Dougie93

And btw, it's not just DND, the whole government is like this, but nobody ever questions their allegiance. Instead of asking me why I have no allegiance to this mafia state, why don't you ask them why they have no allegiance to our Queen? I have a constitutional right to call a mafia state a mafia state when it is operating like a mafia state, and I got HM's signature on that. And I got a constitutional right to advocate for self determination to withdraw from a mafia state because it is operating as a mafia state, and I got the Queen's signature on that one too. But destroying an honorable man who is also your VCDS, to prevent him from defending your state as he is sworn to, on behalf of a Maritime Mafia? Now that sounds more like treason to me. Did HM sign off on that? Can't she how she could have. I mean, wake up, these people you have allegiance to, are operating totally lawlessly, they are illegitimate, not just morally, they don't have a signature from our Queen. Now, If you have a country where the government and its sycophants simply have to invoke the Reb Menace and everybody rallies around them, even though they are a criminal mafia of kleptocrats, but everybody just looks the other way? Isn't that Russia?

lol. Copy that.

And in a crisis at the brink, they don't thin the hair out? What is the notice to launch time at DEFCON 3? What is it at DEFCON 2?

But to the topic, what I would say is more "Is nuclear war Inevitable if we remain on hair trigger alert forever" to which I would say, yes.

I started getting a wee bit worried when the Soviets went after the Rivet Joint and shot down KAL 007 instead. 1983 was sketchy.

I just think people are delusional about politics being the bumbling clown show over here, and nuclear war being a completely separate universe over here, and never the two shall come together. Not talking about Trump, but at permanent hair trigger alert, there's plenty of time for something to go wrong, and in historical terms, we haven't actually been sitting at hair trigger alert for that long, so could just be the salad days so far for all we know.

War is simply politics by other means, I don't need any feel goods, like you, I've been living under the shadow of it since childhood, got used to it a long time ago.

Tru.

Didn't say it was easy, just searching for a viable path. People now believe it is against the laws of physics somehow. Not me tho, if it wasn't doable, why have the weapons at all?

Except probably at sea this time, yes the NVA had the edge on them in the jungle, but at sea I'm not so sure.

I'll do it in one sentence; the Liberals will incite a debt crisis, once they are forced to rein in spending as a result, that will incite the PQ back to power and referendum, the Liberals will cock that up, this time the PQ will win, Confederation will come apart at the seams, and then we will be free for all time of this Liberal Party of Canada dictatorship.

Not for Putin and Xi it's not. They've got their chains of commands cowering in the bottom of their trenches.

He was afraid to commit them to battle because he wanted to be President and if it was a bloodbath, that would come back to haunt him come campaign time.

So if the Russians or Chinese start moving to a place where the first strike is warranted, Trump could order it and the SECDEF could not decline.

Anyways, Billy Sherman was the best general of the war. The night it was declared he predicted how it was all going to go. And then he was the one who made it happen.

Well then I'm having trouble coming up with reasons why the Two Man Rule actually insulates anybody from anything. I'm not one of these people who thinks Trump is crazy and going to blow us all up, but any President could end up where JFK was and have to make the call. And to decline the order, so far it sounds like "reasons" why it could be declined. Like, what reasons?

Not to mention the Yankees made it easy on them, trucking out McClellan, who was running for office instead of fighting a war.

Lee was unbeatable early on because he was relying on Jackson, his "right arm"

Lee destroyed his army and nation, at the foot of Cemetery Ridge, so Lee, no. Jackson, yes, Lee wasn't all that, after he lost ol' Blue Light. Even tho Jackson was a butcher when it came to his own men, but he thought he was just sending them off over the river and under the trees.

I mean, I'm aware you can decline an unlawful order, I've actually done it for real, but does the US consider first strike to be unlawful? I know what international law says, but what does America say?

But you said America has first strike options on the books, so is there anything unlawful in executing those?

Only if you ignore the strategic, operationally he may not have been a Bonaparte, but strategically, he navigated a near run thing, brilliantly.

But why in that process would the SECDEF decline an order simply because it wasn't a launch on warning scenario?

Pretty sure George Washington was a General.

Also, wouldn't the SECDEF need some firm legal basis to decline the order? Are you saying the SECDEF would decline the order on humanitarian grounds? Invoke international law?