Hmm. Russia is pretty big, and I guess it’s unclear how close you’d want to fly your non-stealth aircraft to it. F-35s are at least some of what they’ve been doing in Iran, which is why it came to mind, but Iran isn’t really as much of an airborn threat, and has less strategic depth.

The F-35 is listed has having a range greater than 1000nmi, which gets you from Moscow to central Europe. Not sure what load they’re assuming in that figure, though, probably empty. If you’re hitting a refinery in Omsk (or whatever they have in Omsk), for sure, there’s no question, it’s got to be a strategic bomber.

There’s not really a reason not to use a bomber, if you’re absolutely sure it won’t be detected, I guess.

Because if my preferred side doesn’t, worse people will. (Although for all we know OP is Chinese or Russian)

If that sounds like a slippery slope, sure, it definitely could be. It doesn’t really seem like is Canada sliding into evil empire any time soon, though. And, when it does get to that point, they usually de-emphasise the idea of just war in favour of some version “patriotism”, anyway.

On pacifist grounds?

It’s really, really hard to say from just the airframe.

Now that the USSR is gone, and the files public, we know that the “Concordsky” was totally independently developed from the Concord, and completely different except on the outside.

If they did manage to copy the whole thing, that’s very bad news in any war with the West, because we’re not about beat them on quantity of anything.

Ah, good old Cunningham’s law.

That actually makes good sense. Especially if you’re dealing with the same climate. Next time I buy flowers I’m cosplaying a bit.

Yeah, OP better prepare for some fanboying.

Except, we can’t ask too much, or we’re literally a less sexually appealing version of this meme.

In a hypothetical nuclear vs. nuclear war, sure.

This is not that kind of war. Russia’s open goal is to eliminate the Ukrainian government by any means necessary.

Did you reply to the wrong person?

If not, the edit should make it pretty clear I’m not siding with Russia.

No, tribal signifiers are dumb and easy to fake. Ask anyone who’s infiltrated the far right.

I have to wonder if that’d be target #1 if Russia did invade NATO. They don’t have the nukes, and the army, which does have the nukes, low-key hates them. Domestically, they exist to enforce obedience to Putin, which is something we have in common with Russians in disliking.

Either that, or you send F-35s to hit all the same basic stuff as Ukraine has been. Which seems more likely, just because it’s less dramatic.

They were aiming for a playground. /s

Is it? I’m pretty sure there was total war already. Man, the Guardian isn’t what it used to be.

Like, it’s an actual military target, and therefore hurts more for the Ukrainian war effort, but if anything it’s a de-escalation from hitting innocent civilians (like usual).

You really shouldn’t trust the legal interpretations of an LLM. They’re frequently wrong, and, even more dangerously, they’re very, very good at making a wrong answer look right.

In this case, it does seem to be correct, though. The treaty clause has nuances in the way it’s interpreted, but according to the article they’re considered roughly equivalent to federal law. (Sorry for overlooking that and answering wrong elsewhere)

There’s still catches. Prosecution for following unlawful orders is light, and often rests on charging a perpetrator as if they were a private citizen. Violating an international treaty regarding diplomacy doesn’t really have much in the way of criminal penalties, and, even if they did, the NATO treaty doesn’t seem to have a “don’t attack other members” article. Like, it should, but it also doesn’t have a “remove members that attacked other members” clause, because that basically just wasn’t relevant when it was created. (BTW, looking over it, the US is already openly violating article 1 and part of 2)

But sure, if this guy refused to invade Canada, and was court martialled for it, it seems like he’d have a defence.

Sure, but there’s no historical context there whatsoever, or even a present-day framing to narrow it down. The main thing it achieves, as a one-word response, is declaring a kind of tribal allegiance.

If you’ve clearly defined you mean “any market-based system” or “a system which no longer has a landed aristocracy”, among the many other possibilities, then sure, it’s not worth being a pedant about the exact word used. (Although, any conversation is more likely to be productive if you just say what you mean, instead)

That was referring to OP, not you. You seem like you have an interesting and possibly legitimate point, which is new to me, and I absolutely want to talk about it. Over there I go…

Ironic to post on SDF, but yes.

My situation isn’t great, but it’s not new enough to really be “right now”.

Some people are doing just fine, but they’re not going to post as much. If you want a representative sample, you need a poll instead.

Although Ukraine also buys all their drone components from China.

Really, they’re just sitting back and making a profit.

Oh, come on, that’s one hell of a false equivalency.

Even WWI was basically different colonial empires fighting over colonies. You can’t really call them the bad guys before the Nazis came to power, and while people here will disagree which Germany was the better one afterwards, you probably like one of the two.