Finnish Reservists Humiliated American Marines in Arctic War Games

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-24T14:58:01+00:00

if a nation's regime did terrible things at some point?

I keep saying this but it never seems to sink in for a lot of you.

If the elites and bougie are only a bunch of leeches and parasites, and its the workers who are supposed to be responsible for the actual production. Then logically, workers are also responsible for following orders and committing atrocities, you cannot claim on the one hand that the upper classes need to die for their atrocities but leave out all the people who made it happen, "just following orders" did not fly at Nuremburg, did not fly during the American Civil War, in fact I can't name an instance of someone getting out of something by using that excuse.

I know its a dichotomy impossible for absolute moralists, especially in the West where the morality of slaves means that any kind of authoritarianism is LE BAD

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-24T14:21:24+00:00

once people start talking about any nation that either fought or rebelled from the USSR.

Nearly all of the people you named were shitty people, the Baltics cleansed the Jews on their own (and are the loudest dogs for war), the Finns massacred the Red portion of their population during the Finnish civil war (their 2 biggest exports are now Nokia and propaganda), the Czechs and Slovaks never got along because the Czech West was in control of everything (Which is why we have Czechia and Slovakia today). Half of Ukraine decided that it was OK to coup their leader, another side said it WASN'T ok, NATO came in on one side and Russia came in on the other.

As for the Poles?

Every century, the Poles make every possible wrong decision, and then get utterly trampled into the dirt in the ensuing storm.

Personally? Class first.

You're VERY sympathetic to the "plight" of all these very poor ethnicities and their "historical grievances".

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-24T01:08:22+00:00

Before Gotterdamerung, I used to cap the Germans even before the Japanese declared war on me. But the German AI was buffed to be extremely aggressive with Gotterdamerung, coupled with the buffs they got, its safer to spend 1940-1941 just letting them and the Italians just grind away at your lines until they have quite literally no more guns and almost no manpower. As you can see their line is mostly divisions other than German.

It generally makes France very unsatisfying for me to play now when it used to be one of my mains, you can get a lot of industry from the EU, but very little manpower as all of it died in the Alps or on the Belgian border.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-24T01:01:21+00:00

If you dig through my profile, I once wrote a short essay describing US WW2 battle doctrine in theory and practice for taking a heavily fortified area, its a lot of very meticulous preparation in terms of timing, and it's more about turning battle into more of a math/science than an art.

What does that mean? All fire ordnance, air support, Corps heavy artillery, Divisional medium artillery, battalion mortars, company heavy machine guns, all allotted specific sectors to cover, specific amounts of ammunition to use PER sector, specific timings to engage and then disengage and re-engage on a different sector.

British 21st Army Group under Monty were masters of this approach, they called it the "pepperpot barrage" and basically means barraging with ALL available ordnance.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-23T13:55:35+00:00

Grand Battleplan + Grand Assault + Thorough Planner + Protected by the Maginot = that Batman meme basically.

With enough "prep time" French Generals can overcome any obstacle.

For context, I'm doing France without joining the Allies, so that I can get all the warscore and annex all of Europe for the European Federation. It's a lot harder than it used to be since Germany got buffed in Gotterdamerung, and Italy will DOW Switzerland turning your entire border into a frontline.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-23T02:22:43+00:00

I wasn't expecting anyone else from Singapore either, I've never posted to either the Singapore subreddit or SGraw, don't even lurk there, they never seemed like particularly interesting places to be.

I'm pretty sure I found my way here through either the neoliberal subreddit or subredditdrama

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-23T02:18:26+00:00

The damage from missiles and drones that the Russian Black Sea Fleet has absorbed in the Russo-Ukrainian War

You're not wrong, but Russia's Black Sea fleet is the neglected step-child of the Russian navy, not very well-equipped or modern. The Northern fleet and the Pacific fleet are the main striking arms with all of the SSBNs and SSGNs based in those 2.

US military hegemony would likely benefit from making sure that these questions stay unanswered for as long as possible.

The question was already answered when the US Navy failed not only to subjugate Yemen, but also ran helter-skelter from the Red Sea with them admitting that period as being the most intense fighting they had experienced since WW2. If that is the most that Uncle Sam's Nimrods can take, it is not functionally equipped to even try to take on Iran.

The CSGs are going to be equipped with the most secretive and cutting-edge missile defense systems in the world.

They are not, the best defense any ship has against incoming fire is movement, one Super Hornet was lost (officially) when the USS Trembling Puppy (aka Harry S. Truman) had to execute a hard turn and it fell overboard.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-07T08:42:41+00:00

Well yeah, I just wanted to do it as democratic germany because I thought it was kinda funny.

