I mean, who would be the current us equivalent in 1914? Us govt military might be a little out of date, but last I checked it has like 10x the power of the next four biggest powers combined or...
I mean, who would be the current us equivalent in 1914? Us govt military might be a little out of date, but last I checked it has like 10x the power of the next four biggest powers combined or something like that. Also didn’t china’s fancy new sub just sink by itself?
The article reads like it was written by the pnac.
My take on Foreign Affairs as a media outlet is that they're there to maintain support for the military industrial complex. They aren't always wrong in their proposals, as local manufacturing is...
My take on Foreign Affairs as a media outlet is that they're there to maintain support for the military industrial complex. They aren't always wrong in their proposals, as local manufacturing is valuable in a number of ways, but it's always important to keep their priorities in mind.
And didn't their rockets turn out to be filled with water because the actual fuel was all stolen to make hot pot? Their being ready for war doesn't make them capable of winning a war against the...
And didn't their rockets turn out to be filled with water because the actual fuel was all stolen to make hot pot?
Their being ready for war doesn't make them capable of winning a war against the states. But the article is right about a protracted war. As we saw with Russia, you don't need better weapons if you're willing to commit war crimes and you're willing to throw more bodies into the grinder than your opponent.
Xi Jinping is getting older and older, and with the country crumbling, the next few years is his last chance for a legacy. These are dangerous times.
It's very hard to say, unless you have some spies inside the People's Liberation Army. There were rumors, sure, just like there are rumors you wear pink frilly underwear on a daily basis.
And didn't their rockets turn out to be filled with water because the actual fuel was all stolen to make hot pot?
It's very hard to say, unless you have some spies inside the People's Liberation Army. There were rumors, sure, just like there are rumors you wear pink frilly underwear on a daily basis.
That's why I posted a link. And there's a link to that Bloomberg article as well, reporting on a US intelligence report. But if that's just one guy saying stuff and just the US intelligence, we...
That's why I posted a link.
Yao Cheng, identified as a former lieutenant colonel and staff officer with the PLA who reportedly fled to the US in 2016, told the US government-funded Radio Free Asia that during his military service — which is not clearly stated but other interviews indicate was before more extensive military modernization efforts — there were multiple instances in which service members raided components of weapons to get by, speaking to problems within the PLA at that time.
Yao shared with Radio Free Asia that back when he was in the military, he and others would "drain fuel from aircraft fuel tanks for cooking, which burns green and has no smell at all."
PLA come amid reports documenting continued issues of corruption in the force. US intelligence has reported a few cases, including missiles filled with water instead of fuel and missile silos with dysfunctional lids, according to Bloomberg.
And there's a link to that Bloomberg article as well, reporting on a US intelligence report.
But if that's just one guy saying stuff and just the US intelligence, we still have highly visible gov shake up within Xi's camp last year:
China's military has seen several leadership shakeups in the past year, which raise questions about loyalty within the ranks and Chinese leader Xi Jinping's control and trust in the PLA. Perhaps the most shocking dismissal came in October 2023, when Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu was removed from office after disappearing from public view for two months. At the time, US officials told The New York Times Li had been under investigation for corruption.
Li's departure came after Foreign Minister Qin Gang's removal in July, which came with no explanation, and the dismissal of two top commanders of China's Rocket Force in the same month.
A Perun video covers this Chinese military corruption thing in depth, and explains multiple sources of doubt and mitigating factors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhI_tTEE2ZQ
A Perun video covers this Chinese military corruption thing in depth, and explains multiple sources of doubt and mitigating factors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhI_tTEE2ZQ
Fun video! Thanks for the recommendation. I like his caveat #2 - - many of his sources are from the Chinese government. And that's before the layers of intentional deception and secrecy that exist...
Fun video! Thanks for the recommendation.
I like his caveat #2 - - many of his sources are from the Chinese government. And that's before the layers of intentional deception and secrecy that exist whenever governments talk about themselves.
From a strategic standpoint, it would be fantastic to pretend to be not ready for at least another few years, as the Bloomberg article concluded, and when the States is busy with election, launch a surprise attack on Taiwan. Or use "maybe some of our silo doors are garbage, but maybe they're not" as a rail free response to MPS would be pretty smart as well.
