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What is so attractive to attempt the greatest amphibious assault in human history just to get an island with a bunch of people who will hate you and have nowher

What is so attractive to attempt the greatest amphibious assault in human history just to get an island with a bunch of people who will hate you and have nowhere to run away.

Lu2025 1y ago
The thing about autocracies, there is nobody to stop an obviously wrong decision (for example, Russian invasion of Ukraine).
- basilgohar 1y ago
  Yes, because in Western democracies we were very successful at stopping invasions such as Iraq x2, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, etc.
  - necovek 1y ago
    There is nobody to admit a bad decision and reverse course on it?
  - jopsen 1y ago
    Think of all the wars we didn't have :) Democracies aren't perfect, but they can change, admit mistakes and adapt.
    - blackoil 1y ago
      I think it is other way round. In a democracy ideas are ingrained in public psyche for support. Be it Muslims/Jews/Christians good/bad, immigrants evil, abortion bad all become part of a large percentage of people's belief and changing that requires equally herculean efforts. In autocracy, people are generally kept aloof of such decisions so you can always switch enemies from Eurasia to Eastasia and no one cares. In case of China, the value of Taiwan/Arunachal/... is mostly egoistical, based on some notion that Qing China boundaries must be restored. If tomorrow a new leadership comes and makes EU kind of setup with Taiwan, people will have no say and most won't care.
  - Nevermark 1y ago
    The fact that democracies make mistakes, isn't an argument against dictators having more carte blanche to make mistakes. Any form of government is going to make mistakes.
    - keybored 1y ago
      These wars weren’t mistakes. The ruling class wanted them and got them.
    - LinXitoW 1y ago
      By your very own logic, I could argue that dictators have more carte blanche to make correct choices, where democracies are mired down by compromises and too many cooks in the kitchen.
      - bluGill 1y ago
        The possibility exists, but the reality is very different.
    - FpUser 1y ago
      >"The fact that democracies make mistakes..." Going to war and killing people is "a mistake". Let me rephrase it for you: The fact that democracies are the same murderous criminal fucks when it suits their goals as are dictators. Yes the have more problem having their population to approve it but do they give a flying fuck?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - refurb 1y ago
    I mean Vietnam was stopped? And Afghanistan? Korea the US never started.
maxglute 1y ago
Political reunification, i.e. land > people, see PRC saying "keep the island not the people". At this point no amphibious assault needed, just blockading TW and turning into gaza via mainland munitions now that starving masses is normalized is an option too.
- petesergeant 1y ago
  How do you turn an island into Gaza when the US is providing weapons to it, and not to the other side? Ukraine seems like it would be a better example.
  - maxglute 1y ago
    US+co essentially incapable of resupplying TW if PRC motivated to stranglehold blockade. TW is 15 times smaller than UKR, the quality of ISR and amount of munitions PRC can pour onto anywhere in the island and adjacent waters is also orders of magnitude more than RU and resupply via water and air is basically transparent vs myriad of obfuscated land routes UKR has, PRC can trivially locked down TW airstrips and ports from purely mainland platforms. Short distances involved = extremely rapid responses, as in not enough time to unload supplies - low single digit minutes from higher end PRC missiles... doesn't even need navy to enforce a kinetic blockade. TW also 98% dependant on energy imports, 70% on calories. Better example is Cuba, if US wanted to blockade Cuba or depopulate the island, there isn't anything anyone can do about it, i.e. PRC take out some power infra (refrigeration) and water treatment plants and island basically becomes Gaza in days. Ironically, if that happens the only actor with the logistics capability to sustain island with population of TW is PRC - US airlift capacity smaller than Berlin airlift and that was... for 2m vs 24m mouths. Which is why IMO all those new fancy landing barges likely going to be used for "humanitarian" relief - realistically no one in/out of region has the surplus to arbitrarily ramp up supplies for island of 24m... except PRC since that's ~1% of PRC population, almost rounding error vs covid0 mobilization.
    - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
      There isn’t anything could do about the US invading Cuba because no one has much of a blue water navy outside the US itself. Now granted, China is getting there but their navy is still mostly brown water (by design). And in any Taiwan / SCS conflict they would have an advantage because they can use their land assets, especially air force and land based anti ship rockets, on top of their navy. The US land bases in the region are few or dependent on the grace of the host countries. Depending on political situation they might not Ok strikes against China if a conflict occurs for fear of being drawn into the war and angering China if the US loses. The only one Id be 100% on is Japan, they’d fight China to the last.
Qwertious 1y ago
1) politics 2) breaking the US's submarine detection on the pacific, so now they can essentially slip unlimited undetected submarines into the pacific (and therefore the atlantic/indian) 3) being harder to navally blockade 4) disrupt the West's military chip advantage
- petesergeant 1y ago
  > breaking the US's submarine detection on the pacific This doesn’t really hold up when looking at a map that includes Okinawa and Batanes.

