300k airplanes in five years(construction-physics.com)
construction-physics.com
300k airplanes in five years
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-to-build-300000-airplanes-in
570 comments
https://www.csis.org/analysis/china-outpacing-us-defense-ind...
China is heavily investing in munitions and acquiring high-end weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than the United States. China is also the world’s largest shipbuilder and has a shipbuilding capacity that is roughly 230 times larger than the United States. One of China’s large shipyards, such as Jiangnan Shipyard, has more capacity than all U.S. shipyards combined.
"U.S. Defense Industrial Base Is Not Prepared for a Possible Conflict with China"
https://features.csis.org/preparing-the-US-industrial-base-t...
China is heavily investing in munitions and acquiring high-end weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than the United States. China is also the world’s largest shipbuilder and has a shipbuilding capacity that is roughly 230 times larger than the United States. One of China’s large shipyards, such as Jiangnan Shipyard, has more capacity than all U.S. shipyards combined.
"U.S. Defense Industrial Base Is Not Prepared for a Possible Conflict with China"
https://features.csis.org/preparing-the-US-industrial-base-t...
I don’t understand why the US voluntarily gave up its significant advantage in manufacturing. Is it just because it would be impossible to have an industrial base in a world where Asia exists and can produce everything that could be built in the US for 1/5 the cost? In every universe where the US dollar is significantly stronger than the next greatest probable superpower, will that next greatest probable superpower always be in a perfect position to exploit this disparity and become the de facto world leader in heavy industry?
If you can get an extra lambo in your garage, by firing all your factory employees, and move your manufacturing to China, well...what do you think will happen?
This is especially egregious, because the few folks that have enough ethics to not do that, get driven into bankruptcy, by the ones that do.
The general consumer market basically wants cheap. If they can get stuff that does what they want, for less, then they go that way. They aren't particular, as to the source.
The market for High Quality is actually pretty small. People that make good stuff, don't get rich. People that make lots of cheap crap, get very rich.
The only way to reverse this, would be to invoke protectionism (or have a war, which will do that, anyway). That isn't very popular, with this crowd.
This is especially egregious, because the few folks that have enough ethics to not do that, get driven into bankruptcy, by the ones that do.
The general consumer market basically wants cheap. If they can get stuff that does what they want, for less, then they go that way. They aren't particular, as to the source.
The market for High Quality is actually pretty small. People that make good stuff, don't get rich. People that make lots of cheap crap, get very rich.
The only way to reverse this, would be to invoke protectionism (or have a war, which will do that, anyway). That isn't very popular, with this crowd.
> That isn't very popular, with this crowd.
It’s not that popular with the masses either.
Sure, it can be very popular with the people whose specific industries are protected, and there’s many who like it in the abstract - but if you’re the party in power when everything gets more expensive as a consequence of protectionist policies a lot of people are going to be very unhappy with you.
It’s not that popular with the masses either.
Sure, it can be very popular with the people whose specific industries are protected, and there’s many who like it in the abstract - but if you’re the party in power when everything gets more expensive as a consequence of protectionist policies a lot of people are going to be very unhappy with you.
Yup. It also corrupts very easily.
Protectionism is expending resources to direct production to areas where you have weaker comparative advantage — it is, in other words consuming value to force your people to create less value.
There may be very specific cases where very carefully tailored uses of it are good for certain long-term interests or risk mitigation, but mostly it is waste — and extremely subject to corruption from those invested in inefficient industries.
There may be very specific cases where very carefully tailored uses of it are good for certain long-term interests or risk mitigation, but mostly it is waste — and extremely subject to corruption from those invested in inefficient industries.
> consuming value to force your people to create less value
That's the "spherical cow on a frictionless plane in a vacuum" of economics.
Protectionism is probably a good idea when the competitor is temporarily subsidizing various industries to build a permanent comparative advantage that can then be abused, either by being an effective monopoly, or by shaping your enemies to be logistically unprepared for war.
That's the "spherical cow on a frictionless plane in a vacuum" of economics.
Protectionism is probably a good idea when the competitor is temporarily subsidizing various industries to build a permanent comparative advantage that can then be abused, either by being an effective monopoly, or by shaping your enemies to be logistically unprepared for war.
Exactly right and love how you phrased it. War is also one of those areas where the concept of economic value falls apart.
I do totally agree with dragonwriter that it is vulnerable to corruption
I do totally agree with dragonwriter that it is vulnerable to corruption
Protectionism does almost nothing to prevent that comparative advantage from being built unless all other consuming countries in the market also add a tariff. And most of them will not. Using the WTO to coordinate a response is a much more fruitful way in such a situation (but the WTO has been neutered by Trump).
While you’re not wrong about people’s motivations, or the market’s sentiments, I do think this isn’t the right take on globalised industry. There’s no need to close US factories and move workers - it will happen naturally. For example, nobody closed US auto factories to move production to Japan - the Japanese out-competed the US on price and quality. The same is just starting to happen with electric cars now. Greed may have accelerated this transition, but it was inevitable.
Protectionism necessarily requires import fees for that reason. To offset the price difference you have to make foreign goods artificially more expensive.
Makes sense to be fair. People only think of personal quick gains over long term generational games as has been shown time and time again
>People only think of personal quick gains over long term generational games as has been shown time and time again
Nonsense. It has been shown for much longer and many more times that people have a capacity to act on the long-term. It might involve various social thought mechanisms like religion, moralism, and politics that prevent so-called progress, but evolution often favors societies who act on the long-term. This is a especially true in moments of sudden catastrophe. A classic example is Catholicism in the face of the plague.
Nonsense. It has been shown for much longer and many more times that people have a capacity to act on the long-term. It might involve various social thought mechanisms like religion, moralism, and politics that prevent so-called progress, but evolution often favors societies who act on the long-term. This is a especially true in moments of sudden catastrophe. A classic example is Catholicism in the face of the plague.
Oh sure, but the Catholic Church didn't have to answer to a bunch of analysts whose only skill is fast excel spreadsheeting.
> If you can get an extra lambo in your garage, by firing all your factory employees, and move your manufacturing to China, well...what do you think will happen?
I wonder what would happen to a Chinese CEO who pulled a stunt like that? I hear they send the next of kin the bill.
I wonder what would happen to a Chinese CEO who pulled a stunt like that? I hear they send the next of kin the bill.
> The only way to reverse this, would be to invoke protectionism (or have a war, which will do that, anyway). That isn't very popular, with this crowd.
Because we know that protectionism with people like those you explained at the top
> If you can get an extra lambo in your garage, by firing all your factory employees, and move your manufacturing to China, well...what do you think will happen?
does not guarantee better products/outcomes. Those who would use basically slave labor offshore for profits, will also do other nasty things for profits at home as well. Not a fan of dichotomy like these.
I want cheap Chinese electric cars here in the US.
Because we know that protectionism with people like those you explained at the top
> If you can get an extra lambo in your garage, by firing all your factory employees, and move your manufacturing to China, well...what do you think will happen?
does not guarantee better products/outcomes. Those who would use basically slave labor offshore for profits, will also do other nasty things for profits at home as well. Not a fan of dichotomy like these.
I want cheap Chinese electric cars here in the US.
> I want cheap Chinese electric cars here in the US.
Not sure I support that broad a statement.
Here in NY, we have had many instances of dangerous building fires, caused by cheap Chinese scooters, which are a favorite transportation mode for folks without means.
A number of these fires caused many families to lose their homes and meager possessions, because one tenant was charging crap batteries.
Not sure I support that broad a statement.
Here in NY, we have had many instances of dangerous building fires, caused by cheap Chinese scooters, which are a favorite transportation mode for folks without means.
A number of these fires caused many families to lose their homes and meager possessions, because one tenant was charging crap batteries.
Plenty of Teslas took fire while charging.
I kinda hate this "Chinese = crap" narrative, it's naive, it misses the forest for the trees.
Just because they are the biggest manufacturer in the world they also produce lots of crap, it's just statistically more probable that you gonna find lots of crap that's Chinese, but generalizing this over entire industries and all kind of products is just...naive.
It kinda reminds me of that documentary where a Chinese billionaire buys a plant in Ohio to make car glass and American workers looked like crap compared to their Chinese counterparts when it came to the craft, even though they did produce glass before already before the Chinese ownership.
It's the kind of narrative that people pushed on Russian army after their failures in Ukraine claiming huge incompetence and their incoming demise. Or when people were sure their economy was gonna collapse because this and that.
Just saying stuff doesn't make it true.
The longer we keep with those biases the more naive and vulnerable we'll keep being.
I kinda hate this "Chinese = crap" narrative, it's naive, it misses the forest for the trees.
Just because they are the biggest manufacturer in the world they also produce lots of crap, it's just statistically more probable that you gonna find lots of crap that's Chinese, but generalizing this over entire industries and all kind of products is just...naive.
It kinda reminds me of that documentary where a Chinese billionaire buys a plant in Ohio to make car glass and American workers looked like crap compared to their Chinese counterparts when it came to the craft, even though they did produce glass before already before the Chinese ownership.
It's the kind of narrative that people pushed on Russian army after their failures in Ukraine claiming huge incompetence and their incoming demise. Or when people were sure their economy was gonna collapse because this and that.
Just saying stuff doesn't make it true.
The longer we keep with those biases the more naive and vulnerable we'll keep being.
Quality control is a LOT lower in China than in the US, and that's even considering the US's bias towards industry in its legislation. This is why chinese electronics catch fire a lot more (than Japanese ones, for example, too).
There's a huge amout of corruption, and almost no regulation.
There's a huge amout of corruption, and almost no regulation.
If you pay for it, you get excellent QA in China, too.
It's a matter of demand, not capabilities.
It's a matter of demand, not capabilities.
This is definitely true. I have a friend that runs a corporation that does a significant amount of manufacturing in China. His company is known for extremely high Quality.
He has told me that he does need to hire a lot of folks to ride herd on production; more than in other places, though (he has had many places that run his production).
If he does that, he finds they do an excellent job.
He has told me that he does need to hire a lot of folks to ride herd on production; more than in other places, though (he has had many places that run his production).
If he does that, he finds they do an excellent job.
China had a steady supply of cheap skilled labor. Automation has made that less important than it used to be, but back then it was a decisive advantage. At least when combined with good enough quality and sufficient political stability.
One mistake the US did was switching from defined benefit pensions to individual retirement savings. When the stock market is something you hear about in the news, most people don't really care about it. But when you see it in your retirement account balance, it becomes relevant. If outsourcing to China is good for the stock market, you vote politicians who make it easier.
One mistake the US did was switching from defined benefit pensions to individual retirement savings. When the stock market is something you hear about in the news, most people don't really care about it. But when you see it in your retirement account balance, it becomes relevant. If outsourcing to China is good for the stock market, you vote politicians who make it easier.
> One mistake the US did was switching from defined benefit pensions to individual retirement savings.
Depending on how the pension system is setup, it could become an indefinite pyramid scheme. You end with countries like Canada (and many in places like Europe) constantly importing immigrant labor just to prop up the older generations' retirement. It kicks the ball down the road.
Depending on how the pension system is setup, it could become an indefinite pyramid scheme. You end with countries like Canada (and many in places like Europe) constantly importing immigrant labor just to prop up the older generations' retirement. It kicks the ball down the road.
This happens in any pension system you design. If you invest your retirement savings in stocks, you're not magically wealthy: you're just finding another mechanism to have younger workers pay for older retirees. And if the stocks you buy are heavily invested in foreign countries with authoritarian governments and low birth rates, you're trading one problem for different ones.
It is not the pension system per se, but the national debt that is the pyramid scheme requiring a growing population.
No idea what you are talking about. Europe has a wide variety of different pension systems, many are based on stock market investments. Very few countries in Europe takes in significant numbers of migrants, generally Europe is very anti-immigrant.
> Very few countries in Europe takes in significant numbers of migrants
Yes, but that's the biggest EU countries and they take a lot of migrants. Wikipedia says 18% of Germany population are first-generation immigrants. In comparison, in US it's only 14%. For the whole EU the number is around 11%.
> generally Europe is very anti-immigrant.
From what I know about "how to legally immigrate to US" vs "how to legally immigrate to Europe", the latter is much easier. The public sentiment might be there, but the laws say the other way.
Yes, but that's the biggest EU countries and they take a lot of migrants. Wikipedia says 18% of Germany population are first-generation immigrants. In comparison, in US it's only 14%. For the whole EU the number is around 11%.
> generally Europe is very anti-immigrant.
From what I know about "how to legally immigrate to US" vs "how to legally immigrate to Europe", the latter is much easier. The public sentiment might be there, but the laws say the other way.
> From what I know about "how to legally immigrate to US" vs "how to legally immigrate to Europe", the latter is much easier.
I don't know what your experience is, but immigrating legally to the EU is not easy unless you're from a rich country like the US.
I don't know what your experience is, but immigrating legally to the EU is not easy unless you're from a rich country like the US.
Never said it is easy, it's just much easier than immigrating to the US.
Legally immigrating to the US (getting a residence permit) is either a matter of luck (lotteries), extraordinary skills, very long waiting lists, or a combination of these.
On the contrary, immigrating to the EU is "just" finding a job on the local market and applying for some paperwork. And the EU does not discriminate you on the basis of the country where you've been born.
Legally immigrating to the US (getting a residence permit) is either a matter of luck (lotteries), extraordinary skills, very long waiting lists, or a combination of these.
On the contrary, immigrating to the EU is "just" finding a job on the local market and applying for some paperwork. And the EU does not discriminate you on the basis of the country where you've been born.
You make it sound like that's a bad thing. If you can get a job, hold it, and obey the law, why would it be important where you have been born?
I am curious which part of their comment makes it sound bad. It seems neutral to positive to me.
Interesting, thanks for asking. To me the thread's context was that some European countries are "importing" migrants to bolster their pension schemes and that this is a bad thing (why?) An argument about immigration ensued and those often rub me the wrong way, being an immigrant and stuff. The part of "the public sentiment [for stricter immigration controls] is there, but the laws say the other way" is triggering me, too, because it alludes to some kind of "silent majority" which around these parts (ie. Germany) is usually brought up by loud minorities from the far right. I'm not denying that xenophobia is on the rise (here and everywhere) but it is not the sentiment of "the public". Combined with a description that seemed to lament the apparent lack of stricter controls led me to question why it would be important where you are born if you obey the law. Thinking of that, why would it be important if you don't?
Anyhow, revisiting the thread I can see that the post I answered to could be meant differently. I thank you for that and would like to advance my apologies to the OP in that case.
Anyhow, revisiting the thread I can see that the post I answered to could be meant differently. I thank you for that and would like to advance my apologies to the OP in that case.
But immigrating to the US is difficult even if you're from a rich country like one in the EU.
> But immigrating to the US is difficult even if you're from a rich country like one in the EU.
If you are thinking like my Portuguese friend complaining about how "hard" it was because it took six months to immigrate to the US, you have no idea how hard it is for other people to come to the US legally.
If you are thinking like my Portuguese friend complaining about how "hard" it was because it took six months to immigrate to the US, you have no idea how hard it is for other people to come to the US legally.
No, I'm talking about being completely unable to immigrate because they can't find an employer to sponsor them. I'm talking about failing the H1B lottery for years and having to leave.
I'm not talking about filing paperwork taking a long time.
I agree it's harder if you're not from a developed country, but it's hard for a lot of people across the board.
I'm not talking about filing paperwork taking a long time.
I agree it's harder if you're not from a developed country, but it's hard for a lot of people across the board.
What are the numbers if you compare Germany to California, including people moving in from other states of the US?
Remember that EU has a free flow of work force, so I expect lots of those 18% will come from Netherlands or France.
In Sweden at least, immigration was always biggest from neighboring countries (e.g. Finland/Norway)
Remember that EU has a free flow of work force, so I expect lots of those 18% will come from Netherlands or France.
In Sweden at least, immigration was always biggest from neighboring countries (e.g. Finland/Norway)
In Germany when one talks about “migration background” one is not talking about fellow EU citizens, nor about immigrants from the US, Australia, etc.
But if you take the broader, official definition then you get something like 30% apparently:
https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situ...
But if you take the broader, official definition then you get something like 30% apparently:
https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situ...
[deleted]
> Remember that EU has a free flow of work force, so I expect lots of those 18% will come from Netherlands or France.
What's the point for the native citizen of Netherlands or France in moving to Germany? The quality of life and salaries are similar, but the culture context is just so different between these countries. Completely different languages, different customs, etc. The numbers surely confirm that - the France is in the bottom of the list, and Netherlands are not even included. [1]
Anyway, out of ~14 million foreigners in Germany only 5 million are from other EU states, and most of them (~3 million) are from Eastern European countries (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary).
> In Sweden at least, immigration was always biggest from neighboring countries (e.g. Finland/Norway)
There are less cultural differences between Sweden, Finland and Norway. At least they have more or less similar languages (ok, Finnish is different, but Sweden is also an official language in Finland).
1. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Popula...
What's the point for the native citizen of Netherlands or France in moving to Germany? The quality of life and salaries are similar, but the culture context is just so different between these countries. Completely different languages, different customs, etc. The numbers surely confirm that - the France is in the bottom of the list, and Netherlands are not even included. [1]
Anyway, out of ~14 million foreigners in Germany only 5 million are from other EU states, and most of them (~3 million) are from Eastern European countries (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary).
> In Sweden at least, immigration was always biggest from neighboring countries (e.g. Finland/Norway)
There are less cultural differences between Sweden, Finland and Norway. At least they have more or less similar languages (ok, Finnish is different, but Sweden is also an official language in Finland).
1. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Popula...
Right. It also highlights the extreme situation we have with Russias brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine (oustide EU sofar) is number two on the list afger Turkey and also Russia is pretty far up.
Ukraine (oustide EU sofar) is number two on the list afger Turkey and also Russia is pretty far up.
Is that maybe including immigrants from other EU countries? If so then that's a very misleading number to compare to the US's.
Out of ~14 million foreigners in Germany only 5 million are from other EU states, and most of them (~3 million) are from Eastern European countries (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary). [1]
Then, why is it misleading to compare Polish and Romanian immigrants to Germany with Mexican immigrants to US?
1. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Popula...
Then, why is it misleading to compare Polish and Romanian immigrants to Germany with Mexican immigrants to US?
1. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Popula...
Because California probably has lots of immigrants from other US states too, and they should be counted too to make the numbers comparable.
> Wikipedia says 18% of Germany population are first-generation immigrants.
Are they counting EU citizens living in Germany?
Are they counting EU citizens living in Germany?
Europe isn't importing immigrants to prop up the pensions…
Portuguese here, yes we most definitely are. It’s been of the arguments to support immigration by the previous government since they usually are always net contributors to Segurança Social (Social Security).
It's not because a politician say something that it's true, you should know better ;).
The reason why governments promote immigration is because they want to increase the workforce (and in the case of Portugal, replace all the emigrants from Portugal). As the population is aging, if you want to keep cheap labor you need new arms to work, no matter who pays for the pensions.
The reason why governments promote immigration is because they want to increase the workforce (and in the case of Portugal, replace all the emigrants from Portugal). As the population is aging, if you want to keep cheap labor you need new arms to work, no matter who pays for the pensions.
Workers pay for pensions. What distinction are you trying to make?
If you have pension funds that invest on the global financial market, then pensions are being paid by workers worldwide through the companies profits. So the amount of money you get for pension can remain or even increase even if your national population collapses.
But the supply of workers needed to provide the basic goods your aging population needs (including healthcare) shrinks and if you don't accept immigrants you end up with labor shortage (Or you raise the salaries for these jobs, but then the rest of your economy disappears because there's no one working there anymore).
But the supply of workers needed to provide the basic goods your aging population needs (including healthcare) shrinks and if you don't accept immigrants you end up with labor shortage (Or you raise the salaries for these jobs, but then the rest of your economy disappears because there's no one working there anymore).
I am sure Merkel accepted the Arab Spring refugees out of the goodness of her heart.
She desperately wanted to avoid "bad scenes" at German borders.
IDK if the book of journalist Robin Alexander "Die Getriebenen" (the driven ones, meaning top German politicians driven by events) was ever translated to English, but that guy had daily access to the Chancellory and describes the situation to a T.
Merkel built her career on media appeasement and an illusion that Germany is in such good hands that nothing untoward can happen to it. It sort-of worked until 2015, when the outside world could not be kept at bay anymore.
IDK if the book of journalist Robin Alexander "Die Getriebenen" (the driven ones, meaning top German politicians driven by events) was ever translated to English, but that guy had daily access to the Chancellory and describes the situation to a T.
Merkel built her career on media appeasement and an illusion that Germany is in such good hands that nothing untoward can happen to it. It sort-of worked until 2015, when the outside world could not be kept at bay anymore.
Angela Merkel built her career in the GDR under Soviet rule, in case this fact or the eviction of hundreds of thousands of families from their homes in Germany to house those immigrants is of interest to you.
I think she actually did, that and her Christian beliefs. Not all of politics is cynical, sometimes politicians are selfish and unreasonable and act on their principles. There were more fiscally prudent ways for Germany to increase its population for various political and economic ends if Merkel so chose to use them.
Even if the will to have younger blood to fuel the economy is a driver for such a move, it has nothing to do with propping up pensions: in an aging population you'll need people working in your country if you want to keep things running, no matter how your pensions are being paid…
How do you know?
Yes it is.
I think it's much better that ordinary people actually are active participants in how money is made and value is created, and have some control of their own destinies, even if that pushes some burden onto the individual.
The alternative is having the worldview that money is something that shows up on your bank account on the first days of the month.
The alternative is having the worldview that money is something that shows up on your bank account on the first days of the month.
> The alternative is having the worldview that money is something that shows up on your bank account on the first days of the month.
I think that is how normal people (is the term "unsophisticated investors" or does that mean something importantly different?) view sock market investments — sure, it says your investment may go down as well as up, but how many normal people doing investments act like that's true?
I think that is how normal people (is the term "unsophisticated investors" or does that mean something importantly different?) view sock market investments — sure, it says your investment may go down as well as up, but how many normal people doing investments act like that's true?
If we believed that was true, we wouldn't invest. At retirement, a 100% chance of $X is worth much more than a 50% chance of $2X and a 50% chance of $0.
The average person has a worse understanding of investments than does ChatGPT, including with regard to logical consistency and following the implications of what they say they believe. This is also why so many treat lotteries and pyramid schemes as "good investments".
Even one step up from that, my dad's advice to me was: "Invest in Lloyds bank, if they go under we have bigger problems". We had bigger problems.
(To riff off what some ancient dead Greek philosopher said, the only reason I can meaningfully regard myself as better informed than most, is that I am aware of how little I know).
Even one step up from that, my dad's advice to me was: "Invest in Lloyds bank, if they go under we have bigger problems". We had bigger problems.
(To riff off what some ancient dead Greek philosopher said, the only reason I can meaningfully regard myself as better informed than most, is that I am aware of how little I know).
Chinese cheap labor set a Japanese automation back by a couple of decades. Coming into the 90s, Japan was pushing more and more automation as a way to deal with their declining workforce, then China fully opened up in the late 90s and that was history.
For the longest time Chinese made Toyotas were of much lower quality than Japanese ones, simply due to precision robots being used in Japan for work that was being done manually in Chinese factories. Now that China made is also hitting a demographic cliff, one thinks that maybe again automation will take hold…or maybe Africa and India will develop next.
For the longest time Chinese made Toyotas were of much lower quality than Japanese ones, simply due to precision robots being used in Japan for work that was being done manually in Chinese factories. Now that China made is also hitting a demographic cliff, one thinks that maybe again automation will take hold…or maybe Africa and India will develop next.
Defined benefit pensions themselves are set to implode once population growth stops - they are a Ponzi scheme that will break down within a hundred years resulting in at least a reduction in benefits.
Under-funded defined benefit pensions may be a Ponzi scheme. But properly funded (X% of salary per month, calculated to cover future costs) defined benefit pensions are significantly cheaper for a given level of benefits, because they only pay out only until the beneficiaries die. Employee owned accounts (IRAs, 503Bs) are passed on to the next generation. Good for the kids, but not for the parents or the company.
Don't see how it can "implode" -- the pensions would just get smaller.
Similar thing happened e.g. after fall of USSR -- elderly people simply became poorer with way less buying power they expected.
Similar thing happened e.g. after fall of USSR -- elderly people simply became poorer with way less buying power they expected.
> Don't see how it can "implode" -- the pensions would just get smaller.
Two problems with this:
First, it will get small enough that you won't have a retirement and will work till you die.
Second, reducing pensions tends to be quite unpopular, and when chasing profits for the current quarter, CFO's don't care about the unsustainability of pensions decades down the road. By the time they have to deal with it, it's too late.
Oregon still has a defined benefits pension for its workers, and the problem is here and now. Small towns cannot afford to hire more firefighters, police, etc as their population grows because more and more of the money they have is going into paying out the defined pensions. They keep getting around this problem by taking out more loans to sustain those pensions. Despite the problem being now, they cannot politically reduce benefits for new hires.
Two problems with this:
First, it will get small enough that you won't have a retirement and will work till you die.
Second, reducing pensions tends to be quite unpopular, and when chasing profits for the current quarter, CFO's don't care about the unsustainability of pensions decades down the road. By the time they have to deal with it, it's too late.
Oregon still has a defined benefits pension for its workers, and the problem is here and now. Small towns cannot afford to hire more firefighters, police, etc as their population grows because more and more of the money they have is going into paying out the defined pensions. They keep getting around this problem by taking out more loans to sustain those pensions. Despite the problem being now, they cannot politically reduce benefits for new hires.
> Don't see how it can "implode" -- the pensions would just get smaller.
You are describing an implosion - something getting smaller.
You are describing an implosion - something getting smaller.
That's "decrease". Implosion is a rapid catastrophic crush, like that Titan submersible.
Defined benefit and defined contribution plans both have access to the same government bonds and private markets. If a 401k can fund a retirement, so can a pension fund. Likewise, if broad changes to the economy cause a reduction in pension benefits, those changes will also result in reduced benefits for 401k owners.
Have you ever heard about the Jones Act? The US tried to specifically keep shipmaking capabilities, but implementing such protectionism arguably backfired. The point is, what policies would you have implemented to keep that manufacturing capacity?
Financialization is eating the rest of the economy. That is the beast that must be slain if we wish to survive. Since that is not going to happen I think it is wise to instead prepare for the worst.
The question is, how would you do that preparation?
Some countries will fair better than others, so perhaps move to a country that maintains cordial relationships with both China and the US. I'm preparing by learning how to design and make things so I can do my own manufacturing in-house to minimize dependency on supply lines that could be disrupted. Manufacturing technology is has improved in leaps and bounds. It's much easier that it used to be. And I can do all this from a self sufficient homestead deep in the forest.
> Some countries will fair better than others, so perhaps move to a country that maintains cordial relationships with both China and the US.
I moved to Singapore a while ago. Not for those reasons, but being on good terms with almost anyone certainly is a nice bonus.
Though my question was rather, what policies would a country want to adopt?
> Manufacturing technology is has improved in leaps and bounds. It's much easier that it used to be. And I can do all this from a self sufficient homestead deep in the forest.
Yes, but that's essentially just a hobby or at most craft production. So that is neither competitive as mass production in peace time, nor of much use for mass production in wartime.
(It definitely sounds like a great hobby, though!)
I moved to Singapore a while ago. Not for those reasons, but being on good terms with almost anyone certainly is a nice bonus.
Though my question was rather, what policies would a country want to adopt?
> Manufacturing technology is has improved in leaps and bounds. It's much easier that it used to be. And I can do all this from a self sufficient homestead deep in the forest.
Yes, but that's essentially just a hobby or at most craft production. So that is neither competitive as mass production in peace time, nor of much use for mass production in wartime.
(It definitely sounds like a great hobby, though!)
Being on nice terms is a policy. One way is by having a defensive oriented army and not getting involved in conflicts. Big chunks of the world already do this.
While I am treating it as a hobby I do have a garage full of CNCs, 3D printers, laser cutters, a pretty complete machine shop and the ability to do some foundry work. I am not expecting a complete collapse of society, mainly the collapse of the middle class as gradually the things they need get more expensive and they earn less. Being able to make stuff myself is already saving me money - you’d be surprised that for many of the bespoke things I need it is far cheaper to make it myself than send it out to a job shop. The idea is to be able to make replacement parts to contribute to the success of my local community so that it’s in their interest to shield me from whatever is going on beyond my gates.
While I am treating it as a hobby I do have a garage full of CNCs, 3D printers, laser cutters, a pretty complete machine shop and the ability to do some foundry work. I am not expecting a complete collapse of society, mainly the collapse of the middle class as gradually the things they need get more expensive and they earn less. Being able to make stuff myself is already saving me money - you’d be surprised that for many of the bespoke things I need it is far cheaper to make it myself than send it out to a job shop. The idea is to be able to make replacement parts to contribute to the success of my local community so that it’s in their interest to shield me from whatever is going on beyond my gates.
A mostly self-sufficient homestead isn't a hobby, it's a way of life.
And the user you're replying to is advocating for that way of life because they are predicting a severe downfall in the quality of life for those who stay in the global system.
I have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to be right.
And the user you're replying to is advocating for that way of life because they are predicting a severe downfall in the quality of life for those who stay in the global system.
I have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to be right.
> I have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to be right.
Over what time horizon? The market consensus is definitely not giving this a big probability any time soon.
Over what time horizon? The market consensus is definitely not giving this a big probability any time soon.
I'm skeptical that market consensus (whatever that really means anyways) is good at predicting events like ecological collapse and deranged authoritarians launching senseless wars of aggression.
> [...] market consensus (whatever that really means anyways) [...]
If we had proper prediction markets for arbitrary events, I would just directly talk about what those prices are. In the real world, we have to look at the prices of existing financial instruments and see which of these can be used as proxies for the events we are interested in.
For some events that fairly easy: if Russian government bonds trade at high prices in 2021, it's unlikely that Russia's dictator will start a senseless war of aggression soon. (In reality, the price of Russia's bonds went down in the runup to the war.)
For other events you have to be more clever: if you want to get a sense of the market estimate for the probability that an asteroid impact (or similar) will erase all life on earth, you can't just look at the price of a straightforward bet that pays out one dollar, if the asteroid hits: most of us would be dead, and the dollar would likely be worthless.
However you can create a bet that has the right structure: Alice gives Bob 100 dollar now, and in five years, Bob gives Alice 500 dollars (but obviously only if the asteroid hasn't killed Alice and Bob). The market price of such a contract can tell you something about the market consensus estimate of a collapse.
My argument wouldn't be that the market consensus is particularly good at prediction, just that it's better than any other prediction mechanism we have; because it can and will incorporate those other prediction mechanisms, and people have a financial incentive to do so.
Btw, why do you think markets would be particularly bad at forecasting ecological collapse? Is there any ecology you are particularly worried about?
If we had proper prediction markets for arbitrary events, I would just directly talk about what those prices are. In the real world, we have to look at the prices of existing financial instruments and see which of these can be used as proxies for the events we are interested in.
For some events that fairly easy: if Russian government bonds trade at high prices in 2021, it's unlikely that Russia's dictator will start a senseless war of aggression soon. (In reality, the price of Russia's bonds went down in the runup to the war.)
For other events you have to be more clever: if you want to get a sense of the market estimate for the probability that an asteroid impact (or similar) will erase all life on earth, you can't just look at the price of a straightforward bet that pays out one dollar, if the asteroid hits: most of us would be dead, and the dollar would likely be worthless.
However you can create a bet that has the right structure: Alice gives Bob 100 dollar now, and in five years, Bob gives Alice 500 dollars (but obviously only if the asteroid hasn't killed Alice and Bob). The market price of such a contract can tell you something about the market consensus estimate of a collapse.
My argument wouldn't be that the market consensus is particularly good at prediction, just that it's better than any other prediction mechanism we have; because it can and will incorporate those other prediction mechanisms, and people have a financial incentive to do so.
Btw, why do you think markets would be particularly bad at forecasting ecological collapse? Is there any ecology you are particularly worried about?
I don’t doubt the danger, but I still feel safer in a city with people to trade with than going full Walden
You can still trade with people when living outside of a city. I don’t expect complete civilizational collapse, there will still be roads and internet, I just like living remote.
If we need to grow our own food, gasoline is a problem for most American ideas of remote homesteading.
> [...] I just like living remote.
