'If War Breaks Out on Top of the World' (popularmechanics.com) 83
The United States Air Force's elite "PJ" pararescue units and Alaska National Guard units "are ready to respond if war breaks out on top of the world," reports a new article in Popular Mechanics:
With much of the ice cap melted, the Arctic is teeming with competitive activity because it's no longer an impenetrable land of glaciers — void of economic or strategic military advantages. In fact, quite the opposite. The U.S., Russia, and China all recognize that new shipping lanes and natural resources, worth trillions of dollars, are becoming more viable every day in the Arctic. Each nation has its own economic interests and the competition for control in the Arctic is only increasing.
Lt. Gen. Tom Bussiere says simply: "Whoever holds Alaska holds the region, and that impacts the globe," and according to the U.S. Senator of Alaska Dan Sullivan, "we have fallen behind in the race with China and Russia." Russia is reviving Soviet-era Arctic bases, increasing its fleet of Arctic icebreakers to a whopping 41 vessels (the U.S. has only two though this shortage is getting more attention), and Russian TU-95 "Bear" bombers frequently test F-22A Raptors' readiness near U.S. airspace.
And China has its own plans. Though not an Arctic nation like the U.S. or Russia, China's economic clout gained the nation an observer seat in the Arctic Council under the claims that they are a "near-Arctic state." China is positioning itself to stake a greater claim to the bountiful resources that the Arctic can provide, based on a bold plan they call the "Polar Silk Road." If completed, the plan will create an economic network beneficial to China through the once-frozen ocean.
In response to Russian operations and Chinese advances, the U.S. Air Force is battling for air superiority in the Arctic with its most valuable — and lethal — assets in Alaska, including the F-22A Raptor and F-35A Joint Strike Fighter.
By "battling" I think they mean "spending." A related side note: The article was co-authored by the producer of the TV series War On Top of The World
Lt. Gen. Tom Bussiere says simply: "Whoever holds Alaska holds the region, and that impacts the globe," and according to the U.S. Senator of Alaska Dan Sullivan, "we have fallen behind in the race with China and Russia." Russia is reviving Soviet-era Arctic bases, increasing its fleet of Arctic icebreakers to a whopping 41 vessels (the U.S. has only two though this shortage is getting more attention), and Russian TU-95 "Bear" bombers frequently test F-22A Raptors' readiness near U.S. airspace.
And China has its own plans. Though not an Arctic nation like the U.S. or Russia, China's economic clout gained the nation an observer seat in the Arctic Council under the claims that they are a "near-Arctic state." China is positioning itself to stake a greater claim to the bountiful resources that the Arctic can provide, based on a bold plan they call the "Polar Silk Road." If completed, the plan will create an economic network beneficial to China through the once-frozen ocean.
In response to Russian operations and Chinese advances, the U.S. Air Force is battling for air superiority in the Arctic with its most valuable — and lethal — assets in Alaska, including the F-22A Raptor and F-35A Joint Strike Fighter.
By "battling" I think they mean "spending." A related side note: The article was co-authored by the producer of the TV series War On Top of The World
The usual sable rattling (Score:5, Insightful)
With the Mideast wars winding down the war state needs a new bogeyman and a region to militarize.
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Re:The usual sable rattling (Score:5, Funny)
Sables don't rattle very well.
You obviously never had one of these [wikipedia.org].
Re: The usual sable rattling (Score:5, Funny)
How long have you been waiting to take advantage of your username like that?
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With the Mideast wars winding down the war state needs a new bogeyman and a region to militarize.
Which is why they've tried hard to shoehorn China into the narrative. China is the new enemy they're trying hard to create.
The whole Popular Mechanics piece reads like it was written by The United States Air Force Public Relations Department, and you can be damned sure the nice photos were supplied by them too.
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But in a ridiculous way. Everyone knows Russia would be the aggressor in this scenario, not China. But that doesn't score any political points in favor of the trade wars.
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Russia already has far more of the arctic than anyone else, more than they can use, and doesn't have the kind of navy to start a conflict there. Everyone knows the USA would be the aggressor, same as in nearly every conflict it has been involved in for the past 60 years. The USA has a very small slice of the arctic but wants more and does have the kind of navy to provoke such a conflict.