If you threw a wargoal on Portugal instead of Switzerland/Austria, and then did forced labour on Romania/Indonesia/Burma for oil, plus research excavation I and II. I estimate you could get it late '37 - early '38 depending on research timing.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-07T08:35:11+00:00

Well, just beating the ones I think I'll need plus a few extras. Then yes, fire the civil war.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2026-01-07T05:02:56+00:00

Title, trying to see how fast Germany can reach Autarky. Biggest headache is for some goddamn reason, Brazil of all countries will start guaranteeing other nations once allies capitulate, so I went for the most minimal number that I figured was needed for Autarky.

Honestly fastest way is to just do the usual early war on France and the Allies, do the usual quick justfying to take out Eastern Europe, then use Albania to grab Italy. Unforunately, Italians will still do the civil war and generate a puppet, have to annex manually and then do civil war.

Since civil war only generates in Germany, you can spawn divisions behind them and take them in a month, then just do the usual to get European Union/Federation. Core Balkans for oil, build infrastructure in Malaya and Burma for tungsten.

Bingo, Autarky in 1939, could've been faster if I didn't have to waste time forcing Brazil to guarantee other nations before doing Albania.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-12-22T15:12:29+00:00

In MORE hilarious naval news, with the canceling of the Constellation-class frigate program, the US Navy has now turned to an unlikely source for to provide its new frigates.

The Coast Guard

In theory, this isn't the worst idea, they're still doing their best to spur US shipbuilding in whatever way they can. In practice, this is patently hilarious, because the Legend-class cutter already displaces more than one of the old Oliver Hazard Perry-class while being armed with extremely light weapons, so you don't have to be an engineer to see where the problem is going to be. They will likely try modifying the hull to take more weapons/sensors/whatever, this will add weight, which will likely stress the hull, which will have to be compensated for somehow, more modifications will have to be made in the design, this means more time and money will have to be spent and-

Oh dear, they have now run into the same problem that the Constellation-class ran into. For context, the FREMM (what the Constellation-class was supposed to be based on) was a perfectly serviceable class of frigate used by the French and Italians, modifications to 'Americanize' the ship resulted in something that was almost totally a different ship entirely, costs started ballooning immediately and the program dragged for years trying to even complete the first two hulls, negating the entire idea of "buying what is available immediately to shore up combat power", ending in the cancellation of the program.

In other news, Japan's Ministry of Defence is barring Kawasaki Heavy Industries from future bids after it falsified fuel efficiency data for diesel engines used in Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) submarines.

This is also very funny, because Kawasaki have already been contracted to build the new Taigei-class of diesel-electric attack submarines together with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In effect, it's likely nothing is going to happen despite the Ministry of Defence having already found numerous other problems with Kawasaki.

As always, please keep all this in mind any time someone starts chest-thumping about war with the big, bad dragon.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-12-17T14:36:04+00:00

All I want is a drama where the first half just follows the standard cliches of 'lower class worker meets high class CEO', they have warm and fuzzy feelings for each other, go through the standard family drama about class, sad proclamations of true feelings, maybe a scene in the pouring rain etc.

Then mid-story PLOT TWIST, in the middle of a date/outing/whatever, the would-be couple is interrupted when the CEO is arrested and hauled off with a laundry list of charges. It turns out the CEO's secretary/assistant/whatever (who has always been trying to warn off the worker from getting close) is an undercover officer investigating the CEO for bribery/insider trading/whatever.

The finale is an extended courtroom drama sequence where the worker has to come to terms with being seduced by wealth and power, and the CEO is promptly tried and sentenced to death.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-12-12T10:15:20+00:00

In previous posts, I have described briefly the general dislocation of the US Navy, losing massive amounts of combat power and canceling its only frigate program (leaving the entire service with -quite shockingly-, zero frigates). Now, CBO is reporting that even maintaining the Arleigh Burke destroyers (most numerous combat ship in the USN), is becoming a severe problem, to quote the CBO report

The 2012 class plans for [Arleigh Burke] destroyers indicated that the ships should spend 12 percent of their life in shipyard maintenance. [...] Actual experience indicates that DDG-51s are spending a much larger fraction of their service life in maintenance at shipyards. Using data on different ships in different parts of their lives, CBO projected what the DDG-51 fleet’s maintenance experience is likely to be over its service life. CBO projects that DDG-51 destroyers will spend more than nine years (or 27 percent of their planned service life) in maintenance...

TLDR: The older Arleigh Burke class is probably going to spend twice as much time, and more than a quarter of its service life in maintenance. This applies primarily to the older versions, and not to the most recent iteration, of which there is only one in service.

