Indeed Spains behaviour to the Rock worries more then Argentina and the Falklands. They are not going to go to war with us but they can make life very difficult for the population through petty restrictions!

It’s partially it’s our own fault by holding those pointless talks a few years back with Spain getting their hopes up whilst we had a policy of self determination for the Rock.

If I remember correctly the last time the Rock voted about joining Spain only a couple of people voted yes.

There was a very massive majority in favour of staying with Britain. Some pictures of the Rock look like a Britain theme park, they really do go for Britishness out there.

We didn’t build there hopes up much, we told the Spanish it was up to the people and the people didn’t want Spain. There own fault if they actually believed the vote would go the other way.

Germany started the War in WW2 infact the allies did their best to avoid war ignoring Soverign territory violations by the Nazis for example. Chances are that if Germans went on with Holocaust and stopped with Poland the allies would have not done much even if they had known about it.

The allies (well the British Empire, one ally was late to the game) got involved when the Germans went into Poland, if they’d stopped before then, at Czechoslovakia, they may not have intervened.

I would have an Indian govt pulling a gun at me extorting money than a foriegner giving me free money and incentives and having troops. I am sure most people in the world feels the same.

As would I, but can you speak for people living in countries that aren’t stable democracies, where they might not be just extorting money? That certainly isn’t all people like the Taliban did. The images taken of what they did to people on the diving boards the Russian’s put up in Kabul would be reason enough for me to have at them.

The Rwandan peace process is doing allright because there was not much international meddling as in other countries. One other example is South Africa which did not have holocausts but none the less had endorsed racism and human rights violations. That country became a modern democracy all on its own. Yes there are problems, but they have a great Chance of overcoming it. A better chance than in places where the west has intervened. It is also good to note that while clearly having anti-human rights policy of Aparthied the minority white government was in the good books of many western countries, the ANC was declared a terrorist organization.

Hmm, not sure that is entirely right. You have equated intervention entirely to military involvement. The use of Soft Power against Apartheid grew steadily for years until the collapse. Can’t comment on Rwanda, don’t know enough.

Do you live in the moon ? Neither of these countries have to reach America to mess up American interests in the region. North Korea can target South Korea, Iran can Target Israel, Pakistan can target much of the middle east and India. And China can target the whole of America even with much lesser Arsenal than America they can cause enougb damage to render most of America useless. Even the smallest of N.Korean nukes dropped in South will cause unacceptable damage to American interests and hence America will not play hardball there.

Wouldn’t American interests being in danger make them more likely to play hard ball?

Like you I think Mugabe is an Idiot but the majority of his country thinks otherwise and that is what matters. Same as with Chavez and Ahmedinajad.

You’re probably right for Chavez (do people really find him appealing? :S) but the other 2 are debatable, the mass riots on re-election of votes and widespread accusations of vote-rigging can’t be entirely baseless.

Just read the article posted in the Indian Space thread (a few pages back, it is from the Times) about how A.Q. Khan proliferated Nukes with Americans full aware of it but doing nothing to prevent it for fear of upsetting their ally Pakistan.

Pakistan has been allowed to get away with too much by threatening to do nothing about the Taliban, but this has little relevance to the argument. (I guess i’m a little biased towards India though, but still).

I already pointed out the Somali example the Americans pulled out after suffering minimal casualities because it was unacceptable, the could not sell fighting for ‘humanitarian’ reasons in Africa and endangering their soldiers’ life. Afghanistan is given nice tags like ‘first line of defense for freedom’, Iraq ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. Its all about strategic worth of a war and not much about caring for the people.

Iraq was worth it anyway, Saddam needed to go, there were proven human rights issues there. Gassing the Kurds ain’t a sport. The post-game execution was terrible though.

And Afghanistan really was important, the links to terrorism are undeniable.

We need to be clear here what we are talking about, governments intentions and public support for actions. In the case of Somalia, the government wanted to help, but had no support from the public. There are instances of the reverse too.

