Following the new that Biden has stepped down BBC News what do we think will happen next?
Trump beat Hillary in 2016, and by the looks of it could be up against Kamala Harris this time around…
if he wins will he be known as a candidate who is only able to beat female opposition?
Biden was winning. Now they’ll have to reprint tens of millions of ballot papers that have already been cast by dead people.
Very much believe Joe leaving it this late to drop out has essentially given Trump the win.
Heard someone people suggesting Joe should resign as President to give Kamala time to show she can run things.
The election isn’t until November though. There is still a half decent amount of time.
Fingers crossed they can pull it off. If Trump gets back in I honestly think it’ll be a disaster that may well effect us, as well s the US. This isn’t just about the next 4 years, if Trump gets in it’ll likely change the landscape of America for the next 40 years.
I really don’t get all this hyperbole about Trump. We got through 2016 to 2020 okay didn’t we?
Personally, I saw Biden as the greater threat to democracy. He clearly wasn’t going to make it through another four years and then the line of succession kicks in, rather than fresh elections.
it is hard to argue against this - he said he would build a wall and make Mexico pay for it - yet to date ~500 miles (25%) has been completed, none of which Mexico has paid for and only 47miles of that was “new” fencing, ie where there was no prior fencing in place.
we know he has the gift of the gab…the worry is if he just manages a few of his claims it has a global impact
Apart from the excess COVID deaths, the loss of abortion rights, packing the Supreme Court with extreme conservatives, pulling out US troops and abandoning Kurds and Afghans to their deaths, denying the results of a free and fair election, instigating violence against peaceful protectors and encouraging racists, autocratics and fascists?
Trump’s first term as a surprise to him and overwhelmingly incompetency meant there wasless impact. This time there are far more capable and prepared people ready to enable and support him. The potential effects on world peace, climate change, US democracy and rights are terrifying. Have a look about Project 2025 and the plans for a potential second Trump term.
The arms manufacturers of Europe (BAe, Rheinmetall, FN Herstal, various Swedish firms et al) should be hoping for a Trump win, in order that his policy of a defence pivot towards the Far East is enacted. That means that the European NATO nations have to man up and tool up in order to face our threat from the East.
Poland, the Baltic and Nordic states at least get it, but it won’t work unless the three largest nations - the UK, France and Germany - stop living in their fool’s paradise which is being defended by others.
Unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about it: decades ago an aging retired serviceman could join either the Royal Observer Corps or the Home Service Force, and thereby train for a war role. Even the WRVS were part of Civil Defence, as seen in this leaflet.
Now there’s nothing most of us can do, and it’s not like the RAFAC contribute anything towards national resilience or defence either, which I believe we should do in this day and age. Otherwise the RAF should drop us from their organisation, and have the money spent on something more useful for defence. After all, the Scouts manage alright without being massively underwritten by the Defence Budget.
Anyway, the short answer is, Making America Great Again should Make Europe Great Again. 
What would you have cadets doing… filling sandbags and building shelters or maybe loading magazines for the next great war…
Cadets are children.
They are neither trained nor should be used in crisis.
cfavs are amateurs trying to be as professional as possible. But are neither trained or available for such duties.
Your keeness for a ready return to the dark days of the 1980s when conflict became a strong consideration is worrying.
I appreciate you want to hark back to your finest hour, but i for one dont ever want a return to those times.
If we find that the security situation worsens further (I really hope it doesn’t) then something along Finland’s system, or an expansion of the Reserves, is likely to be the way forward. If anything it might end up drawing CFAV away from the cadet forces as some might volunteer for a home defence role instead.
Of course when the ATC was founded it was very much preparing young men for the fight. Rightly we no longer allow under 18s to be used in the way they were in the 1940s.
We are in a worse situation than in the 1980s: Prime Minister Johnson committed the UK to an unlimited war with Russia via the Ukraine, to add to our continuing Cold War with China, and we don’t have the same amount of conventional armed forces as we did then to back up his commitment. The British Army is incapable of carrying out an offensive operation, and the navy and air force are severely limited in their capabilities of projecting power globally.
If we had a national resilience plan, then we could volunteer to take part in it, the same as any other socially useful volunteer activity. I’ve organised and run DoE activities such as nature conservation and footpath maintenance, so maintaining local defence and resilience stores and infrastructure isn’t too much of a departure from that work.
