“I admire your ethics. But right now, a little violence might help.” – Star Trek: Enterprise
Is an inconsistency in a Cheech and Chong movie a pothole?
War in 2021 has much the same objective as war throughout human history – make the enemy do something that they otherwise wouldn’t do. It’s never been pretty. In the end, though, the old adage that violence doesn’t solve anything is wrong – ultimately violence solves quite a few things, as Heinlein notes in Starship Troopers:
“. . . I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that `violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms. . . .”
Our current military is ready to fight a war. It’s just that the war in question is World War II. Our armed forces absorbed the lessons of the Wehrmacht and now could totally defeat the Germans and the Japanese much more quickly than the first time. Even I got caught into that mindset when I displayed dismay that the bomber fleet of the United States was down to just over 100 bombers.
Okay, not that kind of bomber . . .
My mind was locked into old paradigms: 1,000 bomber raids. Those days are gone. There is no real reason to send slow, crewed planes on missions where a much faster missile can do the job. Big bomber raids are a thing that you only do against people who can’t shoot the bombers down which every significant near-peer enemy of the United States can.
And if you want to destroy a city? You use a nuke – if I had a nuke, I’d call it Dr. W. You know, W, M.D.?
Likewise, our aircraft carrier fleet is great when used against an enemy that can’t really fight back. Use them against Iraq? Sure. Use aircraft carriers against China?
Ummm, that’s probably silly, since if a carrier is within fighter range of China, it’s probably in Chinese missile range, too. American aircraft carriers are just targets preloaded with casualties.
Why am I writing about this today?
There are rumblings of war. Putin looking to take over part of Ukraine? China looking to take over Taiwan? An American senator talking about a first strike against Russia?
I know when I yawned in physics class it set off a chain reaction.
To the extent the United States isn’t involved in either of these conflicts, things probably remain nice and boring. If Putin wants the Donbas, I’m not sure that I care. I have no idea why he might want it, but it seems like a lot of Russians live there. I can certainly understand why he wants to keep the Crimean Peninsula, since that’s where he keeps his ships.
Again, I’m not sure that I care. At all.
Taiwan is a different situation. Its shore is as close as 81 miles to the Chinese mainland. For the people in Taiwan, this is unfortunate. From the standpoint of the United States – what, exactly would we do to help Taiwan if the Chinese invaded?
I don’t know.
I’m not sure that the United States could do anything. In report after report, the United States loses, and loses quickly when China attempts to take Taiwan every time we wargame the situation. Taiwan is 81 miles from China. Taiwan is 5,000 miles from Hawaii. To the extent that Taiwan isn’t prepared to defend itself, I’m pretty sure the United States has limited options in responding quickly.
I heard the Dalai Lama has a gambling problem. He loves Tibet.
Which brings us to the face of war in 2021. The Chinese have been thinking for a very long time about war with the United States. To be sure, I’m willing to bet some very, very smart people in the United States have been thinking about just the same thing, when they weren’t distracted by Afghanistan or Iraq.
This following is from the 1999 treatise “Unrestricted Warfare” by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. (LINK):
. . . if the attacking side secretly musters large amounts of capital without the enemy nation being aware of this at all and launches a sneak attack against its financial markets, then after causing a financial crisis, buries a computer virus and hacker detachment in the opponent’s computer system in 146 advance, while at the same time carrying out a network attack against the enemy so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network, and mass media network are completely paralyzed, this will cause the enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis. There is finally the forceful bearing down by the army, and military means are utilized in gradual stages until the enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty. This admittedly does not attain to the domain spoken of by Sun Zi, wherein “the other army is subdued without fighting.”
The idea is simple – warfare encompasses absolutely every facet of the life of the enemy. Destabilize the government. Force their economy into chaos. Starve them. Own their communications systems. In other words, it’s just like a Biden presidency.
The hippies tried to get to Afghanistan – they heard that smoking weed there got you stoned to death.
None of this is really new – destruction of civilian cohesion is a tactic that’s been used again and again. At the end of World War I, the Allies kept a food blockade on Germany from 1914 until months after the November 1918 Armistice – the blockade lasted until July of 1919 to force Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Over 100,000 German civilians died during the famine after the Armistice was signed.
The war envisioned by the Chinese (if it happens) won’t be the antiseptic thing that most civilians in the United States have dealt with since 9/11/2001. It will involve the systems around us failing. Imagine the utter loss of every modern convenience, including food being available and plentiful. Then imagine there is no information on when (or even if) the help is coming. Alone. No food. No power. In the dark.
That’s what unrestricted warfare looks like.
After going through Hurricane Ike (a small one, by destructiveness standards) it was enlightening to watch the systems go down. After four days, Home Despot® opened up, and was selling limited amounts. How limited? As I recall only 8 customers were allowed in the store at a time. Purchases were done, as I recall, with cash only. I went by to purchase a battery-operated fan, and was actually in and out fairly quickly – the Hurricane might have been a small one, virtually all services stopped.
Recovery was fairly quick because the damage was regional. All of the surrounding areas pitched in and within a week, most power was back on in the city. We had radio, so we were listening to the city come back to life in real-time.
