As predicted by Eric Blair in 1949.

Tom

I think it is naive to assume the US cyber capabilities would be anything less than world class, but of course their advantage might be a lot less than in the conventional space.

More important I think it the fundamental shift in economic power, and the reduced appetite and capability of the West to engage well outside of its core territory.

The US have been at it for ages, see the Crypto affair for example. Stuxnet may have been an Israeli product but they won't bite the hand that supports them with many billions in military aid each year and gave them the bomb(s).

The F-35 for instance is suspected to serve as a spy, and to have a killswitch built in. Under the premise that "only the paranoid survive" that seems a very reasonable suspicion, the FBI's demand from ~5 years ago that Apple implement a backdoor in their devices points in the same direction.

I see no reason to assume that the US have deserted the infowars. Neither the military nor any civil agency. Quite the contrary, what has become public knowledge is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

But Henry saw to it.

You're funny!

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20...-the-us-again/

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/30/m...ntl/index.html

https://www.newsweek.com/israels-agg...-hushed-250278

And? To what extent did that affect US military aid for Israel?

Please don't tell me you believe the US don't spy on Israel.

Or that the Northstream II pipeline means that there's now a Russian ally within NATO. Or the NSA's listening in to Merkels and every other German's phonecalls.

The Salisbury poisoning suspects accused of carrying out the attack on the Skripals in England back in
2018 are now being linked to an explosion at an arms depot in the Czech Republic four years earlier.

The Czech Republic accuses the Russian GRU of being behind the explosion and have expelled
18 Russian diplomats in retaliation.

BBC News - Salisbury poisoning agents linked to Czech blast

Would it be naïve to assume that previously secret files are now seeing a timely release as fit for public consumption by various national agencies?

Probably not, now that the UK has sent warships into the black sea.

Dare I say it ? What's left of the British Empire strikes back !

Actually I would say that the Whitehouse politely suggested that the Brits send a few piddling warships, it would make for a nice Tonkin incident if the Russkies smoked the royal navy.

US first intended to send two warships, and then cancelled their deployment.
I hope it was not a part of Hunter Biden's employment package at some mining and drilling Ukrainian company :-)

Did any one look up at the sky last night around 22:00ish? At first I thought I was watching a couple a falling stars enter the atmosphere, then after a second or two thought they must be satellites until I saw about 20 in a row. For the next five minutes I watched them light up the entire night sky (from west to east) like a great string of glittering pearls in the night. I lost count but there was well over a hundred jets flying in a convoy at 30K+ feet. This has to be a major military deployment. I cannot think of any other situation where one organizes over a hundred planes to fly together in a massive convoy.

WTF is going on??

__________________
I wear the red blobs proudly.

Military aircraft on deployment aren’t normally allowed to transit Switzerland as we are neutral. You could be seeing those satellites being deployed by Musk and Co.

Planes are noisy. Were they?

If not, it's Musk's thingies.

I hope so, better than the alternative. However the flight paths were too "human". Some were closer than others, some further apart. Some flying on the left side, some on the right. Plus there was a distinct con trail left behind. Yes they were at a very high altitude but they were still within the atmoshpere. They could have easily been within German airspace, or flying "over" Swiss airspace, who knows?
All I know is that it was cool to watch, and I hope they were satellites, but my gut says these were planes, and this isn't good. Hope I am wrong.

__________________
I wear the red blobs proudly.

Musk's little lights make a regular string, I guess. Maybe it was a training?

I like your siggy.

Yes but this was a very irregular string. Scraggly AF. The opposite of high tech automation. Plus wouldn't Musk post something like this on Twitter, Instagram, FB, etc?

Thanks

I think he doesn't get publicised every time.

Could it be some kind of training maneuvre against the Chinese space debris the Earth will get blessed with? Right, we might not need it. 70% chance it falls into waters somewhere? Thankgod we got a lake here.

Hmmm. Thinking about performing a thread merge maneuvre https://www.englishforum.ch/general-...ml#post3303844

This has nothing to do with space debris, and why risk even more debris, human lives, and over 100+ planes? That makes zero sense.