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

The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

acoup.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 339 posts

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#301

Post by robbiep »

marianatom wrote: post #96
wazer5 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow you should visit China though, it's great. I feel for those who don't get to experience the benefits of globalization.

lol, how presumptuous. I have visited China in 2007, before it turned authoritarian/dictatorship. I would not visit China again to support the dictatorship. I can visit any number of democratic countries like Taiwan. I feel for those who don't get that they are supporting evil. Btw, speaking of evil, China isn't giving up yet (Xi still have 10-20 years to live. free organ transplants from young Chinese, you know. hig…

There is no logical, or even mythical, reason to conquer another territory (excluding taiwan from this). China really wants to be involved in long term insurgencies across Asia? Why?

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#302

Post by cyberax »

kneebonian wrote: post #252
cyberax wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's not how economics works. It is. You can erase all debts by hyperinflation, for example. China for sure has problems, but it's not the "crashing down tomorrow" kind of problems. They still have a robust growth, now that COVID restrictions are over.

China had a demographic collapse problem that can't be remedied and can't be squared with their doctrine of racial superiority. China is on its way out.

> China had a demographic collapse problem that can't be remedied and can't be squared with their doctrine of racial superiority.

It's amazing how many racists come out in these threads.

China's population is projected to peak at 1.7B by 2060 and then fall to 1.5B by the century's end: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2023/04/24/c...

If anything, China is leading the world at trying to live with a static population numbers (and EVERYONE will have to do it eventually).

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#303

Post by avgcorrection »

noduerme wrote: post #262
avgcorrection wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [edit: Something that we've unfortunately over-promised and failed to deliver on too many times, e.g. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Kurdistan, Hmong people, any war where the Pentagon seizes on a "third way"] It’s like there is no need to even compose a reply. This philosophy is absurd on its face. But I’ll just say that the US has supported dictatorial “regimes” (instead of overthrowing them, or fomenting a popular upr…

US foreign incursions have always needed the support of the population, and therefore been scattershot and bumbling. What makes the US a relatively free country for individuals is also what makes it a lackluster great power in terms of formulating long term, coherent strategies that it's capable of carrying out. One could say it has always had a short attention span baked into it. This has been good for some places (…

> US foreign incursions have always needed the support of the population, and therefore been scattershot and bumbling.

I don’t know whether you are blaming the populace for these wars or saying that they sabotaged them enough so that they didn’t become worse.

But in any case the difference between a nominal democracy and an outright authoritarian state isn’t that. The difference is that while an authoritarian state can just say that they want the oil and the resources of another territory, a nominal democracy has to at least somewhat pretend to be different and somewhat noble. Exactly because it has a very limited form of democracy.

And so you get people who unironically, completely sincerely, present the narrative of the US as a bumbling but loveable, kind of amnesiac, tries its best to be good, Destroyer Of The Third Reich, good ally to the good guys native-killing settler-colonial Taiwanese (they make chips?), oh we tried our best in Iraq except scratch that that was just in jest because no serious person could deny that that was anything less than an aggressive and unjustified war, but all the dictators we helped actively was just because they were better than the alternatives, except Gaddafi he was a piece of shit so Libya being a shithole and objectively worse off is okay because we tried our best fuck those scimitar barbarians.

Because that kind of narrative actually matters in a (nominal) democracy.

> Consider the opposite... a US with a government and foreign policy unmoored from popular attitudes and free to prosecute any and all imperial wars without internal resistance or dissent or risk of power changing hands every 4 years.

Yeah, then Congress would probably increase the military budget for the fifteenth time in a row (unlike now). Then being at war and continuing to dig into wars would probably be a “bipartisan issue”, no matter whether the power changes hands to Pepsi or Coke every four years (unlike now). Then the US military would probably be larger than a lot of of other nations combined (unlike now). Then the US military would probably have tons of bases around the world (unlike now). Then there would not be consequences for politicians and public servants who commit war crimes (unlike now). Then Barack Obama saying “we tortured some folks” would probably just be a meme-gaffe of no consequence (unlike now). Then the laughably anti-International Community American Service-Members' Protection Act would probably become a thing (unlike now).[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#304

Post by dfadsadsf »

jldugger wrote: post #246
Detrytus wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bear in mind that China has pretty much no oil and these 055 destroyer boats are diesel&gas turbine powered. Well, then they are lucky that Russia, now sanctioned by the West, has no choice but to sell all their oil to China, at discount prices.

By way of one tiny pipeline that has to travel across an entire continent the long way, or via boat through the suez canal?

There is oil in Sakhalin Island, new pipelines are planned and existing railways are fully capable to transport enough oil to sustain military campaign if China curtains civilian oil consumption (like every country at war did in WW2).

Frankly highlighting China dependence on maritime trade is a cope. It just won’t matter much in hot war.

