Shrike
8mo ago
I think drones are plenty scary, but Noah's analysis [more drones = winner] kinda misses that the DJI drones are much more relevant in a land war. At sea they have a lot of value as a day-zero strike weapon but after that are close to being useless because of their limited range.
if the US and China go to war, and the conflict isn't resolved in the first couple of days, then the US will lose
The way I see it is that longer the war goes, the more important submarines get. Submarines are extremely good at killing ships, but they're not particularly fast. The US probably still has a decent qualitative edge in submarines. If the conflict isn't decided quickly (it will almost certainly take longer than a couple of days for it to resolve, but in theory a decisive blow against e.g. Taiwan could be struck practically in a single day) than it probably means that China has failed to take Taiwan in a timely manner and the US is methodologically sinking every Chinese ship on Earth.
And yes, China's greater production capability doesn't necessarily help them out of this hole. If China can't sink our nuclear submarines reliably, and can't find a way to stop our stealth bombers strike from CONUS, then we merely have to build more missiles, mines and torpedoes than China can build ships. Guess which is considerably less manufacturing-intensive to build? And yet, if China wants to meaningfully strike at the US, it has no options besides that fleet or ICBMs (I don't think its own strategic bomber force is up to the task).
I definitely think we're silly behind in manufacturing and it's actually an open question as to whether or not we'll have said missiles, mines and torpedoes that we need, but China's problem if they go to war against the United States is much, much harder than "print infinite drones, win." It's more like "the United States has just sortied 25 aircraft from airbases you can't strike to launch 1000 stealth anti-ship cruise missiles at you in a single strike. You have 800 interceptor missiles in your VLS cells. Good luck! Oh, and by the way, this missile strike that's going to sink both of your carriers? It's launched from cargo aircraft, and they're going to sortie again tomorrow."
You can't solve that sort of problem with all the FPV suicide drones in Ukraine (unless you manage to stage them outside of US airbases and blow up all our aircraft on day zero of the conflict, which I will admit I find extremely concerning a possibility.)
Shrike
8mo ago
Why not both?
I don't even mind the FedGov providing loans, as long as it's directly linked to something FedGov cares about. Right now you can dispose of a loan by working for a nonprofit, or, say, a public school teacher, which creates a very specific incentive. Cut all of those general-purpose incentives out, and make it so that if you want the federal government to loan you money for education, it's because you're going into military service, or you're going into shipbuilding, or you're going to go work for the three-letter-agencies we haven't abolished, or w/e.
Otherwise, you can get your loan from a bank, and it will be dischargeable through bankruptcy, and they will evaluate it on the likelihood that you can pay it off. (No, I don't object to people getting a PhD on Aristotle's conception of the good life who will go on to earn $80k/year teaching at a mid-tier university, but the federal government doesn't needing to be footing the cost, and neither do the banks. That's what special interest scholarships are for.)
Frankly, I think this is less an "attack" on schooling than something that is likely to fix it (although it would be perceived as an attack).
Shrike
8mo ago
I think this would be a huge unforced error by the Biden administration, inviting comparisons to Nixon. If Team Trump prosecutes a member of Team Biden and he gets acquitted, it makes Team Trump look bad. If Team Biden starts accepting pardons left and right, it makes them seem like a pack of crooks.
Shrike
8mo ago
they just had too many enemies?
Well I mean you are less likely to have too many enemies if you had lots of young people!
By the Industrial Revolution, population is definitely less important than development, natural resources, etc.
I think the experience of France during the World Wars would suggest otherwise (or, at a minimum, it would suggest that more people means you can better develop your natural resources!) France - which had a higher population than Germany and the UK in the middle of the 19th century - had already started suffering from a comparatively low TFR going into the First World War, where they suffered horrific casualties. Their lack of desire to run another meatgrinder the second time around is probably at least somewhat related to their population woes: note by contrast that the Germans suffered higher casualties numerically in the First World War, but were willing to bleed white in a multi-front war. (And for all the talk of GERMAN WONDERWEAPONS, Superior German Technology was more a late-war thing - I don't think it was dispositive in their struggle with the French. In fact, France's biggest mistake may have been failing to substantively attack Germany while the German army was deployed fighting in Poland - the farce of the Saar Offensive makes a lot more sense if you model the French as having a lot of unwillingness to incur casualties.)
