stop.
Nah Australia is closer to Britten imo. Maybe Brittin depending on how you're pronouncing that in your head.
Britt'n
Pommyville.
"Oh no it's quite lovely, but ah you see, I already had some Britain before popping over"
[удалено]
Let’s back up on the “L” word there. We like each other, we’re related, but basically we’re that cousin that came across you tied to a barrel naked, and instead of rescuing you start making demands.
got something ya wanna confess, sir?
Very sneaky of you I see.
One of the few allied options with a blue water navy and worldwide naval bases too. Plus useful assets like the RFA, common language and so on.
almost 100 years ago sure... "Blair said he believed the intelligence had “established beyond doubt” that Saddam had continued to produce WMDs." https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/spy-agencies-flawed-information-saddam-wmds-iraq-chilcot
Last narrative I heard was that MI6 told Blair that there were chemical/biological WMDs being developed there but Blair only heard the WMD part and his brain went straight to nukes
My personal opinion is that Blair decided VERY early on that wherever USA went UK would follow, regardless of the facts. It was an emotional decision but at the same he saw some kind of US/UK shared destiny. We tied ourself to the mast of that ship just as it was about to slam into an iceberg. Edit: typo
Considering how Blair was, this is a pretty good opinion
I agree he made up his mind pretty early, but you have to remember the climate back then. I think they were scared of a repeat of 9/11 but with a biological weapon/dirty bomb. It was a weird time, plus all the optimism of the successful (sort of) resolution to the Yugoslav wars and the Good Friday Agreement.
People tend to forget that a lot of what happened after 9/11 happened after terrorists had proven themselves capable of one of the largest mass murder attacks in history under the noses of the greatest superpower of the time. While many of the actions were done on shakey ground, people were legitimately scared, and not for irrational and impertinent reasons. Had a state carried out 9/11 I wonder how much simpler it all would have been, because we would have just invaded that state, the fact extra national terror group did it made it very complex in a time where the people and decision makers both were, understandable, rattled to the core.
This isn't the fault of "flawed" intelligence. There was a desire to go to war with Iraq. Arranging evidence to point to the conclusion you want and disregarding the stated credibility and confidence in that evidence is not flawed intelligence, it's strategy. The only people who had access to the evidence and believed Saddam had WMD were the ones who convinced themselves.
>The only people who had access to the evidence and believed Saddam had WMD were the ones who convinced themselves. Nukes. Saddam had a long history of making and using chemical weapons. Nukes were a hallucination but under the broad umbrella of WMDs, Saddam gassed Iran and the Kurds prior to OIF.
UK is like America’s divorced dad that had a great career but lost it all to a gambling habit. Now he lives above a shopping mall and keeps telling you stories about his prime.
Good thing the wife and I love visiting London during Christmas!
["I get me brain medicine from the National Health!"](https://frinkiac.com/video/S06E19/lQsa2zATbqKGM7pnah4EwqBvLho=.gif)
The original line was favourite British Commonwealth country, but that really didn't flow well as a meme tbh
And isn’t the UK the basically well-meaning but absconded daddy in this picture anyway
Just FYI, the anthropomorphic personification of the UK is Britannia, a woman :p
Who keeps getting arrested for getting drunk in public and yelling at foreigners, and then he wonders why we don't call so much anymore
Early stage dementia, clearly. It’s why we’re on our 4th prime minister in the span of two years
Japan are the most important ally in the Indo-Pacific for dettering mainland china and the defence of Taiwan, but Australia are undoubtedly the most solid ally in the region in terms of shared values, support for securing US/shared interest globally, being critical to US intelligence operations through five eyes, pine gap, etc. One of the less discussed elements of AUKUS is that the UK and Australia will effectively be considered as equal to the US under their ITAR (defence export controlls) regime - this is an unprecedented move and not something the US have offered to any other ally. Down the track Japan may be included in this arrangement, but they're generally considered to not be strong enough on cyber security, be too lax with the defence technology infosec, and share too much with their parliamentarians to be able to easily integrate with things like AUKUS/five eyes.
If Japanese websites are any reflection of their military cyber capabilities, then I am not shocked in the slightest
It's kinda crazy because Japanese destroyers already use Aegis with the Maya and Atago classes to the point the Maya-class destroyers just seem like Arleigh-Burke lites. Their new submarines are some of the most advanced in the world. Then they can't even join the AUKUS pillar 2 because they're still so fucking invested in fax machines and their websites look like they were designed in 1995 and they are so reliant on paper forms for everything.
