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It’s also in the US’ strategic interests to simply make it clear that China can’t have Taiwan regardless of the TSMC however

rr888 4y ago
- conradfr 4y ago
  Except the Taiwanese people.
- Huh1337 4y ago
  These people would rather be dead than under Russian rule. Why would 97% of them support continuing defense if not? And don't forget that when Russians still thought they're going to win, they brought in mobile crematoriums and started filtrating people and sending them off to Siberia if not torturing and murdering them. It was never a question of "no war and survive" VS "die in war" - but "no war, die anyways" VS "war, possibly survive"
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - dr-detroit 4y ago
    [dead]
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    > These people would rather be dead than under Russian rule. Why would 97% of them support continuing defense if not? Certainly this is not true of Crimea, where people have been independently polled by Western NGOs and the weight of the evidence is they want to be part of Russia. > It was never a question of "no war and survive" VS "die in war" - but "no war, die anyways" VS "war, possibly survive" Your thesis is that if Russia won they would murder a substantial %-ge of the population in mobile crematoriums?
    - Huh1337 4y ago
      > Certainly this is not true of Crimea, where people have been independently polled by Western NGOs and the weight of the evidence is they want to be part of Russia. You mean "a very slightly bigger half of them", right? And that was before all this shit went down and Russians started to mobilize them. I wonder how they feel now, don't you? > Your thesis is that if Russia won they would murder a substantial %-ge of the population in mobile crematoriums? Nah, my thesis is that Russia started with it immediately.
      - whimsicalism 4y ago
        > You mean "a very slightly bigger half of them", right? Closer to 83% but I agree it has probably trended substantially downward in recent months. > Nah, my thesis is that Russia started with it immediately. Why didn't they do this mass murder in Crimea or Donetsk once they got effective control?
        Huh1337 4y ago
        Seems like we just don't know much about what they did there, yet. Let's see how many mass graves are there once Ukraine gets the land back. Are you going to put your money on it being 0? Or maybe they simply planned the genocide for later, you never know with these crazy dictators.
        lovich 4y ago
        I mean, murdering and cremating isn’t the only bit of genocide. They’ve also bern taking Ukrainian children and adopting them out to Russian families, and filtrating out Ukrainian adults across Russia. At the beginning and through most of the invasion they Russian stance was that Ukrainians are a fake people and don’t actually exist. If I was getting invaded by a group saying my people weren’t real I probably wouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt that they’d treat me well or let me live if I laid down Armstrong
        whimsicalism 4y ago
        Clearly denying Ukrainian identity & culture is part of the Russian project here and is linked to forced relocation/adoption. My question was merely on the claim that Russia desired to murder & cremate some >1% of the Ukrainian population.
- StopHammoTime 4y ago
  “Give”. Taiwan have been preparing for this war since its inception. Taiwan will be going to war without Western support and I think most Taiwanese would prefer Taiwan burnt to the ground before surrendering without a fight. If someone invaded my country there would be two outcomes: we win or I’m dead.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  > After seeing Ukraine turning into a WW1 quagmire Ukraine is nowhere near a WW1 quagmire. The lines are far from static, and we've seen one dramatic rout a month ago resulting from a competently-executed war of maneuver operation that was completely impossible in the WW1 situation. It looks less like WW1 (a war that ultimately came down to bleeding men until one side ran out, at which point the war effort came flying off the rails extremely rapidly) and more like WW2 (a war of maneuver where applying sufficient overwhelming force in a narrow front could and did produce overwhelming breakthough--even if it took a very large stack of operational successes to ultimately prove victorious in the war).
- kibwen 4y ago
  Found Elon's HN account.
- for1nner 4y ago
tarsinge 4y ago
Of course it is in the US strategic interests, the problem is having strategic interests doesn't automatically give the US rights to intervene. Contrary to Ukraine (plain violation of the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation) the situation in Taiwan is complicated (for those who doubt it please at least make the effort to read the Wikipedia entry). Now given recent history I don't doubt the US will not let it slip when their strategic interests are at risk, but at least be lucid. Edit: To clear doubts I should add I would obviously prefer Taiwan stay an independent free democratic country. I'm only tempering the argument I sometimes see (maybe wrongly here) "it's in our best interests" = "it's the right thing".
- randomopining 4y ago
  Taiwan as a piece of land has much more strategic importance than Ukraine. Ukraine's grain and terrain are the two things that are important about it from a utilitarian sense.
  - jychang 4y ago
    Ukraine as a piece of land was Russia's only warmwater port.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      Russia has plenty of allies it can use as a warm water port and Crimea was already lost.
    - caskstrength 4y ago
      > Ukraine as a piece of land was Russia's only warmwater port. Why is this obviously incorrect statement that can be easily disproved by just checking the map is being repeated again and again on HN? It is only second in popularity to "Russia invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO on its borders" which can also be trivially disproved by finding Estonia or Latvia on the map...
      - CapricornNoble 4y ago