I don’t think that the Russians are capable of mounting an invasion of the UK, but the British Isles lie on the main sea and air corridor between Murmansk and the Atlantic Ocean. Russian military crewed vessels and aircraft are active in this area. We have to assume they have the ability to carry out attacks upon us, such as missile strikes and landing sabotage teams, and be prepared for that threat, in order to nullify it. If we can’t stop illegal immigration and drug smuggling by sea, then what chance do we stand against a strong military power like Russia if they chose to attack us?
Hoping they’ll never attack us isn’t a defence strategy: it didn’t work for Norway and Denmark in 1940, and our armed forces are in a similar state of run-down unpreparedness now as theirs were then.
Hence the need to at least protect our key infrastructure and beef up our air defences.
I don’t agree with the ‘let children be children’ argument if it makes them ignorant and unprepared for the world in which they will grow up: teenagers want to be a lot more aware of what’s going on in the world than adults give them credit for these days. When I was a cadet, we knew all about the Cold War, Northern Ireland and the Falklands War which all happened during my time in the ATC.
After all, we teach them about the history and ongoing operations of our parent service: the RAF is first and foremost a killing machine and we, the RAFAC, are part of it. That’s why it’s called a ‘Force’ and not a ‘Service.’ Although I also mention humanitarian missions that only a service like the RAF can carry out: in the 1980s it was the Ethiopian famine that was relieved by the air force. We had the air power then to carry out that mission for several months without it being any sort of main effort.
maybe not, but if they did it would also be an invasion of a NATO member, and as such, an invasion of all of NATO
where “us” also = NATO
I do not see the same threat to warrant the same control measures…to be considered comparable.
Somehow the might of the UK’s armed forces and nuclear deterrent (and that of NATO) serves as a valid defence against Russia - somehow 25 migrants travelling over the channel doesn’t justify deploying that force given the very different threat posed.
no one is suggesting the Cadets are not aware of what is going on, or indeed not taking an interest - but they are saying Children are not pseudo soldiers waiting for the 
to fit the fan, so stop expecting them to be another line of defence…
TL;DR. We’re talking about the US Presidential elections people.
Well it looks like she’s got the delegates she needs, which is important they couldn’t afford infighting and a wide open convention.
Getting back to Trump’s attitude towards European NATO members, I also see the much quoted Article 5 referring to the ‘attack on one member is an attack upon all’ as really meaning: ‘have your nation’s defence guaranteed by the might of the USA’s armed forces, whilst reducing our own.’
But that attitude is flawed, because it presumes that you have to be attacked before Uncle Sam comes to rescue you: immense damage will already have been done. Each major NATO country should have enough forces to deter a Russian attack by themselves. If they are a small country, they should either unite with other small countries, or fit within the Orbat of a larger one. The armed forces of Luxembourg are part of the Belgian Army, and the Nordic states formed their own Nordic Battlegroup before Sweden and Finland joined NATO.
In the 1980s I never heard anyone mention Article 5: NATO unity was assured and each nation had the military strength to deter the Warsaw Pact. Lest we forget, we weren’t facing just the USSR in those days.
Coalitions also work best when each member has its own Tactical Area of Responsibility: trying to form major military formations with a mix of units from several countries doesn’t work as well. During the 1990-91 Gulf War, the British and French had their own separate missions within the overall battle plan. Indeed, the UK sent out a second brigade to form an armoured division in order that a single brigade would not be commanded by a US Army general.
In order to rebuild our Armed Forces, we would have to militarise a new generation of young people to do it. Britain had a conscription age of 18. Any older and one gets the problems recruiting that the Ukrainians now have: people in their 20s and early 30s have better things to do with their lives than stand in a muddy trench waiting to die. If one has an effective deterrent in the first place, one shouldn’t need to stand in a muddy trench and wait to die. I never had to do that, mainly because I was first in an army of 150,000, and later an air force of 90,000 personnel. If we did go to war, we had the manpower and resources to either win them or sustain the campaign indefinitely without straining the system to breaking point.
The UK has lost the institutions required for such a large-scale increase in its armed forces: weapons and equipment manufacturing; military infrastructure; training establishments and personnel; national will to enact such an enlargement. Once a capability has gone, it’s extremely hard to get it back, so we’ll be relying upon the Americans for a good time yet…until Donald pulls the USA out of NATO, the possibility of which we can’t rule out. Who could prevent him? The POTUS is also the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces. The state Europe would then be in - weak and dominated by Asian powers - wouldn’t affect America in the slightest, would it? 
