I think the obvious response to this is that it’s prone to abuse; giving the executive branch has some ability to decide who can run to replace them is kind of dangerous. Ultimately, if the American people take in all this background information about a candidate, gaping blind spots or vulnerabilities to leverage,…

You’re going to have to explain to me how my previous post and that aside are in any way in conflict, as I thought I was just elaborating on that aside. I understand that you disagree with what I’m saying, and that’s all consistent and fine, but the idea that I was misrepresenting myself is not clear at all.

You’re misrepresenting what I was saying. I wasn’t making a point about the classification of tools, as you are here. That a vehicle on its own and in a combination should have separate nomenclature is perfectly logical and straightforward. I’m saying that, from a purely semantic point, the word ‘tractor’ is flawed.…

Speaking of college physics, there’s a nice college exercise where the student has to plot a graph of acceleration as a function of velocity at a constant power. You get a curve of the form a=k/v: acceleration is the inverse of velocity (times some constant). You’ll notice this asymptotes towards infinity at zero…

Weight does not affect top speed significantly. The coefficient of rolling resistance is a small number (~10^-2), and the resulting power requirements only scale linearly with velocity. Coefficients of drag are much larger (~10^-1) and the power requirements scale with the cube of velocity. Neglect rolling resistance,…

The standard for US Presidential security is much higher than any other head of government I know of, however there area few items that might be adaptable that are used in other countries to reduce costs. For instance, Germany, France, and Canada (and I’m sure others) all use different aircraft for major state visits…

Unfortunately, the American president needs to maintain command and control from anywhere, and the requirements for continuity of government are far higher. If the president isn’t in DC, one of the major modes of keeping him safe is to load him into the VC-25 and get airborne (from where he can address the nation,…

Assad’s primary delivery system for chemical weapons are helicopters, so turning a runway into Swiss cheese doesn’t impede his ability to continue these attacks. In a war where all sides have already lost so much, the loss of some asphalt, a fuel depot and some hardened aircraft shelters (with or without their…

A limited nuclear strike may appropriately provoke a limited nuclear retaliation. But if we’re at the point where an response of overwhelming force is even on the table, deterrence has failed and the value of retaliation is an open question.

I wouldn’t consider genocide to be an appropriate option.

I was late to dump my BlackBerry, and was frankly pretty shocked at the stuff that was default functionality I used all the time on my BlackBerry that required a paid app to do on Android.

As far as media consumption, it’s night and day, worlds better, and I wouldn’t go back. But as primarily a communication device,…

Remember: Baltic icebreaking has significantly lower technical requirements than polar icebreaking. The Nordic states have large icebreaking fleets, but there are only a handful of large polar icebreakers in the world (outside of the US), with no big concentrations of manufacturing experience anywhere.

For reference: Canada’s next heavy icebreaker, the CCGS John G. Diefenbaker, is slated to cost $1.3B CAD. For comparison, this is about what a decent Harrier-carrier costs (the HMAS Canberra cost about $1.5B AUD, the Juan Carlos was ~$900M, a Mistral-class LHD is ~$800M both CAD).

In the example of Canada, the…

By the technological levels of the era, anyway. By the standards of a century ago, modern air travel has all three in spades.

Fun fact: average government spending in the United States is $23,000 per capita (all levels; federal is about $11,000 and the remainder is from states and municipalities). This obviously varies state to state, but it’s an easy enough number to remember. It means that, more often than not, if you are an American and…

One or two re-entry vehicles, say from a rogue state or a powerful non-state actor? Maybe, given a pretty decent-sized savo of interceptors from multiple platforms. Terminal phase intercept (ie: during re-entry, as you say) gives you the most straight-forward sensor picture, but obviously the smallest margins of…

There was a clock-drift issue if the computers were not reset on a regular basis. But at least, although the effectiveness of the Patriot in its missile-defense role notwithstanding, it has a saving grace in that it is still a very lethal platform against aircraft - its original mission.

It also doesn’t inherently make you unqualified either, though. While understanding particular military needs is a must, the post is primarily a bureaucratic one, and the most valuable skill is, ultimately, being able to efficiently and expediently deal with a large amount of paperwork.

“We want to use signals that propagate very well underwater,” says Niedzwiecki. “And it turns out that acoustic signals propagate extremely well.” 

It was at this point I started to worry about wildlife.

The Russian military runs a lot leaner than a NATO military, so I think comparing dollar-to-dollar is difficult. Salaries and benefits are a hell of a lot more expensive in NATO, for instance, and the technology-level is uniformly set high enough for the best of peer-state adversaries (even if that makes for a very…