Man, I wish someone else would pipe in on this. Your pictures are pretty clear, but the missile test just could not have been seen like it is shown, as far as I can tell. I just installed Google Earth and placed my eye at 600 miles over the earth, over the Pacific (400 miles from the coast). At apogee, you are just…

Living within 15 miles of the Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles... we WELCOME the Chinese ships pulling into our harbors! There is an empty Wal Mart in Iowa next week if we don’t get those containers offloaded TODAY!

I’m sorry, that’s an inappropriate image for your message.

That would not be a missile launched in California. The earth’s atmosphere is only about 15 miles thick (the stuff the rocket would be fighting against) Think about that in any direction around you... it’s not that far distance wise.

No, that’s exactly the point. The F15’s keep both the Russians AND the Turks from bombing our guy on the ground.

The thing I worry about with SF operating in Kurdish space isn’t the Russians - it’s Turkey who would bomb the Kurds... especially ones who were good fighters, as ones with embedded SF would be!

For everyone saying you need to have another carrier group for each smaller carrier - thus no cost savings - you are missing the point.

You know, now that all our AEGIS systems, CIWS, and other systems were upgraded by BDI (Baltar Defence Industries), we have nothing to fear!

Sure, but China only loses when the shooting starts. Not only would China lose an island base... plus the frontline fighters and tankers staged from there, they also invite the other nations to side with the one who fired the first shot. All they have to do is slow down the energy traffic to China and the war is…

War is Boring laid out a pretty good case on how easy it would be to defeat China just by choking off its imported energy supply. While these bases can be looked at as stationary aircraft carriers for the Chinese, they will get flattened in pretty short order by the US if things go to blows.

What you are saying is “What if we did a bombing mission, and no one showed up to intercept?” That, my friend, is the opposite of a problem!

I think there is an opportunity for a quick, dramatic fall. Just look at how quick the Iraqi cities fell to ISIS. Once started, it may happen so quick there will be nothing we can do to stop it.

What? They want some say in the body of water named after their people - THAT’S INTOLERABLE! The Persian Gulf belongs to Pakistan! AIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAAAAHHHH!!!

Can you imagine how fast the House of Saud would flee for the borders if there was a lightning fast incursion by Houthis driving Iranian supplied armed technicals... basically playing by the ISIS playbook? If Iran could break through to resupply and re-enforce Shia forces there it could be like another unleashed…

That’s not an Su-34... They are building an A-wing Fighter! Is MiG building the X-wing or the Y wing?

HAHA - You’re not getting me to climb up that ladder alone... I know there is a facehugger up their waiting!

Well, that’s not generally what’s done on the international arms market for the big ticket items. For things like planes, tanks, and missiles, the export market has stripped down versions of the originals. Planes lack the latest radar/ECM packages, tanks don’t have the latest armor package, missiles have only the…

Well, to be fair Iran could only buy the export variant with a much more limited range. Now that they have the long range version, they may be able to reverse engineer the upgrades to make them into longer ranged weapons. Just throwing that out there as a possible outcome.

You know what I am willing to give Putin/Russia complete credit for? Stopping the US military from directly attacking Syrian forces during the Chemical weapons deal. Russia jumped in on the Kerry aside of “unless they give up all their chemical weapons” and got Syria to give up all their chemical weapons. What -…

Oh yes, I agree that Bashir is no Ayatollah nor is he a Salafist cleric. What he is: A man born into a power mad family that set firmly the tools of torture and intimidation into this poor doctors hands... and he grasped them. Firmly. Power, Wealth, Subversion... these are the tools of despots and dictators.