frezik

What a perfect demonstration of the difference between the aesthetics of science and the substance of science.

Lol at directly quoting Keynes.

Right, he did, but here's my point: Project 2025 doesn't actually come out clearly for or against tariffs. So in so far as "they wrote it all down in Project 2025 and told you exactly what they're going to do", that's just not the case for tariffs. And even the guy in favor of tariffs wasn't talking about such broad and strong tariffs all at once.

In other words, this is Trump's plan on his own.

I mean, that's basically what US Social Security is. It also has a cap, and poorer people actually get a little more out of it than they put in, while higher earners get less. It's just that it doesn't pay enough to work on its own.

The old idea was that the US would have three legs of retirement: Social Security, 401k's, and traditional corporate pensions. Each of these has downsides, but a failure in one can be propped up by the other two. However, Social Security is being pilfered, corporate pensions rarely exist unless you have one of the unions that has maintained power until now, and 401k's are too subject to the wild rides of the stock market.

What does Project 2025 have to say about tariffs?

How weak is weak? Prior to the first Gulf War, Iraq had the fourth largest military in the world. That was as much of a curbstomp as you'll ever see in military history.

There's some theories out there about just how vulnerable modern carriers are to modern subs. One thing detractors bring up is a Chinese sub popping up in US Navy maneuvers completely undetected in 2007. However, active sonar methods are usually turned off outside of wartime, so it's not as simple as that.

One theory is that subs are at an inherent disadvantage in a technological arms race. Let's say a nation produces a sonar that can pick up any sub currently built. Likely, they'll be able to fit that sonar onto all their existing ships. Conversely, if you wanted to protect your own subs against that new sonar method, you will likely have to rebuild all your subs. Now, even nuclear subs are cheaper to produce than supercarriers, but this still isn't a favorable technological position in the long run.

Drones and hypersonic missiles are a bigger threat, IMO. More so drones. Hypersonic missiles have some disadvantages of maneuverability that make them a poor choice for a moving target. Drones are limited in range, though, so the US Navy could just keep the carriers away from shore.

Amateur. You're supposed to blame Chinese hackers paid for by George Soros, and go on like nothing happened.

Even in a scenario where the EU massively increases production of tanks and guns and drones, they still have to get those things into the theater of operations. One thing the US military is really, really good at is logistics. The EU up until now has little modern experience at it, because the US did it all for them.

Carriers would provide air superiority to prevent any reinforcements from landing. That's all. Trump is willing to push a war of attrition on this one, because again, he's an idiot.

If a nuclear sub did manage to sink a US supercarrier, Trump would likely try to galvanize support in a "Remember the Maine!" fashion. I doubt it would shift actual support much at all. Quite the opposite; without doing the legwork for a paper thin excuse ahead of time and building a media frenzy the way the Bush II admin did, it only highlights how dumb and pointless the whole thing is, and that he's putting American service members at risk for no gain whatsoever.

Oh, and that nuclear sub would be hunted down and sunk in response. The EU doesn't have the forces to win a war of attrition.

The only way I see this working out for the EU is if there's a major purge of the US military beforehand. That would ensure loyalty to Trump, but it would toss competence into a woodchipper. Edit: see the Finish Winter War for how well purges work out. And the Finns technically still lost that one.

The US has more supercarriers than France has nuclear attack submarines. That's not even counting US "amphibious assault ships", which would be carriers in anybody else's navy. It's pretty unequal.

It's illegal by international law--UN charter and the ICC both have sections against invading other country's territory. International law is only as good as anyone is willing to enforce it, which in the case of Iraq, wasn't very much.

Why would Greenland be different? Iraq was supported by a paper thin excuse of WMDs, and the history of antagonism. The Trump Administration hasn't done the legwork to even setup a paper thin excuse beyond "they have resources we want", and there's no particular history of Greenland invading its own neighbors or even threatening them. In fact, it's been an important strategic location for the US Navy's control of the North Atlantic since WWII. Trump hasn't bothered with even the slightest attempt at this because he's an idiot.

Does that mean the military will refuse the order? I really have no idea. It's not something anybody should count on. More likely, you'll have different units making different decisions. Some outright refusing, others slow walking their orders while appearing to obey, and others eager to do it. However, it's possible that the military will refuse en masse.

I think the burgeoning protest movements in the US should also be prepared to take direct action against the military. Things like linking hands to block the gates to weapons factories. And to the naysayers of "what are these protests even accomplishing?", it's to prepare a mass movement that is capable of doing this sort of thing.

Bush II had an approval rating around 25-30% at the end of his time in office. Consider that the bottom for how many people will still support a complete and obvious failure.