I think when the astronauts saw this storm they said, “Houston, you have a problem.”
The interconnected, wired, and powered world has created an unparalleled ability to create wealth, to create comfort, and create convenience. But it has added a great degree of fragility. In 1919, if you had taken out the electricity to the United States, the result would have been inconvenient, but not fatal. Some water systems might have failed, and people would have had to switch back to candles. Abandoning the top floors of buildings that were inconvenient to reach except via elevator would be bad, but there would be no fundamental reason we couldn’t fix the systems: this failure would hurt, but not paralyze us.
Today, it creates a system where unrestricted warfare could result in a conflict that would be over in minutes, and end with a country so devastated that it might never be rebuilt.
So, have a happy Monday!
This post was inspired in part by email with a reader – I’ll let them bring it up if they so choose.
Everything seems to be in place for a civil war yet nothing. I think we are more in a siege state where the left is sacking cities (Detroit for example). Chicago seems to be the next victim of siege where the goal is total domination by the left through destruction.
A long decay . . . is that the plan?
Here is some domestic pushback you may not have heard of.
The level of pushback elevated and actually was reported in the press.
https://twitter.com/kdlaw/status/1468637025590906880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1468637025590906880%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fhealth%2Fpresident-california-medical-board-tweets-terrifying-encounter-anti-vaccine-group
John – – Those of us who have followed you for years recognize your recurring focus on grid down dystopian life without joy… It’s well your prescience in that subject area is developed and researched as it is a subject that is soon to overtake most of our society’s focus as our National tranquility and largess ratchets ever downward.
Food has long been the weapon of control by totalitarians for millineia and will continue to do so. Modern life may fill in blanks temporarily, but suffice it to say that if the area you live in today could not support a farming family 100 years ago, it WILL NOT SUPPORT ONE (yours) NOW !!
The old ways are forgotten, even Scout skills barely scratch the opening days of dealing with bad times. Sanitation, well, the great lack thereof ( where will you poop and still keep clean??) will be the big killer. Lack of water being the most deficient and persistent death-bringer.
I predict an economic meltdown wrought by hyperinflation by next Summer without the wonderful instigation by the Chinks or Ruskies…. Why should they get dirty hands when Xao BuyDem is helping strongly (with Valerie Jarrett and Woeamaz skillful handiwork also in evidence….).????
In the next year, our nation will be on its knees and half of our citizenry will have perished. And it won’t be from war, but from starvation, pestilence, disease and the effects of the clotshots destroying natural abilities to fight off infections and repair damages to the clot-shotted folks’ DNA…
Sorry bout that ….. ( in Vietnamese: Xin Loi, G.I. !!!!) But you are a truth teller and your audience seeks that so I am just putting forth my truths among yours….
I do think that hyperinflation is less likely – they can control how much they print. Now, the demand side . . . how much demand will there be for the dollar internationally?
John – Perhaps the only thing I remember from a now-very-much-in-the-past college class about the The History of the American Military (through the mid 1980’s) is that most militaries are fighting the last successful war they fought. To the US, this is World War II (commentary about military actions aside). To at least an outsider’s/novice’s eyes, it appears that overall this is still the case.
To be honest, I am quietly terrified of the current situation – not so much from the situation itself but because of those on our side in charge of it. I am old enough to have seen many kinds of hubris; what I see emanating from the Current Administration is alarming. My fear is they will happily commit us to a war without a second thought, only to find out that it is a total war, not the sort of thing that has been in place since WW II.
The US has not experienced anything like “total war” since, perhaps, the Civil War (and that only in a section of the country). Were I our opponent, I would do exactly as the article extract suggests: Undermining of every possible system that stands in the way of victory by destabilizing your opponent in every way possible. Given the fragility of our systems, it will not take much.
Honestly, like you, I have no dog in the fight of Donbas even I as do not have a dog in the fight of Armenia versus Azerbaijan or Russia versus Georgia. Maybe in the case of Taiwan, but even then to your point, realistically what can we do (other than commit to total war or make it essentially a US military outpost).
I do not know that I have ever seen this country so at odds or divided. Add in a crushing, decisive military defeat and the resulting shock of such a defeat – think Germany in WW I – and we will look back even on these days as halcyon.
Very well said. It really is like we are defeating ourselves . . . but that’s tomorrow’s post.
“…Unrestricted Warfare…”
Well, wouldn’t be convenient for TPTB to crash the grid, say late October 2022? And blame it on the Chinks? It worked in Wuhan.
FJB/LGB: “Elections must be postponed until we get to the bottom of this travesty performed unon the American people.”
How convenient. Somehow, the masses of illegals will be housed and fed for free while the rest of us riot and starve.
I have to disagree that ALL systems will be down. In much of the country, we’re used to periodic take-downs of power and services caused by weather or energy overloads. The smarter ones, long ago, bought the backup systems:
– The generators, to keep food from spoiling
– Backyard barbeques/hibachis/firepits
– Flashlights, hurricane lamps, candles, etc.
