5 ms·

Physical manufacturing doesn't matter until the shooting starts.

magicsmoke 6y ago
America is the world power least worried about physical geography and locations if and when the shooting starts. 2 oceans as moats, plenty of oil and natural resources on its home turf, and all potential flashpoints on the other side of the world. I'm sure America would love to give WW2 another run, especially considering how last time it shook them out of the great depression and devastated everyone else's industrial base.
- danaris 6y ago
  While I'm sure there are plenty of people who see it this way, it's not 1939 anymore. If it came to war, there would be a plethora of ways China could devastate the US's infrastructure and terrorize its civilian population.
- AnonC 6y ago
  Cyber warfare is probably a more likely and a bigger threat than missiles. Attacking core infrastructure (like power grids, for example) connected to a network would bring things to a crawl or to a stop.
- tharne 6y ago
  Oceans are nice, for sure. But if you're reliant on China and others for all of your manufactured goods including semi-conductors, you're in for a world of pain, oceans or not. Likewise, oil and gas aren't all that helpful if you can't get them out of the ground because your equipment is broken and all the replacement parts are made in China. I say this as a patriotic American. Comparisons to WWII are fairly off-base because in the 1930's and 40's we were much less reliant on foreign countries for manufactured goods.
  - onepointsixC 6y ago
    You have it backwards, China is deathly dependent on semi-conductor imports. And what replacement parts are you imagining of? Be specific. Because the US has plenty of manufacturing capability for just about anything that comes to mind for Oil and Gas.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > America is the world power least worried about physical geography and locations if and when the shooting starts. 2 oceans as moats, plenty of oil and natural resources on its home turf, and all potential flashpoints on the other side of the world. Can you grow semiconductors on corn plants? Big moats don't help with embargoes, and if your economy is based on international trade (like the globalization crowd has championed), an embargo would be crippling. Around WWII, they used to call America the "workshop of the world," but China has that title now. Also, you seem to be forgetting that long range, intercontinental missiles and bombers exist now, when they didn't during WWII.
  - strictnein 6y ago
    > Can you grow semiconductors on corn plants? Intel has 4 fabs in the US Global Foundries has 3
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    Apparently when war starts iPhones will be more important than oil, steel, jets, and ships. Or does China build those for the US military as well? Also, ICBMs fly both ways. But while nobody decides to press the "End Game" button, the US with its self sufficient continent can weather more punches than any other country in any conceivable conventional war scenario.
    - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
      We all saw the manufacturing chaos that ensued when shipping of components and products from overseas was drastically curtailed at the start of the COVID-19 epidemic. While military suppliers are supposedly required to secure their supply chains against such disruptions, it would be surprising if they hadn't screwed big parts of it up after being so long in peacetime.
    - nemothekid 6y ago
      >Apparently when war starts iPhones will be more important than oil, steel, jets, and ships You are focusing too much on the war aspect instead of what happens at home. What happens to companies like Apple and nVidia when for whatever reason they can no longer manufacture in China. Apple luckily has a rainy day fund to fund itself until heat death of the universe, but other companies may not be so lucky. I’m sure it would take decades at this point to develop the talent, infrastructure and scale in manufacturing that China currently has
- aitait 6y ago
  Yes sure. But with Russia it would be different. Mind the Poseidon torpedoes.
lumost 6y ago
The US has an arguably overbuilt military supply chain. But in practice modern military hardware is both expensive and slow. The destructive capacity of modern great powers effectively limits the timeline of any large war to either hours(nuclear bombardment) or weeks ( precision bombing of all military and industrial targets ) The real loss is that industrial enterprises employ a lot of people who are exposed to hard problems. I'm skeptical that the current set of "design"/"marketing" only hardware businesses will last much longer than the international trade pacts that support US patent law.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  This. The US's biggest future threat isn't having its military production choked off in a conflict. It's having its military complex become irrelevant as the world moves towards a model where money and consumer technology become the main avenues for influence and control, and where the moment the US tries to flex its military muscle it gets put on a decades-long blacklist by members of the global economy for starting a mess.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >it gets put on a decades-long blacklist by members of the global economy for starting a mess. because that worked so well for the weimar republic?
- runamok 6y ago
  I have a suspicion in a future war a swarm of cheap drones will do things like take out aircraft carriers and waste a large portion of that arsenal.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  > The destructive capacity of modern great powers effectively limits the timeline of any large war to either hours(nuclear bombardment) or weeks ( precision bombing of all military and industrial targets ) The 100-year history of strategic bombing theory has consistently held that once you start strategic bombing, the enemy's will or ability to fight will collapse very quickly. The actual application of strategic bombing has consistently failed to live up to those expectations, with the atomic bombings of Japan being the only example people give of countries capitulating due to strategic bombing, and even then it's still debatable what factors induced it to surrender. It should also be pointed out that people saying great power wars will be swift and decisive is usually followed by a great power war that is exactly the opposite of swift and decisive.
didibus 6y ago
Why you all worried about war, who'd start it? The US? Right now we're just talking about economies and being able to have a well off society where people don't struggle to make ends meet. And from that point of view, the future of the US as it continues to lose competitive advantage to other countries doesn't look as good as it used too. Are we saying the US plan in case this trend reaches extreme levels is to start a war?
- onepointsixC 6y ago
  China would start any prospective war, and it would be over Taiwan. Their rhetoric on the subject has ramped up substantially.

