Yeah, every time an empire has been in major decline, they've just fought a massive war with all of their biggest enemies simultaneously and it just works out fine for them.
I think we’re in an age when nuclear deterrent is actually less effective because the West is very unlikely to use anything like a nuclear bomb, whereas our adversaries might
Let's also consider the stances of those countries on a nuclear first strike:
China: Unambiguous "No First Use", with no exceptions
Iran: Doesn't even have nukes and afaik has been cleared of ever trying to do so by international inspectors
Russia: Reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if WMD are deployed against itself or its allies or if the very existence of the state is threatened with conventional warfare
The US: Still has full first use.
For fun, the other countries with nukes:
The UK: Has openly stated they will use nukes in a pre-emptive strike, officially has no stance on a "No First Use" policy in order to "keep its enemies guessing"
Israel: Doesn't have nukes (winkwinknudgenudge) but would 300% use them if they did
Not only that but the US spent the entirety of the Cold War trying to either use nukes again or find some way to deploy nukes to every soldier and conflict possible, with everything from nuclear demolition charges to artillery shells
Given their way the US would arm every soldier with a nuclear rifle if they could
the US deployed backpack-sized nuclear weapons to Europe for decades as part of a stay-behind Gladio type operation, whose intent was to detonate nukes guerilla style in a Soviet-overrun Europe
Short term success vs long term losses. Yeah they made some profits during the war, but they would have preferred these countries to be allied so they can siphon more off over time
the U.S. is unable to dictate terms to Yemen but this dullard thinks it can fight two nuclear-armed states (both of which have demonstrably better production capacity) and a major regional power all at the same time
I recently read a super weird essay written in 2017 2007 by the other Palantir founder, Peter Thiel, called 'The Straussian Moment' - and it's wild how they're still talking about some of the exact same things.
For anyone wanting insight into the particular brand of fascism coming out of silicon valley these days, it's worth a read.
It came from In-q-tel so it's basically 100% CIA
Companies that are controlled by the CIA can't help but say dumb shit. Look at notepad++ and Proton as two examples.
New talking point to get bigger defense contracts just dropped. And he has another one:
"I think we’re in an age when nuclear deterrent is actually less effective because the West is very unlikely to use anything like a nuclear bomb, whereas our adversaries might," he added. "Where you have technological parity but moral disparity, the actual disparity is much greater than people think."
Karp continued: "In fact, given that we have parity technologically but we don’t have parity morally, they have a huge advantage."
Imagine thinking the US has the moral high ground, and that having the moral high ground is a disadvantage.
Beg Mode - your CEO will lobby and harangue Government for free money the public purse.
Sell Mode - your CEO will make wild “I am the main character “ predictions about the future, on randomly selected topics, no qualifications are required