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China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

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Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#171

Post by _hypx »

gruez wrote: post #159
_hypx wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

You need close to 100% vaccination rates for vaccines to really work. Not so much for creating a makeshift army.

This is an example of framing of the issue, and in this case it is deeply misleading. Nearly everyone wants what makes us safe. The problem is that certain groups in America have transformed that into something dangerous while disguising it as a form of safety. At some point, society will move away from this kind of thinking regardless of how it is perceived today.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#172

Post by bufferoverflow »

windpower wrote: post #69
daenz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 super rare. We see how it plays out all the time. Protestors protest, government comes down on them hard - mass arrests, mass killings, mass civil destruction of liberties.

We literally saw a version of this in Canada a month ago, where actually peaceful protesters were declared terrorists and got arrested and their money seized.

It's not always about some other country's government coming on you hard, your own can be just as rotten.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#173

Post by bingohbangoh »

tablespoon wrote: post #170
bingohbangoh wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 where all these "Ukraine is obviously winning" takes are coming from. Because it appears to be doing far better than expected. That doesn't mean they'll win, but it at least allows for a sliver of hope. Personally, I'm guessing they'll eventually lose a lot of territory without direct Western military intervention, but maybe there will still be Ukrainian rump state left in the West a…

If, broadly speaking, the western media says that Russia won a Pyrrhic victory will I be right in saying this was an intentional setup or will it be that I simply got lucky?

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#174

Post by throwoutway »

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…

Your (2) source does not match what you said. The Ukraine did no lie about the planes, the EU did:

> The three nations were said to be forming the core of the EU effort—announced Monday by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell—as they are believed to be the only bloc members with flight-ready Russian-made aircraft.

I’m hesitant to read your other sources now

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#175

Post by hackerfromthefu »

DFHippie wrote: post #49

Russia benefits from disruption and chaos: it causes fuel prices to spike. China benefits from stability: it ensures people can and want to buy all the stuff they manufacture. Russia asserts the right of strong nations to meddle in any nation that can't resist them. China asserts the right of every nation to territorial integrity and freedom from internal meddling by, e.g., democracy and human rights activists. (To b…

Such as the Tibetan nation?

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#176

Post by audessuscest »

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…

Right the other way. It would be the perfect timing for China. Do you think the west can afford sanctioning the shit out of China now? They can't even sanction Russia properly. Do you think China prefer to wait that the west figured their shit out to depend less on other countries? Plus now Russia, Belarus, depends so much from China... and I bet many other countries are thinking of getting the fuck away from the west financial system, considering how weak that make them, especially now that there's real alternative market / system emerging independently from the west.

Most of all, Taiwan is a very strategic country, because of microchips production. Considering the sanctions (Apple, Intel, AMD, Samsung, Microsoft, Lenovo, Dell, probably more, are not selling in Russia anymore) Imagine the leverage that Taiwan would give to China, and the solution it would be for Russia.

I would be very surprised that Taiwan is not next. Everything is pushing in that direction.

Edit: As other mentioned, the outcome in Ukraine is certainly a big factor, but even if Russia fails somehow, I'm not sure that it wouldn't even make it more important for China to get Taiwan...

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#178

Post by fuj »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#179

Post by BbzzbB »

stickfigure wrote: post #160
BbzzbB wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You're missing my point entirely and making some weird, unrelated argument.

I'm no military mind but indeed, they wouldn't have been quite as effective in shelling the country if they only had access to the sea rather than sharing virtually half the land's frontier.

Re: China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

#180

Post by BbzzbB »

stickfigure wrote: post #168
BbzzbB wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do too, but how would that look like? I'm not sure how likely it is to when the incumbent empire and the aspiring one are both armed to the tits, neither of which will give up on their claim or their military. Even without confrontation they'll both keep force projecting. I think we just gotta hope there's mutual resistance to any physical escalation, either direct or by proxy, and that the competition remains econ…

This is a repeat of the same misleading narrative that Putin is trying to push. Ukraine is not "NATO vs Russia", it's "The Ukranians vs Putin". Similarly, the Taiwan conflict is not "US vs China". It's "the people of Taiwan vs the CCP" (possibly "vs the people of China" though it's hard to say in a country without democracy). There's no question about how the Taiwanese feel; they vote on it every few years in free el…

It's rather a repeat of Dalio's idea with regards to the cycle of empires or "world orders", but feel free to read into it what you want, NATO or otherwise. I just meant that I don't see how some form of implicit tension won't exist for as long as there are two competing superpowers flexing military and economic might, and I hope the tension never resolves thru military means.
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