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I'm not entirely sure why Germany would help finance Israel in building these ships unless there's a benefit I'm failing to see?

Unless it's the same idea as the Eurofighter Development? Which is potentially another way to reduce cost & maintain that industry, although it's probably better to have your own technology base especially as things rely more and more on computer assistance (like the Eurofighter).

 Medium of Death wrote:
I'm not entirely sure why Germany would help finance Israel in building these ships unless there's a benefit I'm failing to see?

Unless it's the same idea as the Eurofighter Development? Which is potentially another way to reduce cost & maintain that industry, although it's probably better to have your own technology base especially as things rely more and more on computer assistance (like the Eurofighter).

Possibly got something to do with Germany being involved in the creation (not meaning to be snarky here BTW, genuinely curious)?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't entirely agree with the argument.

For another example Israel, a very small country has been able to develop a number of modern weapons without subsidising their arms industry by exporting them.

This is entirely false. Israel makes a significant amount of money from arms exports.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_industry_of_Israel

Israel accounted for 10% of the WORLD's arms exports in 2007, and IMI was subsidized by the government for quite a while after the 80s. Only recently have they made moves to privatize.

Holocaust guilt combined with the fact that the ships are being built in German shipyards, keeping people in work and companies making money. Also, as mentioned in the original post, it keeps armaments firms from going under due to a lack of orders, and helps to maintain that defence industry in case Germany ever needs it.

Well... interest payments?

The ships are also being made by a German ship building company. So their probably figuring the 900 million more Euro's that's coming into the deal is better then the Israeli's going somewhere else.

Perhaps the long term solution is just to sell in markets around Europe & some allies without establish infrastructure.

Maybe have that kind of Israel/Germany relationship for each other. That might be a way around it without having to sell to the more questionable nations.

This kind of leads to the argument if you've got allies that are seen as being questionable then why are you allies? The whole thing is hypocritical but we'd be loosing out if we didn't play the game.

That seems to be where Europe is attempting to evolve towards at the moment (see the eurofighter).

When a number of European firms tried to buy out BAE though, the British Government blocked it on the grounds that they didn't want a foreign controlled firm in charge of their shipyards, so I think we've seen how far mergers are going to go in that department. Political union would have to happen before defence union in the manner you're describing. If it did though, Europe would be a third power capable of self-financing the armaments industry.

It would still be important to maintain our own forces, perhaps just trade agreements could settle that? I don't see the need for these firms to be owned by other countries. I assume there are national equivalents to the scale of BAE in Germany & France at least?

Without a native arms industry a nation is subject to the whims of another nation's R&D and that can be disastrous, like with this F-35 debacle. In addition you don't have a lot of say over the capabilities and specifications of the equipment you're buying. If you buy a US fighter, you get what the USAF wants in a fighter, not what your own air force wants in a fighter. I personally think that having your own arms industry is pretty much a pre-requisite for being considered a Great Power.

For an arms exporter there are some benefits as well. If you're not likely to get in a conflict you can sell to someone that is and get to see your equipment in action. America, Britain and France all did this with Israel and the Russians did this with North Vietnam, testing MiG-21s and their latest SAMs against the best the US had to offer.

 Ketara wrote:
How many assault rifles does the US export to troubled regions around the world? Genuinely curious, as in practically every video of the Middle-East/Africa I see, they tend to be toting ex-soviet and antiquated gear.

In most of those areas they make their own weapons, the AK is really easy to copy/make

In this set of pictures a Guy makes an AK from a Shovel.


In this Vice video they have people making weapons with really basic tools.

If you stunt/stop development for thirty years and China does not, where does that leave you when it becomes an issue?

China doesn't develop anything, most of their tech is stolen from other nations. so if you stopped developing then china would come close to you and stop because its really hard for them to come up with their own stuff.... And if it did come to war you could kill 250 million Chinese people with a few J-Dams.

China is far too dependent on everyone buying their products to go to war with anyone. If a war broke out and China's exports dried up they'd quickly slide into recession, food shortages, and eventually revolution.

Beijing knows this, they're quite happy with the way things are going. Their only concern is their population becoming steadily more informed and independent.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't entirely agree with the argument.

For example, no-one exports nuclear weapons, which are very expensive to produce.

For another example Israel, a very small country has been able to develop a number of modern weapons without subsidising their arms industry by exporting them.

