I mean… supply chain hardening has been a concern for most of the three letter agencies (and governments around the world) for years. There are very serious concerns over how basically every NIC comes out of a factory in China and what the implications of that are.

If DoD actually do have a list of vetted and hardened products, that WOULD be a very good baseline for if you care about security at all. Less so from the US government, but that can then be compared against similar lists from other countries.

And considering that basically every TLA has the same concerns, if those orgs are willing to spend their budget? DoE and the like ain’t gonna complain.

Its one and the same.

They don’t have any more (or less) credibility than the us government has. If the Iranian regime says something about how the war is going, assume it is a lie by default.

It is just in this specific case, what they say tends to line up with what third parties are corroborating.

Again. Fascist regimes lie. They don’t HAVE credibility as a result. That doesn’t mean everything they say is a lie, but it does mean everything they say should be verified by third parties.

Nobody said they weren’t

Iran doesn’t have “much to gain” from insisting they defeated The Evil United States and that no matter what the US throws at them they won’t give up the Strait?

The US is still, technically, the muscle of The Western World… at least right now. Saying that you withstood them (and all signs are that Iran has) is a HUGE “win” for a regime. Both in terms of making sure the people who were rebelling a few months back know they have no hope and nobody will come to save them but also to look strong in case any of the other superpowers want to back them up as a puppet regime.

And a LOT of the claims the Iranian regime have made have been rather suspect over the course of this war. A lot of it is “fair” murkiness when things were even more chaotic. But even their recent missile attack in the Indian Ocean is a mess of carefully leaked verbiage as each side decides whether they want to call it a failed attack or a warning shot. And I want to say the US/Israel started as the former before pivoting to the latter to try to convince Europe to join them.

We are all aware Iran sucks, but you seem to be clinging to the “the USA is fighting for democracy” BS that was stale a decade ago

No. I am not. Again. It is incredibly obvious you view the world as good versus evil. You cannot look at an event without deciding who is the good guy and who is the bad guy and you ignore whatever facts get in the way of that. A LOT of people do that. It is a symptom of the infantilization of so much Western media. But that isn’t real life and all you are doing by the constant “gotta hand it to them” nonsense is literally caping for murderous bastards.

Because, like I said,

This is two evil fucking regimes going to war for no apparent reason.

There is no strawman. I was literally responding to

Iran has more credibility than the orange pedophile

In this specific situation? Iran’s official line is more likely to be correct. If we were to look at things tomorrow, that very well might flip around. If you consider being correct in the moment to be “credibility” then… you probably should reassess your decision making skills.

Regardless: To quote the great one

issuing correction on a previous post of mine, regarding the terror group ISIL. you do not, under any circumstances, “gotta hand it to them”

…

They are a regime that has imprisoned and murdered civilians by the thousands. They didn’t like TO YOU because you weren’t paying attention.

Look, I realize we all want clear good guys and bad guys. And your favorite influencers LOVE to play on that to get views for their twitch channels. But this isn’t even a case where “Well, Hamas does a lot of evil things but they are morally justified in my opinion”. This is two evil fucking regimes going to war for no apparent reason.

Trust third parties. Trust facts. Don’t trust fascist fucking dictators.

Fascist dictators lie.

Just because you like the lie you are hearing doesn’t mean it is more likely to be true than not.

I am inclined to agree with the official Iranian line on this specific topic. But that has less to do with what Iran is saying and more to do with what I have gleamed from the OSINT community and third party news orgs.

I would not at all go that far. Iran’s regime is horrendous and they were murdering and abducting civilians by the thousands for the past year or two. They are just as in need of a propaganda win as fuckface.

Remember everyone: Just because one side is an asshole doesn’t mean the other isn’t one too.

Awww. Don’t worry. Nobody is saying putin could ever be bad. He is everyone’s friend and the most heroic and ethical person in any possible conversation.

Now go back to sleep. The grown ups are talking

Any succession plan for a dictator is a mess. That is why they are very rarely “concrete” in the sense of being formally announced.

But a significant percentage of those who would have had a claim have likely agreed already. Allegedly this was a big effort last year.

Whether the chosen successor is any better is… very questionable. But, like with any regime change, we are either looking at ramped up atrocities or a reprieve for the populace as the successor keeps their head down for a few years.

Part of that has been that:

Under Biden, we were worried about actually going to war with russia and needing them ourselves. Under fuckface, we are worried about them being used against russia.

But a big part of it is that… patriot missiles fucking suck. So does the Iron Dome. Intercepting even “normal” velocity missiles is really hard. Let alone high velocity ones. It is just that israel has a lot of reason to shape propaganda to pretend they are insanely effective (for their own military industrial complex needs) when it is mostly about getting people into bunkers the second you think there is incoming fire. And then you just don’t really report on why so many construction contracts just hit the market.

And you see this when we deploy patriot missiles elsewhere. Off the top of my head, I want to say the official numbers put the Iron Dome at closer to 80% effectiveness. And patriot missiles… there have been engagements where that number might be closer to 0% than not. With recent use mostly juicing things up with aircraft and drones (MUCH easier targets).

And considering that Ukraine’s government benefits from reminding people how evil russia is? They aren’t going to be pretending the anti-missile tech is better than it is.

You have WAY too much faith in anti-missile defense systems.

Incorrect.

Only a subset of tariffs were ruled illegal. Mostly because of the method they were declared with.

Others are, as of now, perfectly legal and will remain in place. And expect many of these to just be declared in a different manner to maintain them.

Never trust a rapist.

And if he (so his oligarch handlers) want those trade agreements and treasuries back, hold the US accountable. Get concessions with very documented repercussions for when he inevitably tries to stop once he gets what he wants.

NATO without the US is dependent on each (simplifying) EU nation’s military.

The EU, like sane people, focused on their own economies and people. The US focused on having one of (if not THE) largest standing militaries on the planet.

And with war increasngly on the horizon? Most NATO nations aren’t going to want to deploy their troops until THEY are “safe”.

We’ve already seen it with the hemming and hawing over what to actually send Ukraine in terms of weaponry

… That might be so despicably evil that I mostly just fixate on how many cops around the world must feel out gamed.

The US attacking allied territory of the EU is basically the death of NATO, one way or another. WW3 is a hop and a skip from that.

I’ve not been following super closely for mental health reasons, but if it is just Denmark? We are looking at another Ukraine. Everyone is going to hem and haw and say “just give it to the pricks” to “avoid World War 3”. Whereas, if we start seeing other EU/NATO nations deploying troops to protect Greenland… there is a chance that SOMETHING remains and we don’t just have russia running over everyone else one by one.

I mean… yeah. Missiles can cause serious damage. This has been true since (ass pulling) the 1950s/1960s.

The reality has always been that it doesn’t actually take much to take out some VERY expensive equipment. Which is why combined arms have been the name of the game since folk were in armor on horseback.

Oh. It would go about 4.45x worse (ignoring Alaska). And russia can’t even properly protect their border and prevent Ukrainian strike teams from crossing it.