7 ms·

This isn't just ego. This is an impending existential issue. America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly wo

by Teever 2y ago

This isn't just ego. This is an impending existential issue. America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace. China will soon have the ability to take Taiwan and Korea and Japan. If that happens it's game over for any American interests and perhaps democracy as a whole. Wargames[0] paint a grim picture of an upcoming conflict between China and America over Taiwan with the US barely winning at a great cost including the loss of many ships, aircraft, and the depletion of missile stocks. The Chinese have a naval production of 260 times that of America and account for an ungodly amount of global steel production so they'll be able to bounce back faster than the US can. With a lead time for producing American missiles measured in months and years it will be just a matter of time before they take the countries in the region that are critical to American manufacturing if they're so inclined. [0] https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/CSIS%20Simulation%20Results.pdf https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...

Bouncingsoul1 2y ago
Hello slippery slope how are you doing?
esafak 2y ago
That is not an existential issue; many former hegemons, such as the United Kingdom, continue to exist. Coalitions exist to ward off hegemons.
- Clubber 2y ago
  >such as the United Kingdom, continue to exist They were really close to not existing. France stopped existing, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, all stopped existing. China, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, New Guinea, Guam, East Timor, and Nauru all stopped existing.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    That was in a pre-nuclear weapon world.
    - Clubber 2y ago
      It certainly was. You think nuclear weapons are less or more likely to have countries not exist anymore? If you believe MAD works, then countries can easily not exist the conventional warfare way. If you think MAD won't work, countries can easily not exist the nuclear war way. The only difference is speed.
  - seanhunter 2y ago
    Of your list I've been to France, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France (you seem to have it twice for some reason), Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. They all most definitely did not stop existing. Also I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you say the United Kingdom came really close to not existing.
    - Clubber 2y ago
      >I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you say the United Kingdom came really close to not existing. Battle of Britain, Battle of France? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France >They all most definitely did not stop existing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-occupied_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-occupied_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_acquired_by_the_Empire_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_acquired_b... You didn't study WW2 in high school? It monumentally shaped the current world order.
      - seanhunter 2y ago
        I did. Austria, Belgium, France etc all existed during WW2. They were occupied, but they existed. Also lots of countries you listed definitely don't meet any sort of reasonable definition of "hegemon". To pick another example, Singapore was a crown colony before the war, then they were occupied by Japan during WW2, then they were a single nation with what is now Malaysia, then in the 1960s they two countries became independent from each other. They didn't under any reasonable reading of the situation cease to exist and they also have never been a hegemon of any kind.
- Teever 2y ago
  The UK continues to exist because it was replaced by a democratic American hegemony. If an authoritarian country like China achieves hegemony the continued existence of democracy is at risk. I want to live in a democratic world, not an authoritarian one. America's democracy is a flawed one but of the two choices -- American hegemony or Chinese hegemony it is the best path to a flourishing global liberal democracy. Can you foresee Chinese hegemony leading to increased democracy, individual property rights, due process, and rule of law?
  - dv_dt 2y ago
    France and Spain continue to exist and they were former hegemons. China has stably existed with long periods of turning inwards after more regional hedgemony.
    - Teever 2y ago
      It's really straight forward -- Do you consider things like liberal democracy, property rights, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of association, due process, and the rule of law to be essential features of society? If you don't -- Chinese hegemony and the path it will lead the world down is the one for you. If you do -- Then American hegemony with all its flaws is something worth fighting for.
      - dv_dt 2y ago
        Being ideals, all of those ideals in reality are implemented with different tradeoffs in different nations with different risks going forward. Discussing in more detail how one arrives at that particular choice of options is more interesting than an end presentation of what looks like a fallacy of false dichotomy.
      - tokioyoyo 2y ago
        People value freedom in different ways. Personally, I would ally myself with tomorrow’s bully, rather than today’s. I understand the implications, but it looks like most of nations are shifting in the same manner. One note, some of the things you’ve listed has been proven as “mostly on paper, once people get their way, mental gymnastics will overcome the reason” in the past month. For a bastion of “freedom and democracy”, it’s really not looking like one from outside.
myrmidon 2y ago
