RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
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User ID: 317
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
And China is only 70% food self sufficient, not 90+.
That's including luxuries, meat, lobsters and so on. Not just grains, which is what I am focused on. You can not have so much meat and still be food secure. But if you don't have primary staple crops like grains, then you starve.
This is my point with the pigs. The current overall food security numbers include the pigs and imports to feed them. So if imports are cut off and they slaughter pigs, their food needs go down. They've lost calorie imports but also lowered calorie demand by switching to a less meat-rich diet. Food security should not mean '% of all peacetime food that can be produced domestically' but '% of minimum food necessary to avoid health problems'. The former includes unnecessary and expensive things that are fun to eat, the latter is like the WW2 ration cards you learn about at school.
And imports aren't totally cut off because they have land trade partners who they can buy from instead, at a higher price and with lower throughput. So as I said above, unlike Taiwan China has land imports and food security on grains.
Has Russia struggled with farm equipment? No, not really. Why would China struggle? In 'other agricultural machinery' China exports more than they import, same with machinery excluding tractors:
https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/other-agricultural-machinery/reporter/chn
https://oec.world/en/profile/sitc/agricultural-machinery-excluding-tractors-and-parts-thereof-nes
Including Tractors is paywalled but I expect it says the same thing, China is apparently a 'fast growing exporter': https://oec.world/en/profile/egw/agricultural-machinery-incl-tractors
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
That is patently ridiculous, since the Chinese cannot project force even to Kinmen much less to Taiwan, Korea or Japan.
OK, they haven't seized Kinmen. Either this might be because they can't or they don't want to. We know they employed a 'hide and bide' strategy for decades, they have a capacity for patience. Why would they blow their load on Kinmen before they're ready to attack Taiwan? And what do you mean by 'project force' - they can surely bomb and land troops there. It's only that doing so might be risky and they don't judge it to be cost-efficient right now. Like how the US might choose not to invade Iran.
If I were a Chinese strategist, I would wait until the balance of power was most favourable before taking any big risks. They've antagonized and bullied a lot of their neighbours, sure. But they also secured some gains from that - bases in the South China Sea. That's useful real estate, albeit hard to supply.
not contesting US interests in Northeast or Southeast Asia in a meaningful way
Isn't pounding Guam with missiles a threat to the US? Yokohama? Taiwan and South Korea are within sieging range. The North Korean military may not be great but they do have a lot of mass. With Chinese air power and a group army or two they'd eventually wear the South Koreans down. South Korea is very strong and it would be hard fighting but I expect China could force some kind of major concessions on the South, if only by constraining their ability to import food and energy for their war effort. They might aim for the ejection of US troops (I suspect the whole conflict might spring out of THAAD's relevance to Taiwan scenarios and other US capabilities there), access to naval bases, preferential access to semiconductors. Being a near-nuclear power is enough to escape annexation but they are facing 2-3 bigger nuclear powers. Can you really escalate to nuclear warfare over terms like that, Finlandization+?
In the 1950s, China was able to 'project force' in Korea, they even captured Seoul at one point. And that was when the US had overwhelming air superiority, artillery superiority, tank superiority, logistics, uncontested sea control. Why do you have such a low opinion of Chinese capabilities? It's a very big country full of pretty smart people, they're naturally powerful even when poor and undeveloped. They're not poor and undeveloped anymore.
If they can bully South Korea into quitting the war and bully Taiwan into being annexed, that alone would be a victory for China and a pretty massive blow for America.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
“Everybody assumed that you had to seize a port first. That those [ferries] were second echelon forces… Somebody else has got to seize the port,” he said. “2021 was the first time we saw them dump amphibious assault vehicles right into the water, which means now those ferries can be the first echelon sending assault units straight to the beach.“
You underestimate the Chinese to your peril. This is the biggest shipbuilder in the world. Is it hard to produce a transport that can disgorge landing craft and amphibious tanks? No. They can do this. You should inherently assume they can do this because it's pretty straightforward. Why is your model of China a country that lacks these basic capabilities? They can build a space station but they can't build a fancy car freighter?
