Posted by throwawayffffas 3 hours ago
Guess who gets the cool jobs in these countries? Typically not the most highly motivated individuals, but the children of influential people who pull strings to make it happen.
Guess how easy it's to fire those people when they don't pay that much attention during training?
Also flying modern fighter jets is the kind of fun that's typically very hard to buy with money, so you take the opportunity when available.
Higher level, Fukuyamas political order series does a great deep dive into these kinds of topics, really blew my mind, and made many archaic seeming political structures make far more intuitive sense to me afterwards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Political_Order
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Order_and_Political_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_military_servic...
I would go so far to say as commercial flight is dominated by very rich people who could afford to do the commercial ratings on their own, or middle/lower class people that became military pilots to pay for it.
Plenty of working airline pilots come from regular middle-class backgrounds and never served in the military. They take out student loans to pay for training, then work low-paying jobs as flight instructors or something to build up enough flight hours to get hired at a regional airline.
Those who go the ROTC route can totally get a fighter jet assignment if they want it. Once they get selected for a pilot slot, assignment to a particular airframe is primarily based on how they perform in the training pipeline.
Because many of these people see it as a fun hobby, they don't spend much time worrying about potentially being ordered to drop bombs on schools filled with children. It's rather unlikely that their government would order them to do so anyway, compare a list of countries being hit by Iran with a list of countries bombing Iran.
Anybody who ever went through arab countries with eyes opened saw the massive nepotism and corruption at all levels. Army/air force ain't immune to this, in contrary. Do you think ie some general or politician's first son would be treated and pushed up same as common folks?
That was a launched cruise missile from a ship, targeted by an LLM. Apparently the grounds USED to be a valid military target long ago (a decade? I'm not sure exactly) and now there's a school there.
Building an LLM is one thing but building one specifically to pick targets is another.
For me knowing that my actions may have contributed direcly to the death of anyone is not something I want to live with.
I don't think it's a known fact at this point.
What do you mean by "these countries"? What you lived in "these countries"? What do you know about 'these countries". It sounds like something someone who can't locate Africa on a globe or thinks "arab" is a nationality would say
MENA countries (excepting Israel here) are known to suffer from this significantly, and it is a big factor in their militaries historically underperforming.
It is a valid point to bring this up as possible cause or factor, no need to get all defensive about it.
Btw fighter pilot is extremely physically taxing. It's not for everyone. Any degree of motion sickness and you're out. Everyone joins the air force wanting to become a fighter pilot but only a small percentage can.
And my whole point was that it's often not a profession, but a hobby.
In western countries that's the case. In autocratic countries it is essential to keep control of the army by placing the equivalent of the royal family in charge.
Also, fighter pilots were historically considered as the successors for cavalry and manned by the nobility, in Arab countries this means the ruling elite
A pilot not trained well on visually IDing some of the most common military planes would be quite a training lapse.
Here's his sim (at least he first few min) of the situation a few days ago but facing SAMs and not F18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7XpVcUV_vQ
Sure, but not the weather conditions and visibility.
And "as accurate of a sim as it gets" isn't true either. War Thunder has much better missile physics.
The issue is that once they shot the heat seaking missile, they aren’t able to select a specific target the way they could with a radar guided missile, so the tool made a lot of sense for what the Kuwaitii pilot was actually doing to the mission planner who may not have realized the proximity to American fighter jets.
History buffs may remember that the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia was the catalyst that turned OBL into America's foe. He had offered his services to the King to defend KSA against Saddam Hussein (after Saddam swallowed Kuwait), but the King politely refused and speed dialled the USA instead. The rest is history.
only people flying in Kuwait are those with connections to the Emir and his people, and they're unambiguously Sunni
I'd be more concerned with the US just pissing off the Sunnis, stuff like
> In January 2026, the United States government suspended immigrant visas for citizens of Kuwait and 74 other countries due to the high dependency of Kuwaiti immigrants on American welfare benefits.[219] Kuwait is the only GCC country on the visa suspension list.[219]
This is such a joke I cant even imagine how you can formulate this thought...
- Exercise Marauder Shield 26.1 (Nov. 2025) "U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft assigned to the 391st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron takeoff during Exercise Marauder Shield in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Nov. 8, 2025. A key element of the exercise was the sharpening of combined fighter capabilities between the U.S. and Kuwait Air Forces. This included joint training exercises and hot-pit refueling operations."
- CENTCOM Bomber Task Force mission (July 2022)
"..During the BTF, two B-52H Stratofortresses, assigned to the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, conducted theater integration training and operations with a variety of U.S. Air Force, partner and ally aircraft, including F-15/18, RJ-135, E-3, KC-135/10/46, FGR-4, and A-330..."
"The bombers’ flight originated at Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford, England, and flew over the Eastern Mediterranean, Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea before departing the region. The mission included fighter escorts from the Royal Air Force and the Air Forces of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia...."
"...“Communication is critical,” said Wong, who also serves as the Deputy Director of Combat Operations, Combined Air Operations Center. “By enhancing lines of communication, we are able to establish a clear and direct line in real time amongst the Air Operations Centers of all nations participating..."
Well, the Kuwaitis seem pretty sharp? Three shootdowns is a lot in the modern era. The F-22 program only has two air to air kills in its whole history.
Do they? If they shot down 3 friendly aircraft that would be a catastrophically stupid mistake which would imply they are, in fact, not that sharp (or at least this specific unit and chain of command).
> The F-22 program only has two air to air kills in its whole history
A very poor comparison point given that the F-22 has had limited opportunities for engagement. And just a poor comparison overall.
If I'm skimming this page [1] well enough (find: "shot down"), there's only 6 F-15s that have been shot down, and only 4 or them were air-to-air. If it's so easy, should be more than one other incident, and that guy only got one.
The secondary thing here I've realized is that the missiles in question must not have been using active homing. If they were then the pilots of the US aircraft would have taken evasive action as soon as their radar warning receiver lit up.
This is covered in the article so it's weird to present it as an original thought.
Sorry, but it's totally funny that your nick is literally "Sidewinder".