Space Force?

[dicehexParticipant 12xp 2]

Quote from OP:
“It should be noted that placing weapons in space is a violation of international treaties to which the US is a signatory. It should also be noted that nothing in the Trump announcement changes the US position and that there are no plans to put weapons in space. But we are talking about Trump so …
Feel to interpret as you wish.
What the announcement does do is study whether there should be another, co-equal, armed service.
Only Congress can create such a new service.”

The US has never ever been particularly concerned with international treaties. What is anyone going to do about it? Nothing.
Military satellites are already in space.
Trump is no different in the end to any other president. Empire rolls on.
Congress is not remotely democratic. In the sense that there is no actual democracy in the country known as the US or their allies, because here:
(PDF link to Gilens and Page 2014, Princeton and NW Uni)
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

So, no ordinary citizen of any Western nation really, has any say over any of this, because we have no political power at all. Full stop.
So, if some new president decides to put weaponry in space against International Law, no one can really do anything about it. But it isn’t just the President, because no President can actually act without some sort of support from the seriously wealthy and influential agents who form the economic power base of the US Empire.

Unless something changes, you may as well accept that space will absolutely be militarized, and probably already is being militarized.
Edit: spelling fwiw.

This is my first post here. I expect it will not go down well with those who want a gaming community sans real political commentary relating to abject despair for our collective future as a species.

[damon 7525xp 1]

Distraction politics, Trae Crowder summed it up quite well;

[blipvertus 12359xp 1]

The functions of DHS were already being performed. It essentially shuffled around some agencies and created another cabinet level bureaucracy. In that this is exactly the same issue faced by creating the space force you can learn from the mistakes of the DHS bureaucracy and one would hope, not go down that same path.

[oriskany 60771xp 1]

Again, I agree with @blipvertus .

DHS – 

While the 9.11 attacks and the events preceding and following it certainly showed that the American intelligence and security  community / network needed drastic reform, the creation of another trillion dollar sinkhole (trillion$ over years, of course) was probably the exact wrong answer.

If anything, the many intelligence disasters and pitfalls of 2001-2003 (what do you mean there were no WMDs in Iraq?) are caused (at least in part) by too many intelligence services not talking to each other and not effectively pooling information, interpreting trends, and sorting the false flag noise from the real threats and passing it up to people in policy making positions at the NCA level.

This was part of the reason the OSS / later the CIA was created in the first place.  Too many  intelligence agencies, too little coordination.

So naturally the correct answer is to create one more.  Not fix the ones already in place.

@dicehex – please don’t worry about it, and welcome to the forums!  😀

Military satellites are already in space to be sure, but there’s a big difference between surveillance and espionage and outright weaponization, either with strategic weapons in space (dropping nukes on people) or some kind of ASAT tech that that  actually targets and destroys other people’s assets.  This is the line we’re trying not to cross.

The only part of your post I would really disagree with is “Trump is no different than other presidents” and the “US has never cared for treaties …”  The US absolutely cares for treaties … sometimes.  It depends on the President, it depends on how free he is or isn’t in regards to Congress or elections.

At the moment, however, under the present administration, I would agree that the US is wiping its ass with trade agreements, international treaties, accords, you name it.  This was not the case nearly so bad with the previous administration.  Everything from the Paris Accords to Trump’s recent abusive relationship / remarks with Canada prove this.

@linuxnavigator – No worries at all, sir, I have a feeling we don’t actually disagree on this point that much.  I would certainly agree that cyber security is the real battlespace of the future and a primary front that our defense organizations and intelligence agencies should be focused upon – much more than say the F-22 … (that’s another whole rant) … not to mention the blatantly skewed outcome of the 2106 elections (yet another rant) … yes, I agree that cyberspace defense is beyond important.

