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But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. You can't win over people's minds

But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. You can't win over people's minds by killing their loved ones, their neighboors. And you can't keep it under control if every citizen has a gun. You install a puppet government, they will be dead within a week. This is the only way to protect Taiwan. Give them guns and ammo. And teach them that killing invaders is the only way to keep their freedom and not fall under the totalitarian communist regime of China.

toxik 5y ago
They have guns, the two parties warred before. In fact, there was never a formal peace agreement so the war is technically still going on. The asymmetry is in the economics. Taiwan can realistically be strangled by China. This has seemed like the plan from Beijing. Once politically weak, you can take over with sock puppets.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  So, more trade with Tawain from the west, and give them more guns.
- stickfigure 5y ago
  Taiwan cannot be strangled as long as the rest of the world is willing to trade with them. A naval blockade of Taiwan would not be tolerated by the west, and the first US-flagged ship that gets sunk would start real war.
  - BbzzbB 5y ago
    I hope we don't live to see China and the USA in a hot war.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      I hope we live to see the conditions that make it plausible go away.
      - BbzzbB 5y ago
        I do too, but how would that look like? I'm not sure how likely it is to when the incumbent empire and the aspiring one are both armed to the tits, neither of which will give up on their claim or their military. Even without confrontation they'll both keep force projecting. I think we just gotta hope there's mutual resistance to any physical escalation, either direct or by proxy, and that the competition remains economical and technological. Turns out even tying the economies to the hip is not an insurance against fighting when those ties turn into weapons in an escalation.
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        Governments don't have power if the people just drift out of their power. That's one way. Alternatively, one or the other could go the way of Rome (400 and later). I don't think that's likely, but it's possible. Or, most likely (of the options I've suggested), the next leaders care more about peace than the current ones.
        digianarchist 5y ago
        Recognition from the PRC that Taiwan is an independent nation or the absorption of Taiwan as a province of the PRC. The stalemate will probably last a long time.
        stickfigure 5y ago
        This is a repeat of the same misleading narrative that Putin is trying to push. Ukraine is not "NATO vs Russia", it's "The Ukranians vs Putin". Similarly, the Taiwan conflict is not "US vs China". It's "the people of Taiwan vs the CCP" (possibly "vs the people of China" though it's hard to say in a country without democracy). There's no question about how the Taiwanese feel; they vote on it every few years in free elections. Americans are mere supporting cast. We have our opinions, but if the Taiwanese all voted to embrace Xi, we'd shake our heads and walk away. The status quo favors Taiwan. Xi knows this, but without actually going through the process of building a huge navy and launching a military invasion, the de-facto result is that Taiwan continues to be an independent nation. Another couple generations and even China will forget about the big island across the sea. I'm fine with that.
sharikous 5y ago
For now. It's absolutely possible to keep a territory under your control by force if you look at the historical record. You can't extrapolate such a far fetched conclusion from one data point on how string the Ukraunian resistance seems in the first weeks of a war.
- mirntyfirty 5y ago
  I don’t think they have the economic resources to sustain a prolonged engagement or occupation.
  - BbzzbB 5y ago
    Isn't their capacity to maintain an ongoing assault about available meat sacks, ammunition, food and oil - none of which they lack - rather than money?
    - justinclift 5y ago
      > food There have been mentions that they're already short on food for their soldiers. Wonder if that's an actual thing, and if so, then how badly short they are? Especially with that old phrase "an army marches on it's stomach" coming to mind. :)
      - thejohnconway 5y ago
        The lack of food among the Russian invading forces (if real) is due to them outrunning their logistics, not a general food shortage in Russia. Russia’s army is not designed to operate more than about 50-100km from their rail network.
- Supermancho 5y ago
  The Israeli's have managed to hold territory by force. The difference is that worldwide support was in favor of them instead of the Palestinians. I would say that you cannot hold a region by force alone unless you commit to multiple generations of occupation AND manage to maintain when superpowers oppose it.
SmileyJames 5y ago
Feminists arm women
qqtt 5y ago
> But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. There are no simple conclusions about what is happening right now in Ukraine, and it is a fool's errand to declare any kind of conclusion 10 days into an invasion which already displaced millions of people and in which almost every major Ukrainian city is under siege teetering on the edge. Russia's economy destroyed? Ukraine successfully resisted the invasion? All Russia can do is destroy infrastructure? All those jumping to conclusions regarding the Ukraine situation remind me of Bush standing in front of a Mission Accomplished banner after 20 days of the Iraq invasion.
- turndown 5y ago