Do I think they can succeed in an amphibious invasion of Taiwan right at the start of the war? No. But it's not that the Chinese military is 'crap', it's that it's a very tough operation they've never tried before. Nor has the US. The US has not fought a major power at sea since 1945.
Chinese amphibious capacity is less than 10 ships, which provides less than 1000 soldiers per trip.
One Type 075 can transport about 800 soldiers. They have 3 in service. They have a host of other amphibious warfare ships as well, type 072s and others... Many, many more than 10. Where are you getting these numbers from? They have an enormous amount of usable civilian capacity.
I can tell by your diction you have some experience here, normal people don't say tube artillery. We are looking at a very serious conflict with a very strong power. The Western world is not well-served by wildly inaccurate and overconfident denigrations of adversaries.
Consider just how much Chinese technology has infiltrated port infrastructure. We need to treat this threat with deadly seriousness, otherwise I suspect there will be a lot of unpleasant surprises in our future.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Yeah I leant B for a moment before concluding D was a better fit. These kinds of multiple choice questions should really be short answer questions. There's a reason that multiple choice only appears in tests and nowhere else in life!
But Illinois 8th graders or most people generally are pretty stupid.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-19801666
A total of 97 MPs were asked this probability problem: if you spin a coin twice, what is the probability of getting two heads?*
Among Conservative members, 47% gave the wrong answer, which is disappointing enough. But of the 44 Labour MPs who took part, 77% answered incorrectly.
This is the pool of people who are allegedly, constitutionally, supposed to run government departments providing services to tens of millions. They control billions of dollars. Come on!
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
What they import from the US is mainly soybeans for animal feed, not grain. The US is the cheapest producer of soybeans but not the only producer. If they go to war and seabound trade is cut off, China can still trade with Russia and Central Asia to partially make up for seabound imports.
Food prices will rise, they'll have to eat much less meat and ration but I expect they can manage that. Britain and Germany did in WW2. It's possible to rationalize food production, cut waste, convert parks to vegetables and so on. But the key thing is grain, rice, corn, the staple crops. Everything else is a luxury. As long as there is sufficient production and distribution of grain, nobody will starve. China is nearly self-sufficient in grain without rationing and they still have options to import by land. Thus I conclude they can withstand a long war.
The insecure countries are the ones with very low ratios of self-sufficiency, the ones that can't meet their own grain requirements. Taiwan actually will starve, there's nothing they can do to catch up from a starting point in the 20% range on grains. Especially without fertilizer (where China is a net exporter) and electricity.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Pigs need calories, they're less efficient than grain for feeding people. By killing pigs you reduce overall calorie needs and create a temporary windfall, regardless of whether the feedstock is sourced from domestically or overseas. All forms of meat are innately less efficient than vegetables and grain in terms of land use, that's why meat is expensive!
Whatever problems China has in agriculture and domestic self-sufficiency, Taiwan is worse off. China is friends with Russia, the biggest fertilizer exporter on the planet. China is the biggest fertilizer producer in the world, 3rd biggest exporter. They export more fertilizer than they import.
https://www.worldstopexports.com/top-fertilizers-imports-by-country/
https://www.worldstopexports.com/top-fertilizers-exports-by-country/
I don't think fertilizer is going to be a problem for China, or agricultural machinery. How can the biggest car manufacturer in the world lack tractors?
Sure enough China exports more tractors than they import: https://www.worldstopexports.com/top-tractors-exports-by-country/
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
I think the risk of war is high (perhaps not within 12 months but within a few years). However, I think the chance of an immediate invasion like everyone is preparing for is much lower.
Amphibious invasions are very hard, especially against a prepared defender (they'll see it coming with modern satellites). The Chinese have specialized marine brigades that are tasked for this mission, they're definitely aiming for the capability to invade. They trained many more marines even as the army was downsized in manpower terms. But actually invading and landing are very challenging tasks.