Thatcher enthusiastically supported the UK arms industry by the export guarantee system. This was necessary to cover the times when the buyer ended up not paying and the bill had to be referred back to the UK tax payer.

They Israeli's however receive a good chunk of subsidizing from the US, and, while I'm not entirely sure as to the actual volume, they do export lots of weapons. There's been a fair amount of spread of the Israeli take on the Kalashnikov, the Galil, around the world (and variants built upon it like the INSAS and RK-62), and a huge number of Israeli weapons are sold to the US civilian market. Tavors in particular are a hot ticket item currently.

 Ninjacommando wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
How many assault rifles does the US export to troubled regions around the world? Genuinely curious, as in practically every video of the Middle-East/Africa I see, they tend to be toting ex-soviet and antiquated gear.

In most of those areas they make their own weapons, the AK is really easy to copy/make

In this set of pictures a Guy makes an AK from a Shovel.

Spoiler:

In this Vice video they have people making weapons with really basic tools.

If you stunt/stop development for thirty years and China does not, where does that leave you when it becomes an issue?

China doesn't develop anything, most of their tech is stolen from other nations. so if you stopped developing then china would come close to you and stop because its really hard for them to come up with their own stuff.... And if it did come to war you could kill 250 million Chinese people with a few J-Dams.

Like I said, any gun you want they'll make it





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pakistan also has heavy weapons production

And they can get upset quickly.

And last but not least.

 Medium of Death wrote:
That might be a way around it without having to sell to the more questionable nations.

Questionable how? In their desire to subjugate their neighbors like Israel? But you said we could deal with them.... Questionable in the treatment of ethnic minorities? Like the US where some 80% of the occupants of the prison system are not white while some 80% of the population of the country are white?

Methinks those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Me Like Burnaz wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
That might be a way around it without having to sell to the more questionable nations.

Questionable how? In their desire to subjugate their neighbors like Israel? But you said we could deal with them.... Questionable in the treatment of ethnic minorities? Like the US where some 80% of the occupants of the prison system are not white while some 80% of the population of the country are white?

Methinks those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Did you purposefully leave out my last sentence just so you could indulge in some fake outrage?

 Medium of Death wrote:
This kind of leads to the argument if you've got allies that are seen as being questionable then why are you allies? The whole thing is hypocritical but we'd be loosing out if we didn't play the game.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Did you purposefully leave out my last sentence just so you could indulge in some fake outrage?

I didn't think there was any outrage, just an honest question. Also I wasn't talking about ally relationships but judging other nations when we first world nations pretty much suck at being paragons of virtue. I assume after all you are a citizen of a first world nation...

Me Like Burnaz wrote:

I didn't think there was any outrage, just an honest question. Also I wasn't talking about ally relationships but judging other nations when we first world nations pretty much suck at being paragons of virtue. I assume after all you are a citizen of a first world nation...

Just going to throw this out there

First world nations = NATO
second world nations = Warsaw Pact nations
Third world nations = Neutral nations

Go feth yourselves then, clearly a first world nation shouldn't be dragging a third world nation like mine around 4 wars now.

 Bullockist wrote:
Go feth yourselves then, clearly a first world nation shouldn't be dragging a third world nation like mine around 4 wars now.

Australia was a member of SEATO and still is a member of its follow on organization ANZUS, so therefore its a first world nation

 EmilCrane wrote:
Without a native arms industry a nation is subject to the whims of another nation's R&D and that can be disastrous, like with this F-35 debacle. In addition you don't have a lot of say over the capabilities and specifications of the equipment you're buying. If you buy a US fighter, you get what the USAF wants in a fighter, not what your own air force wants in a fighter. I personally think that having your own arms industry is pretty much a pre-requisite for being considered a Great Power.

For an arms exporter there are some benefits as well. If you're not likely to get in a conflict you can sell to someone that is and get to see your equipment in action. America, Britain and France all did this with Israel and the Russians did this with North Vietnam, testing MiG-21s and their latest SAMs against the best the US had to offer.

There are some plusses though... For instance, If the Kiwis and Aussies both have F-16 fighters, it's easier to conduct joint base operations with USAF, or other nations who also have F-16 fighters.

Now, this isn't all that important when we're talking about, say, the M-4 or SA80 or whatever our other Allies use (aside from them all pretty much using 5.56 ammo) because a small, manportable weapon system doesn't require the logistics and support that air platforms do.