I definitely agree that in this case (and most cases where population decline occurs) there are cofounding variables. But an older population makes pretty much all of those problems worse, and more people can be deployed to solve almost any problems (particularly now that agriculture is so efficient!)
Shrike
8mo ago
Historically depopulation has been a pretty significant problem, and I think it's very likely to continue to be that way unless robot automation leads to such a wealth boom that the population transitioning from net producers into net consumers is alleviated. (Even if that happens, nations with solid birthrates are likely to have a comparative advantage all other things being equal.)
I'm not convinced it's impossible, but I'm not convinced it's a cinch either.
Shrike
8mo ago
Ex parte Garland states that presidential pardons are only for crimes after the crime's commission.
Is that actually true?
It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.
Since Ex parte Garland wasn't reaching the specific question of whether or not you can pardon crimes not yet committed, I think it would be dicta and (and ambiguously phrased at that), so I could see a court reaching a different conclusion (yes yes I just think it would be funny if Tom Clancy called a major legal development!)
Shrike
8mo ago
Also, couldn't conditions of extreme danger and tightness of resources create a society of extreme communalism where no one's allowed to do anything without group approval?
I think the early founding of America is on-point here. It seems quite possible that such a society would be individualistic (in the sense of having high standards and expectations for each individual and rewarding individual prowess and merit) but I also expect that it would be much less liberal. (The military might be a good idea of what that might look like.) Antisocial behaviors have always negatively impacted the community, but on Mars things like "not working" mean you're putting the entire colony in danger by consuming valuable resources that you are not helping to produce, not that you're consuming a fractional amount of tax dollars or irritating passers-by in the street.
Shrike
8mo ago
I am opposed, but I find this excerpt you quote ironic since there's reason to believe that harsher criminal justice systems in the past created eugenic effects (but largely without the horrible effects of modern eugenics programs, since the object was not eugenics but rather justice).
Shrike
8mo ago
So perhaps what you're suggesting is making pre-K childcare free would boost fertility? I'd buy that.
Shrike
8mo ago
Getting married at later than 22 wasn't uncommon as a historical norm. Although I agree that people often don't think clearly about biological realities, we know that getting married in the mid-twenties on average wasn't by itself a barrier to population growth.
Shrike
8mo ago
I don't think it would take that much to merely reduce declining fertility. If you treat "conservatives" in the United States as a social group, they reproduce at or above replacement rates. Partially I think this is because kids make people conservative, but partly because in their circles having children is an honorable thing that is encouraged.
People forget there was a lot of anti-natal propaganda in schools, television, etc. I suspect that simply running that experiment, but reversed, on another generation of kids would get birth rates to rise/decline more slowly.
It seems possible that bigger-stick stuff like what you lay out would be better at getting to quicker rates more rapidly.
Shrike
8mo ago
Yeah – I think all of these are good points. I guess "China" and, I dunno, "global warming" strike me as different sorts of issues, although as you point out they are all intertwined.
I'd love to read those US DoD comments if you can drag up the link. Not challenging it as wrong. Just enjoy reading this kinda stuff.
Oh sure, same here. Not that I mind being challenged :)
Here's an example from September from Voice of America: US Air Force general: Russia military larger, better than before Ukraine invasion
Here's another example in the Hill from March, that I think is a bit more in-depth: US general says Russian army has grown by 15 percent since pre-Ukraine war
Main takeaways:
- Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the head of U.S. European Command, said Thursday that Russia’s army has grown by 15 percent since before the invasion of Ukraine, raising the alarm that Russian forces are reconstituting “far faster” than initial estimates suggested.
- In written statements, Cavoli said Russia has also lost about 10 percent of its air force and more than 2,000 tanks on the battlefield. Moscow has also been beaten back in the Black Sea by Ukraine, but he said the Russian naval activity is at a “worldwide peak.”
- Cavoli said in his written testimony that Russia is expected to produce more ammunition than all 32 NATO allies combined per year and is on track to “command the largest military on the continent and a defense industrial complex capable of generating substantial amounts of ammunition and materiel in support of large scale combat operations.”
(Note that the written testimony is doubtless floating around on a .senate.gov website somewhere, I just haven't bothered to track it down.)