That's good, and enough justification for your lifestyle. No need to come up with stories of imminent global collapse (unless that kind of roleplay enhances your enjoyment of your lifestyle, I guess?)
That's good, and enough justification for your lifestyle. No need to come up with stories of imminent global collapse (unless that kind of roleplay enhances your enjoyment of your lifestyle, I guess?)
Bring back something like Bretton Woods. When it ended in the 70s and the dollar was no longer tethered to anything physical, is when the financial system started eating up more and more of the economy. Using the financial system as the middleman for money creation (as opposed to e.g. directly depositing helicopter money into people's accounts, or having a non-inflationary currency) necessarily entailed a continuous transfer of wealth from main street to wall street.
Haha, Bretton Woods wasn't magical. The dollar had long been unmoored in practice, that's why the Bretton Woods agreement collapsed.
So if you see any trends that only show up after Bretton Woods was _formally_ abandoned, then those trends can't have been kicked off by the unmooring.
What trends are you worried about anyway?
So if you see any trends that only show up after Bretton Woods was _formally_ abandoned, then those trends can't have been kicked off by the unmooring.
What trends are you worried about anyway?
Probably a policy that directs funds, every year, to building ships and other critical things. Possibly to state owned construction conglomerates. Essentially what already happens with Boeing, Lockheed etc for military aircraft.
> Essentially what already happens with Boeing
You want to subsidize a failing company?
The deeper problem is that, while the war isn't happening, the war products are not critical. It doesn't matter whether they work or are delivered. Even the medium scale wars the US did maintain over the past couple of decades to keep the machine going showed that various areas were just fleecing them for inadequate products or regular grift (like the vanishing Afghan government). Much of the Pacific fleet's maintenance budget was being stolen by one guy named "Fat Leonard". This sort of thing doesn't go away until the war is actually critical rather than something you can escape by turning off the news.
You want to subsidize a failing company?
The deeper problem is that, while the war isn't happening, the war products are not critical. It doesn't matter whether they work or are delivered. Even the medium scale wars the US did maintain over the past couple of decades to keep the machine going showed that various areas were just fleecing them for inadequate products or regular grift (like the vanishing Afghan government). Much of the Pacific fleet's maintenance budget was being stolen by one guy named "Fat Leonard". This sort of thing doesn't go away until the war is actually critical rather than something you can escape by turning off the news.
The US Navy builds a lot of ships and submarines in the US.
I think the US underestimated the capacity of the Chinese to grow this much this fast. To give you an example, India in 1960 had double the gdp per capita of that of China. China now has x5 the per capita of India. That's 10 times more growth than India.
Wall St. read “the End of History” and assumed China would be more invested in friendly relations with their nearest neighbors, so to save costs they punished any western company that didn’t outsource. (Also the politicians weren’t smart enough to stop this.)
I.e. greed will be the downfall.
I.e. greed will be the downfall.
It’s very profitable having someone else make it for 1/5th the cost, and as long as it isn’t literally artillery and stuff, why not?
Or are you saying people wouldn’t do something short sighted if it made them super rich in the meantime?
Or are you saying people wouldn’t do something short sighted if it made them super rich in the meantime?
Turns out that manufacturing toys, consumer electronics, semiconductors, etc. is very important for future wars that use cheap drones instead of $2,000 155mm artillery shells.
It's not clear that we predicted that shift, so it's a good reason to maintain some manufacturing capability in pretty much all areas, comparative advantage be damned.
It's not clear that we predicted that shift, so it's a good reason to maintain some manufacturing capability in pretty much all areas, comparative advantage be damned.
Because capitalism has weaknesses and this is one of them. Markets will drift towards efficiency without considering externalities. Markets will not drift towards strategic manufacturing capacity at a higher cost per unit produced without government intervention (subsidies, tariffs.)
So corporations and consumers outsourced because quantity at price beat quality and strategic concerns.
So corporations and consumers outsourced because quantity at price beat quality and strategic concerns.
> Markets will drift towards efficiency without considering externalities. Markets will not drift towards strategic manufacturing capacity at a higher cost per unit produced without government intervention (subsidies, tariffs.)
Well, and why would we expect them to take that into account?
Btw, there are good and (mostly) bad ways to do these interventions. Tariffs are especially bad.
A lot of the discussion of these measures also treats all foreigners the same. Eg in practice a chip being produced in eg Canada is virtually as good for national security as one produced in the US. But acts like the 'CHIPS and Science Act' don't see it that way.
Well, and why would we expect them to take that into account?
Btw, there are good and (mostly) bad ways to do these interventions. Tariffs are especially bad.
A lot of the discussion of these measures also treats all foreigners the same. Eg in practice a chip being produced in eg Canada is virtually as good for national security as one produced in the US. But acts like the 'CHIPS and Science Act' don't see it that way.
Yes, tariffs are especially bad if you want to get paid big bucks for the genius business plan of overseeing labor and environmental arbitrage.
The US industrialized itself with tariffs and deindustrialized itself by removing them.
The US industrialized itself with tariffs and deindustrialized itself by removing them.
If restrictions to trade are so great, why do nations inevitably try to blockade each others ports in a war? Shouldn't that just help the other guy's economy prosper?
If a massage is so great, why not crush your torso in a hydraulic press? Shouldn't that just be a better massage?
I interpret your quip as saying that you approve of carefully measured and dosed protectionism?
What we have is more corporatism than capitalism - the markets are busy working with governments and setting up rackets to extract monopolistic rents. I don't have much experience with China but from my vantage point it does appear that there is quite a lot of competition between companies that does not seem to exist in the US to the same extent.
That's the result of capitalism, though. What else would the markets do? A corporation would be extremely stupid not to do these things. You can't have one without the other. And if the government was somehow incorruptible, as long as there was capitalism, corporations would still do their best to corrupt it.
Large governments increase the agency effect and incentive for corruption. Many smaller governments operating as a federation decrease both of these. It gets to a point where it isn’t worth the effort or risk to try to corrupt the government because you would have to bribe too many people and the payoff is too low.
Uhm. Monopolism is the ultimate fate of unrestricted capitalism in established markets.
A claim made by socialist 200 years ago and yet it hasn't actually happened. And the minor amount of 'anti-monopoly' action taken by governments is hard to credit for that.
The reality is that a monopoly is incredibly hard to sustain without government. And even in the cases where something close to it can be created, they can seldomly really push up the price as much as they think.
Historically its governments creating the monopolies most of the time.
The reality is that a monopoly is incredibly hard to sustain without government. And even in the cases where something close to it can be created, they can seldomly really push up the price as much as they think.
Historically its governments creating the monopolies most of the time.
> A claim made by socialist 200 years ago and yet it hasn't actually happened.
It kinda did. Large stagnant industries tend to collapse into monopolies. However, this was masked either by new more nimble companies pushing out the incumbents by utilizing newer technologies, or by industries fading away entirely.
It kinda did. Large stagnant industries tend to collapse into monopolies. However, this was masked either by new more nimble companies pushing out the incumbents by utilizing newer technologies, or by industries fading away entirely.
So it did but it actually didn't because of literally all the reasons people said it wouldn't. Sure if you remove new competition and technology then its more likely to happen.
Defining monopoly is pretty hard in the first place. Only Will Smith can play Will Smith. Or is he in a market against all black actors? Or all actors? Or is it he also competing against the NBA/NFL?
If a single company exist to provide some service in a small town, is that company a monopoly.
If a company dominates a market for a decade+, is that a monopoly? There is a question of time.
One can answers these question different ways. And even if they are monopoly, sometimes that is not a actually a problem.
There are certainty some cases where some monopoly exist and are harmful. Mostly those are created by governments. However one can certainty have harmful situation in a relatively free market as well.
But I think the argument that there was ever a case to be made that the Marxist idea of all companies merging in a single mega cooperation has never even been remotely true. And you have industries that are reasonably unregulated (in terms of market entry) and still have lots of competition.
So the facts are 100% for sure much more complex then Marx and those that claim 'Capitalism always leads to centralization' believe. Or at least if it does it operates at timescales that makes it unclear that we should act on their recommendations.
Often Standard Oil is the best example people can come up with and they are not even remotely close to taking over much outside of their specialty.
Of course the whole discussion gets even more complex once multiple government (and cultures, and geographies, and climates and so on) are involved and we aren't taking about a single unified market.
Defining monopoly is pretty hard in the first place. Only Will Smith can play Will Smith. Or is he in a market against all black actors? Or all actors? Or is it he also competing against the NBA/NFL?
If a single company exist to provide some service in a small town, is that company a monopoly.
If a company dominates a market for a decade+, is that a monopoly? There is a question of time.
One can answers these question different ways. And even if they are monopoly, sometimes that is not a actually a problem.
There are certainty some cases where some monopoly exist and are harmful. Mostly those are created by governments. However one can certainty have harmful situation in a relatively free market as well.
But I think the argument that there was ever a case to be made that the Marxist idea of all companies merging in a single mega cooperation has never even been remotely true. And you have industries that are reasonably unregulated (in terms of market entry) and still have lots of competition.
So the facts are 100% for sure much more complex then Marx and those that claim 'Capitalism always leads to centralization' believe. Or at least if it does it operates at timescales that makes it unclear that we should act on their recommendations.
Often Standard Oil is the best example people can come up with and they are not even remotely close to taking over much outside of their specialty.
Of course the whole discussion gets even more complex once multiple government (and cultures, and geographies, and climates and so on) are involved and we aren't taking about a single unified market.
"Markets will drift towards efficiency"
Isn't this actually one of the benefits of capitalism ?
Either you let capitalism allocate capital or you let the government -which makes you a communist.
If by benefit you mean existential risk, then yes. A big benefit. Although in the end, these kinds of markets might drift into oblivion as well, by virtue of being conquered by stronger states. So in that sense, it will all sort itself out. You may get slain by by communists, but at least you're not a communist yourself. So there's that.
Selling the industrial plant of the United States to Communist China is truly one of the moves of all time.
It was supposed to turn the Chinese into capitalists, and hence into potential allies. They're not communists any more, that's for sure, of course, they're not Western "liberal-democrats", either, which is why the West is in this whole conundrum.
> Isn't this actually one of the benefits of capitalism ?
Is it a benefit if that efficiency turns your industrialized economy into a financialized economy that can't manufacture enough bullets to fight a war that you start?
Is it a benefit if that efficiency turns your industrialized economy into a financialized economy that can't manufacture enough bullets to fight a war that you start?
Yes it is a benefit of capitalism. But capitalism isn't perfect if you are in a long term strategic battle.
That is why states that created capitalism like Dutch and British always had a strong comportment of fiscal-military state where the government made sure that they could defend their country and their trade.
The problem is that if somebody much larger then you comes along, this gets increasingly difficult. Specially if they are part of the same world and market as you. As Britain learned with the rise of Germany and far more so the US.
The US basically invited China, because they were concerned about the Soviets. This was smart in a struggle with the soviets. But unfortunately China was the much larger strategic danger all along.
The good thing is, that if China continues on along the same lines, the US will continue to do pretty well in a China dominated world. Just as Britain do in a US one. And as the Dutch did in a British one.
The question is, if China will behave the same or not in the long term given that they are not democratic and not even slightly germanic.
That is why states that created capitalism like Dutch and British always had a strong comportment of fiscal-military state where the government made sure that they could defend their country and their trade.
The problem is that if somebody much larger then you comes along, this gets increasingly difficult. Specially if they are part of the same world and market as you. As Britain learned with the rise of Germany and far more so the US.
The US basically invited China, because they were concerned about the Soviets. This was smart in a struggle with the soviets. But unfortunately China was the much larger strategic danger all along.
The good thing is, that if China continues on along the same lines, the US will continue to do pretty well in a China dominated world. Just as Britain do in a US one. And as the Dutch did in a British one.
The question is, if China will behave the same or not in the long term given that they are not democratic and not even slightly germanic.
Do they though?
Imo markets tend to have 2 trajectories. Either the market leader builds a moat that precludes competition (often through semi-illegal means).
Or the companies engange in fierce competition and the big players will either outspend or outproduce or straight up buy their competitors which tends to result in either monopolies or oligopolies with barely any competition.
This is when the enshittification begins.
Imo markets tend to have 2 trajectories. Either the market leader builds a moat that precludes competition (often through semi-illegal means).
Or the companies engange in fierce competition and the big players will either outspend or outproduce or straight up buy their competitors which tends to result in either monopolies or oligopolies with barely any competition.
This is when the enshittification begins.
Exactly. This is why the European single market is so regulated. Not because it is a socialist market, quite the opposite. It wants to save capitalism both from itself and from the protectionism of its states. The European project is a deeply capitalist project.
Capitalism and corporatism is not the same. Corporatism is a bit socialist in it's essence.
In classical capitalism, there aren't two or three monopolistic players that dominate each industry, there are thousands of companies competing with each other. And that competition brings costs down, so no outsourcing is needed.
In classical capitalism, there aren't two or three monopolistic players that dominate each industry, there are thousands of companies competing with each other. And that competition brings costs down, so no outsourcing is needed.
Nope. That's not at all what those terms mean. Capitalism is not "when competition," and socialism is not "when no competition."
Capitalism = private ownership of means of production
Socialism = collective ownership of means of production
Capitalist monopolies are privately owned. A monopoly is no less privately owned than a minor company in a sector with healthy competition, and there is nothing remotely collective about a monopoly. A lack of competition does not in any way mean that "the people" own the organization. Not theoretically, and not actually.
Collectively owned socialist enterprises are not necessarily free of competition. In fact, heated competition over quotas had a lot to do with many of socialism's worst blunders.
Competition does not remotely guarantee that costs are low by international standards either.
Capitalism = private ownership of means of production
Socialism = collective ownership of means of production
Capitalist monopolies are privately owned. A monopoly is no less privately owned than a minor company in a sector with healthy competition, and there is nothing remotely collective about a monopoly. A lack of competition does not in any way mean that "the people" own the organization. Not theoretically, and not actually.
Collectively owned socialist enterprises are not necessarily free of competition. In fact, heated competition over quotas had a lot to do with many of socialism's worst blunders.
Competition does not remotely guarantee that costs are low by international standards either.
> Corporatism is a bit socialist in it's essence.
They are orthogonal; it is possible to have socialist corporatism, but there is nothing inherently socialist about corporatism (or inherently corporatist about socialism.)
They are orthogonal; it is possible to have socialist corporatism, but there is nothing inherently socialist about corporatism (or inherently corporatist about socialism.)
> I don’t understand why the US voluntarily gave up its significant advantage in manufacturing
We didn't. The US manufactures more than ever. It seems like we gave up the advantage because we let China take over the cheap junk market (before them Japan and Taiwan had that - both have moved up quality though); and we use far less people. A typically factory in 1950 with 2000 workers would now have around 200 to produce the same amount.
We didn't. The US manufactures more than ever. It seems like we gave up the advantage because we let China take over the cheap junk market (before them Japan and Taiwan had that - both have moved up quality though); and we use far less people. A typically factory in 1950 with 2000 workers would now have around 200 to produce the same amount.
We did. The U.S. is really more of a low volume, high end manufacturer.
We don’t have the ability to do the same kind of industrial mobilization we did in ww2.
We don’t have the ability to do the same kind of industrial mobilization we did in ww2.
Lots of "greed", "stupidity", etc arguments here, but that is too simplistic.
There are other aspects.
* Industry/mining/some types of manufacturing are often dirty business and cause pollution, not something you love to be around. Energy consumption is also high.
* They usually come with many hard jobs that people don't exactly love to do if they have alternatives.
This can be countered with automation, but that comes with high cost and limitations that we are only now approaching solutions for (eg flexible humanoid robots with AI-driven controls).
* The big industrialization craze of the 90ies/early 2000s came about as western markets started to saturate and approach low growth rates. The hope was that lifting new countries out of poverty would create economic opportunities.
There are other aspects.
* Industry/mining/some types of manufacturing are often dirty business and cause pollution, not something you love to be around. Energy consumption is also high.
* They usually come with many hard jobs that people don't exactly love to do if they have alternatives.
This can be countered with automation, but that comes with high cost and limitations that we are only now approaching solutions for (eg flexible humanoid robots with AI-driven controls).
* The big industrialization craze of the 90ies/early 2000s came about as western markets started to saturate and approach low growth rates. The hope was that lifting new countries out of poverty would create economic opportunities.
This. US deindustrialization can only be understood as a major political shift and, like all major political shifts in the world, it is the product of a conflation of multiple, simultaneous pressures.
Among these are: 1. political leaders exploiting the lucrative US market for foreign relation wins. 2. differential labor costs 3. differential regulatory burdens (health and safety, environmental, etc.)
Manufacturers have had all of these pressures applied and they've responded accordingly. Seeking lower labor costs and lower regulatory burdens is not merely simple-minded "greed." When competitors leverage these affordances they gain an advantage in cost, so others must consider following.
Among these are: 1. political leaders exploiting the lucrative US market for foreign relation wins. 2. differential labor costs 3. differential regulatory burdens (health and safety, environmental, etc.)
Manufacturers have had all of these pressures applied and they've responded accordingly. Seeking lower labor costs and lower regulatory burdens is not merely simple-minded "greed." When competitors leverage these affordances they gain an advantage in cost, so others must consider following.
For posterity, I meant globalisation craze of course, not industrialization craze.
The "gave it up" to make the elite even richer, offshoring everything in the name of returns on shareholder investments.
People like to complain that it's the labour market, that nobody wanted the jobs.. but that's a lie told to stop the masses from organizing and putting some heads on pikes.
People like to complain that it's the labour market, that nobody wanted the jobs.. but that's a lie told to stop the masses from organizing and putting some heads on pikes.
When you don't have enemy, you are your enemy. This is exactly what happened in US. Putting the part that work actually been done in US fosters competition, and outsource will always benefit for big corps to kill of competitors in early stage.
I think it’s very easy to explain. The US are some of the worlds greatest sellers of intellectual property which makes for better business, since you only need to invent something once and then you can sell it over and over. The US would prefer to spend it’s time doing more lucrative work.
I don’t even think it’s very clear that recent US efforts to onshore manufacturing, both broadly and within green energy specifically, are even helping it. The US is paying close to a million in extra costs for every job it’s on-shoring, although there is the benefit of improving the US negotiating position and military readiness beyond bolstering employment.
I don’t even think it’s very clear that recent US efforts to onshore manufacturing, both broadly and within green energy specifically, are even helping it. The US is paying close to a million in extra costs for every job it’s on-shoring, although there is the benefit of improving the US negotiating position and military readiness beyond bolstering employment.
Sorry but I didn't understand anything from your explanaiton. Nothing in it answers the parent's question.
>The US would prefer to spend it’s time doing more lucrative work.
China “cheats” in the sense that they suppress their currency. In theory the profits from successful exports should go back into the Chinese people’s pockets and China should become much richer than it is. But the CCP cannot abide that scenario, so they sell yuan and buy dollars to keep the price down.
I do not think they can do this forever.
I do not think they can do this forever.
In short, Washington abandoned the republic after WW2 and embraced shadow imperialism. It doesn't matter who is working the factories as long as the global elite gets to set the rules and reap the profits.
“Capitalists will sell the rope to hang them”
Lenin
> Is it just because it would be impossible to have an industrial base in a world where Asia exists and can produce everything that could be built in the US for 1/5 the cost?
It's not impossible, had the US kept capital control and tariffs there would have been no way for Asia to catch-up at all. But the free trade ideology and greed led the US where it is now.
Lenin
> Is it just because it would be impossible to have an industrial base in a world where Asia exists and can produce everything that could be built in the US for 1/5 the cost?
It's not impossible, had the US kept capital control and tariffs there would have been no way for Asia to catch-up at all. But the free trade ideology and greed led the US where it is now.
Worth noting this also lifted a billion people out of poverty.
China could have lifted their people out of poverty on their own. We didn't need to sell them our manufacturing base to do that.
> I don’t understand why the US voluntarily gave up its significant advantage in manufacturing
Because there's a basic heirarchy in capitalism where resource extraction is at the bottom, manufacturing in the middle, and finance at the top, and the higher on that heirarchy your comparative advantage is, the more value you capture out of the global economy.
The US won (or, more accurately, is winning, its not a static state) global capitalism is what happened.
Because there's a basic heirarchy in capitalism where resource extraction is at the bottom, manufacturing in the middle, and finance at the top, and the higher on that heirarchy your comparative advantage is, the more value you capture out of the global economy.
The US won (or, more accurately, is winning, its not a static state) global capitalism is what happened.
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Because the "elite" that actually make US economic policy made a mint on it and could engage in their all time favorite activity in the world:
undercutting and destroying the financial viability of unions and labor
The rich don't actually care about how much money they have, they care about how much money they have relative to other people. Hollowing out the middle class meant while milking profits from cheap overseas near-slave labor? My god, so many billionaire boners.
Why do you think nothing tangible has been done about illegal immigration in, what, 40, 50 years now? Something that massively increases the number of desperate workers to undermine labor supply and union-based manual labor and trades?
As it stands now, this problem will self-correct because manufacturing WILL onshore. It has to. China is dropping the hammer on economic reforms and ratcheting up totalitarian control, to say nothing of demographic bombs, the real estate / regional debt crisis, and the inevitable sanctions from a Taiwan invasion.
Don't worry about the shipbuilding. China doesn't have carriers. They don't have a navy that can leave shore more than a hundred miles or so.
The fact is the US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum (as in, fertilizer so ... most domestic food) shipments in Malaysia at will and ... China starves a couple months later.
The policy that needs to be pursued isn't one of China as a dangerous peer state. That has already passed. The policy is to deal with China as a dangerous collapsing state. It's kind of the same effect (manufactured goods being shut off, reestablishing more domestic production and manufacturing), just with or without overt warfare.
IMO this is an opportunity for greenfield modern manufacturing construction: lots of automation, lots of modern EV-based low cost low carbon transportation and infrastructure, building up the domestic energy industry around alternative energy on a fundamentally cheap basis never seen before.
One way to do this is to intelligently allow the best and brightest in China to immigrate. They'll certainly want to get out...
As for the article, it was a lot easier to crank out airplanes when they were basically automobiles with different body shapes. These weren't turbojets, they were ICE engine-powered prop planes. Yes that handwaves a massive amount of engineering and retooling, but it wasn't like ICE engine designers suddenly needed to learn how chip manufacturing worked.
undercutting and destroying the financial viability of unions and labor
The rich don't actually care about how much money they have, they care about how much money they have relative to other people. Hollowing out the middle class meant while milking profits from cheap overseas near-slave labor? My god, so many billionaire boners.
Why do you think nothing tangible has been done about illegal immigration in, what, 40, 50 years now? Something that massively increases the number of desperate workers to undermine labor supply and union-based manual labor and trades?
As it stands now, this problem will self-correct because manufacturing WILL onshore. It has to. China is dropping the hammer on economic reforms and ratcheting up totalitarian control, to say nothing of demographic bombs, the real estate / regional debt crisis, and the inevitable sanctions from a Taiwan invasion.
Don't worry about the shipbuilding. China doesn't have carriers. They don't have a navy that can leave shore more than a hundred miles or so.
The fact is the US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum (as in, fertilizer so ... most domestic food) shipments in Malaysia at will and ... China starves a couple months later.
The policy that needs to be pursued isn't one of China as a dangerous peer state. That has already passed. The policy is to deal with China as a dangerous collapsing state. It's kind of the same effect (manufactured goods being shut off, reestablishing more domestic production and manufacturing), just with or without overt warfare.
IMO this is an opportunity for greenfield modern manufacturing construction: lots of automation, lots of modern EV-based low cost low carbon transportation and infrastructure, building up the domestic energy industry around alternative energy on a fundamentally cheap basis never seen before.
One way to do this is to intelligently allow the best and brightest in China to immigrate. They'll certainly want to get out...
As for the article, it was a lot easier to crank out airplanes when they were basically automobiles with different body shapes. These weren't turbojets, they were ICE engine-powered prop planes. Yes that handwaves a massive amount of engineering and retooling, but it wasn't like ICE engine designers suddenly needed to learn how chip manufacturing worked.
I don’t know enough to form an opinion but there’s an entertaining geopolitics chap called Peter Zeihan who’s thesis is basically exactly what you’ve said.
He’s one of these folks who are really engaging to listen to and he uses a fun argument style like Simon Sinek where he presents stuff in a way that leaves you to put 2+2 together and feel smart about yourself when you think “aha! 4!” Just before he says “4”.
That argument style seems to be like catnip for me so when I recognise it I have to force myself out of the “well that’s obviously true” mindset I’ve fallen into and go spot check a few of the facts he shares during his opinions. Maybe about 1/3rd of them don’t hold.
It leaves me thinking he’s probably meaningfully wrong but like I say I don’t have enough knowledge to say for sure, just using a simple heuristic of “is this person’s argument consistent?”. I haven’t decided one way or the other, I just rate his thesis “caution, may not be true”
He’s one of these folks who are really engaging to listen to and he uses a fun argument style like Simon Sinek where he presents stuff in a way that leaves you to put 2+2 together and feel smart about yourself when you think “aha! 4!” Just before he says “4”.
That argument style seems to be like catnip for me so when I recognise it I have to force myself out of the “well that’s obviously true” mindset I’ve fallen into and go spot check a few of the facts he shares during his opinions. Maybe about 1/3rd of them don’t hold.
It leaves me thinking he’s probably meaningfully wrong but like I say I don’t have enough knowledge to say for sure, just using a simple heuristic of “is this person’s argument consistent?”. I haven’t decided one way or the other, I just rate his thesis “caution, may not be true”
I consume a lot of Zeihan. He's a dramatic clickbait artist in many respects, but his "takes" are nonetheless often based in a lot of truth, just projected too quickly.
He's been saying China would collapse for quite a while, but only recently have I seen a lot of other geopolitical types go from poo-pooing him to essentially agreeing with him.
He still has a very strongly petrodollar/petroleum dominates the economy/alt energy isn't important, but a lot of that is because the tech churn in batteries/solar panels is so rapid. He doesn't really appreciate what sodium ion will bring to the table for example, he still thinks batteries can't scale because of limited cobalt and nickel, which is a two year old take.
He is still a bit too dramatic on open seas piracy/reduction of the US Navy, but I've seen him reduce that take. Really the open seas and global trade are going to disrupt because between Russia in Ukraine and China doing the Taiwan invasion, there's going to be a LOT of global trade disruption.
At this point I agree with his China take because it has four different fronts which are conspiring. Demographic collapse didn't cause Japan to completely fall apart, but demographic collapse + totalitarian incompetence absolutely can.
I also haven't seen as many rebuke videos of his China take, and the US and its megaconglomerates are definitely shortening their supply chain and re-shoring manufacturing already. The most public one is the fab act (which will also expose Taiwan to a higher risk of invasion).
He's been saying China would collapse for quite a while, but only recently have I seen a lot of other geopolitical types go from poo-pooing him to essentially agreeing with him.
He still has a very strongly petrodollar/petroleum dominates the economy/alt energy isn't important, but a lot of that is because the tech churn in batteries/solar panels is so rapid. He doesn't really appreciate what sodium ion will bring to the table for example, he still thinks batteries can't scale because of limited cobalt and nickel, which is a two year old take.
He is still a bit too dramatic on open seas piracy/reduction of the US Navy, but I've seen him reduce that take. Really the open seas and global trade are going to disrupt because between Russia in Ukraine and China doing the Taiwan invasion, there's going to be a LOT of global trade disruption.
At this point I agree with his China take because it has four different fronts which are conspiring. Demographic collapse didn't cause Japan to completely fall apart, but demographic collapse + totalitarian incompetence absolutely can.
I also haven't seen as many rebuke videos of his China take, and the US and its megaconglomerates are definitely shortening their supply chain and re-shoring manufacturing already. The most public one is the fab act (which will also expose Taiwan to a higher risk of invasion).
> US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum
It's such an unrealistic comment. Have you seen the new Navy report in Congress? Have you seen the yearly Congress report about Chinese rocket capabilities from the last few months? Have you seen the results of the war games in the South China Sea, most of which were lost by the US?
"US Congressmen: 90% of US fighter jets in the Western Pacific will be destroyed within hours of a US-China conflicts by missiles. The military bases being mentioned are those in Japan, S Korea, Guam and Northern Marianas." [1]
> to say nothing of demographic bombs, the real estate / regional debt crisis, and the inevitable sanctions from a Taiwan invasion.
They are heavily investing in Sub-Saharan Africa because, based on IMF data, it will be the only region in the next few decades experiencing significant population growth. This region is their own 'China.' With increasing automation and a cheap workforce, demographics are not a significant problem. They just poured 53 billion USD into the real estate crisis. To receive sanctions for a Taiwan invasion, first, you need to invade it, and it's not in the short-term interests of either China or Taiwan.
> Don't worry about the shipbuilding. China doesn't have carriers. They don't have a navy that can leave shore more than a hundred miles or so.
Don't worry? If they destroy a US ship, it will take 5-10 years to rebuild it, whereas they will rebuild theirs in a year. This is also mentioned in reports.
Your entire comment is wishful thinking. China is not collapsing, and the data confirms that. [2][3]
1. https://x.com/Ignis_Rex/status/1791035870210085350
2. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/china-still-ris...
3. https://x.com/davidpgoldman/status/1792215020941565983
It's such an unrealistic comment. Have you seen the new Navy report in Congress? Have you seen the yearly Congress report about Chinese rocket capabilities from the last few months? Have you seen the results of the war games in the South China Sea, most of which were lost by the US?
"US Congressmen: 90% of US fighter jets in the Western Pacific will be destroyed within hours of a US-China conflicts by missiles. The military bases being mentioned are those in Japan, S Korea, Guam and Northern Marianas." [1]
> to say nothing of demographic bombs, the real estate / regional debt crisis, and the inevitable sanctions from a Taiwan invasion.
They are heavily investing in Sub-Saharan Africa because, based on IMF data, it will be the only region in the next few decades experiencing significant population growth. This region is their own 'China.' With increasing automation and a cheap workforce, demographics are not a significant problem. They just poured 53 billion USD into the real estate crisis. To receive sanctions for a Taiwan invasion, first, you need to invade it, and it's not in the short-term interests of either China or Taiwan.
> Don't worry about the shipbuilding. China doesn't have carriers. They don't have a navy that can leave shore more than a hundred miles or so.
Don't worry? If they destroy a US ship, it will take 5-10 years to rebuild it, whereas they will rebuild theirs in a year. This is also mentioned in reports.
Your entire comment is wishful thinking. China is not collapsing, and the data confirms that. [2][3]
1. https://x.com/Ignis_Rex/status/1791035870210085350
2. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/china-still-ris...
3. https://x.com/davidpgoldman/status/1792215020941565983
The problem with centralizing power in one person for too long, they get strange ideas about what's in their nation's interest.
1) you can't trust most of China's numbers. They are in full only-show-numbers-that-please-dear-leader mode. The tarriff war that is brewing between the US and China is about China doing some last-gasp production dumping before economic collapse, although that argument could admittedly be dressing up numbers that don't support their arguments of the pro-collapse geopoliticists.
2) China's rattling on Taiwan is very similar to the demographic motivations of Russia's invasion of Ukraine: both are suffering huge demographic collapses soon, so this is the last generation that the country can use for an offensive war. Yes, it is utterly stupid to take a demographic problem of a shrinking younger generations and KILL THOSE PEOPLE IN A WAR to exacerbate the problem, but strongmen just concern themselves with keeping their positions, not how the nation as a whole thrives.
3) Sub Saharan Africa? Like, that is 5,000 to 6,000 miles away? And an area that will become increasingly utterly uninhabitable due to global warming. The Belt and Road is a complete failure, again, because the infrastructure was poor and the payoff isn't there. The countries are just going to walk away from China, and instead of paying them back or restructuring (China won't restructure), they'll join a Western bloc against the Chinese.
Belt and road, for the reasons described about the complete inability to defend multi-thousand-mile infrastructure lines like pipelines and rail, is an impossibility to work in Asia. Even if the political and security challenges are solved (which requires a nice intercooperation and low-war world, which we are NOT headed for right now), it isn't even remotely economically viable.
4) Ultimately war games are meant to be lost. Because that drives the exigent threats to American hegemony that drive the near-trillion-dollar defense and intelligence budgets politically. Yes you don't want to underestimate the enemy, but look at what is going on with the Russian army under decades of totalitarian corruption and incompetence. China is headed down that path, but doesn't want to stop at a neo-western society like Russia has, they want full on North Korean dear leader control.