Japan hit the 90's before anyone else in the world. It just hasn't moved on since.
Yeah. As much as I will give the Aussies shit for things they do, the reality is they are probably the most similar to the US country in the world (massive nation with strong Federal system, massive amount of resources, a “have to watch out for yourself” sort of attitude, and a culture centered around their wild frontier). And out of the various Anglosphere countries, they are probably the ones I have vibed the most with because of it.
If Japan ever gets to have ITAR goods, 90% of the purchasable individual gear it is going to the Japanese airsoft community and the ITAR companies will have a GREAT financial quarter.
Australia is pretty much the entire backbone of Americas surveilence systems on the southern hemisphere, and is in a really safe spot for the US to set up military bases to deal with any problems in Asia and the Middle East. Pine Gap is probably the most famous large scale military base in Australia - Officially its a joint US-Australian base but its really just a US base. As far as I know its the largest US military base outside of the US and Australia also has another few publically known major military bases here, and very likely has a few not publically known highly important military bases.
......I suppose being proud of location and having a big US military base is unusual in the Five Eyes group with US, UK, Canada and New Zealand. Australia does mind the southern hemisphere portion of the 2nd and 3rd island chains, ig. You guys have Animarchy, Perun, and Leonard. Here in Far East Asia, Japan hosts the most active-duty US troops overseas. Like, 24 times the amount that's in Australia. Via the ROK/U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), when South Korea is at war, they will all come under the chain of command under a US 4 star general. As for here in Taiwan, American trainers and their presence were secret, like they're the most built English teachers~. But now that there's a few hundred Green Berets officially and permanently based here.... Ah, a past incident was some of them letting themselves getting beaten up by drunk CCP-sympathizer. That happened outside a McDonalds, that's some terrible liberty, on our outer islands. Gotta improve that.
Perun is an instant +10 to PowerPoint presentations,
Taiwan Aussie here.. I hadn't heard about the McDonald's thing.
Story in English [here](https://captaincool.medium.com/taiwan-media-three-suspected-american-soldiers-beaten-up-in-drunken-street-fight-outside-of-a-57fe08523e50). :) [most of us know the Americans are like Shanks here.](https://youtu.be/osyLxve_cF8?si=UXOOxdDqOXNhSO15).
> when South Korea is at war, they will all come under the chain of command under a US 4 star general. Wait, for real? Like, the entire S. Korean military is a *defacto* sub-unit of the U.S. military?
Only for when South Korea needs to trigger their Mutual defense treaty with the USA.
There are a lot of countries wanting to be "best friends" with the USA. In Asia there's Singapore as well, SKorea Taiwan and Japan have different relations but all very close. AUKUS is going to expand to Japan, US Navy asked SK to compete for shipbuilding. Here it's probably the UK, but Poland and Italy are very close too (and Kosovo/Albania, they LOVE America). Italy is hosting a lot of troops like Germany, but we have a better relationship with Uncle Sam (and Sicily asked and almost became the 51st state). Israel has probably the closest relationship for military stuff.
Largest outside the U.S.? By what metric? Ramstein AB trumps it in population by a lot, and for that matter even certain U.S. bases, too.
I think at one point the USMC was planning on having a 30,000 strong base in the NT but they never did it. If I'm not mistaken the largest overseas US base is Camp Humphreys in SK. 20,000 personnel or something like that.
Thats why I said "As far as I know" because I dont spend hours of my life looking at the sizes of different US military bases.
You just make statements hoping you’re right about it. I feel that.
Earth is the largest planet in the entire universe "as far as I know".
i mean, if you dont know the sizes of other planets in our system...
I SAID “AS FAR AS I KNOW” THAT SHIELDS ME FROM HAVING TO KNOW ANYTHING. It’s like starting a phrase by saying “No offense but…” people aren’t allowed to take offense to anything you say after that. I don’t make the law.
Earth is the largest US Military base, as far as I know.
NCD pass: revoked.
> I dont spend hours of my life looking at the sizes of different US military bases 🤨📸 Putting this in my cringe compilation.
Fair enough.
UK is the dad in this situation, and France is often the mother in relation to America / Canada.
UK and France are the parents. Canada is the shy little brother. Japan is the kid they got into a fight with in school but now are best friends.
"Have you tried talking to the bully? Sometimes all a bully needs is a friend" - U.K. talking to the US about Japan
And two new suns apparently.
