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> That’s because of the geopolitical and geostrategic necessity. Says who, clearly the US is trying to have that say but failing at it. > Can’t have another N

> That’s because of the geopolitical and geostrategic necessity. Says who, clearly the US is trying to have that say but failing at it. > Can’t have another North Korea and definitely can’t have one sitting on top of 20% of the world’s oil supply. Turns out you can. I have known our missile defense strategy wouldn’t last into the cheap missile / drone age for over 22 years. Before high tech I was military adjacent. The real reason the US can’t afford to lose in Iran is what that would say about Taiwan and would mean for its position as world hegemony. My main fear was that the US would start a conflict with China believing it could win and having it lose. Ironically Trumps bungling may have saved us from an even worse fate.

ericmay 6mo ago
> Says who, clearly the US is trying to have that say but failing at it. In what way has the US failed? People keep saying the US failed but I’m still confused as to what failure has occurred. > Turns out you can. Well the rest of the world could let it happen, and let other countries control maritime shipping lanes and exact tolls, but I think your statement is actually objectively false given the US bombed Iran and stopped whatever nuclear program they have, even if that turns out to be sort of temporary. > I have known our missile defense strategy wouldn’t last into the cheap missile / drone age for over 22 years. Before high tech The Pentagon knows this too, but you fight a war with the weapons you have while you work on new ones. > I was military adjacent. The real reason the US can’t afford to lose in Iran is what that would say about Taiwan and would mean for its position as world hegemony. My main fear was that the US would start a conflict with China believing it could win and having it lose. I was in the army on active duty including deploying to Iraq. The US isn’t/wasn’t going to start a war with China. Doesn’t make any sense. So no worries there. I think you’ve actually got it backwards. The worry was that China would start a war to seize Taiwan and, frankly, Putin saved us all by failing so hard at Ukraine. The US easily bypassing or destroying any Chinese and Russian air defense assets in countries like Venezuela or Iran has given the Chinese pause too. China has immense manufacturing capability. Probably #1 in the world. But their weakness is they have not fought a serious war or even a minor war in quite some time. The kinks you’re talking about, lessons learned, &c. Are things that the US has learned or is learning more about via conflicts in Ukraine and Iran and elsewhere. China has trained and tested but has not demonstrated any operational effectiveness when it comes to combined arms, and their equipment on paper is impressive but has yet to see meaningful action. Of course the Chinese know this too, but “how will the PLA perform” is a serious concern for the Commies.
- cjbgkagh 6mo ago
  Ahhh US army, that explains it. You know of the two main factions in US foreign policy, the primacists and the restrainers both seek conflict with China. The only difference being that the primacists wanted to win a war in Iran first to set up Israel as regional hegemony. We have a different read on objective reality, using the simple proxy of 'success has many fathers and failure is an orphan', not many people are taking credit for the war with Iran - so I take that as a sign of failure. The Pentagon is many years late on drone warfare and the whole incentive structure is set up for gold plated drones with the fat margins needed to buy lobbyists. Also I see much of the US Army as a make work program / pseudo welfare system still carrying on the great traditions of McNamara's morons. As the US declines it is in China's interest to wait and it is in the US interest to initiate the conflict while it can still potentially win. Taiwan is simply a way of getting the US to act in the ways China wants them to, there is no need for them to actually invade Taiwan to make that happen, but they do have to convincingly pretend like they will by constantly harassing them.
  - ericmay 6mo ago
    > not many people are taking credit for the war with Iran - so I take that as a sign of failure. Certainly an interesting point to think about, but I don't think it passes the smell test if for nothing else but that we've done successful things in the past and partisan politics will simply define those in a negative light purely to create wedge issues or distort reality. The President and others have gone way out of their way to claim success, of course it's Donald Trump, but nonetheless there are folks claiming success. But even so, it's sort of early. How long did it take until George Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and claimed Mission Accomplished? If anything folks are more cautious about claiming success precisely because of this backlash in the past. It's a nice heuristic but I wouldn't over-index on it, especially for anything Donald Trump does. Folks are still claiming failure over Venezuela despite that being a resounding success in all aspects. > The Pentagon is many years late on drone warfare and the whole incentive structure is set up for gold plated drones with the fat margins needed to buy lobbyists. Nah don't think so. I think you're just making stuff up here. Of course the Pentagon has historically worked with contractors and there's definitely some fat that needs to be trimmed, but the Pentagon has, certainly in response to the Ukraine war, though of course earlier too, been working on building lower cost drones, interceptors and other capabilities precisely because folks know this. New companies have been standing up to build cheaper, less complex missile and drone systems. It takes a little bit of time without intense pressure (a real real war) to do these things. We do tend to over-pay, but you could just argue other countries are actually under-paying. We know our stuff works, and we have demonstrated that time and time again. Maybe it's worth paying extra for that. Who wants to cut corners on fighter jets or missiles? I similarly reject, though to a lesser extent, the claims that laymen make around China and military corruption and purges and so forth. It can be true, but it's not the determining factor in how well the organization operates and is likely to, perhaps be systematic, but not likely to have such a large effect that it matters in the long run. It's just like hypersonic missiles. Hypersonic missile this hypersonic missiles that, drones this drones that - it's just what you hear on the news and folks for some reason misunderstand that other countries, whether that's China, Iran, or the United States can and do take action to address challenges and new capabilities. The world isn't stagnate. Your general lack of knowledge or awareness of military capabilities doesn't mean they don't exist or aren't in development or being tested. Obviously countries keep these things secret to the extent possible too. > As the US declines it is in China's interest to wait and it is in the US interest to initiate the conflict while it can still potentially win. Taiwan is simply a way of getting the US to act in the ways China wants them to, there is no need for them to actually invade Taiwan to make that happen, but they do have to convincingly pretend like they will by constantly harassing them. The military buildup that China is doing demonstrates that you're wrong, or at least they seriously believe they need the option to invade Taiwan. You're right about what China could do here, which is wait the US out by establishing increasingly dependent and positive ties between Taiwan and China and focus on a peaceful reunification via economic and political means. The problem is that Xi Jingping's viewpoint is more in line with Vladimir Putin's in that they are old people and they want to do something grand before they die and they have massive egos, like their buddy Donald Trump. That leads to mistakes, as Putin saw with Ukraine.
watwut 6mo ago
> The real reason the US can’t afford to lose in Iran is what that would say about Taiwan and would mean for its position as world hegemony. Taiwan situation is very clear regarless of Iran outcome. USA will leave it to China. And both China and Taiwan know it.