What is so attractive to attempt the greatest amphibious assault in human history just to get an island with a bunch of people who will hate you and have nowhere to run away.

Lu2025 1y ago

The thing about autocracies, there is nobody to stop an obviously wrong decision (for example, Russian invasion of Ukraine).

basilgohar 1y ago
Yes, because in Western democracies we were very successful at stopping invasions such as Iraq x2, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, etc.
- necovek 1y ago
  There is nobody to admit a bad decision and reverse course on it?
- jopsen 1y ago
  Think of all the wars we didn't have :) Democracies aren't perfect, but they can change, admit mistakes and adapt.
  - blackoil 1y ago
    I think it is other way round. In a democracy ideas are ingrained in public psyche for support. Be it Muslims/Jews/Christians good/bad, immigrants evil, abortion bad all become part of a large percentage of people's belief and changing that requires equally herculean efforts. In autocracy, people are generally kept aloof of such decisions so you can always switch enemies from Eurasia to Eastasia and no one cares. In case of China, the value of Taiwan/Arunachal/... is mostly egoistical, based on some notion that Qing China boundaries must be restored. If tomorrow a new leadership comes and makes EU kind of setup with Taiwan, people will have no say and most won't care.
- Nevermark 1y ago
  The fact that democracies make mistakes, isn't an argument against dictators having more carte blanche to make mistakes. Any form of government is going to make mistakes.
  - keybored 1y ago
    These wars weren’t mistakes. The ruling class wanted them and got them.
  - LinXitoW 1y ago
    By your very own logic, I could argue that dictators have more carte blanche to make correct choices, where democracies are mired down by compromises and too many cooks in the kitchen.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      The possibility exists, but the reality is very different.
  - FpUser 1y ago
    >"The fact that democracies make mistakes..." Going to war and killing people is "a mistake". Let me rephrase it for you: The fact that democracies are the same murderous criminal fucks when it suits their goals as are dictators. Yes the have more problem having their population to approve it but do they give a flying fuck?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- refurb 1y ago
  I mean Vietnam was stopped? And Afghanistan? Korea the US never started.

maxglute 1y ago

Political reunification, i.e. land > people, see PRC saying "keep the island not the people". At this point no amphibious assault needed, just blockading TW and turning into gaza via mainland munitions now that starving masses is normalized is an option too.

petesergeant 1y ago
How do you turn an island into Gaza when the US is providing weapons to it, and not to the other side? Ukraine seems like it would be a better example.
- maxglute 1y ago
  US+co essentially incapable of resupplying TW if PRC motivated to stranglehold blockade. TW is 15 times smaller than UKR, the quality of ISR and amount of munitions PRC can pour onto anywhere in the island and adjacent waters is also orders of magnitude more than RU and resupply via water and air is basically transparent vs myriad of obfuscated land routes UKR has, PRC can trivially locked down TW airstrips and ports from purely mainland platforms. Short distances involved = extremely rapid responses, as in not enough time to unload supplies - low single digit minutes from higher end PRC missiles... doesn't even need navy to enforce a kinetic blockade. TW also 98% dependant on energy imports, 70% on calories. Better example is Cuba, if US wanted to blockade Cuba or depopulate the island, there isn't anything anyone can do about it, i.e. PRC take out some power infra (refrigeration) and water treatment plants and island basically becomes Gaza in days. Ironically, if that happens the only actor with the logistics capability to sustain island with population of TW is PRC - US airlift capacity smaller than Berlin airlift and that was... for 2m vs 24m mouths. Which is why IMO all those new fancy landing barges likely going to be used for "humanitarian" relief - realistically no one in/out of region has the surplus to arbitrarily ramp up supplies for island of 24m... except PRC since that's ~1% of PRC population, almost rounding error vs covid0 mobilization.
  - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
    There isn’t anything could do about the US invading Cuba because no one has much of a blue water navy outside the US itself. Now granted, China is getting there but their navy is still mostly brown water (by design). And in any Taiwan / SCS conflict they would have an advantage because they can use their land assets, especially air force and land based anti ship rockets, on top of their navy. The US land bases in the region are few or dependent on the grace of the host countries. Depending on political situation they might not Ok strikes against China if a conflict occurs for fear of being drawn into the war and angering China if the US loses. The only one Id be 100% on is Japan, they’d fight China to the last.

Qwertious 1y ago

1) politics 2) breaking the US's submarine detection on the pacific, so now they can essentially slip unlimited undetected submarines into the pacific (and therefore the atlantic/indian) 3) being harder to navally blockade 4) disrupt the West's military chip advantage

petesergeant 1y ago
> breaking the US's submarine detection on the pacific This doesn’t really hold up when looking at a map that includes Okinawa and Batanes.