Additionally, exporting weapons to certain countries can be used as a means to prevent those countries from developing weapons of their own/keep them "subservient" to the country providing the weapons.

 Bullockist wrote:
Go feth yourselves then, clearly a first world nation shouldn't be dragging a third world nation like mine around 4 wars now.

Sorry there, seems you have taken my comment personally.

As for dragging your nation around it is funny how the roles have changed. Your former colony now calling the shots. In WWI both sides were getting close to calling it like they had been doing for hundreds of years in these petty European conflicts that happened every few decades. Likely that one would have ended up like the rest, a sliver of one nation would be taken by the other and both sides would be too tired to seriously demand much from the other. But since Woody Wilson was such an Anglophile he had to come riding to your rescue and thus Germany was crushed and your government took advantage of that to bend them over and take "reparations" which bankrupted that nation (funny since your royal family is basically German, a bit of family squabble gone wild) leading to the rise of Hitler and Nazis which of course led to you needing a bail out in WWII. After which we accepted the responsibility to protect Europe, some say from itself. Ever since that former colony to former master relationship has been evolving in an interesting manner.

Now you have the capacity to provide for your citizens needs and we have a bloated military budget because we have to take on the world. Makes you wonder what would have happened had we left you to your own devices in WWI. Would we be the nation with a small military and no need to sell millions of dollars worth of arms around the world to prop up the production lines and dump last years tech on someone and yours would be the nation with a gigantic military budget and the need to find customers for their excess production? Would we have all but free college education and universal health care while you had the massive poverty and the violent crime that comes with it? Funny how the cookie crumbles.

Problem is no matter how the crumbling happens or for why it crumbles there will always be people who want weapons to hurt their neighbors and there will always be people willing to sell those weapons.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:Additionally, exporting weapons to certain countries can be used as a means to prevent those countries from developing weapons of their own/keep them "subservient" to the country providing the weapons.

Oh, very much so. If a country can't produce their own weaponry, then they'll never be a match for you militarily, because you control their industrial base. It's why we keep building warships in Britain, despite it being infinitely cheaper in South Korea, we would never want to be in a position where we want to go to war, but the South Koreans need to ok it first.

Me Like Burnaz wrote:


As for dragging your nation around it is funny how the roles have changed. Your former colony now calling the shots.

The US is a former colony of Australia?
Leastwise, that's how I'm reading the flags here.

In WWI both sides were getting close to calling it like they had been doing for hundreds of years in these petty European conflicts that happened every few decades. Likely that one would have ended up like the rest, a sliver of one nation would be taken by the other and both sides would be too tired to seriously demand much from the other. But since Woody Wilson was such an Anglophile he had to come riding to your rescue and thus Germany was crushed and your government took advantage of that to bend them over and take "reparations" which bankrupted that nation (funny since your royal family is basically German, a bit of family squabble gone wild) leading to the rise of Hitler and Nazis which of course led to you needing a bail out in WWII. After which we accepted the responsibility to protect Europe, some say from itself. Ever since that former colony to former master relationship has been evolving in an interesting manner.

Your knowledge of that period of history appears very....American. In the 'Rah-rah, our country saved the world' sort of way. It isn't very accurate though, I'm afraid, even if it does make for riveting stories.

 Ketara wrote:
The US is a former colony of Australia?

The queen is on their money, they are British. Ditch the (expletive deleted) and I might take them seriously.

 Ketara wrote:
Your knowledge of that period of history appears very....American.

Well, it is where I have spent the greater part of half a century... I suspect your view is influenced by your own citizenship.

 Ketara wrote:
In the 'Rah-rah, our country saved the world' sort of way

That's odd, I see us as the victims of a massive con job where we get to leave a significant portion of our citizens in abject poverty in exchange for maintaining a massive military presence in Europe for the last half a century while Europe gets peace and prosperity because they got to turn their swords into plowshares on a massive scale. Add to that we have to put up with Europeans sticking their noses up at us because of our high poverty and violent crime rates. Not very Rah Rah, more of a Blah Blah. I suspect many of my fellow Americans would fail to find it very Rah Rah. As I can't see Toby Keith using it as the basis of one of his songs I suspect I am right.