China's great advantage is in industrial and attritional warfare. They have enormous industrial capacity, their manufacturing sector is roughly equal to the US, Germany and Japan combined. They want to wage war in such a way that leverages this capacity to the utmost. While China's been expanding its marine corps, they've also been putting a lot of effort into missiles. They tested more missiles in 2021 than the rest of the world IIRC. They don't want to fight the US in the skies and seas up close, they want to fling hundreds and thousands of missiles at US airbases, ports and ships before they can even reach the battlefield. They want to most efficiently turn their production advantage to a military advantage by turning this into a missile war. I think their strategy for Taiwan is to pound it with missiles, airstrikes and drones. They'll wait for months before landing, waiting for the defenders to get exhausted by the bombing.
At the same time, attrition will take its toll on Taiwan. Taiwan is about 30% food secure, China is 90-95% secure on grains with huge stockpiles. China takes food extremely seriously. Taiwan is innately crippled by geography, it's a tiny mountainous rock in the ocean that also has to import fertilizer by sea.
Taiwan has no energy production, in 2021 Taiwan relied on imports of fossil fuels for 97.7 percent of its total energy supply. China is about 80% energy sufficient (this is mostly coal) and they produce 25% of the oil they need. They can import another 10-15% from Russia. In addition, they have about 100 days worth of oil stockpiled. That's enough oil for military needs. I believe they have the state capacity to ration domestic civilian oil use and scramble up more supply from Russia. In WW2 the US quickly built pipelines to take oil from Texas to the industrial North, they used barges and trains and all kinds of tricks.
All the wargaming for Taiwan seems to focus on a period of a few weeks, a quick invasion. This is rosy, optimistic thinking for a great power war. This is WW3! It won't last for a few weeks, it will take years like all the other great power wars. Germany fought through famine in WW1, they fought through energy scarcity in WW2. Highly determined states will find a way, they'll synthesize oil and ration. I think we underestimate Chinese nationalism at our peril, there's a great deal of resentment of the West and hatred especially for Japan. It will be very hard for anyone to oppose the war given they'll be fighting Japan and the West in the world's most secured and propagandized police state.
The fait accompli quick-invasion strategy relies on a very high level of coordination and excellence from those forces in the field today. China probably doesn't have that confidence. Industrial warfare only requires that they have huge production capacity and the ability to learn. An industrial, attritional strategy doesn't require that Chinese marines seize enough ports without damaging them too much, that their airforce can defend the landing craft, that they can quickly resupply forces...
Attrition puts the onus on us. We have to resupply Taiwan with food and energy lest they capitulate. They will surely capitulate before China capitulates, even if you think my estimates for Chinese self-sufficiency are inaccurate, they can't be so far off that China is behind Taiwan. We have to penetrate the Chinese anti-access, area-denial grid, escorting supply ships and docking them in Taiwanese ports! We have to resupply South Korea and Japan too, who are in similar (but much better) positions to Taiwan. We have to endure a withering barrage of missiles before we even get to contest the airspace and sea. We will have to mobilize our economies and accept massive casualties to fight China over several years or accept defeat.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Taiwan is also important as an airbase and submarine base for China, as territory that needs to be denied to the US bloc. If they want to do anything more in the Pacific they need that territory free of enemy forces, radar, missiles... If they have Taiwan, then they also control trade routes and energy imports from the Middle East to Japan and South Korea.
There's also a political aspect to it, they wanted the island well before semiconductors to properly conclude the Chinese Civil War. Plus the pool of human capital that manages the semiconductor production is also quite valuable, Operation Paperclipping them would be helpful for Chinese semiconductor efforts.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
No, they absolutely do not. The food China imports by sea is mostly soybeans to feed to pigs, they're secure on grains for about 90-95% overall self-sufficiency. At the start of major war you slaughter herds to reduce calorie needs in the short-term, that's standard practice. Maybe a little rationing takes place, China is fine.