– Auxiliary heating and cooling supplies – practice using a large bucket of ice and a battery/solar-powered fan to make a Redneck Swamp Cooler, kerosene and propane heaters
– Shelter in one family house or one room, to more efficiently use the power that is available
– Prepping the pantry
– Learning to cook/bake, and eliminate a lot of shopping trips
Who is going to suffer in such an attack, that takes down basic systems?
City-dwellers and those that surround them.
Can’t get by wiithout cash machines, electronic checkout and stocking systems, and deliveries of food (whether to stores or home delivery).
In the more rural/small towns, people know how to write down a purchase on paper, use cash/checks, and trade/barter/swap to handle a temporarily cashless society. Trust is high (for most), and life goes on with little fuss.
The farmer that raises meat animals cuts a few out of the herd, butchers them (perhaps with the assistance of the local game butcher), and sells them locally. Don’t need to lose money because the big agri-business doesn’t come by to pick up the product.
Distribution can be switched to be closer to production. Won’t help the cities far from the food, but…
Ordered a 500 gal. LP tank, 6+ months wait time. It’s being delivered today. The 24K Generac in early January, then the desalinazation unit in February (we have salt marsh on both sides of our house). Greenhouse up in 3 weeks.
We’re getting there, albeit slowly.
There will be a few months of chaos before things come back together enough to set up trading arrangements, IMHO.
It is far more likely there won’t be a collapse, since this is all being managed.
If things get out of control and there is a collapse, there won’t be enough people left to trade once things calm down in a few years. And by calm down, I mean not enough of a population density to allow for conflict.
I live in a small town ,mainly rural county. Hundreds of family farms here in 1920. 90 % of population here dead very quickly. But I do admire your optimism.
Of course, if they blame China, they’ll have to do something about it . . . .
A tale of two countries. One long used to sacrifice and suffering. The other really, really soft.
When the EBT system went down here for an afternoon a number of years ago, there was chaos and looting within hours. ‘Civil society’ broke down as predictably and reliably as a ’73 Fiat full of dorm bro’s out on a midnight Pop Tart run.
By contrast, just imagine the response in 80% of mainland China in the event of their version of The Grid and Teh Interwebs hacking up a lung:
AP News Reporter: Tell us, Chinese peasant, how you managed to survive during the months-long power outage.
Chinese Peasant: What power outage?!?
I wish I had a nickel for every time I continued to flip a switch after the lights went out, courtesy of Hurricane Sandy. Something in my modern hindbrain simply would not accept the notion that the juice was no longer there. To the vast majority of Chinese, still used to living a Middle-Period existence, something like electrical power or indoor plumbing are luxuries they can easily survive without. Couple that with the official CCP position that their own population is almost entirely expendable, and you are facing an enemy that can keep coming at you until they are literally flicking bodies like boogers over your castle walls.
Jeez, are we phucked, or what?
TwoBuckChuck–Heh! Heh! You’re on to something!
Your read reminds me of a tale my local barbers (the Ryan brothers–two REAL “Fighting Irish”) relayed to me when they were GIs in the Korean ‘Conflict’ unpleasantness. Pusan I believe. They were an American machine gun crew mowing down fanatical waves of Chinese such that their .30 cal Browning barrel got a mite warm after thousands of rounds.
Chinese bodies were stacked like cordwood in front of their foxhole spewing out death and destruction non-stop against relentless Chinese advances.
Relieved they were when their Sarge yelled to them to “Hold your fire!” as a Commie with a white flag approached. Their Sarge cautiously came out and parlayed for a bit and then returned to the machine gunners.
The Ryans asked: “What’s up, Sarge?” The Seargeant replied that the Commie “negotiator” wanted to know if the running-dog lacky American pig-dog gun crew had had enough and wanted to surrender, as they planned to send yet more brigades against them until their MG malfunctioned, they ran out of ammo, or their comrades overwhelmed them.
The Ryans were ordered to “commence firing” again and it was only airstrikes with napalm that saved their arses.
…nothing personal, strictly a numbers game….
We might be. Our power systems are our advantage (when good) and a weapon against us (when not).
Interesting times . . . .