I gotta counter his point about soliders being able to Amazon easier than to steal from the military, though. Dude with the funds to do so aren't eating hotpot alongside the lowest ranked grunts: the people stealing rations money are using it for their golf courses and have no interest in Amazoning (they'd use taobao) anything for anyone. The negative effects of grift flow downwards, and the guys having to resort to sabotage to eat don't have the ability to pay out of pocket, or else the guts to submit expenses to say no we didn't get fed because my direct commander is grifting.
Military might only goes so far. Otherwise the USA would have trampled Iraq Edit: Oops Afghanistan was the utter failure and retreat. Iraq was just an utter failure other than one major operation...
Military might only goes so far. Otherwise the USA would have trampled Iraq instead of having to pull out in a hasty retreat. Edit: Oops Afghanistan was the utter failure and retreat. Iraq was just an utter failure other than one major operation to kill Sadaam because of a family grudge.
When it comes to full-scale war, manufacturing and supply chains are exponentially more important than existing tech.
If the country that built all your drones shoots half of them out of the sky, you aren't going to replace them fast enough.
I agree production capacity is very important for a mechanical, ordinance based conflict. My understanding is that specialized, high quality manufacturing is simething the us excels at, which...
I agree production capacity is very important for a mechanical, ordinance based conflict. My understanding is that specialized, high quality manufacturing is simething the us excels at, which could be an advantage. I don’t have enough information to speak definitively, but if the us is ata disadvantage I suspect the problem lies more in the inefficiency and allocation problems from crony capitalism rather diminished hardware capacity.
And the point is that most of that capacity, from a physical manufacturing standpoint, is heavily dependent on source material outside of the USA's control. That video I linked talked one of the...
And the point is that most of that capacity, from a physical manufacturing standpoint, is heavily dependent on source material outside of the USA's control. That video I linked talked one of the most important ingredients in war: Steel production.
And the need for semiconductors is paramount. If China, in a war of aggression, completely takes Taiwan, silicon access drops exponentially. We're talking no Apple or AMD products at a minimum. Now lets say South Korea is next on the target list, and we don't have Samsung either. How much militarty capacity gets lost if we can't build semiconductors, even if the public sector gets cut off entirely? Sure we still will have most of Intel, but now Intel has to supply the entire chip needs for the west, in a wartime scenario. Say goodbye to any new mobile phones or gaming products. It's all going into military gear.
A war against China means the end of new electronics for the public, mark my words.
? It did. Major combat operations only lasted 26 days. Also, the US is still present in Iraq. Are you thinking of Afghanistan? Or was this whole thing sarcasm that I didn't get?
Military might only goes so far. Otherwise the USA would have trampled Iraq instead of having to pull out in a hasty retreat.
? It did. Major combat operations only lasted 26 days. Also, the US is still present in Iraq. Are you thinking of Afghanistan?
Or was this whole thing sarcasm that I didn't get?
I was thinking of Afghanistan, which was even more poorly equipped. Sorry, it all gets mixed up because 26 days is misleading. It was 26 days of an invasion built on lies to get Saddam (because...
I was thinking of Afghanistan, which was even more poorly equipped.
Sorry, it all gets mixed up because 26 days is misleading. It was 26 days of an invasion built on lies to get Saddam (because W's dad lost that war too), and then 20 years of genocide and perpetual conflicts and uprisings where the USA was unable to return the country to a stable state. Would you like to know more?
Then came the U.S. occupation and years of overlapping conflicts - first an insurgency, then a sectarian civil war, then an ISIS takeover of much of the country. About 4,600 American troops died, and at least 270,000 Iraqis were killed. Most of the dead were civilians, and millions of Iraqis are still displaced.
Then they were shortly crushed. The USA didn't want to push into Baghdad officially, as that would have lost much of the UN support. They just secretly funded revolutionaries to do their dirty...