I think the US should have stayed out of all the European wars and minded our own business. In WWII when Japan attacked we should have left Europe alone and bombed Japan into the stone age. But unfortunately we had elected a bunch of anglophiles at exactly the wrong times and they were excited at the idea of saving the British Empire and being taken seriously by their leaders for once. Much like sad children who wanted daddy's attention at any cost. Again, I don't see the Rah Rah here.... Not seeing Toby Keith writing that into his latest feel good patriotic screed.

The history of Europe was dotted with horrible wars every few decades and their war industrialization had deep social costs, I can't count the number of authors who wrote about the crushing poverty of those eras. However, magically in your world view, it all turned 180 degrees after WWII. It had nothing to do with the US taking over the defense of Europe. It had nothing to do with drastic cuts in the military budgets of European nations. It had nothing to do with the US at all. Funny, what exactly changed then? Did King Arthur return and draw the stone from the sword giving prosperity to all his subjects? Was it space monkeys? Did space monkeys fix everything?

Me Like Burnaz wrote:

The queen is on their money, they are British. Ditch the (expletive deleted) and I might take them seriously.

....You could just admit that you got the flag wrong. Australia is a former colony of the Uk, as is America. However you try and twist it, Australia has never been the former rulers of the US.

Well, it is where I have spent the greater part of half a century... I suspect your view is influenced by your own citizenship.

Doubtless. It's also influenced by the fact that I'm male, my first language is English, and a great deal of many other things. As a historian though,I do strive to be as impartial as possible though. Basic professionalism if nothing else.

That's odd, I see us as the victims of a massive con job where we get to leave a significant portion of our citizens in abject poverty in exchange for maintaining a massive military presence in Europe for the last half a century while Europe gets peace and prosperity because they got to turn their swords into plowshares on a massive scale.

The history is infinitely more complex than that.

Add to that we have to put up with Europeans sticking their noses up at us because of our high poverty and violent crime rates.

Please, we Brits don't like to think of ourselves as Europeans anymore than you consider yourselves British.

I think the US should have stayed out of all the European wars and minded our own business.

Quite possibly. But then it would have ceded the many, many tangible benefits it gained from doing so. Perhaps there would have been others, but 'what if' history rarely gets very far past a certain point. Too many variables.

In WWII when Japan attacked we should have left Europe alone and bombed Japan into the stone age.

You could have done, if Hitler hadn't immediately declared war on the US, and started sinking US shipping even more than he was already doing. Generally speaking though, when an official declaration of war is made by a foreign power, and citizens of your country start dying, it's generally considered the done thing to retaliate in some measure.

There's also the many tangible benefits that came from getting stuck in, as previously mentioned.

But unfortunately we had elected a bunch of anglophiles at exactly the wrong times and they were excited at the idea of saving the British Empire and being taken seriously by their leaders for once. Much like sad children who wanted daddy's attention at any cost.

I'm afraid that out of the myriad diplomatic, military, and economic reasons for America getting involved, America's leadership 'getting excited at the idea of saving the British Empire' isn't one I've run across before.

The history of Europe was dotted with horrible wars every few decades and their war industrialization had deep social costs, I can't count the number of authors who wrote about the crushing poverty of those eras. However, magically in your world view, it all turned 180 degrees after WWII.

We had rationing and national service in this country for quite a while past WW2. Indeed, whilst countries like Germany and Japan got a lot of finance pumped in immediately post war, Britain was paying back its debts until 2006. There was a lot of hardship here post war, hardship that carried on into the seventies when Harold Wilson had to go cap in hand to the IMF.

Poverty, alas, was not restricted to the pre-war periods, in either your country or mine.

It had nothing to do with the US taking over the defense of Europe. It had nothing to do with drastic cuts in the military budgets of European nations. It had nothing to do with the US at all. Funny, what exactly changed then? Did King Arthur return and draw the stone from the sword giving prosperity to all his subjects? Was it space monkeys? Did space monkeys fix everything?

In all seriousness, you seem to be quite angry, and borderline offensive about all this. I'm more than happy to discuss these things with you old bean, but only in the manner of two blokes chatting in a friendly fashion over a pint. Self-deprecation aside, I know a large amount about this sort of thing, and whilst I certainly believe that there's never a 'right' way of thinking about history, I think you're a bit far off base.