My thoughts, fwiw:
Historically, militaries that are not defeated during a conflict often (maybe even typically) are stronger after the conflict than before. It seems to me that Russia will be much the same, with the largest army in Europe and the most experienced army in the world (with relevant experience defeating frontline NATO technology) after the war in Ukraine is over. I think it's true that a lot of their Soviet inheritance will be spent, but I'm not sure (as per e.g. the statement above) they couldn't stock back up more aggressively than the West – which, likewise, has spent much of its Cold War inheritance.
I also don't think the injuries inflicted on Russia are "minor" – Russia has lost a lot of modern armor, and huge portions of their rotary and fixed-wing aviation. For instance, Russia is estimated to have lost about a quarter (40ish out of 150ish) of its Su-34 strike aircraft. Based on past orders, it probably will take at least two years to reconstitute their forces, assuming no more are lost. But on the flip side, the war spurred innovation, such as the production of much-needed glide bombs, that make the remaining Su-34 fleet much more lethal.
From the American perspective, I continue to believe that the true threat to American hegemony is more likely to be China. But I think Russia continues to be a live player, and its actions in Ukraine, rather than dooming it to irrelevance, seem on balance poised to make it more important and relevant in the future.
Shrike
8mo ago
I think this might be true based on my experience with other contexts – I don't know practically anything about Catholic seminaries. But I suspect what's going on is perhaps a bit more nuanced; I think the non-Catholic right has plenty of good human capital, at least in some areas [for instance I suspect the best Protestant colleges in the US are probably as good or better than the best Catholic colleges].
Gotta think about why that is. Some ideas:
- Catholics have always been outsiders in the US, which gives them more clarity to think strategically (US Protestants, as the former dominant force, can be tone-deaf or reactionary since they are used to things being a certain way and/or bound up in wanting things to be that way again; Catholics have less time for this.)
- Catholics have attachment to and access to a preexisting magisterial institution that constrains their ability to fully sell-out on a political party, which makes them less "gettable," more stable in their intentions, and generally more even-keeled and ready to work towards long-term projects with high degrees of success.
If either of these are true it would suggest that the LDS is also better at appealing to high human capital for the same reasons. I am not sure if that's the case or not – I don't have enough experience with the broader LDS community.
- Catholics have access to higher human capital for Founders Effect/regional reasons (not sure I buy this).
- Catholicism is more respectable/higher status/honored more in the public discourse than Protestantism (especially evangelicalism). There's sort of a compounding effect here, but the gist of it would be that people who wouldn't work for a tacky right-wing Evangelical organization would work for a high-status elite Catholics-aligned organization, hence the Catholics stay winning. I definitely think there is something to this.
- Catholics have fewer bones about working outside of their faith community. Protestants (especially Evangelicals) can be insular, whereas Catholics are quite happy to work with high talent of other faith groups to achieve their ends. (You see this in their schools.) I definitely think there is something to this as well.
Shrike
8mo ago
There are a lot of good video games made by teams (or individuals) that don't go out of the way to alienate their fans.
I think that a lot of the Discourse is generated by big games that are put out by relatively big companies that are very vulnerable to being targeted and controlled or influenced by activists (some people talk about "skin-suiting" in this context.)
I generally don't play your typical AAA or AAAA games and focus more on strategy/4X or other even more niche areas of gaming and I very rarely or never feel like I would be interested in a game but am concerned that it will be "woke."
I agree that there might be a market out there for an "anti-woke" vidya game manufacturer, and I think the raw talent is there (or could be gotten together eventually) but I suspect that simply not attacking parts of your player base is a perfectly fine solution that is practiced by large parts of the industry.
Shrike
8mo ago
I think this is probably the one. I'd put space travel in there. Suspect that pollution (microplastics!?) might come around to being a Big Deal Again, at least in The Discourse. Same with Climate Change. But not sure if either of them will be as important as fertility rates, or even space travel.
Shrike
8mo ago
I...kinda feel like by the same logic that China is The World Issue one could argue that The United States is The World Issue.
I definitely think it's good for people to know about China and whatever they happen to be up to, and I agree that whatever it does impacts the world. But that's also true of the United States, the EU at a minimum, and I'd think Russia and India as well.
PS –Russia conventional [ground] forces now are stronger than they were before the conflict (as per statements from US DoD officials.) It's plausible that they will end up being more important to the Course of the Next Century than China.
Shrike
9mo ago
The population in New York (39) and California (37) is older than the population in Texas (median age 35). With a national median age of 38, New York is actually slightly older than the country as a whole.
