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Groggy sick keepcarrot miltech idea:

A weather balloon-esque turret.

#Why?

Most "stealth" aircraft do indeed have reduced cross section, especially from the front direction (such that an attack is harder to detect). However, most aircraft of this genre are not super stealthy from above or to the rear. Cruise missiles definitely aren't. Therefore, a RADAR system could be placed high in the atmosphere between the operational envelope of air to air missiles AND the legal limit of space. It could have some missiles, as a treat.

#Advantages

• It is a specific system that needs to be designed against. Any invasion would have to neutralise this before the initial aerial assault begins, giving a defensive state a warning against such an invasion (when contact is lost, raise alarms).
• If it is not removed from play, it is in a prime position to intercept/jam satellite communications, which the current prime method of evading transmission detection (laser or concentrated radio upwards; Ukraine war has shown both sides using deflectors just to point back to hometree as well).
• Missiles dropped from non-orbit height have lots of energy, thus do not have to be as large as ground based missiles for the same payload/range/speed. They could drop and activate partway down to target. (it would not have every missile in a state's AD network, but some of its own, potentially only anti-missile defence missiles)
• Terrain can be exhaustively mapped. We have pretty powerful computers now, we can program our RADAR to draw data from terrain during peace time and then use that to detect things too. Even if an aircraft was designed for reduced RCS from the top, it would create a pretty sizeable shadow that may be picked up by our floating turret. (planes are pretty big flat objects, and a lot of stealth stuff wants to fly pretty high or pretty low). This may reduce the changes of being drone scouted during escalating tensions.
• Better resolution than spy satellites, more permanent than spy planes.
• Satellite comms are less interceptable to everyone else.
• Potentially not that expensive, especially for a system the enemy must take out before starting air raids
• Primarily a defensive tool.

#Disadvantages (many)

• Extremely vulnerable. If the enemy can touch it, they can destroy it. Your main hope is being very far up (close to 40 or 50 km), and even then the enemy could build one or two specialty missiles (ARMs that can switch to active RADAR with enough range and gimbal rocket) to take it out. Armour is an absolute no-go, so your only hope is very effective active defence, which I'm not sure is up to the task atm. It may be possible to be stealthed (depending on the tech), but that would require its own RADAR to be switched off. But also very possibly not.
• Needs a way to gather energy and sustain itself. It's a long way away from refueling dumps. Solar panels can only get so large and are generally quite heavy. Obviously, missiles couldn't be reloaded easily, so you'd want it to come down regularly (or a reloading balloon to go up)
• Hard to steer. It will be buffeted by stratospheric winds (apparently not actually that great above a certain height). It needs some form of active movement and/or tethering (???). The active movement would also be used to dodge ARM missiles, so you'd want it anyway.
• Helium or hydrogen would give the balloon a certain lifetime. This may be able to be mitigated in various ways, but it must be known.
• Primarily a defensive tool

#Why again? I am very sick and have taken a bunch of pseudoephidrine and am groggy and have also taken vyvanse. Please hire me for the new soviet skunkworks.

I miss Yevgeny Prigozhin so much

Part of President Milei's Labor Reform is suspended:

The Argentine courts, responding to a request from the General Confederation of Argentine Workers, suspended the part of Javier Milei's Decree of Necessity and Urgency, the DNU, that dealt with labor reform.

The judge ruled that the labor part of the decree was not urgent, and therefore granted the precautionary measure, which is valid until the case is judged.

Javier Milei's government can appeal.

An article by Danny Haiphong: How U.S. hegemony reached its limits in 2023

U.S. political leaders often hype the "rules-based international order" as the pinnacle of global "democracy." However, the "rules-based order" exercised by the U.S. is predicated not on rules or order but rather on the domination of a single state over the interests of the rest. In 2023, this particular form of global leadership (or misleadership) has run up against profound and irreversible limitations.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the conflict in Ukraine. U.S. military strategists and political officials entered 2023 optimistic about Ukraine's chances of defeating Russia militarily with the infusion of large sums of aid from NATO. Optimism quickly turned into its opposite as the year wore on. U.S. and Western mainstream media now openly admit that Ukraine's hyped counteroffensive failed to achieve any of its objectives and led to massive losses in human and military resources. Aid to Ukraine has since been scaled down as Kyiv's U.S. and NATO backers manage growing political divisions over the best way forward in a losing war.

The U.S. and its NATO counterparts gambled on the hope that a combination of economic sanctions and WWI-style warfare would weaken the Russian government and cause the collapse of Vladimir Putin's leadership. The opposite has occurred. Russia reoriented its economy to the Global South, strengthening ties with the emerging markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Russia prioritized a war of attrition to limit casualties while using its military industrial capacity to gradually grind down Ukraine's army. Far from destroying Russia, the conflict in Ukraine has handed the U.S. a historic setback to its hegemonic aims.

On October 7, 2023, the U.S. was confronted with another massive challenge to the stability of its "rules-based" order when the conflict between Palestine and Israel entered a new phase. Israel's response to the Hamas-led military raid has been internationally recognized as disproportionate and brutal, with many credible observers describing the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as genocide. While China and Russia have worked diligently in the UN Security Council to answer the worldwide call for a humanitarian ceasefire, the U.S. has either vetoed, voted against or abstained any resolution for a ceasefire or humanitarian aid in favor of Gaza.

Furthermore, U.S. President Joe Biden has provided unconditional military and diplomatic aid to Israel despite the role such aid has played in the death of over 20,000 Palestinians and the displacement of at least 2 million more. U.S. policy toward the Israel-Palestine conflict has caused enormous damage to the legitimacy of Biden's leadership. Public opinion toward the administration has reached a historic low and prominent party leaders are seeking possible alternatives. U.S.'s support in Israel's activities in Gaza has also raised the specter of a broader war involving neighboring states and political forces in West Asia.

The improper diplomacy in dealing with conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and the domestic economic turmoil, which has brought huge pressure on Biden administration, have additionally forced the United States to rebalance its relations with China. In the last six months of 2023, high-level U.S. officials from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have made visits to Beijing in the lead-up to the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden this past November. These meetings have reduced tensions between the two countries on the surface but have not produced significant policy change from the U.S. side. Washington's overall foreign policy of containment remains in the form of aggressive maneuvers in the South China Sea as well as ongoing economic sanctions on key sectors of China's economy.

The Biden administration's contradictory policy toward China is a stark reflection of the limits of U.S. hegemony. China spent 2023 moving toward its overall goal of sustainable economic growth, peaceful development, and integration within a multipolar global framework. For example, while the U.S. neglected the Middle East for "Great Power competition" in the wake of its defeat in Afghanistan, China helped negotiate peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Thus, the rigid limitations of U.S. hegemony have opened up opportunities for the advance of multipolarity. It is imperative that U.S.-inflamed conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere come to an end in 2024 so that the benefits of a more democratic world order are felt farther and wider.