You also have to ponder how it looks when you remove the Chinese supply chain for all those commodity parts. Which will almost certainly be the case if we decide to punch that dance card.
Having a boundless cornucopia of servos and radios will affect the shape of your logistics/maintenance/fabrication complex.
Ukraine and Taiwan quietly cooperate in weapons development and production, especially drones.[1] They both have big, aggressive neighbors. Ukraine knows how to fight them, and Taiwan can make electronics in quantity. Ukraine is starting to get cooperation from Japan, too, but that's in an earlier stage.[2] With Taiwan, it's serious.
The paper doesn't mention Ukraine at all, yet it's all about the kind of war that Ukraine is fighting.
And if we're talking Ukraine, we have to talk Poland as it has been facilitating 90% of all Western military equipment, humanitarian aid, and crucial trade deliveries into the country.
Poland is, of course, geopolitically positioned in a way that requires at least regional power status to survive if not thrive. A power vacuum in Poland is bad news for the security of Europe and Poland's immediate neighbors and regional partners as well.
As a result, an important component of long term Polish grand strategy has been the quiet building up of its logistical prowess and might and its supply chains for years. Current big names: the CPK/Port Polska megaproject which is designed with civilian/military dual use in mind; Euroterminal Sławków; expansion of the Port of Gdańsk and other ports. Regional projects include the Via Carpathia and the Via Baltica.
> if we're talking Ukraine, we have to talk Poland
No, we're not ;) They are where they are because they lease the ground under a NATO base, WHICH is actually doing the job. Not the Polish government.
Whis has been a very unreliable partner for the last 4 years, constantly using their geographical position to push Ukraine into submission and leverage their own political interests for internal and external programs.
> geopolitically positioned in a way that requires at least regional power status to survive, if not thrive
As long as Ukrainian military power is there, the region is safe. That's why the Baltic and Northern countries are investing so much in Ukraine + constantly taking our war experience.
In general, are they being useful? Absolutely yes. Do we need to include them in any discussions? No, since they are already misusing their position. Plus telling everyone how useful they are. Like, in case anybody can forget.
Poland and the Baltics know they're next on Putin's list. So they're glad to help Ukraine. Better than fighting the Russians on home territory.
Taiwan and Japan, though, aren't in Russia's line of fire. The cooperation with Ukraine is because Ukraine figured out how to stop Russia. Taiwan has a real threat, and if they can build defenses that mean China faces a years-long war, there probably won't be one.
I think they already have that, they want to make sure it stays that way
alternatively, there's a Dennis Ross piece out pointing out that China's procurement patterns over the years suggests they are not seriously thinking of invading Taiwan, they just want everyone to think that way...
To the extent Xi Jinping isn't seriously interested in invading Taiwan (and that seems dubious), he still needs to keep the PLA and other factions thinking he does. Reclaiming Taiwan is a pillar of PLA ideology and strategic doctrine. PLA culture is why China has never forced its will in North Korea despite continued disobedience to Beijing--the old guard in the PLA feels honor bound to defend North Korea's independence, rather than making it a client state, which it easily could do. It's similar to defense policy hawks in the US regarding Middle East intervention, who have nominally always been a minority faction. Perennial Middle East intervention never made much sense, and yet it keeps happening over and over, even when the military is woefully unprepared (e.g. Iran), because that faction is adept at manipulating defense policy, and has been playing the same long game since the 1990s. Which is precisely why the Taiwan threat is real. China isn't a political monolith, and the forces pushing to invade Taiwan, even if presently held at bay, could succeed in a blink of an eye, even without China being properly prepared for a successful invasion.
That's the thing with religious or ideologically driven dictators. They're nutjobs, not beholden to reality in their decisionmaking but to whatever their ideology prescribes - and thus are prone to making decisions that seem to (or end up being) utterly stupid / irrational.
With Yugoslavia, it was Tito's idea to force all the various countries into one common ethnicity. With Russia, it is Putin's dream of restoring "Greater Russia". With China, it's the dream of re-unification with Taiwan on one side, and reversing what is seen as a land grab by back-then Czarist Russia in Outer Manchuria. With Trump it is the desperate desire to be beloved (and the desire of his Project 2025 handlers to turn the US into an ethno-christo-nationalist state). With Ben Gvir and Smotrich in Israel, it is the desire to wipe out anything Palestinian.
And the result of these madmen was and is an untold amount of needless suffering. There is no reason at all to not believe what China is openly saying [1] and to prepare accordingly. Better be prepared than be sorry.