On March 1, 1991, one day after the Gulf War ceasefire, a revolt broke out in Basra against the Iraqi government. The uprising spread within days to all of the largest Shia cities in southern Iraq: Najaf, Amarah, Diwaniya, Hilla, Karbala, Kut, Nasiriyah and Samawah. The rebellions were encouraged by an airing of "The Voice of Free Iraq" on 24 February 1991, which was broadcast from a CIA-run radio station out of Saudi Arabia. The Arabic service of the Voice of America supported the uprising by stating that the rebellion was well supported, and that they would soon be liberated from Saddam
Then they were shortly crushed. The USA didn't want to push into Baghdad officially, as that would have lost much of the UN support. They just secretly funded revolutionaries to do their dirty work.
But it's one hell of a coincidence that 10 years later the presiding Secretary of Defense and the child of the president who had appointed him lied to invade Iraq again and declared Mission Accomplished once Saddam was dead. Saddam had done the greatest sin of all: after losing his act of aggression, failed to die to the CIA sponsored coup.
So, and pardon me if I'm slow, how does this mean GB Sr. "lost" the war? I'm not sure the end-game of that war was to topple Saddam once UN consensus failed; though the US was involved with some...
So, and pardon me if I'm slow, how does this mean GB Sr. "lost" the war? I'm not sure the end-game of that war was to topple Saddam once UN consensus failed; though the US was involved with some of the internal uprising, I'm not sure that counts as part of the DoD combat efforts (more like State Dept shenanigans).
I think this top of a news article from 1998 sums it up well: Doomsday weapons we (the top-level US intelligence agencies) knew didn't exist. A nemisis that pulled back and agreed to a ceasefire,...
I'll admit my memory was off there though.
I think this top of a news article from 1998 sums it up well:
Former President George Bush calls him the "most secure dictator in the world," his nemesis who did not surrender in the face of defeat and who continues today to taunt the world with doomsday weapons.
Doomsday weapons we (the top-level US intelligence agencies) knew didn't exist. A nemisis that pulled back and agreed to a ceasefire, but then taunted Bush Sr all through the Clinton administration.
This is going to be a bit harsh, but you're a guy who likes debate so I'm assuming you can take it. You're making extremely definitive statements based on a pretty poor understanding of those two...
This is going to be a bit harsh, but you're a guy who likes debate so I'm assuming you can take it. You're making extremely definitive statements based on a pretty poor understanding of those two wars. It also seems clear that your understanding of how Iraq is doing in 2024 is colored by how Iraq was doing in 2014.
And if I may, the emotional context ("an invasion built on lies") is completely irrelevant to this discussion. It's a fact that the US eventually retreated from Afghanistan. But you're drawing inferences to a war between the US and china, so you need to compare the military vs military aspects of those conflicts, not "20 years of nation-building failed."
And looking at the military vs military aspects of those conflicts, every military analyst agrees that the US overperformed against the Iraqi military.
Honestly, that's fair. I'd point out that my statements are rarely ever intended to be definitive, even if they come across that way. I frankly think this is a major problem with the internet at...
Honestly, that's fair. I'd point out that my statements are rarely ever intended to be definitive, even if they come across that way. I frankly think this is a major problem with the internet at large, both from the sending and receiving ends... a hypothetical example of what a proposal might look like often gets met with the same level of resistance and nitpicking as a detailed policy proposal on something like percentages or thresholds. Often, the most realistic shorthand explanation would be: "This is how it sounds in my head, so I'm conveying it that way because I'm typing this comment when I should be doing other things, or I'm pooping, so it's not gonna be well-edited." Anyway...
Your link also more or less looks like Iraqis, other than feeling safer walking at night, more or less feel the same today as they did in 2014. It's great that after 20 years they managed to get a basic police force up and operational, but that doesn't exactly bode well for the future. It doesn't help that Iraq is a particular sore spot because the leaders of the USA abused the national swell of bloodlust against the Taliban to justify Iraq as an equivalent threat, so rational evaluation is a bit harder. I'll admit I essentially tapped out of following news on Iraq circa 2017, partially because I can't stand hearing Trump's voice.
At the end of the day, I'd argue that both engagements with Iraq are hardly representative of our current capabilities and needs for a war with China and Russia. Vietnam and Korea wars would be far closer, and the USA's manufacturing capabilities were much better back then. Those would best have been described as quagmires, and the USA had a huge industrial lead back then. The only reason we did as well as we did in WW2 is because everyone else's infrastructure was crumbling and nobody was really capable of reaching US soil to slow us down.