  >the Ukraine situation remind me of Bush standing in front of a Mission Accomplished banner after 20 days of the Iraq invasion. So your response to others jumping to conclusions is to do so yourself? Your analogy doesn't make a lot of sense either, Bush was the invader claiming victory, not the local population saying they would resist until death(which seems to be fairly accurate in the case of Ukraine so far.)
- dragonelite 5y ago
  It's such a weird situation right now everybody went from virus and vaccine expert to geopolitical expert within 10 min. It took the West like a year of sanctions and aerial bombardment, then 3 weeks of "Shock and awe" to take over an Arab nations. If there is one thing modern day arabs are known for is they cant do modern warfare. Now take Ukraine its like 40% bigger than Iraq so i think its save to say it should take Russia like 5 weeks to beat the West without sanctions on Ukraine without months of Aerial bombardment. If at the end of this months no peace deal is agreed on between Russia and the Ukraine then it's should be seen as a hick up. But it might also become a multi year invasion every thing is possible in war.
  - canadianfella 5y ago
  - aiProgMach 5y ago
yosito 5y ago
While this sentiment resonates with me, and probably many Americans, I'm not entirely sure that it would resonate with Taiwanese culture. Even if it did, any attempt to arm Taiwanese citizens is likely to draw a lot of opposition from China.
yonaguska 5y ago
The "population" hasn't been armed. A small amount of people in some areas were armed. And fighting age men have been conscripted. If the goal of the invasion was to destroy infrastructure, that would have happened last week. Armed population or not. Taiwan is completely different from Ukraine culturally, and I don't think simply blanket arming people is a solution there either. Big difference being that the Ukrainian standard of living, even under Zelensky has been bad. If you are simply surviving, taking up arms is a much easier sell. If you are comfortable and well off, you have a lot more to lose. If Xi is smart, which he is- he will attempt to take over Taiwan via political means. I don't think he will attempt to repeat the Hong Kong approach with an entire country, when he already has pro Chinese political entities within Taiwan. > teach them that killing invaders is the only way to keep their freedom and not fall under the totalitarian First you need to convince people that the value of freedom is actually worth the cost. Based on what I've seen for the past two years, many people do not value freedom, even in the United States. They'd rather be comfortable than free. The cost of freedom is often everything for those that actually choose it. The benefits are only realized by the next generation.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > Based on what I've seen for the past two years, many people do not value freedom, even in the United States. I suspect this is a universal truth.
  - ep103 5y ago
    People value stability, wealth, quality and ease of life and peace. Freedom is the vehicle that maintains these things. But that, apparently, requires education to remember.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Yes, but apparently the price of that vehicle is preferably paid by others. And I believe that is not how it works.
    - internet_user 5y ago
GoodJokes 5y ago
daenz 5y ago
It's been mind boggling to see anti 2A people in my social circle cheer for normal Ukrainian citizens arming themselves with "weapons of war" that "wouldn't do anything against a country with drones and nukes." I hope a silver lining of this conflict is remembering that protecting your life and your family's lives with firearms is an inalienable right.
- windpower 5y ago
  I'm someone you would describe as "anti 2A". I still think the "defense against home invasion" style argument is mostly nonsense. It's super rare, and I don't think the benefits of guns outweigh the downsides for that kind of self defense. (Having been a victim of exactly such a crime, I'm glad neither I nor the burglar had a gun.) However, seeing Ukrainians take up arms to fight an invasion has caused me to re-evaluate my position in general, and I actually think an armed population is likely better than the alternative. I'm sure Finland isn't unhappy that they're heavily armed right now.
  - throwaway_4ever 5y ago
    > It's super rare Is it? How do you define super rare? I live in a low crime US suburb and still personally know 3 homes that have been invaded: friend's next door neighbor, a house 200ft away, and the literal across the street neighbor.
    - _hypx 5y ago
      Home invasion means forcefully breaking into someone's house where there are people in it. It's very different than a burglary. Burglaries are common, but the former is rare.
      - zthrowaway 5y ago
        And having a firearm to protect your life in that rare situation is still important… The police are the cleanup crew, those first 5-10 minutes you’re on your own.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
The war in Ukraine hasn’t really shown anything so far. It’s been only a few days. Wait for a few months at minimum and then draw some conclusions.
duxup 5y ago
It has been a week. I'm not sure we can be assured small arms to locals will do much at all. What has happened in Ukraine seems to be that Ukraine's military was more capable / motivated and Russia's military MUCH LESS capable / motivated than anyone expected.
slim 5y ago
This is naive. It's too easy to polarize any population during hard times. and now they are armed.
KolenCh 5y ago
The situation in Taiwan is different. There are polls in the past indicating non-negligible amount of Taiwanese (I forgot the numbers, but IIRC it is closer to 50-50 split than only a small fraction) support “merging back” to China. (That was before 2019 Hong Kong incident though.)