5) The fact of the matter is that China imports its oil through the Malaysian Staits/Straits of Malacca. Go look at the map. No matter how much shipbuilding China has, no matter how many cruise missiles, they won't get oil through there if the West decides to impose sanctions.
6) Finally, there's India. India of course hates China as well, and India is modernizing its military under Modi and it alone would jump at the chance to choke China in the Indian Ocean.
China is not collapsing overnight. It is not economic armageddon, these things are always slow slides. I mean, in theory it could because mass starvation at the hands of the communist party is in China's 20th century history, and it is actively occurring in North Korea.
The point is that the old world political economic order, and by order I mean stability and structure, not the illuminati evil control council "order", is over. Russia invading Ukraine, COVID disrupting supply chains, and China becoming aggressive and authoritarian ended that. That era, a solid 75 years between bipolar Cold War stability and unipolar post-Cold War is OVER.
Every five years that go by in China will decrease their military effectiveness by a substantial degree, because of authoritarian degradation in chain of command and corruption, because of demographic reductions and disruption.
2) China's rattling on Taiwan is very similar to the demographic motivations of Russia's invasion of Ukraine: both are suffering huge demographic collapses soon, so this is the last generation that the country can use for an offensive war. Yes, it is utterly stupid to take a demographic problem of a shrinking younger generations and KILL THOSE PEOPLE IN A WAR to exacerbate the problem, but strongmen just concern themselves with keeping their positions, not how the nation as a whole thrives.
3) Sub Saharan Africa? Like, that is 5,000 to 6,000 miles away? And an area that will become increasingly utterly uninhabitable due to global warming. The Belt and Road is a complete failure, again, because the infrastructure was poor and the payoff isn't there. The countries are just going to walk away from China, and instead of paying them back or restructuring (China won't restructure), they'll join a Western bloc against the Chinese.
Belt and road, for the reasons described about the complete inability to defend multi-thousand-mile infrastructure lines like pipelines and rail, is an impossibility to work in Asia. Even if the political and security challenges are solved (which requires a nice intercooperation and low-war world, which we are NOT headed for right now), it isn't even remotely economically viable.
4) Ultimately war games are meant to be lost. Because that drives the exigent threats to American hegemony that drive the near-trillion-dollar defense and intelligence budgets politically. Yes you don't want to underestimate the enemy, but look at what is going on with the Russian army under decades of totalitarian corruption and incompetence. China is headed down that path, but doesn't want to stop at a neo-western society like Russia has, they want full on North Korean dear leader control.
5) The fact of the matter is that China imports its oil through the Malaysian Staits/Straits of Malacca. Go look at the map. No matter how much shipbuilding China has, no matter how many cruise missiles, they won't get oil through there if the West decides to impose sanctions.
6) Finally, there's India. India of course hates China as well, and India is modernizing its military under Modi and it alone would jump at the chance to choke China in the Indian Ocean.
China is not collapsing overnight. It is not economic armageddon, these things are always slow slides. I mean, in theory it could because mass starvation at the hands of the communist party is in China's 20th century history, and it is actively occurring in North Korea.
The point is that the old world political economic order, and by order I mean stability and structure, not the illuminati evil control council "order", is over. Russia invading Ukraine, COVID disrupting supply chains, and China becoming aggressive and authoritarian ended that. That era, a solid 75 years between bipolar Cold War stability and unipolar post-Cold War is OVER.
Every five years that go by in China will decrease their military effectiveness by a substantial degree, because of authoritarian degradation in chain of command and corruption, because of demographic reductions and disruption.
1. It's not entirely accurate to dismiss all Chinese economic data outright. While there is a consensus that some data might be manipulated, international agencies like the IMF and World Bank, and multinational corporations operating in China, rely on a combination of official data and independent assessments to guide investment and policy decisions. Moreover, the idea of a "last-gasp production dumping" ahead of an economic collapse seems exaggerated when considering China’s consistent economic growth and its strategic long-term planning evident in initiatives like Made in China 2025. Have you read article I linked in Foreign Affairs?
2. I don't buy this argument, they only keep their positions because of the economy growth currently in China.
3. The claim that BRI is a failure and that Sub-Saharan Africa will become uninhabitable and thus, unimportant, overlooks the long-term investments and geopolitical influence China is garnering through these initiatives. The BRI has indeed faced challenges, but it has also led to significant infrastructure developments in participating countries. These nations may face debt issues, yet many continue to engage with the initiative because of the substantial economic benefits and the lack of alternative funding sources for infrastructure.
4. You haven't addressed the Congressional reports, which show that a US vs. China military conflict, including a blockade, does not have an obvious winner.
5. The vulnerability of China's oil imports through the Strait of Malacca is a well recognized strategic concern, often referred to as the "Malacca Dilemma". China has been actively working to mitigate this risk through various strategies, including the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), building pipelines through Myanmar, and increasing domestic energy production and diversification of energy sources. While a blockade of the Straits of Malacca would be significant, it is not an insurmountable obstacle given these mitigating measures.
6. While India might oppose certain Chinese actions, an outright confrontation is not a foregone conclusion given the potential economic and political costs. They do not want to escalate, which you can see based on agreement to use only sticks in border clashes.
> The point is that the old world political economic order, and by order I mean stability and structure, not the illuminati evil control council "order", is over. Russia invading Ukraine, COVID disrupting supply chains, and China becoming aggressive and authoritarian ended that. That era, a solid 75 years between bipolar Cold War stability and unipolar post-Cold War is OVER.
Fully agree.
> Every five years that go by in China will decrease their military effectiveness by a substantial degree, because of authoritarian degradation in chain of command and corruption, because of demographic reductions and disruption.
I'm not as optimistic as you are.
2. I don't buy this argument, they only keep their positions because of the economy growth currently in China.
3. The claim that BRI is a failure and that Sub-Saharan Africa will become uninhabitable and thus, unimportant, overlooks the long-term investments and geopolitical influence China is garnering through these initiatives. The BRI has indeed faced challenges, but it has also led to significant infrastructure developments in participating countries. These nations may face debt issues, yet many continue to engage with the initiative because of the substantial economic benefits and the lack of alternative funding sources for infrastructure.
4. You haven't addressed the Congressional reports, which show that a US vs. China military conflict, including a blockade, does not have an obvious winner.
5. The vulnerability of China's oil imports through the Strait of Malacca is a well recognized strategic concern, often referred to as the "Malacca Dilemma". China has been actively working to mitigate this risk through various strategies, including the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), building pipelines through Myanmar, and increasing domestic energy production and diversification of energy sources. While a blockade of the Straits of Malacca would be significant, it is not an insurmountable obstacle given these mitigating measures.
6. While India might oppose certain Chinese actions, an outright confrontation is not a foregone conclusion given the potential economic and political costs. They do not want to escalate, which you can see based on agreement to use only sticks in border clashes.
> The point is that the old world political economic order, and by order I mean stability and structure, not the illuminati evil control council "order", is over. Russia invading Ukraine, COVID disrupting supply chains, and China becoming aggressive and authoritarian ended that. That era, a solid 75 years between bipolar Cold War stability and unipolar post-Cold War is OVER.
Fully agree.
> Every five years that go by in China will decrease their military effectiveness by a substantial degree, because of authoritarian degradation in chain of command and corruption, because of demographic reductions and disruption.
I'm not as optimistic as you are.
I haven't read the congressional reports. I am handwaving them away, but mostly because while China can be formidable in regional defense, they simply don't have power projection military technologies yet.
I don't remember the actual numbers, but Japan is heavily increasing its defense budget. This is significant because historically, unlike China/India, if Japan invests in its military, it produces a good military. Japan + India with funded modern militaries is a very legitimate counter to China. In particular India is a sleeping tiger that should be far more influential and productive.
India we won't give our top weapons. Japan we very likely will.
Energy diversity helps in many respects, China can mitigate domestic needs with EVs, solar, and wind, and I guess coal if they want to burn money.
But war and food need petroleum. Pipelines and rail are extremely vulnerable, a single raid can shut them down for weeks or months, they have fixed, limited capacity. If we were talking a 50 million population country, sure. But it's a goddamn billion+ frikking people, and not enough productive land to feed them.
India is a billion plus people, so if it wants to militarize, corruption and internecine ethnic relations be damned, they'll probably have one capabable of worrying China.
Everyone is arming up. NATO nations are reconstructing their military industrial complex in anticipation of Russia beating Ukraine.
I guess fundamentally I see China as a nation that is critically dependent on open maritime trade, and that world is basically over, partially of their own creation. The "Dear Leader" phenomenon is particularly troubling, particularly because Xi sets the stage in 10-15 years for a bloody succession and equally or more autocratic leader that assumes the strings of control.
Most "Dear Leader" countries start from a point of stagnation and then limp along under the repression. China is different, it went through a massive economic expansion due to free trade and relative free will, but now it will sharply regress. If it wasn't so dangerous, it would be fascinating to see what happens.
The Naval War College prof points out that historically continental powers overextend, and then collapse when their central government fails. China has done this something like 5 or 10 times in its long history. Both Russia and China seem to be in the overextension phase. She contrasts to maritime powers like the UK and US that don't need buffer states, and thrive with world trade, while the buffer state syndrome of continental empires inevitably leads to an autocratic paranoid country or corruption/decay.
Anyway, what do I know.
I don't remember the actual numbers, but Japan is heavily increasing its defense budget. This is significant because historically, unlike China/India, if Japan invests in its military, it produces a good military. Japan + India with funded modern militaries is a very legitimate counter to China. In particular India is a sleeping tiger that should be far more influential and productive.
India we won't give our top weapons. Japan we very likely will.
Energy diversity helps in many respects, China can mitigate domestic needs with EVs, solar, and wind, and I guess coal if they want to burn money.
But war and food need petroleum. Pipelines and rail are extremely vulnerable, a single raid can shut them down for weeks or months, they have fixed, limited capacity. If we were talking a 50 million population country, sure. But it's a goddamn billion+ frikking people, and not enough productive land to feed them.
India is a billion plus people, so if it wants to militarize, corruption and internecine ethnic relations be damned, they'll probably have one capabable of worrying China.
Everyone is arming up. NATO nations are reconstructing their military industrial complex in anticipation of Russia beating Ukraine.
I guess fundamentally I see China as a nation that is critically dependent on open maritime trade, and that world is basically over, partially of their own creation. The "Dear Leader" phenomenon is particularly troubling, particularly because Xi sets the stage in 10-15 years for a bloody succession and equally or more autocratic leader that assumes the strings of control.
Most "Dear Leader" countries start from a point of stagnation and then limp along under the repression. China is different, it went through a massive economic expansion due to free trade and relative free will, but now it will sharply regress. If it wasn't so dangerous, it would be fascinating to see what happens.
The Naval War College prof points out that historically continental powers overextend, and then collapse when their central government fails. China has done this something like 5 or 10 times in its long history. Both Russia and China seem to be in the overextension phase. She contrasts to maritime powers like the UK and US that don't need buffer states, and thrive with world trade, while the buffer state syndrome of continental empires inevitably leads to an autocratic paranoid country or corruption/decay.
Anyway, what do I know.
>Don't worry about the shipbuilding. China doesn't have carriers. They don't have a navy that can leave shore more than a hundred miles or so.
>The fact is the US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum (as in, fertilizer so ... most domestic food) shipments in Malaysia at will and ... China starves a couple months later.
The fact is that China do not have ships because they don't intend to do large scale invasions thousands of miles from home.
US Navy can't blockade China because the have enough missiles to destroy 100 times more ships. And they have the capacity to fab more than 1000 missiles per day.
>The fact is the US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum (as in, fertilizer so ... most domestic food) shipments in Malaysia at will and ... China starves a couple months later.
The fact is that China do not have ships because they don't intend to do large scale invasions thousands of miles from home.
US Navy can't blockade China because the have enough missiles to destroy 100 times more ships. And they have the capacity to fab more than 1000 missiles per day.
I agree in many respects that the US surface fleet is basically obsolete against a power with a decent supply of antiship ballistics, but US nuclear submarines are an entirely different matter.
>> US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum
It can't, as long as China has atomic bombs and ICBMs to deliver them.
It can't, as long as China has atomic bombs and ICBMs to deliver them.
1) China won't care about the starvation of a half billion people. That's the totalitarian effect.
2) That is suicide for the CCP. They may be crazy authoritarian, but they aren't suicidal.
By the same justification, China won't invade Taiwan because we "have atomic bombs and the ICBMs to deliver them". But it's pretty inevitable they will.
2) That is suicide for the CCP. They may be crazy authoritarian, but they aren't suicidal.
By the same justification, China won't invade Taiwan because we "have atomic bombs and the ICBMs to deliver them". But it's pretty inevitable they will.
The US 5th fleet can just stop policing the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and the various local peoples would hinder maritime traffic through piracy and ransom. Those can't be stopped with ICBMs.
> The US 5th fleet can just stop policing the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and the various local peoples would hinder maritime traffic through piracy and ransom. Those can't be stopped with ICBMs.
While it would be a particularly horrific way to deal with the problem, the local people in the area of the Bab-el Mandeb strait and their capacity to interfere with international shipping can, in fact, be stopped with ICBMs.
While it would be a particularly horrific way to deal with the problem, the local people in the area of the Bab-el Mandeb strait and their capacity to interfere with international shipping can, in fact, be stopped with ICBMs.
But it can be stopped by other governments and it can be stopped by ship owners simply taking defense into their own hands. If prices are high enough.
Pirates can almost never fully cut off a shipping lane.
Pirates can almost never fully cut off a shipping lane.
> Don't worry about the shipbuilding. China doesn't have carriers. They don't have a navy that can leave shore more than a hundred miles or so.
They have 3 carriers and are rapidly building more. They have naval bases as far as Africa.
A lot more misinformation in your comment but it would take too long to correct it all.
They have 3 carriers and are rapidly building more. They have naval bases as far as Africa.
A lot more misinformation in your comment but it would take too long to correct it all.
> The fact is the US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum
Yeah sure, just like Russian economy was supposed to fall in a few months after sanctions.
Yeah sure, just like Russian economy was supposed to fall in a few months after sanctions.
Russia has its own domestic oil supply.
China does not. It is that simple, basically.
China does not. It is that simple, basically.
China have access to Russia through land and they are building new pipeline that should start operating this year
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altai_gas_pipeline
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-says-oil-pipel...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altai_gas_pipeline
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-says-oil-pipel...
A single cross continental pipeline will not supply a nation of 1-point-whatever (statistics are in flux on a monthly basis) billion people.
Ukraine alone can take that out. Cruise missiles, sabotage, special forces, mercenaries. You don't even need to explicitly destroy it, Russians and Chinese build poor infrastructure.
Sarah Paine, a prof at the Naval War college really opened my eyes to this and the Belt and Road. Marine shipping is basically free. Keeping rail lines and pipelines intact over thousands and thousands of miles in Asia through desert wastes, mountains, tundra, and a half dozen politically iffy -stans is not a recipe for efficient trade logistics.
And China and Russia hate each other. Strange bedfellows, but would China want to rely on Russia for oil if it invades Taiwan and Russia has their country's oil supply in a firm iron grip? Putin? Nope nope nope.
Ukraine alone can take that out. Cruise missiles, sabotage, special forces, mercenaries. You don't even need to explicitly destroy it, Russians and Chinese build poor infrastructure.
Sarah Paine, a prof at the Naval War college really opened my eyes to this and the Belt and Road. Marine shipping is basically free. Keeping rail lines and pipelines intact over thousands and thousands of miles in Asia through desert wastes, mountains, tundra, and a half dozen politically iffy -stans is not a recipe for efficient trade logistics.
And China and Russia hate each other. Strange bedfellows, but would China want to rely on Russia for oil if it invades Taiwan and Russia has their country's oil supply in a firm iron grip? Putin? Nope nope nope.
> A single cross continental pipeline will not supply a nation of 1-point-whatever (statistics are in flux on a monthly basis) billion people.
As another comment in this thread has already mentioned, they have sufficient local production to fuel their war machine, while restricting other uses.
> Ukraine alone can take that out.
It's actually quite interesting. Are you aware that there is a pipeline running from Russia through Ukraine that pumps Russian gas to the EU? Ukraine earns $800 million USD a year from this. Then, they buy back that gas. Life is a little more complicated than it seems.
> And China and Russia hate each other. Strange bedfellows, but would China want to rely on Russia for oil if it invades Taiwan and Russia has their country's oil supply in a firm iron grip? Putin? Nope nope nope.
It doesn't matter whether they hate or love each other, the only thing that matters is interests. Stalin was called a dictator and a ruthless killer by the West, but when he changed sides, he was suddenly 'Uncle Joe.'
China will only invade Taiwan if the US forces their hand. In the short term, it's against their interests to invade Taiwan, just as Taiwan prefers to maintain the status quo. They know that if they invade, the US can say, 'You see? We told you. Look what they are doing' which would result in sanctions from the US and EU and lead to internal problems. Why would they do it? It's neither logical nor rational, and it goes against their culture. There's a Chinese saying: 'The wise win before the fight while the ignorant fight to win'.
As another comment in this thread has already mentioned, they have sufficient local production to fuel their war machine, while restricting other uses.
> Ukraine alone can take that out.
It's actually quite interesting. Are you aware that there is a pipeline running from Russia through Ukraine that pumps Russian gas to the EU? Ukraine earns $800 million USD a year from this. Then, they buy back that gas. Life is a little more complicated than it seems.
> And China and Russia hate each other. Strange bedfellows, but would China want to rely on Russia for oil if it invades Taiwan and Russia has their country's oil supply in a firm iron grip? Putin? Nope nope nope.
It doesn't matter whether they hate or love each other, the only thing that matters is interests. Stalin was called a dictator and a ruthless killer by the West, but when he changed sides, he was suddenly 'Uncle Joe.'
China will only invade Taiwan if the US forces their hand. In the short term, it's against their interests to invade Taiwan, just as Taiwan prefers to maintain the status quo. They know that if they invade, the US can say, 'You see? We told you. Look what they are doing' which would result in sanctions from the US and EU and lead to internal problems. Why would they do it? It's neither logical nor rational, and it goes against their culture. There's a Chinese saying: 'The wise win before the fight while the ignorant fight to win'.
To your point, China is no longer in the Western interest. That is what it is about. COVID has permanently changed the tenor of Chinese-based manufacturing. And the US Government is taking huge steps to start addressing its logistical dependence on China.
Now when I say that, I mean "in 5-10 years for some substantively detectible change" not "next month".
The United States/Americas is quite well positioned for resource independence since the Bakken Shale became so productive. They are globally dominant still militarily. The only weakness is the offshored manufacturing, and as I stated in a different comment, the world that supported China being the manufacturing center of the US is OVER. It died with Russia invading Ukraine, COVID disrupting supply lines, the autocratic power convergence of Xi. End of an era. 75 years of free seas trade "end of history" type thinking is over.
"US forces their hand" ummmmmmmmm what would the US do that would "force their hand"? That's a WEIRD comment. Of course the US is quietly and carefully going to draw down their manufacturing dependence over a decade. Of course China can trump up some Gulf of Tonkin incident or affront to provoke casus belli.
You are ascribing FAR too much intellectual stability to the Chinese government. The Chinese government is now an unopposed Kim-style autocrat. There is only what the dear leader wants, and the dear leader wants to be as Dear a Leader with capital letters as possible.
If invading Taiwan is what dear leader wants and it matches some false rallying war rhetoric that dear leader wants about "restoring China" as it demographically declines, then dear leader will do that. The CCP is actively crushing independent action by China's major corporations. They are installing "thought police" in every country, and the population is being subjected to higher and higher degrees of surveillance and control. This is not conducive to a functioning economy in the long run.
Oh, and as for your proverb: China has already lost the long run. They didn't establish themselves as a benevolent world power and construct their own political sphere. They do not have resource independence. Their demographics are collapsing. Their society is becoming closed, oppressive, authoritarian, and corrupt. And the world that powered their economic wunderkind of free open seas trade is ending.
BRICS by the way is NOT a sphere of influence. Russia and India hate China, South Africa is a western country by nature, and Brazil is an Americas country.
If you can explain how the long term economics of China will survive crushing authoritarianism, isolationism, and a sharp demographic decline, I'm all ears.
Now when I say that, I mean "in 5-10 years for some substantively detectible change" not "next month".
The United States/Americas is quite well positioned for resource independence since the Bakken Shale became so productive. They are globally dominant still militarily. The only weakness is the offshored manufacturing, and as I stated in a different comment, the world that supported China being the manufacturing center of the US is OVER. It died with Russia invading Ukraine, COVID disrupting supply lines, the autocratic power convergence of Xi. End of an era. 75 years of free seas trade "end of history" type thinking is over.
"US forces their hand" ummmmmmmmm what would the US do that would "force their hand"? That's a WEIRD comment. Of course the US is quietly and carefully going to draw down their manufacturing dependence over a decade. Of course China can trump up some Gulf of Tonkin incident or affront to provoke casus belli.
You are ascribing FAR too much intellectual stability to the Chinese government. The Chinese government is now an unopposed Kim-style autocrat. There is only what the dear leader wants, and the dear leader wants to be as Dear a Leader with capital letters as possible.
If invading Taiwan is what dear leader wants and it matches some false rallying war rhetoric that dear leader wants about "restoring China" as it demographically declines, then dear leader will do that. The CCP is actively crushing independent action by China's major corporations. They are installing "thought police" in every country, and the population is being subjected to higher and higher degrees of surveillance and control. This is not conducive to a functioning economy in the long run.
Oh, and as for your proverb: China has already lost the long run. They didn't establish themselves as a benevolent world power and construct their own political sphere. They do not have resource independence. Their demographics are collapsing. Their society is becoming closed, oppressive, authoritarian, and corrupt. And the world that powered their economic wunderkind of free open seas trade is ending.
BRICS by the way is NOT a sphere of influence. Russia and India hate China, South Africa is a western country by nature, and Brazil is an Americas country.
If you can explain how the long term economics of China will survive crushing authoritarianism, isolationism, and a sharp demographic decline, I'm all ears.
In general I don't disagree with your point. People can go to far on China in how powerful they are. But I think you are going to far in the other direction.
You have a lot of confidence in the US to implement smart long term thinking industrial policy. Despite the US having shown to be very bad at that for a long time.
For a country that can seem to figure out how to build a single high speed train line or figure out that having a subway makes a lot of sense.
While the other country builds high speed train lines all over the place and has many cities building more subways then all of the US combined.
We can look at EVs as well. China dominates the supply chain and production.
Yes the US
> If you can explain how the long term economics of China will survive crushing authoritarianism, isolationism, and a sharp demographic decline, I'm all ears.
Authoritarianism increases and decreases over time. China has been well functioning for a while now. Claiming that Authoritarianism is gone ruin everything they do is questionable at best. Our actual insight into China government internals isn't mostly guesswork. Specially as there is lots of evidence that US democracy isn't actually producing fantastic long term thinking.
China isn't actually isolated right now. And they wont be unless they make pretty fundamental mistakes.
The West in totality is also suffering demographic decline. Specially Japan.
Its kind of Ironic that the fear of 'overpopulation' pushed by idiot leftists intellectuals in the West was the greatest strategic weapon ever invented against China.
> They didn't establish themselves as a benevolent world power and construct their own political sphere.
They are increasing their influence in lots of places. And lots of other places are willing to go with the flow. One can imagine a future where Russia, Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan and many South East Asian countries become influenced by China over time. The same goes for Africa.
And places like UAE/Saudi and co aren't actually US allies in any meaningful way and would happily turn to China if they thought it gave them an advantage.
China doesn't need to lead them as the US leads NATO, but if they are all opposed to the 'Western Order' its gone be tough.
> They do not have resource independence.
But they do actually have control over lots of resources and refinement currently that would be incredibly hard for the West to be without. It would take very long for the West to produce sufficient amounts of these things. So I think in practice a divided market would be catastrophic for both sides.
Practically speaking the West does not have resource independence. And even best case, it would take decades to have it.
If China really wanted they could mass produce nuclear reactors and produce carbon fuel as needed. Its only a matter of investment. They have the Uranium/Thorium to do it. And if you do it at scale its not that expensive. If China were actually preparing for a serious war they would do this.
This leads me to think that China and the US will continue to rattle their chains at each other for decades to come with neither actually doing anything to throw over the apple cart.
You have a lot of confidence in the US to implement smart long term thinking industrial policy. Despite the US having shown to be very bad at that for a long time.
For a country that can seem to figure out how to build a single high speed train line or figure out that having a subway makes a lot of sense.
While the other country builds high speed train lines all over the place and has many cities building more subways then all of the US combined.
We can look at EVs as well. China dominates the supply chain and production.
Yes the US
> If you can explain how the long term economics of China will survive crushing authoritarianism, isolationism, and a sharp demographic decline, I'm all ears.
Authoritarianism increases and decreases over time. China has been well functioning for a while now. Claiming that Authoritarianism is gone ruin everything they do is questionable at best. Our actual insight into China government internals isn't mostly guesswork. Specially as there is lots of evidence that US democracy isn't actually producing fantastic long term thinking.
China isn't actually isolated right now. And they wont be unless they make pretty fundamental mistakes.
The West in totality is also suffering demographic decline. Specially Japan.
Its kind of Ironic that the fear of 'overpopulation' pushed by idiot leftists intellectuals in the West was the greatest strategic weapon ever invented against China.
> They didn't establish themselves as a benevolent world power and construct their own political sphere.
They are increasing their influence in lots of places. And lots of other places are willing to go with the flow. One can imagine a future where Russia, Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan and many South East Asian countries become influenced by China over time. The same goes for Africa.
And places like UAE/Saudi and co aren't actually US allies in any meaningful way and would happily turn to China if they thought it gave them an advantage.
China doesn't need to lead them as the US leads NATO, but if they are all opposed to the 'Western Order' its gone be tough.
> They do not have resource independence.
But they do actually have control over lots of resources and refinement currently that would be incredibly hard for the West to be without. It would take very long for the West to produce sufficient amounts of these things. So I think in practice a divided market would be catastrophic for both sides.
Practically speaking the West does not have resource independence. And even best case, it would take decades to have it.
If China really wanted they could mass produce nuclear reactors and produce carbon fuel as needed. Its only a matter of investment. They have the Uranium/Thorium to do it. And if you do it at scale its not that expensive. If China were actually preparing for a serious war they would do this.
This leads me to think that China and the US will continue to rattle their chains at each other for decades to come with neither actually doing anything to throw over the apple cart.
They’d need to switch to aircraft carriers and fast. The US has 11. China has 2. They are expensive, require specifically trained crews, and air superiority counters all of that shipyard capacity.
Why though? China's building drone carriers instead. Taking down aircraft carriers is of course no simple matter, but hardly infeasible for a super power. The problem with capital ships is that they're just as expensive to replace as they are to build. Also, blowing one up eliminates 9% of the US' AC fleet at a stroke, which would be a big psychological blow. I don't think China is as emotionally invested in its aircraft carriers and built them primarily to show that they could. That said, in any military conflict with China an opponent would be well advised to target their nearest aircraft carrier as early and powerfully as possible for the humiliation factor.
> Why though?
I suppose because you want to have more ships to store your nuclear armed planes in more places around the world. Speed.
Honestly (and unfortunately) if anyone actually did destroy a US aircraft carrier, the counter strike would be immediate and an order of magnitude more devastating.
I suppose because you want to have more ships to store your nuclear armed planes in more places around the world. Speed.
Honestly (and unfortunately) if anyone actually did destroy a US aircraft carrier, the counter strike would be immediate and an order of magnitude more devastating.
>I suppose because you want to have more ships to store your nuclear armed planes in more places around the world.
Why? ICBMs are good enough and much cheaper. Also, launching missiles from submarines can be very effective.
Why? ICBMs are good enough and much cheaper. Also, launching missiles from submarines can be very effective.
> the counter strike would be immediate and an order of magnitude more devastating.
The thing is, not many things in the world cost more than an aircraft carrier. What's you're going to blow up? Also, how, short of strategic nuclear war.
The thing is, not many things in the world cost more than an aircraft carrier. What's you're going to blow up? Also, how, short of strategic nuclear war.
Quite. It's hard to see retaliation against a civilian target in a direct response to a military loss, and if an aircraft carrier is sunk in theater there might not be sufficient capacity to respond immediately against military targets.
Third is in sea trial and fourth under construction. Also, China doesn't pretend to be global police, so it needs them only in South China sea, while US need to be present in Middle East, Europe and USA also.
That great, so the US, which produces all the oil it needs within its borders, needs to be present in the Middle East, but China, which produces some oil, but not enough to run its current fleet of cars and trucks, let alone fight a war, does not need to be in the Middle East. Interesting analysis :)
Note that Russia's oil does not help China here: the infrastructure in Russia only allows export via European ports, not Asian ports and not over the Russia-China border, though with the construction of a few 5,000-km-long pipelines, I guess that could change in a few years if Russia cares enough.
Note that Russia's oil does not help China here: the infrastructure in Russia only allows export via European ports, not Asian ports and not over the Russia-China border, though with the construction of a few 5,000-km-long pipelines, I guess that could change in a few years if Russia cares enough.
US isn't in Middle East to protect their oil sources in case of war. US is in Middle East to control oil prices, do policing, help Israel and threat Iran and other regional actors.
I believe Russia and China signed agreements for building gas and oil pipes.
I believe Russia and China signed agreements for building gas and oil pipes.
I agree with your "control oil prices" only if it means making sure Iran or some other country does not close the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers.
> though with the construction of a few 5,000-km-long pipelines, I guess that could change in a few years if Russia cares enough
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altai_gas_pipeline
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-says-oil-pipel...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altai_gas_pipeline
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-says-oil-pipel...
Interesting. From the second link: "Russia currently sends gas to China through the Power of Siberia 1 pipeline, which began operating in 2019 and runs through eastern Siberia into northeast China. Experts say that as China is not expected to need additional gas supply until after 2030, Beijing could drive a hard bargain on price for a second pipeline via Siberia."
Ummm, who's going to make sure all the oil comes from the middle east? It's not like the US needs to import light sweet crude from there since the refineries are made for heavier oil than comes from Saudi or fracking.
maxglute(1)
China has a lot of shipbuilding capacity, but I think it'd be pretty vulnerable to attack. The USA couldn't ramp up shipbuilding capacity overnight, but it could certainly degrade China's ability to build ships overnight. I'm assuming that most of China's ship producing capacity is on the coast, which may be an incorrect assumption.
The thing about building ships is not only does it take forever to build up shipbuilding capacity - it takes forever to build ships.
This should be interpreted as emphasizing the strength of the US Navy though, since it would take years and years for China to possibly match the tonnage of the US Navy even if the US didn’t build anything.
This should be interpreted as emphasizing the strength of the US Navy though, since it would take years and years for China to possibly match the tonnage of the US Navy even if the US didn’t build anything.
Any shipbuilding not on the coast would only be set up for river vessels anyway which are mostly irrelevant in this scenario.
China is now capable of producing more than 1000 missiles per day.
the USA is VERY competent at deploying to and fighting wars.
America loves fighting so much it's had a civil war and fought a few of it's closest allies at various times.
China is a novice at fighting. Whilst they may have lots of ships, having really good people to fight in a complex battlespace is different.
America loves fighting so much it's had a civil war and fought a few of it's closest allies at various times.
China is a novice at fighting. Whilst they may have lots of ships, having really good people to fight in a complex battlespace is different.
> the USA is VERY competent at deploying to and fighting wars.
I don't think you can extrapolate fighting in Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq to fighting China. If a war were to break out, both sides would be learning a lot of lessons very quickly.
I don't think you can extrapolate fighting in Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq to fighting China. If a war were to break out, both sides would be learning a lot of lessons very quickly.
Logistics is under appreciated. And the logistics lessons from fighting real wars are mostly applicable in other wars even if they’re of a different nature.
I don’t think China has a chance until they’ve at least had a practice run with a real conflict somewhere.
I don’t think China has a chance until they’ve at least had a practice run with a real conflict somewhere.
Certainly the US has more logistics experience in actual wars, but it's unclear whether it would matter that much in a US-China war.
A US-China war would most likely be fought in the South China Sea. Most of China's supply train would be moving through China, whereas most of the US's supply train would be moving half way around the world through open ocean. It's not clear why the lack of Chinese experience fighting overseas wars or the US's experience moving materiel through uncontested ocean against non-peer adversaries would apply here.
