Article

2026-02-12 -Land of the Free

Report: 300 F-47s and 200 B-21s Needed to Defeat China

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by trailing wife 2026-02-12 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1795 views ] Top
File under: Commies

1 Our external enemies aren't worth all this money. Our internal enemies are the real threat. Imagine instead if we identified every single unhinged weirdo posting conspiracy theories with Thiel's Palantir and bought houses for them with the money instead. They'd be too busy with maintenance, mowing the lawn and planting shrubs to be chimping out online. Being a homeowner, some of them might even get to kiss a girl for the first time. They could put away the video games and weed like a ten year old puts away the lincoln logs.

Posted by Jairong+Scourge+of+the+Gepids2435 2026-02-12 04:12|| 2026-02-12 04:12|| Front Page Top

2 /\ Our internal enemies are the real threat.

No argument there, but I might add that the two are not always mutually exclusive.

Posted by Besoeker 2026-02-12 06:14|| 2026-02-12 06:14|| Front Page Top

3 former F-16 pilot and Mitchell Institute director of research Heather Penney

...If this lady says something, I'd listen.

Look her up.

Mike

Posted by MikeKozlowski 2026-02-12 06:26|| 2026-02-12 06:26|| Front Page Top

4 It's not just the airframes. You need ordnance to put on those airframes. We don't have a stockpile or rapid production capability. Not to mention the spare parts to keep them flying.

Posted by Procopius2k 2026-02-12 07:09|| 2026-02-12 07:09|| Front Page Top

5 Our far enemies are supporting our near enemies. It is well-documented that the post 10/7 Black Bloc protests are financed by China and propagandized by Iran and its proxies. The fact that both have an awful lot of more or less sleeper agents here, arrived both legally and illegally, adds to the piquancy of that awareness.

It seems to me that ignoring the far enemies for the more urgent near guarantees endless repeats of the problem with replacement actors, just as Hamas repeatedly promises Israel.

Posted by trailing wife 2026-02-12 11:45|| 2026-02-12 11:45|| Front Page Top

6 Tl;dr: It seems to me the answer is both/and, not either/or.

Posted by trailing wife 2026-02-12 15:09|| 2026-02-12 15:09|| Front Page Top

7 Near threats and far threats are allied, but that alliance is fundamentally based on a money-for-propaganda contract more than shared ideology. The Trump DOGE work in defunding corrupt NGO's and detoxifying the massive fraud in domestic funding programs that feed the enemy under the guise of welfare/healthcare/education/business "programs"will free up some additional funding.
Immagration enforcement and deportation will lessen the strain on budgets throughout government. That severance will lessen the influence successes of the far threats of China, Iran, and hemispheric cancers like Cuba and Nicaragua. Of the latter, Trump is making surprising gains quite rapidly.

Servicing the nation debt has to be a major part of the reuse of those funds, but 60/40 will still produce substantial numbers. Buying things and stuff to bolster depleted national power will be very important to more firmly stabilize credible deterrence.

The real thing is to recognize the hidden enemies amidst the last generations of our own children and the poisonous world-view they have been taught and the indifference and even self-hatred of their nation that they often feel. Sadly, Tik-Tok thinkers and social media attention-seekers are not going to be easy to re-cycle into useful citizens, let alone thoughtful voters. The lack of even a reasonable modicum of homogeneous attitudes in the body politic makes every effort to restore traditional American Excellence as a part of our culture more difficult.

Like some many here, we stood on the walls, eyes looking outwards towards the threat while behind us, down inside the wire, many of our kids were being bent and lost. We didn't look over our shoulders nearly often enough my friends!

Posted by NoMoreBS 2026-02-12 17:51|| 2026-02-12 17:51|| Front Page Top

23:12 Jairong+Scourge+of+the+Gepids2435
21:37 Crusader
21:34 Crusader
21:30 Crusader
21:26 Crusader
21:11 trailing wife
21:01 trailing wife
20:39 Super Hose
20:27 Super Hose
19:22 Frank G
19:19 Frank G
19:07 Blackbeard Platypus8375
19:03 Blackbeard Platypus8375
18:13 SteveS
18:04 Blackbeard Platypus8375
17:51 NoMoreBS
17:40 DarthVader
17:39 Woodrow
17:37 Woodrow
17:29 Woodrow
17:01 Lord Garth
16:25 Knuckles Grundy1702
16:14 Grom the Affective
15:50 Lord Garth
Merry-Go-Blog