It's wildly naive to think that dictators are 'nutjobs'. They are, without exception, shrewd political operators. You don't get to be dictator and stay dictator without a certain skill set, and part of that is having a good sense of which actions get you a bigger bank account and which ones end with your head on a stick.
They might be wrong like any human, but they aren't cartoon villains.
maybe not nut jobs, but I think the argument that the inherent structure that they put in place to maintain power is poor at optimizing human capital and expertise, such that they will aways make lousier decisions because they are surrounded by yes men
Granted, there is what is China is "openly saying" in terms of official warnings and such, and what they are "openly saying" in terms of what they are actually spending money on in terms of material, equipment and capability (of which there is at least some degree of logical, non-nut job type thinking behind):
> Taiwan has a real threat, and if they can build defenses that mean China faces a years-long war, there probably won't be one.
China could just bomb Taiwan into submission if it chooses to. I don't think it is a problem for China to build 20-30k ballistic missile and launch them at Taiwan. Or send a million drones over there just to be sure nothing survives them.
Taiwan is, unfortunately, in a very precarious situation should China decide enough is enough and reunification must happen no matter what.
1. “Reunification” is straight Chinese propaganda. Taiwan has never been part of the PRC. Japan has a stronger claim for “reunification” than the PRC does (and that’d also be very dumb)
2. Taiwan and Taiwanese allies also have agency. China doesn’t just get to fire 20-30k ballistic missiles at Taiwan with no consequences. The consequences would maybe be asymmetrical, but they’d no doubt be very painful for China.
China is constrained on this by near certain mutually assured economic destruction.
Even the food supply in China would basically be destroyed unless you believe that the population is going to just go back to a diet of largely rice with meat being a luxury.
20-30k ballistic missiles at Taiwan would cause a global depression that dwarfs the great depression. There would be almost no way the CCP survive this. That is why this subject is mostly people talking nonsense.
Reunification has to happen politically, persuasively, over time and without firing a shot.
1. That I see it as payback for the KMT losing the civil war.
2. Yeah, dunno about that, who will do what exactly to China? I also think that, since you mentioned it, Japan would intervene, China will pretty much use it as an excuse for retribution on what the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2.
I'd assume China wants to keep as much manufacturing capabilities of Taiwan intact. If it was just about unification, then it would have happened long time ago.
Even the most optimistic Russian does not think Russia will ever get beyond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya which is not much more than Russia currently occupies. You really think they will eventually march over Ukraine on to Warsaw?? That’s as likely as the exiled Chinese government in Taiwan taking over China.
Credit certainly that Russian logistics failed, but was it Ukrainian logistics that beat them back or was it Ukrainian logistics and heroism alongside American and British support, intelligence, and 24/7 airlifts of critical weapons and equipment that beat them back?
> and 24/7 airlifts of critical weapons and equipment that beat them back?
There were no 24/7 airlifts of criticql weapons and equipment at any point in this war.
Ukraine was expected to fall quickly, and any help it needed started arriving very reluctantly, very slowly, in small batches stretched over months and years of deliveries much much later.
That’s wrong. The US and UK airlifted anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles among other things to Ukraine while telling the world Russia was about to invade (which Europeans refused to believe).
You may be confusing European support and their lack of it (remember the famous time Germany just sent 45,000 old helmets?) with how the United States and United Kingdom helped.
There were no airlifts into Ukraine, arms had to cross the border as they have since. The supplies were in small quantities up to the invasion. They were an important help to Ukraine, but you are overstating how crucial they were - as if stingers and NLAWs did the fighting, or as if Ukraine didn't have its Soviet legacy or homegrown systems like Stugna-P which had a much more decisive impact those early months.
Western support at any scale didn't arrive until later in the year.
There's a difference between "airlifted 24/7 since the beginning of the invasion" and:
- the two packages promised in March were delivered by April, all pushed via conventional transport through Poland and Romania (IIRC deliveries didn't start until at least mid-March, and by that time Ukraine was already suffering heavy losses, logistics collapses etc. )
- there's a nebulous commitment to <list of weapons> which we know barely trickled in as US committed, then withdrew, then commited, then withdrew support, then claimed Ukraine was too stupid to use these weapons, or that it would lead to escalation, or...
> Ukraine was expected to fall quickly, and any help it needed started arriving very reluctantly, very slowly, in small batches stretched over months and years of deliveries much much later.
This is bullshit from anyone in the know.
There had been multiple YEARS of Western Special Operations inside Ukraine leading up to and during the opening phases of the war. Some were pulled back to defend Kyiv / Zelensky during the original search for him in the opening days of the war. Without UK SOF and their initial deployments of anti-armor weapons, there is a good chance Russia would have gotten much further.
