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Honestly the loss of life is kind of horrifying. Especially when you consider the vast majority were unarmed transport ships of some kind. I cannot imagine sl
by wing-_-nuts 2y ago
Honestly the loss of life is kind of horrifying. Especially when you consider the vast majority were unarmed transport ships of some kind. I cannot imagine slowly trawling along in some tanker when suddenly you're under fire from a uboat with no way to shoot back.
I feel like we're 'sleepwalking towards war' today with China over Taiwan (many top military brass have said they expect a war later this decade), and to be brutally frank, it's kind of insane to me that the powers that be have decided a mountainous island and some computer chips are worth the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands or even millions of human lives. I hope sanity prevails.
- SoftTalker 2y agoBig wars are also historically how we (humanity) have gotten out of financial depressions.
- metabagel 2y agoSuperficially, it might look that way, but war is a drag on the economy. Generally, there have to be sacrifices made to support a war economy.
- llamaimperative 2y agoWhat would be the more sane version? Allow nuclear armed states to invade whoever they want whenever they want?
- jonplackett 2y agoThis comment comes from a misguided position of believing USA are in the position to allow or disallow. As this article shows, ‘disallow’ is not as straight forward as it seems.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoIt's not solely up to the USA. The larger question remains, how does the world prevent nuclear states from simply taking over their neighbors?
- dukeyukey 2y agoBy giving nuclear states a vested interest in maintaining the world order as it is. We've mostly managed to do that so far, even if with Ukraine and potentially Taiwan it's looking a bit iffy.
- llamaimperative 2y agoYeah, and obviously so long as that continues then the US won't go to war... the conversation is about what happens if China invades Taiwan.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoIt seems like the current system is working, since it hasn't really happened? Otherwise wouldn't Russia have just walked into Ukraine with a nuke saying "we're the boss now or eveyone is dead"?
- ceejayoz 2y agoRussia has consistently used nuclear blackmail in Ukraine. The West has responded with a very slow, incremental ramping up of aid to avoid triggering it. If Russia didn't have nukes, the situation in Ukraine would look very different.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoWhy is Russia fighting an actual war with half a million casualties if nuclear blackmail works?
- ceejayoz 2y ago
- llamaimperative 2y agoWho is under the impression that the USA allowing/disallowing is straightforward? Do you think it's some secret that war is costly?
- jonplackett 2y agosadly for some people yeah
- criddell 2y agoThe more sane version is China leaving Taiwan alone.
- llamaimperative 2y agoWell... sure.
- jjulius 2y ago... I dunno, not going to war over something like that, maybe?
- ceejayoz 2y agoYeah, that's the "just give Hitler Czechoslovakia and hope he's satisfied" approach. It hasn't historically worked that well.
- jjulius 2y ago"Not going to war" starts with "don't invade another country".
- ceejayoz 2y agoChina gets to "don't invade another country" with regards to Taiwan. If China chooses to invade, the US is left with a choice of how to intervene. "No war" isn't on the table any more, even if the US choice is "don't get involved in the war and let our ally get clobbered".
- petre 2y agoExcept China doesn't consider Taiwan another country and goes to lenghty efforts to prevent anyone else from doing just that.
- llamaimperative 2y agoSo to allow nuclear armed states to invade whoever they want, got it.
- jjulius 2y agoAh, thank you for adhering to general internet commenting guidelines, where we insert words into others mouths that aren't the most generous interpretation of what they could be saying. No, I certainly wouldn't have stepped back further, as another respondent said, and argued that China should leave Taiwan alone, nope - I definitely insinuated that nuclear-armed states should invade folk at their own whim and we should do nothing about it. Yep, you're right, that's definitely where I was going with it. Edit: To make things perfectly clear, "not going to war" starts with "don't invade another country". I'm not sure how that isn't obvious.
- wing-_-nuts 2y agoWhen I say I 'hope that sanity prevails' I'm hoping that China realizes Taiwan isn't worth the cost. I'm also extremely dubious that it's worth 10's or even 100's of thousands of American lives for us to intervene. I'm happy for us to sell Taiwan as many weapons as they want for them to defend themselves, but I draw the line at putting American lives at risk for a country that has taken a negligent attitude to it's own defenses in the hopes that we bail them out.
- llamaimperative 2y agoDirectionally agreed, but what gives you reason to say Taiwan has neglected its own defenses in the hopes that we bail them out?
- wing-_-nuts 2y agoI compare them with Israel, another small nation with high defense needs. They've spent less than 2% of their GDP on defense until very recently, they don't have a strong history of conscripting and training their civilian population. In short, they seem to have operated under the assumption that the united states would ride in to save the day. I am a little sick of seeing the US, a country with two friendly neighbors, and massive oceans between us and our nearest peer adversaries spend ~ 1T / yr on defense to be the 'world's police'. The real threat to our security is at home.
- llamaimperative 2y agoWhy is 2% a meaningful number? Less than that is insufficient and more than that is sufficient? Taiwan couldn't effectively defend itself against China regardless of how much it spends on defense. Nor could any other country on the planet except potentially the US. > I am a little sick of seeing the US, a country with two friendly neighbors, and massive oceans between us and our nearest peer adversaries spend ~ 1T / yr on defense to be the 'world's police'. If you think the US isn't a major beneficiary of global peace and open trade, you are very mistaken. It isn't a charity project, it's a strategy. > The real threat to our security is at home. What does this mean?
- mandibles 2y agoIsn't that the current status quo?
- llamaimperative 2y agoNo, as evidenced by the massive amounts of western arms currently preventing the rape and pillaging of the capital of a democratic European city.
- outop 2y agoWhy should China be an exception?
- dukeyukey 2y agoWell, that and the 23 million people who live there.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoA long time ago I was a Merchant Marine cadet. One of the classes we had to take during senior year was on working with the Navy during conflict/all out war. As we were working through the Convoy Operations unit, I remember thinking that it was basically bullshit. You're in a group of other merchant ships being protected by the US Navy, but the maneuvers were based on an enemy with a WW2 level of technology. If you are attacked by any modern force that somehow managed to get through the outer ring of defense, as a merchant vessel, you might as well start lowering lifeboats.
- coffeecantcode 2y agoIt can be said as well that war between China and the Philippines may break out even before that given their current encroachment on a number of strategically important shoals in the South China Sea. Things are escalating in a very scary direction between the two countries coast guards. That being said the Pacific has not changed in the last 80 years and it will still be eerily similar to the naval escapades seen then - but I anticipate with far greater loss of life despite autonomous capabilities (due to range of weapon effectiveness and lethality of munitions).