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

151–160 of 204 posts

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#151

Post by elihu »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #86
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…

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. How can you be so certain? This reminds me of people saying just 14 days ago "I don't think Putin is going to invade." Taiwan is not Ukraine, indeed -- Taiwan would be easier to capture because it is an island. There aren't land borders across which supplies and weapons…

I don't think an island invasion would be easier than a land invasion, but I agree that "China definitely won't invade Taiwan right now" is overly optimistic. It's probably not in their best interests, but Russia invading Ukraine wasn't in Russia's best interests either and they did it anyways.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#152

Post by throw0101a »

daenz wrote: post #134
_hypx wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't seem very open to changing your perspective, but if you care to peruse a subreddit dedicated to reporting defensive gun use in the news, it contains a ton of stories that you've likely never encountered[0]. You may disagree with many of them, but some are absolutely defensible, like an ex-boyfriend breaking into woman's apartment and beating her until she is able to shoot him[1][2] (from the front page of t…

> You don't seem very open to changing your perspective, but if you care to peruse a subreddit dedicated to reporting defensive gun use in the news, it contains a ton of stories that you've likely never encountered[0].

Of course there are cases of defensive gun use. But there are also cases of idiotic gun use:

> Deputies with the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office arrested three people after one man was shot. Investigators said the shooting victim was shot after an argument about the victim’s alleged littering.

* https://www.wkrg.com/northwest-florida/escambia-county/man-s...

> Houston man accused of shooting restaurant workers over BBQ sauce

* https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2022/02/26/houston-...

> A Utah father was taken into custody after police said he told his 4-year-old child to fire at officers following a dispute over an order at the McDonald's drive-thru in Midvale.

* https://kutv.com/news/local/suspect-in-custody-after-shootin...

Examples taken from:

* https://twitter.com/well_regulated_

Right across the US border Canada manages to have a safe society without everyone packing heat. And it's not like gun ownership is unheard of in Canada, given it's 7th in per capita ownership:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

For tracking mass shootings, the US has a separate Wikipedia page for each calendar year:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

Meanwhile the list of massacres (not even all being shootings) fits on one page for Canada:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Canada

The idea that firearms make one safer, either at home:

* https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M13-1301?articleid=1...

or in public:

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/

does not seem to be borne out by the statistical data.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#153

Post by throw0101a »

daenz wrote: post #58
bufferoverflow wrote: post #21

But this war in Ukraine showed one simple truth: if you arm the population, the invasion can only destroy the infrastructure. You can't win over people's minds by killing their loved ones, their neighboors. And you can't keep it under control if every citizen has a gun. You install a puppet government, they will be dead within a week. This is the only way to protect Taiwan. Give them guns and ammo. And teach them tha…

It's been mind boggling to see anti 2A people in my social circle cheer for normal Ukrainian citizens arming themselves with "weapons of war" that "wouldn't do anything against a country with drones and nukes." I hope a silver lining of this conflict is remembering that protecting your life and your family's lives with firearms is an inalienable right.

> It's been mind boggling to see anti 2A people in my social circle cheer for normal Ukrainian citizens arming themselves with "weapons of war" that "wouldn't do anything against a country with drones and nukes."

The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a Luftwaffe is a good guy with a Luftwaffe and a bunch of SAMs. A bunch of randos with AKs have little chance against the Russian-equivalent of Hellfire missiles IMHO. It's just that the Ukraine military seems to have been underestimated.

Further, Russian SEAD seems to suck:

* https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/rusi-defe...

and their logistics, once they start getting far from their railheads, seems to deteriorate quite quickly:

* https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-...

If there is political will and logistical support, a mainstream army can keep an insurgency down as shown by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. The main recourse coupe to wait out the patience of the 'occupier' (which is what the Taliban did).

Whether Russia/Putin has the will and/or resources is another question.

> I hope a silver lining of this conflict is remembering that protecting your life and your family's lives with firearms is an inalienable right.