Here’s a crash course on the upcoming Battle For The Donbass. The disputed territory is here:
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/DONBASS-64-3.png
During WWII, the Donbass was part of Russia itself on the map. To beef up its defenses, Stalin had the native Tartars of this area deported to what we would call “Indian Reservations” deep in the steppes of the Ural Mountains, and held what we would call an “Oklahoma land rush” in the region which led to over a million Russians settling there up until Stalin’s death in 1953. As part of the ensuing power struggle, Khrushchev “gifted” the Donbass to Ukraine (the remaining Tartars were considered Ukrainian) as a bribe for Ukrainian support of his ascent to power. To some extent this was a “poison pill”, with Khrushchev calculating that adding a million Russian speakers to the country would help to consolidate and continue Russian control over the Ukraine. (Details? https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/why-did-russia-give-away-crimea-sixty-years-ago)
Khrushchev was pretty smart about putting a million Russians in as a fulcrum to Ukrainian politics, but he didn’t forsee them all becoming stranded outside their own native country upon the dissolution of the USSR under Gorbachev in 1989. The USSR morphed into the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) by 1991. Critically Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine (all previously parts of the USSR) declined to join the CIS and instead turned their political sights Westward. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined both the European Union and NATO in 2004. Ukraine desperately wants to do so, too, and so go under the NATO Article 5 American nuclear umbrella against any future Russian invasions and annexations of the Donbass to bring those Donbass Russians back inside the Russian border. To that end, the Russian nation, the Luhansk state and the Donetsk state have issued over 400K, 500K and 600K “passports” (over 1.1M total) to Donbass residents who DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF UKRAINE OR CONSIDERED UKRANIAN (See: https://novosti-dn-ua.translate.goog/news/307870-v-nepodkontrolnom-donbasse-vydaly-pochty-442-tysyach-pasportov-rf-y-bolee-12-mln-pasportov-l/dnr?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en). Holders of these passports are kinda like Trumpers who don’t want to be part any more of a nation (Ukraine) they believe has gone crazy liberal.
You wanna know what Civil War looks like? This is how one got started in the Donbass. 15,000 dead so far. But the focus is never on what the people of the Donbass want for themselves, it’s always on Putin Wants To Start A War.
For some reason, the EU and NATO have been a little slower to extend a helping hand to Ukraine than to its Baltic neighbors – maybe because NOBODY wants the possibility of an Article 5 declaration against a nuclear armed adversary? (But against Afghanistan? No problem!) Instead, we’ve done backdoor covert ops (led by Victoria “F**K the EU” Nuland – see https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957) that culminated in the (CIA led? Who knows?) sniper massacre that killed 50 protesters at Maidan Square in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine and far from the Donbass. This sparked the so-called 2014 “Revolution of Dignity” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity) that overthrew the pro-Russian Ukrainian leader Yanukovych and replaced him with pro-Western Poroshenko. About this time is when Hunter Biden (And the Big Guy, too? Who knows?) became a Ukrainian energy prince, but I digress…
Putin’s response to this has pretty much been to accept the loss of Yanukovych and Ukraine itself (hey, he’s former KGB, he knows you win some and you lose some) and to concentrate instead on (1) securing former USSR naval port facilities on the Crimean Peninsula and (2) repatriating Russian-speaking people in Luhansk and Donetsk.
He accomplished the former by injecting Russian troops into Crimea that oversaw an election there to declare itself independent from Ukraine. It was kinda like Cubans coming to Florida to oversee its secession from the US. Technically Crimea now considers itself an independent state with Russian rather than Ukrainian troops providing local security. Since this “election”, a huge bridge has been built between Crimea and Russia itself at the mouth of the Azof Sea to allow resupply directly from Russia instead of through an overland route passing through Ukrainian territory. This bridge now means that Russians can drop rocks on any Ukrainian naval vessel that passes under it from the Black Sea into the Azov Sea to support Ukrainian military efforts in the coastal areas of the Donbass. In fact, such naval skirmishes have occurred recently, but again, I digress…
And so now we’re into the endgame, the conclusion of Battle for the Donbass and deciding the fate of a million Russian speakers there. Will anybody ever pay attention to the 1997 Russian–Ukrainian Friendship Treaty that was supposed to prevent this mess? (Nah.) Will the US put boots on the ground and help the Ukrainians restore order against a million civilian Russian insurrectionists there? Will Luhansk and Donetsk split from Ukraine like Crimea did? Will Russia invade Donbass with troops and actually annex it, moving the Russian national boundary on the map? Will Senator Wicker push The Big Red Button?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10289031/Wicker-suggests-NUKE-Russia-Ukraine-invasion-claims-table.html
Stay tuned…
Another possible outcome of course is ULM (Ukrainian Lives Matter) firebombing the dachas and flash-mob looting the vodka stores in Luhansk and Donetsk, while calling for the majority of citizens there to renounce their Russian Privilege, feel Russian Shame and Russian Guilt, pay reparations to achieve Equity for returning Tartars whose land was stolen, and accept the criminalization of their possession of AK-47s…
On a more serious note, Nolan Peterson has some really good ongoing coverage of what it’s really like in the Donbass.
https://coffeeordie.com/history-russia-war-against-ukraine/
https://coffeeordie.com/ukraine-front-line/
The links posted by Ricky re Ukraine sound like the were written by the US State Department. But then, the Black Rifle Coffee Company is, well, what it is.
Okay, I’ll have to give that a look.
LOL
Great summary – but . . . none of that should involve us at all.
For 150, other than Pearl Harbor, was for Americans has been something that happened “over there”. We saw pictures and then video but it wasn’t real. I recall the first Gulf War, it was like a spectator sport or a video game. War with Russia and/or China? It won’t be like that. Not at all.
“For 150 years” and “war” not “was”. Geez.
Gotcha!!
Nope. That’s the problem – we’ve had “war” for years much the way that the Romans had war, something going on far away. Until the Civil Wars started . . . .
Perhaps it’s age creeping up on me, but I find myself looking harder for an escape route from Modern Life. Maybe I’m sensing an impending collapse (like everyone else here) and want to get out in front as far as I can.