Ukraine has had comprehensive intelligence, logistics, etc support for a long time, but it has been a fraction of what each country could contribute.
> There had been multiple YEARS of Western Special Operations inside Ukraine leading up to and during the opening phases of the war.
That is why Russia quickly reached Kiev, and Ukraine still can't win the war? Because there were inhales, screams MULTIPLE YEARS OF SPECIAL OPERATIONS?
> Without UK SOF and their initial deployments of anti-armor weapons, there is a good chance Russia would have gotten much further.
No one denies that there were Western Weapons in Ukraine. What is bullshit is that they were somehow airlifted 24/7 during initial phases of the war. They decidedly weren't. Neither before the invasion, nor during the first days. Nor, indeed during any phase of the war.
"In February 2022, amid a build-up of Russian forces on the Russo-Ukrainian border and concerns of an impending Russian invasion, the UK began supplying Ukraine with anti-tank weapons, including NLAW missiles. Teams of UK military personnel were deployed to provide training on how to use the weapons, within the framework of Operation Orbital.[10] Some 2,000 missiles were airlifted to the country by the Royal Air Force using C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft. RAF surveillance aircraft, including Boeing RC-135, were also involved with collecting intelligence on Russian ground movements."
"But when the president approved $350 million in military aid on Feb. 26 — nearly six times larger — 70 percent of it was delivered in five days. The speed was considered essential, officials said, because the equipment — including anti-tank weapons — had to make it through western Ukraine before Russian air and ground forces started attacking the shipments. As Russia takes more territory inside the country, it is expected to become more and more difficult to distribute weapons to Ukrainian troops."
"Within 48 hours of Mr. Biden approving the transfer of weapons from U.S. military stockpiles on Feb. 26, the first shipments, largely from Germany, were arriving at airfields near Ukraine’s border, officials said."
"The military was able to push those shipments forward quickly by tapping into pre-positioned military stockpiles ready to roll onto Air Force C-17 transport planes and other cargo aircraft, and flying them to about half a dozen staging bases in neighboring countries, chiefly in Poland and Romania."
"Now it is being turned back against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, part of a vast airlift that American and European officials describe as a desperate race against time, to get tons of arms into the hands of Ukrainian forces while their supply routes are still open. Scenes like this, reminiscent of the Berlin airlift — the famed race by the Western allies to keep West Berlin supplied with essentials in 1948 and 1949 as the Soviet Union sought to choke it off — are playing out across Europe."
"In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons, including Javelin missiles, over the borders of Poland and Romania, unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they can make the trip by land to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and other major cities. So far, Russian forces have been so preoccupied in other parts of the country that they have not targeted the arms supply lines, but few think that can last."
> No one denies that there were Western Weapons in Ukraine. What is bullshit is that they were somehow airlifted 24/7 during initial phases of the war. They decidedly weren't. Neither before the invasion, nor during the first days. Nor, indeed during any phase of the war.
---
Article:
> In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons,
>> In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons
Please do go on quoting literally the same sentence:
--- start quote ---
NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons, including Javelin missiles, over the borders of Poland and Romania, unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they can make the trip by land to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and other major cities.
--- end quote ---
Strange how the totally prepared FOR YEARS special operations were left scrambling to deliver enough weapons before projected logistics collapse.
I'm not sure what your precise argument is to be honest, it seems to be all over the place.
All I know is Russia has over a million dead troops, a dying economy, and fuck all to show for it.
They got to Kyiv and did nothing. Their plans were shit. Their intel was shit. And now they're throwing their people into the meatgrinder with no hope for them in sight.
This is easily proven false. See my above comment about both the UK SOF operations and the US flights of weapons. The info is well documented and sourced.
Russian logistics failed because of Ukrainian resistance. The NLAWs and stingers were extremely useful to Ukraine, but the more important fact is that the Ukrainian army was prepared, disciplined, and didn't melt away as Russia expected.
The head of Poland's Foreign Ministry noted that he cannot comment on intelligence data but stressed that Russia has long been waging a hybrid war against Poland and France.
He said this involves cyberattacks on state systems, attempts to gather information on critical infrastructure using shadow fleet vessels, arson, sabotage on railways and drone attacks.
Sikorski also recalled that before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia allegedly prepared false flag provocations to create a pretext for starting the war. At the time, American intelligence warnings helped thwart those plans.
"Today you must believe us – not just me, but other countries too – that we have credible information that the Russians are planning something again. The purpose of these warnings is to discourage them from carrying out these provocations," he said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, for his part, confirmed that Paris is also recording increased Russian hybrid activity.