However, Florida's is much higher, at about 43 (which makes sense, they are long known to be a haven for retirees!)
Shrike
9mo ago
Yep, 100% agree with this – I guess the Red Sea "feels" asymmetric to me inasmuch as it's another theater entirely, but you're right that it's very much the same game we're playing in Ukraine.
Shrike
9mo ago
I'd just add that the biggest W for Russia in terms of creating a multipolar world order was financial and diplomatic, I think, not even military – for instance, Western nations freezing their assets and cutting them off from SWIFT, which both allowed them to popularize their alternative and put non-Western nations on notice that their assets in the West and any financial system that depends on Western countries are at risk.
(However on the flip side, I'm not sure the Russian air force is undamaged; they've lost a lot of Su-34s and Su-25s, haven't they?)
Shrike
9mo ago
So far the Russian responses have been very asymmetric, and I think their audience is US policymakers, not the public (in the US or Russia).
Very plausible the Russian response was the recent anchor-dragging to cut fiber-optic cables, or something else the public will never connect to Russia (like an industrial "accident" or cartels getting their hands on a batch of US surface-to-air missiles "via the Ukrainian black market.")
Shrike
9mo ago
I think part of the issue is that in a post-NATO world, there's a good chance that there's no "Europe" to choose from. The implicit threat of US violence NATO is what holds Germany, France, Poland and Hungary together. My bet is that if NATO evaporates tomorrow, Germany extends the hand (or bows the knee) to Russia relatively quickly. So, far from being a unified front against Russia that England could join, there's actually going to be a band of squabbling nation-states fighting over the best response to massive, combat hardened Russian army on their borders.
That's not to say that there won't be an anti-Russian European coalition that England could be part of and that they would support. But England and the United States have a common interest in preventing a unified and strong Europe. They are natural allies in that regard.
Shrike
9mo ago
I suspect we're in a bad way on Patriot ammo, which matters a lot if we go up against China. We might be able to get the ones Israel recently retired.
Shrike
9mo ago
I think you're a bit mistaken about how neutrality works. As I mentioned above, a state of non-neutrality is not the same thing as a state of war. I recommend this CRS report – relevant excerpt:
Under traditional conceptions of neutrality, sending “war material of any kind” to Ukraine or any other belligerent would violate a duty of neutrality; however, some countries, including the United States, have adopted the doctrine of qualified neutrality. Under this doctrine, states can take non-neutral acts when supporting the victim of an unlawful war of aggression.
[...]
Even if qualified neutrality did not apply in this instance and U.S. security assistance breached a duty of neutrality, international law would limit the breach’s legal consequences. For example, security assistance to Ukraine would not permit Russia to use force against the United States in response to a neutrality violation unless Russia could satisfy an exception to the U.N. Charter’s prohibition on use of force. Nor would a violation of neutrality, on its own accord, make the United States a co-belligerent or party to the conflict fighting alongside Ukraine. Questions of co-belligerency implicate other legal paradigms and are not resolved by neutrality law alone.
So, yes, US war aid to England did violate neutrality. It did not (by itself) constitute an act of war.
Shrike
9mo ago
Yeah, besides a lot more Abrams and Bradleys and F-16s (which definitely aren't nothing, but aren't superweapons either) it's not really clear to me what the US has left to give at this point. We won't give them F-35s. We probably won't give them the other really wacky silver bullets we have.
Second, Trump has an electoral mandate to reduce aid to Ukraine, not increase it.
He also put Rubio in SecState. Rubio voted against Biden's Ukraine aid bill in April. So I think that signals where he's gonna go, although I don't consider Rubio a Russia dove or something.
I do think I kinda agree with @Dean above, though, that in a sense it's a gift to Trump. Gives him maximal leverage and, as Dean points out, since it's a lame duck call it's less likely that Putin will escalate (at least in the short term, until he susses out Trump's negotiation posture).
Yes. I just question if the US needs to operate the Navy (outside of maybe submarines) in the SCS, particularly in a long conflict such as the one you mention, when it can launch airstrikes from Hawaii or CONUS. Big question here, of course, is how long Taiwan can hold out under a blockade. But if China blockades Taiwan and the United States decides an attritional strategy, it will likely go very poorly for the Houbei.
(Of course, how everything would play out is based on a lot of unknowns – nobody really knows exactly how well the technology and personnel involved in both sides will perform.)
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