Do you think that global hegemony by force is long-term (centuries) sustainable at all? What makes you confident that this could ever work on a longer term? The US is only ~5% of people globally, and I would expect any industrial/technological lead to melt over the years unless there is a monumental, continuous difference in spending (like what the US military did since WW2). But I see no indication that you can keep that situation stable over the long term, and I honestly think that attempts like the current tariff approach don't help one bit in the long run while having massive harmful side effects (price inflation, loss of planning stability/soft power/productivity).
- ben_w 2y ago
  I think "centuries", plural, is too long for anything much to last since the industrial era. I'm not comfortable guessing past 2032 even without any questions about AI. The United Kingdom of England and Scotland didn't exist until 1707, and even that was sans-Ireland until 1800. And yet, even with the biggest empire the world had ever known, WW1 could only be won with the support of another huge empire (France) and the subsequent arrival of the USA; shortly after this, most of Ireland became semi-independent. WW2 was "won", again with huge support, but a pyrrhic victory from the UK's point of view, and India soon after became independent. The Suez Crisis was 1956, and showed that the old empires of the UK (and France, Union française) were no longer economically hegemonic — even when working together — and the US had replaced them in this role. Looking into the future, there's no way to guess. The more tech advances, the easier it becomes for a single person to cause enormous, world-altering impacts: hackers are already relevant on the geopolitical stage; there's good reason to think that quality of life is directly related to how much energy a person can process, but once you have sufficient energy per-capita, it's not hard to use a cyclotron to brute-force the purification of weapons grade uranium, or to transmute depleted uranium into plutonium; simple genetic manipulation has been a standard technique for first year biology students for at least two decades, and can be done in a home lab, and at some point we will have risks from someone trying to use this for evil rather than decorative bioluminescence. All these things can topple a hegemon that spends its tomorrows looking at yesterday's battlefield.
- iteratethis 2y ago
  Global hegemony of the US is based not on 5% of people, rather the US sphere of influence. US, Canada, EU, Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc. The combination is immensely rich, powerful and advanced. Even more so when you keep India on board as well. It at least stands a fighting chance if it wasn't the case that this alliance is being destroyed before our eyes. I will admit that even an integrated alliance cannot push around China in the way it could decades ago.
newuser94303 2y ago
I don't know why people keep thinking that China will attack Taiwan. It took HK and Macao without a shot. I think China is following Sun Tzu. "subduing the enemy without fighting," is the epitome of strategic thinking in his book, The Art of War. This means achieving victory through cunning, deception, and maneuvering, rather than through direct confrontation and bloodshed" They are increasing their military knowing that US military costs 4+x as much. It might be 4x better so don't fight. Just bankrupt the US. Trump wants a $1T military budget next year. Why would China want to conquer the West? Buying what it wants is cheaper than an uncertain military battle fought with Nukes.
- CharlieDigital 2y ago
  What I still don't get is what could China possibly want with Taiwan? Naval routes? Just negotiate and use money instead; it'll be cheaper than war. Brainpower? Just offer higher salaries to come work in China. Taiwan is a tiny island smaller than Florida with only 20m people.
  - andsoitis 2y ago
    1) Historical claims - the CCP views Taiwan as a breakaway province and considers unification important. After the Chinese Civil War ended in 1948, the defeated Republic of China (ROC) government fled to Taiwan while the CCP took control of China. 2) Political legitimacy - successful unification would be a nationalist victory for the CCP 3) Strategic importance - key geographic asset. It lies in the first island chain, a line of US-aligned territories that can potentially restrict China's naval access to the Pacific. Control over Taiwan gives China more leverage over sea lanes critical to global trade and security influence in East Asia 4) Economic, technology bonus points - Taiwan is a global tech powerhouse, especially in semiconductors. TSMC is the world's leading chipmaker. 5) Global power dynamics - unification would weaken US influence in the region
    - CharlieDigital 2y ago
      1-2 really just do not matter; I can't imagine anyone in the CCP views that as more important than their own internal matters. 3 as I said, they can just negotiate and throw money at the problem; it's cheaper than fighting a war. 4 they can already buy hardware from them and was doing so just fine before US stepped in. DeepSeek seemed to do fine and China may likely surpass Western AI development in the near future 5 I don't see how that's the case when the US has very little presence in TW compared to SK or JP. Taiwan is a hair on a gorilla's right knee.
watwut 2y ago
Genuinely, USA as of now is threat to both peace and democracy - both at home and abroad. Whether it manages to bring back manufacturing is irrelevant to that.
mr_toad 2y ago
> America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace. This argument is based on experiences in WWII, i.e. the previous war. You need to be cautious about basing military doctrine on the previous war. I’m not sure the next war will be won by churning out aircraft carriers.
- Teever 2y ago
  Regardless of what economies will be churning out to fight war, it will more than likely be the side that churns out more stuff that wins. If not aircraft carriers then what sort of physical objects do you think will critical in winning the next major war?

by Teever 2y ago

Bouncingsoul1 2y ago

Hello slippery slope how are you doing?

esafak 2y ago

That is not an existential issue; many former hegemons, such as the United Kingdom, continue to exist. Coalitions exist to ward off hegemons.