Poland is delivering 90% of NATO’s support to Ukraine. France is one of the staunchest enemies of Russia. In this situation I just don’t understand what people expect Russia to do?? Sit and accept while those countries work hard to kill its soldiers and destroy its economy? I am surprised Russia hasn’t bombed transport depots in Poland that are known to be used for weapons delivery to Ukraine yet, but that seems very likely to happen in the next few months. However that is not the same as Russia invading Poland! Those reports are talking about attacks, no one in their right mind is expecting an invasion, which is what my comment was referring to.
> situation I just don’t understand what people expect Russia to do?? Sit and accept while those countries work hard to kill its soldiers and destroy its economy
Oh no, the poor innocent Russia that is currently in year 5 of its totally innocent blameless war it's waging. "Hitler did nothing wrong" vibes.
All Russia has to do to stop its soldiers from dying and its economy from being destroyed is to get the fuck out of Ukraine.
Their success is already impossible: you cannot lose half of your population and suffer millions of casualties and still consider that a success in the end, even if Ukraine was to retake most of the territory it has lost, which seems less and less likely as the years pass.
Wars of this kind never have winners. Russia also lost too many soldiers to celebrate anything.
I couldn't disagree more. In a fight for existential survival, repelling an invader at any cost constitutes a win. It may almost be pyrrhic in the end, but deterrence is invaluable.
Not to lose sight of the very real cost, down to every man and family destroyed. Many may even argue that life under subjugation is still at least life. But many more have walked the walk into the fire, in defiance of that notion. I see no way of arguing the opinions of the living outweigh those of the dead when it comes to opinions on what's worth fighting for.
I would add that this isn't advocating for blindly and endlessly throwing meat into the meat grinder. But to the extent that a country tells you, not from the top down but from the men on the very frontlines of war, that they're willing to die, to win... I'd say believe them when they say they understand the costs, and yet consider it a win not in spite of those costs, but in the face of them, defiantly.
There is a lot of resistance from the Ukrainians to going to the frontlines as we can see in the endless videos of people fighting the government “recruiters” who come to forcibly take them and the large stream of people fleeing the country. It’s hard to tell if the will to continue fight comes from the people or the government, it’s not nearly as clear as you imply.
In my view, it’s a huge crime against life for this war to continue. A compromise is the only solution. From both sides of course. But it seems both sides still consider the continuing fight and death toll is worthwhile and preferable to the compromises they would need to make to end the craziness. We will look back at this time as a huge failure of Europe and the US to manage to first prevent Russia aggression, and then even worse , prolonging the conflict for several years by simply failing to provide what was needed to defeat Russia while providing just enough for the Russians to advance only very slowly and at a high cost - the worst possible outcome since Ukraine still loses a huge amount of territory and more importantly, people, while Russia loses a much smaller proportion of its population while achieving many of its goals and proving to the West that it can challenge its political position near its borders even if war is the only way to do so.
In Taiwan's case, the question is how does China see the reunification.
It could be a naval blockade until Taiwan runs out of food/fuel/medicines and they surrender. Or it could be "we will take the island no matter what" and if somebody survives OK, if not, also OK.
Wow, I just looked up how self-sufficient the island is and the answer is barely at all. Which initially seems surprising given the continual threat. But I guess they're counting on global support as a tech chokepoint.
China controls much of the integration and many of the low level components for super low cost electronics and motors. They aren't the ones controlling all the fabs for the circuits and integration can be done anywhere if you want to pay extra.
Thanks for linking this is interesting. It sounds like they are still unable to produce many of the base components though?
> most manufacturers of everything within Ukraine remain dependent on imported machining tools — traditionally Chinese, but increasingly Indian and, for those who can afford it, European.
But for the cheapest components, simple base-line products like transistors, circuit boards, wiring, or solar cells, nobody can yet step up to the scale of China’s mass production.
It's not so much a matter of can, but willingness and (worse) economic viability. But recent worldwide instability - from leadership changes to supply disruptions to war - has given that a push.
Taiwan is tiny, far from Ukraine, and the majority of the economy is TSMC. Just because they're also Chinese doesn't mean they have the ability to make everything China does.
The US strongly avoids foreign content for this reason. This policy is often the only thing keeping domestic commodity component manufacturing afloat. This is also the main reason Micron is getting a subsidized fab.
The sheer quantity of "mislabelled"[1] PRC origin parts passing through the logistics chains as Primo-A-grade-American-Made - even in Defense - is deeply disturbing, and that's the stuff that they do catch.
Transshipment is the elephant in the room here - smaller components made in PRC, then shipped to wherever as Raw Materials (tm), and then put in a "friendly nation" box and sold as safe.