If China sinks a few aircraft carriers, they'll be able to churn out new ones much faster. The quality may be lower, but that doesn't matter quite as much when you know they might get blown up inside of 2 years.
The USA in its current state is really good at doing an initial blitzkrieg (and has fascists running for office to boot!). But all economic indicators show that in a prolonged war with an opponent like Russia or China we would not fare well, especially if we ended up getting bombed on what little production capacity we do have. Which is probably the #1 reason the world was much more reserved in supporting Ukraine over supporting Kuwait.
Appreciate the discussion. I hear you on china. I'd lean more towards "nobody knows!", but I think it's a reasonable argument to say that they'd out-produce the US - though production is not the...
Appreciate the discussion.
But all economic indicators show that in a prolonged war with an opponent like Russia or China we would not fare well, especially if we ended up getting bombed on what little production capacity we do have.
I hear you on china. I'd lean more towards "nobody knows!", but I think it's a reasonable argument to say that they'd out-produce the US - though production is not the only factor that matters.
The only reason we did as well as we did in WW2...
There's so much more to it than that, man. Apart from over-emphasizing production I would also suggest that you're putting too much emphasis on the political outcomes of war and not enough on what the actual combat operations looked like. Vietnam is sort of a weird example to use for that reason. Yes, it was a quagmire, but once again the US was dominant militarily, with 60,000 US troops dead compared to 850,000 north vietnamese troops dead.
It's also an odd example because it was much closer to a counterinsurgency than a conventional conflict(1), and manufacturing base was not a factor. The vietnamese weren't destroying substantial numbers of American tanks or anything like that. There aren't a whole lot of lessons that can be drawn from Vietnam to a theoretical future war.
And America's dominance is part of the reason for that. America's military performance was so excessive that it prevents Vietnam from being a usable example. Let's look at a modern-day quagmire - Russia in Ukraine. Russia couldn't seize kyiv after a surprise attack and now two years of war against an unprepared country -- and they share a massive land border. By contrast the United States was able to seize Baghdad in less than a month, from the other side of the world, against a prepared foe who had nearly 500,000 active troops at the time. So I don't think it's reasonable to assess the US would perform poorly against Russia.
I am not a jingoist and I am not saying that America should not be worried about a war against china - they should. But I think you need to base your assessment on the performance of America's military and not on how the political domain of war transpired.
(1) It wasn't a counterinsurgency, to be clear. North Vietnam was a stable nation-state with a well-trained, well-equipped, and well-supported military. I say it's closer to a counterinsurgency because America was so much better that North Vietnam could not directly challenge them.
That's probably my worst conversational tic. I use 'only' the way everybody else uses 'literally.' For hyperbolic emphasis, more than actual literal 'only'. But yes, you bring up some good points....
The only reason
That's probably my worst conversational tic. I use 'only' the way everybody else uses 'literally.' For hyperbolic emphasis, more than actual literal 'only'.
But yes, you bring up some good points. On a head-on battle, the USA would almost certainly come out on top, especially in the short term. Never underestimate guerrillas, it twas how the Revolutionary War was won after all.
I do agree that direct full-scale war with China/Russia is neither desirable nor imminent. I foresee internal unrest before either of them would even consider making a move.
I do agree that direct full-scale war with China/Russia is neither desirable nor imminent. I forsee internal unrest before either of them would even consider making a move.
This article may be correct but doesn’t address the military making better use of the absurd amount of money we pour into it. “Crumbling Defense Industrial Base” = highest gdp percentage of...
This article may be correct but doesn’t address the military making better use of the absurd amount of money we pour into it.
“Crumbling Defense Industrial Base” = highest gdp percentage of military spending in developed war, save for Russia these days.
Yeah, both can be true - the US can spent more than anyone else, but also get low ROI. Thinking of the "why can't the us build ships" article posted here a week or so ago.
Yeah, both can be true - the US can spent more than anyone else, but also get low ROI. Thinking of the "why can't the us build ships" article posted here a week or so ago.
Both US and EU suffer from having too concentrated private capital that actively pushes against anything besides them doing more for ever increasing costs. SpaceX success clearly shows that when...
Both US and EU suffer from having too concentrated private capital that actively pushes against anything besides them doing more for ever increasing costs.
