Anduril Selected for U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program

That's pretty much what Anduril does. "You don't have to use a Patriot missile for that!" etc.

But also found this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus

“ Upon the announcement of the first Nexus device, the Nexus One, the estate of science fiction author Philip K. Dick claimed that the Nexus One name capitalized on intellectual property from Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and that the choice of name was a direct reference to the Nexus-6 series of androids in the novel.”

Looks like there was a lawsuit, that was eventually settled out of court and we don’t know what was agreed.

Unless of course a new angle was provided that called into question said perspective. Which you have not done here.

Some things are quite morally clear.

But that is a moot question because there was no universe in which Ukraine keeps nuclear weapons. They didn't have control over the ones they inherited (KGB did), and while retrofitting them was possible... Ukraine after independence didn't have the money for anything, let alone reverse engineering nuclear weapons and maintaining them.

Also, while on the micro level it might make sense for a certain country to have nukes to protect itself from attacks, on the macro for the world it doesn't. The higher amounts of countries with nuclear weapons, the bigger the risk something goes wrong - a crazy dictator decides to do a murder-suicide pact, poor maintenance leads to radiation leaks, etc. etc.

I respect Iran's desire to acquire nuclear weapons to be on par with Israel and prevent the Americans and Saudis from invading them (reminder that high ranking American politicians and cabinet members have clearly and openly talked about war with Iran)... but it would be devastating to the region. Iran's regime isn't stable, has lots of enemies around (US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent the other Gulf monarchies), some of which don't hesitate at all to provoke and attack them. The risk of nukes flying if Iran has them is too great for the wider international community to accept it - which is why there was a deal with a carrot to get Iran to stop, which was working until the braindead Americans decided to kill it for no good reason. So now... nothing can be done to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons outside of an even more flagrant violation of Iran's sovereignty than what Israel has already done by assassinating top nuclear scientists and sabotaging their facilities.

The US isn't a benevolent force for good, it's pure old capitalistic greed and realpolitik. That lots of good has happened thanks to it is mostly accidental.

Imperial Germany, a nation of good people corrupted by colonial ambitions, draining the youth of Oxfordshire into the wasteland of the trenches.

It also better fits Tolkien’s personal experience and the pre Cold War publication of the Hobbit.

I suppose Ukraine’s also the modern conflict most similar to WW1 as well.

To put it more bluntly, Tolkein was British. He lived through WWII. What other country in the world can you think of that has, would or even can fight as the UK's "protector of freedom" in the way that the US has?

Amazingly, even in the case of the Ukraine war, which is right at the EU's border, it's America that's provided the most support. Even Korea has done more than many EU countries have.

I dunno, the U.S.' self image is pretty much Gondor, and I don't think the books lacked nuance about how much Gondor was/wasn't the 'good guys'.