This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Inspired by a comment from Twitter;
Everyone is talking about the US relative decline, but they are really flexing his power in a way that we have not seen from Iraq
In one year they;
Destroyed every possible reconciliation between Europe and Russia
Became a next exporter of natural resources and the ones from who a lot of allies depend
They basically sent a fuck off to Germany, and the Germans not only are not complaining, but are applauding
They strongly limited the military of power of Russia with few money.
China is slowing her growth, and they created a ring of allies in the Pacific
The cultural grip on the West is becoming stronger, and the US successfully fused Neoliberalism and Leftism in a zombie ideology who is, against all odds, successfully working
The pro-Atlantist view have never been so strong.
I doubt that these strategies will work or be healthy in the long term, but it is incredible to see how an ill and polarized country can still do whatever it wants without any reaction.
Short term you appear to be correct, to my great surprise. I honestly don't understand how we got here, except that somehow our enemies were even more grossly incompetent than ourselves. I guess that is often how war goes. it still makes me profoundly nervous. I'm also not sure how sustainable it is.
We've severely depleted our reserves of strategic resources in an effort by buy the Ukrainians time? What happens if/when China calls our bluff and finally invades Taiwan? Will we have blown our load too early?
The success of Ukraine against Russia on the field looks good for Ukraine, and great for the profound levels of financial and arms support we've given them. But what if it doesn't last with this Russian mobilization? What happens when the US is forced to partially mobilize it's economy in order to keep the aid up? It could be good for jobs and the economy. It could also be another corrupt clusterfuck that sends most of the money to our other strategic rivals overseas, China.
In order to best capitalize on Europe's great power demands, the US needs to be stepping up it's energy production. But decades of neoliberal policy treating energy companies as The Great Satan have made them too nervous. They think the football is going to be pulled away from them again, and so are content to make up for the losses they previously endured thanks to previous administrations lawfare against them. Ultimately we will fail to solidify this opportunity, and probably will allow it to slip away to the benefit of our strategic rivals.
In terms of US culture "successfully" fusing neoliberalism and leftism in a way that "works", I don't even know where to start. Whatever successes we've enjoyed on the world stage can hardly be attributed to that, and will likely be undermined by the schizophrenic priorities is forces on us. Like the above example of us squandering our opportunity to take a huge share of the world's energy market.
The deep state apparently still has enough institutional competence to fuck up the world, and leave the US as king shit of turd mountain. But our culture is too dysfunctional to actually build anything back up from there.
A lot can happen in 12-24 months, as the last 6 months shows. And generally, it's much harder to retake territory than to defend it in the first place. Recent successes for Ukraine not withstanding. I believe taking islands, such as Taiwan, present even greater challenges.
Re. strategic resource: No, absolutely not.
Everything we have sent to Ukraine represents either outmoded equipment designed to fight an army from the 70's that is only still relevant because the Russian army IS from the 70's, or equipment the fulfils secondary capability requirements.
EG, HIMARS, manpads, and Javelin are all secondary, because what the US REALLY focuses on is air superiority; where we maintain a level of absolute crushing dominance unseen at any point in military history.
Want to destroy an ammo depot? Airstrike.
Want to blow up a tank? Airstrike.
Want to shoot down a plane? MOTHER FUKIN STRIKE FROM THE AIR BAAAAAABEEEEEEEEE
China and India are of course trying to match us here, but India is at least 10-20 years from fielding home grown engines that are competitive (not having btw, their engine program has been ongoing for a while and seems to be performaing well. I mean feiling home grown home made 4.5gen+ planes en mass), and china is likewise at the most pessimistic doomer almost definitely false estimates (from the US perspective) 10 years behind in BVR a to a shit, stealth, engines, and avionics.
Even without NGAD and the Raider, if we stood still china would take years to catch up, and we running boys!
And it turns out that Russia drank a fifth of ethanol based radar array coolant and passed out in a ditch instead of working on their gen 5 shit.
Air strikes are great, but they are not always available, especially over prolonged, low-intensity conflicts. Javelins were extremely valuable for destroying bunkers, emplacements, and other enemy positions in absence of air power in Iraq and Afghanistan. US infantry simply have no other way of fighting at standoff distances (nor any way to ward off air strikes than stingers for that matter, but in that case the scenario you suggest is a lot more likely to work out). The US having a disproportionately strong air force doesn't necessarily mean much in that kind of war. I'm not saying arming Ukraine is a bad idea, but there are very real readiness concerns that come from giving them so many ground weapons, regardless of what we have in the way of aircraft.