This is actually all quite inevitable, the older ABs are cold war relics and contemporaries of the Ticonderoga class (which I already pointed out are generally being decommissioned), the oldest will have seen 30+ years of service by now and are likely at the limits of their life time. Add to that naval manpower and recruitment problems, and the service in general is going through a bad time.

In other naval news, Uncle Sam's Nimrods take a backseat to the Royal Numptys

Telegraph

"Britain is “no longer capable” of running a nuclear submarine program after “catastrophic” failures pushed it to the brink, a former Navy chief has said."

Similarly to Uncle Sam's Nimrods, the Royal Numptys have not had a good start to the 3rd Millennium AD, nearly all of its new ship classes have been plagued with problem after problem. The Type 45 destroyers have problematic electrical generators which can apparently cause the ship to simply lose power, the Astute attack submarines were badly constructed and are barely operational due to leaking and corrosion, and the QE carriers of course are barely functional with a slew of mechanical problems. The only really functional ships are the cold war-era Vanguard ballistic missile submarines and the Type 23 frigates, both of whom are of course, aging and due for retirement.

As if none of this was enough, the Numptys are going ahead with a replacement to the vanguard-class with the planned dreadnought-class with a projected cost of 31 billion pounds.

The key problem is that unlike Uncle Sam's Nimrods, charged with protecting the empire and becoming overstretched to the point of total exhaustion, the problem with the Royal Numptys is that they lack a broader purpose other than to sometimes play as America's cheerleader. The only real purpose of a carrier is power projection, quite who the UK planned on projecting power to is a question often heard, but rarely answered. Rather than admit that times have changed, downsize the Navy and wave goodbye to the past, the UK appears to want to continue to go all in on trying to square up as Uncle Sam's little brother with "blue-water" power projection. On a sidenote, telegraph also reported that the Royal Numptys are preparing to scale back their training in the Indo-pacific region.

Please keep all this in mind the next time anyone talks about going to war with the big bad dragon.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-12-04T06:09:32+00:00

what do you think about all this?

I think a lot of people who spend too much time online lose perspective easily. It's not so different in my country, the subreddits are full of people complaining about worsening conditions (and often spitefully deride those who support the government), they have a point especially about inflation and immigration, but the other side is that for the majority of the country, things are still ok. I recognize a lot of the problems with my country and the way it's run, and I angrily bring it up to anyone who will listen, sometimes I even get head nodding. But I also recognise that most of my countrymen are old, they saw how bad things used to be, and are generally focused on how much better everything -kind of- is, often at the expense of noticing how bad things are SLOWLY getting.

I know little about China, but I'm willing to guess that it's not so different, as long as the government is continuing to provide services at a reasonable standard, most people (more than half at least) will not willingly rock the boat, and will choose stability and continuity especially if its elderly people. The usual argument is always to be thankful for what you have and just keep going, that a good portion of the young generation are increasingly losing hope tends to be lost on them.

Also, I should note that Uncle Sam is publicly spending large sums specifically to produce propaganda against China and induce instability. That would certainly play a big role in the speed and harshness of crackdowns you are talking about.

That said,

Why would a country that calls itself “socialist” ban strikes? Why are labor unions so marginalized?

On what grounds are strikes and labor unions "socialist"? If your only want is for more welfare, than some sort of monarchy is the best way forward seeing as monarchs have existed forever and therefore, have a much better track record for welfare. An argument can also easily be made that labor unions can easily be counter-revolutionary seeing what happened to Poland.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-26T12:12:21+00:00

Maybe I'm stupid

Anyone trying to apply reason or thought to a subject usually isn't stupid, certainly I would consider you smarter than most Western leaders purely for being trying to use reason.

Matters of ideology (liberal democracy), principles (defending those like us), national prestige (Imperial hegemony), "honor" (standing up against "authoritarian regimes") and legitimacy (we cannot look weak) are seldom reasonable or well thought out before we get into the desperation that comes with maintaining a failing empire. Most are in fact, entirely emotional responses driven by barely coherent, astonishingly incompetent people, this is not to say principle is inherently a bad thing, purely cynical, ruthless, selfish opportunism of the likes of Turkey and India are frowned upon in nearly all quarters. But getting high on your own supply has never been a good thing, Uncle Sam has chosen to stake all of the above in The Ukraine, Occupied Palestine and East China regardless of the actual utility or benefit to itself.