Clubber 2y ago
>such as the United Kingdom, continue to exist They were really close to not existing. France stopped existing, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, all stopped existing. China, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, New Guinea, Guam, East Timor, and Nauru all stopped existing.
- ta1243 2y ago
  That was in a pre-nuclear weapon world.
  - Clubber 2y ago
    It certainly was. You think nuclear weapons are less or more likely to have countries not exist anymore? If you believe MAD works, then countries can easily not exist the conventional warfare way. If you think MAD won't work, countries can easily not exist the nuclear war way. The only difference is speed.
- seanhunter 2y ago
  Of your list I've been to France, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France (you seem to have it twice for some reason), Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. They all most definitely did not stop existing. Also I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you say the United Kingdom came really close to not existing.
  - Clubber 2y ago
    >I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you say the United Kingdom came really close to not existing. Battle of Britain, Battle of France? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France >They all most definitely did not stop existing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-occupied_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-occupied_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_acquired_by_the_Empire_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_acquired_b... You didn't study WW2 in high school? It monumentally shaped the current world order.
    - seanhunter 2y ago
      I did. Austria, Belgium, France etc all existed during WW2. They were occupied, but they existed. Also lots of countries you listed definitely don't meet any sort of reasonable definition of "hegemon". To pick another example, Singapore was a crown colony before the war, then they were occupied by Japan during WW2, then they were a single nation with what is now Malaysia, then in the 1960s they two countries became independent from each other. They didn't under any reasonable reading of the situation cease to exist and they also have never been a hegemon of any kind.
Teever 2y ago
The UK continues to exist because it was replaced by a democratic American hegemony. If an authoritarian country like China achieves hegemony the continued existence of democracy is at risk. I want to live in a democratic world, not an authoritarian one. America's democracy is a flawed one but of the two choices -- American hegemony or Chinese hegemony it is the best path to a flourishing global liberal democracy. Can you foresee Chinese hegemony leading to increased democracy, individual property rights, due process, and rule of law?
- dv_dt 2y ago
  France and Spain continue to exist and they were former hegemons. China has stably existed with long periods of turning inwards after more regional hedgemony.
  - Teever 2y ago
    It's really straight forward -- Do you consider things like liberal democracy, property rights, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of association, due process, and the rule of law to be essential features of society? If you don't -- Chinese hegemony and the path it will lead the world down is the one for you. If you do -- Then American hegemony with all its flaws is something worth fighting for.
    - dv_dt 2y ago
      Being ideals, all of those ideals in reality are implemented with different tradeoffs in different nations with different risks going forward. Discussing in more detail how one arrives at that particular choice of options is more interesting than an end presentation of what looks like a fallacy of false dichotomy.
    - tokioyoyo 2y ago
      People value freedom in different ways. Personally, I would ally myself with tomorrow’s bully, rather than today’s. I understand the implications, but it looks like most of nations are shifting in the same manner. One note, some of the things you’ve listed has been proven as “mostly on paper, once people get their way, mental gymnastics will overcome the reason” in the past month. For a bastion of “freedom and democracy”, it’s really not looking like one from outside.

myrmidon 2y ago

Do you think that global hegemony by force is long-term (centuries) sustainable at all? What makes you confident that this could ever work on a longer term? The US is only ~5% of people globally, and I would expect any industrial/technological lead to melt over the years unless there is a monumental, continuous difference in spending (like what the US military did since WW2). But I see no indication that you can keep that situation stable over the long term, and I honestly think that attempts like the current tariff approach don't help one bit in the long run while having massive harmful side effects (price inflation, loss of planning stability/soft power/productivity).