Remember, the last time the US fought a war without uncontested sea routes and naval superiority was WWII.
A US-China war would most likely be fought in the South China Sea. Most of China's supply train would be moving through China, whereas most of the US's supply train would be moving half way around the world through open ocean. It's not clear why the lack of Chinese experience fighting overseas wars or the US's experience moving materiel through uncontested ocean against non-peer adversaries would apply here.
Remember, the last time the US fought a war without uncontested sea routes and naval superiority was WWII.
US fought a war with China in Korea and they were evenly matched. Korean War is the best historical reference we have.
Back when China consisted primarily of illiterate peasants (only about 20% literacy in 1949) without a significant industrial base (it took China until 2000 to overtake Germany in terms of total GDP).
Yes.
The last war China was involved in was the relatively small Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979. And the last one before that was WW2.
It would be hard to count all the wars the US involved themselves in during that time.
However, with regards to China Americans seem to be mostly worried about Taiwan. Taiwan is a lot closer to the coast of the PRC than it is to the coast of the US. (On the other hand, the people living in Taiwan are even closer to Taiwan than the PRC is. And they would certainly enter the fray, too.)
The last war China was involved in was the relatively small Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979. And the last one before that was WW2.
It would be hard to count all the wars the US involved themselves in during that time.
However, with regards to China Americans seem to be mostly worried about Taiwan. Taiwan is a lot closer to the coast of the PRC than it is to the coast of the US. (On the other hand, the people living in Taiwan are even closer to Taiwan than the PRC is. And they would certainly enter the fray, too.)
For China to take Taiwan, it would represent China doing the most complex surprise invasion that even the US military couldn't probably pull off.
Assaulting a beach head is up there as possible the most difficult thing you can do. In WW2 the Allies got lucky because, Radar, Missiles, and drones didn't exist yet. Taiwan has stacks of weapons, enough to repel and invasion and they also have, jungles, mountains and cities to extend the fighting into.
Assaulting a beach head is up there as possible the most difficult thing you can do. In WW2 the Allies got lucky because, Radar, Missiles, and drones didn't exist yet. Taiwan has stacks of weapons, enough to repel and invasion and they also have, jungles, mountains and cities to extend the fighting into.
China doesn't need to take a beach in the first phase. If they gain sea superiority, they can blockade the island and eventually exhaust anti-air defenses with drones until they gain air superiority. At that point defenders wouldn't be able to mass to defend a beach.
Bingo, PRC is not going to start amphib ops until TW has minimal weapons that can repel invasion left. They're not stupidly charging into a Normandy because they have magnitude more radars, missiles, drones etc, enough to make sure TW won't have much of theirs for long. TW is an island 16x smaller than UKR, much larger gap in MiC production vs PRC than UKR vs RU, and unabled to be resupplied via porous land borded by friendlies. TW also thoroughly covered by PRC ISR, including SAR to look through foliage, nearly every inch of which can be hit within 7 minutes with PRC rocketry. Less once PRC establishes persistent drone presence. It's why all the recent analysis depends on TW buying enough time for US+co to enter picture.
The flip side of a contested amphib operation is an uncontested one, which is potentially siginifantly easier than land invasion because there's no where for defenders to hide / ambush. Crossing a shallow strait where subs can't hide is probably easier than US plowing through Iraqi desert where defenders can at least pretend to put up defense by entrenching tanks / digging trenches. It's basically untested sailing if PRC destroys TW platforms that can hit back and lock down with air supremacy.
Also folks should look up TW river map, TW island is broken up into a series of bastions cut up by rivers where connections / bridges can be severed and sections attacked piece meal. If PRC's smart, they'll destroy most of TW weapon platforms that can reach out into water, bombard a few km of map squares of landing site to dust, have drones shoot everything that moves 5km out to carve a landing zone that can't be contested by large or small fires. If PRC smarter, they'd just blockade TW until world realize the only country with enough sealift to supply an island of 24m with food and water is PRC.
As for taking urban centres, look at how Israel is doing in Gaza with 20x population density than TW, theoretically urban combat is suppose to be slaughter vs attacker but if you indiscrimantly bomb and starve the population until they can't put up organized high end fight, then it becomes a managable problem. And again if PRC smart and they have to land boots on ground, they'd likely just siege from outside urban centres and small fires range, and wait for factional struggle and find collaborators willing to do boots on ground enforcement in return for controlling food + water.
The flip side of a contested amphib operation is an uncontested one, which is potentially siginifantly easier than land invasion because there's no where for defenders to hide / ambush. Crossing a shallow strait where subs can't hide is probably easier than US plowing through Iraqi desert where defenders can at least pretend to put up defense by entrenching tanks / digging trenches. It's basically untested sailing if PRC destroys TW platforms that can hit back and lock down with air supremacy.
Also folks should look up TW river map, TW island is broken up into a series of bastions cut up by rivers where connections / bridges can be severed and sections attacked piece meal. If PRC's smart, they'll destroy most of TW weapon platforms that can reach out into water, bombard a few km of map squares of landing site to dust, have drones shoot everything that moves 5km out to carve a landing zone that can't be contested by large or small fires. If PRC smarter, they'd just blockade TW until world realize the only country with enough sealift to supply an island of 24m with food and water is PRC.
As for taking urban centres, look at how Israel is doing in Gaza with 20x population density than TW, theoretically urban combat is suppose to be slaughter vs attacker but if you indiscrimantly bomb and starve the population until they can't put up organized high end fight, then it becomes a managable problem. And again if PRC smart and they have to land boots on ground, they'd likely just siege from outside urban centres and small fires range, and wait for factional struggle and find collaborators willing to do boots on ground enforcement in return for controlling food + water.
I think China won't attack soon. It seems they play a long time game vs Taiwan, where they try to bring Taiwan, closer, weeken it's ties to its allies and slowly making Taiwan to become more dependent on China.
China is convinced they will get Taiwan back and whether that happens in 20,50 or 100 years, that is good enough.
At least until China builds a self sufficient semiconductor industry, I don't think they are going to attack Taiwan.
China is convinced they will get Taiwan back and whether that happens in 20,50 or 100 years, that is good enough.
At least until China builds a self sufficient semiconductor industry, I don't think they are going to attack Taiwan.
I don't think they want to go kinetic first either, but I think natural byproduct of PRC military modernizing, and modernizing specifically with taking TW _AND_ fighting US+co in mind, is if things pop off for whatever reason, the escalation will snowball. And it will snowball somewhere very destructive because all parties in this game are ramping up capabilities to deter, but when deterrence fails, there's lots of hardware that's not going to do deterring but shooting.
As for PRC waiting, I think they can wait, even past 2049, PRC centennial, but they're not going to wait for ever. TW indentity growing, a few more generations and culture completely disentangle (aging pro-ish PRC, KMT cohorts not going to be around forever). At some point, PRC isn't going to see TWneses as "fellow Chinese" occupying TW, a Chinese province. But a foreign culture occupying Chinese land, and that's going to generate all manners of opennings for conflict.
As for PRC waiting, I think they can wait, even past 2049, PRC centennial, but they're not going to wait for ever. TW indentity growing, a few more generations and culture completely disentangle (aging pro-ish PRC, KMT cohorts not going to be around forever). At some point, PRC isn't going to see TWneses as "fellow Chinese" occupying TW, a Chinese province. But a foreign culture occupying Chinese land, and that's going to generate all manners of opennings for conflict.
On the one hand you have a point, and they're drifting apart culturally - but at the same time Taiwan is not keeping up economically or culturally at all.
If the rate of economic progress stays close to constant, in a decade it's going to be hard to look at the evil communists across the straight who are much better off living standards wise. Taipei is a bit drab and ugly that hasn't seen any development in the last decade. It looks worse than second tier cities in China. Just my surface level impression is that you fly across the straight and people are dressed nicer and look better off on the subway there.
On the cultural front they're also not doing hot.. the domestic culture is anemic. They don't make movies like they did in the 90s. Nobody cares about Taiwan's cultural output (other than bubble tea). The art scene is honestly.. pathetic here. In large part b/c they can't engage with anything historic other than recent history of the White terror. There is an eww factor with regards to engaging with Chinese history - its seen as the culture of the "other" and so you see it in every day life.. no tea ceremony, no hanfu, no interest in history. There is also no real "Taiwanese culture" that would be alien to a Chinese person (I can only think of Pili?). There is some stuff built on top of Fujianese culture.. but it's got no legs so far.
The elephant in the room is that Taiwanese are also starting to consume more and more Chinese media - which was kinda garbage quality for a long time but has vastly improved in the last 5 years. I think this will take off. You can already see it on Tiktok and stuff.. people use a lot more mainland terms and expressions.
If the Chinese were smart they'd build 10-20 ferries and offer people free trips to Xiamen/Shanghai. Most Taiwanese never travel to China and have little sense for the cultural similarities
If the Chinese manage to ramp up chip production then Taiwanese is really screwed. TSMC is some insane percentage of the GDP. The other insane fraction is of course businesses that work in China like Foxconn.. China already has this place by the balls unfortunately
If the rate of economic progress stays close to constant, in a decade it's going to be hard to look at the evil communists across the straight who are much better off living standards wise. Taipei is a bit drab and ugly that hasn't seen any development in the last decade. It looks worse than second tier cities in China. Just my surface level impression is that you fly across the straight and people are dressed nicer and look better off on the subway there.
On the cultural front they're also not doing hot.. the domestic culture is anemic. They don't make movies like they did in the 90s. Nobody cares about Taiwan's cultural output (other than bubble tea). The art scene is honestly.. pathetic here. In large part b/c they can't engage with anything historic other than recent history of the White terror. There is an eww factor with regards to engaging with Chinese history - its seen as the culture of the "other" and so you see it in every day life.. no tea ceremony, no hanfu, no interest in history. There is also no real "Taiwanese culture" that would be alien to a Chinese person (I can only think of Pili?). There is some stuff built on top of Fujianese culture.. but it's got no legs so far.
The elephant in the room is that Taiwanese are also starting to consume more and more Chinese media - which was kinda garbage quality for a long time but has vastly improved in the last 5 years. I think this will take off. You can already see it on Tiktok and stuff.. people use a lot more mainland terms and expressions.
If the Chinese were smart they'd build 10-20 ferries and offer people free trips to Xiamen/Shanghai. Most Taiwanese never travel to China and have little sense for the cultural similarities
If the Chinese manage to ramp up chip production then Taiwanese is really screwed. TSMC is some insane percentage of the GDP. The other insane fraction is of course businesses that work in China like Foxconn.. China already has this place by the balls unfortunately
> If the rate of economic progress stays close to constant, [...]
Not going to happen. So far in all economies, catchup growth has inevitably slowed down as they moved to the global technological frontier.
Taiwan was famously one of the Asian tigers. As you already noticed, her growth has slowed down a lot. PR China has seen enormous growth, but has also slowed down in the last ten years or so, and looks to slow down further.
At the moment, PR China as a whole is a lot poorer per capita than Taiwan. Though you can argue that for our purposes here, Taiwanese people would compare themselves to the coastal provinces of PR China.
(Of course, they would also look at Hong Kong as the obvious comparison for a (semi-) independent entity joining PR China. And just going by raw growth, officially joining China doesn't seem to have accelerated HK growth at all.)
Not going to happen. So far in all economies, catchup growth has inevitably slowed down as they moved to the global technological frontier.
Taiwan was famously one of the Asian tigers. As you already noticed, her growth has slowed down a lot. PR China has seen enormous growth, but has also slowed down in the last ten years or so, and looks to slow down further.
At the moment, PR China as a whole is a lot poorer per capita than Taiwan. Though you can argue that for our purposes here, Taiwanese people would compare themselves to the coastal provinces of PR China.
(Of course, they would also look at Hong Kong as the obvious comparison for a (semi-) independent entity joining PR China. And just going by raw growth, officially joining China doesn't seem to have accelerated HK growth at all.)
My point is that just from .. on the ground "feel" and quality of life .. Hong Kong, Taipei and large Chinese cities are all at rather similar levels (each having their own pluses and minuses). And I don't see them growing at the same rate from here on out.
People keep predicting the slowing of growth in China, but it's not materialized (at least anywhere close to the degree the experts expected). Just over the period of the pandemic I saw personally a huge amount of development and growth in China, while virtually nothing in Taiwan.
I'm just skeptical that once you reach Taiwan's level of development it's some inevitability that growth stalls. There are serious structural problems here in Taiwan that have made it stall (bureaucratic, extreme protectionist trade policy with huge tariffs on imports, little entrepreneurial spirit, anemic art scene, weak work ethic, an extremely non-confrontational culture, etc.).
Similar to Hong Kong, a key economic driver was their function as a bridge between the West and China - but this has become mostly redundant now.
All good things must come to an end. China will stall eventually too, for instance they're getting incredibly bureaucratic now, but they still have some runway.
People keep predicting the slowing of growth in China, but it's not materialized (at least anywhere close to the degree the experts expected). Just over the period of the pandemic I saw personally a huge amount of development and growth in China, while virtually nothing in Taiwan.
I'm just skeptical that once you reach Taiwan's level of development it's some inevitability that growth stalls. There are serious structural problems here in Taiwan that have made it stall (bureaucratic, extreme protectionist trade policy with huge tariffs on imports, little entrepreneurial spirit, anemic art scene, weak work ethic, an extremely non-confrontational culture, etc.).
Similar to Hong Kong, a key economic driver was their function as a bridge between the West and China - but this has become mostly redundant now.
All good things must come to an end. China will stall eventually too, for instance they're getting incredibly bureaucratic now, but they still have some runway.
Computer programmers from Taiwan go to the PRC to earn more money. Heck, programmers from Japan and ROK find they can get more money in China as well with the right specialty. It is just one small segment of their economy, but the money China is willing to spend on tech is no joke, and dwarfs its neighbors in terms of salaries.
Post HK crackdown protesters partying in and shopping in PRC. Lot's of buy China movement generating domestic brands across the spectrum happening. IMO yes, PRC cultural catchet will increase, most next TWers will look at sinicized next gen HKers and realize being "another" priveleged Chinese city not so bad. More new TW democracy dysfunction reveals itself, i.e. sunflower kids getting lesson in majority rule now, more jaded people will realize systems matter less than progress. The force against this is cohort voting math + entire LIO+Authoritarian propaganda layer with 100s of western NGOs on the ground. IMO pro-TW identity/independance bloc going to be too loud and too large past 2049.
> I think China won't attack soon. It seems they play a long time game vs Taiwan, where they try to bring Taiwan, closer, weeken it's ties to its allies and slowly making Taiwan to become more dependent on China.
That might be a sensible strategy. But: sabre rattling now is exactly the wrong way to go about weakening Taiwan's ties with her allies.
That might be a sensible strategy. But: sabre rattling now is exactly the wrong way to go about weakening Taiwan's ties with her allies.
Your argument proves at most that attacking Taiwan is a bad idea.
Alas, as we've seen with Russia's attack on Ukraine, something being a bad idea and unlikely to succeed is not enough to declare it impossible.
Alas, as we've seen with Russia's attack on Ukraine, something being a bad idea and unlikely to succeed is not enough to declare it impossible.
It certainly used to be.
I am not that sure anymore. US armaments industry got a bad case of Wall Street in the 1990s and there aren't many factories left. Even though the US is indirectly involved in a big land war with Russia, plus has a lot of purchase orders from other countries, the industry is spinning up at snail's pace. Smaller countries in Europe will wait 10 or more years for their F-35s.
One of the serious diseases of the developed world is bureaucracy. The US has way less of it than, say, Germany (which is almost a fatal case), and maybe it could get rid of it in times of need.
Maybe. But Starship development is still being delayed by licensing, even though said licensing didn't stop the only really serious problem until today (the destruction of the concrete launch pad in Boca Chica).
I am not that sure anymore. US armaments industry got a bad case of Wall Street in the 1990s and there aren't many factories left. Even though the US is indirectly involved in a big land war with Russia, plus has a lot of purchase orders from other countries, the industry is spinning up at snail's pace. Smaller countries in Europe will wait 10 or more years for their F-35s.
One of the serious diseases of the developed world is bureaucracy. The US has way less of it than, say, Germany (which is almost a fatal case), and maybe it could get rid of it in times of need.
Maybe. But Starship development is still being delayed by licensing, even though said licensing didn't stop the only really serious problem until today (the destruction of the concrete launch pad in Boca Chica).
The US is the worlds largest arms supplier today, and getting more orders all the time. There might not be a lot of factories, but the ones there are produce a lot of stuff.
What?
They had their own civil war that went from the early 1900s right up until 1965 which was sporadically interrupted by the Japanese.
The Chinese did nothing but fight for two thirds of the twentieth century
They had their own civil war that went from the early 1900s right up until 1965 which was sporadically interrupted by the Japanese.
The Chinese did nothing but fight for two thirds of the twentieth century
>the USA is VERY competent at deploying to and fighting wars.
But not at wining. Last war US won was WW2.
Newertheless, US discovered that wars are good for making money.
But not at wining. Last war US won was WW2.
Newertheless, US discovered that wars are good for making money.
Maybe if the US spent 230 times more on defense that would help? (/s)
More seriously, why are we not prepared? Didn't we spend enough to keep our defense industry competitive?
More seriously, why are we not prepared? Didn't we spend enough to keep our defense industry competitive?
>> If a conflict with China ever comes to pass,
If a conflict with China comes to pass, it won't be on US or China soil. It'll be a proxy conflict somewhere else.
All the major conflicts since ww2 have been in proxy locations. Korea (US/China), Vietnam (US/Soviet Union), and so on.
"Occupying" a country is fruitless (see pretty much everyone in Afghanistan) and unpopular.
So I don't see Chinese bombers over Seattle or US bombers over Shanghai. In that sort if conflict both sides lose.
Taiwan is the obvious proxy in play. The South China Sea is the other. Both would give China significant geographical advantage. Taiwan is just important enough (making PCs) that the US may intervene. But will the US land troops in Taiwan to fight street battles? Probably not (imo).
Will Chinese troops parachute into LA or US troops parachute into Tibet? Not a chance.
With all this in mind, statistics and behaviors from ww1 and ww2 are somewhat irrelevant.
If there is a US China conflict though, it's more likely to be economic. Supply chains disrupted. Chips in short supply. In that sense domestic production of non-military items becomes paramount (to keep the population appeased.)
If a conflict with China comes to pass, it won't be on US or China soil. It'll be a proxy conflict somewhere else.
All the major conflicts since ww2 have been in proxy locations. Korea (US/China), Vietnam (US/Soviet Union), and so on.
"Occupying" a country is fruitless (see pretty much everyone in Afghanistan) and unpopular.
So I don't see Chinese bombers over Seattle or US bombers over Shanghai. In that sort if conflict both sides lose.
Taiwan is the obvious proxy in play. The South China Sea is the other. Both would give China significant geographical advantage. Taiwan is just important enough (making PCs) that the US may intervene. But will the US land troops in Taiwan to fight street battles? Probably not (imo).
Will Chinese troops parachute into LA or US troops parachute into Tibet? Not a chance.
With all this in mind, statistics and behaviors from ww1 and ww2 are somewhat irrelevant.
If there is a US China conflict though, it's more likely to be economic. Supply chains disrupted. Chips in short supply. In that sense domestic production of non-military items becomes paramount (to keep the population appeased.)
If you want to have strategic deterrence capability, all scenarios are kept in mind, even if they are little low probability, in warfare sometimes enemy tries to find low probability scenarios and exploits that. (Remember german blitzkrieg in ww2)
>If you want to have strategic deterrence capability
For strategic detterence capability building lots of ICBMs and missiles is good enough and cheap enough.
For strategic detterence capability building lots of ICBMs and missiles is good enough and cheap enough.
I would imagine that the Chinese goal is destroy the island chain that keeps them contained and push them out of Hawaii.
That would be more than enough to allow Chinese full control over that region of the world and give America a shamefully large black eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy
That would be more than enough to allow Chinese full control over that region of the world and give America a shamefully large black eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy
U.S. simply participated in WWI for too short a time, only 1.5 years. It didn't produce much stuff in WWII by spring 1943 either - everything was in desperately short supply then. If it wasn't, why didn't Normandy invasion happen a year earlier?
And lack of preparedness in the previous years before WWI was deliberate, because public was too much against the idea of interfering into European affairs and politicians made every efforts to make it as physically difficult as possible. Zimmermann Telegram changed that.
And lack of preparedness in the previous years before WWI was deliberate, because public was too much against the idea of interfering into European affairs and politicians made every efforts to make it as physically difficult as possible. Zimmermann Telegram changed that.
I think the expectation is that China is the one that would massively outproduce the US. And that our technological "advantage" is roughly that of Germany over the US in WWII (i.e. noticable, but not meaningful). We likely would be barely capable of a WWI performance as far as output..
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> If a conflict with China ever comes to pass, it is not at all predestined that the US will repeat its WW2 feat rather than its WW1 experience.
Exactly, I see it pretty hard to pull the same feat again unless there is a very big alignment with the companies that have installed capacity in the country.
Exactly, I see it pretty hard to pull the same feat again unless there is a very big alignment with the companies that have installed capacity in the country.
That's weird that they would have a rifle shortage as the US manufactured millions of rifles for the UK (P14) and Russia (Winchester 1895 and Mosin-Nagant) and France (Berthier) during WWI.
Absolutely had no idea about US preparedness before WW1. Any books that shed more light on it?
I don't remember where I read that. But I just checked on wikipedia and it looks like the US had rifles to provide to its white soldiers, but not to its African-American soldiers, which formed 13% of the force. There was a whole combat division (the 93rd) that was equipped with the French Berthier rifle [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Forces#...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Forces#...
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What this article misses is that the US "private planes" were being sold directly to Japan and then being converted into military aircraft. What we didn't sell we licensed the designs directly to them.
This went on well into the late 1930s. It was recognized as a potential problem by some but the profits were large enough that these were ignored.
I encourage everyone to read the book "Human Smoke." It is a collection of headlines and newspaper excerpts from the period surrounding WW2. It's a fascinating read and wonderfully exposes all the propaganda driven half truths and complete fabrications we've sold ourselves about the conflict ever since it ended.
This went on well into the late 1930s. It was recognized as a potential problem by some but the profits were large enough that these were ignored.
I encourage everyone to read the book "Human Smoke." It is a collection of headlines and newspaper excerpts from the period surrounding WW2. It's a fascinating read and wonderfully exposes all the propaganda driven half truths and complete fabrications we've sold ourselves about the conflict ever since it ended.
In "Critical Path", Buckminster Fuller said that US scrap metal companies were furiously selling scrap to Germany & Japan in 1939 to capitalize on all-time high prices...
Ukraine to this day still gets most of its gas and oil imports from Russia and also continues to transit Russian gas through pipelines to Europe.
Weird, but there's probably good reasons. For one, EU countries that depend on Russian gas via Ukraine would stop their support of Ukraine if they were to stop the flow.
> US scrap metal companies were furiously selling scrap to Germany & Japan in 1939
In Herman Wouk's novel The Winds of War, an admiral, aboard an aircraft carrier near Pearl Harbor in 1940 or -41, groused to his officers that (paraphrasing from memory) "sooner or later the [Japanese] are going to come steaming over the horizon, burning Texaco oil and shooting pieces of old Buicks at us."
In Herman Wouk's novel The Winds of War, an admiral, aboard an aircraft carrier near Pearl Harbor in 1940 or -41, groused to his officers that (paraphrasing from memory) "sooner or later the [Japanese] are going to come steaming over the horizon, burning Texaco oil and shooting pieces of old Buicks at us."
I asked my friend to recommend his favorite historical novels, and they were 'The Winds of War' and 'War and Remembrance.' It's amazing how much history is embedded in them, well worth the time to read.
Thanks for the rec. I'm going to check out "Human Smoke". Now I want to recommend "Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son"[1] which is a collection of letters that a man, who made his wealth through the Chicago meat industry, to his son who went to college. It gave a warming perspective of a parent who would express his love in one letter, and frustration towards his son for showing up to work late in another. It beautifully illustrates a "modern" parent-child relationship in a time period I often imagine as cold and distant.
[1]https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21959
[1]https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21959
Meanwhile America is now struggling to produce something as simple as artillery shells, while Russia is producing 2-5 times the number produced by the entire US + EU combined.
Sources:
[1] https://www.defenseone.com/business/2023/11/race-make-artill...
[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery...
Sources:
[1] https://www.defenseone.com/business/2023/11/race-make-artill...
[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery...
There is good reason for that: the US/NATO war plans are not to get into an artillery war in the first place. If there is artillery in the way the US/NATO plan is send an airplane with a few bombs to take it out. There is still some room for artillery in the army and so we produce some, but that isn't the major way to fight wars.
The Soviet plan - which both Russia and Ukraine are well trained in - was to use lots of artillery. In backing Ukraine NATO suddenly sees a need for some shells that they wouldn't use if it was them. But the Ukrainian generals know them and so that is what they want. (Note too the nobody has provided Ukraine anywhere near the number of airplanes needed to fight a NATO style war - even if all promised F16s arrive today with full training it isn't enough for a NATO war)
The Soviet plan - which both Russia and Ukraine are well trained in - was to use lots of artillery. In backing Ukraine NATO suddenly sees a need for some shells that they wouldn't use if it was them. But the Ukrainian generals know them and so that is what they want. (Note too the nobody has provided Ukraine anywhere near the number of airplanes needed to fight a NATO style war - even if all promised F16s arrive today with full training it isn't enough for a NATO war)
Right, I think the idea that America plans to go into an artillery slugsfest misunderstands American military doctrine. One could argue that the reason we weren't prepared to do "artillery war" in Ukraine is because, politically, we're restrained from conducting an air superiority campaign (which would be used to eliminate enemy artillery).
The Soviet/Russian land doctrine is totally based on artillery. It makes sense that that is their priority.
Now, that doesn't mean that American doctrine would work well in a hypothetical war with China. I personally don't think the current doctrine would work well. But those that watch the military sphere know that brass have taken note of that and are implementing changes. That all you can really ask for.
The Soviet/Russian land doctrine is totally based on artillery. It makes sense that that is their priority.
Now, that doesn't mean that American doctrine would work well in a hypothetical war with China. I personally don't think the current doctrine would work well. But those that watch the military sphere know that brass have taken note of that and are implementing changes. That all you can really ask for.
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The point is not whether US/NATO would fight an artillery war. The point is about proving your industrial base's manufacturing capacity. Artillery shells should be relatively cheap and easy to produce. It's a really bad sign if America is such a bureaucratic mess right now that production can't be ramped quickly. Doesn't bode well for future war, doesn't demonstrate capability.
The US doesn't want an artillery war, so they don't need that, and therefore I disagree. However it is bad that we haven't scaled up patriot production as that is something we would need and should know (in fact we knew that 20 years ago after the gulf war).
While asking we should also question how fast we can scale up F35 production along with all the various arms the F35 carries.
While asking we should also question how fast we can scale up F35 production along with all the various arms the F35 carries.
The US may not want an artillery war, but the US needs to inspire confidence among partners and allies, and this sort of manufacturing failure really sends a bad signal. No wonder half of Africa is turning away from US/Western partners and looking towards Russia.
It’s disingenuous to claim without citation that the US does not anticipate using artillery as one (of many) primary weapons in a land conflict against a near-peer adversary. The fact that thr US hasn’t had such a conflict since at least Vietnam (and arguably Korea) not withstanding.
Artillery has proved decisive in every conflict with static lines in the last 100 years. Sure, hopefully air supremacy would overwhelm your opponent and prevent a static conflict, but no air force has ever established supremacy in a conflict with saturated strategic air defenses. Perhaps the US air forces could, but this capability is untested. Sadam and Yugoslavia were limited to tactical air defenses in relatively small numbers compared with modern day Russia or China.
In short, artillery remains important, which is why US artillery shell production is up an order of magnitude over the last 3 years, and will continue to rise.
Artillery has proved decisive in every conflict with static lines in the last 100 years. Sure, hopefully air supremacy would overwhelm your opponent and prevent a static conflict, but no air force has ever established supremacy in a conflict with saturated strategic air defenses. Perhaps the US air forces could, but this capability is untested. Sadam and Yugoslavia were limited to tactical air defenses in relatively small numbers compared with modern day Russia or China.
In short, artillery remains important, which is why US artillery shell production is up an order of magnitude over the last 3 years, and will continue to rise.
> It’s disingenuous to claim without citation that the US does not anticipate using artillery as one (of many) primary weapons in a land conflict against a near-peer adversary.
It's not disingenuous at all. It's pretty apparent if you even take a cursory look at modern American military doctrine/spending. The plan is always to park a carrier close by (maybe two), conduct an air campaign, then send in the troops. Artillery wars just chew up people which the the American public has not had an appetite for since Vietnam.
>The fact that thr US hasn’t had such a conflict since at least Vietnam (and arguably Korea) not withstanding.
It think that is a caveat as big as the Pacific. Vietnam was literally 60 years ago. You don't think top brass have rethought how wars are fought since then? For context, that's 10 Presidencies since LBJ (36th).
> Artillery has proved decisive in every conflict with static lines in the last 100 years.
Again, modern American doctrine has focused on the layering of power projection and troop mobility specifically to NOT fight in static positions.
> Artillery has proved decisive in every conflict with static lines in the last 100 years. Sure, hopefully air supremacy would overwhelm your opponent and prevent a static conflict, but no air force has ever established supremacy in a conflict with saturated strategic air defenses. Perhaps the US air forces could, but this capability is untested. Sadam and Yugoslavia were limited to tactical air defenses in relatively small numbers compared with modern day Russia or China.
Again caveats. Also a war with China will be fought exactly opposite to Ukraine (with missiles not artillery, and with dynamic naval fronts, not trench warfare).
It's not disingenuous at all. It's pretty apparent if you even take a cursory look at modern American military doctrine/spending. The plan is always to park a carrier close by (maybe two), conduct an air campaign, then send in the troops. Artillery wars just chew up people which the the American public has not had an appetite for since Vietnam.
>The fact that thr US hasn’t had such a conflict since at least Vietnam (and arguably Korea) not withstanding.
It think that is a caveat as big as the Pacific. Vietnam was literally 60 years ago. You don't think top brass have rethought how wars are fought since then? For context, that's 10 Presidencies since LBJ (36th).
> Artillery has proved decisive in every conflict with static lines in the last 100 years.
Again, modern American doctrine has focused on the layering of power projection and troop mobility specifically to NOT fight in static positions.
> Artillery has proved decisive in every conflict with static lines in the last 100 years. Sure, hopefully air supremacy would overwhelm your opponent and prevent a static conflict, but no air force has ever established supremacy in a conflict with saturated strategic air defenses. Perhaps the US air forces could, but this capability is untested. Sadam and Yugoslavia were limited to tactical air defenses in relatively small numbers compared with modern day Russia or China.
Again caveats. Also a war with China will be fought exactly opposite to Ukraine (with missiles not artillery, and with dynamic naval fronts, not trench warfare).
> The plan is always to park a carrier close by (maybe two)
It's an open secret in military circles that aircraft carriers are useless against a peer adversary like Russia or China, which both have the ability to sink carriers and shoot down planes easily. Carriers are only good against unsophisticated terrorists.
But it is pointless to talk about a war with Russia, which would very quickly turn into nuclear Armageddon.
[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-navys-aircraft-car...
It's an open secret in military circles that aircraft carriers are useless against a peer adversary like Russia or China, which both have the ability to sink carriers and shoot down planes easily. Carriers are only good against unsophisticated terrorists.
But it is pointless to talk about a war with Russia, which would very quickly turn into nuclear Armageddon.
[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-navys-aircraft-car...
It funny I actually read that article earlier this month. I don't have articles to rebutt, but there are people in military circles who think diametrically to the that article (including me).
> It's an open secret in military circles that aircraft carriers are useless against a peer adversary like Russia or China, which both have the ability to sink carriers and shoot down planes easily.
This is not true. How else do you expect to fight an adversary in their home turf without a platform for air superiority? If anything, aircraft carriers would have more survivability (they move) than our supporting airbases in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines (which will almost immediately be hit with ballistic missiles at the start of a conflict). Carriers have layered missile defense. Our arguably biggest weakness in our navy is our lack of ability to underway replenish vertical launch missile cells (used for both offense and defense at sea), but there is a huge push to solve this at the moment.