America is the world power least worried about physical geography and locations if and when the shooting starts. 2 oceans as moats, plenty of oil and natural resources on its home turf, and all potential flashpoints on the other side of the world. I'm sure America would love to give WW2 another run, especially considering how last time it shook them out of the great depression and devastated everyone else's industrial base.

danaris 6y ago
While I'm sure there are plenty of people who see it this way, it's not 1939 anymore. If it came to war, there would be a plethora of ways China could devastate the US's infrastructure and terrorize its civilian population.
AnonC 6y ago
Cyber warfare is probably a more likely and a bigger threat than missiles. Attacking core infrastructure (like power grids, for example) connected to a network would bring things to a crawl or to a stop.
tharne 6y ago
Oceans are nice, for sure. But if you're reliant on China and others for all of your manufactured goods including semi-conductors, you're in for a world of pain, oceans or not. Likewise, oil and gas aren't all that helpful if you can't get them out of the ground because your equipment is broken and all the replacement parts are made in China. I say this as a patriotic American. Comparisons to WWII are fairly off-base because in the 1930's and 40's we were much less reliant on foreign countries for manufactured goods.
- onepointsixC 6y ago
  You have it backwards, China is deathly dependent on semi-conductor imports. And what replacement parts are you imagining of? Be specific. Because the US has plenty of manufacturing capability for just about anything that comes to mind for Oil and Gas.
ardy42 6y ago
> America is the world power least worried about physical geography and locations if and when the shooting starts. 2 oceans as moats, plenty of oil and natural resources on its home turf, and all potential flashpoints on the other side of the world. Can you grow semiconductors on corn plants? Big moats don't help with embargoes, and if your economy is based on international trade (like the globalization crowd has championed), an embargo would be crippling. Around WWII, they used to call America the "workshop of the world," but China has that title now. Also, you seem to be forgetting that long range, intercontinental missiles and bombers exist now, when they didn't during WWII.
- strictnein 6y ago
  > Can you grow semiconductors on corn plants? Intel has 4 fabs in the US Global Foundries has 3
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  Apparently when war starts iPhones will be more important than oil, steel, jets, and ships. Or does China build those for the US military as well? Also, ICBMs fly both ways. But while nobody decides to press the "End Game" button, the US with its self sufficient continent can weather more punches than any other country in any conceivable conventional war scenario.
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    We all saw the manufacturing chaos that ensued when shipping of components and products from overseas was drastically curtailed at the start of the COVID-19 epidemic. While military suppliers are supposedly required to secure their supply chains against such disruptions, it would be surprising if they hadn't screwed big parts of it up after being so long in peacetime.
  - nemothekid 6y ago
    >Apparently when war starts iPhones will be more important than oil, steel, jets, and ships You are focusing too much on the war aspect instead of what happens at home. What happens to companies like Apple and nVidia when for whatever reason they can no longer manufacture in China. Apple luckily has a rainy day fund to fund itself until heat death of the universe, but other companies may not be so lucky. I’m sure it would take decades at this point to develop the talent, infrastructure and scale in manufacturing that China currently has
aitait 6y ago
Yes sure. But with Russia it would be different. Mind the Poseidon torpedoes.

lumost 6y ago

The US has an arguably overbuilt military supply chain. But in practice modern military hardware is both expensive and slow. The destructive capacity of modern great powers effectively limits the timeline of any large war to either hours(nuclear bombardment) or weeks ( precision bombing of all military and industrial targets ) The real loss is that industrial enterprises employ a lot of people who are exposed to hard problems. I'm skeptical that the current set of "design"/"marketing" only hardware businesses will last much longer than the international trade pacts that support US patent law.

magicsmoke 6y ago
This. The US's biggest future threat isn't having its military production choked off in a conflict. It's having its military complex become irrelevant as the world moves towards a model where money and consumer technology become the main avenues for influence and control, and where the moment the US tries to flex its military muscle it gets put on a decades-long blacklist by members of the global economy for starting a mess.
- gruez 6y ago
  >it gets put on a decades-long blacklist by members of the global economy for starting a mess. because that worked so well for the weimar republic?
runamok 6y ago
I have a suspicion in a future war a swarm of cheap drones will do things like take out aircraft carriers and waste a large portion of that arsenal.
jcranmer 6y ago
> The destructive capacity of modern great powers effectively limits the timeline of any large war to either hours(nuclear bombardment) or weeks ( precision bombing of all military and industrial targets ) The 100-year history of strategic bombing theory has consistently held that once you start strategic bombing, the enemy's will or ability to fight will collapse very quickly. The actual application of strategic bombing has consistently failed to live up to those expectations, with the atomic bombings of Japan being the only example people give of countries capitulating due to strategic bombing, and even then it's still debatable what factors induced it to surrender. It should also be pointed out that people saying great power wars will be swift and decisive is usually followed by a great power war that is exactly the opposite of swift and decisive.

didibus 6y ago

Why you all worried about war, who'd start it? The US? Right now we're just talking about economies and being able to have a well off society where people don't struggle to make ends meet. And from that point of view, the future of the US as it continues to lose competitive advantage to other countries doesn't look as good as it used too. Are we saying the US plan in case this trend reaches extreme levels is to start a war?

onepointsixC 6y ago
China would start any prospective war, and it would be over Taiwan. Their rhetoric on the subject has ramped up substantially.