ericmay 6mo ago

> Says who, clearly the US is trying to have that say but failing at it. In what way has the US failed? People keep saying the US failed but I’m still confused as to what failure has occurred. > Turns out you can. Well the rest of the world could let it happen, and let other countries control maritime shipping lanes and exact tolls, but I think your statement is actually objectively false given the US bombed Iran and stopped whatever nuclear program they have, even if that turns out to be sort of temporary. > I have known our missile defense strategy wouldn’t last into the cheap missile / drone age for over 22 years. Before high tech The Pentagon knows this too, but you fight a war with the weapons you have while you work on new ones. > I was military adjacent. The real reason the US can’t afford to lose in Iran is what that would say about Taiwan and would mean for its position as world hegemony. My main fear was that the US would start a conflict with China believing it could win and having it lose. I was in the army on active duty including deploying to Iraq. The US isn’t/wasn’t going to start a war with China. Doesn’t make any sense. So no worries there. I think you’ve actually got it backwards. The worry was that China would start a war to seize Taiwan and, frankly, Putin saved us all by failing so hard at Ukraine. The US easily bypassing or destroying any Chinese and Russian air defense assets in countries like Venezuela or Iran has given the Chinese pause too. China has immense manufacturing capability. Probably #1 in the world. But their weakness is they have not fought a serious war or even a minor war in quite some time. The kinks you’re talking about, lessons learned, &c. Are things that the US has learned or is learning more about via conflicts in Ukraine and Iran and elsewhere. China has trained and tested but has not demonstrated any operational effectiveness when it comes to combined arms, and their equipment on paper is impressive but has yet to see meaningful action. Of course the Chinese know this too, but “how will the PLA perform” is a serious concern for the Commies.