I'd also challenge you to show examples of China actually shooting down a fighter jet. There's also the fact that China just doesn't have the military experience. Half of war fighting is experience (rehearsing isn't the same as active conflict), and logistics.
> Carriers are only good against unsophisticated terrorists.
This is laughably untrue.
> But it is pointless to talk about a war with Russia, which would very quickly turn into nuclear Armageddon.
This is Russia's single schtick.
> It's an open secret in military circles that aircraft carriers are useless against a peer adversary like Russia or China, which both have the ability to sink carriers and shoot down planes easily.
This is not true. How else do you expect to fight an adversary in their home turf without a platform for air superiority? If anything, aircraft carriers would have more survivability (they move) than our supporting airbases in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines (which will almost immediately be hit with ballistic missiles at the start of a conflict). Carriers have layered missile defense. Our arguably biggest weakness in our navy is our lack of ability to underway replenish vertical launch missile cells (used for both offense and defense at sea), but there is a huge push to solve this at the moment.
I'd also challenge you to show examples of China actually shooting down a fighter jet. There's also the fact that China just doesn't have the military experience. Half of war fighting is experience (rehearsing isn't the same as active conflict), and logistics.
> Carriers are only good against unsophisticated terrorists.
This is laughably untrue.
> But it is pointless to talk about a war with Russia, which would very quickly turn into nuclear Armageddon.
This is Russia's single schtick.
No reason to think their nuclear arsenal is in any better shape than the rest of their armaments. (Or are they going to buy nukes from the Norks, too?)
Fighting static positions is what you do when your opponent is literally your neighbor occupying slightly different dirt that touches yours. Which is not the case with China and the US.
When you switch from land to water tooling your military doctrine to things like air superiority, missiles, island hoping make much more sense to me at least.
When you switch from land to water tooling your military doctrine to things like air superiority, missiles, island hoping make much more sense to me at least.
Well we certainly do agree that artillery will not be the primary weapon of choice in any naval war!
I do appreciate your point of view, but I maintain that in a lengthy land war with a near peer, missile stockpiles would run low and 4th gen fighters would be unable to contest enemy airspace. Of course, the caveat is that the US would very much like to avoid any such conflict via either diplomacy or a decisive first few weeks of combat. And the hope is that 5th gen fighters would evade air defenses. Even so, US doctrine calls for being capable of fighting prolonged land wars on multiple fronts.
I do appreciate your point of view, but I maintain that in a lengthy land war with a near peer, missile stockpiles would run low and 4th gen fighters would be unable to contest enemy airspace. Of course, the caveat is that the US would very much like to avoid any such conflict via either diplomacy or a decisive first few weeks of combat. And the hope is that 5th gen fighters would evade air defenses. Even so, US doctrine calls for being capable of fighting prolonged land wars on multiple fronts.
> US artillery shell production is up an order of magnitude over the last 3 years, and will continue to rise.
God bless. Let's outperform all the adversaries combined in shell, ammunition, carrier, and fighter production. American military dominance must never be called into question even by the possibility of multi-theater war.
God bless. Let's outperform all the adversaries combined in shell, ammunition, carrier, and fighter production. American military dominance must never be called into question even by the possibility of multi-theater war.
With what we spend on the military, it's shameful to not have an entire factory mothballed ready to crank out ammunition.
But maybe I'm not a military genius like those in charge of for profit defense contractors.
But maybe I'm not a military genius like those in charge of for profit defense contractors.
If the factory isn't used you have no idea if it will work. Did mice eat the wires? Machines rust? Did we discover the something is hazardous and we wouldn't use it? Is the thing obsolete and we wouldn't want it anymore? Do we have people who know how to run the factory? This is one reason why the army has thousands of tanks they don't want (the more cynics say is is a jobs program that congress forces on the army - you decide which view you want to take, but both are valid)
As a Ukrainian, this sounds like betrayal. We went to war expecting sufficient military support from our superpower partner/ally.
> As a Ukrainian, this sounds like betrayal. We went to war expecting sufficient military support from our superpower partner/ally.
You didn't "go to war". A portion of your sovereign territory was invaded, and you did/are attempting to defend it. The fact that the US/NATO are willing to contribute to your defense is just a plus. Ukraine is not a NATO member and has no defense treaties with anyone in Europe.
You didn't "go to war". A portion of your sovereign territory was invaded, and you did/are attempting to defend it. The fact that the US/NATO are willing to contribute to your defense is just a plus. Ukraine is not a NATO member and has no defense treaties with anyone in Europe.
> A portion of your sovereign territory was invaded, and you did/are attempting to defend it
Technically true, but if you get some amount of promised military support, you're going to try to be more ambitious in your defense/counter-attack, and you're going to reject unfavourable peace terms.
Technically true, but if you get some amount of promised military support, you're going to try to be more ambitious in your defense/counter-attack, and you're going to reject unfavourable peace terms.
Good luck getting any other countries to give up their nukes, with that attitude.
Russia also spends something like 7% of its gdp in the military, while for most European countries defence budget is around 2% of their gdp.
I'm not a war analyst also, but nato doctrine is kinda different from Russia'S. During both Bosnia and Serbia bombing campaigns nato inflicted most damage through bombs, not shells. In Ukraine both Ukrainians and Russians had to resort to artillery shells because none of them could fly uncontested
I'm not a war analyst also, but nato doctrine is kinda different from Russia'S. During both Bosnia and Serbia bombing campaigns nato inflicted most damage through bombs, not shells. In Ukraine both Ukrainians and Russians had to resort to artillery shells because none of them could fly uncontested
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Your linked articles don’t back up the first part of your claim: the US doubled production, and exceeded production targets, but that progress is being hindered due to Congressional funding. So we have the ability to make shells, but don’t need them in mass numbers (because we’re not in an active war).
The OP article is about creating the manufacturing capability, which is different from having the capability and not needing it.
The OP article is about creating the manufacturing capability, which is different from having the capability and not needing it.
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Actually, an American engineer notes, the US is actually "struggling" with manufacturing artillery shells for some strange reason. https://roblh.substack.com/p/as-much-as-you-ever-wanted-to-k...
Sure, if you have the mistaken belief that making modern artillery shells at scale is simple, the US looks bad compared to a country whose government has always prioritized having lots of supplies for its army because unlike the US, it is not separated by vast oceans from any army that could possibly pose a threat to it.
That’s expected.
Russian has been in a war for the past 2-years.
The US & EU have not.
Russian has been in a war for the past 2-years.
The US & EU have not.
On the topic of supplying materiel, which is the topic of this thread, NATO countries have been 100% involved.
If NATO could supply the materiel for Ukraine to "singlehandedly" defeat Russia, they would do it in a heartbeat. But they don't have it!
If NATO could supply the materiel for Ukraine to "singlehandedly" defeat Russia, they would do it in a heartbeat. But they don't have it!
I’m not sure that’s the case.
It seems more like politics than anything else.
Countries want to help.
But they don’t want to help too much, where they then get pulled into the war (or have Russia target them).
It seems more like politics than anything else.
Countries want to help.
But they don’t want to help too much, where they then get pulled into the war (or have Russia target them).
Did you read these? The first article clearly states the US is actually ramping up production better than expected and it can do even better with more support/funding. It's Europe/NATO being behind where they want to be and limitations on funding/support in the US that is causing the difference in supply, not US production struggles.
Capitalism at work.
I guess the market isn’t demanding a lot of mortar shells.
https://www.defenseone.com/business/2023/11/race-make-artill... makes it clear that's exactly what's happening in Europe: there's vague statements about demand, but not cash-up-front payments to make it actually happen.
The economics and politics actually matter! The public do not want a war, and they do not like forseeing one, they want their own pricing issues dealt with, and they have power at elections. Whereas Russian and Chinese leaders can simply impose whatever level of hardship they need that doesn't provoke full scale open revolt and mass slaughter in their own streets.
The economics and politics actually matter! The public do not want a war, and they do not like forseeing one, they want their own pricing issues dealt with, and they have power at elections. Whereas Russian and Chinese leaders can simply impose whatever level of hardship they need that doesn't provoke full scale open revolt and mass slaughter in their own streets.
Slavoj Žižek talks about "wartime communism", the tendency towards centralized control during extreme situations like a war or pandemic, because it is absolutely necessary for effective results at scale, when the problem is narrow and well-defined. Capitalism tends to do better at peace when there is no single fixed objective.
>It’s no secret that the Allies won World War II on the back of the U.S.’s enormous industrial output.
The author ignores the USSR completely in their article, except for a brief mention in the graphs (where it's #2). 157k planes is impressive, too, considering that many of the factories had to evacuate to Siberia. 22k planes were also additionally leased by the US and the UK.
The author ignores the USSR completely in their article, except for a brief mention in the graphs (where it's #2). 157k planes is impressive, too, considering that many of the factories had to evacuate to Siberia. 22k planes were also additionally leased by the US and the UK.
It definitely is, but the US' industrial output wasn't limited to just planes, and the USSR received a ton of supplies and equipment from the US to bolster its war machine.
That's true, the ussr did some impressive things, and the millions of deaths they suffered fighting the germans in ww2 can't be forgotten, along with the impact of their weakening of the german forces over time.
A 1000-mile “weakening”
Exactly. And the USSR built more tanks than all the other allies combined, while under bombardment.
And the US sent industrial engineers to help the USSR design and improve their factories.
Conveniently forgetting that without the fuel sent by the US, those tanks would have been pretty paperweights.
Y'all, it's true historically that the US has oversold its personnel contributions to the European theater, but overcorrecting with this weird nonsense about the USSR single-handedly winning WWII is just beyond bizarre.
Y'all, it's true historically that the US has oversold its personnel contributions to the European theater, but overcorrecting with this weird nonsense about the USSR single-handedly winning WWII is just beyond bizarre.
I recall Zhukov didn’t think they could have won without the Wests help in supplying things like Steel, regardless of machismo from later USSR leaders who claimed they always had it all under control. FDRs death was gravely mourned in the Soviet Union. Stalin praised the allies for distracting them with the invasion of Italy.
The USSR did the most in that war but they were not in fact capable of winning by themselves.
The USSR did the most in that war but they were not in fact capable of winning by themselves.
They would have won but it would have taken a little bit longer.Lend lease was only 10 % of Soviet materiel
> only 10%
That does not mean anything. A car's engine contains only 10% of the parts in that car.
That does not mean anything. A car's engine contains only 10% of the parts in that car.
The Americans had some resources the soviets were in short supply of so their impact was greater than them just contributing 10% of materiel. Also again, Hitler had a lot of resources tied up in the west because of the allies.
Germany got pretty close to Moscow. A little different of a tactical situation would have been a big deal in that theatre of the war.
Germany got pretty close to Moscow. A little different of a tactical situation would have been a big deal in that theatre of the war.
The West rendered massive aid to the USSR in WW2. Lend-lease was not only a US-Britain thing.
Tousands of planes and tanks were sent as well as raw materials to keep their factories pumping.
This after they were initially on Hitler’s side.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
Tousands of planes and tanks were sent as well as raw materials to keep their factories pumping.
This after they were initially on Hitler’s side.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
The vast majority of the USSR factories were funded by american cash. Without the US, Germany wins WW2 handily. Without the USSR, the united states drops nukes on berlin in 1946 and handily wins ww2 by 1947.
Those factories were paid with Soviet money, but many were built by Western companies in the 20s and 30s. Because apparently communism was not such a big deal after all, as long as you could benefit from it.
Germany had already lost the war before Lend-Lease had a significant impact. The offensives of 1941 and 1942 failed before Western aid started arriving in significant quantities. The aid had much more impact on the Soviet offensive, particularly on the logistics side. It can be argued that Lend-Lease won Eastern Europe for the USSR.
As far as I understand, there are two schools of thought on what would have happened without Lend-Lease. In one, the USSR would have won anyway, but the war would have lasted until 1946 or 1947 and it would have been even bloodier and more destructive. In another, the USSR would also have lost, and there would have been an uneasy peace between them and Germany. In both cases, I'd assume the US would not see the Continental Europe worth fighting for.
Germany had already lost the war before Lend-Lease had a significant impact. The offensives of 1941 and 1942 failed before Western aid started arriving in significant quantities. The aid had much more impact on the Soviet offensive, particularly on the logistics side. It can be argued that Lend-Lease won Eastern Europe for the USSR.
As far as I understand, there are two schools of thought on what would have happened without Lend-Lease. In one, the USSR would have won anyway, but the war would have lasted until 1946 or 1947 and it would have been even bloodier and more destructive. In another, the USSR would also have lost, and there would have been an uneasy peace between them and Germany. In both cases, I'd assume the US would not see the Continental Europe worth fighting for.
The USSR probably couldn't have won without the US, and the US probably couldn't have won without the USSR
Any two of the big 3 (US, SU, UK+commonwealth), plus all the partisans and smaller allies could have done it. It was a dumb hopeless war that the Nazis picked because their ideology was incompatible with accurately evaluating their opponents.
But, it is good that all of the allies decided to band together and get it down a little bit faster. Every moment that Europe spent occupied was just another mountain of human suffering. Plus, getting that theater done before nukes really became available probably saved some historical German cities.
But, it is good that all of the allies decided to band together and get it down a little bit faster. Every moment that Europe spent occupied was just another mountain of human suffering. Plus, getting that theater done before nukes really became available probably saved some historical German cities.
Beijinger(2)
Nope, the USSR's efforts were also the result of US's industrial and financial output. Here's an essay to get you started: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1505247886908424195.html
> Why Russia can't win against the West
Is this still true in light of the recent Ukraine events? Russia certainly isn't losing if no one's going to stand up to it.
Is this still true in light of the recent Ukraine events? Russia certainly isn't losing if no one's going to stand up to it.
Sort of an interesting argument, I suppose. Militarily Russia is heavily outclassed by the West. But perhaps that’s why they’re engaging in information warfare: western populations are weary of war and with sufficient prodding Russia can keep the major western powers away from their conflict.
I feel like I’m playing Civilization again.
I feel like I’m playing Civilization again.
> western populations are weary of war
are they? for the most part, Americans haven't really noticed apart from family and friends of service members. There's been no rationing of goods, there's been no campaigns to buy war bonds, there's essentially been no burden on the citizens. In fact, we've had multiple tax cuts and gains in the financial markets. The sheep have been well fed.
are they? for the most part, Americans haven't really noticed apart from family and friends of service members. There's been no rationing of goods, there's been no campaigns to buy war bonds, there's essentially been no burden on the citizens. In fact, we've had multiple tax cuts and gains in the financial markets. The sheep have been well fed.
I suppose I’m speaking theoretically here. But American populations tired of Afghanistan and Iraq. The war in Ukraine does not involve US boots on the ground and thus is a very different proposition.
I'm actually happy to hear that you claim people were tired of it, but I just had no direct experience with people discussing how they should end. It just was never discussed in any conversations this statistic of one person experienced. Now, something like current election campaign, it is discussed non-stop. It's not like there were protests like in Vietnam to end the war. So maybe my sensitivity settings were set to the extreme??
>there's essentially been no burden on the citizens.
Unless you watch Fox News, in which case we are "wasting" hundreds of billions on Ukraine while Americans starve!!!! What's that? A bill to feed starving Americans? Why that's socialism, which is communism!
70 million Americans voted for Trump in 2020. It doesn't matter that some of them don't live in the same reality as the rest of us, because they have isolated themselves so aggressively that they will never be snapped out of it, and millions of other people are enabling their insanity for political gain.
Check out Ryan McBeth on youtube for someone with experience refuting and examining Russian disinfo campaigns, and weep in fear as statements that could be trivially debunked with a look at a single wikipedia page, or like, a book of what different weapons systems look like, and realize in horror that the millions of people falling for this shit aren't just "media illiterate", but rather are so deep in the kool-aid that they explicitly trust information MORE if it has been labeled as "fake news".
It's insane. We aren't handling it. The truth is literally a less effective propaganda weapon than people silo'ing themselves so thoroughly that they have CHOSEN to watch Russian propaganda outlets like RT as "news"
Unless you watch Fox News, in which case we are "wasting" hundreds of billions on Ukraine while Americans starve!!!! What's that? A bill to feed starving Americans? Why that's socialism, which is communism!
70 million Americans voted for Trump in 2020. It doesn't matter that some of them don't live in the same reality as the rest of us, because they have isolated themselves so aggressively that they will never be snapped out of it, and millions of other people are enabling their insanity for political gain.
Check out Ryan McBeth on youtube for someone with experience refuting and examining Russian disinfo campaigns, and weep in fear as statements that could be trivially debunked with a look at a single wikipedia page, or like, a book of what different weapons systems look like, and realize in horror that the millions of people falling for this shit aren't just "media illiterate", but rather are so deep in the kool-aid that they explicitly trust information MORE if it has been labeled as "fake news".
It's insane. We aren't handling it. The truth is literally a less effective propaganda weapon than people silo'ing themselves so thoroughly that they have CHOSEN to watch Russian propaganda outlets like RT as "news"
Their problem is using their tax money for a foreign country, instead of a: lowering taxes b: using it for US citizens.
Your framing is disingenous.
If you believe that 70 million Americans live in a different reality and have isolated themselves, well, perhaps it is you who fails to emphasize why one may have different political standing than you?
The reality is, that people have different priorities when voting.
If you want to talk about propaganda weapon, the strongest in the US is the Israeli one. Both candidates take huge amounts of $$$ from Israeli donors. Both candidates simp for Israel.
If you believe that 70 million Americans live in a different reality and have isolated themselves, well, perhaps it is you who fails to emphasize why one may have different political standing than you?
The reality is, that people have different priorities when voting.
If you want to talk about propaganda weapon, the strongest in the US is the Israeli one. Both candidates take huge amounts of $$$ from Israeli donors. Both candidates simp for Israel.
Is it? The Russian jam GPS that it is useless, but their own (much newer) system can't be jammed easily. I just read an article about it. Europe has nearly no military equipment left. Russia is loosing more tanks and artillery in a month than some big countries in the EU have.
The S400 is considered superior to the Patriot system. They have hypersonic missiles. And now a battle hardened army. Don't forget, western systems are heavily overpriced. I think we pay 10 times the amount for a shell than Russia does. It will take years, possibly decades, to build up military industrial capacity. Germany has ammunition for 1 day of war. Trick question: With what will they fight on the second day?
Also, dont forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)
Germany had the best tanks in WW2. But Russia hat many T34. In insane numbers.
The S400 is considered superior to the Patriot system. They have hypersonic missiles. And now a battle hardened army. Don't forget, western systems are heavily overpriced. I think we pay 10 times the amount for a shell than Russia does. It will take years, possibly decades, to build up military industrial capacity. Germany has ammunition for 1 day of war. Trick question: With what will they fight on the second day?
Also, dont forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)
Germany had the best tanks in WW2. But Russia hat many T34. In insane numbers.
Russia is having quite a struggle against Ukraine with like a quarter of its population and mostly old western weapons that were on the way out. NATO with stealth fighters and the like would be quite different game.
I remember the US military vs Iraq with mostly Russian gear was almost embarrassingly one sided.
I remember the US military vs Iraq with mostly Russian gear was almost embarrassingly one sided.
All the air defense and much of the artillery aid has been state of the art. Ukraine benefits from the massive surveillance and targeting capabilities from air and space - also state of the art. The long range missiles given have been current generation.
Not to mention that cutting-edge drone based warfare has quickly become Ukraine's most effective staple.
Sure, some of the tanks and IFVs are older, but overall it's not really fair to say Ukraine is mostly using old weapons or that it's fighting Russia alone. The total financial value of external aid to Ukraine per year has been rivaling Russia's total annual defense budget.
Not to mention that cutting-edge drone based warfare has quickly become Ukraine's most effective staple.
Sure, some of the tanks and IFVs are older, but overall it's not really fair to say Ukraine is mostly using old weapons or that it's fighting Russia alone. The total financial value of external aid to Ukraine per year has been rivaling Russia's total annual defense budget.
Well fair enough it was a simplification. But two and a half years on they are yet to receive a single western jet. ATACMS were only supplied very grudgingly with instructions not to hit the Russian bases that are daily bombing and firing missiles at Ukraine as they are in Russia and doing that might upset the Russians. And were given partly because some of the ATACMS were scheduled to be destroyed due to old age and it would have looked embarrassing in America to be doin that while the Ukrainians were dying fighting. The Crimea bridge could have been taken down by Taurus but that might have annoyed Russia etc.
The ATACMS missiles that Ukraine is getting are soon to be expired because they are reaching their end of life (of course they are still in production but it shows these are not the current generation)
The current generation missiles "PrSMs" have not been given to Ukraine
The M777 howitzers are from 40 years ago
The stinger missiles have been used in the Afghanistan war
Even the F-16 planes are from 30 years ago
And Patriot air defense systems are several decades old
So it is fair to say that Ukraine has been using mostly older weapons
The current generation missiles "PrSMs" have not been given to Ukraine
The M777 howitzers are from 40 years ago
The stinger missiles have been used in the Afghanistan war
Even the F-16 planes are from 30 years ago
And Patriot air defense systems are several decades old
So it is fair to say that Ukraine has been using mostly older weapons
The one caveat here is that the Patriot missile system was originally made in the 80s. Like most of the US arsenal, it has seen significant improvement since then. Ukraine got fairly modern and capable Patriot systems and missiles.
The M777 also included fairly modern fire control hardware and counter battery radar.
Everything else has been purposely downgraded to ancient specs, like removing armor from the Abrams, and sending ancient F-16s. The stingers we sent Ukraine have been out of production for decades, and the US has not fielded them in mentionable capacity since the early 90s.
The table scraps of the US desert storm military is providing Russia a stalemate in Ukraine vs an army barely trained to use their new equipment, that had several high level traitors in it during the invasion.
Meanwhile, ignore that Russia cannot keep tiny kit-built aircraft out of it's airspace, which has always been a problem for Russia despite supposedly being the Premier anti-air missile system maker since the 50s. One of these kit built cruise missiles killed several important people in a Naval Command post in Crimea, despite immense investment in S400s to protect it.
The Russian Navy has been shown to be not just non-threatening, but jaw droppingly incompetent. I'm sure they blame whoever runs Russian air defense systems, but the flagship of the black sea fleet was sunk by the same intensity of threat as the damn Houthis taking pot shots at tankers. This wasn't a "occasionally the missile gets through" situation either. The Moskva had multiple redundant and cooperating missile defense systems that on paper, and even in foreign military knowledge, would have defeated a couple incoming missiles. Either they weren't turned on, in which case why not, or worse, they are inoperable or ineffective, in which case WHY
There are notable unfortunate outcomes however. The small diameter bomb, as I understand, did not perform well. Russia's GPS jamming is powerful and effective, though this isn't as dire as it seems. In a GPS denied warfighting environment, the US still builds significantly better ordinance guidance systems than Russia. The Krasnopol laser guided artillery shell is pretty good, and gets you the outcome of an Excalibur shell for significantly less money, and is harder to defeat electronically. The Lancet is way more cost-effective and useful than anything the Switchblade company has shat out, and we should be copying it as hard as possible cough Anduril cough. Russia now has a production quantity JDAM style system, which is effective.
The M777 also included fairly modern fire control hardware and counter battery radar.
Everything else has been purposely downgraded to ancient specs, like removing armor from the Abrams, and sending ancient F-16s. The stingers we sent Ukraine have been out of production for decades, and the US has not fielded them in mentionable capacity since the early 90s.
The table scraps of the US desert storm military is providing Russia a stalemate in Ukraine vs an army barely trained to use their new equipment, that had several high level traitors in it during the invasion.
Meanwhile, ignore that Russia cannot keep tiny kit-built aircraft out of it's airspace, which has always been a problem for Russia despite supposedly being the Premier anti-air missile system maker since the 50s. One of these kit built cruise missiles killed several important people in a Naval Command post in Crimea, despite immense investment in S400s to protect it.
The Russian Navy has been shown to be not just non-threatening, but jaw droppingly incompetent. I'm sure they blame whoever runs Russian air defense systems, but the flagship of the black sea fleet was sunk by the same intensity of threat as the damn Houthis taking pot shots at tankers. This wasn't a "occasionally the missile gets through" situation either. The Moskva had multiple redundant and cooperating missile defense systems that on paper, and even in foreign military knowledge, would have defeated a couple incoming missiles. Either they weren't turned on, in which case why not, or worse, they are inoperable or ineffective, in which case WHY
There are notable unfortunate outcomes however. The small diameter bomb, as I understand, did not perform well. Russia's GPS jamming is powerful and effective, though this isn't as dire as it seems. In a GPS denied warfighting environment, the US still builds significantly better ordinance guidance systems than Russia. The Krasnopol laser guided artillery shell is pretty good, and gets you the outcome of an Excalibur shell for significantly less money, and is harder to defeat electronically. The Lancet is way more cost-effective and useful than anything the Switchblade company has shat out, and we should be copying it as hard as possible cough Anduril cough. Russia now has a production quantity JDAM style system, which is effective.
You're referencing a small fraction of cherry-picked American weapons Ukraine is receiving. Other nations are giving other weapons, many of which are current generation. Patriots are current generation, and are continuously updated with new missiles and software. If you consider any weapon system that was not initially designed a few years ago to be old, then almost every weapon system the US and Europe is currently fielding would be "old".
To name a few current generation systems given to Ukraine: IRIS-T AA missile systems, StormShadow / SCALP cruise missiles, AGM-88 HARM missiles, AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, NLAW anti-tank missiles, Martlet missiles, Starstreak AA missiles, Aster AA missiles, Krab artillery systems, CEASAR artillery systems, Excalibur guided artillery, ECV90 IFVs, and on and on the list goes.
To name a few current generation systems given to Ukraine: IRIS-T AA missile systems, StormShadow / SCALP cruise missiles, AGM-88 HARM missiles, AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, NLAW anti-tank missiles, Martlet missiles, Starstreak AA missiles, Aster AA missiles, Krab artillery systems, CEASAR artillery systems, Excalibur guided artillery, ECV90 IFVs, and on and on the list goes.
> To name a few current generation systems given to Ukraine
Just checked 3 of your list:
* AIM-120 AMRAAM was fist used in 1991
* AGM-88 HARM 1985
* CAESAR system 2008
All look pretty old.
Just checked 3 of your list:
* AIM-120 AMRAAM was fist used in 1991
* AGM-88 HARM 1985
* CAESAR system 2008
All look pretty old.
"Russia is having quite a struggle"
Does she? How many people has she lost in the war? She lost nearly a 1000 in the second world war. Per hour. So in 2-3 days she sustained the losses that the US had in Vietnam in a 10 years war.
Does she? How many people has she lost in the war? She lost nearly a 1000 in the second world war. Per hour. So in 2-3 days she sustained the losses that the US had in Vietnam in a 10 years war.
Well, since March 2022 when the Russians occupied 24.4% of Ukrainian territory, the Ukrainians have now pushed them back to about 16% in return for about 400k Russian casualties. It doesn't seem a spectacular success.
Although I'll give you Putin doesn't seem bothered by Russian casualties so I guess from that point of view all's good.
Although I'll give you Putin doesn't seem bothered by Russian casualties so I guess from that point of view all's good.
Patriots have intercepted the hypersonic missiles (Kinzhal) before [1][2]. The S-400 is not as invincible as was touted -- there's plenty of evidence of successful drone and missile strikes against Russia by Ukraine. And Ukraine is still flying aircraft.
Russia's production isn't almighty either. They purchased millions of artillery rounds from North Korea for a reason [3].
And I think a big thing to remember is that NATO has tons of weapons, they just don't have tons of the weapons that are being used in the Ukraine war. The U.S. only fired ~34,000 155MM artillery rounds during the Iraq War (Second Persian Gulf War). [4]
And yet at the time the US had millions of cluster bombs in stockpiles [5]
The Ukraine war definitely seems to be a wakeup call on western munition production rates and how mass artillery is still important to modern warfare but I don't think that means Russia would really stand a chance against NATO.
The real reason the conflict (hopefully) will never happen is nuclear bombs.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/air-defence-systems-rep...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/05/16/world/russia-ukraine...
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/28/n-korea-sent-russia...
[4] https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018...
[5] https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/arms/cluster0705/2.h...
Russia's production isn't almighty either. They purchased millions of artillery rounds from North Korea for a reason [3].
And I think a big thing to remember is that NATO has tons of weapons, they just don't have tons of the weapons that are being used in the Ukraine war. The U.S. only fired ~34,000 155MM artillery rounds during the Iraq War (Second Persian Gulf War). [4]
And yet at the time the US had millions of cluster bombs in stockpiles [5]
The Ukraine war definitely seems to be a wakeup call on western munition production rates and how mass artillery is still important to modern warfare but I don't think that means Russia would really stand a chance against NATO.
The real reason the conflict (hopefully) will never happen is nuclear bombs.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/air-defence-systems-rep...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/05/16/world/russia-ukraine...
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/28/n-korea-sent-russia...
[4] https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018...
[5] https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/arms/cluster0705/2.h...
What's funny is that right as you were typing out your bullshit, an ATACMS strike took out a S400 battery in Donetsk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikgDkf4ATEo
This is the Block I ATACMS which stopped production in 1996 and is considered too old to be usable by the US Army itself. Mean while the Patriots have no issues taking out multiple "hypersonic" missiles, which are mostly just marketing bullshit.
This is the Block I ATACMS which stopped production in 1996 and is considered too old to be usable by the US Army itself. Mean while the Patriots have no issues taking out multiple "hypersonic" missiles, which are mostly just marketing bullshit.
The posted article gives quite an impressive Soviet plane production. 50% of that of the US.
It was Russia that won the war. https://youtu.be/DwKPFT-RioU?t=205
And regarding the Ukraine war. Russia's industrial might is underestimated. And while it can not match that of the West, as a word of caution: China has more industrial capacity than the EU and US combined.
Wars have the nasty habit of taking unexpected turns...
It was Russia that won the war. https://youtu.be/DwKPFT-RioU?t=205
And regarding the Ukraine war. Russia's industrial might is underestimated. And while it can not match that of the West, as a word of caution: China has more industrial capacity than the EU and US combined.
Wars have the nasty habit of taking unexpected turns...
After the wall came down, it turned out that a lot of the output of the Soviet military industry wasn't actually usable. Lots of shells of tanks, but no motors. Similar to China's empty buildings. They put so much emphasis on appearances to try to cover up their weaknesses.
Except you can see China's output on your local supermarket's shelves. Soviet Union had practically 0 exports of any manufactured goods to non Warsaw Pact countries.
China may be cooking the books to make their GDP/industrial output look a little bit better to hit party goals every year, but the ubiquitiy of Chinese goods in low to mid value added manufacturing is indisputable.
China may be cooking the books to make their GDP/industrial output look a little bit better to hit party goals every year, but the ubiquitiy of Chinese goods in low to mid value added manufacturing is indisputable.
An anecdote from the former Eastern bloc.
Russian industrial production was usually shit, and consumer goods made in USSR were nigh useless. Buying a Russian car etc. was folly, and the usual flow of goods went in the other direction: East German, Czechoslovak, Hungarian industrial and consumer products went to the east, while cheap raw materials flowed from the USSR to Central Europe.
Chinese industrial production started shit as well, but they have been improving by leaps, much like the Japanese once did. (Odd to think that both Made in Germany and Made in Japan were once intended as warnings, not endorsements.) This is what the Russians never achieved.
Aside from vodka and caviar, finding a Russian product in a standard European supermarket was a detective task. I am sitting now in a fully furnished house and I am almost certain that nothing here is made in Russia. While plenty of things are made in China.
Russian industrial production was usually shit, and consumer goods made in USSR were nigh useless. Buying a Russian car etc. was folly, and the usual flow of goods went in the other direction: East German, Czechoslovak, Hungarian industrial and consumer products went to the east, while cheap raw materials flowed from the USSR to Central Europe.
Chinese industrial production started shit as well, but they have been improving by leaps, much like the Japanese once did. (Odd to think that both Made in Germany and Made in Japan were once intended as warnings, not endorsements.) This is what the Russians never achieved.
Aside from vodka and caviar, finding a Russian product in a standard European supermarket was a detective task. I am sitting now in a fully furnished house and I am almost certain that nothing here is made in Russia. While plenty of things are made in China.
