It’s migration season, and this is only the first bird - I predict there’s more of them.

I think we have an interesting conflict of interest on the US side of the ocean: “the US military industrial complex” vs. “Trump, driving away their customers”.

With generative AI (I would say that language models are a subset of this, they generate text) you can trick a reasonably naive person for a long period (and a reasonably skeptical person for a short period):

a) into believing that something really happened

b) into believing that many people support an idea

This is potentially highly damaging to electoral representative democracy.

There exists a form of representative democracy (representative direct democracy) that’s invulnerable - it’s called sortitition and allocates offices by lottery - but no country currently uses it and no country seems prepared to use it.

So in short term, the solution is to be skeptical of the information we receive. For many people, that’s quite a lot to ask.

This would be a real possibility.

It depends on how insulated Putin is from reality.

If he’s still surrounds himself with yes-men, he might send their proposal where sun doesn’t shine. But if the quantity of yes-men has dropped since he started the war, then maybe. He might know that their economy is falling apart.

I’m almost sure that the Kremlin still polls Russian people for their opinions via VTSIOM, or at least bothers to read Levada when they publish their polls. Polls say that the public would accept simply stopping the war. What the public would not accept is giving up conquered territories. :(

So any real negotiations where Ukraine will demand its occupied land back, will be harder.

Polls in Ukraine show that Zelensky has a massive approval rating. Right behind him (or sometimes ahead, depending on how you ask) - not a politician, but the first wartime commander of the armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny.

It would take mind-bendingly much engineering to change the direction of Ukraine currently.

Note: Iran still uses F-14 Tomcats.

Possibilities for implanting a logic bomb are endless, but there are still no case reports about an US-originating plane becoming remotely disabled.

(Russians would absolutely like to listen to a message which accomplishes that, meanwhile allies would definitely want ot change encryption keys on any plane which is supposed to receive that. I also don’t think that military planes will accept unencrypted messages. And their communications subsystems are separate subsystems, which can be disabled or replaced.)

Meanwhile, in a hypothetical doomsday scenario, Danish F-35s would land (or be unloaded from a container) in China, and be greeted with cheers, red banners and golden confetti. Damage to the US would far exceed anything that Denmark could do by firing something.

Note: these are scenarios which are not supposed to happen, but dramatic loss of trust among allies can actually result in that - if country A backstabs country D, there is nothing that really prevents D from betraying A to C.

There is an aftermarket for F-16 planes and their spare parts.

Also, I should note that Iran (of all countries) is still flying its F-14 Tomcats, unless I’m mistaken.

The most immediate effect is ceasing updates for then AN/ALQ-131 countermeasures pod. If Russians come with a new radar or make their existing weapons behave differently, this could have considerable effect on the survivability of an F-16 in a hot situation.

There is also debate in Sweden, and polls in South Korea have turned in favour of having them.

I have not yet heard of a single case report of US-sourced military jet becoming remotely disabled.

Also note: Iran has been flying F-14 jets which the Islamic Revolution took over from the Shah’s regime.

When a country buys military aircraft, they demand extensive knowledge of the system they are buying, and demand ability to independently perform maintenance.

If they are prudent, they will review all its wireless reception and transmission capabilities, possibly on their own. There may still be a possibility for a logic bomb somewhere, but a logic bomb in flight softtware would ordinarily mean two things:

• the industrial company involved pays obscene compensations
• nobody will purchase aircraft from the country involved

These are pretty big disincentives.

P.S. Cryptography: one can likely configure an aircraft so that it won’t accept a message through its data link system, unless the message authenticates and decrypts. Subsequently, one can change keys to no longer match a compromised ally’s keys. As a result, direct data links would no longer be possible with planes of that compromised ally. So introducing a specially crafted message into a military plane would likely be hard.

This could be an important move, since Ukraine does not have satellites of its own currently.

Ukraine has been relying on US and commercial satellites to monitor Russian activity in areas where drones cannot reach, or where they cannot communicate.