Also, posts and comments like I’m reading here give me cause to regret my life of clean living, because if what we all think is coming is actually coming, it looks like a quick, early death might be preferable.
Hope it’s not too late to start hitting the bottle…
Merry Christmas, indeed!
Oh, if it were only that easy. I never expected to live to be old, so I went with all the liquor, drugs, and anything-else-dangerous-and-fun as hard as I could. Now that I’ve outlived my expected clocking-out date, I’ve lived long enough to have to pay the bill I thought I would dodge.
Don’t begrudge a minute of it, though.
Never give up. The Sun is still in business.
Sunrise! You know what that means… another hangover.
🙂
I understand that a lot of western China lives without modern conveniences, but most of eastern China doesn’t. And we invented hacking long before they did, and I suspect we have some pretty good hackers on our payrolls. If I were making the decisions in Beijing, that little thought would keep me awake at night. Don’t want to lose the Mandate of Heaven because the lights went out.
Or there’s another way of looking at this. The big reason enhanced radiation weapons (“neutron bombs”) weren’t introduced is that the liberal geniuses who came up with the concept were forcibly reminded that dying men who know they still have a few days left can unleash an awful lot of hell and pay no consequences for it at all. Who cares if the world burns-me and my family are dead in a couple of days anyway.
I believe that Sun-tzu made mention that you didn’t want to back an enemy into a corner with no possible exit, because bad things would happen. Not an exact quote, but you get the idea. Let’s hope the current crop of Chinese leaders read that part of the book.
Oh, I don’t think it will be one-sided. But it certainly won’t be like walking into Iraq or Afghanistan or Somalia or . . .
Look up the speech by comrade general Chi Haotian (PLA) regarding bioweapons and the slaughter of 200 million Americans.
Too many quisling traitors on the side of the CCP who puts the gold in their sacks means it won’t end well for Chiquitastan.
Big Steals have consequences outside of the noxious imperial swamp miasma and at least the readers of sites like these don’t have their heads in the sands or distracted by appetites and delusions.
Armies for the preservation of peace do not exist; they exist only for the triumphant exertion of war.
Adolf Hitler
I read that speech to The Mrs. a few years ago. Chilling.
We’ve already basically given our blessing to Putin invading the Ukraine. We threatened economic sanctions, which never worked before, while never mentioning anything stronger. I still doubt that Putin will invade, as the Ukraine is a rat’s nest of problems, with few benefits to an invader and lots of risks. If he did invade, there wouldn’t be much of a war.
There is less chance of us ‘winning’ against Russia or China than against the Afghans, for many reasons. But the biggest is that the win condition would be even more insane: keep fighting in the Ukraine as a proxy, when anyone who has studied history knows that if Russia is known for anything in the past 1000 years it is fighting to the last drop of peasant blood. Even capturing Moscow just causes the Russians to shrug, devastate their own farms, and wait for the invader to freeze or starve. And invading Russia proper would lead to nukes flying, by Russia’s own published ‘red lines’ for nuclear use.
My read is that it’s all BS. All 3 big nations are using the others as external enemies to benefit them domestically, and this will escalate. First time there is a hacking attack on this nation (probably by this nation, not China) there will be an E-Patriot Act that makes Twitter’s censors into 4 star generals in charge of the Patriot Minuteman Heroes of the State Internet Defense Force.
Yup, and online ID’s required . . . for our own good.
“So, have a happy Monday!”
It is nice of you to end on a positive note.
As for the rest, I agree and even think we will see it from the inside in 2022. So now I just catch the big articles on ZH and TBP, and listen to Mike Adams’ situation updates ( https://www.naturalnews.com/ ) and Johnathon Couey’s Gigaohm Biological for covid and vax information.
I don’t write very much in the comments anymore, as anyone who is still clueless will remain so. I do read them because I like to hear from those who are aware of the situation and there aren’t too many of those around here.
Anyway, thanks for all your posts and the effort behind them.
I would echo your thoughts, here, HH.
John, you do a wonderful job of elucidating and illustrating, and for these you are to be commended. The truth, however, is that time is short for those who still do not understand the depth and breadth of the peril we shall shortly face (I personally feel grateful for every day I & my family have without the EMP occurring), and if one does not have things arranged by now, one may not have the opportunity to do so.
There is much be doubtful regarding, and foresight has failed so often… even the Wise can be baffled by events unprecedented.
For now, every day is gift and a chance to do better, to get things done, to say what needs saying, and on and on.
‘Tis a privilege real, to stand with the few who Know.
I’m hoping this amounts to nothing . . . but China senses weakness, and Russia senses, well, probably vodka.
Thank you very much for the kind words.
Thank you! More coming. And I’m thankful every time you do comment . . . I’m glad you liked the positive ending!!!