Plus China can import overland from Russia. Their energy situation is more serious but they have non-trivial domestic oil production, some storage and enormous coal capacity. The Chinese government has put enormous effort into food and energy self-sufficiency, electric vehicles, massive subsidies and so on. If they're not exporting manufactured goods then their energy needs will fall significantly too.
Taiwan is the one that starves. Their food self-sufficiency is something like 20-30%, not 90%. Their energy self sufficiency is 0. Even South Korea and Japan are much worse off than China, they're effectively islands with less food security and no easy imports.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Kulak wrote a long essay about why Supreme Commander Forged Alliance was the greatest RTS ever made. On pure probabilities, interest in niche decade-old RTS games has to be amongst the most manly topics. Just look at his twitter and substack: war, evolutionary psychology, Hitler, motorcycles and libertarianism!
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Which longtime posters were banned recently? I don't even know, there used to be a weekly thread about who got banned in the last week.
All I can think of was Hiynka and he's a far-out third (fourth?) positionist calling 80% of the political spectrum progressives.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Nobody says this for anything else. Nobody says "oh cars in the old days were terrible, fuel-inefficient, slow and unreliable plus you were likely to be mangled if you crashed, there was no GPS or aircon and that's why their price has soared enormously relative to household income." Cars got better and cheaper, electronics got better and cheaper, air travel got better and cheaper, textiles got better and cheaper, everything should get better and cheaper simultaneously. Car prices in the US have risen considerably in the last few years because Americans like buying big trucks but that's a national quirk, not a global trend. We see rapidly rising house prices in nearly all developed countries.
Housing is the anomaly and I blame financialization of housing stock, limiting supply to increase prices. Houses shouldn't be appreciating in value, they shouldn't be used as a store of value or an investment. There have been technological advances like prefabrication that brings production prices down. But prices stay high, in part due to regulations that sustain their use as a store-of-value by constricting supply.
The type of money we use doesn't really matter, it is just fake points we use to keep track of and divvy up resources.
That's it in a nutshell. Control the money supply and you control the resources. Print money, pass it on to banks and then to those favoured by banks, bail out banks if things go wrong, tax via inflation and it's all obfuscated through the complexity of the money printing system.
the world had just been wiped out and the USA was the last high tech manufacturing and industrial powerhouse standing
Suppose Europe and Asia are intensively bombed and hundreds of millions are killed tomorrow, would this be good for the US economy? Or Canada and Australia? No! Prosperity is not derived from the destruction of others, there's not much point trading with desperate and impoverished people. US postwar prosperity stemmed from technological advancement, good regulatory conditions and rapidly increasing capital stock, including housing. Britain and France did well postwar. Japan did well postwar too. Germany did well. All but Japan had baby booms.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Imagine if homes cost what they cost in the 1950s or 1960s when the US dollar and thus all currencies was tied to gold, before the moneyprinting extravaganza! https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/
You could marry easily, casually buy a home as a low-skilled worker and pay it off quickly.
Across the West we had house prices falling compared to household incomes up until the early 1970s, then they treaded water before rising continually. That was the exact time the gold standard was buried. At the same time, household incomes were rising as women entered the workforce. Houses have been getting more expensive since we left gold. At the same time, houses have gotten a bit larger and a bit better but not that much better (and they should have been getting cheaper due to technology as well). Houses turned from a mass-manufactured good into investments, fertility rates have nose-dived and there's huge wealth transfer from young to old. The old were lucky enough to buy before the full effects of moneyprinting kicked in.
Mostly with a mortgage that is always getting cheaper to pay
Not if central bankers get caught with their pants down and jack up interest rates from 3% to about 7% when they realize they printed too much. The US is getting dangerously close to fiscal dominance where accumulated debt becomes too expensive to allow high interest rates, ending in persistently high inflation.
What is a "real lender"
Someone who's not a central bank. The US has been issuing more bonds than there is demand for, so the Fed bought back the bonds with printed money, increasing inflation.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Some element might be cultural. Britain dominates the high end of very sophisticated TV programs. Consider University Challenge, Mastermind or Only Connect. These are very hard questions! There's also Yes Minister.
