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It does mention submarines, of which shipping traffic going around the far side of the Philippines would be exposed to. More so because of the depth of the wate

It does mention submarines, of which shipping traffic going around the far side of the Philippines would be exposed to. More so because of the depth of the water.

opportune 4y ago
If China is using submarines to prevent Japanese shipments outside of their territorial water, the conflict has already gone hot and ICBMs are in the air.
- kneebonian 4y ago
  > the conflict has already gone hot and ICBMs are in the air. I see this reasoning a lot and it feels like an artifact of cold-war MAD thinking. The scenario in which I feel nukes are likely from China is the one from fallout where on the losing end of a global war, the last remnants of the CCP launch an attack as a last ditch effort, I think it is unlikely an nation state (excepting Israel) would use strategic nuclear weapons except as a last ditch resort. Tactically maybe, but not strategically, because everyone wants something, the reasoning in the Cold war was "there are only two powers so you must make sure you are as big and scary as the other guy so they don't try anything". In contrast China seems to simply want to become a world superpower and rule the world not destroy it, in the coldwar we had two diametrically oppossed ideologies competing in a battle for survival that both insisted the other could not be allowed to exist. Now things are very different. That's the thing is that China doesn't want to rule over a wasteland. If another war goes hot it will take a long time before it goes strategically nuclear because everyone knows that once that genies out of the bottle it allows your enemies to retaliate in kind. Even Putin who most people think is insane, and completely unhinged hasn't even used nuclear weapons despite suffering significant losses, being at a technological disadvantage and giving up ground every day. He might use them tactically but unless he's hiding in a bunker in Moscow as the Ukrainian armed forces are bearing down on him I think he is unlikely to decide to drop the nukes on Kyiv.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    An unspoken legacy of the cold war is the way it drives so many foreign/military policy debates toward stupid extremes. Nothing short of nuclear war matters (which has opened the door to absolutely egregious conventional outcomes, but hey, at least it's not nuclear). Anything nuclear is totally unacceptable forever, even if it's rational (North Korea or Iran wanting tp have nukes as a guarantee against getting rolled conventionally).
    - kneebonian 4y ago
      I think this is an example of science progressing one funeral at a time effect. For decades the analysts and intelligence communities had every single action, thought, and breath colored by a bi-polar world on the brink of extinction; that whole paradigm suddenly collapsed in the early 90's and no one really rethought what that meant. So now our military and intelligence apparatuses are to paraphrase an old quote "perfectly prepared to fight the last war", without taking into account the multi-polar nature of the world.
  - swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
    I wouldn't underestimate the hatred between nations in East Asia. Japan was trying to wipe China off the map 80 years ago. China is upset still.

It does mention submarines, of which shipping traffic going around the far side of the Philippines would be exposed to. More so because of the depth of the water.

opportune 4y ago

If China is using submarines to prevent Japanese shipments outside of their territorial water, the conflict has already gone hot and ICBMs are in the air.

kneebonian 4y ago
> the conflict has already gone hot and ICBMs are in the air. I see this reasoning a lot and it feels like an artifact of cold-war MAD thinking. The scenario in which I feel nukes are likely from China is the one from fallout where on the losing end of a global war, the last remnants of the CCP launch an attack as a last ditch effort, I think it is unlikely an nation state (excepting Israel) would use strategic nuclear weapons except as a last ditch resort. Tactically maybe, but not strategically, because everyone wants something, the reasoning in the Cold war was "there are only two powers so you must make sure you are as big and scary as the other guy so they don't try anything". In contrast China seems to simply want to become a world superpower and rule the world not destroy it, in the coldwar we had two diametrically oppossed ideologies competing in a battle for survival that both insisted the other could not be allowed to exist. Now things are very different. That's the thing is that China doesn't want to rule over a wasteland. If another war goes hot it will take a long time before it goes strategically nuclear because everyone knows that once that genies out of the bottle it allows your enemies to retaliate in kind. Even Putin who most people think is insane, and completely unhinged hasn't even used nuclear weapons despite suffering significant losses, being at a technological disadvantage and giving up ground every day. He might use them tactically but unless he's hiding in a bunker in Moscow as the Ukrainian armed forces are bearing down on him I think he is unlikely to decide to drop the nukes on Kyiv.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  An unspoken legacy of the cold war is the way it drives so many foreign/military policy debates toward stupid extremes. Nothing short of nuclear war matters (which has opened the door to absolutely egregious conventional outcomes, but hey, at least it's not nuclear). Anything nuclear is totally unacceptable forever, even if it's rational (North Korea or Iran wanting tp have nukes as a guarantee against getting rolled conventionally).
  - kneebonian 4y ago
    I think this is an example of science progressing one funeral at a time effect. For decades the analysts and intelligence communities had every single action, thought, and breath colored by a bi-polar world on the brink of extinction; that whole paradigm suddenly collapsed in the early 90's and no one really rethought what that meant. So now our military and intelligence apparatuses are to paraphrase an old quote "perfectly prepared to fight the last war", without taking into account the multi-polar nature of the world.
- swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
  I wouldn't underestimate the hatred between nations in East Asia. Japan was trying to wipe China off the map 80 years ago. China is upset still.