China is in a good bit of trouble right now, they’ve got a debt crisis and an energy crisis ongoing, so that foreign investors are fleeing, and major cities are being blacked out for hours on end. China’s domestic coal stocks are very low, so they’re importing coal like crazy. If their debt crisis implodes the yuan, they’re going to have a tough time importing coal… and wars take a lot of money. https://tfiglobalnews.com/2021/09/30/china-is-triggering-a-global-economic-crisis/
More – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi6AXpoq1vQ – this guy lived there for 15 years… read the comments.
Thanks!
Good points – and a broken China will be an economic nightmare here. Critical shortages, everywhere.
I think the regular readers would concur that the United States is in a historically weak position. We are divided domestically, the economy is running on fumes and there is significant distrust in our institutions. Our allies are dismayed by the appalling exit from Afghanistan and our current regime does not inspire trust in the international community. It is not surprising that more aggressive countries see this as a window of opportunity to settle old scores and position themselves for the future.
The US military is more demoralized than since then end of the Viet Nam War. Most career troops have served 2-3 tours downrange during the GWOT and our exit from Afghanistan was not inspiring. The push to get jabbed with ominous consequences implied has also put a damper on morale. Traditionally 01-05 promotions were on merit then starting with 06 they became somewhat political. After 8 years of Obama and 4 years of Never Trump the military senior leadership has become extremely polarized when compared to the rank and file. This difference in political alignment creates additional grist in the mill of the machine. We have run down our war stocks over the past 20 years and the ammo bunkers are not stacked as deeply as they once were. Our ability to project force using CRAF and organic lift is also reduced. Supposedly the first thing a president asks in a crisis is “where are the carriers?” If you hit globalsecurity.org with that you’ll see that 5 of the 11 groups are deployed – the balance are in maintenance or stand down. Just for fun you can find the deployed carriers current location on marinevesseltraffic.com. So much for keeping off the radar.
Russia has spent the last few months positioning themselves to consolidate their holdings by assimilating the Donbas region. Their domestic press has ramped up the war drums, troops are deployed, pro forma diplomatic discussions have been completed and the stage is set. In the past week field hospitals have been deployed which is a significant tell. The hospital staff has peacetime obligations that have been set aside for the coming fray. Both Chinese and Russian attacks have been made daily on satellite systems for the past month; the US says none were disabled but then that is what they’d say regardless. Biden effectively green lighted the event when he made it clear that US boots on the ground were out and economic sanctions were in. One economic sanction was being exiled from the SWIFT bank exchange system. Both China and Russia established alternatives to the SWIFT system in 2019 so that dog won’t hunt. The EU needs natural gas during the winter so that sanction won’t bite. Russia sent another message in late November when they sortied 9 of their 10 Borei class boomers from Kamchatka in the course of a week. My honest opinion at this point is that Russia will only take/hold the Donbas region with the idea that this would be an excellent live fire exercise to get their troops blooded. A quick/tidy exercise would send a strong message to other potential targets that the Russians mean business when they negotiate and that the US/NATO/Quad promises of support are empty words. Bottom line is that the Russian troops on the border need to be used / removed soon. Forward deployment on “standby” status can only last so long before troops start to lose their edge.
China is watching this with interest. There are only a few months a year when the East China Sea is conducive for amphibious operations. One window is coming up around Chinese New Year. The Chinese have been pushing hard on Taiwan the past year. Taiwan has a defense budget of around 12 billion. By making 3,000 sorties near / into Taiwanese air space China has forced Taiwan to spend 900 million in fuel launching fighters. In addition to being a serious cash drain that accelerates A/B/C/D checks on the aircraft and creates a ground hog day mentality among the sensor operators/crews. At the end of October, China stopped using the AIS transponders on Chinese registered vessels – so they tend to drop off the commercial sensing systems. Officially this was to comply with their Personal Information Protection Law but it is conveniently creates significant surface clutter not immediately identifiable. We all know about the shipping backlog off Long Beach – there’s another cavalcade of container ships bobbing around off the coast of China. The ocean transport situation near China is murky at best. .China wants the Taiwanese infrastructure intact (it takes years to build a bleeding edge chip plant) but probably isn’t too concerned about civilian casualties. That makes for a different set of rules of engagement. If the Chinese can get a solid indication from the US that as long as they avoid US casualties the US won’t immediately intervene then there is “some” possibility of that adventure in the near future. In the last 20 virtual wargames that the US ran we were unable to deploy assets to Formosa in time to prevent the Chinese from successfully taking the island. If the US was significantly distracted with a deniable cyberstrike on the banking, energy or GPS networks that would increase the odds of success. Keep in mind that Hutchison Whampoa runs the Panama Canal and the Suez Economic Zone has a significant Chinese presence. If China and Russia agree to mind their own business then they free up significant forces otherwise on their mutual borders. And of course there are the whole panopoly of “assassins mace” weapons but those are still not fully fielded (hypersonic MIRVs, non-nuclear EMP devices, blinding laser rifles, etc.).
Discouraging, eh? All open source information. Just like Russia signing a 20 year defense agreement with Iran this week. Ideally our leadership is aware of all this and has a cunning plan to make the magic happen. That’s not how I’d bet though. I’m thinking best case the US continues to lose influence in the international community and trust from our allies. As the Chinese and Russians push to make their oil purchases denominated in rubles and renmimbi rather than dollars they will continue to apply pressure to the dollar status as a reserve currency. Without a deliberate, coordinated and focused campaign to restore the US position and regain the initiative I believe it’s safe to say that the sunset of the Republic is upon us. Let’s make hay while the sun still shines.
