The Gun Counter

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/c ... term=third

My concern is that they make a play for Taiwan to overcome everything else going to crap.

Concur. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae didn't have the option to start an international war to kickstart solvency, and with China lending to all the wrong countries (like FM&FM did with all the wrong people), at some time it must come to an end. Sure, you can make bookoo dollars on paper lending money you don't have to people who can't pay it back... for a while.

In the long run, companies with large play in the American market are seeing this trainwreck coming, and getting their collective feces co-located to be able to produce electrowonkery here in CONUS again. Samsung is building (and beginning to staff) a very large semiconducter plant here in central TX (just outside Austin), which bodes well for the industry in 5-10 years. The ugly bit is the variable number of years between China trashing most of the world's well-tuned semiconducter production on Taiwan, and the plants elsewhere not just coming online, but being able to reliably produce the micron-scale electronics that the developed world has come to depend on.

Many EMP-initiated TEOTEWAKI stories note old stuff with points ignitions being the go-to for post-conflict transportation. With the supply-chain fiasco we've seen over the past 2+ years, I don't think it's going to take that level of singular event to precipitate that particular set of conditions. Without the right chips to run modern vehicles, when the chip dies, so does the rest of the ride. I remember it costing dad a couple hundred bucks to start his truck one morning because some module had randomly failed... and that was a 1988 Ford Ranger in ~1996 or so. The number and complexity of chips in current vehicles dwarfs that of his old truck. Never to worry though, Pelosi's got this.

If this is a thing. We should expect the attack within the next 21 months or so. I know if I was China I would want to face the Biden Military. Not the Trump / DeSantis Military... not to mention the will power of either of them vs dementia Joe

Precision wrote: ↑Thu Aug 04, 2022 1:25 pm If this is a thing. We should expect the attack within the next 21 months or so. I know if I was China I would want to face the Biden Military. Not the Trump / DeSantis Military... not to mention the will power of either of them vs dementia Joe

This, but also because they may not have to face the US military if the current administration decides (or is bribed) to let it happen.

Netpackrat wrote: ↑Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:14 pm

Precision wrote: ↑Thu Aug 04, 2022 1:25 pm If this is a thing. We should expect the attack within the next 21 months or so. I know if I was China I would want to face the Biden Military. Not the Trump / DeSantis Military... not to mention the will power of either of them vs dementia Joe

This, but also because they may not have to face the US military if the current administration decides (or is bribed) to let it happen.

There were a couple of good things about the Ukrainian conflict starting when it did. The A-stan withdrawal and Biden's signals opened the door for Putin, but then Biden was shamed into supporting Ukraine anyway. Then the Russian army stumbled as bad as it has been.

So from a China standpoint - now they do not know if Biden could be shamed into supporting Taiwan and they don't know if they could pull it off (because are they any better than the Russians and Taiwan is definitely better than the Ukrainians.

That is good, but if things get to the point that they feel like they have a window of opportunity that is closing, and the economy is looking crappy anyway - maybe they get stupid. IDK if likely but I would not rule it out.

How much better (and by better I mean deeper as well) is Taiwan than the Ukraine? I ask because I honestly don't know.

Precision wrote: ↑Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:22 pm How much better (and by better I mean deeper as well) is Taiwan than the Ukraine? I ask because I honestly don't know.

Let me put it this way - They keep trying to buy Ticonderoga class cruisers. I imagine they'll look to buy physics packages for the Tomahawks on board. Once that happens, China loses all hope of recovering Taiwan, unless their willing to pay a very steep price.

Precision wrote: ↑Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:22 pm How much better (and by better I mean deeper as well) is Taiwan than the Ukraine? I ask because I honestly don't know.

They've been preparing, planning, and training to repel a PRC invasion since 1949.

Ukraine has only been independent since 1991 and allowed themselves to have their nukes and strategic delivery platforms stripped based on a promise by the US to protect them. I'm not sure when they started considering Russia a valid threat, but I don't think they got really serious about it until 2014 after losing the Crimea.

Taiwan is one of those countries that I strongly suspect could become a nuclear power very quickly once they decided to.

If I were the PRC, I'd be factoring in how much risk I want to put on projects like the Three Gorges Dam. Or how long the PRC will last if the ROC manages to take out senior CHICOM leadership and regional police state control centers. Or try and fail to occupy the island (whether or not they manage to destroy it's infrastructure and kill a large amount of the population).

It's a gamble, which is why they haven't tried yet, despite their toddler like temper tantrum using missiles this past week after granny winebox's visit.

Thanks guys

They're heading for a demographic crisis, too.