151–160 of 178 posts
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This assumes that the F-35 is essential for maintaining air superiority, which is unsupported.
I'd take F-22s over F-35 for air superiority and ship-launched cruise missiles for ground attacks.
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If the US loses Taiwan as a potential staging area, geopolitics all around the South China Sea would change significantly. Basically, every country adjacent to the South China Sea would lose a big chunk of their autonomy.
Then perhaps they should recognize Taiwan and pledge to protect them. This current strategy of appeasement will only work for so long, airpower or not.
You are correct, in a way. As it turns out, Taiwan is very hard to conduct landings on. The seas there are very rough, and the weather would interfere in all but 2 weeks of the year. Also, there is very little coast suitable for an amphibious landing.
A landing on Taiwan could well make D-Day look like a cakewalk. However, China may grow its economy to the point, where it could still be feasible. In the meantime, the delaying action which you call "appeasement" is probably the best strategy for the US. Recognizing Taiwan would be a huge provocation of China, which is a potential tool best left for a future contingency.
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> assumes it is because it is so far beyond what "opposing" forces can field they will do anything to delay its operation This doesn't hold water; nation-state propaganda doesn't have any effect on the funding this program receives. Nobody should have any trouble believing that an overly-ambitious pie-in-the-sky kitchen-sink project that has been in development for 30 years might be having a hard time meeting its lof…
What a bizzare comparison. The shuttle isn't a fighter jet and and has nothing to do with this. The question is what military value does the F-35 provide, and will provide, during its operational years. Nothing about the history of the shuttle program can possibly give us an answer to this question, and the entire comparison is absurd.
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Why? Air superiority is important for power projection. Edit: So I'm getting a comments here that are much lower-quality than I expect from this place. Geopolitics is not like interpersonal relationships. There is nobody governing governments. It's a free-for-all, literally the state of nature. In societies it seems like "Might makes right" is a dated concept, but you have to remember that's within the frame of a gov…
Your comment post-edit is pretty much the reason I read HN. This model of geopolitics as an ungoverned society of nations is something I’ve never considered. Then, the natural tendency of people within governed societies to analyze geopolitics as if governed social dynamics applied to it could clearly lead to some disastrous conclusions. It also illuminates the tension between people who greatly value our military, a…
It also reveals a weird logic I can't wrap my head around. If you vote, and you think others should vote, you believe that we have significant influence on politics. So if we abandoned our military dominance, what other country is going to fill that power vacuum? Do we trust their country with that power, a country which might or might not have a government that is influenced by its populace? Honestly, who are the other players that would likely make such a move... China, Russia, and the EU? Well, unless you're particularly fond of two of those governments, I don't like your odds.
Isn't it better to just keep the military dominance here, with a government influenced by the people, pretty much half of which are strongly opposed to the mobilization of that power? Absent some unintuitive answer to that question, I don't see the consistency of a person who thinks we should "get out and vote" genuinely wanting to degrade US military dominance.
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I'd take F-22s over F-35 for air superiority and ship-launched cruise missiles for ground attacks.
Ship launched cruise missiles for close air support? I'm skeptical. F-22's are better for air superiority, but the F-35 was designed as a bomb and missile truck. Potentially, it could do that job very, very well.
> Ship launched cruise missiles for close air support? I'm skeptical.
Perhaps you should be skeptical, but that's not at all what adrr said...
Does anybody in the industry know why there was a push to move away from specific role planes that excel in one area to ones that can do any area decently? I know in theory that there would be savings having one platform, but making one jet modular for 3 different roles is seeming to be more difficult than just designing 3 different jets. It can't beat the EuroFighter in a dog fight and can't match the stealth bomber…
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> iceland has no military, and no real political or economic significance in the world. it has no genuine allies to whom it is worthwhile. why doesn't anyone/everyone invade them? nobody would risk a major war over them. they're what could amount to a strategically useful port. they might have some minerals or something. it wouldn't even be hard. > the answer is that nobody cares to. This is an over-simplification of…
no more of an over-simplification than kissinger's concept of realism, to be blunt. countries routinely do things that are contrary to the interest of maximizing their net power, and claiming "but it's anarchy out there!" isn't very accurate.
If you need to pretend someone is arguing something they've never argued so you can disagree with them, you really need to take a step back and ask yourself what the fuck you're really doing.
Over a trillion dollars over 28 years. There are about 250 million U.S. taxpayers. That's $150 out of the pocket of every single taxpayer, every year, just to cover the cost of this one monumentally embarrassing failure. If you're a U.S. citizen born after 1974, you've been setting fire to this money annually for your entire adult life. No value has been provided other than as a government subsidy to military contrac…
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Why? Air superiority is important for power projection. Edit: So I'm getting a comments here that are much lower-quality than I expect from this place. Geopolitics is not like interpersonal relationships. There is nobody governing governments. It's a free-for-all, literally the state of nature. In societies it seems like "Might makes right" is a dated concept, but you have to remember that's within the frame of a gov…
yeah, that's the kissinger line of thought. "realism". except it doesn't hold up to reality, at least not in the modern or even the premodern era. iceland has no military, and no real political or economic significance in the world. it has no genuine allies to whom it is worthwhile. why doesn't anyone/everyone invade them? nobody would risk a major war over them. they're what could amount to a strategically useful po…
But holding it would be a problem, for anyone except the US or the UK. Let's say China occupied Iceland. How are they going to send supplies to their troops there? Well, by air or by ocean. That's going to be... problematic. It's going to be much more problematic if NATO lives up to its charter and defends its' member Iceland.
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yeah, that's the kissinger line of thought. "realism". except it doesn't hold up to reality, at least not in the modern or even the premodern era. iceland has no military, and no real political or economic significance in the world. it has no genuine allies to whom it is worthwhile. why doesn't anyone/everyone invade them? nobody would risk a major war over them. they're what could amount to a strategically useful po…
> iceland has no military, and no real political or economic significance in the world. it has no genuine allies to whom it is worthwhile. why doesn't anyone/everyone invade them? nobody would risk a major war over them. they're what could amount to a strategically useful port. they might have some minerals or something. it wouldn't even be hard. > the answer is that nobody cares to. This is an over-simplification of…