toxik 5y ago

They have guns, the two parties warred before. In fact, there was never a formal peace agreement so the war is technically still going on. The asymmetry is in the economics. Taiwan can realistically be strangled by China. This has seemed like the plan from Beijing. Once politically weak, you can take over with sock puppets.

anonporridge 5y ago
So, more trade with Tawain from the west, and give them more guns.
stickfigure 5y ago
Taiwan cannot be strangled as long as the rest of the world is willing to trade with them. A naval blockade of Taiwan would not be tolerated by the west, and the first US-flagged ship that gets sunk would start real war.
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  I hope we don't live to see China and the USA in a hot war.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    I hope we live to see the conditions that make it plausible go away.
    - BbzzbB 5y ago
      I do too, but how would that look like? I'm not sure how likely it is to when the incumbent empire and the aspiring one are both armed to the tits, neither of which will give up on their claim or their military. Even without confrontation they'll both keep force projecting. I think we just gotta hope there's mutual resistance to any physical escalation, either direct or by proxy, and that the competition remains economical and technological. Turns out even tying the economies to the hip is not an insurance against fighting when those ties turn into weapons in an escalation.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        Governments don't have power if the people just drift out of their power. That's one way. Alternatively, one or the other could go the way of Rome (400 and later). I don't think that's likely, but it's possible. Or, most likely (of the options I've suggested), the next leaders care more about peace than the current ones.
      - digianarchist 5y ago
        Recognition from the PRC that Taiwan is an independent nation or the absorption of Taiwan as a province of the PRC. The stalemate will probably last a long time.
      - stickfigure 5y ago
        This is a repeat of the same misleading narrative that Putin is trying to push. Ukraine is not "NATO vs Russia", it's "The Ukranians vs Putin". Similarly, the Taiwan conflict is not "US vs China". It's "the people of Taiwan vs the CCP" (possibly "vs the people of China" though it's hard to say in a country without democracy). There's no question about how the Taiwanese feel; they vote on it every few years in free elections. Americans are mere supporting cast. We have our opinions, but if the Taiwanese all voted to embrace Xi, we'd shake our heads and walk away. The status quo favors Taiwan. Xi knows this, but without actually going through the process of building a huge navy and launching a military invasion, the de-facto result is that Taiwan continues to be an independent nation. Another couple generations and even China will forget about the big island across the sea. I'm fine with that.

sharikous 5y ago

For now. It's absolutely possible to keep a territory under your control by force if you look at the historical record. You can't extrapolate such a far fetched conclusion from one data point on how string the Ukraunian resistance seems in the first weeks of a war.

mirntyfirty 5y ago
I don’t think they have the economic resources to sustain a prolonged engagement or occupation.
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  Isn't their capacity to maintain an ongoing assault about available meat sacks, ammunition, food and oil - none of which they lack - rather than money?
  - justinclift 5y ago
    > food There have been mentions that they're already short on food for their soldiers. Wonder if that's an actual thing, and if so, then how badly short they are? Especially with that old phrase "an army marches on it's stomach" coming to mind. :)
    - thejohnconway 5y ago
      The lack of food among the Russian invading forces (if real) is due to them outrunning their logistics, not a general food shortage in Russia. Russia’s army is not designed to operate more than about 50-100km from their rail network.
Supermancho 5y ago
The Israeli's have managed to hold territory by force. The difference is that worldwide support was in favor of them instead of the Palestinians. I would say that you cannot hold a region by force alone unless you commit to multiple generations of occupation AND manage to maintain when superpowers oppose it.

SmileyJames 5y ago

Feminists arm women

qqtt 5y ago

> But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. There are no simple conclusions about what is happening right now in Ukraine, and it is a fool's errand to declare any kind of conclusion 10 days into an invasion which already displaced millions of people and in which almost every major Ukrainian city is under siege teetering on the edge. Russia's economy destroyed? Ukraine successfully resisted the invasion? All Russia can do is destroy infrastructure? All those jumping to conclusions regarding the Ukraine situation remind me of Bush standing in front of a Mission Accomplished banner after 20 days of the Iraq invasion.