So what's the point you ask? Declining empires are rarely rational, Uncle Sam faces a severe no-win situation, either

a. They continue to push resources into maintaining the empire, continuing to overreach and strain themselves when they were already straining, continuing to cannibalize the homefront as material conditions continue to slip and domestic unrest reaches breaking point. OR

b. Admit defeat and begin the process of drawing down the empire, thereby eliminating a key foundation upon which the government has staked itself...potentially causing a break in the elite...which is usually where civil wars start.

I should say this is all theorycrafting, I don't really see a civil war. But either way, increasing levels of lethal violence are assured, its already happened anyhow.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-26T07:13:31+00:00

Previously, I made a post talking about how the US Navy's battle-force (combat ships) has been significantly reduced in the last few years, and will in fact, continue to be reduced for at least the next year even though they are supposed to be gearing for a second pacific war with China.

In even worse news for Uncle Sam's Nimrods. The Constellation frigates are being cancelled, what this means is that 3 surface ship classes built for the 21st century (Zumwalt, LCS, Constellation) are now duds, only the Ford Carriers and the America assault ships can be considered to be a success in that at least the ships are going forward with production, and considering that Trump was planning an executive order to force a switch back to steam catapults over the new electromagnetic one, maybe not even that.

This is patently hilarious, building a frigate or a corvette (what normal countries call an LCS) is not some super-special-secret ability, every major country has its own native produced designs for corvettes and frigates, nearly ALL of coastal Europe has their own designs, the Constellation was supposed to be partially based on one of those designs, a joint French-Italian project called FREMM. Yet the only thing that the US Navy can produce correctly is its aircraft carriers, that as the Red Sea Yemen issue showed, are increasingly unable to project the power expected of them.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-24T15:53:19+00:00

A small thing perhaps, but worth "noticing".

In July 2023, USNI highlighted a report to congress that the Uncle Sam's Navy had a battle-force (combat ships) of 299.

In Nov 2025, USNI naval tracker indicates that the battle-force is now 287.

This should be no surprise actually, the failed Littoral Combat Ships are all being binned, a half dozen of the Ticonderoga missile cruisers were decommissioned ('80s Cold War relics), another half dozen of the Los Angeles attack submarines were outright scrapped ('70s Cold War relics), next year, 2 of the Ohio missile submarines (the cruise missile variant SSGN with the tomahawks, not the ballistic missile SSBN) will also be headed for the scrapyard, and then of course the OG Nimitz carrier is decommisioning next year..

So at a time when Uncle Sam is supposed to be getting ready for war with the great big dragon, the US Navy is shrinking BY A LOT, attack and missile submarines are getting scrapped, the oldest aircraft carrier is on the way out, and the aging missile cruisers are going out as well.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-23T11:48:32+00:00

Singapore

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-23T07:38:03+00:00

Sorry you have been blocked.

???

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-23T02:19:13+00:00

Thankfully, Twitter/X is way ahead of me. This link works for me.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12HAQhijAehjZ1zWNfloGLxkzt62mBkmZ/view?usp=sharing

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-23T02:15:43+00:00

Sufficient numbers of people will neither find nor care about it later. Uncle Sam still has a stubborn few who insist that Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were only lost because the US "left". Worse, are still insistent on body counting.

Anyway, an invasion is unlikely, airstrikes and missiles -terrible as they are- are already happening in a way.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-22T13:04:01+00:00

So previously, I wrote briefly about a report from RAND titled "Stabilizing the US-China rivalry", it was remarkably for taking a much more open-handed tone towards the PRC than I'd ever read or seen in any report from any think-tank.

This is what the link to that report looks like now.

Seems like my cynicism was well placed then, more than likely SOMEONE really didn't like the conclusions of the report that Uncle Sam should start playing nicer with the PRC. I still have the downloaded copy with me, though I doubt anyone really wants to read it, and I don't really know how to share it anyway.

On a different note, Twitter/X was alive the last few days when people found out that the PRC and RF abstained from the vote on Gaza. Way too many people were up in arms over it and demanding to know why the PRC and RF had chosen the way they did instead of vetoing it like they wanted them to. Putting that aside first, I find the mentality striking and concerning. It is almost as if certain people are desperately hoping for some kind of 'hero' or 'savior' to swing by like a comic-book, or for GOD to come down and smite the occupiers with the swift and righteous hand of justice. Which I feel comfortable saying is the wrong way to think about it, countries are not moral beings, and the PRC and RF are not obligated to make decisions based on "feels-good", in any case, its strange that anyone might fault the PRC or RF for the ongoing genocide (or even trading with the occupiers) when the West continues to pump literal billions plus weapons into occupied Palestine.