SpaceX success clearly shows that when you pour money into a startup, chances are that you are getting people eager to prove themselves and thus high productivity. When you only rely on people inside your social circle with their established huge companies, chances are the results are going to look like Boeing or Arianespace.
Unless both US and EU actively suppress private consumption and direct most of the available human capital towards military like China does, they will lose. The only alternative is for the "elites" to agree to wealth transfer and restart an actual competition.
The labour will still be missed, though. The sooner this armed race ends, the better for our common prosperity.
So, I was gonna post this to Tildes after I watched it, but then promptly forgot to do so when I finally did. Is history repeating itself 110 years on? is a video by Marxist economics...
So, I was gonna post this to Tildes after I watched it, but then promptly forgot to do so when I finally did.
Is history repeating itself 110 years on? is a video by Marxist economics professor/computer scientist Paul Cockshott and explores this very issue in more depth. He has many other interesting videos in this vein, and I also highly reccomend The Coming World Crisis
I mean, who would be the current us equivalent in 1914? Us govt military might be a little out of date, but last I checked it has like 10x the power of the next four biggest powers combined or something like that. Also didn’t china’s fancy new sub just sink by itself?
The article reads like it was written by the pnac.
My take on Foreign Affairs as a media outlet is that they're there to maintain support for the military industrial complex. They aren't always wrong in their proposals, as local manufacturing is valuable in a number of ways, but it's always important to keep their priorities in mind.
And didn't their rockets turn out to be filled with water because the actual fuel was all stolen to make hot pot?
Their being ready for war doesn't make them capable of winning a war against the states. But the article is right about a protracted war. As we saw with Russia, you don't need better weapons if you're willing to commit war crimes and you're willing to throw more bodies into the grinder than your opponent.
Xi Jinping is getting older and older, and with the country crumbling, the next few years is his last chance for a legacy. These are dangerous times.
It's very hard to say, unless you have some spies inside the People's Liberation Army. There were rumors, sure, just like there are rumors you wear pink frilly underwear on a daily basis.
That's why I posted a link.
And there's a link to that Bloomberg article as well, reporting on a US intelligence report.
But if that's just one guy saying stuff and just the US intelligence, we still have highly visible gov shake up within Xi's camp last year:
A Perun video covers this Chinese military corruption thing in depth, and explains multiple sources of doubt and mitigating factors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhI_tTEE2ZQ
Fun video! Thanks for the recommendation.
I like his caveat #2 - - many of his sources are from the Chinese government. And that's before the layers of intentional deception and secrecy that exist whenever governments talk about themselves.
From a strategic standpoint, it would be fantastic to pretend to be not ready for at least another few years, as the Bloomberg article concluded, and when the States is busy with election, launch a surprise attack on Taiwan. Or use "maybe some of our silo doors are garbage, but maybe they're not" as a rail free response to MPS would be pretty smart as well.
I gotta counter his point about soliders being able to Amazon easier than to steal from the military, though. Dude with the funds to do so aren't eating hotpot alongside the lowest ranked grunts: the people stealing rations money are using it for their golf courses and have no interest in Amazoning (they'd use taobao) anything for anyone. The negative effects of grift flow downwards, and the guys having to resort to sabotage to eat don't have the ability to pay out of pocket, or else the guts to submit expenses to say no we didn't get fed because my direct commander is grifting.
Daily Drivers
I heard somewhere that @chocobean wears these every day.
Military might only goes so far. Otherwise the USA would have trampled Iraq
instead of having to pull out in a hasty retreat.Edit: Oops Afghanistan was the utter failure and retreat. Iraq was just an utter failure other than one major operation to kill Sadaam because of a family grudge.When it comes to full-scale war, manufacturing and supply chains are exponentially more important than existing tech.
If the country that built all your drones shoots half of them out of the sky, you aren't going to replace them fast enough.
I agree production capacity is very important for a mechanical, ordinance based conflict. My understanding is that specialized, high quality manufacturing is simething the us excels at, which could be an advantage. I don’t have enough information to speak definitively, but if the us is ata disadvantage I suspect the problem lies more in the inefficiency and allocation problems from crony capitalism rather diminished hardware capacity.
