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Can Obama’s Foreign Policy be Reversed?
Conservatives hope that, with the next election, they can undo Obama’s fundamental transformation and revive the United States’ reputation as a valuable friend and a dangerous enemy. But is that even possible? A country that twice elected a Barack Obama — and that could very well elect a Bernie Sanders from the Left or a Rand Paul from the Right — can never be a dependable ally. America might, for a time, become a dangerous enemy, but only until the next election or poll.
Perhaps, the most a conservative president could accomplish in the short term is to keep his or her mouth shut, increase the size of America’s stick, and use that stick when our nation or our citizens are attacked. Until the United States shows that it will consistently protect itself, no potential ally or enemy will take it seriously.
Published in Foreign Policy, Military
This has been true for every political unit in history. Only fools depended on lasting alliances. It’s more pronounced in governments that depend more on public opinion, true, but that’s not a uniquely American issue (as we’ve seen in the last two decades concerning our own allies). Trouble is, there’ve been a lot of fools in the past half-century, and only of late have some been forced to wise up; this is something that’s going to be more common in the future, I’d wager.
Is the vertical yellow a visual glide slope? After you
crash, uh, land, do you contact ground control or do you stay on the same frequency?On the port (left) side there are 2 rows of green lights with a yellow light in the middle. Yellow is the ‘the ball’. Fly the ball in the middle of the green lights and your hook will touch down 2.5 feet in front of the 3 wire.
In the picture the pilot is 2 balls high and will be lucky to catch the 4 wire.
Day recoveries are comm out. The radio is on #8, tower, but no comms. Rolling into the groove the LSO’s (blind, lying, one-eyed, scumbags) that grade our landings will flash a row of green lights at top of the ball to let us know clear deck. If they flash them after that it means power back on (at least that is what my buddies told me because I nnneevveerrr saw that).
Touch down, full throttle in case of bolter. Pull the wire all the way out and look right for the yellow shirt to give the signal for throttle back, raise the hook, flaps up, sweep wings, taxi to the de-arm. Out of de-arm, hard right turn to the foul line, chocks, chains, shut down (unless you are going to the finger). Get picture taken climbing out of the jet, sign autographs, eat, repeat.
Grew up loving that stuff, got aviation degree, pour concrete for a living. I would pay large money to sit in on a carrier landing. :)
Pay handsomely for a day trap, make them pay you a fortune for night.
Words to live by right there.
The closest I got to an aircraft carrier was the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point in Charleston, SC. I only set aside 3 hours for the tour, which was not nearly enough time.
Ya know…without getting all sappy I really admire you guys that have done this for a living. I always felt like George HW Bush never got the “war hero” respect he deserved. I don’t recall he ever ran on it or talked about it much however. Seemed a damn shame a draft dodging wannabe hippie named Clinton even stood a chance against him. Reading the book Flyboys really told a lot of his story and about the man himself. I would highly recommend it to those that haven’t read it.
Our “allies” have been mentioned a number of times.
What sane country would want to ally with the United States to do anything?
Having demonstrated our willingness to completely reneg on agreements several times in living memory (Vietnam, missile shield for Poland, etc.) who would trust us?
This is a legacy of the Fabulous Feckless Bush Foreign Policy FUBARs, followed by what could charitably be called complete incompetence by the Obama administration.
It will be several generations before we regain trust assuming we act like consistently trustworthy for the whole time.
You guys are my favorite category of equipment operators. When the robots take over the manual tasks, I hope they take your jobs last. Keep up the good work!
F-35 is the last manned fighter that will fly off a ship.
Thank you.
I can’t get in my mind the F-35 will be accepted into operations. It will need another aircraft to fly MiG CAP for it .. maybe one of the helicopters can fly MiG CAP.
Key to any reversal will be shifting our thinking on wars as problems to be managed to conflicts to be won. Otherwise we will fall victim to those who will undermine our resolve and unity.
It can probably handle the 3rd gen threats, but needs a tanker for a wingman.
Awesome!
Victory would be a swell objective. But very 20th century, but we can pretend it is one of those retro-type things.
Well, yes, we used nuclear weapons to vaporize their capital, but it was in an ironic sense. We actually used a technically obsolete weapon to deconstruct the concept of obsolescence. And human beings.