I Paid To See A Movie About Singing. I Got Ninety Minutes Of Pentagon Propaganda

You probably could pack more propaganda in. Remember Battleship?

Anyway, yeah. This is an epidemic. It's often really, really glaring in Hollywood movies.

2014's Godzilla was something I actually enjoyed - with the exception of its out-of-place fixation on a """""realistic""""" American military. IE a bunch of guys who were probably direct army-to-acting in parts. And of course, America's army also happens to have jurisdiction basically everywhere. There was a funny juxtaposition to having the American military glorified and in this GI Joe kind of way to tick off DoD boxes while otherwise the film portrays the military as gung ho fucktards who attempt to nuke San Francisco. This entire event is portrayed with heroic dignity as though it was just an honest mistake that maybe wouldn't have been the wrong thing to do - and this atmosphere was probably created to keep the message of military futility above jarhead comprehension level.

Did happen to see the same movie in the OP, though. Which is weird. It was someone else's choice. The entire series is shit, to the best of my knowledge. In all but superficial details, the Bellas also come off as a prep group - which raises so many questions for me just because I really and truly am mystified that preps even exist. Where the fuck do they live?

It's a mixture of a lot of factors. The US has enjoyed technological superiority over its rivals for the better part of a century, but now China and Russia (among others) are reaching technological parity. That means that not only are all those fancy ships, jets, and missiles are growing strategically weaker by the day.

A major example is the Gerald Ford supercarrier. Russia and China both have been developing cruise missiles specifically to sink those ships. It's the sort of strategy that would make Sun Tsu proud. One of these CMs costs about 150k to make, so someone crunch the numbers and tell us how many CMs can be made for the cost of a single Ford at the tun of $11.5B+. A single carrier can get swarmed with these missiles, and all it takes is one or two at the waterline to fuck the carrier.

So if active defenses can't protect these ships, their only option is to deploy beyond the range of these missile batteries. This means that the manned jets the military insists on using have to carry more fuel, and subsequently fewer bombs. Deploying further out means a greater likelihood of detection and deterrence or interception, driving up costs of repair, retrieval, redeployment, etc, all for proportionally less damage.

And this is just one of the almost innumerable problems the American military is facing without a clear recourse. This situation is a major contributor in American bellicosity, because in a straight on fight with a power of equal parity, it's extremely unlikely that they'll be able to come out on top all on their own.

ahhahahahaha

we are living in a fucking simpsons joke
youtube.com/watch?v=IvfNHjUSAZ0

Subs over dubs in every language.

Everything, when empires make a mistake it's fatal. Burgerland made theirs in the 2000s and now cascading imperial failures will break them within a decade at most

Nevermind that US Army is the most neglected branch, that still uses Cold War era tech, because they can't be used to protect porky's hegemony.

The Army is just a meat shield to protect the actually important air and naval bases. They don't need modern weapons in order to soak up enemy bullets.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can enlighten me, but isn't that the main role of the US Army in Iraq/Afghanistan? They either sit around and protect a strategic point or are on patrol, and if they come into contact with something they think would look cool blowing up an enemy, they call in air support to flatten everything in the general area of where they believe them to be.

Aside from that, isn't their main utility in house/street clearing, while all the combat heavy-lifting is done by armor/aircraft? If you don't care about "hearts and minds" then why bother clearing a house when you can just flatten it?

It can be fatal, but not always, or at least not always right away. It depends on the circumstances surrounding that empire, how much error they can absorb, and the scope and nature of those errors.

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In many ways it kind of is. Priorities and policies change from administration to administration, voting cycle to voting cycle, and relative to whatever economic interests happen to dominate at the time. It's not like they're the Spaceballs, but it makes it difficult to craft or maintain long-term, coherent policy.

It's difficult to tell what will be the actual "fatal mistake." Augustus Caesar establishing the principate seemed like a good idea at the time. It ended almost a century of civil war and sequential dictatorship and ushered in an era of relatively unprecedented prosperity and peace. 450 years later, the system he had set up ended up tearing itself apart and plunging the formerly vibrant and vigorous empire into a millennium of stagnation, fragmentation, and internecine warfare.

guess that's why NATO has the most military bases and territory in history huh

No they don't, you stupid Democrat.

Always the Bourgeoisie interest.

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History brainlet here, but when was the last time the US fought a war where they faced actual resistance, as in not a long-term, low effort engagement used to justify military spending? 'Cause I can't think of many, so, in its current state, how would the burgers fare in an actual war against China or Russia? (Or a coalition of the two, a man can dream.)

The War of 1812 was the last conflict that Burgerland had anything serious at stake.

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I never said the USA can't lose, I said it's not incompetent or bumbling. Both the "invincible USA" and "incompetent USA" are false narratives deliberately spread by imperialist agents.

wew you got BTFO

Oh no, nobody means that USA is well-meaning but bad at it when they say "incompetent". USA is a fucking evil empire and it fucking sucks at anything that involves treading upon anything remotely challenging.

France is an example of an evil empire that is actually good at what it does.

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weird how such an incompetent bunch of fools manage to control half the planet…

It helps they had support of other, more competent imperialists. But otherwise, they mostly got rich off exploiting those weaker than themselves, while having no challengers on their borders, and sitting safe behind two oceans. Also two world wars worth of trade. And money can buy a lot of things.

But militarily, USA was never impressive. Ever.

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great empires disappear overnight, the "centuries long decline" is an outlier rather than the norm. The great European empires disappeared in about a 25 year span.

No competition and an organized handover of power from the British

ahahahah what the fuck are you even talking about. you talk about international politics like it's a harry potter book or something. the USA is missing the sooper seekrit REAL BADASS imperialist skillz that the… French or someone won't give to them???

it's true that there are material reasons why the USA commands the world empire.

what the hell does this mean? they have bases on half the planet, more than any country in history. that's power. that kind of power doesn't come out of nowhere, it demands and creates the skills necessary to obtain and maintain it. Let's go back to the original post I responded to:

This is borderline revisionist history. The 2000s have been a period of continuous increase in the scope and reach of NATO. The USA has established a permanent base in Afghanistan. They've destroyed much of Iraq and Syria. Israel's open diplomacy with other USA puppets is at its highest point ever. AFRICOM has expanded massively. The Pink Tide in Latin America has been turned back to an extent. Then there's the expansion into Eastern Europe and so on.
What can anyone point to as a "fatal mistake" in all this? Syria has succeeded in fending off the NATO terrorists for now. Hezbollah has achieved stalemate with Israel. China is still rising. The DPRK is pretty much invincible now. Anti-imperialist countries are still consolidating and cooperating economically. These victories have been won in the face of the empire's brutal onslaught. They are not the result of a "bumbling, incompetent empire" that can make ONE MISTAKE and then crumble into dust, they are the result of the enemies of empire rising to the challenge, training and fighting while not underestimating their opponent for a second.

what are you even talking about you fucking imbecile?

oh ok, let's just sit back and relax, the USA will disappear by magic.

What exactly did this "handover" entail then? I guess the Brits just entrusted their "power" to a bunch of incompetent idiots, knowing that power is so essential and magical that even the most useless and clueless Burgers would be able to wield it right? What a farcical, infantile outlook. Again, you think of everything like it is a fantasy novel.

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laugh

ebin

oh no, they only lasted 450 years. Complete failures I agree.

hurpa glup dup durpa dup lickin cocks all day erry day slupra duppa smack smok

The Air Force and Navy might have a little more investment towards new toys and gadgets but it's not really any better. It's always a safe bet that the average ship in the Navy right now was new in the '60s-'70s.

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This reminds me of an experience I had recently