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The lesson from Ukraine is the importance of having access to drones. It doesn't take any remarkable mental feats to realize that if your primary source of dron

by jjk166 9mo ago

The lesson from Ukraine is the importance of having access to drones. It doesn't take any remarkable mental feats to realize that if your primary source of drones is China, then that access may not be reliable in the event of conflict with China.

mothballed 9mo ago
Reducing the diversity of your supply chain and instead making your self so incredibly vulnerable that all an adversary has to do is fubar your own domestic supply chain (because imports have long been banned) is way less robust than maintaining imports. If you actually wanted what you claim, you'd allow imports while taxing or subsidizing until they look roughly break even with domestic offerings.
- jjk166 9mo ago
  > all an adversary has to do is fubar your own domestic supply chain "All you need to do to defeat the US is completely destroy its entire industrial base"
  - mothballed 9mo ago
    Your position is completely untenable here and relies on it being easier to destroy multiple 'industrial bases' plus the US drone industry rather than your straw man of just the "entire" US industrial base. Even going off your theory that the US drone industry is not easily sabotaged, it can't possibly be easier to sabotage the US drone industry plus all the import pathways (which you would otherwise have to re-establish). That is why you chose this dismissive fake-quote rather than address what I've said.
    - jjk166 9mo ago
      I am not arguing it is easier to destroy the world's industrial capacity than just the US industrial capacity. I am saying that in the situation where you have so utterly devastated the US mainland that it is incapable of producing drones, the war is over. If you defeat the US then you defeat the US. Of course I am rather dismissive of the claim that this is a small feat. I accuse you of not fully thinking through what exactly it would take to fubar domestic drone production.
      - mothballed 9mo ago
        I see, you think my argument is moot because a successful sabotage or halt of domestic drone production is a victory condition for war. It's an interesting strategy to sidestep the conversation; rather than acknowledging the superiority of having redundant international supply chain you can just suggest it doesn't really matter anyway if US drone capacity is gone because at that point the war is lost. I don't see the evidence for why this must be true, whether you think it is a 'small feat' or not.
        jjk166 9mo ago
        > I see, you think my argument is moot because a successful sabotage or halt of domestic drone production is a victory condition for war. No, I claimed that to fubar the domestic supply chain was a victory condition of the war. Sabotage can be repaired or bypassed, halts can be unhalted. But to fuck up beyond all reason the US domestic industrial capacity, i.e. to render it so that it can not assemble basic electronics of the sort that are used in drones at all with no ability to get production back online within a strategically meaningful period of time, yes that means the war is over. At that point drones are the least of our concerns. Everything you are fighting for has already been destroyed, the death toll is already catastrophic, the enemy is clearly superior by a massive factor, continued fighting at that point would be suicide. Now I am not arguing that a redundant international supply chain is a bad thing, I am opposed to banning all foreign drone firms. But that being said, the claim that it is obviously superior is the extraordinary claim requiring evidence. As we clearly saw in 2020, international supply chains are incredibly vulnerable to disruption. Can you be confident that a foreign nation supplying us drones would be on our side in the event of a major conflict? Would all of their suppliers be on our side? Even if they are all on our side, would they be able to ship materials and products between themselves and to us unimpeded? Would they still be able and willing to do so when we are being beat so bad that our domestic industry has collapsed? A strong international supply chain is a good supplement to domestic production capacity, but the claim it is a superior alternative can not be taken as a given.
        mothballed 9mo ago
  - dylan604 9mo ago
    Are you suggesting to attack China, as that's the US' industrial base
    - jjk166 9mo ago
      Can you explain to me the thought process of how you got from my comment to yours?
dylan604 9mo ago
> then that access may not be reliable in the event of conflict with China. Some might call that poor pre-planning. If you're about to go to war with your biggest supplier, you'd be well advised to stock up on supplies before firing the first shot.

by jjk166 9mo ago

mothballed 9mo ago

Reducing the diversity of your supply chain and instead making your self so incredibly vulnerable that all an adversary has to do is fubar your own domestic supply chain (because imports have long been banned) is way less robust than maintaining imports. If you actually wanted what you claim, you'd allow imports while taxing or subsidizing until they look roughly break even with domestic offerings.

jjk166 9mo ago
> all an adversary has to do is fubar your own domestic supply chain "All you need to do to defeat the US is completely destroy its entire industrial base"
- mothballed 9mo ago
  Your position is completely untenable here and relies on it being easier to destroy multiple 'industrial bases' plus the US drone industry rather than your straw man of just the "entire" US industrial base. Even going off your theory that the US drone industry is not easily sabotaged, it can't possibly be easier to sabotage the US drone industry plus all the import pathways (which you would otherwise have to re-establish). That is why you chose this dismissive fake-quote rather than address what I've said.
  - jjk166 9mo ago
    I am not arguing it is easier to destroy the world's industrial capacity than just the US industrial capacity. I am saying that in the situation where you have so utterly devastated the US mainland that it is incapable of producing drones, the war is over. If you defeat the US then you defeat the US. Of course I am rather dismissive of the claim that this is a small feat. I accuse you of not fully thinking through what exactly it would take to fubar domestic drone production.
    - mothballed 9mo ago
      I see, you think my argument is moot because a successful sabotage or halt of domestic drone production is a victory condition for war. It's an interesting strategy to sidestep the conversation; rather than acknowledging the superiority of having redundant international supply chain you can just suggest it doesn't really matter anyway if US drone capacity is gone because at that point the war is lost. I don't see the evidence for why this must be true, whether you think it is a 'small feat' or not.
      - jjk166 9mo ago
        > I see, you think my argument is moot because a successful sabotage or halt of domestic drone production is a victory condition for war. No, I claimed that to fubar the domestic supply chain was a victory condition of the war. Sabotage can be repaired or bypassed, halts can be unhalted. But to fuck up beyond all reason the US domestic industrial capacity, i.e. to render it so that it can not assemble basic electronics of the sort that are used in drones at all with no ability to get production back online within a strategically meaningful period of time, yes that means the war is over. At that point drones are the least of our concerns. Everything you are fighting for has already been destroyed, the death toll is already catastrophic, the enemy is clearly superior by a massive factor, continued fighting at that point would be suicide. Now I am not arguing that a redundant international supply chain is a bad thing, I am opposed to banning all foreign drone firms. But that being said, the claim that it is obviously superior is the extraordinary claim requiring evidence. As we clearly saw in 2020, international supply chains are incredibly vulnerable to disruption. Can you be confident that a foreign nation supplying us drones would be on our side in the event of a major conflict? Would all of their suppliers be on our side? Even if they are all on our side, would they be able to ship materials and products between themselves and to us unimpeded? Would they still be able and willing to do so when we are being beat so bad that our domestic industry has collapsed? A strong international supply chain is a good supplement to domestic production capacity, but the claim it is a superior alternative can not be taken as a given.
        mothballed 9mo ago
- dylan604 9mo ago
  Are you suggesting to attack China, as that's the US' industrial base
  - jjk166 9mo ago
    Can you explain to me the thought process of how you got from my comment to yours?

dylan604 9mo ago

> then that access may not be reliable in the event of conflict with China. Some might call that poor pre-planning. If you're about to go to war with your biggest supplier, you'd be well advised to stock up on supplies before firing the first shot.