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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • China might have a 2 year window coming up where it’s even possible to invade Taiwan. Their military has modernized a lot, but they probably aren’t quite to the point of being able to pull it off. At the same time, they are looking at a demographic cliff from the long term implications of the One Child policy.

    It’s possible this window as already closed. That said, authoritarian regimes have started wars before that were terrible ideas.


  • Eeeeehhh, if you just look at numbers of boats, yes. The US Navy has far, far more experience, though. Drones are also going to change the game in ways we’re only starting to see with the Ukraine War. With that, the answer might be “everyone’s boats are sunk now”.

    China probably couldn’t gain air superiority over Taiwan, and without that, an invasion will fail. That will be true even if the US ends up losing more boats.






  • Ukraine had nukes and gave them up. They were invaded.

    Iraq gave up their WMD program after the first Gulf War. They were invaded again.

    Iran definitely had a nuclear program, but doesn’t appear to be pursuing it anymore. They’re getting attacked and quite possibly will get invaded.

    South Africa had a nuclear program and gave it up. Left alone.

    The Great Powers, particularly the United States but also Russia, have shown that your country should just keep going once you start. Chances are, you’ll get invaded, anyway.

    This is not the way towards anti-proliferation.












  • Or Putin dies of natural causes. Which isn’t too farfetched. Then the oligarchs find themselves a Deng Xiaoping-like figure who says “ok, all that was bad, let’s do something else”.

    Probably, Russia will have to face the facts that they can’t build their own fighter jets, bombers, tanks, or fighting ships larger than a destroyer anymore. Not on the scale they need. Even if you assume some of the designs they’re putting out are good (a big assumption), they can’t possibly build them at scale. China is sitting right over there with the factories for those things. Xi Jinping will be happy to take their check, but will make sure it clears first.


  • It didn’t need to be far.

    Artillery range is around 70km. You need to get that close to the southern most road along the coast into Crimea, and a little more for padding some defense. Now you can turn that road and anything on it into rubble whenever you want.

    Ukraine got within a few km of doing that at some areas.

    The Kerch Strait Bridge could be hit whenever by a missile. Ukraine had already hit it by then.

    There’s a port at Sevestapol. It’s also been hit by Ukranian missiles before, and even if not, it’s not enough on its own.

    Airplanes expend lots of fuel for not much cargo. You’re not going to supply Crimea that way.

    There would be no logistical options left for Russia. Holding those couple of km more would starve it out. Only question is if Putin tries to hang on out of stubbornness.