rr888 4y ago

conradfr 4y ago
Except the Taiwanese people.
Huh1337 4y ago
These people would rather be dead than under Russian rule. Why would 97% of them support continuing defense if not? And don't forget that when Russians still thought they're going to win, they brought in mobile crematoriums and started filtrating people and sending them off to Siberia if not torturing and murdering them. It was never a question of "no war and survive" VS "die in war" - but "no war, die anyways" VS "war, possibly survive"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dr-detroit 4y ago
  [dead]
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  > These people would rather be dead than under Russian rule. Why would 97% of them support continuing defense if not? Certainly this is not true of Crimea, where people have been independently polled by Western NGOs and the weight of the evidence is they want to be part of Russia. > It was never a question of "no war and survive" VS "die in war" - but "no war, die anyways" VS "war, possibly survive" Your thesis is that if Russia won they would murder a substantial %-ge of the population in mobile crematoriums?
  - Huh1337 4y ago
    > Certainly this is not true of Crimea, where people have been independently polled by Western NGOs and the weight of the evidence is they want to be part of Russia. You mean "a very slightly bigger half of them", right? And that was before all this shit went down and Russians started to mobilize them. I wonder how they feel now, don't you? > Your thesis is that if Russia won they would murder a substantial %-ge of the population in mobile crematoriums? Nah, my thesis is that Russia started with it immediately.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      > You mean "a very slightly bigger half of them", right? Closer to 83% but I agree it has probably trended substantially downward in recent months. > Nah, my thesis is that Russia started with it immediately. Why didn't they do this mass murder in Crimea or Donetsk once they got effective control?
      - Huh1337 4y ago
        Seems like we just don't know much about what they did there, yet. Let's see how many mass graves are there once Ukraine gets the land back. Are you going to put your money on it being 0? Or maybe they simply planned the genocide for later, you never know with these crazy dictators.
      - lovich 4y ago
        I mean, murdering and cremating isn’t the only bit of genocide. They’ve also bern taking Ukrainian children and adopting them out to Russian families, and filtrating out Ukrainian adults across Russia. At the beginning and through most of the invasion they Russian stance was that Ukrainians are a fake people and don’t actually exist. If I was getting invaded by a group saying my people weren’t real I probably wouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt that they’d treat me well or let me live if I laid down Armstrong
        whimsicalism 4y ago
        Clearly denying Ukrainian identity & culture is part of the Russian project here and is linked to forced relocation/adoption. My question was merely on the claim that Russia desired to murder & cremate some >1% of the Ukrainian population.
StopHammoTime 4y ago
“Give”. Taiwan have been preparing for this war since its inception. Taiwan will be going to war without Western support and I think most Taiwanese would prefer Taiwan burnt to the ground before surrendering without a fight. If someone invaded my country there would be two outcomes: we win or I’m dead.
jcranmer 4y ago
> After seeing Ukraine turning into a WW1 quagmire Ukraine is nowhere near a WW1 quagmire. The lines are far from static, and we've seen one dramatic rout a month ago resulting from a competently-executed war of maneuver operation that was completely impossible in the WW1 situation. It looks less like WW1 (a war that ultimately came down to bleeding men until one side ran out, at which point the war effort came flying off the rails extremely rapidly) and more like WW2 (a war of maneuver where applying sufficient overwhelming force in a narrow front could and did produce overwhelming breakthough--even if it took a very large stack of operational successes to ultimately prove victorious in the war).
kibwen 4y ago
Found Elon's HN account.
for1nner 4y ago

tarsinge 4y ago

Of course it is in the US strategic interests, the problem is having strategic interests doesn't automatically give the US rights to intervene. Contrary to Ukraine (plain violation of the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation) the situation in Taiwan is complicated (for those who doubt it please at least make the effort to read the Wikipedia entry). Now given recent history I don't doubt the US will not let it slip when their strategic interests are at risk, but at least be lucid. Edit: To clear doubts I should add I would obviously prefer Taiwan stay an independent free democratic country. I'm only tempering the argument I sometimes see (maybe wrongly here) "it's in our best interests" = "it's the right thing".

randomopining 4y ago
Taiwan as a piece of land has much more strategic importance than Ukraine. Ukraine's grain and terrain are the two things that are important about it from a utilitarian sense.
- jychang 4y ago
  Ukraine as a piece of land was Russia's only warmwater port.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Russia has plenty of allies it can use as a warm water port and Crimea was already lost.
  - caskstrength 4y ago
    > Ukraine as a piece of land was Russia's only warmwater port. Why is this obviously incorrect statement that can be easily disproved by just checking the map is being repeated again and again on HN? It is only second in popularity to "Russia invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO on its borders" which can also be trivially disproved by finding Estonia or Latvia on the map...
    - CapricornNoble 4y ago