DoD's DMEA and DLA CD programs, plus GIDEP reporting, capture confirmed cases . . but not the miss rate. On the occasion they do bust open a jet (or god forbid a missile) and look at all the bits with a microscope, it can be scary.
[1] They like to avoid the more precise "criminal fraud"
The point is that, when PRC cuts off the parts, there are backstops for alternate sourcing most of them even if it means reopening mines to get the materials and subsidizing production.
I don't mean to belittle the American war machine but as someone involved in overseas manufacturing for a while, I just don't see how it's possible to source 90% of items now made in China without a solid decade or two of investment. There are no factories, no supply chains, no skilled workers. It seems like fantasy.
Maybe, but I wish people in these conversations would sometimes point out that China is also dependent on imports to continue to make the stuff it makes.
China is a heavy importer of petroleum, food and fertilizer. A modern economy needs petroleum to grow food and to deliver food to consumers. Although China is wisely trying to replace that dependence on petroleum with electric vehicles, it has not yet succeeded. If there's ever a sustained shortage of food, Chinese young men are likely to start revolting and rioting like they've done dozens of times in Chinese history in response to food shortages. China relies on foreign nations for approximately 75% to 80% of its total iron ore consumption, making it the world's largest importer. Despite having had semiconductor manufacturing self-sufficiency as a top national priority for many years, it is still the case that Chinese smartphone manufacturers rely heavily on Samsung and TSMC for the SOCs that go into those smartphones -- and MediaTek (Taiwan) and Qualcomm (US), not Chinese firms, design most of those SOCs.
Geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan argues that the United States is the only major global power fully capable of national self-sufficiency. I.e., if global trade is ever disrupted by world war, the US would be able replace its missing imports much faster than China would be able to.
I would bet Japan, Korea, Taiwan all produce some of the needed things in an emergency scenario (obv Taiwan may be under artillery attack, but then again, does China want a destroyed Taiwan or do they want to own it, with its priceless industries intact, as a crown jewel? They may avoid such destruction).
But honestly, I don't think China wants Taiwan "reunification" quite as much as they want to have their economy be prosperous and, just as importantly, not to have millions of people die on both sides. If massively provoked, e.g. Taiwan declares independence and joins NATO, sure. But I expect non-war outcomes somewhat more than I expect war.
I recognize this is a big bet on the ethics of perhaps a small group of important CPC decision makers, but I do bet on that. Xi Jinping is no Hitler, no Stalin.
Offshoring into China was literally invented by Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese companies.
We see high quality tech products coming out of the countries and assume that they're very good at building things. In fact they are extremely good at managing complex supply chains going in and out of PRC, while keeping certain high value add parts of the business within their own countries.
> If massively provoked, e.g. Taiwan declares independence and joins NATO, sure.
You think NATO would stand there with open arms in such a case? NATO membership requires agreement from all member states, and I don't sense a great appetite among the European countries for a war with China.
I agree with the overall point of your post though.
Stuff like https://www.hadrian.co/ is pretty neat, but the whole "electric stack" is hopelessly Chinese from this perspective- batteries, motors, all kinds of small and crucial electrical things- and critical minerals, like Gallium for radar.
I am so curious about this. There are a lot of 3D printed drone startups now. But nobody really seems to be thinking about the electronics sourcing. Great you can print a drone shell wherever but what happens if China turns off exports?
Ukraine seems pretty paranoid about this, having backup suppliers for parts. Looks like they take efficiency hits and build more complicated things out of multiple discrete chips that would normally be ontegrated commercially so that they can go to suppliers in Oceania, eurasia, or eastasia depending on who is being helpful.
TSMC is absolutely critical for 'frontier' silicon but:
1. In a China/Taiwan conflict, China's not getting TSMC output either
- Bear in mind that I doubt China would ever want to destroy TSMC though, so I'm talking about a naval blockade rather than artillery destroying the fabs.
2. Although SOTA chips are off the table, we could get older process node stuff. We could still build say, 2015-era chips. We had great missiles in 2015.
> In a China/Taiwan conflict, China's not getting TSMC output either
China has enough domestic electronics production to not care. Also, in the event of a war they would probably stockpile necessary parts.
> we could get older process node stuff. We could still build say, 2015-era chips.
If the factories producing those chips are still operational. Otherwise you end up in the exact same situation as Russia, for example. They have some barely functioning old factories producing extremely outdated chips on foreign equipment.
Most drones are controlled by humans, so they don't need neural networks. Larger drones still don't use anything too advanced, as specialized neural networks actually don't need beefy hardware.