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#305

Post by dralley »

pydry wrote: post #300
dralley wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't send a few hundred. They sent 60 thousand. Putin has been very consistent about his views of Ukraine. It makes perfect sense that he got it completely wrong. As I said, read the reports, you may find it interesting.

I think you got confused. The attack on Kiev had 16,000 troops total. It's unclear how many were OMON but it's clear that it was no more than a few hundred. In no way, shape or form does that justify presuming that this was an occupation force - with or without uniforms.

Are you including the convoy, and those that were meant to land via Hostomel but could not?

Much more than 16,000 troops were intended to go towards Kyiv.

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#306

Post by sharikous »

I am curious for one if the long peace is passing the test of time in the last two years.

Not only the Russia-Ukraine war is threatening to spiral out, but also there has been a very bloody war in Ethiopia. We are not at WWII levels of warfare, obviously, but I wonder where we are compared to the '80s or the '50s

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#307

Post by alexeldeib »

sharikous wrote: post #306

I am curious for one if the long peace is passing the test of time in the last two years. Not only the Russia-Ukraine war is threatening to spiral out, but also there has been a very bloody war in Ethiopia. We are not at WWII levels of warfare, obviously, but I wonder where we are compared to the '80s or the '50s

There's some interesting data/discussion on this out there. Not sure if we'll get updates through 2023 for some sources.

https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace https://www.un.org/en/un75/new-era-conflict-and-violence https://oneearthfuture.org/news/there-really-evidence-declin...

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#308

Post by pfdietz »

jcranmer wrote: post #265
pfdietz wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad you asked! Most importantly, the game in 1933 showed that the "through ticket to Manila" version of War Plan Orange would not work. The capital ships would arrive there with underwater damage and no way to repair it. They'd have to go back to Pearl Harbor, or the west coast, to reach facilities that would allow repairs. In which case, what was the point? After that part, US war plans in the Pacific involved isla…

I distinctly recall that many of those lessons were learned from the Fleet Problems, especially several of the carrier tactics as well as the logistical lessons (US invested heavier in at-sea refueling than any other navy at the time). So I suspect your source is integrating the Fleet Problems as part of the war games going on, and your denigration of them as "LARPing with ships" is unwarranted. (Of course, perhaps t…

No disparagement of the Fleet Problems was intended. They were complementary to the NWC games.

Some of the lessons learned in the table games about carriers were before the Fleet Problems could have learned the same lessons, due to the carriers not yet being available. Indeed, one of the issues the games were addressing was just what kind of carriers should be built. I expect any solution the NWC games came up with that could be verified in the FPs would have been. Also, the fleet problems would have provided vital inputs to the enhance the rules the NWC games used.

Other unlearned lessons (from NWC): the importance of unrestricted submarine warfare (this had been ruled out in the games because the British were assumed to be neutral, so not targeting their ships strongly constrained what the subs could do), the importance of night battles (the USN failed to train adequately for these and suffered greatly in the Solomons for it), kamikazes (the games assumed the Japanese would have an adequate pilot training pipeline and not have to resort to this), and what would be necessary to get Japan to surrender (politics in Japan was out of scope.)

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#309

Post by rainsford »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #130
safety1st wrote: post #6

This stuff about the world being peaceful due to the industrial revolution doesn't make a lot of sense to me. For one thing, the IR significantly predated WW1 and WW2. It didn't prevent those, so how'd it cause the "long peace" afterwards? The predominant theory about this in international relations is hegemonic stability theory - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_stability_theory - there have been several peri…

The peace is due to nuclear weapons and the threat of global extinction. When that isn’t a factor, we still see lots of wars. Period. Because the next major war between nuclear equipped powers might be the worlds last

The Russian invasion of Ukraine appears to be a case where nuclear weapons made war more likely because they can embolden a comparatively weak state to be more conventionally aggressive than they otherwise would be because they can fall back on nuclear weapons if their aggression goes wrong. If Russia did not have nukes, it seems far more likely that western powers would have directly intervened in Ukraine, a version of the war Russia seems incredibly unlikely to win.

Would the threat of getting humiliatingly curb-stomped by NATO have been enough to dissuade Russia from invading? Maybe, but it would certainly have provided more of a disincentive than the current state of affairs where Russia can use the threat of nukes to keep NATO at bay. I'd bet a hypothetical nuke-less Russia would have stayed in their own borders and been content to get rich off fossil fuels. On balance, the existence of nuclear weapons probably still prevents more wars than it starts, but Russia having nukes seems like an exception to the rule.

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#310

Post by syndacks »

Merad wrote: post #126

I thought I recognized the site. This the same author who wrote very detailed analysis of the Siege of Gondor and the Battle of Helms Deep from LOTR as well as articles about military and political topics from Game of Thrones, and many real-world historical topics. They're a military historian IRL and have a lot of content worth reading: https://acoup.blog/resources-for-world-builders/

Yea I thought the article was going to be about the military too but it opened up with a photo of a dog.
Post reply on HN