turndown 5y ago
>the Ukraine situation remind me of Bush standing in front of a Mission Accomplished banner after 20 days of the Iraq invasion. So your response to others jumping to conclusions is to do so yourself? Your analogy doesn't make a lot of sense either, Bush was the invader claiming victory, not the local population saying they would resist until death(which seems to be fairly accurate in the case of Ukraine so far.)
dragonelite 5y ago
It's such a weird situation right now everybody went from virus and vaccine expert to geopolitical expert within 10 min. It took the West like a year of sanctions and aerial bombardment, then 3 weeks of "Shock and awe" to take over an Arab nations. If there is one thing modern day arabs are known for is they cant do modern warfare. Now take Ukraine its like 40% bigger than Iraq so i think its save to say it should take Russia like 5 weeks to beat the West without sanctions on Ukraine without months of Aerial bombardment. If at the end of this months no peace deal is agreed on between Russia and the Ukraine then it's should be seen as a hick up. But it might also become a multi year invasion every thing is possible in war.
- canadianfella 5y ago
- aiProgMach 5y ago

yosito 5y ago

While this sentiment resonates with me, and probably many Americans, I'm not entirely sure that it would resonate with Taiwanese culture. Even if it did, any attempt to arm Taiwanese citizens is likely to draw a lot of opposition from China.

yonaguska 5y ago

The "population" hasn't been armed. A small amount of people in some areas were armed. And fighting age men have been conscripted. If the goal of the invasion was to destroy infrastructure, that would have happened last week. Armed population or not. Taiwan is completely different from Ukraine culturally, and I don't think simply blanket arming people is a solution there either. Big difference being that the Ukrainian standard of living, even under Zelensky has been bad. If you are simply surviving, taking up arms is a much easier sell. If you are comfortable and well off, you have a lot more to lose. If Xi is smart, which he is- he will attempt to take over Taiwan via political means. I don't think he will attempt to repeat the Hong Kong approach with an entire country, when he already has pro Chinese political entities within Taiwan. > teach them that killing invaders is the only way to keep their freedom and not fall under the totalitarian First you need to convince people that the value of freedom is actually worth the cost. Based on what I've seen for the past two years, many people do not value freedom, even in the United States. They'd rather be comfortable than free. The cost of freedom is often everything for those that actually choose it. The benefits are only realized by the next generation.

jacquesm 5y ago
> Based on what I've seen for the past two years, many people do not value freedom, even in the United States. I suspect this is a universal truth.
- ep103 5y ago
  People value stability, wealth, quality and ease of life and peace. Freedom is the vehicle that maintains these things. But that, apparently, requires education to remember.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Yes, but apparently the price of that vehicle is preferably paid by others. And I believe that is not how it works.
  - internet_user 5y ago

GoodJokes 5y ago

daenz 5y ago

It's been mind boggling to see anti 2A people in my social circle cheer for normal Ukrainian citizens arming themselves with "weapons of war" that "wouldn't do anything against a country with drones and nukes." I hope a silver lining of this conflict is remembering that protecting your life and your family's lives with firearms is an inalienable right.

windpower 5y ago
I'm someone you would describe as "anti 2A". I still think the "defense against home invasion" style argument is mostly nonsense. It's super rare, and I don't think the benefits of guns outweigh the downsides for that kind of self defense. (Having been a victim of exactly such a crime, I'm glad neither I nor the burglar had a gun.) However, seeing Ukrainians take up arms to fight an invasion has caused me to re-evaluate my position in general, and I actually think an armed population is likely better than the alternative. I'm sure Finland isn't unhappy that they're heavily armed right now.
- throwaway_4ever 5y ago
  > It's super rare Is it? How do you define super rare? I live in a low crime US suburb and still personally know 3 homes that have been invaded: friend's next door neighbor, a house 200ft away, and the literal across the street neighbor.
  - _hypx 5y ago
    Home invasion means forcefully breaking into someone's house where there are people in it. It's very different than a burglary. Burglaries are common, but the former is rare.
    - zthrowaway 5y ago
      And having a firearm to protect your life in that rare situation is still important… The police are the cleanup crew, those first 5-10 minutes you’re on your own.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

The war in Ukraine hasn’t really shown anything so far. It’s been only a few days. Wait for a few months at minimum and then draw some conclusions.

duxup 5y ago

It has been a week. I'm not sure we can be assured small arms to locals will do much at all. What has happened in Ukraine seems to be that Ukraine's military was more capable / motivated and Russia's military MUCH LESS capable / motivated than anyone expected.

slim 5y ago

This is naive. It's too easy to polarize any population during hard times. and now they are armed.

KolenCh 5y ago

The situation in Taiwan is different. There are polls in the past indicating non-negligible amount of Taiwanese (I forgot the numbers, but IIRC it is closer to 50-50 split than only a small fraction) support “merging back” to China. (That was before 2019 Hong Kong incident though.)