But China being called near-arctic is quite amusing.
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The US's interest in the Arctic Sea is mostly shipping lanes and fisheries, and shared security interests with Canada. It would be pretty dumb to start a shooting war over potential oil rights, considering the US has its own petroleum reserves and all nations should want to discourage new oil field development at this point. The UK/EU should have more interest in the area, but they probably rightfully see it as a money sinkhole.
It would be cool if the US negotiated Arctic control in such a way to give the
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You haven't been paying attention. China has been working hard to get a stake in the Arctic. They've been pushing hard the concept that China is a "near-Arctic state."
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Any reference for such a far sketched claim?
What would China get in the arctics that the have not cheaper at home?
Seriously, idiot very much?
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You don't follow the news much, do you? China has released official position papers that use this exact claim. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/1... [cnbc.com]
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That is an 2018 CNBC article.
Not very plausible.
And no, I do not watch American news/fake news.
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What I like is the ohh, ahh, Russia has lots of icebreakers to take over the planet apparently. I would have thought they invested in a lot of icebreaker because they want to develop the vast majority of the coastland which can be icebound, so to keep shipping going year round to fuel the development of those coastlines, which are tricky to do by land because of unstable land surfaces, so shipping year round is important, hence lots of icebreakers but ohh no according to the USA, it because they want to tak
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Definitely embarrassing. Sadly, Pelosi, McConnel, etc will likely not be going anywhere unless they die. At least we might elect Biden over Trump. We'll see.
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Its a silly perspective.
1) The Middle East cultures will ensure there's always a pretext for war and military/industrial spending.
2) What will be the valuable resources in the Arctic? It will only be two; shipping lanes and fisheries. Oil? No one wants to consume a climate change fuel, and there's plenty of it throughout the world for the next century..
3) China is pretty obnoxious for wanting to claim territorial rights in the Arctic. I wonder if the US will use it as a pretext to carve out territori
Re: The usual sable rattling (Score:2)
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But they're already claimed by the US. China isn't going after Alaska; its going after the soon to be navigable region which is the Arctic sea.
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as opposed to having it taken by force? :) might as well get paid for that while offer stands
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Indeed, at the height of Russian "domination" of Alaska, Russians had about 400 men tops living in two tiny coastal outposts, never venturing inland for the fear of native tribes. There were serious issues with supplying the Russian-American company, which I think never made any profit, with the most basic stuff. They used to send ships to Spanish California to procure grains and mud (mud! to build stuff) as the mainland Russia was a lot more difficult to reach. After the Crimean war, during which the Briti
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Just to put things in perspective: the Russians were in Alaska long before the USA existed as a state at all.
If you call 35 years a long time [wikipedia.org], sure. Even then Russians weren't "in" Alaska. They merely found out it existed. The first settlement in what is now Alaska was 1774, two years before the colonists declared independence.
The OP was right about the two settlements, the number of Russians (less than 800) and the difficulty of supply. You were partially right about the lasting influence of Orthodox
Russia was in no position to defend it. (Score:2)
Russia was in no position to defend it while it has a border with Canada and Canada was properly British at the time. There was no trans-siberian railway at the time. If the british started steamrolling through that side it would take ages for Russia to get troops there and then the troops would be there and not on the european side of their border. They barely knew in Moscow or st Petersburg wtf was going on in the east. even 40 years later they barely knew what people or even ethnicities lived in their em
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French selling lousiana was way more stupid in retrospect anyways.
In what sense? The French were never hugely interested in developing or securing the region in that time period. What colonies they did try to establish in North America got wiped out by the British.
I am amazed at how people think that (virtual) property rights are of infinite value and condemn these foreign leaders at the time for not having the foresight to spend the billions in wars to secure their claim to the landmass. Why aren't we castigating LBJ and Nixon for not securing our property rights on t
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the Russians were in Alaska long before the USA existed as a state at all.
The Russians barely started a presence in Alaska in the same century the USA was founded. 50 men huddled in a fort hardly constitutes a colony with development potential.