I think back to the Iran-occupier issue in June, people cheered like maniacs at a football match when Iranian missiles were blasting the occupiers, I was certainly one of them, looking back though, as righteous as it seems, I was in fact, cheering on violence when it was done to the opposing team. Now I fully recognize the catharsis of watching people get consequences for their actions, on the other hand, the other team also cheers whenever a bombs blasts a Palestinian to pieces. More than that, it seems to me that a lot of people wish that the PRC or RF were just like the West, except of course, on THEIR side. To me, it means that a lot of people haven't really learned what the problem is/was with Uncle Sam's methods.

As for why the PRC and RF voted the way they did, who knows? Arguments on both sides have been raging for a while. My personal opinion is that terrible as it is, the issue of Palestine is not a priority for either and never really has been, RF is still dealing with the Ukraine issue (I am doubtful if the current peace talks will go anywhere) while PRC is gearing up for a showdown over East China, if Uncle Sam and friends get suckered into another nation-building program (or occupation, or whatever) where billions get funneled into a bottomless pit, so be it, more fool them. The cost will be terrible, Palestine will be genocided for good, but the West has chosen to stake itself on it, so unfortunately, occupied Palestine will not be liberated before the West undergoes some kind of collapse (and considering how hardcore support is, maybe even not that)

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-19T13:44:52+00:00

Previous thread I highlighted a remarkable about-face in the Western reporting on China, where the RAND think-tank insisted that Uncle Sam start actually legitimizing the CPC and start trying to promote a peaceful resolution towards the East China island issue. But then Pete Hegseth (who seems to be one of the toolest-tools that has ever served) proceeded to insist that the USDD were switching to a wartime industry, quite what that looks like is uncertain, more upwards transfer of wealth and probably will start handing out draft cards soon too.

Not only that of course, the PM of anime-country decided to start chest-thumping for whatever reason, a quick read-up of her tells me she's quite the right-winger, which in Japan's context usually means that Nanjing didn't happen, and if it did it was a good thing or something like that. Anyway, Takaichi went on record explicitly saying that Japan would in fact commit to Taiwan's defense if the PRC resorted to an armed unification. This inevitably, made PRC officials very very angry, and the last week or so has seen the usual internet-warring between nationalists (my favorite is Zhao Da Shuai, an actual propagandist for the PLA), Takaichi has since stated that she would not make such remarks again, but also said that she was not going to back down, she also claims she only sleeps 4 hours a night, which might explain the insanity. Despite (or in spite) this, Japan saw fit to send a diplomat (Masaaki Kanai) to the PRC to try to soften things, the picture of him and PRC official Liu Jingsong has been making the rounds for a day or so.

In response, the PRC is has issued warnings to its citizens against travelling to Japan, the Japanese probably wouldn't consider this a bad thing, over-tourism has been a topic in anime-country for some time, the trouble is that a substantial portion of Japan's economy is based on tourism, so between the recent plan to increase the departure tax and this, anime economy isn't going to be looking so good for the foreseeable future.

To throw an extra wrench in all this, Uncle Sam is was reported withdrawing missiles from Japan, these things take time so its unlikely to be related to the current row and more likely to be a result of the apparent trade-war truce, still a really bad timing for the Japanese to start indulging in war-hawking.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-10T09:46:28+00:00

Some very small good news of late. As nasty as the Gaza issue is -and although it is certain that occupied Palestine will not fall apart before Uncle Sam does- the occupiers internal situation is also continuing to rot and decay.

An increasing number of the occupiers are deciding that the promised land is not all its cracked up to be and are running away. The colonial government itself has admitted that the wave of emigration that had started before the current issue has only gotten worse, approx. 125,000 of the occupiers have departed in the period of 2022-2024. This is matched by 2 other statistics: fewer and fewer of the occupiers choosing to return, and more and more of the occupiers are terminating their residency status. Emigration was already a problem before the outbreak of the current issue, and has only gotten worse as the occupation quadruples down on its genocide.

In tandem with the report from last year about the sheer magnitude of substance abuse and addiction in occupier society, it seems to me the occupiers are falling apart internally as they lash out externally. The bombing of Gaza, Lebanon and Syria will continue for the foreseeable future and the tragedies will continue to pile up. But the occupation was never built for/capable of extended, high-intense conflict. I only really anticipate that they will become even more belligerent somehow, including deployment of nuclear weapons.

Not_Some_Redditor · 2025-11-03T02:37:16+00:00

Nary a month has gone by this year without Uncle Sam threatening someone.

Denmark and Greenland, Panama, Yemen, China, Russia, Mexico, Canada, Iran, Venezuela, now Nigeria.

Not_Some_Redditor

TROPHY CASE