American TV seems to be courser. Even early Veep used much cruder language than Yes Minister. By late Veep it gets ridiculous, they're constantly trying to one-up themselves in crassness. The Thick of It is a bit more contemporary than Yes Minister yet also has a certain level of groundedness and seriousness that Veep lacks. Ianucci made both, there seems to be a US desire for heightened drama and rudeness over pure wordplay.
I can't find an American equivalent to University Challenge, only 'Are you smarter than a 5th grader' and 'Jeopardy' which is understandably less sophisticated. Ironically University Challenge was a copy of the American College Bowl, perhaps things were different in the past.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Yes, I want deflationary money. Right now it pays to leave money in the bank, not very much but it does. If everyone did that, the economy would implode. The economy works on the principle that people want more than measly 1-2% returns, they want lots more money so they invest it and lend it out, accepting some risk. Furthermore, the economy is inherently supposed to be deflationary, that's what technology does. Prices are supposed to fall.
People don't go 'oh I need a dishwasher, I will wait 6 months for them to become 1% cheaper', that's not real human behaviour. People want things now so they buy them now, often without even needing them.
Inflationary money pumps up huge asset bubbles, immiserating those of us who need homes (all but a few). Inflationary money is exploited by governments and central banks for political advantage. It funds stupid and unnecessary wars without obviously raising taxes or taking on real debt from real lenders. It is a huge boon to special interests and a cost on the general public.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Brave gives me:
According to the search results, the answer is no, cockroaches cannot live in your penis. The information provided suggests that the claim that cockroaches can live in the human penis is a myth or a joke. The search results show that this claim has been debunked and is not supported by scientific evidence.
Here are some key points:
A Reddit post from 2022 states that cockroaches can live in your penis, but this is likely a joke or a misconception.
A 2024 article states that cockroaches do not live in the human penis and that the claim is false.
A Google search for “Can cockroaches live in your penis?” does not yield any credible results suggesting that cockroaches can live in the human penis.
A 2023 article states that cockroaches do not live in the human penis and that the claim is a myth.
In conclusion, there is no credible evidence to suggest that cockroaches can live in your penis. It is important to rely on credible sources of information and to be cautious of misinformation and myths.
And all of that is right, that's the origin of the meme, though ironically it cites google in support. I don't know if Brave is foolproof, maybe it has problems. But my experience is that it's usually pretty astute, its errors aren't hugely embarassing. Brave is a company running on a shoe-string budget, Google is supposed to be an AI titan. Their TPUs are supposed to be amazing, they're supposed to be in their own little sovereign corner. They have non-NVIDIA tech, scaling out on a different supply chain that makes them an AI juggernaut. Or so I read. But in reality, ChadGPT smashes them time and time again. Even Brave's rinky-dink open-source tech seems to work fine while Google is making a fool of themselves.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
The distribution of taxes is important. There was no income tax at this point, the main source of revenue for the whole country was taxing trade. The US tariff policy was designed to develop industries like metalworking, shielding them from superior British competition. It strengthened Northern industry by weakening foreign competition and some of the revenue went to developing infrastructure in the North, at least more than went to the South.
Effectively there was South-to-North wealth transfer, which made Southerners angry.
"Can cockroaches live in your penis?"
Google AI: Yes! It's totally normal too.
Is there some esoteric force sabotaging Google's AI projects?
First there was the black Vikings, now there are random silly screenshots from their search AI. I suspect much is inspect element related but the meme has been bouncing around. There's a thread here: https://x.com/JeremiahDJohns/status/1794543007129387208
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/cringe-worth-google-ai-overviews
I've been using Brave which has had a similar feature for some time. Brave's AI is generally useful and right 75% of the time, though you can never quite be sure. When it is wrong, it's never 'yes, doctors recommend you to smoke cigarettes while pregnant' tier wrong. I don't ask many questions that could be disturbingly wrong. Those who use google, are the silly results plausible, cherrypicked, invented? Is Microsoft using GPT-5 bots to sabotage the reputation of their competitors?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
OK, the dollar's doing poorly against bitcoin, shares, real estate and commodities (via inflation). It's roughly even on silver and doing badly against gold.