Even with the threat of Russian invasion, especially after 2014 and Crimea, Ukraine seems to disagree, as licenses are still needed for gun ownership:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_Ukraine

Though UA has mandatory military service to an extent:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service#Ukraine

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#154

Post by zthrowaway »

_hypx wrote: post #128
zthrowaway wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You seem to not understand that gun owners train how to use firearms, and a proper one will practice high levels of gun safety in a home. Sure, there's going to be morons who own them and make the news. But it's not a toy or for fun. Just as they find out.

No worries, the “hyper-masculine” men with badges will come save you. I have no problem with you wanting to take your chances and let someone with evil intent to have their way with you or your loved ones. Just don’t try and take the ability to defend, from others, because you have a problem with masculinity.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#155

Post by dirtyid »

ipnon wrote: post #124
JadeNB wrote: post #112

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. 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 continenta…

UK could be resupplied across the Atlantic by world's preeminenant industrial producer while German power projection of era couldn't comprehensively cripple GBR. German Blitz+blockade didn't achieve strategic goals of destroying GBR industries while also being distracted by land war. TW has even less food/resource security and entirely within range of PRC weapon platforms, who has more industrial capacity than US during peak of WW2 production. Also consider UK managed to hold onto Falklands. It's really about industrial capacity to wage attritional war - TW has an initial defensive bonus but massive resupply penalty. If PRC gains air superiority and deter outside intervention, taking over island is only matter of time. Merchant fleet assets alone is enough to ferry 100,000s anywhere on TW if PRC wants to human wave / million man swim in days. Dunkirk moved 350k bodies on 800 ships in a week. PRC has 50-80k fishing boats that can make the journey. It's hard to overstate PRC industrial advantage relative to TW.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#156

Post by zthrowaway »

throw0101a wrote: post #150
zthrowaway wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And having a firearm to protect your life in that rare situation is still important… Firearms in the home actually increase your odds of death: > Access to firearms is associated with risk for completed suicide and being the victim of homicide. * https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M13-1301?articleid=1... Specific examples of domestic violence against women: * https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/18000522/guns-domesti…

Okay... that doesn't change a thing though. People still have the right to defend themselves. I don't care if someone is stupid with a weapon. You can find occurrences of a weapon, tool, vehicles, any object, being used improperly and in an unsafe manner that can cause harm or death.

All you illustrate is that being a responsible gun owner is important (which is not debated whatsoever in any firearms community.) The vast majority of law abiding gun owners are responsible with their weapons.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#157

Post by gruez »

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…

>If Ukraine was doing well, they wouldn't need to make up a story about the Ghosts of Kyiv. [5,6]

>[5]: https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-ukraines-ghost-of-kyiv-figh... [6]: https://twitter.com/KFCBarstool/status/1497366093362520065?s...

Who's "they" in this case? The ukranian people? The ukranian government? The sources you suggest seem to suggest the former rather than the latter. If that's the case, I'm not really sure how that's indicative of not "obviously winning".

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#158

Post by gruez »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #141
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…

> The attempted invasion of Ukraine by Russia just reminded people that the best war plans don't survive the first contact with the enemy Or how Mike Tyson puts it: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

That's very similar to what the parent poster already mentioned.

>or in the more folksy words of Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#159

Post by gruez »

_hypx wrote: post #126
Etherlord87 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>You can quickly train people to use a firearm, including long before fighting starts.

1. It took months to vaccinate the US population. Training them to use guns would most certainly take longer.

2. Your previous comments seem to suggest you're anti-2A. What's your position here then? Are you against gun ownership, but think that if some enemy wants to invade us, there's going to be enough advance warning that we can train and arm everyone?

>Storage is highly unlikely to be an issue.

And what about transportation?

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#160

Post by stickfigure »

BbzzbB wrote: post #103
stickfigure wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what did they do with it? How is that related to Taiwan?

They partook in an invasion with it maybe? Do you think Ukrainians scuttled their own ships for fun or because they wanted to slow down whatever role Russia's navy can have with access to ports? "You couldn't hide all the ships" implies that would stop or deter them from moving in if they wanted to. Russia's navy getting to the Black Sea no questions asked has shown you can make obviously aggressive military repositi…

Imagine that Russia's only access to Ukraine was through the Black Sea. How well do you think that invasion would have worked?
Post reply on HN