And the point is that most of that capacity, from a physical manufacturing standpoint, is heavily dependent on source material outside of the USA's control. That video I linked talked one of the most important ingredients in war: Steel production.
And the need for semiconductors is paramount. If China, in a war of aggression, completely takes Taiwan, silicon access drops exponentially. We're talking no Apple or AMD products at a minimum. Now lets say South Korea is next on the target list, and we don't have Samsung either. How much militarty capacity gets lost if we can't build semiconductors, even if the public sector gets cut off entirely? Sure we still will have most of Intel, but now Intel has to supply the entire chip needs for the west, in a wartime scenario. Say goodbye to any new mobile phones or gaming products. It's all going into military gear.
A war against China means the end of new electronics for the public, mark my words.
? It did. Major combat operations only lasted 26 days. Also, the US is still present in Iraq. Are you thinking of Afghanistan?
Or was this whole thing sarcasm that I didn't get?
I was thinking of Afghanistan, which was even more poorly equipped.
Sorry, it all gets mixed up because 26 days is misleading. It was 26 days of an invasion built on lies to get Saddam (because W's dad lost that war too), and then 20 years of genocide and perpetual conflicts and uprisings where the USA was unable to return the country to a stable state. Would you like to know more?
Please elaborate. Afaik, we liberated Kuwait from Saddam's invasion and set back his military leverage by decades.
Then they were shortly crushed. The USA didn't want to push into Baghdad officially, as that would have lost much of the UN support. They just secretly funded revolutionaries to do their dirty work.
But it's one hell of a coincidence that 10 years later the presiding Secretary of Defense and the child of the president who had appointed him lied to invade Iraq again and declared Mission Accomplished once Saddam was dead. Saddam had done the greatest sin of all: after losing his act of aggression, failed to die to the CIA sponsored coup.
I'll admit my memory was off there though.
So, and pardon me if I'm slow, how does this mean GB Sr. "lost" the war? I'm not sure the end-game of that war was to topple Saddam once UN consensus failed; though the US was involved with some of the internal uprising, I'm not sure that counts as part of the DoD combat efforts (more like State Dept shenanigans).
I think this top of a news article from 1998 sums it up well:
Doomsday weapons we (the top-level US intelligence agencies) knew didn't exist. A nemisis that pulled back and agreed to a ceasefire, but then taunted Bush Sr all through the Clinton administration.
This is going to be a bit harsh, but you're a guy who likes debate so I'm assuming you can take it. You're making extremely definitive statements based on a pretty poor understanding of those two wars. It also seems clear that your understanding of how Iraq is doing in 2024 is colored by how Iraq was doing in 2014.
And if I may, the emotional context ("an invasion built on lies") is completely irrelevant to this discussion. It's a fact that the US eventually retreated from Afghanistan. But you're drawing inferences to a war between the US and china, so you need to compare the military vs military aspects of those conflicts, not "20 years of nation-building failed."
And looking at the military vs military aspects of those conflicts, every military analyst agrees that the US overperformed against the Iraqi military.
Honestly, that's fair. I'd point out that my statements are rarely ever intended to be definitive, even if they come across that way. I frankly think this is a major problem with the internet at large, both from the sending and receiving ends... a hypothetical example of what a proposal might look like often gets met with the same level of resistance and nitpicking as a detailed policy proposal on something like percentages or thresholds. Often, the most realistic shorthand explanation would be: "This is how it sounds in my head, so I'm conveying it that way because I'm typing this comment when I should be doing other things, or I'm pooping, so it's not gonna be well-edited." Anyway...
Your link also more or less looks like Iraqis, other than feeling safer walking at night, more or less feel the same today as they did in 2014. It's great that after 20 years they managed to get a basic police force up and operational, but that doesn't exactly bode well for the future. It doesn't help that Iraq is a particular sore spot because the leaders of the USA abused the national swell of bloodlust against the Taliban to justify Iraq as an equivalent threat, so rational evaluation is a bit harder. I'll admit I essentially tapped out of following news on Iraq circa 2017, partially because I can't stand hearing Trump's voice.
