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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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Vivek Ramaswamy has written an article on his foreign policy doctrine, focusing on China.

He is squarely taking aim at the "neocons and liberal internationalists", in other words the two main constituents of what Obama referred to as "the Blob" dominating foreign policy in D.C. He is predictably being called an isolationist and WaPo columnists are freaking out.

WaPo columnists themselves are not relevant but they are often mouthpieces for more powerful interests. Trump was hated for many things but one underappreciated aspect of why the Blob hated him was his instinct not to start new wars. In fact, he is one of the few presidents in recent memory who did not start a new war and he tried to get out of Syria - twice - but was undermined by his own bureaucracy.

Vivek is a much smarter guy than Trump, so I wonder if the Blob would be able to run circles around him the way they did around Trump. I doubt it and I suspect they doubt it too, which is why I think a campaign to destroy Vivek is likely to ramp up before too long. Trump couldn't be controlled outright but at least he could be misled.

Ramaswamy proposes sharing nuclear submarine technology with India, with the expectation that India will help block Chinese shipping in the event of a US-China war. I don't believe India will ever do this. It has a vast population with very little disposable income. Although its GDP of 10 trillion dollars (PPP) is sizable, most of it is needed for sustenance. There is little left over for war. Thus, if India did get involved in a US-China war, it would probably not make a huge impact. India would risk antagonizing China further without substantially increasing the probability of a Chinese defeat. It would be better for India to hope that China loses without joining the conflict herself.

Besides, Taiwan falling isn't nearly as big of a deal to India as it is to Japan/US. India's conflict with China is at their land border in the Himalayas. Taiwan is in a totally different direction.

Wait, do countries consider using nuclear subs for anti-shipping?

I was under the impression they exist as deep stealth nuclear deterrents rather than offensive weapons.

Edit: I was thinking of the Ohio-class dedicated ballistic missile subs. The rest of the US SSNs are outfitted for a bunch of roles, including torpedoes.

Harpoon was a long time ago, but aren't Los Angeles class subs also nuclear driven?

Thanks for reminding me about playing Harpoon, now thats a game I'd like to see a modern remake.

Yeah, everything we field now is nuclear. I don’t know when’s the last time our subs sank anything.

Edit: apparently never. The British made the only attack using a nuclear sub when they sank this guy.

As I understand it, the only nuclear sub to sink a ship is HMS Conquerer vs ARA General Belgrado. Although I've seen it with the caveat that it's "only nuclear sub to sink a surface ship with a torpedo", so maybe a missile took one out (not counting SinkEx, of course).

In terms of nuclear propulsion vs armament, this graphic may be helpful. The US, UK, and France have only nuclear powered subs - everyone else also has conventional. Of note on that list, India and Brazil's nuclear subs aren't indigenous - they were bought (leased?) from Russia and France, respectively. Also note that Israel gets a "to be confirmed" in the armament category due to their policy of strategic ambiguity. Also also note that at one point some attack subs had nuclear tipped torpedoes. And nuclear tipped sub-launched anti-submarine rockets, some of which, as you might expect, had an anticipated kill ratio of "both".

TL;DR "nuclear" almost always refers to the propulsion of a sub, not the armament. "Boomer" is the slang term for a nuclear armed sub, but sadly USS OKLAHOMA is an attack sub.

Ha, I started looking into the Conqueror and got sidetracked reading bean's Naval Gazing blog.