Apprentice Citizen

Spain went all out.

There’s a smarter way when dealing with a prickly US president:

Buy F-35, just much less of them.
Build the fleet around non-US aircraft. Use few F-35 to supply situational awareness to the fleet

I expect many more countries to quietly leave distance from the IS that way

Here we go. Renowned journalists begin to be apologetic about expressing criticism, and doing so referring to “patriotism”.

I think of all Russian voices criticizing the war prefixing with how patriotic they are.

How do we know, if this tech is so secretive, especially on the Chinese navy side?

Trump and von der Leyen announce US-EU trade deal Agreement includes 15% baseline tariff for most EU exports to US after deal reached at Scotland crunch talks

- 15% effective rate of tariffs. Was previously ~3%.

- EU commits to buy US energy 250$ billion/y for 3 years . 2024 purchases = 65$B. Hardly realistic

- $600 billion investment expected from a mix of public and private sector, mostly private.

- a high-level agreement with many points still open

It’s hard to understand calls for EU expansion, when the EU’s biggest Achilles heel is its inability to get its current members to agree, ending up in paralysis or crawling speed on the vast majority of issues.

The 28 May agreement

- focuses on long-range strike capabilities

- covers drones like AN-196, ballistic- and cruise missiles

- has 🇩🇪 deliver financing in the hundreds of millions €, and minor logistical support (eg satcom)

- takes pressure off the delivery of Taurus

Scarce details by policy

Design and early production were surely already complete.

German financing scaled it up to small scale production. Possibly know how too.

Producing in 🇺🇦 enables lower cost, higher speed, and avoids criticism of “escalation”

The “excuse” is that oil prices were high, sanctions would have raised them further, oil prices are decisive in elections, and Biden’s primary objective was to prevent Trump’s return.

Trump now enjoys low prices and minimal political risk.

Your recent posts increasingly sound like maga parlance

@anderspucknielsen.dk expectation somewhat proved right.

- defensive systems confirmed in good numbers (17 patriots)
- offensive systems left unspecified and conditional
- no sanctions imposed, merely promised in 50 days time behind a bunch of further vague conditionals

Hardly a shocking package.

- Cost: a SAMPTT battery costs $500 million, a missile $2M. A patriot battery 600-1B, a missile $4M-7M

- Mobility: SAMP/T deploys in 15’, Patriot in 30’

- Crew: SAMP/T ~14 people. Patriot ~90

- Patriot has capacity for more interceptors per battery, but that’s paid in larger size, crew, cost etc

Europe’s air defence dilemma: can Franco-Italian system rival US Patriot? New SAMP-T system on display at Paris Air Show seeks buyers amid Europe’s efforts to re-arm

If European countries don’t buy Franco-Italian air defense systems now that 1) mistrust in the US reliability is at its peak 2) their European system is at its newest — it’s hard to believe it ever will grow any autonomy.

SAMP-T is cheaper, more flexible and easier to operate than PATRIOT, too.

Unemployment rate among veterans is growing: research shows The unemployment rate among Ukrainian veterans has risen to 30.95%. This is evidenced by the data of a survey presented by the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation.

It’s not hard to believe — PTSD is widespread and companies are happy to stay clear of those cases.

In Ukraine things are unfortunately not that different:

veteranfund.com.ua/en/2024/02/1...

Why do all but one women dress light colors?

Is that a custom? Is there a meaning or special message?

Trump has 3 years and odds left.

Rutte must safeguard NATO until a stable US president comes in.

Rutte here shows je has understood perfectly his job and what language works on Trump.

YouTube video by TLDR News EU The Big Problem With NATO's New 5% Target

A video on this would be great, @anderspucknielsen.dk .

@tldrnews.bsky.social posted a rudimentary comment today that increased spending is dumb without structural reform to reduce current waste.

It’d be great to hear needs, possibilities & plans for those structural reforms

youtu.be/udxtglKVrAc

He does because he has not seen other presidents follow instincts.

Animals follow instincts. Presidents follow information, analysis and decision.

@legaleagle.tv some material for you. Can ICE agents operate masked? When? When do they have to ID themselves? How can they be prosecuted?

Are you sure, Mehdi?

Iran has historically had one: AMAD

The IAEA found strong evidence of Iran refining uranium to purities well beyond the needs of civilian use

And their stockpiling of uranium accelerated sharply since Israel disabled Hezbollah

www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

US interests is not US bases. It encompasses for example investments by US companies in Jordan and UAE.

Hitting those doesn’t necessarily trigger a major response from US military. It may destroy Iranian relationships with the respective country though.

It’s the stripes of the US flag — on an “incidentally” blue background.

The optics however are so blatant, the image ha either not been second-looked by anyone beyond the designer, or it’s a tacit Easter egg.

I choose to assume the former.

@hannanotte.bsky.social is really good. Thank you for this tip

What could they have done, really?

Their proxies and air defense was destroyed last year.

It’s not like you can rebuild them or relocate your uranium enrichment facilities overnight.

It would be a half lie, and I don’t know how long a delivery of Taurus missiles would stay secret.

It’d likely get recorded and visually confirmed by OSINT as soon as Ukraine uses a few.

So no: this likely actually means that Merz decided not to send Taurus.

What better time than now to bring money to the US, finance the country and indirectly vote for Trumps version of America?

If your response to this video is, “That’s what I voted for”—
Fuck you. Fuck you very much.

You’re heartless.

Frankly I doubt that institutions will decay and truth finding will occur at the individual level.

It’s unrealistic and eliminates the key role of reputation. Every endeavor of significance involves many people.

Bellingcat is trusted because many individuals stood for a certain methodology.

Eliot, this (and the previous) threads are gems.

Looking forward for your book.

Please make it readable, your threads tend to be somewhat dense. Wouldn’t hope to chew so hard 200 pages long 🙂

Why would Trump lose? He has ultimate control of the storyline and playing field.

Between deeds and drugs, Musk has already has largely destroyed much of his reputation. He only has money left, bound to TSLA shares that Trump can sink.

In Russia, Putin won over oligarchs.

Keen to read y rationale

Many debate whether Donald Trump is a Russian agent.

Whether he will be rewarded or not — he is clearly an agent in the sense that he is acting evidently and consistently to advance Russias interests.

I was surprised by the Estonian navy backing off. What could have the fighter jet possibly done?

Was the risk higher than the damage of showing the kremlin it has the upper hand?

Should NATO have scrambled jets in response?