Final Word from Tuesday, July 4, 2023
Interior Min. Vít Rakušan said near the end of Czech TV's OVM debate show 10 days ago that there's only one type of security and that a separate external and internal security in this unsafe world is an illusion. He has therefore agreed with Defense Min. Jana Černochová that part of his ministry's budget for next year will be included in the defense budget, if Nato concurs. This might be part of the militarization of Czech society that we wrote about two weeks ago, but it also puts the planned purchase of 24 F-35 fighters for up to $5.62bn into a different perspective. So far the assumption has been that these lean, mean killing machines would be used to defend against or possibly attack the main two global threats, Russia and China. But now Rakušan is indirectly suggesting that they might also serve a domestic purpose. So maybe that's why the defense ministry is planning to buy only 12 of the 2,000-lb dumb bomb and just 86 small-diameter bombs, together with its F-35s. These bombs wouldn't go very far in a fight against Russia or China, but they could certainly be enough to bring any domestic security threat into submission. [ Czech Republic eighty-six (86) GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bombs - Increment II (SDB-II) StormBreaker All-Up-Rounds (AUR) twelve (12) Mk-84 General Purpose 2,000-lb Bombs or BLU-109 2,000-lb Penetrator Bombs for the GBU-31 joint strike fighter supersonic ]
Glossary of difficult words
dumb bomb - gravity bomb; a bomb that falls because of gravity and is not guided to a target;
to concur - to be of the same opinion; to agree;
lean, mean killing machine - an expression meaning that someone or something is efficient and precise in killing or performing another task;
to go far - to be worth or to amount to much;
submission - the act of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.