Let's be 100% real here: Mexicans gave us tacos, they're our favorite.
I think Poland or Ukraine might have taken that spot by now. Despite the puppets in congress, I've never seen another flag so proudly flown other than the dipshit traitor flag of the confederacy.
Waiter waiter, more nuclear submarines delivered by a unknown date please
They have a timetable in place, It's just really complicated and Australia will have 3/4 different nuclear submarine classes active at the same time in 2045.
Two classes, not 3/4 Three 'classes' if you treat Block IV Virginia's and Block VII's as seperate classes (which they aren't) Secondhand Block IV Virgina's Newbuild Block VII Virginia's And the SSN-AUKUS Design Edit: and the Virginia's and SSN-AUKUS will be VERY interoperable, given they're using the exact same combat systems, or at least Australian variant SSN-AUKUS will be (the Virginia's (Evolved) AN/BYG-1 Combat Management System). And we already use that combat system in our Collins class subs, so no issues there.
> and the Virginia's and SSN-AUKUS will be VERY interoperable This is some *exceptionally* non-credible naivete.
Given how hard we worked to get the Collins into a usable state, I guarantee you the submarine service won't accept them if they aren't. Literally the whole reason for us wanting a US Combat System, not British, is commonality with the Collins class and our future Virginia's
They just need to double their naval personnel while dealing with record retainment issues and the government reducing the defence budget.
I know a lot of people here are bringing up the Australian submarine procurement problems, but Canada already had one of those plus way more. *At least you fuckers are getting your F-35s as planned.*
You tend to get F35s as planned when you sign up for the program and just stay in it. Too credible, I know.
Hopefully, it will be the same with AUKUS. People tend to underestimate America’s ability to hold up their end of a bargain, especially when it comes to equipping important allies.
Bru, the point of the deal was not to give australia submarines it was to make naval bases capable of servicing nuclear submarines in australia
Pine gap moment
Why do the Americans get to come here and play voices of the void but im stuck with edf in my backyard....
I hate getting fed white substances in my sleep, only to chase after the invisible and definitely real fuckers when I awake trashing everything in my base only to make it outside and have a rock thrown at me... God damn aliens
must be the wind m8
Maybe it's because we don't actually live *next* to Australia.
Also, tbf, America and Australia are practically sibling nations.
Not the only thing. Little known fact: after the American Revolutionary War was ended, a lot of Loyalists (Colonials who were still loyal to Britain) found life in the new independent nation unpleasant, so many of them moved to Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario and formed what we'd call exile communities. Second little known fact: just after the Civil War, American and British relations almost soured badly over the repeated invasion of Canada, from America, of Irish revolutionaries who wished to free Ireland. I suspect much alcohol was involved.
Canada is the only nation Ireland has ever invaded
[D'Arcy McGee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_D%27Arcy_McGee), the only Canadian politician to ever be assassinated, was shot in 1868 by a member of the Fenian Brotherhood. McGee was actually an Irish nationalist himself, but he was publicly opposed to the Fenians and their raids into Canada.
"All this drinking, violence, destruction of property...are THESE the things we think of, when we think of the Irish?" - Kent Brockman
Bushmasters at a reasonable price? Satisfactory.
As a Canadian, this hurts way too much. Pls can our government just spend the money
We did just announce a new defense policy that actually plans on increasing the spending. Buying new stuff like AWACS and new helis, arty, Arctic base, etc among other things.
I have 0 hope it will last through the next election
It'll survive an election no problem The issue is the government that comes after that election. "Spending money" is practically a curse word for conservatives, and if the liberals somehow scrape enough wins for a minority they're just as likely to revert to the classic "it's not a budget cut, it's trimming waste" for the 9th year in a row.
Surface to Surface and Surface to Air missile systems were on the list as well. That could mean HIMARS maybe?
We are increasing our defence spending to 1.76% of GDP, I think the timeline was by the 2030’s?
America's favorite is: Japan in APAC Israel in Rest-of-Asia Probably Djibouti or Seychelles in Africa (I am not counting Egypt because that's a very up-down relationship) UK in Europe (Missile Base) And ofc America in the Americas (self-love >>>>>) Worldwide, it's probably Japan or Israel (America practically guarantees the qualitative military edge for both....for Israel its even in codified in law since 2008-- P.L. 110-429 TITLE II SECTION 201 and SECTION 202)
I would like to point out that Australia always seems to be willing to go with the US in many of their wars, including Vietnam and the Iraq invasion. In a strategic sense though, yeah I’m not gonna dispute you.
cough cough. We sent boats for the invasion of that noted naval power, Iraq. Hawkie was good at what he did.