Even higher value added manufacturing these days. My understanding is that Chinese EVs/batteries and some telecoms equipment are highly competitive or better than Western equivalents (yes, they got there partially due to IP theft and state subsidies but still)
> Wars have the nasty habit of taking unexpected turns...
Indeed, after the slaughter of WW2 you would expect Russians to be wary of starting wars by invading their neighbours.
Indeed, after the slaughter of WW2 you would expect Russians to be wary of starting wars by invading their neighbours.
The experience of WW2 left a deep psychological scar in Soviet, and later Russian statesmen, in that the lesson they took away from it was "We need to be surrounded by buffer and satellite states, so that in a war, they will bleed, instead of us." It's why they had absolutely zero patience for Georgia and Ukraine turning West-wards.
The scar it left on the population at large was "They attacked us, and we suffered a lot, but then we really showed them."
The scar it left on the population at large was "They attacked us, and we suffered a lot, but then we really showed them."
I suspect that due to the scale of destruction, WW2 left a deep psychological scar on the psyche of soviet countries, much deeper than anywhere else. And maybe that's why Russia has had such a militaristic and aggressively paranoid posture ever since.
Russia has been that way since at least the Mongols. It’s a property of their location - difficult to defend central plains, on the path of many invaders and with harsh unyielding winters.
Over time, the scar transformed into a state religion in the USSR: obsessive celebration of all kinds of anniversaries, children tortured in schools with made up stories of heroism, huge monuments everywhere, TV and cinemas filled with endless stream of most inane morally black-and-white WWII movies like the worst cowboy flicks. Instead of Sunday church, I had to sit in school listening to senile veterans who had never seen frontline action (but had their chest full of anniversary medals) tell fairy tales how they single-handedly destroyed 50 Tiger tanks and 100 planes and then threw themselves in front of a machine gun nest to save their comrades, but stepped on a mine while doing so and lost both legs and crawled for a week back to their unit, successfully avoiding German patrols.
By the 1970s, the WWII mythology (of which a lot was entirely made up) had formed the core of the identity of "Soviet people" and an excuse for everything. The narrative of "Soviet people as the victors of the WWII" acted as a God-given right to stomp over other nations, because after all, only a fascist would resist the glorious Soviet people. The way we see Zelenskyy, a Jewish comedian, branded as a Nazi, and the war against Ukraine propagandized as a "holy war against Nazism like our grandfathers fought", is an echo of that. Doesn't make any sense unless you are familiar with the warped Soviet WWII mythology.
Aggressive militarism is common in post-war generations that grew up with the simplistic brainwashing. There was very little militarism in the generation that actually saw the war, because the Eastern front was morally an ambiguous place. One of my older relatives fought in the battle of Velikiye Luki. He always suspected that his unit had been placed on purpose into a very poor position to wipe them out with German hands for earlier insubordination. The unit got hit hard, he got wounded and was taken prisoner by Germans. Weeks or months later Soviets overran German positions and he was reunited.
As a punishment for being taken prisoner, he was moved to a penal battalion, because not fighting until your death was officially declared treason. Penal battalion was a lighter punishment. Those who had panicked were executed. Penal battalions were "dumb meat" used to dig or dismantle fortifications under enemy fire, and attack in first waves to identify machine gun nests and minefields. If they didn't attack with enough enthusiasm, then the barrier troops placed behind them would open fire. (This practice lives on, as can be seen in Ukraine.) By some miracle, he survived it all. Most didn't. You can imagine how keen he was to put on his uniform, parade around on the V-E day celebrations and listen to speeches how "the Soviet people fought united like one man against Nazi invaders".
But those who were born much later have no issues acting like this: https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-129051800/stock-photo-or...
And not only do they cosplay in wartime uniforms, but they also the adopt the language of propagandized version of history that they've only witnessed from movies, and go around yelling how Russia is fighting Nazis again and "we won't stop before Berlin".
In a way, that's even understandable. Pre-USSR history is beyond living memory, and USSR put a lot of effort into creating a cultural disconnect with pre-1917 Russia. Older history offers no strong identity, it's just too far away to be relevant, it's hard for modern urban population to identify with either the imperial nobility or with peasantry. Modern Russia offers no identity either beyond "superyacht for me and poverty for thee". So what's left? Only the militaristic propagandized USSR victory narrative that so many cling to, otherwise they'd have no identity at all, because that's the only meaningful thing in the past century of Russian history.
By the 1970s, the WWII mythology (of which a lot was entirely made up) had formed the core of the identity of "Soviet people" and an excuse for everything. The narrative of "Soviet people as the victors of the WWII" acted as a God-given right to stomp over other nations, because after all, only a fascist would resist the glorious Soviet people. The way we see Zelenskyy, a Jewish comedian, branded as a Nazi, and the war against Ukraine propagandized as a "holy war against Nazism like our grandfathers fought", is an echo of that. Doesn't make any sense unless you are familiar with the warped Soviet WWII mythology.
Aggressive militarism is common in post-war generations that grew up with the simplistic brainwashing. There was very little militarism in the generation that actually saw the war, because the Eastern front was morally an ambiguous place. One of my older relatives fought in the battle of Velikiye Luki. He always suspected that his unit had been placed on purpose into a very poor position to wipe them out with German hands for earlier insubordination. The unit got hit hard, he got wounded and was taken prisoner by Germans. Weeks or months later Soviets overran German positions and he was reunited.
As a punishment for being taken prisoner, he was moved to a penal battalion, because not fighting until your death was officially declared treason. Penal battalion was a lighter punishment. Those who had panicked were executed. Penal battalions were "dumb meat" used to dig or dismantle fortifications under enemy fire, and attack in first waves to identify machine gun nests and minefields. If they didn't attack with enough enthusiasm, then the barrier troops placed behind them would open fire. (This practice lives on, as can be seen in Ukraine.) By some miracle, he survived it all. Most didn't. You can imagine how keen he was to put on his uniform, parade around on the V-E day celebrations and listen to speeches how "the Soviet people fought united like one man against Nazi invaders".
But those who were born much later have no issues acting like this: https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-129051800/stock-photo-or...
And not only do they cosplay in wartime uniforms, but they also the adopt the language of propagandized version of history that they've only witnessed from movies, and go around yelling how Russia is fighting Nazis again and "we won't stop before Berlin".
In a way, that's even understandable. Pre-USSR history is beyond living memory, and USSR put a lot of effort into creating a cultural disconnect with pre-1917 Russia. Older history offers no strong identity, it's just too far away to be relevant, it's hard for modern urban population to identify with either the imperial nobility or with peasantry. Modern Russia offers no identity either beyond "superyacht for me and poverty for thee". So what's left? Only the militaristic propagandized USSR victory narrative that so many cling to, otherwise they'd have no identity at all, because that's the only meaningful thing in the past century of Russian history.
Russia is a country with fluid borders and could not allow NATO troops and Rockets in Ukraine in the same way, as we could not accept rockets in Cuba.
The war has gone bad for the West now. The EU has very little equipment left. Russia loses more tanks in a month than many big EU countries have. Germany had ammunition for two days of war. After giving a lot to Ukraine, they have ammunition for one day of war left.
https://www.thearticle.com/defeat-of-the-west-emmanuel-todd-...
Graham's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on May 26 “and the Russians are dying ...the best money we've ever spent.”
Before you downvote you may look up who Emmanuel Todd is. When he was a 25y old PhD student in 1976 he predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is not a person to be taken lightly.
The war has gone bad for the West now. The EU has very little equipment left. Russia loses more tanks in a month than many big EU countries have. Germany had ammunition for two days of war. After giving a lot to Ukraine, they have ammunition for one day of war left.
https://www.thearticle.com/defeat-of-the-west-emmanuel-todd-...
Graham's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on May 26 “and the Russians are dying ...the best money we've ever spent.”
Before you downvote you may look up who Emmanuel Todd is. When he was a 25y old PhD student in 1976 he predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is not a person to be taken lightly.
> Russia is a country with fluid borders
Weird how that fluid always seems to spill outward, and never inward, innit?
Weird how that fluid always seems to spill outward, and never inward, innit?
The borders underwent a large inward contraction in 1991.
This is still conflating the USSR and Russia. The Russian SFSR, AFAICT, had exactly the same borders as Russia did before it started biting off pieces of its neighbors.
No, you're wrong here. Russian SFSR initally included the whole Central Asia, Caucasus countries, Crimea and eastern parts of Ukrainian SSR. Russian SFSR border you talking about is from circa 1956.
In that case the borders never moved and you can't say they only spill outward.
Well, sure, with enough motivated cognition, it is possible to fit the facts to your preferred narrative.
Except there were no NATO troops or rockets in Ukraine when Russia invaded. Nor were there plans to station any.
Soviet Union*
Which is more than just Russia
Ukraine, Belarus, etc are significant contributors and bore some of the heavy causalities
Another part of the reason why invading Ukraine was dumb, Russia forgot what Ukraine was capable of. Attributing all of its success to itself but discounting its partners.
Which is more than just Russia
Ukraine, Belarus, etc are significant contributors and bore some of the heavy causalities
Another part of the reason why invading Ukraine was dumb, Russia forgot what Ukraine was capable of. Attributing all of its success to itself but discounting its partners.
Beijinger(1)
Why are you conflating Russia with the Soviet Union?
American production is spread throughout the country. China's is pretty much located in the east. Peace time production capabilities <> war time production. There is a reason the United States is developing Rapid Dragon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system) ). In a large scale war, the USA's ENTIRE logistics fleet can be turned into stand off attack aircraft which will overwhelm any local defenses and remove 'peace time' production from the board. I wonder why the USA chose to name the system after an old Chinese siege weapon?
American production is spread throughout the country. China's is pretty much located in the east. Peace time production capabilities <> war time production. There is a reason the United States is developing Rapid Dragon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system) ). In a large scale war, the USA's ENTIRE logistics fleet can be turned into stand off attack aircraft which will overwhelm any local defenses and remove 'peace time' production from the board. I wonder why the USA chose to name the system after an old Chinese siege weapon?
> The posted article gives quite an impressive Soviet plane production. 50% of that of the US.
"From October 1, 1941, to May 31, 1945, the United States delivered to the Soviet Union 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil) or 57.8 percent of the aviation fuel including nearly 90 percent of high-octane fuel used,[36] 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
Good luck flying those planes without fuel.
"From October 1, 1941, to May 31, 1945, the United States delivered to the Soviet Union 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil) or 57.8 percent of the aviation fuel including nearly 90 percent of high-octane fuel used,[36] 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
Good luck flying those planes without fuel.
Sort of interesting to compare the US experience in WWI, where a program to deliver 20k planes by the summer of July 1918 managed to get a whopping 196 planes into service before the war ended that November.
http://www.worldwar1.com/tgws/relairprod.htm
http://www.worldwar1.com/tgws/relairprod.htm
This will happen again with drones. No doubt China is watching Russia closely and ramping up their production. What we're seeing now with FPV and bomber quadcopters is literally the equivalent of WWI biplanes tossing grenades and mortar shells, which only took a decade to become long range strategic bombers dropping thousands of pounds. Once the production is in place, autonomous swarms are an inevitability. And we will be forced to match.
Great observation. I have this idea (apparently semi-obvious based on this discussion) that if there is a future war with China (sure hope we can avoid it), in terms of production and technology, the US is in Germany's position and China is in the place of the US in WW2 parlance.
There are the obvious parallels where the US has great advanced technology, China can sure make things in mass quantities; also they have plenty of brilliant engineers and scientists and can figure out anything. Some obvous differences are the US has been where people from the world flee to, to get freedom and liberty; now we are in a serious period of retrenchment though, with certain (ahem) groups wanting to restrict the books in the library if they are idealogically unacceptable and also anti-science and anti-education etc going along with that. China is not the place you want to go to if you are going to introduce heterodoxical ideas.
There are also all the echos of the '20s and '30s in our current times in the US and the world, groups of countries pushing different ideas and coming together in blocks. We have instant communication, nukes make everything even more serious than that time. The new ascendant anti-democratic countries want their shot at power and riches too.
There are the obvious parallels where the US has great advanced technology, China can sure make things in mass quantities; also they have plenty of brilliant engineers and scientists and can figure out anything. Some obvous differences are the US has been where people from the world flee to, to get freedom and liberty; now we are in a serious period of retrenchment though, with certain (ahem) groups wanting to restrict the books in the library if they are idealogically unacceptable and also anti-science and anti-education etc going along with that. China is not the place you want to go to if you are going to introduce heterodoxical ideas.
There are also all the echos of the '20s and '30s in our current times in the US and the world, groups of countries pushing different ideas and coming together in blocks. We have instant communication, nukes make everything even more serious than that time. The new ascendant anti-democratic countries want their shot at power and riches too.
One other factor that may help the U.S. is that America will have an easier time getting access to some resources as production ramps up than China given our excellent geographic position and China's lack of a blue water navy that can cut off American supply lines. However, while America's navy may get pushed back from the first island chain, there are several other chokepoints it can use to stop materials from coming in to China by sea (which is one of the only cost-effective ways to ship the amount of mass needed to produce war materiel at scale), and many of China's neighbors are not friendly to the CCP and not liable to support shipments of material to support a war through their territory even if it is economical to do so.
> Some obvous differences are the US has been where people from the world flee to, to get freedom and liberty
This has always been much more important than dead capital.
This has always been much more important than dead capital.
I think so too, but it doesn't seem like most people remember this.
I'm terrified that America won't be able to match Chinese industrial capacity for killbot type drones.
Does anyone know if anyone has stared the infrastructure to produce these things en masse in the US? If so, how can someone with heavy construction experience, CAD skills, and embedded experience become a part of that?
Does anyone know if anyone has stared the infrastructure to produce these things en masse in the US? If so, how can someone with heavy construction experience, CAD skills, and embedded experience become a part of that?
The USA wouldn't fight an 'in the trenches war' where drones will come into play. We would fight a stand off siege type war. Hence why we are developing Rapid Dragon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system), which would convert our entire logistics feel (something we excel at) into stand off bombers that would overwhelm Chinese defenses. We would effectively have an addition 1500 bombers in the form of C-130s, and 200+ C-17s.
I'm guessing the system is named after an old Chinese siege weapon system to give China a message.
I'm guessing the system is named after an old Chinese siege weapon system to give China a message.
There's a reason LRIP for rapid dragon is molasses because planners recognize trying to move C130s and C17s in theatre is ridiculous. They all have to operate within 1IC to even be within standoff range to hit PRC MIC, well within operating ranges of J20 with PL17s specifically designed to pick off AWACs and other large targets like tankers... and rapid dragon. Like AGM158Bs with 1900km range (vs 1500km JASSMER for rapid dragon) is being made at... 5 per month. Until they pump that out to 100-1000s per month, it's token capability that's not being taken seriously. Not to mention US doesn't remotely have access to enough airfields in region or tanking capacity to deploy that much converted transport bomb trucks. US defense logistics is nice, but it pales to PRC mainland logistics designed to defeat the relative trickle of US standoff attacks airforce can actually deliver with basing US has access to, that itself is being targetted so US can't deliver any without hilariously inefficient/suboptimal tanking logistics from beyond 2 IC to the point it's likely not viable. Hence zerg rush to 100 B21 fleet.
US fighting standoff war also throws allies / partners in region with security guarantee to the dogs. PRC going to start hitting US military infra in JP/SKR/PH to drag US into fighting in 1IC.
US fighting standoff war also throws allies / partners in region with security guarantee to the dogs. PRC going to start hitting US military infra in JP/SKR/PH to drag US into fighting in 1IC.
For the civilians like me in the room:
- LRIP: low-rate of initial production, the early phase of weapons development where kinks are being ironed out before mass-production begins
- C-130, C-17: large, US-made cargo aircraft that we have a lot of
- 1IC: first island chain -- Kuril islands, Japan, Taiwan, Phillippines, and Borneo
- 2IC: second island chain -- Guam, Marianas, Bonin islands. 1IC and 2IC are also references to US defense policy in the pacific, namely to contain the USSR (and later, China) by projecting force westward in the pacific, using islands as stopovers for logistics, etc.
- MIC: military industrial complex
- J-20 fighters: a fighter jet, Chengdu J-20, China's counterpart to the F-22
- PL-17 missiles: China-developed long range air-to-air missiles that are capable of hitting/taking down large cargo aircraft like C-130s
- AWACS: airborne warning and control system, a type of radar system capable of detecting (and defend against) incoming missiles. these systems are large and mounted on purpose built aircraft, so I think the "system" part refers to having enough of such aircraft mixed in with your fleet to reliably detect incoming missiles over a large area
- AGM-158B: US-made, a type of long-range air-launched cruise missile that is being adapted for the rapid dragon
- zerg rush to 100 B21 fleet: refers to the US push to develop a long range strategic bomber, the B-21
- LRIP: low-rate of initial production, the early phase of weapons development where kinks are being ironed out before mass-production begins
- C-130, C-17: large, US-made cargo aircraft that we have a lot of
- 1IC: first island chain -- Kuril islands, Japan, Taiwan, Phillippines, and Borneo
- 2IC: second island chain -- Guam, Marianas, Bonin islands. 1IC and 2IC are also references to US defense policy in the pacific, namely to contain the USSR (and later, China) by projecting force westward in the pacific, using islands as stopovers for logistics, etc.
- MIC: military industrial complex
- J-20 fighters: a fighter jet, Chengdu J-20, China's counterpart to the F-22
- PL-17 missiles: China-developed long range air-to-air missiles that are capable of hitting/taking down large cargo aircraft like C-130s
- AWACS: airborne warning and control system, a type of radar system capable of detecting (and defend against) incoming missiles. these systems are large and mounted on purpose built aircraft, so I think the "system" part refers to having enough of such aircraft mixed in with your fleet to reliably detect incoming missiles over a large area
- AGM-158B: US-made, a type of long-range air-launched cruise missile that is being adapted for the rapid dragon
- zerg rush to 100 B21 fleet: refers to the US push to develop a long range strategic bomber, the B-21
And that fleet of ad hoc bombers would exhaust the entire supply of missiles in the first strike, leaving the surviving aircraft with nothing to do. Today the production capacity for all AGM-158 variants is ~500 missiles/year, with plans to increase it to 1000 missiles/year. In an all-out war, the right scale would be more like 1000 missiles/day.
For more on how dire this situation is with the American industrial capacity to produce missiles in a war with China check out this comprehensive report:
https://features.csis.org/preparing-the-US-industrial-base-t...
https://features.csis.org/preparing-the-US-industrial-base-t...
I suspect that if this is being published, it's because they are already fixing the problem.
There is the "replicator initiative" within the DOD but I have no idea if it's moving quickly or not. The U.S. defense establishment still seems stuck in a pattern of buying big extravagant and expensive systems (e.g. aircraft carriers, million dollar missiles) which are vulnerable to asymmetric attacks from low cost drones or land to sea based missiles.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12611
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12611
I am not worried. History likes to rhyme and I think China will do a switcheroo on Russia and align itself with the West for the purpose of dismantling Russia's military and industry, just like the Soviet Union switched sides from being an ally of Germany in 1939 to working with the Western Allies on breaking Germany's neck. The West will make some concessions, but they will be seen as worth the price of breaking Russia up.
> Soviet Union switched sides from being an ally of Germany in 1939 to working with the Western Allies on breaking Germany's neck.
What are you smoking? Germany is the one that attacked the USSR. I can hardly see how they'll remain anything but allies after that. Actually Germany didn't just attack, they prepared and executed the largest invasion in human history.
> I think China will do a switcheroo on Russia
China is not going to do a switcheroo on Russia. If it wanted to, it'd wait until Russia is exhausted/broken and invade/recover the lands it used to historically belong to them (+resources that come along). Instead, they want Russia to remain as an annoyance to the West.
China is never aligning with the West. They won after WWII and the West tried to break into them in two wars (Korean and Vietnamese) to no avail. They'll fight till the end.
What are you smoking? Germany is the one that attacked the USSR. I can hardly see how they'll remain anything but allies after that. Actually Germany didn't just attack, they prepared and executed the largest invasion in human history.
> I think China will do a switcheroo on Russia
China is not going to do a switcheroo on Russia. If it wanted to, it'd wait until Russia is exhausted/broken and invade/recover the lands it used to historically belong to them (+resources that come along). Instead, they want Russia to remain as an annoyance to the West.
China is never aligning with the West. They won after WWII and the West tried to break into them in two wars (Korean and Vietnamese) to no avail. They'll fight till the end.
The USSR was on non-war terms with Germany until 1941, it was even exporting stuff like rubber to Germany until then.
Those Russian lands don't 'belong' to China any more than China 'belongs' to Mongolia or the Jin dynasty 'belonged' to... well itself and just got appropriated as people then like people today and look at borders imagining things were always like that when they werent remotely the same.
Those Russian lands don't 'belong' to China any more than China 'belongs' to Mongolia or the Jin dynasty 'belonged' to... well itself and just got appropriated as people then like people today and look at borders imagining things were always like that when they werent remotely the same.
> What are you smoking? Germany is the one that attacked the USSR. I can hardly see how they'll remain anything but allies after that. Actually Germany didn't just attack, they prepared and executed the largest invasion in human history.
The Soviet Union helped Germany evade restrictions imposed on them after WWI. Specifically, they helped Germans develop mechanised forces, air forces, and gas warfare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_tank_school
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipetsk_fighter-pilot_school
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomka_gas_test_site
Then they signed this pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... dividing Poland (Soviet forced attacked Poland on 17 Sep 1939).
The Soviets switched sides when Germans attacked them. Then the Germans lost, got divided, then were allowed to re-unite and ... ran straight to Moscow to sign deals that undermined security of Eastern Europe.
Make no mistake, Russia and Germany fight and then can't wait to fall into each other's arms.
> China is not going to do a switcheroo on Russia. If it wanted to, it'd wait until Russia is exhausted/broken and invade/recover the lands it used to historically belong to them (+resources that come along). Instead, they want Russia to remain as an annoyance to the West.
They just told Putin to pound sand when he asked them to finance his Siberian gas pipeline during his recent visit to Bejing. They know Russia is weak.
The Soviet Union helped Germany evade restrictions imposed on them after WWI. Specifically, they helped Germans develop mechanised forces, air forces, and gas warfare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_tank_school
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipetsk_fighter-pilot_school
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomka_gas_test_site
Then they signed this pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... dividing Poland (Soviet forced attacked Poland on 17 Sep 1939).
The Soviets switched sides when Germans attacked them. Then the Germans lost, got divided, then were allowed to re-unite and ... ran straight to Moscow to sign deals that undermined security of Eastern Europe.
Make no mistake, Russia and Germany fight and then can't wait to fall into each other's arms.
> China is not going to do a switcheroo on Russia. If it wanted to, it'd wait until Russia is exhausted/broken and invade/recover the lands it used to historically belong to them (+resources that come along). Instead, they want Russia to remain as an annoyance to the West.
They just told Putin to pound sand when he asked them to finance his Siberian gas pipeline during his recent visit to Bejing. They know Russia is weak.
Agreed. If you look back at the Cold War era, you'll lose count of the number of times China and Russia embraced each other with lofty rhetoric, each proclaiming to be the other's BFF, only to end up butting heads again after a few years.
In 1969 the Unites States strongly hinted that they would retaliate with nuclear weapons if the Soviet Union used pre-emptive nuclear weapons on China (which it was rumored they were considering). We risked nuclear war against ourselves to prevent nuclear attacks on China.
China may see the US as an enemy, or at least a competitor, but it would not be able to project power or be recognised as a global player if it was not for the massive US investments in the country. In the end, when push comes to shove, China would rather align itself with the US rather than Russia so the scenario illustrated by Budanov's cake showing Russian Federation broken up into smaller pieces may not be that unrealistic:
https://x.com/eeldenden/status/1610689686271397922
The decision is in Putin's hands and if he plays stupid games, he will win all the stupid prizes.
https://x.com/eeldenden/status/1610689686271397922
The decision is in Putin's hands and if he plays stupid games, he will win all the stupid prizes.
And the USA would rather be friends with China. We threatened nuclear war with Russia in order to protect China in 1969. We created special carvouts to help industrialize China. The USAs actions are not those of a country that wants to be adversaries with China. I friggen loved 2010's Shanghai and the people there (though I'm told it's nothing like that anymore).
Russia changed sides when Hitler invaded Russia. Not sure we can count on Putin making that mistake.
All he has to do is fire one nuke and China will gladly listen to the US' suggestion that we should take these toys away from Russia.
Russia is still the country with the highest amount of nuclear warheads on the planet. How would anyone “take them away”?
In exchange for food or being able to sell limited amounts of their natural resources in exchange for small amounts of hard currency. They are amazing at not being able to feed their population when they start a big war.
Nope, because then the US will be all in on Europe and Taiwan will be ripe for the picking.
Without using Chinese parts the US found that making their own small drones would cost $2,100. And those were just the observation drones for use by the Department of Interior.
They were also only 20% as capable as Chinese drones.
Read this and get terrified
https://www.ft.com/content/dd2e936e-5934-49f1-8aa6-29dea9a41...
They were also only 20% as capable as Chinese drones.
Read this and get terrified
https://www.ft.com/content/dd2e936e-5934-49f1-8aa6-29dea9a41...
It's a bit more complicated than just production capacity of shitty quadcopters. The limiting factor with them isn't the airframe, you can make that out of literal tree branches and duct tape. The part that's important is the chips and US leadership seems very intent on fixing that, the question is if they're capable of doing so.
We also don't know what form drones will take as the technology matures. Quadcopters are common right now because they require exactly zero aerodynamic knowledge to build or fly. Any tween with an AliExpress+YouTube account could design, build, and fly all of the systems we've seen to date. As the systems become more automated in the face of EWAR, lasers, shotguns, whatever, expect a reversion to high speed fixed wing systems that trade a little bit of CDF knowledge for order-of-magnitude performance improvement in basically all realms (payload, range, endurance, speed, survivability etc).
We also don't know what form drones will take as the technology matures. Quadcopters are common right now because they require exactly zero aerodynamic knowledge to build or fly. Any tween with an AliExpress+YouTube account could design, build, and fly all of the systems we've seen to date. As the systems become more automated in the face of EWAR, lasers, shotguns, whatever, expect a reversion to high speed fixed wing systems that trade a little bit of CDF knowledge for order-of-magnitude performance improvement in basically all realms (payload, range, endurance, speed, survivability etc).
Quantity has a quality all its' own. A swarm of a thousand quadcopters negates any drawbacks you've mentioned, and would be cheaper than even a single Bayraktar or Reaper (not even including their 6 figure weapons payload). And we're already seeing drone carrying "motherships" that drop multiple quads and have RF repeaters to extend range to 50km+.
It's a lot like the switch from battleships to aircraft carriers in the early 20th century. When a single squadron of cloth and wooden biplanes became capable of sinking a 50,000 ton armored warship that took 5 years to build, the writing was on the wall, and the countries who didn't adapt lost.
It's a lot like the switch from battleships to aircraft carriers in the early 20th century. When a single squadron of cloth and wooden biplanes became capable of sinking a 50,000 ton armored warship that took 5 years to build, the writing was on the wall, and the countries who didn't adapt lost.
I'm still talking about the tiny high quantity quads, they can't do anything if they don't have the range to get from the launch location to the target and stand off range is the oldest advantage in warfare.
I guarantee the ones fielded in the next ~5 years will start to look like the new high speed bullet quads but with a blended wing between the rotors so they're not wasting energy plowing diagonally through the air. You may see configurations that can tail stand or enter a hover briefly and some that fly entirely conventionally, but the current paradigm of quads hovering near targets is going to be short lived as defenses ratchet up.
As I said, the chips are going to be the issue. If you can deploy a $200 Wish dot com wifi/gps jammer and take down every drone within 500m, again, quantity doesn't do anything. They'll be moving toward relying on spread spectrum and variations of basic image recognition up through spicier algorithms for localization and targeting.
I guarantee the ones fielded in the next ~5 years will start to look like the new high speed bullet quads but with a blended wing between the rotors so they're not wasting energy plowing diagonally through the air. You may see configurations that can tail stand or enter a hover briefly and some that fly entirely conventionally, but the current paradigm of quads hovering near targets is going to be short lived as defenses ratchet up.
As I said, the chips are going to be the issue. If you can deploy a $200 Wish dot com wifi/gps jammer and take down every drone within 500m, again, quantity doesn't do anything. They'll be moving toward relying on spread spectrum and variations of basic image recognition up through spicier algorithms for localization and targeting.
>they can't do anything if they don't have the range to get from the launch location to the target and stand off range is the oldest advantage in warfare.
They can. Ukraine and Russia both have started using repeater drones for over-the-horizon capabilities with quadcopters. They can also be mesh linked, and combined with carrier drones to give you arbitrary standoff range for FPV attacks: https://x.com/wilendhornets/status/1772345701772513445
>If you can deploy a $200 Wish dot com wifi/gps jammer and take down every drone within 500m, again, quantity doesn't do anything.
But you can't. If you could, we wouldn't be seeing hundreds of these videos per week. The inverse square law applies no matter how advanced the jamming technology gets. You can protect fixed installations with huge high powered EW arrays, but the individual soldier on the battlefield is completely defenseless. The best they can hope for is a small bubble of protection from whoever in your unit is carrying the 30lbs of jamming gear and batteries, or the limited capabilities of a vehicle mounted system (that can easily be destroyed with artillery or ATGM).
They can. Ukraine and Russia both have started using repeater drones for over-the-horizon capabilities with quadcopters. They can also be mesh linked, and combined with carrier drones to give you arbitrary standoff range for FPV attacks: https://x.com/wilendhornets/status/1772345701772513445
>If you can deploy a $200 Wish dot com wifi/gps jammer and take down every drone within 500m, again, quantity doesn't do anything.
But you can't. If you could, we wouldn't be seeing hundreds of these videos per week. The inverse square law applies no matter how advanced the jamming technology gets. You can protect fixed installations with huge high powered EW arrays, but the individual soldier on the battlefield is completely defenseless. The best they can hope for is a small bubble of protection from whoever in your unit is carrying the 30lbs of jamming gear and batteries, or the limited capabilities of a vehicle mounted system (that can easily be destroyed with artillery or ATGM).
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I would be willing to bet a very large sum that China has the capability to drop 10,000 drones from a high altitude plane over US soil in one go, with the range to strike anywhere on the US mainland. I have no basis for this claim apart from the fact it's a really obvious thing to do.
Yep. Imagine a near future with a mothership balloon carrying thousands of drones the size of a deck of cards or so with a 20g explosive, gps, facial recognition, and something to detect cellphone signals and a small solar panel.
Drop a load over an area with the faces of targets preprogrammed into them and let them flit about looking for cell phone signal sources and if the face that's near the signal is a match explode on their neck.
Imagine releasing that over an airbase. These things can either attack immediately or just fall down to the area around and lie in wait recharging with their panel.
What's the counter to that?
Drop a load over an area with the faces of targets preprogrammed into them and let them flit about looking for cell phone signal sources and if the face that's near the signal is a match explode on their neck.
Imagine releasing that over an airbase. These things can either attack immediately or just fall down to the area around and lie in wait recharging with their panel.
What's the counter to that?
The USA isn't going to fight a trench warfare style war with China. We would fight a standoff/siege war and would overwhelm China's defenses and take out China's production capabilities. China's production is mainly in the east, whereas the USA's is spread out across the country. China imports it oil (making them susceptible to siege) while the USA is a net exporter.
There is a reason we are developing Rapid Dragon (named after a Chinese siege weapon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system) . It quickly converts our 1500+ supply chain heavy aircraft fleet into stand-off attack platforms.
There is a reason we are developing Rapid Dragon (named after a Chinese siege weapon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system) . It quickly converts our 1500+ supply chain heavy aircraft fleet into stand-off attack platforms.
War in East Asia, were it to happen, will be nothing like war in Europe - as was the case in WWII.
We are already working on unmanned autonomous drones the size of a fighter jet https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/04/19/us-air-force-stag...
I'm well aware, but that's not what the commenter was referring to.
Anduril says they have a focus on industrial capacity and cost effectiveness
>Anduril says they have a focus on industrial capacity and cost effectiveness
US Military contractors have a very different conception of "cost effectiveness" than most of us.
Anyone outside of Ukraine designing drones right now should simply stop what they are doing and watch and listen and learn from the innovators on the ground there. All of those pie in the sky ideas will probably be completely useless in the face of reality.