Maybe this will change in future, but the US still has enough semiconductor manufacturing capacity to produce a few million chips for drones.
You know that when there were COVID related supply chain disruptions to microchips coming out of Taiwan, Europe and the US actually found it impossible to make the right number of cars?
There are a lot of differences. One of the chief differences was that during World War II the United States continental homeland was pretty much untouchable, which allowed the United States and the allies access to a secure and resource rich supply chain that helped lead to victory over the Axis powers.
In an engagement with China it is likely that both sides would be able to strike each other's defense industrial base, with the added "benefit" that American missiles, aircraft, and other equipment are stationed strategically in the region in various countries (Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, and others) and as such the United States can project some amount of destruction on critical Chinese industrial facilities. I'm wondering if China in this scenario would be eager to, or hesitant to strike the United States for fear of a very rapid escalation of the war. Anyway - the point is that long range missiles, drones, and other offensive capabilities mean that supposedly "safe" manufacturing facilities are in danger, with the United States being a bit closer in range to inflict damage than China and with China having I would guess a little bit of hesitancy to strike mainland America.
In addition to some of the simple geographic differences, China has its own strategic challenges. Energy, for one. So far nobody has built a tank, plane, or ship that can run on batteries and while drone technology has continued to advance in many critical ways they don't bring the big bombs quite yet. Naturally the United States in the event of a war is going to at least consider if not outright strike Chinese energy facilities, and deny imports of oil which are critical to supply chains and conducting a war.
If China's only theater is perhaps Taiwan that's probably less of an issue, but then you've got the United States with its, in my view, inferior supply chain, operating unfettered, similar to during World War II while the Chinese supply chain both local and superior particularly for small or "low cost" components is facing both energy stress and stress from missiles or other attacks.
I don't mean to sound pro-USA here or to suggest there aren't other significant advantages or disadvantages for either the United States or China, but to just highlight that your thoughtful comment here which seems to imply that China's massive industrial capacity is akin to the United States' during World War II is not quite an apples-to-apples comparison.
> So far nobody has built a tank, plane, or ship that can run on batteries and while drone technology has continued to advance in many critical ways they don't bring the big bombs quite yet.
Ukraine is proving that the "big bombs" are useless - fpv drones can and do take out tanks, planes and ships. They don't survive long enough to deliver the "big bombs".
Russia is currently reduced to sending in unmechanised light infantry to try and take ground because everything larger doesn't survive (and the light infantry apparently survive for only 20 minutes on average). Russia's Black Sea fleet cowers in port under its anti-air defences and even then takes losses. Their long-range bombers are not being used in the long-range bombing of Ukraine's civilians, that's all down to cruise missiles, because they're too valuable to lose (and a lot of them have been destroyed on the runway by drones).
The age of WW2-era mechanised warfare is gone. It's as obsolete as the cavalry that came before it.
> Ukraine is proving that the "big bombs" are useless
Depends on the application. The drones have to be manufactured somewhere. You need electricity. Running water. Industrial facilities. The big bomb still matters there.
> The age of WW2-era mechanised warfare is gone. It's as obsolete as the cavalry that came before it.
Well the primary issue is that drones can’t hold or take land, only deny. I think mechanized infantry will continue to have a place, they’ll just be augmented by drones. But who knows you could be right depending on how things develop.
I agree and upvoted you for a good comment with a good source.
In my mind I was thinking about how humans have to actually go back to the land. In Ukraine we’ve seen what amount to drone enforced no-man’s lands where no human can really seize or make use of the land. There of course can be the case where the drones clear the land of enemy troops and drones and then your own people or soldiers move and then occupy the land.
There is a very very large ocean between China and the USA, you cant just assume the lessons from the Ukraine-Russian war will transfer. It would be a completely different beast, and as OP said, missiles might play an important role for both sides. In such a scenario we might see both powers having most of their industrial base destroyed before any of their soldiers (or drones) come into reach of each other.
Sure but neither side has a B-2 or F-35. Drones are great for blowing up a few conscripts or a parked plane but a stealth bomber carrying 80 JDAMs can level 5km^2.
Hilarious. You realize the US could nuke and flatten Iran tomorrow, right? Do you imagine that Trump was trying to conquer Iran and just couldn't do it with all the American military power? There is no scenario that Iran wins a war with the USA.
They were trying to overthrow the regime, for the second time in a year, and failed.
> There is no scenario that Iran wins a war with the USA.
It actually depends on what the you the outcome of the war to be: total conquest or regime change.