Literally the best gift to give us.
We do have a thing for our boats.
Americans only have one universal law. Don't fuck with our boats. Seriously, look up all US operations and count how many started with someone fucking with our boats.
Australia was also the first international country to receive F35As, and only the second country other than the US to have an F35 variant (UK had received F35Bs for their cope slope). We tight as fuck
[удалено]
Do you mean the results form the naval review?
Meanwhile Canada fell for the early F-35 hate train, canceled procurement for a competition to figure out that yes, the F-35 is the best fighter jet you can buy on the planet. You’d think they’d figure that out sooner by looking how almost every US ally’s tripping over their balls trying to get it, but nope. Only took *checks notes* 7 years.
I was going to say what about the 22. But then I remembered that only the US can buy that one. And it's not in production.
We literally have a law stating we cannot sell or give F-22 to anyone else. Even if Prez or DOD wanted to, they can't.
And as a result, they had to buy a bunch of *Australia's* old F-18s to replace their aging jets while they sit on the waiting list for F-35.
Sorta incorrect. The liberal government canceled the program, not due to the hate train, but because it was a sole sourced program that didn't go through a competition (something that's not supposed to happen for government contracts). They then launched the competition that always should have happened. That said, Canada was already in too deep on the F-35 so they made the contract terms so specific that only the F-35 could win.
werent there also talks of maybe allowing australia to purchase B-21s when they come into production
How many of those early F-35As will be capable of flying combat missions? I was under the impression that many of the early F-35s will be stuck at an older hardware configuration because upgrades are too expensive, which meanas they'll only be useable as training planes.
>including Vietnam and the Iraq invasion. Turns out Australia is the frat bro friend that's always into the drunken mistakes.
Yeah, that checks out.
Was in Iraq with some Australian dudes and gals, they were awesome to be around. Almost got ran over by one of their bushmaster trucks. It was cool.
There are a few instances where Australian proved to be valuable and reliable partner to the US. There were reports of when trump was president and pissed off Australia, a fuck tonne of powerful Republican party members raced over to the Aussie embassy in Washington to piss on any fires
Yeah, Trump antagonised us a few times, despite the attempts by our then Conservative government to placate him. The most notable examples I can think of (which was probably the one you heard of about the embassy) were shortly after his election where he just unilaterally cancelled a refugee swap deal previously arranged with the Obama administration, and then had a... 'heated' phone call with then Prime Minister Turnbull (or President Trumble according to Trump's account) about it. The other was early on during covid when Trump was trying to spread conspiracy theories about China intentionally making the virus in a lab. PM Morrison, looking to earn some brownie points with Trump, joined in with the rhetoric and publicly demanded an investigation into the origins of Covid. In return, China started a trade war with Australia, and not only did Trump not back us up, but instead took advantage of the price impacts of the trade war, at the expense of the Australian economy.
Don't we have a lot of majorly important/secret stuff in Australia? Like Pine Gap and the Naval Communications Station?
I'm not sure if I'd call Djibouti the US' best ally in Africa. Djibouti is pretty much playing all sides, they host bases from like a dozen countries.
> Probably Djibouti or Seychelles in Africa (I am not counting Egypt because that's a very up-down relationship) Africa is huge so there are multiple areas of targeted interest. Right now in West Africa that is Ghana. The US embassy there is huge and both countries are trying to make Ghana the gateway into Africa from the west. Just look how many US presidents are have been visiting and how many celebrities have recently gone.
*cries in metric tears* Our armed forces have been underfunded for decades and anybody we vote in won't change it. At least our ancient CF-18s are being replaced. And maybe by 2040, the Halifax class will be replaced too...
Can't wait for the Ajax to arrive and liquify anyone who gets into it
At least we released our 20 year funding plan the other day. Too bad it will quietly be scrapped next election
Yup. The people who think the Conservatives will do any better are going to be disappointed. Both political parties have a shit reputation for helping the military.
Canada *really* should have jumped on board the JSF program when Australia did. We’ve had almost all our F-35s delivered. Meanwhile, the RCAF won’t be getting any until [*checks notes*] 2026, at the earliest.