The only thing the dollar compares well against is other currencies (which are fundamentally the same kind of thing). So a dollar v anything chart would not prove that the dollar was strong, as your argument suggests. Unless by anything you just mean currencies.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
It's not doing so well against Bitcoin.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Zeihan thought that China was just about to collapse for the last 15-20 years.
Look at what he says here:
https://www.businessinsider.com/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1#iran-pacified-6
Iran pacified, China implodes, US ascendant. If you squint at it he gets some things right (India and Africa irrelevant, Russian movement towards Europe). Other things are dubious, Turkey as regional leader? Maybe, sort of? But the key trend of that decade was the continued growth of China in all domains. He was effectively all in on China shorts and should have lost all his reputational currency with that biggest and most failed investment.
He doesn't deserve any more reputational capital.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Encouraging economic policies that were good for cotton plantations but not for your wheat crop?
I recall that during this period, US tariff policies meant that much of government spending was funded by Southerners importing foreign luxury goods at a mark-up. This money would then be spent on many things, including developing railways in the North. Northern industries were shielded from foreign competition while the South had to compete in world markets. This made the South quite angry, causing one of the many pre-war crises. There was a long struggle with different parties raising and lowering tariffs, Lincoln's Republican Party was elected on a platform of raising tariffs significantly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_Abominations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_crisis
This is not to say that slavery was not a primary contributor to the war but there were a range of issues causing division.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Supporting nuclear proliferation to countries that a party is actively trying to prevent from having nuclear weapons
It's not like this is traditional proliferation. A huge number of Soviet nuclear weapons ended up in Ukraine with messy questions of PALs and operational control, especially of bombers. There's a distinction between the US sponsoring Ukrainian nuclear weapons like with Britain and simply not pressuring them to denuclearize. The latter is much less aggressive. Furthermore, the US had more freedom to impose upon Russia in the mid-1990s than the late 2000s, for obvious reasons. Creating a favourable status quo in the 1990s but not continuing to prod the bear has advantages. Incorporating the militarily weak and hard to defend Baltics is much less reasonable, long-term costs for negligible gains. Then consider the frankly sadistic-in-retrospect policy of prodding Ukraine into denuclearizing, then wooing them towards the West (without actually promising to defend them), incentivizing Russia to maul the country and derail such efforts.
Likewise with Taiwanese nuclearization. The US quashed that twice. I imagine there's regret floating around in Washington over that decision, if the self-consciousness for regret exists.
this was rather the point you were being led to in the original contestation of your original framing
I said Russia had air superiority for the 2023 counteroffensive and that they had extensively fortified and prepared for a Ukrainian attack in that area (it was telegraphed not merely via satellite imaging but also being the obvious route for any Ukrainian attack). Most people agree with this. This was in service to my broader point that the celebrated NATO generals who expected a successful counterattack were foolish, they seemed to expect the Russian army to disintegrate upon contact with NATO-supplied armour.
You said first that Russia didn't have air superiority, they were merely dropping glide bombs, using attack helicopters (where have the Ukrainian attack helicopters gone I wonder) and drones. You then said that I wasn't using the doctrinal term correctly when I pointed out how you were necessarily changing the goalposts by taking 'air superiority' well beyond the realms of common sense. Then you said I was motte-and-baileying regarding the distinction between air superiority and air supremacy.
Here's US doctrine: https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/doctrine_updates/du_17_01.pdf?ver=2017-09-17-113839-373
Air Superiority is that degree of control of the air by one force that permits the conduct of its operations at a given time and place without prohibitive interference from air and missile threats.