More options
Context Copy link
Can you cite a single source to show that China is at least 10 years behind the US in these fields?
I can cite sources where US defence officials argue China is acquiring high-tech weapons faster and considerably more cost-effectively than the US:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/china-acquiring-new-weapons-five-times-faster-than-u-s-warns-top-official
The US has gotten pretty worried about Chinese BVR capabilities such as the PL-15 and PL-21, which probably outrange existing US AAMs. The US is still developing its AIM-260 to counter. This doesn't scream 'USA is >10 years ahead in BVR' to me. It indicates the US is 4-5 years behind, since these Chinese weapons are about 5 years old. Even if this is just a Mig-25 moment where the US got worked up about nothing, let's at least wait until that's confirmed before crowing for victory.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28636/meet-the-aim-260-the-air-force-and-navys-future-long-range-air-to-air-missile
I know that the Chinese and Russians are ahead in hypersonic missiles (cruise and glide vehicles) because they've actually deployed them. The article admits as such, claiming that the US is more interested in the next sprint than the last one, which they've already lost.
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/the-groundbreaking-hypersonic-missiles-america-has-in-the-works/
And is the US not behind China in the fundamental category of shipbuilding? The US navy has been scrapping its recently completed Littoral combat ships because they're not useful and is actually shrinking. The Chinese have been and are continuing to build ships en masse. The US has only just started construction of its new class of Constellation frigates. The US is still building Arleigh Burke's, an updated design originating from the 1980s. This is because the Zumwalt was a dud.
Considering that the US has a much smaller overall shipbuilding industry than China, can it ever catch up? What good is airpower if your airbases get hammered by missiles on day 1 and you can't get carriers close to the front because there's a gigantic surface fleet supported by hundreds of shorebased aircraft and ballistic missiles in your way?
The US has certain advantages in submarines and the size of its airforce but it's not overwhelmingly superior once you account for geography, which favours China.
Nah, your gonna have to take my word for it.
Any source I post would be bullshit anyway.
It all boils down to:
Chinas missiles had sea trials, and testing was returned to land trials. We don't know why, but the most likely reason is they failed to hit a moving target. They are probably ahead of us, but that is at least partially because we are investing into the raider instead; and lockheed is working on the US hypersonic at a reasonable rate. Russia's missile is fake, it's an air launched missile that will hit mach five but it doesn't maneuver and it doesn't use scram jets or anything post 1980's. If we count that as a hypersonic missle, we've had them for 40 years.
The J-20 uses rip off russian engines from like, the su-30. No bueno. They are developing indigenous engines, but they aren't ready for service yet, apparently . Their stealth is ass, and their radars are atleast 1/2 of an ass, as seen by the fat nose on the j-20. Sexy plane though. Canarads for days. Thus, china's BVR missle: It has range on an aim (theoretically), but it doesn't mean anything if they are using avionics and stealth tech from the 80's.
Re. ship building: yeah that one is true. You can't beat having a civilian shipbuilding industry for having a military ship building capacity. We'll see their fleet get to local parity/dominance within a couple years, probably.
The new WS-10C engines are in service as of last year.
https://twitter.com/rupprechtdeino/status/1405777441252020229
The Russians have Kinzhal but also Avangard, which is a truer hypersonic missile. They're even working on that nuclear cruise missile that was irradiating parts of Northern Russia during the development process. That's pretty new stuff, even if it's an old idea.
I don't even think the US has any fielded air launched ballistic missiles, unless you count the Minuteman coming off the back of that C-5 in the 70s. They're making Prompt Conventional Strike but it's not finished yet.
The US is making the B-21 but the Chinese are also making a flying wing stealth bomber. And we know the Chinese are making their own NGAD. US NGAD isn't exactly a secret.
Furthermore, I can prove that the Chinese aren't using stealth tech from the 1980s, just from the fact that we know they were stealing stealth tech from the F-35! Claiming that China is 40 years behind the US in avionics and stealth is just ridiculous, it doesn't map to the facts. The fact that they decided they wanted less stealth and more range/payload/other features for the J-20 is reasonable. They plan to be fighting in the Pacific after all. The F-35 and F-22 seem to be designed for the Fulda Gap, for high-end air superiority over a short range. Not quite sure what they were thinking for the former case, hopefully it was Lockheed Martin bribery over a stroke of insanity.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link