Me Like Burnaz wrote:

The history of Europe was dotted with horrible wars every few decades and their war industrialization had deep social costs, I can't count the number of authors who wrote about the crushing poverty of those eras. However, magically in your world view, it all turned 180 degrees after WWII. It had nothing to do with the US taking over the defense of Europe. It had nothing to do with drastic cuts in the military budgets of European nations. It had nothing to do with the US at all. Funny, what exactly changed then? Did King Arthur return and draw the stone from the sword giving prosperity to all his subjects? Was it space monkeys? Did space monkeys fix everything?

It might have had something to do with the estimated 6000 soviet tanks sitting in east germany staring sternly westward, with another 20 000+ of their friends in Russia and eastern europe

When talking about the harm that weapons exports do, I think there needs to be a distinction between large weapon platforms and small arms. Sale of tanks and other large scale weapons tend to stick with the military that bought them, unless something really wacky happens. And when something really wacky does happen, like ISIS over-running large parts of Iraq and capturing loads of military gear, then those tanks end up being as much of liability as an asset - did anyone see the footage of ISIS losing tanks to the Kurds when they were just rolling them randomly around the streets?

Small arms, on the other hand... well I guess assault rifle sales on any scale will almost certainly end up with some of that merchandise shooting up some poor bastards in an African village somewhere. But then the same can be said of civilian sales - no-one gets to looks surprised when US domestic AR-15 sales are shipped in to South America and modified for full auto. Maybe when FARC was doing it there was some scope to look dumbfounded, but now that it's being done by Mexican cartels it's not possible to even pretend to be surprised anymore.

But ultimately if drug gangs and revolutionaries (and the majority who are both those things) want to get their hands on small arms, well they're going to get them. They can and are made in small scale workshops across the developing world.

So ultimately, I guess I'm a bit pragmatic on weapons exports. I recognise the harm done weapons proliferation, but I'm not convinced that export bans in the some or all of the developing world will reduce that - major weapons platforms aren't the problem, and small arms are accessible anyway.

 EmilCrane wrote:
Without a native arms industry a nation is subject to the whims of another nation's R&D and that can be disastrous...

Yes, very much this. If you have any need for a weapons platform that differs from the standard and you don't have a weapons industry of your own, well you're gak out of luck.

An example in Australia is our submarine program. For political and infrastructure reasons Australia doesn't want nuclear subs, but being an isolated island we need long range capabilities on our subs. Everyone else who makes subs with long range capability turns to nuclear. Which means we're gak out of luck. For those reasons (and also to try and develop local industry) we tried building our own subs. Turns out it isn't too easy to build your own weapons platform from a new industry, and the result was a sub with massive cost over-runs and such poor performance as to be basically not combat worthy, until the Americans came in and fixed the thing for us. Now we're looking to replace that sub, and there's basically zero chance we're going to try and build the replacement ourselves. Instead we're going to go with what someone else in the world, probably the US, is making in diesel subs that is closest to meeting our needs.

The result is we'll pay for functionality we don't need, while not getting all the functionality we need. Most of our weapons programs are like this, compromised in some way or another because we can't specify our own needs.

 Ketara wrote:

You could just admit that you got the flag wrong.

Actually I thought I was taling to the guy who was from the UK to whom my original comments had been directed. I didn't notice it was a different breed of limey who replied with offense to my comments. I do find it odd that it was an Australian who seemed so angry at my comments about the first world status of Great Britain though. "Go feth yourselves then, clearly a first world nation shouldn't be dragging a third world nation like mine around 4 wars now." Seemed like he was a brit to me. Who knows, maybe he is and screwed up his flag?

But I always take the opportunity to poke at Australians with one of my favorite quotes from "House".

 Ketara wrote:
As a historian though,I do strive to be as impartial as possible though. Basic professionalism if nothing else.

My profession is Locksmithing and Electronic Security Systems. I save my professionalism for that. History is a hobby of mine and my attitudes are influenced because I am at heart an anarchist so I see things from that perspective.

 Ketara wrote:
The history is infinitely more complex than that.

No doubt, but we are not on a site dedicated to the post war period of history, this is a site dedicated to playing with toy soldiers in an abstract of war.

Having said that I don't think my statements are too far from true, I have read many sources that agree with my point of view. Albeit they are American and often anarchists like myself. But I admit my bias.

 Ketara wrote:
Quite possibly. But then it would have ceded the many, many tangible benefits it gained from doing so.

