181–190 of 299 posts
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It entails in the case of US subs 95% enrichment uranium.
Is making rad bombs trivial? Can you just dump nuclear fuel out of the sub and stick it in a gun-type bomb with no prior experience?
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Actually, as mentioned multiple times in the past couple of days by former French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud, diesel was an Australia demand, which required France to modify its subs (all nuclear powered) and added complexity to the project. According to the former Ambassador, it would have been much easier and cheaper for France to supply Australia with nuclear subs.
Then why is it the US's fault Australia changed its mind?
Is it just me or are there more off-topic political posts on HN lately?
Disturbing observation: 5 years ago, the trends that seemed most important to me were all technical - I really paid no attention to politics. Today, they are mostly geo-political.
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Specifically in this case it's to build submarines which can chase after submarines which are trying to break us blockade. If china invades Taiwan, the obvious next step is to blockade Chinese oil imports, which cripples upwards of 60-80% of Chinese domestic food production, but is justifiable on "military grounds" and definitely prevents china from creating supply lines outside of the first island chain. There is no…
Their job isn't to chase other submarines next to Chinese waters. That is suicidal. Chinese submarines are almost as stealthy as the Virginia class, and they'll have to operate in the middle of Chinese anti-submarine warfare. That is to say, they won't survive long. Their job is to actually sink the merchant ships. The US can't do that easily with surface combatants, because getting close to a strait means compromisi…
It might not even be necessary to work that hard at a blockade. If there's any hot action in the south china sea, most oil shippers are going to cease operations voluntarily because they don't want their ship to be accidentally shot down by either side.
>100 days
That's 3 months. Not very much.
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"The US went through a surprising amount of trouble with the whole Huawei thing. The US expectation is frankly - hey we say drop this because China is a rival. Europe just didn't play ball and now the US is saying hey I don't think we can count on you. And you can't blame this on Trump either. It doesn't matter what his approach is." I guess Europeans aren't happy to impose political sanctions on command. This US app…
> I guess Europeans aren't happy to impose political sanctions on command. Right. And so now the United States is moving on from Europe. They still get all the benefits of trade and such without any of the commitment that they feel wasn't being reciprocated. I'm not trying to make a moral judgement of the US or EU or something here, just trying to interpret what moves are being made.
This "US was helping ungratefull Europe, and now is tired of doing so" story seems to have a few pages missing.
The US bases here are largest outside US itself, and are vital for US logistics - they have everything from stategic airlift to nukes. Every deployment to Middle East involved them. So lets not pretend US has no need of them.
US ability to project power around the world depends on countries being willing to host their kit.
Where can I see the evidence of this "moving on" happening in the real world, rather than it just being a diplomatic spat? None of the equipment has left.
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Actually, France has far more territory in the Pacific than the UK, and better positioned too. The UK is part on the basis of historical ties, not because someone looked at a map and said "hey, that guy controls some important bits". It also seems distressingly naive to say "it's been two days and nothing's happened, so nobody cares" when talking about the EU reaction. The only fast EU action you ever get is the stat…
> Actually, France has far more territory in the Pacific than the UK, and better positioned too. This is kind of like a nice piece of trivia. France has 0 ability to protect those territories and they're pretty much useless to any other country except in the event of a war in the Pacific, in which case the US would be using them as basis (or China or Japan or whoever but definitely not France). Sure France could sail…
France has nuclear-powered submarines carrying nuclear ICBMs. Of course they can defend their islands.
> Sure France could sail the Charles de Gualle to the Pacific
France has a permanent navy presence in the Pacific. They don't need to get an aircraft carrier there. Aircraft carriers are useless against a modern army anyway. It's all about submarines.
> because France and the EU can't really do anything
That's the second economic block in the world. There is plenty they can do to piss off America if they want to. They could think it's in their best interest to be more concilient with China for example. That's how diplomacy works.
> What's Russia going to do?
Russia is a nuclear power and one of the largest country on the planet, a country full of natural resources. They are also quite close to China and an important link in the new silkroad which is an important part of China global strategy. You can't just dismiss Russia. It's foolish.
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Actually, France has far more territory in the Pacific than the UK, and better positioned too. The UK is part on the basis of historical ties, not because someone looked at a map and said "hey, that guy controls some important bits". It also seems distressingly naive to say "it's been two days and nothing's happened, so nobody cares" when talking about the EU reaction. The only fast EU action you ever get is the stat…
> Actually, France has far more territory in the Pacific than the UK, and better positioned too. This is kind of like a nice piece of trivia. France has 0 ability to protect those territories and they're pretty much useless to any other country except in the event of a war in the Pacific, in which case the US would be using them as basis (or China or Japan or whoever but definitely not France). Sure France could sail…
My observation: 1- US probably predicts that China is gonna breakthrough the first island chain in the next 10 years. 2- France needs to reconsider her Indo-Pacific stratrgy because Aussi explicitly shows that it's going all in with US instead of trying to follow some sort of independent strategy. 3- Win for whoever in EU who supports self defense and a more consolidated Europe. 4- First time a non nuclear country (A…
I don't understand why France sticks with the USA/UK at this point as they treated as bull-crap. I am sure they could strike a good deal with the Chinese and be better off: like leasing land in the Caribbean Sea or making a joint venture in some weapon. France don't really care about the China Sea in the end. They should be as "pragmatical" as the Aussie !.
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It entails in the case of US subs 95% enrichment uranium.
Is making rad bombs trivial? Can you just dump nuclear fuel out of the sub and stick it in a gun-type bomb with no prior experience?
Sure you could extract the fuel rods, but how many weapons will you get out of it? Is having a handful of low yield bombs worth the international sanctions?
I think you’re better off having strategic strike capability with cruise missiles from submarines. They are a lot more flexible and you can have a lot of them without the other nations getting too upset.