Let me sum up your excellent post in four words I am really scared may dominate 2022:
“Taiwan-Donbas coordinated attack.”
I wouldn’t worry if I heard those 4 words. Hard for me to care. 3 words that would worry me: “Biden sends troops.”
Zorost since we currently have essentially ZERO Microchip production in the USA and microchips are in almost every electronic device in my area (maybe not in Amish Country) THAT would be AH BAD.
Look up the masses of vehicles awaiting chips in various storage places recently. Now REMOVE the source (Taiwan) of those chips.
Even modern farming equipment uses chips. Starvation anyone?
Almost like SOMEONE with a Long View of Warfare set us up for failure, doesn’t it?
Yes, I would be very concerned if the HANDLERS of the Sock Puppet said “We are sending Troops” as Biden isn’t sure what ice-cream he wants right now. THEY seem determined to destroy the USA by any means needed.
Winter isn’t coming, It’s HERE.
Short US Dollars, long gardens and trusted friends.
The Chinee are already supplying Taiwan with most of the rare earth metals needed to make chips, so presumably they’d keep the chip factories working and exporting. As long as the takeover didn’t destroy those factories.
Hmmm…
If I was a conspiracy minded person with zero trust in our leaders I’d suspect that we’ll only put up enough of a fight to destroy those factories. Perhaps an “accidental” explosion if the Chinese are too careful with their targeting. Then be shocked to find that new chip plants are being built elsewhere that just happen to belong to Biden Inc and friends.
Indeed – the global economic empire had an expiration date from day one. The transition is everything . . . excellent observations.
On yet anther (!?!) what-the-hell-are-we-thinking war topic, we may be outta Afghanistan, but there’s STILL American boots on Syrian ground, er, American drones in Syrian skies….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10302041/Classified-unit-called-Talon-Anvil-outsize-number-Syrian-civilian-deaths.html
Exactly. Why? There is no reason.
SPEED..SUPPRISE..VIOLENCE OF ACTION. The Winds of War know these tools.
As a complacent society, this is abhorred. But War has solved more problems than not.
Unfortunately, the consequences and collateral damage does exist.
War is at the pointy end of Occams Razor. It clears the board of the complex with
very simple moves. Not saying war is simple, because it is not. The issues are complex,
the immediate solutions are simple.But throw in snowflakes, muffins and TIME, then
it gets real messy. Protraction, i.e., TIME, errods the Razor and WAR sluffs off into the
next chapter of The History of Earth/ WAR, with the few dog eared white pages of peace
separating the many pages of conflict.
Each generation is a Darwin moment. One that at this point in time, appears to be comedy.
If…we are within the weather of the winds of war, so be it. Another teaching moment.
The beginning, like all beginnings in conflict, will have a thinning, a purge, of the ranks
and those left standing will make the rules and forge history, again. The natural order of
THINGS.
These are not happy times. These are not the white pages either. A new chapter is upon us.
Are you strong enough to look at the past stories so that you can venture, armed with a little
knowledge into the new approaching fog?
Observe
Orient
Decide
Act
Keep your edges whet..
Yup. We are in for spicy times, I think.
Three problems with all that:
1) Taiwan could (and would) become a nuclear power in about 15 minutes (if they aren’t one already).
2) An amphibious attack across 80-mile straits looks a lot better on paper than in real life, coupled with the fact that the Chinese have zero history of pulling off anything like it, ever. The last time they tried, against Japan, the storm that ate their lunch gave birth to the name “kamikaze”: “divine wind”. That’s before we talk about torpedoes and such, addressed “to whom it may concern”. Also, as every first rate navy in the world knows, “nukes don’t leave holes in the ocean”, and an invasion fleet that suddenly disassembled at the molecular level isn’t good for much after the flash of the Bright Light Of Knowledge.
3) Unleashing a multi-level war like that would get about 100 ICBMs spun up in the Western US, all wholly uncoupled from such infrastructure concerns, and airborne at the speed of pissed off. And afterwards, China would be in serious danger of finding out what India and Russia would like to do to it, once it was well and truly bent over a barrel in about 5 different ways, and glowing in the dark from Shanghai to Beijing. 50/50 in the absence of retaliatory orders, US military command would initiate the response unilaterally. The rule of thumb at that point would be “ZFG”.
What China would like to do, and what it can actually do, are separated by a lot more than 80 miles of ocean.
I highly doubt we are going to open ourselves up to nuclear attack by China just to save some island of Chinese, that we and virtually the entire world officially recognize as part of China. Not that I’d mind if most of our coastal areas were reduced to slag, but the coastal people making the call probably would. Even without nukes, there is a question whether we could survive an embargo by China.
The TW military is a joke compared to China’s. There is no way they could fend off a naval and airborne attack by a nation 60x their size. That is assuming the TW would even try to fight back, which is a big question.