cjbgkagh 6mo ago
Ahhh US army, that explains it. You know of the two main factions in US foreign policy, the primacists and the restrainers both seek conflict with China. The only difference being that the primacists wanted to win a war in Iran first to set up Israel as regional hegemony. We have a different read on objective reality, using the simple proxy of 'success has many fathers and failure is an orphan', not many people are taking credit for the war with Iran - so I take that as a sign of failure. The Pentagon is many years late on drone warfare and the whole incentive structure is set up for gold plated drones with the fat margins needed to buy lobbyists. Also I see much of the US Army as a make work program / pseudo welfare system still carrying on the great traditions of McNamara's morons. As the US declines it is in China's interest to wait and it is in the US interest to initiate the conflict while it can still potentially win. Taiwan is simply a way of getting the US to act in the ways China wants them to, there is no need for them to actually invade Taiwan to make that happen, but they do have to convincingly pretend like they will by constantly harassing them.
- ericmay 6mo ago
  > not many people are taking credit for the war with Iran - so I take that as a sign of failure. Certainly an interesting point to think about, but I don't think it passes the smell test if for nothing else but that we've done successful things in the past and partisan politics will simply define those in a negative light purely to create wedge issues or distort reality. The President and others have gone way out of their way to claim success, of course it's Donald Trump, but nonetheless there are folks claiming success. But even so, it's sort of early. How long did it take until George Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and claimed Mission Accomplished? If anything folks are more cautious about claiming success precisely because of this backlash in the past. It's a nice heuristic but I wouldn't over-index on it, especially for anything Donald Trump does. Folks are still claiming failure over Venezuela despite that being a resounding success in all aspects. > The Pentagon is many years late on drone warfare and the whole incentive structure is set up for gold plated drones with the fat margins needed to buy lobbyists. Nah don't think so. I think you're just making stuff up here. Of course the Pentagon has historically worked with contractors and there's definitely some fat that needs to be trimmed, but the Pentagon has, certainly in response to the Ukraine war, though of course earlier too, been working on building lower cost drones, interceptors and other capabilities precisely because folks know this. New companies have been standing up to build cheaper, less complex missile and drone systems. It takes a little bit of time without intense pressure (a real real war) to do these things. We do tend to over-pay, but you could just argue other countries are actually under-paying. We know our stuff works, and we have demonstrated that time and time again. Maybe it's worth paying extra for that. Who wants to cut corners on fighter jets or missiles? I similarly reject, though to a lesser extent, the claims that laymen make around China and military corruption and purges and so forth. It can be true, but it's not the determining factor in how well the organization operates and is likely to, perhaps be systematic, but not likely to have such a large effect that it matters in the long run. It's just like hypersonic missiles. Hypersonic missile this hypersonic missiles that, drones this drones that - it's just what you hear on the news and folks for some reason misunderstand that other countries, whether that's China, Iran, or the United States can and do take action to address challenges and new capabilities. The world isn't stagnate. Your general lack of knowledge or awareness of military capabilities doesn't mean they don't exist or aren't in development or being tested. Obviously countries keep these things secret to the extent possible too. > As the US declines it is in China's interest to wait and it is in the US interest to initiate the conflict while it can still potentially win. Taiwan is simply a way of getting the US to act in the ways China wants them to, there is no need for them to actually invade Taiwan to make that happen, but they do have to convincingly pretend like they will by constantly harassing them. The military buildup that China is doing demonstrates that you're wrong, or at least they seriously believe they need the option to invade Taiwan. You're right about what China could do here, which is wait the US out by establishing increasingly dependent and positive ties between Taiwan and China and focus on a peaceful reunification via economic and political means. The problem is that Xi Jingping's viewpoint is more in line with Vladimir Putin's in that they are old people and they want to do something grand before they die and they have massive egos, like their buddy Donald Trump. That leads to mistakes, as Putin saw with Ukraine.

watwut 6mo ago

> The real reason the US can’t afford to lose in Iran is what that would say about Taiwan and would mean for its position as world hegemony. Taiwan situation is very clear regarless of Iran outcome. USA will leave it to China. And both China and Taiwan know it.