Selling Alaska was one of those stupid decisions the Russians are so good at. The kind of which fuels the nationalist inferiority complexes which have long held them back.
No, stupid Russian decisions would be to make a claim on Alaska at this point. And dismiss simple, obvious historical facts. Something only a Russian bot masquerading as an anonymous coward would do.
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And so, they sold Alaska to USA for 7.2 million dollars, which translates in today's money to about 140 billions.
Maybe China could put in an offer they seem to buying the world piece by piece. On another track American founders were smart, looking to the future rather than an immediate return unlike many of your current business and political leaders only looking for the next election or quarter
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> Truly intelligent people don't use profanity to express themselves
Actually, only the mentally deficient believe there is such a thing as profanity.
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There is this one problem there with Canada thinking (just like Russia) that it owns and controls the traffic through its portion of the opening northern passage in its territorial waters, while the United States position has always been the policy of "freedom of navigation", meaning they don't want to give a damn about whose territorial waters it is.
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There is this one problem there with Canada thinking (just like Russia) that it owns and controls the traffic through its portion of the opening northern passage in its territorial waters, while the United States position has always been the policy of "freedom of navigation", meaning they don't want to give a damn about whose territorial waters it is.
Sure. Can't really complain when the Russians and Chinese completely agree.
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I don't think it is about ships passing through so much as ships stopping and collecting billions of liters of oil.
Yes, climate change is opening up vast new areas for exploration, but conventional supplies are cheap and plentiful now so I doubt these will be exploited anytime soon.
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"while the United States position has always been the policy of "freedom of navigation", meaning they don't want to give a damn about whose territorial waters it is."
That's not quite fair. "Freedom of navigation" means the US disagrees with some more expansive claims of territorial waters, which is a matter of considerable dispute.
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No, the US gov't is quite insistent in supporting free navigational pathways. Its gov'ts like China that come into conflict with US notions of freedom of navigation. If foreign governments weren't using regional sea territorial claims to interfere with it, I'm sure it would be another ball the US would gladly drop.
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My point is, the US is support those free navigational pathways and is in conflict with China, because China says they are territorial waters and the US says they are international waters. The US does not support the right of unrestricted navigation through waters it recognizes as territorial, which it does for all oceans within three miles of a nation's coastline.
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In a way all of Earth belongs to America. Maybe not ideal to have the world ruled by an incompetent and fickle democracy, but nobody said the world has to make sense.
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I'd go if it wasn't for this bone spur and my rich father.
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The earth belongs to itself.
We are just along for the ride.
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The earth belongs to itself.
Like many non-Western civilizations, the Earth doesn't have a concept of land ownership. That puts it at a distinct disadvantage versus those that do.
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Actually the Earth belongs to the Solar System.
We are just along for the ride.
ice, yes; glaciers, no (Score:2)
"it's no longer an impenetrable land of glaciers": and hasn't been for ten or fifteen thousand years, except for Greenland
ok who cares (Score:2)
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Xi'it in his pond (Score:2)
Not so much Alaska for mineral activity, smaller size wise, and also beset by Natives and Greens.
China? - since the Russia's Pacific/Far Eastern Navy is mostly on the bottom or rotting on the beach somewhere, Xi said he wanted to repo Vladivostok.
Hilarious really. Xi is such an idiot telling Vlad he's been had.
Re: elite "PJ" pararescue units (Score:2)
Peanut Jelly
Re:elite "PJ" pararescue units (Score:4, Funny)
Putin isn't dumb enough for open war with the US. (Score:2)
Trump, on the other hand... And with Russia too. ;)
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The con artist would never dream of backstabbing his Russian benefactor.
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The con artist would never dream of backstabbing his Russian benefactor.
Why not? Because of his stellar integrity? Or because the media might say something unkind about him? Or because congress might impeach him?
Please, do tell us what leverage you think Putin has over Trump.
"...worth trillions of dollars" (Score:1)
So there's a TV series doing self-promotion (Score:2)
But they want us to treat it like it's something more than just a TV series doing self-promotion. Gotcha.
Oh, but they forgot to list the channel and the times when it's running. Too bad, guess I can't watch.