Commanded by the Trump administration, the US military recently stopped sharing intelligence data with Ukraine. Commercial data tends to have a higher latency and lower resolution, so I think Ukrainians will highly appreciate French assistance.

To my understanding, EU countries aren’t in a shortage of aircraft - their air power is enough to match Russia. However, they are in a shortage of bombs to drop and missiles to fire.

They’re also in a shortage of artillery and rocket artillery and air defense.

As for the industry that can be scaled up fastest (drones), everyone is in a shortage of them. Fortunately there is one country in Europe that’s been doing absolutely everything to scale up their production. So much that it currently out-produces the US, and maybe out-produces both the US and the EU. I’m fairly certain that this country is willing to help on the matter (it’s called Ukraine).

I assure you, the factory will be too small to supply all demand, and 2 generations behind the cutting edge. And its construction will get delayed by unforeseen mishaps.

If they win, the FEC won’t take directions from Trump.

This does not exclude the chance that Trump will provoke a more pointed confrontation. Or that Trump won’t eventually have to be removed by force. It’s just a basic thing to do - a road of 1000 steps starts with step 1.

Came here to post this, but saw that this thread existed already. :)

• Previously, this was speculated about as a rumour, now it’s being publicly negotiated.
• In rough terms, 800 billion is approximately 0.8 US defense budgets.

So, as a result of the US abandoning its previous role, the EU is moving to replace the capabilities offered by the US previously.

The sum is not impossibly big, the total volume of the EU response to COVID was about 2 trillion, so this is about 40% of the volume of the COVID response budget.

Notes:

• Previously, this was speculated about as a rumour, now it’s being publicly negotiated.
• In rough terms, 800 billion is approximately 0.8 US defense budgets.

So, as a result of the US abandoning its previous role, the EU is moving to replace the capabilities offered by the US previously.

If the US does lift sanctions on select oligarchs from Russia, I think the EU should consider sanctions on select oligarchs from the US.

I can suggest one such oligarch, Elon Musk - he’s associated with wielding illegitimate power, manipulating social media and interfering in elections (both national and primary) using wealth.

How about freezing his assets? I don’t think he has taken the prudent step of collecting all his money and stowing it under Donald’s presidential seat.

Proposing a legal remedy that’s not properly implemented where I live, but could be properly implemented…

It should be required by law that police disclose to all people who have been under their surveillance, all the information that was collected about them - after their surveillance permit expires (and the permit should be possible to get only through a court of law, no managerial decisions).

…and also, they should be required to compensate for any damage done through this.

Guess: the geopolitical situation.

Reasoning (much speculation on my part):

• PKK is often an excuse for Turkish attacks and proxy attacks
• the tactics which PKK has used have not proven effective, it has become and stayed isolated
• with Trump in power, Syrian Kurds cannot rely on US support and Erdogan is less inhibited, PKK may become an excuse for Turkey to attack them
• with Bashar al Assad gone, there is a possibility of negotiating a tolerable position in a new Syria, and Erdogan is less inhibited because of this too - his regional competitor is gone
• better to remove the excuse for attacks and explore other options

Hopefully later, then.

Or never, if Taiwan announces on some day “we don’t have nuclear weapons, but if needed, we will use them”.

Short summary: Abdullah Öcalan, the formal leader of PKK (but he’s in a Turkish prison already for decades) called for PKK to disarm and dissolve. So far it looks like they might proceed with it.

The sourcing is what actually makes people worry, and makes the Ukrainian government ask from every big supplier: “do you have a backup plan that works without Chinese parts?”.

Tracing the supply chains would reveal that Europe has only half of the industries needed to make a decent drone - with the rest coming from China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, etc.

In peaceful times, it would not be such a problem - “oh, we cannot make autonomous agricultural vehicles”.

In not so peaceful times, it’s a considerable risk, and a lot of people are working to lower the risk. It means setting up industries which were outsourced to the other side of the planet.