ben_w 2y ago
I think "centuries", plural, is too long for anything much to last since the industrial era. I'm not comfortable guessing past 2032 even without any questions about AI. The United Kingdom of England and Scotland didn't exist until 1707, and even that was sans-Ireland until 1800. And yet, even with the biggest empire the world had ever known, WW1 could only be won with the support of another huge empire (France) and the subsequent arrival of the USA; shortly after this, most of Ireland became semi-independent. WW2 was "won", again with huge support, but a pyrrhic victory from the UK's point of view, and India soon after became independent. The Suez Crisis was 1956, and showed that the old empires of the UK (and France, Union française) were no longer economically hegemonic — even when working together — and the US had replaced them in this role. Looking into the future, there's no way to guess. The more tech advances, the easier it becomes for a single person to cause enormous, world-altering impacts: hackers are already relevant on the geopolitical stage; there's good reason to think that quality of life is directly related to how much energy a person can process, but once you have sufficient energy per-capita, it's not hard to use a cyclotron to brute-force the purification of weapons grade uranium, or to transmute depleted uranium into plutonium; simple genetic manipulation has been a standard technique for first year biology students for at least two decades, and can be done in a home lab, and at some point we will have risks from someone trying to use this for evil rather than decorative bioluminescence. All these things can topple a hegemon that spends its tomorrows looking at yesterday's battlefield.
iteratethis 2y ago
Global hegemony of the US is based not on 5% of people, rather the US sphere of influence. US, Canada, EU, Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc. The combination is immensely rich, powerful and advanced. Even more so when you keep India on board as well. It at least stands a fighting chance if it wasn't the case that this alliance is being destroyed before our eyes. I will admit that even an integrated alliance cannot push around China in the way it could decades ago.

newuser94303 2y ago

I don't know why people keep thinking that China will attack Taiwan. It took HK and Macao without a shot. I think China is following Sun Tzu. "subduing the enemy without fighting," is the epitome of strategic thinking in his book, The Art of War. This means achieving victory through cunning, deception, and maneuvering, rather than through direct confrontation and bloodshed" They are increasing their military knowing that US military costs 4+x as much. It might be 4x better so don't fight. Just bankrupt the US. Trump wants a $1T military budget next year. Why would China want to conquer the West? Buying what it wants is cheaper than an uncertain military battle fought with Nukes.

CharlieDigital 2y ago
What I still don't get is what could China possibly want with Taiwan? Naval routes? Just negotiate and use money instead; it'll be cheaper than war. Brainpower? Just offer higher salaries to come work in China. Taiwan is a tiny island smaller than Florida with only 20m people.
- andsoitis 2y ago
  1) Historical claims - the CCP views Taiwan as a breakaway province and considers unification important. After the Chinese Civil War ended in 1948, the defeated Republic of China (ROC) government fled to Taiwan while the CCP took control of China. 2) Political legitimacy - successful unification would be a nationalist victory for the CCP 3) Strategic importance - key geographic asset. It lies in the first island chain, a line of US-aligned territories that can potentially restrict China's naval access to the Pacific. Control over Taiwan gives China more leverage over sea lanes critical to global trade and security influence in East Asia 4) Economic, technology bonus points - Taiwan is a global tech powerhouse, especially in semiconductors. TSMC is the world's leading chipmaker. 5) Global power dynamics - unification would weaken US influence in the region
  - CharlieDigital 2y ago
    1-2 really just do not matter; I can't imagine anyone in the CCP views that as more important than their own internal matters. 3 as I said, they can just negotiate and throw money at the problem; it's cheaper than fighting a war. 4 they can already buy hardware from them and was doing so just fine before US stepped in. DeepSeek seemed to do fine and China may likely surpass Western AI development in the near future 5 I don't see how that's the case when the US has very little presence in TW compared to SK or JP. Taiwan is a hair on a gorilla's right knee.

watwut 2y ago

Genuinely, USA as of now is threat to both peace and democracy - both at home and abroad. Whether it manages to bring back manufacturing is irrelevant to that.

mr_toad 2y ago

> America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace. This argument is based on experiences in WWII, i.e. the previous war. You need to be cautious about basing military doctrine on the previous war. I’m not sure the next war will be won by churning out aircraft carriers.

Teever 2y ago
Regardless of what economies will be churning out to fight war, it will more than likely be the side that churns out more stuff that wins. If not aircraft carriers then what sort of physical objects do you think will critical in winning the next major war?