The US can probably achieve total conquest, but not regime change. They spent 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan and left there without winning anything, especially in Afghanistan. If they wanted to erase Iraq and Afghanistan, that would have a been a totally different thing.
The internet never forgets: you go and find the first speech about why the war was started and look at the outcome. You can then judge for yourself if the war was won or lost. Obviously with all its nuances.
By that logic Iran has lost the war too, because they can't possibly come out of this situation in a better place than before the war started, which really was back in October 2022.
Since then Iran's economy has been crushed, government was decapitated (and could be again at a time and place of our choosing), they face a naval blockade that prevents them from selling oil, their military was drastically reduced in size and capability by American bombing, they've made their fellow Arabs in the region very, very angry, and they've come to see that both China and Russia (don't forget, Iran sells drones to Russia to kill Ukrainians) were powerless to come to its aid. Their nuclear program is at best on pause.
Now we can sprinkle in that they've depleted a lot of their munitions, and both Hamas and Hezbollah were nearly destroyed and have become shells of their former selves, resorting to hiding behind children and attacking UN aid convoys.
Just in case you thought Iran was somehow coming out of this situation better than before, the above shows that is unequivocally false.
The war did not start in 2022, it started in February 2026.
There were no clear objectives when the war started, but the Trump administration has waffled since about:
Regime change - hasn't happened. The current regime is still running the country.
The end of the assumed nuclear program - hasn't happened.
Destruction of Iran's military - hasn't happened. Iran is still sending drone strikes against US bases in neighbouring countries.
and more recently, opening the Hormuz Strait to commercial shipping - hasn't happened.
Not a single identified US objective in the war has been achieved, and the USA has lost massive respect from the rest of the world because it has been unable to achieve any of its objectives against a third-rate country. It has also drained its interceptor reserves in a way that might have material effect on future conflicts (e.g. Taiwan)
As for Iran, it didn't start the war so it doesn't get a checklist of objectives. However:
Iran is selling oil that it was previously unable to because of sanctions. The on-again-off-again US blockade of the strait isn't really affecting this.
The regime has a much tighter grip on power than it had pre-war, there are no mass demonstrations and it is not shooting its own civilians any more
It has confirmed control over the Hormuz strait and looks likely to be able to charge tolls in the future.
It has seen the Middle East pull away from the USA and pull together, a strategic benefit for it.
There is no reading of this war that makes the USA look good here. It was a mistake in the first place and it's been a colossal cock-up ever since.
Russia is not using their drones in the same way that Ukraine is.
Russia cannot get conventional artillery close enough to use it properly, and Ukraine is keeping personnel away from the front line so they're hard to spot and harder to hit.
Russia is bombarding Ukraine's population centres with long-range cruise missiles. This is the failed Blitz strategy that Britain goaded Germany into during WW2 - get the enemy mad enough to bomb population centres, and not military or economic assets (Germany had almost achieved air superiority by bombing British airfields). Ukraine is leaving the population centres alone and focusing on economic and military production facilities.
Russia is losing this war. And has been for over a year.
There was lots of discussion within Russian and Ukrainian war analytics that nukes (at least tactical) are useless in this war for the following reasons:
- they would not change much on battlefield - there is no large concentrations that you can nuke - everything is dispersed
- nuking urban centers again won't change much on battlefield but would alienate China
- Russia's equipment is known to be not most reliable/maintained and worst that can happen to Russia is them trying to nuke and nukes not working
Nuking all the major population centers would pretty much destroy the ability of Ukraine to manufacture weapons in any meaningful number and it would also deprive its army of any new soldiers, no reinforcements, no food supplies and so on. I think it will change the course of the war pretty fast and pretty drastically.
You're mistaken. A significant portion of Ukraine's manufacturing now happens abroad, out of Russia's reach. Meanwhile, a large part of its domestic production is decentralized and widely distributed. (You can easily find snobbish and pejorative comments by Rheinmetall's CEO about this.)
Nuclear weapon use would lead to no meaningful military success, but it would immediately alienate the superpower Russia depends on in almost every way. China will not tolerate any nation using nuclear weapons. With its extremely dense population, it can't afford a modern wartime precedent to be set for their use.
Yeah, I was going to point out there's a few "big bombs" out there that aren't useless at all . .
Someone will break the First Use taboo, but I wouldn't put money on it being Russia, at the moment, not for Ukraine, as odd as it sounds to say that.
There are more important concerns keeping Putin from breaking First Use, but one interesting one is a genuine anxiety that the stupid thing just wouldn't work. Just lay an egg of fissionable material in Zelensky's bedroom.
I think if there is no retaliation to a nuclear strike on Ukraine, every nuclear capable country will rush towards nuclear weapons as fast as possible.
