Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

usip.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 204 posts

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#121

Post by kerneloftruth »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #111
kingcharles wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some sanctions Some sanctions? The entire Russian economy has disappeared overnight. The only reason it has not been felt yet is due to inertia. There are still just about enough goods in the pipes to support things for weeks or months. But once computers start breaking, planes start breaking, shelves start to empty, and nothing is arriving to replace them, shit is going to hit the fan.

Indeed. They're being unplugged from the 21st century.

Or have they been? "Unplugged" is a good metaphor, for they currently control the vast majority of energy to all of Europe[1]. We're turning Russia into a gigantic version of North Korea, and with the same major ally, China. What happens if Russia diverts its gas sales to China -- it's Europe that'll be unplugged.

1. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g5701h.ct003365/?r=0.025,0.336,...

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#122

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #107
rufus_foreman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. When I think of Turkey, the first thing that comes to my mind is "North Atlantic", same as you apparently.

Turkey is explicitly in the geographic area covered by NATO, though (I would assume North Atlantic, North America, Mediterranean, Europe, Turkey and Algerian Departments of France Treaty Organization or NANAMETADFTO was considered too long of a name). Taiwan is thousands of miles outside of it.

Even worse, it would have had to be NANAMETADFTO OTFDATEMANAN to keep the French happy.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#123

Post by Etherlord87 »

_hypx wrote: post #106
windpower wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm someone you would describe as "anti 2A". I still think the "defense against home invasion" style argument is mostly nonsense. It's super rare, and I don't think the benefits of guns outweigh the downsides for that kind of self defense. (Having been a victim of exactly such a crime, I'm glad neither I nor the burglar had a gun.) However, seeing Ukrainians take up arms to fight an invasion has caused me to re-evalu…

It's not that hard to arm a society when war breaks out. That is the same mentality that countries like Switzerland has. The "2A argument" is quite a bit different, and has very few similarities with what is going on at the start of a war.

If you give out guns to people who never used them, they won't be as effective. Also I think you're underestimating the logistic difficulty of storing and transporting tens of millions of weapons (and ammunition) before blitzkrieg cuts you off. You could have a storage in each city, but you still need to move the guns to smaller towns and villages, as well as enemy spies could sabotage such transports...

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#124

Post by ipnon »

JadeNB wrote: post #112
ipnon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To counter this claim, I'd ask you to consider which of two similarly sized invasions was easier to achieve: D-Day and the invasion of Western Europe, or Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of Eastern Europe. You may also consider why the Nazis never made it to Great Britain, and why Great Britain has been insulated from the Great Wars of Europe more often than it has taken part in the conflicts.

> To counter this claim, I'd ask you to consider which of two similarly sized invasions was easier to achieve: D-Day and the invasion of Western Europe, or Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of Eastern Europe. You may also consider why the Nazis never made it to Great Britain, and why Great Britain has been insulated from the Great Wars of Europe more often than it has taken part in the conflicts. It seems that th…

Perhaps it would have been simply best to note that island nations are generally insulated from invasion in ways that continental nations are not. Great Britain had the long term national security to forge an empire while the continental nations of Europe were engaged in endless back-and-forth wars (often at the instigation of Great Britain). Japan had centuries of peaceful self-imposed isolation while the continental nations of China and Indochina were engaged in endless wars, which was utilized to build up an empire while safely protected by the Sea of Japan. Being an island nation is an immense geostrategic advantage that is apparently not completely obvious to all observers of history.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#125

Post by jmull »

FpUser wrote: post #87
jmull wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were there very many people who didn’t think Russia’s buildup was almost certainly a precursor to an invasion? I hadn’t heard of that before.

I originally thought that Putin was trolling Ukraine and West with this buildup for the sake of winning some concessions.

I knew it wasn’t just trolling because there are much, much easier ways to do that than moving tens of thousands of troops into a new arena.

For trolling you’d do something flashier but much easier, like fighter flyovers or a missile launch.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#126

Post by _hypx »

Etherlord87 wrote: post #123
_hypx wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard to arm a society when war breaks out. That is the same mentality that countries like Switzerland has. The "2A argument" is quite a bit different, and has very few similarities with what is going on at the start of a war.

If you give out guns to people who never used them, they won't be as effective. Also I think you're underestimating the logistic difficulty of storing and transporting tens of millions of weapons (and ammunition) before blitzkrieg cuts you off. You could have a storage in each city, but you still need to move the guns to smaller towns and villages, as well as enemy spies could sabotage such transports...

You're trying to rationalize the situation in the US, not looking at it objectively. You can quickly train people to use a firearm, including long before fighting starts. You will need to store a vast amount of military equipment anyways. Storage is highly unlikely to be an issue.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#127

Post by plorkyeran »

bingohbangoh wrote: post #114
credit_guy wrote: post #52

One thing is sure: if China still wants to invade Taiwan, they certainly have postponed their plans by a few years, maybe a decade, maybe even more. The attempted invasion of Ukraine by Russia just reminded people that the best war plans don't survive the first contact with the enemy (apparently stated by the Prussian general Moltke), or in the more folksy words of Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punch…

I legitimately don't understand where all these "Ukraine is obviously winning" takes are coming from. If Ukraine was doing well, it wouldn't be giving out weapons to civilians [0], forming penal battalions [1], or lie about receiving NATO planes. [2] If Ukraine was doing well, it wouldn't be inflating death counts to be larger than the US involvement in Afghanistan, a 20 year period of time. [3,4] If Ukraine was doin…

I legitimately don't understand how people keep interpreting "this doesn't seem to be going how Russia hoped it would" as "Ukraine is obviously winning". Those aren't the same thing at all.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#128

Post by _hypx »

zthrowaway wrote: post #120
_hypx wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home invasion means forcefully breaking into someone's house where there are people in it. It's very different than a burglary. Burglaries are common, but the former is rare.

And having a firearm to protect your life in that rare situation is still important… The police are the cleanup crew, those first 5-10 minutes you’re on your own.

The danger of owning a firearm, especially if it is always armed for such an occurrence, is more dangerous to the household than the risk of home invasion (which again, is rare). It is an idea that people defend using the concept of "safety", but in reality is motivated by fear or hypermasculinity as the main cause.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#129

Post by Etherlord87 »

coryrc wrote: post #90
stickfigure wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll keep posting this list every time this subject comes up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa... China is 15-25% of the trade for those countries, but the west-aligned countries represent 80% of China's trade. A coordinated trade war would be vastly more devastating for China than the rest of the world. I don't say this gleefully - I hope it never happens.

Every electronic thing made has parts from China. I can't build a car in Germany and export to America without having done trade with China first. Who cares if I could still get Irish butter if I can't get replacement parts for my MRI machine?

Pardon my ignorance, but isn't it the case that a lot of stuff coming from China is stuff produced in China, but using western technology? If that's correct, moving production outside of China would be so hard I can't imagine it, but not entirely impossible. It would be a huge crisis that would be eventually, heroically fixed.

Another problem is the access to resources like rare metals, that China stockpiles.

Post reply on HN