@Cuito: I agree, they need to be knocked down a notch or 2 (since they kidnapped our sailors i’ve pretty much wanted a few well placed cruise missiles to show them who not to play games with). They almost certainly would act with even greater impunity, but use of a nuclear weapon would not help, it’d radicalise them and push them further into acquiring more nukes.

reading through the SRD, one thing i noticed

http://www.boeing.com/ids/globaltanker/files/KC767A.pdf

http://www.eadsnorthamerica.com/1024/en/breaking_news/2007%20Press%20Releases/2007_01_31_Boom_Flight_Test.html

interesting requirement, wonder if Boeing will protest or if they think they can bump up capacity without too much work

the thing is, it’s not just the boom

the rest of the fuel system is sized around max capability, so all pumps and hoses may need to be upgraded too

edit: same for the receptacle

http://www.boeing.com/ids/globaltanker/files/KC767A.pdf

how much greater? who knows . . . but probably not 1200 gallons greater

couldn’t find any info for the KC-30, but presumably they sized it to match their boom

but maybe not

Interesting. I’d guess “greater than 900” means anything up to, but not including, 1000.

I seriously doubt Boeing and they’re Washington crew will be allowed to delay this much more than it already has been with complaints and demands. The 135’s can’t keep going forever.

I’d assume the KC30 receives at the same rate it gives. It’d make sense to stick to one standard, the 767 seems to.

Sure. Yet never ever has there been any attempt “to help Africa” with only remotely the commitment that was put in the Yugoslavian mission. Why? Exactly, because human rights alone are not worth it as you more or less concluded yourself.

No single mission was of the same scale no. And for a lot of the time you’re right, there is less reason to. Yugoslavia was a problem on our doorstep, not 1000’s of miles away.

But isn’t it better to help some people when you can, than no people at all? That isn’t as big of a double standard as you make out. I’d step in and stop a mugging/rape if I saw one, but i’m not going to don a latex suit and fight crime by night.

But there have been attempts where we have had little to gain. Britain went into Sierra Leone, there are/have been European led UN missions in Chad and other places. The US tried in Somalia in conjunction with the UN etc.

And we don’t just use hard power either. We send billions of dollars a year to African nations (granted a lot of the time money is pocketed by savage leaders) and there are plenty of aid missions/agencies working to help with issues. We even have stupid Irish floppy haired rockstars setting up benefit concerts for them.

How much can we really be expected to do?

Its not so much a protest about making it more difficult to have another crack at taking the Islands. Rather the UK making decisions over a territory they see as their own.

I know, I was joking. They can say what they like though, we’ll ignore them until they have another crack.

So in the process of retaking Taiwan, China plans to start a war with almost every major player in the Far East by hitting the US on Korean and Japanese soil?

I pity them when the CVBGs rock up.

Obviously the scenario is flawed and not as realistic as it makes out. China simply wouldn’t risk hitting all those American assets to reclaim Taiwan. Nor would there be no warning to put US forces on alert. Nor would the Carriers and all those fancy Aegis ships be sat about in San Diego and Pearl Harbour/wherever else they’re based in the Pacific.

Interesting idea though.

People have gotten confused the 25% loss is because we cut 1 boat which is 25% of our sub fleet so we lost 25%.

I think someone misused the numbers thats all.

We usually have 48 warheads out and about at any one time. That to me is what we should have minimum on a sub more when we need to such as when things look dangerous. 160 is the lowest number of warheads is the bare minimum i think we should have as that allows 3 boats to have around 48 warheads assigned to them and the rest would be for testing and maintenance. Remember these warheads need top-up’s every so often and need to be checked hence why there are convoys up and down the country every so often.

Obligatory, Afghanistan is roughly 600nm from the coast so it’s not that bad and yes they do get tanked. Fly into Afghan air space hook up with a tanker tank up go on patrol for 2 hours come back re-tank, patrol, re-tank and head home. Not as barmy as people think. It means you can have lower numbers of people in Afghanistan in danger and you have a much shorter logistics trail for those aircraft as carriers carry all the stuff you need. Im not sure they do it much but they must for the US defense.mil site to have pictures of USN F-18’s being tanked over stan.

Or the USN birds ARE actually land based?

Anyway, wouldn’t the logistical trail for a CVBG be multitudes higher than a few ground based air assets at Kandahar? The planes flying from the carrier are much safer and easier to support but for the whole carrier group needed to support those few planes I think it becomes less useful.

I’d only be shelling out to have a CBG in use if I was in a war where I couldn’t get land based air assets in a suitable location or if the land based air assets were particularly vulnerable.