The Ukrainians received prohibitive interference from Russian airpower during their counteroffensive, from Ka-52s for instance. The Russian defence was not similarly pounded by Ukrainian airpower.
Here's another article saying the Russians had air superiority: https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-31/ka-52-alligator-the-russian-helicopter-slowing-ukraines-counteroffensive-in-the-south.html
I can find more if you like!
the on-paper strength of the Europezns is not their real power level
Sure, the German army is weak. The Europeans don't have much ammunition relative to force size. I'll even say that the Ukrainian army might be the strongest army in Europe aside from Russia and maybe Turkey. But the combined power of all the European states is much much greater than Ukraine's! They actually have navies and even aircraft carriers. They have nuclear weapons. Yes, nuclear weapons are relevant to military power, they render the whole idea of a Russian invasion ridiculous. There is no plausible gain for a Russian invasion of Europe that outweighs the high risk of a nuclear exchange, even a nuclear exchange they 'win'.
You started off saying "Russia can have more military power than Europe, but not more than Ukraine with European support" then quickly shifted to 'land force power' and mass when I pointed out the vast difference in air power, naval power and nuclear power. Navies and air forces are relevant here. And just consider the military potential! Ukraine has 36 million at most. Europe has about 500 million. Please stop trying to twist your words around to justify these silly positions.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
predicting that Russia was peaceful in its intentions and should be courted as a reliable ally against China
did your standard vatnik cope of 'Russia clearly had a grand plan when they attacked with their weak forces, look at me I'm so smart.
He didn't say this. Mearsheimer:
Alexander Grushko, then Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said, “Georgia’s and Ukraine’s membership in the alliance is a huge strategic mistake which would have most serious consequences for pan-European security.” Putin maintained that admitting those two countries to NATO would represent a “direct threat” to Russia. One Russian newspaper reported that Putin, while speaking with Bush, “very transparently hinted that if Ukraine was accepted into NATO, it would cease to exist.”
Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008 should have dispelled any remaining doubts about Putin’s determination to prevent Georgia and Ukraine from joining NATO
Next, Putin put massive pressure on the new government in Kiev to discourage it from siding with the West against Moscow, making it clear that he would wreck Ukraine as a functioning state before he would allow it to become a Western stronghold on Russia’s doorstep.
He then said that, before the Russians started sanction-proofing, the Russian military and economy was too weak to conquer Eastern Ukraine. And that's basically correct, they haven't easily conquered Eastern Ukraine!
Russia lacks the capability to easily conquer and annex eastern Ukraine, much less the entire country. Roughly 15 million people—one-third of Ukraine’s population—live between the Dnieper River, which bisects the country, and the Russian border. An overwhelming majority of those people want to remain part of Ukraine and would surely resist a Russian occupation. Furthermore, Russia’s mediocre army, which shows few signs of turning into a modern Wehrmacht, would have little chance of pacifying all of Ukraine.
He foresaw basically everything ten years in advance! He clearly knows more than I do, I thought the war would end much sooner. John "Cassandra" Mearsheimer was consistently proven right in the past. I trust he'll be right now that he's had extra time to analyse recent events.
Food security should not mean '% of all peacetime food that is produced domestically' but '% of minimum food produced necessary to avoid health problems'. Rising demand means people wanting better Australian lobster, extra grain or preferring foreign milk to domestic milk (for admittedly understandable reasons), not that China is incapable of providing enough grain or whatever is needed to sustain its population and workforce.
If grain from overseas is cut off they can buy from Russia and Central Asia instead. They can rationalize production away from wine or whatever else they grow. They can eat into stockpiles. They can rationalize consumption. The existence of significant obesity in China proves that peacetime consumption is higher than needed.
Britain imported 60% of its food in 1939 yet found ways to cope with an imperfect blockade. China can do the same because their actual food security is not the same as domestic production as a % of peacetime food consumption.
They can do all of these things way more than Taiwan can, in relative terms, which is why I maintain that food security is not a big problem for China like it is for Taiwan.
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