The reason being, Europe has a long term understanding they are under the nuclear umbrella of the USA which means that Europe does not need to maintain their own atomic weapons. If that long term agreement does not hold, the only way to deter Russia is to have nuclear weapons of your own since you cannot rely on deterrence from other countries.
Once everyone has nukes, Russia can no longer bully countries around because they will glass Moscow. This is a worse state than today where Russia can invade countries using conventional weapons without much consequence.
That's the thing I don't understand: why would they try to nuke Moscow if they weren't the ones attacked? And would they risk their own demise (considering the imbalance in warheads between them and Russia)?
Yup. Because a country attacking another with nuclear weapons in its mad genocidal occupational war it started under false pretenses will definitely sit back and do nothing once it showed it can and will use nuclear weapons for any cause.
Yup. A country that starts nuking other countries in a genocidal war of conquest will not ever be seen as a threat by any other countries and will not suffer any consequences ever.
Russia has already entered this war on the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody and nobody was going to bomb them.
I maybe missing something, but it feels bonkers to me of why with all the MIRVs they have on hundreds of nukes they do not feel the need to carpet bomb Ukraine with them.
What you're missing is a simple bext step in your thought process: why are you so entirely sure that Russia will not suffer any single consequence for doing so?
(also this assumes that russia actuall has hundreds of working nukes)
(this also assumes that carpet bombing a country of 40 million people with nukes will find love and support inside Russia despite all the propaganda)
Edit: you have now replied many times with "I don't understand why Russia doesn't nuke Ukraine". Perhaps you should take the time to try and understand?
> What you're missing is a simple bext step in your thought process: why are you so entirely sure that Russia will not suffer any single consequence for doing so?
There could be consequences. But I am wondering how painful would they be and if the US would get into a nuking game with them. Would it be worth it for the west to become a wasteland just because there needs to be consequences for Russia.
> Edit: you have now replied many times with "I don't understand why Russia doesn't nuke Ukraine". Perhaps you should take the time to try and understand?
Hence the question here again and again: why doesn’t Russia unleash the nuclear armageddon on Ukraine? They would stop the Ukraine’s attacks on itself and get a very large no-go zine between itself and NATO - win-win.
> Would it be worth it for the west to become a wasteland just because there needs to be consequences for Russia.
In your scenario you're saying that Russia is going to show its willingness to lay waste to everything in its genocidal war, including carpet-bombing a country of 40 million people with nuclear bombs. Making it surpass any war in history, including WWII.
Again, in this scenario, somehow, everything just stops, everything is handy-dandy, Russia suffers literally no consequences, everyone just says "oh yeah, the genocidal maniacs are satisfied now, they will never ever carpet bomb anyone else with nuclear bombs".
> why doesn’t Russia unleash the nuclear armageddon on Ukraine? They would stop the Ukraine’s attacks on itself and get a very large no-go zine between itself and NATO - win-win.
Because, once again, you seem to assume that Russia will suffer literally no consequences externally or internally for doing so.
E.g. Russia will be immediately carpet bombed themselves since we already know that their air defenses aren't worth shit.
Because the point of the war was part of the plan to reform the Soviet Union under Russia/Putin.
The idea was to spend a few days, a couple weeks at most, taking Kyiv and the major cities, and then absorb Ukraine into a greater Russian state.
If they have to nuke Ukraine to make them do that, then that's not going to work. Absorbing a radioactive hellhole, with all the problems that will bring, isn't the plan.
Of course, the plan has gone badly wrong, and pretty much everything has gone the opposite to the way Putin wanted it do, so he could still nuke Ukraine just out of petty spite.
Good analysis. I agree that China could consider targeting the US mainland, but in every scenario other than "crazed madman" I think they'll know that kind of thing inevitably ends up with symmetrical (or worse for them) destruction. It would be easy to get public support for massive retaliation if Americans see proof that China has no qualms about blowing up their home, workplace, etc. The fringe will say "Nuke China - it worked in 1945!" and the mainstream will say "Blow up every power plant and dam we can."
When the dust settles, China's killed a bunch of Americans, America has killed even more Chinese, and we're in the same place we were before. I don't think China's that dumb, and they're not that evil, either.
There are no truly irreplaceable components there. It's going to only be a problem if China stops _all_ the exports.
Even then, a custom supply chain can be set up domestically. You'll probably have to limit the number of variations for these servos and motors, but you can produce them even manually if you absolutely have to.
Having a boundless cornucopia of servos and radios will affect the shape of your logistics/maintenance/fabrication complex.
That's not just a "Ukraine Problem" either.