Save “some island of Chinese“?
I suppose you think microchips come from the stork, like babies.
Key point, the Taiwanese don’t recognize Taiwan as anything but the Republic of Taiwan. You could look it up. All you’ve done is take a poll of the wolves, regarding the status of sheep. Real life doesn’t work that way.
As for fending off an invasion, they only have to make the lemon not worth the squeeze. Honk Kong, Shanghai and Beijing all disappearing in a blinding white flash would succeed at that beyond their wildest dreams, and only requires a heavily tech- and industrialized island to utilize technology that’s 75 years old. The Pakistanis – hardly world-class scientists – pulled it off decades ago. One would have to be an epic fool to think Taiwan would never do so, and never saw this time coming. Exactly like Israel in this respect, they’d have nothing left to lose.
Get real, and wake up.
China lights the candle on this cupcake, and 99:1 it blows up in their face. And takes 200M of their friends and neighbors with it. And then Russia and India, both nuclear powers with longstanding China issues, step up to bat. Then Vietnam, both Koreas, and Japan get involved, and it’s a party.
And if China screws with us first as outlined, the Joint Chiefs would fire those ICBMs, then launch a coup, and half the country would back them up.
You should look up realpolitik sometime, and stop thinking the world is a debate society brunch after a history lecture at the Harvard Club.
Unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan has choices.
And countries act like drunks at a bar far more than they act like Greek philosophers debating at the Acropolis.
“Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.” Mike Tyson
Agreed, Mr. Aesop. The difficulty is that no-one involved is reasonable or virtuous or well-informed. And even if they were, horrible consequences still follow on honest error.
You are reasonable, virtuous & well-informed, yet AFAIK you still imagine fake PPE to be helpful. The which led, as night to day, to vaxx mandates. And now to force-vaxxed children. So too might the invasion launch.
BTW, brought snacks to another ER crew. The only staff wearing real PPE, not the FNG masks were your guys.
I don’t imagine, I research.
Snot masks: Literally 1000 times better than nothing for outbound particles:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2
Anyone who wrongly imagines they’re for the wearers for anything not an N95 or better is a moron unworthy of further discussion.
OTOH, Vaxx mandates for a not-a-vaxx had nothing to do with PPE, nor the actual pandemic They had to do with TPTB at every level lying, then lying about the lies, and all with the force of unlawful compulsion to orchestrate the current situation.
The solution for that, long overdue, is to start shooting the bastards in the face to get their attention, then pointing out that the answer is still, always, “No.”
Disagreement at that point is encouraged, and should be dealt with by more shooting in the face, until the problem is resolved.
And. Will. Be.
At this point, there’s no other way to get the toothpaste back in the tube, and precious little reason to forego that obvious solution.
Very, very true! I was one-sided on purpose, because the last 20 years of “war” was as bloodless for most Americans as losing a video game. Going against Russia or China in a conflict is a conflict where they get a vote as to what happens in the United States. This will be the first time that threat has happened since the Cold War . . .
Yup, I wonder if they don’t already have 100 or so nukes artfully placed.
IMHO if China decides to invade Taiwan, there is precious little the Taiwanese people or their allies like the US can do about it. China has numerical superiority and both a logistical and geographical advantage. Taiwan is right on their doorstep…plus there will be no cultural or language barriers to dealing with the islands inhabitants. Because of that I believe that China will stroll into Taiwan with very little resistance, initially. I think that, once Chinese troops are established on Taiwanese soil, there will be a massive resistance by saboteurs, guerrilla fighters, urban warfare etc. That is why US Special Forces have been present and operating in Taiwan for so long. They are training the Taiwan military in appropriate tactics for dealing with occupiers. The missiles, jets and battleships of the PRC will be useless in combatting small squad tactics. The US air force presence in Australia…some 5000 miles distant…is just a distraction, a decoy. The Chinese will be walking into a trap…sort of like their own personal Afghanistan.
Potentially, but I doubt the PRC will be as gentle and even bother to try to win hearts and minds.
Yeah, no.
1) In the event of resistance, and perhaps on general principles anyways, the Chicoms would simply kill everyone on the island, burn the corpses, and move into their homes the next week.
2) Knowing this likelihood, Taiwan is liable to proactively erase certain Chinese mainland metropolii in Bright White Flashes Of Wisdom, and point out that the total number of additional weapons available for use remains unknown.
In real life, this is like grabbing your dentist by the wedding tackle, just before he drills, and pointing out that if he hurts you, he’ll know it rather rapidly and personally.
Ummm, that’s probably silly, since if a carrier is within fighter range of China,
Back in the late 70s it was possible to slave the targeting computers of nuclear subs and destroyers to that of the planes launched from the carriers. I expect te capacity to deliver hellfire has improved since then.
The problem is not the relative tools, but the men (or rather not-men) trying to maintain, much less use them.
Spare a prayer or two for your humble correspondent and her husband as we are experiencing some rather large speedbumps.
Yup – but for the first time since 1989, the (prospective) enemy gets a vote. I do imagine we have amazing things that we’ve never used . . .