US Military contractors have a very different conception of "cost effectiveness" than most of us.
Anyone outside of Ukraine designing drones right now should simply stop what they are doing and watch and listen and learn from the innovators on the ground there. All of those pie in the sky ideas will probably be completely useless in the face of reality.
> Between 1939 and 1944, the value of aircraft produced annually in the U.S. increased by a factor of 70, and the total weight of aircraft produced (a common measure of aircraft industry output) increased by a factor of 64
Something about evaluating production quantity by weight always puts a smile on my face
Something about evaluating production quantity by weight always puts a smile on my face
It seems reasonable if you're thinking about the amount of material that must be sourced, transported, processed, etc. also serves as a check that the newly produced planes weren't simply 70x smaller than before.
Aircraft are also designed to reduce weight as much as possible.
Imagine measuring computer hardware output by weight.
Imagine measuring computer hardware output by weight.
As long as the metric is not used as a target, it keeps being a relevant metric. All that tonnage needed to be manufactured.
That is an incorrect comparison.
The key and important factor of computer hardware has little to do with weight.
Whereas, weight is an important factor for aircrafts. A plane produced today will have similar capabilities as a plane produced 30 years ago of the same weight.
That is absolutely not the case for computer hardware.
The key and important factor of computer hardware has little to do with weight.
Whereas, weight is an important factor for aircrafts. A plane produced today will have similar capabilities as a plane produced 30 years ago of the same weight.
That is absolutely not the case for computer hardware.
Hardly, forged titanium bulkheads, dramatically improved engines, and composites. And before that, aluminum fuselages, improved aerodynamics, etc.
Hell, compare the F111 vs the F22 on every available metric.
Just like flops/gram has dramatically improved over time for computers.
Hell, compare the F111 vs the F22 on every available metric.
Just like flops/gram has dramatically improved over time for computers.
Ben Rich talks about how much flight computers cost per pound in his memoirs.
Can’t find the quote though as I’m out and iBooks says all my books are broken.
I mean, aircraft usability scales with weight in a way that computers do the opposite of.
Just like lines of code, it's a very useful metric.
... As long as you don't do something stupid with it, like using it to evaluate people.
... As long as you don't do something stupid with it, like using it to evaluate people.
Someone who successfully ran an organization that successfully delivered 70 4,000-tonne ships is probably more qualified to be put in charge of building an aircraft carrier, than someone who delivered 70 4,000-lb boats.
When it comes to material goods that dramatically vary in size (ships, planes, bombs), tonnage is usually a good first metric.
When it comes to material goods that dramatically vary in size (ships, planes, bombs), tonnage is usually a good first metric.
4000 70lb boats?
It's hard to abuse for aircraft - you can't just strap a bunch of lead to a plane because then it won't fly.
Was that a requirement in the contract? Mine says just need to produce a certain number of planes. There's nothing in there that says the plane must be able to fly. If that's what you wanted, you should have stipulated that during negotiations. Remember, you picked fast and cheap.
I guess that's the upside of wartime and having many of the people in charge of these projects truly bought in -- they're likely trying to deliver the best they can, not maximize profits.
Yeah, I'm so pessimistic about today's attitudes, I truly think we would NOT be able to replicate that effort today. Boeing can't make doors stay on their airplane, or a rocket capsule that can have working valves. We're at a point where a total sea change in attitudes would have to occur, so maybe an all out war effort might do that? I truly hope we never need to find out
In this specific case it's a cultural thing at Boeing not the culture at large. I worked at an aerospace company and we had an unwritten rule that made sure we kept the percentage of ex-Boeing employees below a pretty low threshold to ensure Boeing culture didn't work it's way in.
On top of a poor personnel culture, Boeing cares more about splitting it's supply chain up around the world (in order to get contracts from different countries) than making airplanes. The scary part of a bad culture is you could fake it with past airplanes, but newer aircraft with lighter composite parts/less parts (which then make each part's integrity more important) there's less wiggle room. Plus with composite, you can't just do a final QA on things and ensure they are good. You have to QA each layer layup, glues, etc. An xray at the end can't really give you the whole picture. I remember friends talking about how a certain (not Boeing) company was experimenting moving composite layup to China and what a cluster that was going to be. They would find razor blades embedded inside and all kinds of FOB crap on the final xrays, and this was on the pre-production showcase pieces.
On top of a poor personnel culture, Boeing cares more about splitting it's supply chain up around the world (in order to get contracts from different countries) than making airplanes. The scary part of a bad culture is you could fake it with past airplanes, but newer aircraft with lighter composite parts/less parts (which then make each part's integrity more important) there's less wiggle room. Plus with composite, you can't just do a final QA on things and ensure they are good. You have to QA each layer layup, glues, etc. An xray at the end can't really give you the whole picture. I remember friends talking about how a certain (not Boeing) company was experimenting moving composite layup to China and what a cluster that was going to be. They would find razor blades embedded inside and all kinds of FOB crap on the final xrays, and this was on the pre-production showcase pieces.
I haven’t finished the article yet, so I’m not sure if this is brought up. But I’m always amazed by how much government control there was in mobilizing the US economy for WW2. Factories were converted to producing war goods overnight. From Pearl Harbor to Japans surrender, the US produced less than 200 commercial cars! The amount of centralized government control during this period was astounding. It makes you wonder if that would be possible in the US today. Not just would the American people tolerate this kind of drastic change, but whether the modern economy and supply chains could support these kinds of sudden, drastic re-directs
One thing about these sorts of gov run industry things is that when it works it almost always coincides with great national urgency where you get total civilian/private industry buy in.
Everyone points to NASA in the 60s as a perfect example of gov production but like all newly formed bureaucracies they are largely the sum of the people they recently absorbed into it. NASA mined all the universities and nerds from private industry who brought their work patterns, leadership, and attitudes to the organization.
But as these orgs age it’s the classic Iron Rule story of managers taking over and accountants ruining things etc etc.
Maybe we need to move away from monolithic mega gov orgs and create new ones to solve new problems each generation instead of being catch alls that do nothing well and never face any risk of being replaced. There needs to be ways to breed new life and kill off the natural development of bad management and crippling rulemaking.
Everyone points to NASA in the 60s as a perfect example of gov production but like all newly formed bureaucracies they are largely the sum of the people they recently absorbed into it. NASA mined all the universities and nerds from private industry who brought their work patterns, leadership, and attitudes to the organization.
But as these orgs age it’s the classic Iron Rule story of managers taking over and accountants ruining things etc etc.
Maybe we need to move away from monolithic mega gov orgs and create new ones to solve new problems each generation instead of being catch alls that do nothing well and never face any risk of being replaced. There needs to be ways to breed new life and kill off the natural development of bad management and crippling rulemaking.
I wonder anyone has a suggestion for a book on the NACA -> NASA change era
> There needs to be ways to breed new life and kill off the natural development of bad management and crippling rulemaking.
corpos are functionally immortal and it's the cancerous mass, not the germ line that survives.
corpos are functionally immortal and it's the cancerous mass, not the germ line that survives.
If you are interested in how this all worked there is a book called 'Destructive Creation'. Here is an interview with the author:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gdbjVMxdnpQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gdbjVMxdnpQ
This is actually the best 1-volume book on U.S. WW2 mobilization.
Yes, they would tolerate it. Both because of the Government's monopoly on violence, and because citizens always rally to support a war when under direct attack. The latter effect was popularized by Randolph Bourne in an essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Bourne
> the phrase "war is the health of the state" that laments the success of governments in arrogating authority and resources during conflicts.
The problem the US might have in full war mobilization today would be due to cronyism. Remember all of the exceptions to Covid lockdowns for "essential" employees? Some of that is of course necessary but I suspect it would be very widespread if it happened today. This would stoke resentment from people/companies not so privileged.
> the phrase "war is the health of the state" that laments the success of governments in arrogating authority and resources during conflicts.
The problem the US might have in full war mobilization today would be due to cronyism. Remember all of the exceptions to Covid lockdowns for "essential" employees? Some of that is of course necessary but I suspect it would be very widespread if it happened today. This would stoke resentment from people/companies not so privileged.
I worked in an automotive plant opened in 1954. (I worked there from 200x to 201x). I was specifically told that the support columns were set a certain distance apart from each other in case it needed to be re-tooled for wing production, and that was a condition of the financing or deal or something with the govt.
Any of that could be a misunderstanding or an urban legend though.
Any of that could be a misunderstanding or an urban legend though.
It wasn't so much centralized control as just spending gobs and gobs of money. If the federal government just started handing out money to produce consumable goods and machinery today, you can bet every company in the world would be all over that.
> As late as 1941, the U.K. was building more planes per year than the U.S. But by 1942, the U.S. was building roughly as many aircraft as Germany, Japan, the U.K. and Italy combined.
Wow. Unbelievable
Wow. Unbelievable
Huh. There were _800k_ aircraft built during the war. Hadn't realised it was anything close to that. That's easily over a million pilots - how on earth did they train them all?
Quickly and dangerously. There's an entire cemetery dedicated to RAF pilot cadets in Montgomery, Alabama killed during training at US airfields.
* https://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/622200
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakwood_Cemetery_(Montgomery,_...
* https://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/622200
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakwood_Cemetery_(Montgomery,_...
Seems like an overstatement to say “an entire cemetery”. Per the Wikipedia page, the cemetery is 120 acres with 200,000 grave sites, but only 78 of the graves are RAF students (which still is a terrible amount of people to lose in training, of all things).
I think it's fair enough if it was enough they thought to make that a specific section. You probably wouldn't be commenting about it if it so happened that the entire site was .1 acre and only the student pilots.
Many military personnel die in training.
If you are not losing a few people in training, you are not pushing things hard enough.
If you are not losing a few people in training, you are not pushing things hard enough.
> how on earth did they train them all?
A few days of classroom instruction, 40-100 flight hours of practical training (Less in the Axis, due to oil shortages, less in the USSR at the start of the war, due to the all-hands-on-deck state of emergency), and then it's off to war with you.
Axis pilots would fly until they were killed, seriously injured, or captured. Anglosphere bomber pilots would fly ~30 combat missions, and if they survived, would be rotated out to work as instructors.
The average combat survival rate for bomber pilots was ~10 missions, but due to the infrequency of flights, most Anglo bomber crews survived the war, without ever hitting their rotation limit. Meanwhile, in the Pacific theater, the more missions bomber crews flew, the bigger the rotation limits grew (Because survival rates improved, the generals in charge figured that it would be reasonable to ask crews to fly more missions.) The air crews were, understandably, not very pleased about this.
Fighter pilots had much higher quotas, before they could rotate out.
A few days of classroom instruction, 40-100 flight hours of practical training (Less in the Axis, due to oil shortages, less in the USSR at the start of the war, due to the all-hands-on-deck state of emergency), and then it's off to war with you.
Axis pilots would fly until they were killed, seriously injured, or captured. Anglosphere bomber pilots would fly ~30 combat missions, and if they survived, would be rotated out to work as instructors.
The average combat survival rate for bomber pilots was ~10 missions, but due to the infrequency of flights, most Anglo bomber crews survived the war, without ever hitting their rotation limit. Meanwhile, in the Pacific theater, the more missions bomber crews flew, the bigger the rotation limits grew (Because survival rates improved, the generals in charge figured that it would be reasonable to ask crews to fly more missions.) The air crews were, understandably, not very pleased about this.
Fighter pilots had much higher quotas, before they could rotate out.
>> Because survival rates improved, the generals in charge figured that it would be reasonable to ask crews to fly more missions
Sounds like a Catch-22.
Sounds like a Catch-22.
Just in case you or other readers don't already know. The phrase Catch-22 is from the book "Catch-22". The plot of "Catch-22" is about a bomber pilot who is caught in that situation, "generals in charge ... ask crews to fly more missions".
"Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to."
There was an analog flight stimulator used by over 500k pilots which helped, but this was war they accepted extremely high casualty rates and not just from enemy action.
https://www.nasflmuseum.com/link-trainer.html
https://www.nasflmuseum.com/link-trainer.html
As late as the 1960s, the career death rate for US fighter pilots was about one in five, without any help from an enemy. There's a book, "The Making of an Ex-Astronaut", from someone who made it through astronaut training but then realized they didn't want to take the risk of pilot training in a T-38.
The T-38 jet trainer, first flight in 1959, still in use: 1,189 built, 210 crashes and ejections.
The T-38 jet trainer, first flight in 1959, still in use: 1,189 built, 210 crashes and ejections.
I recently read Masters of the Air, and it said that over 10,000 Americans from the 8th Air Force died over English soil, most from accidents during takeoff and assembling forces.
Not all the aircraft built were used by the US: a sizable minority (18% according to one contemporary source [0]) were transferred (by sale or lend-lease) to other allies.
[0] https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-hist...
[0] https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-hist...
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I will say, that I live on Long Island, which was a major industrial area, during WWII.
We enjoy one of the highest cancer rates in the world. All those factories used to dump their waste into our aquifers.
We enjoy one of the highest cancer rates in the world. All those factories used to dump their waste into our aquifers.
This is a nice write-up, although it focuses solely on the US industrial output, which is indeed impressive, going from ~2,100 aircraft to ~50,000 in six years. However, that first table raises some questions - the Soviets were already at ~10,300 in 1939, and the Germans at ~8,200. How were they able to do it?
One major influence is that American industrialists were busy expanding global markets and happily supplied their technology and manufacturing processes to the two major buyers, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, in the 1930s, with Ford being one of the major actors, perhaps more active in Germany:
In Germany:
> "Ford and the Führer: A History of Ford Motor Company's Involvement in Nazi Germany" by Paul Ingrassia and Joseph B. White: This work delves into Ford's business activities in Germany, documenting the introduction of assembly-line manufacturing and the company's interactions with the Nazi regime."
> "The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich" by Max Wallace: This book explores the relationship between American industrialists like Henry Ford and the Nazi regime, including detailed accounts of Ford's manufacturing contributions."
In Soviet Union:
> "Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ): Built with the technical assistance of Ford, the Gorky Automobile Plant began producing vehicles using American-style assembly lines. Ford provided machinery, blueprints, and training to Soviet engineers and workers. Soviet engineers and technicians received training in Ford’s American factories, learning about assembly line production and modern manufacturing techniques."
I don't know if there's a particular moral to this story, other than that in search of short-term profit major American industrialists were happy to get in bed with any and all buyers.
One major influence is that American industrialists were busy expanding global markets and happily supplied their technology and manufacturing processes to the two major buyers, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, in the 1930s, with Ford being one of the major actors, perhaps more active in Germany:
In Germany:
> "Ford and the Führer: A History of Ford Motor Company's Involvement in Nazi Germany" by Paul Ingrassia and Joseph B. White: This work delves into Ford's business activities in Germany, documenting the introduction of assembly-line manufacturing and the company's interactions with the Nazi regime."
> "The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich" by Max Wallace: This book explores the relationship between American industrialists like Henry Ford and the Nazi regime, including detailed accounts of Ford's manufacturing contributions."
In Soviet Union:
> "Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ): Built with the technical assistance of Ford, the Gorky Automobile Plant began producing vehicles using American-style assembly lines. Ford provided machinery, blueprints, and training to Soviet engineers and workers. Soviet engineers and technicians received training in Ford’s American factories, learning about assembly line production and modern manufacturing techniques."
I don't know if there's a particular moral to this story, other than that in search of short-term profit major American industrialists were happy to get in bed with any and all buyers.
> the Soviets were already at ~10,300 in 1939, and the Germans at ~8,200. How were they able to do it?
The US was pursuing a largely isolationist foreign policy, and was not investing in armaments.
The USSR had, between 1917, and 1939:
* Spent six years fighting an incredibly brutal and bloody civil war.
* Was attacked by Poland in ~1920.
* Spent another decade putting down various secession movements, mostly in central Asia.
* Had multiple minor conflicts with China and Japan.
* Was heavily involved in the Spanish Civil War.
* Also needed a strong, standing army to put down any further internal resistance.
* Could smell which way the wind was blowing, and was ready to capitalize on German's ambitions in Europe, by taking its chunk of Poland (And later invading Finland).
Given all that, it was functioning on a war economy pretty much from ~1917 to 1941. (At which point it transitioned to a total war economy.)
This was all in the context of a strong central push for mass industrialization. Steel production alone increased ~5x between 1930 and 1940. Up until the Nazis took power, the USSR worked very closely on both industrialization, and military armament with Weimar Germany. Krupp was building factories in the Don, and future Luftwaffe pilots were being trained in Lipetsk.
The US was pursuing a largely isolationist foreign policy, and was not investing in armaments.
The USSR had, between 1917, and 1939:
* Spent six years fighting an incredibly brutal and bloody civil war.
* Was attacked by Poland in ~1920.
* Spent another decade putting down various secession movements, mostly in central Asia.
* Had multiple minor conflicts with China and Japan.
* Was heavily involved in the Spanish Civil War.
* Also needed a strong, standing army to put down any further internal resistance.
* Could smell which way the wind was blowing, and was ready to capitalize on German's ambitions in Europe, by taking its chunk of Poland (And later invading Finland).
Given all that, it was functioning on a war economy pretty much from ~1917 to 1941. (At which point it transitioned to a total war economy.)
This was all in the context of a strong central push for mass industrialization. Steel production alone increased ~5x between 1930 and 1940. Up until the Nazis took power, the USSR worked very closely on both industrialization, and military armament with Weimar Germany. Krupp was building factories in the Don, and future Luftwaffe pilots were being trained in Lipetsk.
>* Was attacked by Poland in ~1920.
That's a fun way of saying that the USSR started a war of conquest against Poland.
That's a fun way of saying that the USSR started a war of conquest against Poland.
You're significantly oversimplifying the absolute clusterfuck of ethnic and ideological and territorial wars that sprung up in the immediate collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires.
Both of those states fought with the goal of expanding their borders to a pre-partition status - the USSR aimed to reclaim territories lost in Brest-Litovsk, Poland to something resembling the pre-partition commonwealth. Poland won the war, and made significant territorial gains, in exchange for recognition of Soviet Ukraine... And then 1939 happened.
Both of those states fought with the goal of expanding their borders to a pre-partition status - the USSR aimed to reclaim territories lost in Brest-Litovsk, Poland to something resembling the pre-partition commonwealth. Poland won the war, and made significant territorial gains, in exchange for recognition of Soviet Ukraine... And then 1939 happened.
Both of those states fought with the goal of expanding their borders to a pre-partition status - the USSR aimed to reclaim territories lost in Brest-Litovsk, Poland to something resembling the pre-partition commonwealth.
This is actually gets a bit closer to a fair reading of the basic cause of the war. But it also glaringly contradicts what you just said previously ("Poland attacked the USSR in 1920, and that's it"¹). If you knew this was a gross (and misleading) oversimplification -- then why did you open with it? And in what year did the USSR come into being, again?
Anyway, we're far removed from the topic of the original thread. If the two of you want to hash this out amongst yourselves, perhaps one of you can start a new top-level post on the topic, and see if you can get people to join you there.
¹ In the sense of «Вкусно – и точка»
This is actually gets a bit closer to a fair reading of the basic cause of the war. But it also glaringly contradicts what you just said previously ("Poland attacked the USSR in 1920, and that's it"¹). If you knew this was a gross (and misleading) oversimplification -- then why did you open with it? And in what year did the USSR come into being, again?
Anyway, we're far removed from the topic of the original thread. If the two of you want to hash this out amongst yourselves, perhaps one of you can start a new top-level post on the topic, and see if you can get people to join you there.
¹ In the sense of «Вкусно – и точка»
You are correct.
What I should have said (and couldn't find a way to put in a sentence) was that at some point in the Polish/Soviet war, Poland was fighting a successful offensive in the USSR, won the war, and made territorial gains.
I suppose I should have said, well, that.
What I should have said (and couldn't find a way to put in a sentence) was that at some point in the Polish/Soviet war, Poland was fighting a successful offensive in the USSR, won the war, and made territorial gains.
I suppose I should have said, well, that.
"In areas that would later become part of the USSR".
Anyway -- much better, thanks for clarifying.
Anyway -- much better, thanks for clarifying.
>> The US was pursuing a largely isolationist foreign policy
Some people in the US were. FDR was not.
Some people in the US were. FDR was not.
> other than that in search of short-term profit major American industrialists were happy to get in bed with any and all buyers
And that has changed since then..?
And that has changed since then..?
>It’s no secret that the Allies won World War II on the back of the U.S.’s enormous industrial output.
Now China is the country with the largest industrial output.
Now China is the country with the largest industrial output.
It's very weird to me that we could build airplanes at this scale almost a century ago, yet nowadays even the biggest airforces can barely field more than a tousand planes.
It's not like those old machines were primitive, and there have been major breakthroughs in mass-manufacturing.
It's not like those old machines were primitive, and there have been major breakthroughs in mass-manufacturing.
There's some sort of r/k selection effect happening here; modern aircraft have been getting more and more sophisticated to improve survivability, which raises their cost, so there are fewer of them. Things like the stealth bombers are at the far end of that curve.
(the logical end point of that thought process is some kind of Space Battleship Yamato scenario where the designers produce an "invincible" design, but only one of it. Hopefully real planners can be dissuaded from that nonsense, although the Axis were prone to this way of thinking)
(the logical end point of that thought process is some kind of Space Battleship Yamato scenario where the designers produce an "invincible" design, but only one of it. Hopefully real planners can be dissuaded from that nonsense, although the Axis were prone to this way of thinking)
I don't think they're limited to "a thousand planes," I think that's just all they need
the capabilities of planes from ww2 and today are almost not worth comparing
the capabilities of planes from ww2 and today are almost not worth comparing
Imo the Ukraine war has shown just how inadequate the (relatively large by modern standards) Russian airforce is at serving a front of WW2 proportions.
The F-35 is on back-order to the mid 2030s. Even superpowers can't make more than tens of planes every year.
It's just that the modern world is relatively peaceful, that's why they don't need more.
The F-35 is on back-order to the mid 2030s. Even superpowers can't make more than tens of planes every year.
It's just that the modern world is relatively peaceful, that's why they don't need more.
Don't forget that the armistice was just a pause for the new soldiers to grow up. Everybody knew WW2 was coming and was preparing for over 20 years.
> Don't forget that the armistice was just a pause for the new soldiers to grow up.
The armistice was a pause for the peace treaty to be negotiated and signed.
Now, if you think the Treaty of Versailles was intended as just a pause for new soldiers to grow up...I don't think that's particularly accurate for most signatories. Had it been, appeasement wouldn't have been tried.
The armistice was a pause for the peace treaty to be negotiated and signed.
Now, if you think the Treaty of Versailles was intended as just a pause for new soldiers to grow up...I don't think that's particularly accurate for most signatories. Had it been, appeasement wouldn't have been tried.
> The Vinson-Trammell Act limited profits on government contracts to just 12% (later reduced to 8%)
What the actual _hell_ happened to this idea?
What the actual _hell_ happened to this idea?
It's still in force, unfortunately. Cost plus incentives unnecessarily expensive projects. If the government orders 100 planes and your profit is fixed at 8% of cost, do you want to build a $10 million dollar plane or a $20 million dollar plane?
Poignant. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
I could not find it in the article and here but i wonder how much not getting the factories bombed helped with this.
Anyone else feel like in today's world, China could do this better than the US?
They could, but China has to feed a Billion people through manufacturing and trade with foreign countries. To keep the peace, they dedicate a huge % of their military to internal policing. They have a soft influence policy vs the US hard, or their trade imbalance can turn violent.
When I last visited China in 2002, the military was both a jobs program and involved in public works projects similar to the US Corps of Engineers but with higher priority.
This is every military in the history of the world.
The US military does not do a lot of domestic work, because it would undermine the private sector.
It could, though, and it could do a lot of good. But it doesn't.
It could, though, and it could do a lot of good. But it doesn't.
Sorry, but you're not making any argument or refutation with any sort of nuance. The Chinese military civic works and infrastructure development Bechtel look like 2 TaskRabbit helpers. USACE does a lot of good domestically and internationally, but it isn't even close.
See also: https://chinapower.csis.org/china-tibet-xinjiang-border-indi...
See also: https://chinapower.csis.org/china-tibet-xinjiang-border-indi...
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Authoritarian governments have a yin / yang superpower to get things done without bureaucracy, and at the same time very much not get things done very well at all.
That really depends on your definition of "better".
In China the entities connected to the CCP are excepted from a lot of laws that slow down processes or make them more expensive.
In the US is that way less the case.
In China the entities connected to the CCP are excepted from a lot of laws that slow down processes or make them more expensive.
In the US is that way less the case.
> In the US is that way less the case.
Day-to-day, sure.
In a national mobilization (even without additional action of Congress) when the President’s emergency powers in law are deployed to enable production? Things change radically.
Day-to-day, sure.
In a national mobilization (even without additional action of Congress) when the President’s emergency powers in law are deployed to enable production? Things change radically.
I'm sure they lessened the rules, we have endless examples. Think about how dangerous your job is if your expected mission lifetime is extremely short, and it's a total all out war for survival, we are willing to risk it (willing to risk you).
In 1943 the expected average life expectancy of a B-17 (crew and aircraft) was only to survive 11 missions! My Aunt's father was in one that was shotdown, he survived being a POW and came home after the war.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/black-week-da....
In 1943 the expected average life expectancy of a B-17 (crew and aircraft) was only to survive 11 missions! My Aunt's father was in one that was shotdown, he survived being a POW and came home after the war.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/black-week-da....
China's current production capacity would be eliminated by USA standoff attack aircraft within a few weeks. Pre war production capacity has nothing to do with war time production capacity if you can't defend your factories. How many Chinese factories depend on advanced foreign machining machines (vertical mills, horizontal mills, etc)? Can China constantly replace their capacity of these during sustained foreign bombardment?
China's manufacturing is mainly in the east, while the USAs is spread throughout the country. China's manufacturing is centered around coastal, river, and railway access. The USA has a distributed highway system for wartime variability/survivability.
China is dependant on oil imports. The USA in a net oil exporter.
China's manufacturing is mainly in the east, while the USAs is spread throughout the country. China's manufacturing is centered around coastal, river, and railway access. The USA has a distributed highway system for wartime variability/survivability.
China is dependant on oil imports. The USA in a net oil exporter.
US doesn't remotely have the fires to take out PRC MIC industry, they don't even have enough to scratch PRC coastal military installations, we're talking about potentially 1,000,000s of aim points to try to crack a lot of concrete, with a lot of ability to eat attrition / regenerate. Something US projection is not equipped to deal with especially with crippled delivery rates at standoff range. PRC has entire chain of advanced indigenous tooling inudstry. They also have massive capital stock. PRC capital stock have magnitude more installed robots than US has smart munitions.
For reference 3 week Iraqi air campaign had favourable land basing, 5 carriers, doing uncontested runs. Napkin math extrapolate to PRC size and you're looking at 5 years if US can sustain unsustainable tempo and PRC barely shoots back. Double that if US has to operate at standoff range where most of sorties goes to tanking/defensive air. The scale of PRC is massive.
PRC MIC industry is in the EAST far inland, specifically to account for US standoff range, i.e. rapid dragon with even JASSER would have to launch over mainland soil to hit. Can do even more extended AGM156Bs with 1900km range, but still has to be launched within PRC A2D2 1IC bubble, and they weight 5x more, i.e. can only fit lol10 in C17... all of a sudden you have a vunerable platform + missiles worth 400-500m trying to drop ordinances in area PL17 is designed to defeat. This is without mentioning PRC likely has / at least demonstrated to have capability to move MIC underground, see third front.
PRC has enough domestic oil production 4+ million barrels to run military AND industry with transport rationing.
But really what you're missing is if US starts hitting mainland targets, PRC will hit CONUS targets - they're pursuing conventional global strike. Their rocketforce platforms are increasingly dual use for reason. Reality is US is a net oil exporter in the same way Saudi is - i.e. it doesn't matter having resource autarky because extractive infra can be hit by Houthi drones. Era Fortress America is ending/over. PRC hitting 300 refineries and LNG plants cripples US homefront as much as much US trying to blockade PRC energy. And if we get to that point, then it's a matter of who has more distributed energy infra (i.e. renewables), and capital stock, excess construction capacity to survive the attrition game.
For reference 3 week Iraqi air campaign had favourable land basing, 5 carriers, doing uncontested runs. Napkin math extrapolate to PRC size and you're looking at 5 years if US can sustain unsustainable tempo and PRC barely shoots back. Double that if US has to operate at standoff range where most of sorties goes to tanking/defensive air. The scale of PRC is massive.
PRC MIC industry is in the EAST far inland, specifically to account for US standoff range, i.e. rapid dragon with even JASSER would have to launch over mainland soil to hit. Can do even more extended AGM156Bs with 1900km range, but still has to be launched within PRC A2D2 1IC bubble, and they weight 5x more, i.e. can only fit lol10 in C17... all of a sudden you have a vunerable platform + missiles worth 400-500m trying to drop ordinances in area PL17 is designed to defeat. This is without mentioning PRC likely has / at least demonstrated to have capability to move MIC underground, see third front.
PRC has enough domestic oil production 4+ million barrels to run military AND industry with transport rationing.
But really what you're missing is if US starts hitting mainland targets, PRC will hit CONUS targets - they're pursuing conventional global strike. Their rocketforce platforms are increasingly dual use for reason. Reality is US is a net oil exporter in the same way Saudi is - i.e. it doesn't matter having resource autarky because extractive infra can be hit by Houthi drones. Era Fortress America is ending/over. PRC hitting 300 refineries and LNG plants cripples US homefront as much as much US trying to blockade PRC energy. And if we get to that point, then it's a matter of who has more distributed energy infra (i.e. renewables), and capital stock, excess construction capacity to survive the attrition game.
'pursuing conventional global strike' AKA they don't have it, I.E. what 'I'm really missing' doesn't exist.
China is massive, but their 'strength' of mass production (what is being discussed here, converting a countries capabilities to war time production, and being claimed as uncounterable by the USA) is concentrated in the coastal areas and associated river shipping lanes. USA industry is spread throughout the country.
Again you completely ignore what I said. It wouldn't be 5 carriers of F-18s over five years, it would be our current fleet plus an additional 1500 stand off attack bombers, allowing those F-18s to focus solely on softening air defense sites, etc. China's installed robots have zero to do with any of this. They don't have automated factories 'spawning' units.
China's oil production just hit a record lows even with them putting their 'limitless resources' into it. China's western oil fields and offshore oil fields (like their billion dollar oil platform) would be scrap.
China's current MIC industry doesn't matter, it's converting domestic production to a war footing that is being discussed here. The claim is conversion of their current civilian capacity would overwhelm the USA. Again, China's civil capacity is concentrated in the coastal areas and associated waterways which make it not valuable as a war production capacity, while the USA is spread throughout the country. You don't need to take out every factory, just enough associated infra. But keep moving goal posts, change the subject to try and get a gotcha.
Edit: I have to add I hope none of this happens. I love China. My dad was a communist hippie and our house was filled all kinds of books on China from historical to modern Chinese thinking. My ex was an acupuncturist so we often talked about ancient Chinese thoughts as well. While I understand it's completely different now, 2010's Shanghai was one of my favorite cities. I'm also old enough to have been friends with a lot of students stranded in the USA after the Tiananmen Square massacre so my heart breaks for the Chinese people and I understand that their government is not them and does not care about their interests.
China is massive, but their 'strength' of mass production (what is being discussed here, converting a countries capabilities to war time production, and being claimed as uncounterable by the USA) is concentrated in the coastal areas and associated river shipping lanes. USA industry is spread throughout the country.
Again you completely ignore what I said. It wouldn't be 5 carriers of F-18s over five years, it would be our current fleet plus an additional 1500 stand off attack bombers, allowing those F-18s to focus solely on softening air defense sites, etc. China's installed robots have zero to do with any of this. They don't have automated factories 'spawning' units.
China's oil production just hit a record lows even with them putting their 'limitless resources' into it. China's western oil fields and offshore oil fields (like their billion dollar oil platform) would be scrap.
China's current MIC industry doesn't matter, it's converting domestic production to a war footing that is being discussed here. The claim is conversion of their current civilian capacity would overwhelm the USA. Again, China's civil capacity is concentrated in the coastal areas and associated waterways which make it not valuable as a war production capacity, while the USA is spread throughout the country. You don't need to take out every factory, just enough associated infra. But keep moving goal posts, change the subject to try and get a gotcha.