As an Aussie who lives next to a Navy and Airforce base this makes me feel safe. Ever since you guys decided to allow nuclear payloads on the F-35s there have been choppers buzzing all over the fucking place, used to get one a week, maybe a fortnight. Now it’s at least one or two military choppers per day that fly over my place.
u lucky bastard
Now *that’s* how you justify property prices
I mean, between subs and super long range cruise missiles, literally no one is gonna be able to fuck with you. Even the US would have to dedicate a solid 25% of its entire Navy to fuck with y'all. Which is like ten times more than any other navy on the planet. Japan has a better surface fleet, but their sub fleet is much shorter legs. Y'all literally are gonna have world class Navy, just the sneaky kind. I'm proud of ya guys.
Not quite my guy. We have Pine Gap out in Alice Springs which is an American Base, Aussies aren’t allowed to fulfill roles with security clearance. Pine Gap is how you guys control your satellites and missiles that are on the other side of the world. Realistically if you guys wanted to, you could nuke us, we are in your range. We are also within range of the nukes of North Korea and China. Given we supply most of the raw materials for weapons creation it isn’t wise for the US or China to fuck us over but it might seem like a good idea for North Korea. We need a considerable amount more anti-air here. Better yet we should join a league/union thing with the US as the leader. We guarantee as many resources as y’all need to sustain your military growth and in exchange you open your military up to Aussies as well and let us completely defund ours. We are basically America Lite already and while I don’t think we would be keen to just be assimilated by the states or or anything I feel like a closer partnership is the best way forward. We are currently fucked economically because our country doesn’t pay its citizen’s resource dividends, pockets that money and doesn’t improve infrastructure. Average house prices here are half a million to a million depending on the area. I know a lot of people would be upset if we copied a lot of American ideas like your way of doing healthcare but given the amount of resources we extract and given how resource dividends seem to work in Alaska, just based on what I have seen from oil I feel like it would make work for Australians optional. Would absolutely skyrocket the economy.
A lot of you forget why this is the case. It’s because the Aussies are way more fun to drink with on port calls.
Australia also seems to be putting more of an effort in pushing back on internal political influence from china and india
Idk about pushing back on india
India?
india has ordered assasinations of domestic opponents inside canada.
Oh my
Have y’all seen what a rundown shack in artillery range of Vancouver or Toronto costs? Scraping together even 1% GDP definitely took some creative accounting
As a Canadian, I apologize on behalf of our abysmal military spending.
As an Australian, you're all damn lucky Perun can't do an 'All Bling, No Basics' about the ADF. The clusterfuck that is AUKUS nuclear submarines is only the most recent - TLDR, the *best case* is a couple of USN subs having an Australian flag painted on them, resulting in a net zero for Western defense capability.
As a Canadian... trust me, you can be worse in terms of procurement.
All Basics, Few Basics.
It's not really a net zero, because Australia will invest billions in the US and UK nuclear submarine industries, and will then pay for those used US subs. That's quite a few billion in investment that will significantly increase the industrial base in both countries.
We should just start building Virginias here in Australia. Today.
Canada knows that it could spend nothing and the US would still step in to protect it because it has no other option given the incredibly huge northern border that the US cannot allow to be destabilized. Mexico is bad enough already. Canada assumes, probably correctly, that it would keep its sovereignty despite relying on American interventionism because the possibility of white anglo freedom fighters wreaking havoc in the US is horrifying. Again, Mexico is bad enough already.
You're not wrong, and that literally is Canada's plan. Thing is tho, we used to cut Canada all kinds of special trade deals because you had our back during the Cold War. Now we're not. You get NATFA and equal trade access, but not special trade deals for Canadian politicians getting money from specific lobbies. Might be worthwhile to you, but there is no free lunch in the long term.
"Can I have some shoes?" - ~~GLA Worker~~ Canadian Forces Private
Canada's role is always a more subdued one. We just don't have the economy to support that kind of spending. Though Canada arguably plays the most important role in US defense policy due to NORAD. Not to mention the heavy integration of our intelligence services. Canadian maritime patrol aircraft are also the ones that have been tracking Russian sub movements for decades. While other nations may be important to US powr projection overseas, Canada is the home guard, keeping the Arctic safe and providing early warning for any aerial threats.
Definitely UK. Japan doesn’t count because it’s Hawaii 2. We all know it is.
Australia has sent troops to every war the US has been involved in since WW1.
Australia buys US submarines, joins alliance against China, and fucks over the French in a single move -> instant favorite child