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Wait. Haven't we seen this before? [imdb.com]
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But they want us to treat it like it's something more than just a TV series doing self-promotion. Gotcha.
Oh, but they forgot to list the channel and the times when it's running. Too bad, guess I can't watch.
Funny. I thought it was part of the ongoing very feeble attempts to advertise Popular Mechanics on Slashdot. It's a recent thing. Probably very cheap. Oh yeah, that old kid's magazine I used to read in high school still exists. Funny, I forgot about its endless silly fantasies and breathless coverage of... cars. That could be and now are trivially machine-generated. Oops, I forgot it exists again.
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old popular mechanics are actually good and interesting coffee table reading.
like up to 80's or so. you can tell when they started stretching content to fill the pages rather than trying to cram as much content as they could into the pages (print economics becoming different and them just getting more boring).
they're all scanned over on google books.
old popular science magazines too. if you go far back enough there's actual practical experiments, schematics and chemical recipes and stuff there.
Rather than addresing climate change.. (Score:2)
That settles it. We don't deserve to survive, as a species. Maybe the next one at the top of the food chain will do better than we did.
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..they're profiting off it. That settles it. We don't deserve to survive, as a species. Maybe the next one at the top of the food chain will do better than we did.
First thing I thought. except I look at it as Adapt or die just like the current COVID crisis some are adapting and thriving others are doing the same and dying.
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I agree. Get rid of the police. Let's all wrap are hands in burlap, dip them in glue, then broken glass, and slug it out to the death. Much better than the status quo where a bunch of anti-american, faggy, child molesting foreigners and foreign sympathizers attempt to hide beyond our laws while the pilfer the country from beneath the feet of those whose ancestors fought and died for this country. Fuck you. Let's fight to the death.
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What nonsense you spew, there is no notion of "deserving" to survive. If you think use of resources to increase quality of life is a sin, off yourself or you are a hypocrite.
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If you think use of resources to increase quality of life is a sin, off yourself or you are a hypocrite.
To what extent? If you, personally, take all the resources available, just for yourself, to the exclusion and immense suffering, up to and including death, for your fellow man and future generations, what does that make you? Because that's what we're heading for. How many more generations of peak consumption of everything we can imagine do you think the Earth can sustain before it becomes largely uninhabitable for humans?
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The resources of earth don't disappear with use, what unscientific nonsense do you believe? Besides which the crust of the earth is over 20 miles thick and we've barely scratched the surface. There is solar energy for more than a million earth civilizations, we'll never run of energy either. The wealth and quality of life of humans continues to rise, resource use is good thing. The earth won't "become uninhabitable", that's alarmist fallacy asserted without a shred of proof.
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Who says that we're at the top? Aren't the dolphins and the mice ahead of us?
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Actually they are. :P
But Elon is building space ships.
Mice and Dolphins don't
All hail (Score:2)
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You kids play nice otherwise we'll be very angry, eh?
Top of the World? (Score:2)
That's total BS! (Score:1)
China got a seat? (Score:2)
WTF? How the hell did they get a seat on the Arctic Council? They aren't anywhere near the Arctic.
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Haven't you heard? China is "a near-Arctic state." [wilsoncenter.org]
Contrary To The U.S. Citizens HiveBlindMind (Score:2)
The United States, China and Russia are not enemies. Never really have been. Ever.
Propaganda and fear mongering combined with stupid citizens have kept them in a controllable fear state, so the governments of each country can tax, err, bleed their own citizens for the unstoppable was machines.
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err, war machines.
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So the US and the USSR were friends, while the USSR was subsidizing the North Vietnam war effort, and China providing security assurances? Just like the US was just playing pranks on the Soviets while they were occupying Afghanistan in the 1970's?
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Yes. Except the pranks were played on our own people by our own government.
You have much to learn padawan.
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You are to smart for this world.
I hope you used and in fact untraceable VPN to post this.
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VPN's are for cowards. I say what the fuck I want, endgame be damned.
PS. yes i know about using them for bypassing nazi minded countries but I am just talking interstate stuff here.
I aint scurred
Middle Earth (Score:1)