My point is that these functions should be performed by teams and organizations under the aegis of pre-existing departments of the executive, such as the DoD, CIA, DoJ, or State Department.  Adding the new capabilities and functions is going to cost money, I get that.  Freedom isn’t free, as they love to say.  But stacking another gigantic bureaucratic mess on top of it and tripling its cost … while decreasing its effectiveness because of this also adds additional hurdles of inter-agency liaison … was just the wrong way to handle the new portfolio of threat facing the US and their allies in the 21st Century.

[blipvertus 12359xp 1]

@oriskany, think you meant the 2016 election. Unless you’re making a prediction.

For anyone interested in a general look at current military issues I’d recommend Strategypage.com. Written for lay people and mostly free of jargon it covers a wide variety of contemporary military issues to include space operations.

Here’s a link specifically to the space topics: http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/board21.asp

You can also find articles on gaming and science fiction and both of their relationships to real world military issues.

[dicehexParticipant 12xp 0]

@oriskany
Every single post ww2 president ought to be hanged by the standards laid down at Nuremberg. Wars of aggression are the worst crime we have a term for, and they have been a matter of routine. The treaties on human rights and international law have always been ignored by the US when they are inconvenient, but they still loudly accuse others of violations as if the US is the sole occupier of a moral or ethical high ground. The US people are so convinced this is true, that they often cannot conceive of the crimes of state being anything more than strange anomalies rather than the rule. So, successive administrations can commit atrocities with relative impunity.

The only way this president is particularly different in from the others, is he follows the pattern that each one is slightly worse than the last. In a post-truth cultural scenario, when crimes are revealed at the highest levels, a story is crafted, the media cycle moves on, and no one gets more than a reprimand. Whether they crash the global economy, obliterate whole nations illegally, support brutal dictatorships for profit, torture, lie or deliberately inflict poverty on millions, no one can, or is willing to do anything about it. When that is the normal state of affairs, the standard, I suspect it would take some mighty powerful optimism to expect any treaty or promise to restrain empire from putting whatever the heck they like in space whether you find out about it or not.

The pattern of actions from this structure over time, is more telling than the personality and diversion tactics of the latest figurehead. The figurehead just acts as a criticism magnet standing between the public and the actually powerful players who have always had most of the political power. Presidents come and go, the narrative alters a little, but the actions don’t. Many genuinely good folks just can’t bring themselves to believe how bad things have become.

[oriskany 60771xp 1]

No way, @blipvertus – I really did mean the 2106 election. 😀  I’m hoping by then we might have at least some of this mess straightened out.  😀  Granted, I’m being very optimistic there … 😀

@dicehex – words have not yet been invented for the English language to properly describe the galactic depths to which I cannot agree with any of what you’re saying.  I was borderline with you this afternoon, but now?  You have the right to your opinion and  vaya con Dios, my friend.  😀

[dicehexParticipant 12xp 0]

@oriskany
“And so it goes…” – Kurt Vonnegut

[torros 23816xp 1]

With all the discussion  going on can I redirect the conversation back to the nitty gritty.

 

We still get access to ray guns, rocket packs and a secret decoder ring when we join right?

[blipvertus 12359xp 1]

@torros, only if you pass the physical which consists of marathoning thru ever Star Trek episode ever made without peeing. ‘Cause there’s no relief valve on a space suit.

[damon 7525xp 1]

We still get access to ray guns, rocket packs and a secret decoder ring when we join right?

And a giant stompy robot to stomp around in and beat up giant alien monsters or other giant stompy robots from outer space?

[torros 23816xp 1]

Not fussed if it’s large or small. Just as long as it’s stompy!

[blipvertus 12359xp 1]

You WILL NOT be issued giant stompy robots!

You will build them out of leftover plumbing parts. It’s part of your graduation exam.

[torros 23816xp 1]

Well that doesn’t seem fair

I could possibly manage the iron chicken from the Clangers  if I could find my old Meccano set if that would do

 

[blipvertus 12359xp 1]

@torros non-homicidal robot companions may be made out of any available materials subject to standard health & safety regulations.

Giant stompy robots can only be made out of provided materials.

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