Sounds perfectly reasonable to me

That’s where a lot of American nuclear assets are. Silos, mount cheyenne, etc

If you think it’s wrong to keep a cat inside then you shouldn’t have a cat. They’re an invasive species in most of the world and it’s unethical to put them outside regardless of what justifications you come up with

The main downside of any delayed blowback system compared to gas operated systems is that it doesn’t actually lock close, it merely slows the backwards movement of the bolt at the beginning of the cycle using mechanical advantage. This causes bulged cases and more difficult extraction with high pressure ammo. You also get higher bolt speeds with higher pressure, creating bolt bounce issues.

You can still run delayed blowback with rifle ammo using clever design (fluted chambers, anti-bounce mechanisms, etc) but gas operation is more sensible

Unfortunately, contrary to popular belief, military helicopters don’t actually run on kerosene or avgas

They run on snow-shovels of cash flung into the intakes as fast as you can manage

If we are talking realistically, star trackers in space are just good for orientation data, not position. Modern ring-laser gyros have low very drift rates. ICBM flight times are short.

Assuming the military cares to retrofit a modern IMU, I doubt a star tracker is the least bit necessary for a good navigational fix.

Perhaps we just need to generate a little excitement.

Gladiators worked nicely for the Romans, maybe we could generate similar hype with a reality show to choose the governor of each new province. I think “Love Island, Argentinian Governor Edition” would be a real hit.

Hard to argue we don’t have the appetite after spending our first 150 years conquering territory roughly double the size of the Roman Empire at its peak

Can you imagine the Italians running everything? Sure there’d be plenty of good pasta and wine worldwide but I doubt we’d stay productive with three-hour wine lubricated lunch breaks every day

I say the USA needs to have a proper go at an empire. People could serve in the legion (navy) for citizenship and everything

They collect a tithe of 10% of members’ income from the entire congregation. Most people accumulate less than 10% of their income as net worth annually

So yes, quite possibly they do.

Full power 45-70 is extremely punishing to shoot out of a lever action rifle much less a derringer

Starship Troopers