At the end of the day, I'd argue that both engagements with Iraq are hardly representative of our current capabilities and needs for a war with China and Russia. Vietnam and Korea wars would be far closer, and the USA's manufacturing capabilities were much better back then. Those would best have been described as quagmires, and the USA had a huge industrial lead back then. The only reason we did as well as we did in WW2 is because everyone else's infrastructure was crumbling and nobody was really capable of reaching US soil to slow us down.
If China sinks a few aircraft carriers, they'll be able to churn out new ones much faster. The quality may be lower, but that doesn't matter quite as much when you know they might get blown up inside of 2 years.
The USA in its current state is really good at doing an initial blitzkrieg (and has fascists running for office to boot!). But all economic indicators show that in a prolonged war with an opponent like Russia or China we would not fare well, especially if we ended up getting bombed on what little production capacity we do have. Which is probably the #1 reason the world was much more reserved in supporting Ukraine over supporting Kuwait.
Appreciate the discussion.
I hear you on china. I'd lean more towards "nobody knows!", but I think it's a reasonable argument to say that they'd out-produce the US - though production is not the only factor that matters.
There's so much more to it than that, man. Apart from over-emphasizing production I would also suggest that you're putting too much emphasis on the political outcomes of war and not enough on what the actual combat operations looked like. Vietnam is sort of a weird example to use for that reason. Yes, it was a quagmire, but once again the US was dominant militarily, with 60,000 US troops dead compared to 850,000 north vietnamese troops dead.
It's also an odd example because it was much closer to a counterinsurgency than a conventional conflict(1), and manufacturing base was not a factor. The vietnamese weren't destroying substantial numbers of American tanks or anything like that. There aren't a whole lot of lessons that can be drawn from Vietnam to a theoretical future war.
And America's dominance is part of the reason for that. America's military performance was so excessive that it prevents Vietnam from being a usable example. Let's look at a modern-day quagmire - Russia in Ukraine. Russia couldn't seize kyiv after a surprise attack and now two years of war against an unprepared country -- and they share a massive land border. By contrast the United States was able to seize Baghdad in less than a month, from the other side of the world, against a prepared foe who had nearly 500,000 active troops at the time. So I don't think it's reasonable to assess the US would perform poorly against Russia.
I am not a jingoist and I am not saying that America should not be worried about a war against china - they should. But I think you need to base your assessment on the performance of America's military and not on how the political domain of war transpired.
(1) It wasn't a counterinsurgency, to be clear. North Vietnam was a stable nation-state with a well-trained, well-equipped, and well-supported military. I say it's closer to a counterinsurgency because America was so much better that North Vietnam could not directly challenge them.
That's probably my worst conversational tic. I use 'only' the way everybody else uses 'literally.' For hyperbolic emphasis, more than actual literal 'only'.
But yes, you bring up some good points. On a head-on battle, the USA would almost certainly come out on top, especially in the short term. Never underestimate guerrillas, it twas how the Revolutionary War was won after all.
I do agree that direct full-scale war with China/Russia is neither desirable nor imminent. I foresee internal unrest before either of them would even consider making a move.
I hope you're right!
This article may be correct but doesn’t address the military making better use of the absurd amount of money we pour into it.
“Crumbling Defense Industrial Base” = highest gdp percentage of military spending in developed war, save for Russia these days.
Yeah, both can be true - the US can spent more than anyone else, but also get low ROI. Thinking of the "why can't the us build ships" article posted here a week or so ago.
Both US and EU suffer from having too concentrated private capital that actively pushes against anything besides them doing more for ever increasing costs.
SpaceX success clearly shows that when you pour money into a startup, chances are that you are getting people eager to prove themselves and thus high productivity. When you only rely on people inside your social circle with their established huge companies, chances are the results are going to look like Boeing or Arianespace.
Unless both US and EU actively suppress private consumption and direct most of the available human capital towards military like China does, they will lose. The only alternative is for the "elites" to agree to wealth transfer and restart an actual competition.
The labour will still be missed, though. The sooner this armed race ends, the better for our common prosperity.
So, I was gonna post this to Tildes after I watched it, but then promptly forgot to do so when I finally did.
Is history repeating itself 110 years on? is a video by Marxist economics professor/computer scientist Paul Cockshott and explores this very issue in more depth. He has many other interesting videos in this vein, and I also highly reccomend The Coming World Crisis