Edit: I have to add I hope none of this happens. I love China. My dad was a communist hippie and our house was filled all kinds of books on China from historical to modern Chinese thinking. My ex was an acupuncturist so we often talked about ancient Chinese thoughts as well. While I understand it's completely different now, 2010's Shanghai was one of my favorite cities. I'm also old enough to have been friends with a lot of students stranded in the USA after the Tiananmen Square massacre so my heart breaks for the Chinese people and I understand that their government is not them and does not care about their interests.
PRC existing MiC being in land matters because PRC MiC is scaled to operate at war time rates already, hence priority targets. PRC having capex stock (i.e. 300k robots per year) and lots of bodies and history of third front = PRC can move entire industrial base from coastal to interior (and underground) to reconstitute, they've done it before. Hence it is a whole of country / energy mix attrition and resilience game. Same for US, whose potentially going to make 0 oil and 0 lng when PRC hits her 300 refineries and lng plants (that also feeds NATO). Then it's matter of who has most survivable distributed power, most prexisting industrial stocks, human capita to reconstitute and etc to keep going.
US MiC distribution doesn't matter since stand off range of ICBM global strike basically = other side of world, i.e. existing PLARF icbms can already be conventionally tipped can hit any large infra target in US. That's PLA strategy for CONUS attacks, instead of 100m of munitions on 400m (cargo plane) or (13b carrier) delivery platform which needs vunerable/expensive logistics to operate, they're going for more expensive munitions, because they never committed to expensive force projection platforms, which US has to fulfill global commitments.
VS. US strategy for mainland attacks which is hoping very expensive, legacy, sunk cost platforms like carriers can deliver some standoff sorties, against PLA systems destruction warfare specifically designed to cripple logistics system that sustains them. This doubly true for jerry rigged transport bomb trucks, i.e. rapid dragon - there isn't enough airstrips in/around theatre, tanking to make it work at scale. PRC has host of supersonic drones and long range AA that can spam 1IC and take out lumbering rapid dragon cargo planes before they even have chance to deliver, which is going to be within 1IC, where US carrier defensive air won't have persistent coverage. Hence it's not seriously discussed in strategy writings, because anyone can look at the logistics behind it and realize it's not viable. Not like rushing new capability like B21s to do runs from CONUS/AU, recognizing what PRC recognizes as it builds out launchers and 1000s of tunnels, the only supply chain you can depend on is homeland supply chain.
US MiC distribution doesn't matter since stand off range of ICBM global strike basically = other side of world, i.e. existing PLARF icbms can already be conventionally tipped can hit any large infra target in US. That's PLA strategy for CONUS attacks, instead of 100m of munitions on 400m (cargo plane) or (13b carrier) delivery platform which needs vunerable/expensive logistics to operate, they're going for more expensive munitions, because they never committed to expensive force projection platforms, which US has to fulfill global commitments.
VS. US strategy for mainland attacks which is hoping very expensive, legacy, sunk cost platforms like carriers can deliver some standoff sorties, against PLA systems destruction warfare specifically designed to cripple logistics system that sustains them. This doubly true for jerry rigged transport bomb trucks, i.e. rapid dragon - there isn't enough airstrips in/around theatre, tanking to make it work at scale. PRC has host of supersonic drones and long range AA that can spam 1IC and take out lumbering rapid dragon cargo planes before they even have chance to deliver, which is going to be within 1IC, where US carrier defensive air won't have persistent coverage. Hence it's not seriously discussed in strategy writings, because anyone can look at the logistics behind it and realize it's not viable. Not like rushing new capability like B21s to do runs from CONUS/AU, recognizing what PRC recognizes as it builds out launchers and 1000s of tunnels, the only supply chain you can depend on is homeland supply chain.
China makes 30 times more aluminium per year than the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_aluminium...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_aluminium...
While true, it looks like bauxite is mostly mined from Australia, with a long tail of other countries, many of which are within the US sphere of influence or far from China.
The biggest exception seems to be Vietnam, with a very large reserve of bauxite (and obviously quite geographically close to China).
The biggest exception seems to be Vietnam, with a very large reserve of bauxite (and obviously quite geographically close to China).
Vietnam has faught war with china more reciently than the us. They are also afraid that chian will attack again, while they are reasonable confident the us won't.
Yes, but they do violate the part about being close to China (and hence easier to conquer in a hypothetical war).
If the only supplies of bauxite were across an ocean or a whole continent it would be much easier to deny them supplies of bauxite in a conflict.
Even if they could conquer the territory with it, they'd need to transport it back or move manufacturing to it.
If the only supplies of bauxite were across an ocean or a whole continent it would be much easier to deny them supplies of bauxite in a conflict.
Even if they could conquer the territory with it, they'd need to transport it back or move manufacturing to it.
Economic interdependency helps keep the relative cold war peace amongst frenemies, while tariffs and trade wars are likely to increase the risks of proxy wars and direct military conflict.
I think this hypothetical is more about once a conflict is imminent.
Also, general consensus seems to be that economic codependence has failed, with Russia invading Ukraine, humans rights abuses and authoritarianism in China, and China poised to attack Taiwan.
Also, general consensus seems to be that economic codependence has failed, with Russia invading Ukraine, humans rights abuses and authoritarianism in China, and China poised to attack Taiwan.
The world was also very interconnected prior to WW1.
And already 3x more vehicles.
To what end though? I know Taiwan is the hot button issue at the moment but it's hard for me to think China wants to get into war with the US, let alone the whole "west", over it. Doesn't the war with Ukraine show that any large scale military conflict is incredibly costly and difficult to benefit from?
It's because you know more about the USA's internal politics (and internal embarassments) than about China's. China has plenty of shitshows, but most of them don't reach international news.
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They’re also about 5x faster bringing new weapon systems online. They have a drone aircraft carrier.
It's already obvious.
230x ship building advantage, more dry tonnage per year than entire 5 year US ship building program in WW2... US advangage over JP in WW2 aws charitably 20:1. That's just in one "mature" industry, PRC isn't just better in US, it's magnitude better than US ever was relative to peers. Another example is their revelation of _one_ gigafactory for 1k cruise missile components a day. JP is buying 400 tomahawks over next few years for 1.5B. PRC indicating they can do that in one shift. US has 4000 stockpiled, replacing at ~100 per year. Some of the production figures are very lopsidded. Meanwhile they're addding about as industrial robots/automation than RoW, and industry is going to get increasingly cheap renewable inputs. The advantages are snowballing.
US still ahead in aviation due to committing to mature tech, but PRC knocking out their 5th J20 already 100+ per year. SpaceX is next as PRC pursues their mega constellation. I think people are prematurely jerking to SpaceX payload lead, they have a short term competitive advantage in doing high capacity launches on "small/medium scale", read: American scale with ~40 resusable rocket fleet. It the economics justified it, no reason PRC wouldn't have 400 falcon 9s. The TLDR is once indigenize tech matures, PRC can pursue incredible economies of scale, and build up enough production capacity to exceed aggregate production of others in 5-10 years.
230x ship building advantage, more dry tonnage per year than entire 5 year US ship building program in WW2... US advangage over JP in WW2 aws charitably 20:1. That's just in one "mature" industry, PRC isn't just better in US, it's magnitude better than US ever was relative to peers. Another example is their revelation of _one_ gigafactory for 1k cruise missile components a day. JP is buying 400 tomahawks over next few years for 1.5B. PRC indicating they can do that in one shift. US has 4000 stockpiled, replacing at ~100 per year. Some of the production figures are very lopsidded. Meanwhile they're addding about as industrial robots/automation than RoW, and industry is going to get increasingly cheap renewable inputs. The advantages are snowballing.
US still ahead in aviation due to committing to mature tech, but PRC knocking out their 5th J20 already 100+ per year. SpaceX is next as PRC pursues their mega constellation. I think people are prematurely jerking to SpaceX payload lead, they have a short term competitive advantage in doing high capacity launches on "small/medium scale", read: American scale with ~40 resusable rocket fleet. It the economics justified it, no reason PRC wouldn't have 400 falcon 9s. The TLDR is once indigenize tech matures, PRC can pursue incredible economies of scale, and build up enough production capacity to exceed aggregate production of others in 5-10 years.
I don't think you can just copy SpaceX's falcon 9 reusibility and landing just by wanting to do it. Even once you've got the basic system it takes years and years of iteration to make it better step by step. Only one company in the west has really done any of that, and if spacex wasn't around no one would believe it could be done.
I'm sure it can be done eventually by China though, they are just as smart as anyone else. Can they organize their scientific and engineering forces as well? Knowing it can be done is a huge help.
I'm sure it can be done eventually by China though, they are just as smart as anyone else. Can they organize their scientific and engineering forces as well? Knowing it can be done is a huge help.
They've got a multiple PRC commercial companies with successfuly reusable tests. We'll know more in next few years. TLDR is state level "direction" to pursue reusable lauch + mega constellations only started last few years (probably saw value in UKR war). I think SpaceX tech is probably easier to copy vs military, once idea proven to work as you said, PRC pretty good at iterating and replicating, and scaling, provided there's reason for it, i.e. no idea how much payload demand outside of megaconstellations. US uniquely advantaged because they work with a lot of developed countries with their own launch needs that US provides. Some initial estimates for PRC mega constellation(s) is IIRC putting up 1500 before 2030, and 13000-26000 by 2035 to show the projected launch curve. Which TBF is like 30-40 rocket tier of demand. Question is if they find something to justify spamming magnitude more launch capabilities, and pertinent to this article, if they did, it's probably going to be weaponinizing space.
Some context for US/Japan WW II:
In 1943, the US built more than half as many Fleet carriers as Japan fielded over the entire war (15 vs 28), while also producing an absurd number of escort carriers. In the last year of the war, the US built about as many F6F (Hellcat) fighters as Japan built A6M (Zeros) in the previous 5 years (the F6F is generally considered far superior to the A6M; the F4F is the older contemporary of the A6M).
In 1943, the US built more than half as many Fleet carriers as Japan fielded over the entire war (15 vs 28), while also producing an absurd number of escort carriers. In the last year of the war, the US built about as many F6F (Hellcat) fighters as Japan built A6M (Zeros) in the previous 5 years (the F6F is generally considered far superior to the A6M; the F4F is the older contemporary of the A6M).
> fleet. It the economics justified it, no reason PRC wouldn't have 400 falcon 9s.
The economics clearly justify mass production of widebody aircraft, yet China is unable to produce their own.
And you expect China to mass produce Falcon 9 rockets? How about they start with a simple airplane first.
The economics clearly justify mass production of widebody aircraft, yet China is unable to produce their own.
And you expect China to mass produce Falcon 9 rockets? How about they start with a simple airplane first.
Military Y20 reached 80+ now within a few years - they have indigenous tech to apply to domestic wide body, and can scale up production of large aircrafts if they want. But taking 929 slow because civilian aviation is _harder_ than space, more international requirements etc, why C919+929 needs to use foreign components for easier certification. The global economics justify it, the regulation/geopolitics makes it hard but they're diligently pursing it.
But economics also don't CLEARLY justify domestic wide body when they can focus on electrified HSR without fossil inputs, AND PRC pop density / geographic concentration limits future of civilian air due to air corridor congestion.
I expect PRC to mass produce domestic F9 if the economics clearly justify it. LM5 already estimated at F9 $3000 per kg, so hard to say how much mass producing PRC F9 tier reusable can drive down cost + add capability. If it's there's clear significant demand for more than sustaining mega contestallations past 2035s, I'd expect them to spam F9 for domestic use, before civil wide body that's going to take longer due politics of international aviation.
But economics also don't CLEARLY justify domestic wide body when they can focus on electrified HSR without fossil inputs, AND PRC pop density / geographic concentration limits future of civilian air due to air corridor congestion.
I expect PRC to mass produce domestic F9 if the economics clearly justify it. LM5 already estimated at F9 $3000 per kg, so hard to say how much mass producing PRC F9 tier reusable can drive down cost + add capability. If it's there's clear significant demand for more than sustaining mega contestallations past 2035s, I'd expect them to spam F9 for domestic use, before civil wide body that's going to take longer due politics of international aviation.
Yes, a missle gigafactory is impressive pre war. The USA will remove that single factory within the first weeks of any conflict. China better have large stockpiles if their strategy includes gigafactories.
Of course they'll have stockpiles, they didn't build all these factories to sit idle and have capex depreciate pointlessly, just like they'll have stockpiles for prompt global strike to hit US plants/energy infra on CONUS. Then what? This isn't the 50s-90s anymore, advanced rocketry ended Fortress America, PRC developing conventional strike to hit CONUS strategic targets precisely to deter mainland strikes. This is also ignoring US stockpiles, i.e. 4000 TLAMs... PRC installed ~300k industrial robots LAST YEAR. They have essentially accumulated near bottomless amount of industrial capex that can be redeployed/reconstituted to keep industrial base running, more than the US military was designed / currently designed to meaningfully degrade. There's a reason US military doctorine when from fighting 2 major wars when all potential US adversaries were medium powers, to one major war + hold another war in place, to PRC now a major pacing peer power and US might not even be able to fight major IndoPac war. PRC isn't a 4000 tomahawk conflict, it's a 400,000 one if not more. PRC recognizes regional war with US+CO is at least a 1000 missile per day problem.
Anything going on with Chinese missile forces staff and corruption lately? Just asking :)
Being efficiently punished, as they should be, unlike how fat leonard trials going ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. BTW corruption in PRC linked to getting more things built, the side effect is turbo procurement.
I don't agree that China's government corruption is actually a show of strength but interesting analysis.
Again I hope nothing happens. I am quite fond of China, the Chinese people, and historical Chinese culture. The USA made special carveouts to help China industrialize. The USA risked nuclear war with Russia in order to get them to back down against China in 1969. We don't want to be adversaries with China and have demonstrably shown so with fairly large policy choices.
Again I hope nothing happens. I am quite fond of China, the Chinese people, and historical Chinese culture. The USA made special carveouts to help China industrialize. The USA risked nuclear war with Russia in order to get them to back down against China in 1969. We don't want to be adversaries with China and have demonstrably shown so with fairly large policy choices.
> The USA will remove that single factory within the first weeks of any conflict.
I don't think it's clear that a war would necessarily escalate to attacking industrial targets because there is a kind of MAD at play.
From America's point of view, the problem with escalating the war to industrial targets (which I am sure US military planners realize) is that the US has an Achilles' heel in it's reliance on petrol. Almost all US petrol comes from only 130 domestic plants. If those are disabled, most US supply chains will crumble, including food. No need to disable all the factories when there's no way to transport stuff and workers aren't fed. That weakness might be enough to deter the US from striking Chinese industry.
EVs might be one of the bigger bulwarks the US could pursue toward greater national security.
I don't think it's clear that a war would necessarily escalate to attacking industrial targets because there is a kind of MAD at play.
From America's point of view, the problem with escalating the war to industrial targets (which I am sure US military planners realize) is that the US has an Achilles' heel in it's reliance on petrol. Almost all US petrol comes from only 130 domestic plants. If those are disabled, most US supply chains will crumble, including food. No need to disable all the factories when there's no way to transport stuff and workers aren't fed. That weakness might be enough to deter the US from striking Chinese industry.
EVs might be one of the bigger bulwarks the US could pursue toward greater national security.
This is mutual.Any attack on mainland China will invite immediate retaliation on American soil.
The Soviets had 40,000 nuclear warheads, which didn't enable them to achieve any kind of dominance over the US or Europe.
Nukes aren't meant to used in conventional war unless things go dire, cruise missiles are. Advanced munitions are bread and butter in peer war. USSR had doctorine for tactic nukes but it never got to that and it certainly effected US/EU esclation strategies even now.
The US must come to terms with ceding its monopoly on superpower status because other countries have caught up, but it also has correctable problems on multiple fronts due to:
- Lack of infrastructure investment
- Civic infighting
- Political divisions, distractions, and corruption
- Social regression
- Gender disparity in undergraduate education
- Declining standards of living
- Lack of infrastructure investment
- Civic infighting
- Political divisions, distractions, and corruption
- Social regression
- Gender disparity in undergraduate education
- Declining standards of living
Power will be projected in the future through alliances with Australia, Japan, and Great Britain. The problems you listed are real, but they are solvable.
Absolutely. I think the prime problem is large swaths of the American populace has lost hope, confidence, and resiliency. OTOH, people in China have a much more of a "can do" attitude buoyed by achievements and rapid progress. America needs younger politicians and leaders out there delivering projects and emanating positive vibes of hope and possibility.
> America needs younger politicians and leaders out there
Not just America, the world needs younger politicians who don't want to send the whole world to hell when they die. We really have a shitty geriatric crew right now--Putin, Xi, Modi, Biden, Trump.
Not just America, the world needs younger politicians who don't want to send the whole world to hell when they die. We really have a shitty geriatric crew right now--Putin, Xi, Modi, Biden, Trump.
And Orbán, Erdoğan, and more.
The people are hurting but the establishment isn't listening, and so conspiracy theorists, cranks, racist nationalists lite, and brash jerks are seen as ways to lash out against a system that doesn't appear to be helping them.
There are a holistic set of overlapping problems:
- Failure of the mainstream left to empathize properly with both working people and small business owners while pushing back against unreasonable demands of the very rich
- Failure to mentor young leaders in 4 domains: academia, industry, political parties, and community orgs
There are no quick or easy solutions, but require sustained, organized, and collaborative efforts to nudge the needle over years. This is quite difficult when a large fraction of the demographic voting for absurd leaders either don't have free time to volunteer, are unable to prioritize civic participation for whatever reason(s), or don't see the value in it.
The people are hurting but the establishment isn't listening, and so conspiracy theorists, cranks, racist nationalists lite, and brash jerks are seen as ways to lash out against a system that doesn't appear to be helping them.
There are a holistic set of overlapping problems:
- Failure of the mainstream left to empathize properly with both working people and small business owners while pushing back against unreasonable demands of the very rich
- Failure to mentor young leaders in 4 domains: academia, industry, political parties, and community orgs
There are no quick or easy solutions, but require sustained, organized, and collaborative efforts to nudge the needle over years. This is quite difficult when a large fraction of the demographic voting for absurd leaders either don't have free time to volunteer, are unable to prioritize civic participation for whatever reason(s), or don't see the value in it.
I'd add at least two points to your list:
- Inability of the intellectual and political elites to define and enforce basic rules and norms for a coherent society. Diversity is great, but it ought to be paired with engagement with the country's history, culture. We have citizenry who are increasingly more detached from the society they live in and more connected to groups that transcend borders.
- Rise of religion. We should be done with that thing by now, but its back and growing in strength, undermining democratic institutions. We are making concessions to religion on the grounds of religious freedom.
- Inability of the intellectual and political elites to define and enforce basic rules and norms for a coherent society. Diversity is great, but it ought to be paired with engagement with the country's history, culture. We have citizenry who are increasingly more detached from the society they live in and more connected to groups that transcend borders.
- Rise of religion. We should be done with that thing by now, but its back and growing in strength, undermining democratic institutions. We are making concessions to religion on the grounds of religious freedom.
Personnel of the mainstream news media (fourth estate) are richer than average and live in megacities, and so their interests align to their own bubbles, celebrities, and the political class they're unable or unwilling to hold accountable. It creates a situation where dissenting voices who don't condone beating the drums to war are excommunicated as pariahs like Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader.
Yeah, it's important to remember that the US has friends.
- and the list of friends is very long!
My favorite example of how good friends the US has is that the primary objective for Norway in Afghanistan was quote:
You have good friends if their primary war objective is to support you.
I think that these days, a lot of Europeans are being reminded that the US is a friend. So long as US politics can avoid undermining NATO the US won't be short on friends.
My favorite example of how good friends the US has is that the primary objective for Norway in Afghanistan was quote:
"The first and most important objective throughout was the Alliance dimension:
to support the US and safeguard NATO’s continued relevance."
You have good friends if their primary war objective is to support you.
I think that these days, a lot of Europeans are being reminded that the US is a friend. So long as US politics can avoid undermining NATO the US won't be short on friends.
"America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests" -- Henry Kissinger.
The same applies to other countries. Those who subscribe to the democratic principles, rule of law, and individual freedoms will typically align themselves with US interests, at least where it is beneficial to them.
The same applies to other countries. Those who subscribe to the democratic principles, rule of law, and individual freedoms will typically align themselves with US interests, at least where it is beneficial to them.
This is true, both cynically and literally. There have been many complete and partial defections recently as China swoops in with B&R foreign direct infrastructure and industrial investment.
The US needs to adjust with more competitive foreign economic policies because tariffs aren't it. All of those trillions wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq for diesel power plants to nowhere could've been sprinkled around the Global South to advance economic development resulting in greater wealth elsewhere able to afford American goods and services, source raw materials, and develop manufacturing relationship in various countries in, say, Africa... like China is doing.
The US needs to adjust with more competitive foreign economic policies because tariffs aren't it. All of those trillions wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq for diesel power plants to nowhere could've been sprinkled around the Global South to advance economic development resulting in greater wealth elsewhere able to afford American goods and services, source raw materials, and develop manufacturing relationship in various countries in, say, Africa... like China is doing.
The US and Western Europe have to adjust their eyesight if we are to have peace and prosperity worldwide. The war in Ukraine, for example, is the result of Germany and the rest of the old West pandering to Russia and making deals over Eastern European heads whilst lecturing Eastern Europe on European ideals and the need for them to catch up with progressive Germany and France. Going forward, large players on the international scale have to work with smaller players. We also need to take a look at the basket cases of Austria and Germany and ask them to explain how their actions square with what they preach. Germany was given gren light to unify and generally rule the EU and the results aren't that great.
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Factorio IRL
The post has one interesting resource that can become a bottleneck: people, what if there is a mod where you need to find and employ aliens to run your production line? Maybe some of the aliens will choose to work in factories instead of attacking you..
The post has one interesting resource that can become a bottleneck: people, what if there is a mod where you need to find and employ aliens to run your production line? Maybe some of the aliens will choose to work in factories instead of attacking you..
Time to produce 300k F-35s and a much larger Navy.
The US was a place of hardworking, talented folks with natural geographical safety and a lot of resources. The only thing we need to do is stop anti competitive practices, break up monopolies, basically keep pure capitalism going.
What a waste.
I don't know how; but I find that you said that ingenious. This comment section is full of touting it as a positive (somehow?) and being pessimistic about U.S. capabilities today in comparison to China. No one seems to mention that all this is unnecessary wastefulness. World hunger would have been solved decades earlier had they not hindered the productive output of those folk expended on such wastefulness.
Except The Red Army actually won WWII.
Here’s a video about how China out produces the United States in ship building.
https://youtu.be/tRVVXDyg3RY?si=Yin_cVGx57IHavUr
https://youtu.be/tRVVXDyg3RY?si=Yin_cVGx57IHavUr
Germany grossly out-produced America — until America actually started trying.
For a more modern example, one of my former employers had to ramp by a couple of orders of magnitude to build ventilators during Covid-19. One of my former coworkers told me the story of having to go to Detroit and build a factory there, and how they were able to go from 10-20 a day to hundreds a day by hard work and know-how.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the will to do this still exists in the US today and I have no doubt that if we as a country decided to enter a world war like WWII we would very quickly ramp. We certainly still have the culture and the resources to do it were we to discover the will.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the will to do this still exists in the US today and I have no doubt that if we as a country decided to enter a world war like WWII we would very quickly ramp. We certainly still have the culture and the resources to do it were we to discover the will.
Oh yeah, if it became necessary all American muscle and might would get channeled into domination once again. America truly is a sleeping giant, and NATO more broadly is awakening already.
What if China actually started trying? They have 3x the population that the US has.
Population is a single, low-resolution parameter into a theoretical ship-building-capacity equation, which really needs a basket of parameters. Raw resource availability, fuel capabilities, naval training, coastline details, etc.
Great Britain historically had a fraction of the population of France and other European powers, but consistently out-produced the rest in ships and projecting naval power.
Great Britain historically had a fraction of the population of France and other European powers, but consistently out-produced the rest in ships and projecting naval power.
China produces 12 times as much steel as the US, per year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_pro...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_pro...
During a peacetime economy. Don't forget during war time, your factories are being bombed. You're pre-war numbers don't indicate what your war time numbers will be. China's manufacturing tends to be focused around the easter coast and it's rivers. The USAs is spread throughout the country. The USA is pretty good at setting up factories. My understanding is China is more into single large factories. The USA is a net exporter of oil (that greases the entire machine). China is an oil importer (not good when you country is being sieged during war).
You seem to be having a kind of a blind bias. You argue that during war time China will be less productive; and the opposite will be for the US: more productive. As if China can't target/hit back at the US. Both have massive geography and given that the US is likely the attacker, China only has to play defense.
> The USA is a net exporter of oil (that greases the entire machine). China is an oil importer (not good when you country is being sieged during war).
This seems to be their largest risk (if you are playing defense). They seem to be going crazy on solar though.
> The USA is a net exporter of oil (that greases the entire machine). China is an oil importer (not good when you country is being sieged during war).
This seems to be their largest risk (if you are playing defense). They seem to be going crazy on solar though.
I think the unspoken assumption here is that China is already producing at near-maximum capacity, while the United States is barely trying and has lots of headroom.
Is the assumption correct?
I haven't been able to find a study on America's plan for local naval production capacity given such a conflict, which is kind of stunning to me. Perhaps there are classified studies.
This conflict (assuming it lasts multiple years) would play out across the Pacific, possibly offering replays of old Pacific battles from WW2. Large numbers of naval assets and expeditionary forces squaring off across millions of square miles of blue-water ocean. Lots of naval tonnage attrition.
America is either guarding it's planned production capabilities close to the chest, or they anticipate winning such a conflict quickly without the tonnage attrition I just referenced.
Or my searching skills are weak.
Is the assumption correct?
I haven't been able to find a study on America's plan for local naval production capacity given such a conflict, which is kind of stunning to me. Perhaps there are classified studies.
This conflict (assuming it lasts multiple years) would play out across the Pacific, possibly offering replays of old Pacific battles from WW2. Large numbers of naval assets and expeditionary forces squaring off across millions of square miles of blue-water ocean. Lots of naval tonnage attrition.
America is either guarding it's planned production capabilities close to the chest, or they anticipate winning such a conflict quickly without the tonnage attrition I just referenced.
Or my searching skills are weak.
Again, China's production is centered in a specific area, along the coasts in the east and associated coastal waterways. American production is spread throughout the country. The USA has a distributed highway system for transportation. China has a strong focus on shipping lanes. The USA has a long record of projecting military power. China does not. The USA has a strong 'get shit started' track record. China has a mass produce track record. The American dynamic is better situated to recover production during war time than China.
Solar is not going to fuel missiles, ships, and attack aircraft. It's not going to grease the machines in the factories.
Solar is not going to fuel missiles, ships, and attack aircraft. It's not going to grease the machines in the factories.
More like 4x, and closing in on 5x. And China has done a good job of tying many smaller nations, globally not just regionally, to themselves economically. That gives them an edge in terms of resource extraction where the US has been losing ground. It doesn't help that the US also sends many "waste" products to China like steel that could be processed and reused domestically.
And then there's just the cluster fuck that is the US defense industry. Who could make aircraft for the US in mass numbers anymore? Boeing can't even figure out if they installed a few bolts, NG can't do basic maintenance without wrecking a plane, LM will get you your aircraft for 5x the initial estimate and a decade late.
And then there's just the cluster fuck that is the US defense industry. Who could make aircraft for the US in mass numbers anymore? Boeing can't even figure out if they installed a few bolts, NG can't do basic maintenance without wrecking a plane, LM will get you your aircraft for 5x the initial estimate and a decade late.
> And China has done a good job of tying many smaller nations, globally not just regionally, to themselves economically. That gives them an edge in terms of resource extraction
The US has the capacity, in the event of conflict, to nullify most if not all of the out-of-region advantage China has in resource extraction, unless China’s build up pre-conflict is sufficient to nullify the global force projection capacities provided by the US Navy and the US Air Force to which China currently has no equivalent or counter beyond its region.
(The US usually presents these capacities as being oriented to protecting free resource flow in peacetime, but they can be directed at the opposite purpose equally well.)
The US has the capacity, in the event of conflict, to nullify most if not all of the out-of-region advantage China has in resource extraction, unless China’s build up pre-conflict is sufficient to nullify the global force projection capacities provided by the US Navy and the US Air Force to which China currently has no equivalent or counter beyond its region.
(The US usually presents these capacities as being oriented to protecting free resource flow in peacetime, but they can be directed at the opposite purpose equally well.)
Presently, yes. If China doesn't push too hard, though, they've got the right partnerships in place to start building out a global military presence under the same pretenses as the US within its partner nations' borders. Give it a decade (maybe less) of serious effort on their part and they could rival the US globally, not just regionally.
If they decide to start a hot war (say by invading Taiwan) today, then it'd be catastrophic for them. Most of those partnerships would dry up (by being a good excuse to end a bad deal for the partner nations or by force from the US and other nations).
If they decide to start a hot war (say by invading Taiwan) today, then it'd be catastrophic for them. Most of those partnerships would dry up (by being a good excuse to end a bad deal for the partner nations or by force from the US and other nations).
Yeah, but if they do it 10 years from now, it could well be different. Thus the very interesting book, "2034: A Novel of the Next World War", 2022,
by Elliot Ackerman (Author), Admiral James Stavridis USN (Author).
The interesting thing was about how India had also advanced in those 10 years from now.
The interesting thing was about how India had also advanced in those 10 years from now.
A hot war would massively disrupt trade, among that food. The US provide a significant proportion of food to China. I am not sure if China could survive on a smaller food supply but it would mean austerity if that was the case. Worst case scenario, they cannot use their manpower advantage because they need that for their farm.
Closing in? China's population fell in 2023, whereas the US is still growing.
Ok, 4.1somethingx and closing in on 4.1somethingx. Either way, substantially more than just 3x the US population.
China had an even bigger advantage in population in 1930 (~474:123MM). Population is one factor, but not a determinitive one.
I mean, if there's a WW3 where winning is predicated on "who can make the most planes", then, eh, maybe that might be a relevant question. But that doesn't seem particularly likely; even if there were to be a WW3, it would probably not be a Plane-Building Olympics.
Drones and missiles will be perhaps the most important. One day it will be military robots. And guess who can makes the mass quantities of drones and missiles.
The USA would fight a standoff siege war with China, not a close in war when drones come into play. As to missiles, that's why the USA has developed the (chinese siege weapon named) Rapid Dragon system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system)
> not a close in war when drones come into play
What do drones mean to you? It sounds like you think it means “quadrocopter” when it is also used to describe RQ-4 Global Hawks and similar aircraft.
What do drones mean to you? It sounds like you think it means “quadrocopter” when it is also used to describe RQ-4 Global Hawks and similar aircraft.
I mean the discussion here is specifically referring to the drone China accells at (quadrocopter) versus the USA such as RQ-4s. So I am referring to what the discussion is talking about.
> So I am referring to what the discussion is talking about.
That is why I am asking. Because it definietly sounds like you think the discussion is about quadrocopters and not say China building many WZ-7 Soaring Dragons.
Is it possible that when the others said that china will build many drones they meant the second kind and not some toy copters? Because that would make their comments make sense.
That is why I am asking. Because it definietly sounds like you think the discussion is about quadrocopters and not say China building many WZ-7 Soaring Dragons.
Is it possible that when the others said that china will build many drones they meant the second kind and not some toy copters? Because that would make their comments make sense.
That wouldn't make sense as China is seen as a uniquely strong powerhouse in the toy drones, but not uniquely stronger the larger unmanned drones such as Reapers.
I don’t think you get it. It’s actually impossible for other countries to beat the US at anything.
Superman Syndrome
You must be making a sarcastic comment, right?
Some people do honestly believe that because god is on 'our' side, the us and constitution were divinely motivated and everything in it was coming from god somehow. All the horrible justifications are still being made today about that stuff.
Some people do honestly believe that because god is on 'our' side, the us and constitution were divinely motivated and everything in it was coming from god somehow. All the horrible justifications are still being made today about that stuff.
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People now take for granted that "the sleeping giant" was going to awake after being attacked. But in WW1 the US was also the largest economy in the world, and it did not transform overnight in a weapons manufacturing behemoth, like it did in WW2.
If a conflict with China ever comes to pass, it is not at all predestined that the US will repeat its WW2 feat rather than its WW1 experience.