Tangible like what? Thousands of lives ended? All those dead bodies left in European cemeteries? All the broken people missing limbs? All the traumas they suffered and the survivors guilt they brought home and without proper treatment caused untold harms to their families? Or do you mean the technologies that were developed because of the need to find better ways to murder our fellow humans? I'd gladly trade back television if all those lives could have been spared.

 Ketara wrote:
You could have done, if Hitler hadn't immediately declared war on the US, and started sinking US shipping even more than he was already doing. Generally speaking though, when an official declaration of war is made by a foreign power, and citizens of your country start dying, it's generally considered the done thing to retaliate in some measure.

The only reason US shipping was being targeted was because they were trading with the Allies. Had they left the Allies to their own devices and stuck to trading with the other neutral nations the Germans would have had no reason to target their shipping. Even before the official declaration of war the US had taken sides, they made themselves legitimate targets. But then that's what they wanted, a good Lusitania again to have an excuse to ride to Europe's rescue.

 Ketara wrote:
I'm afraid that out of the myriad diplomatic, military, and economic reasons for America getting involved, America's leadership 'getting excited at the idea of saving the British Empire' isn't one I've run across before.

Then you've missed some of the more interesting biographies of Wilson and FDR. The ones written by people without stars in their eyes who worshiped them. Woody was a real piece of work and FDR was a tyrant no better than Hitler.

 Ketara wrote:
We had rationing and national service in this country for quite a while past WW2. Indeed, whilst countries like Germany and Japan got a lot of finance pumped in immediately post war, Britain was paying back its debts until 2006. There was a lot of hardship here post war, hardship that carried on into the seventies when Harold Wilson had to go cap in hand to the IMF.

Well considering Great Britain's post WWI polices toward Germany created an environment where the Nazis could come to power they deserved to suffer. However it still doesn't change the fact that being relived of the perceived need for a massive military machine gave them the ability to turn their attentions inward instead.

 Ketara wrote:
In all seriousness, you seem to be quite angry, and borderline offensive about all this.

Angry? Not really. Just irritated. I don't like the attitude of superiority that Europeans have when it comes to my country. They look down their noses at us and treat us like we are children who haven't learned the superior ways of European nations yet. Then we have idiots here who worship all things European and want us to adopt your ways without thinking about how we got where we are. I get irritated because they all want to sweep the fact that we have been conned into being Globo-Cop under the rug like it doesn't matter. As if it's our simpleton American nature that created our problems and if only we would be more like the older and wiser Europeans everything would be perfect.

It's a sore spot with me I'll admit. If it offends then so what. Europeans don't seem to care that we take offense at their insults about our "gun culture".


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 EmilCrane wrote:
It might have had something to do with the estimated 6000 soviet tanks sitting in east germany staring sternly westward, with another 20 000+ of their friends in Russia and eastern europe

Europe and Russia had lines of weapons pointing across borders for hundreds of years. They were used to it. Why would this line of weapons be any more frightening than before?

Me Like Burnaz wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

You could just admit that you got the flag wrong.

Actually I thought I was taling to the guy who was from the UK to whom my original comments had been directed. I didn't notice it was a different breed of limey who replied with offense to my comments. I do find it odd that it was an Australian who seemed so angry at my comments about the first world status of Great Britain though. "Go feth yourselves then, clearly a first world nation shouldn't be dragging a third world nation like mine around 4 wars now." Seemed like he was a brit to me. Who knows, maybe he is and screwed up his flag?

Just taking the time to point out... you're relatively new here to dakka... but calling people "limey" or other things that usually tend to degrade a group/nation/nationality, etc. are not accepted.



Also, guys don't "choose" their flags here on dakka (most of the time), they are based on where your IP says you're posting from.

 Ketara wrote:
However you try and twist it, Australia has never been the former rulers of the US.

Man, that's the world I want to live in. Except for the vegemite.

Me Like Burnaz wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Quite possibly. But then it would have ceded the many, many tangible benefits it gained from doing so.

Tangible like what? Thousands of lives ended? All those dead bodies left in European cemeteries? All the broken people missing limbs? All the traumas they suffered and the survivors guilt they brought home and without proper treatment caused untold harms to their families? Or do you mean the technologies that were developed because of the need to find better ways to murder our fellow humans? I'd gladly trade back television if all those lives could have been spared.

Thinks TV was one of the major benefits from the second world war enough to mention it.

Not entirely sure why people are responding to this guy with such depth.