War With China (blog article)

[Cherico]

Once again I don't think war is nessary the Chinese have so borked their economy that their basically playing Jenga with it.

 

[Arch Dornan]

As can I; but the intelligence community cannot be left unchecked, because not everything they do is necessarily in the American people's best interest. Need I remind people of how they've basically been turned into a political tool of the Democrats ever since Obama was in office? Which honestly, as far as I'm aware, has undermined their ability to effectively combat China's efforts at espionage. There are countless stories of the Chinese basically being allowed to do whatever they want, while our government, who was apparently more interested in spying on American citizens, did nothing to stop them.

Seriously; if Trump hadn't become president, there's a very real possibility that Hillary would right now be handing the Chinese our country on a silver platter, and our intelligence community would be helping her.

Comes with the package of being the world police.

"American interest" is vague with what policy the branches get up to with their shenanigans.

 

[Terthna]

Once again I don't think war is nessary the Chinese have so borked their economy that their basically playing Jenga with it.

You're not wrong, but it's still disgusting to think of how many of our so-called leaders here in the west have done everything they could to try and prop China up so that they could profit from it.

 

[Arch Dornan]

You're not wrong, but it's still disgusting to think of how many of our so-called leaders here in the west have done everything they could to try and prop China up so that they could profit from it.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next replacement leaders do the same to suck up to China bucks.

 

[Cherico]

I wouldn't be surprised if the next replacement leaders do the same to suck up to China bucks.

Remember what I said about Chinese economic disaster incoming? If shit hits the fan their wont be any china bucks.

 

[Arch Dornan]

Remember what I said about Chinese economic disaster incoming? If shit hits the fan their wont be any china bucks.

Whose currency will still be going strong by then?

 

[Cherico]

Whose currency will still be going strong by then?

Looking at the numbers

There isn't really any other currency then the dollar as a reserve currency so people will still take dollars.
Mexico has a whole lot of good fundamentals so their currency will still be viable.
After the recession the pound will still be functional, australian currency is still viable, and the yen while weak has enough pull to prevent a collapse.

I dont know about the euro so many european banks have serious structural issues and Italys condition is just horrific. The country that would survive a EU collapse the best is france. Other then that its case by case.

 

[Arch Dornan]

Looking at the numbers

There isn't really any other currency then the dollar as a reserve currency so people will still take dollars.
Mexico has a whole lot of good fundamentals so their currency will still be viable.
After the recession the pound will still be functional, australian currency is still viable, and the yen while weak has enough pull to prevent a collapse.

I dont know about the euro so many european banks have serious structural issues and Italys condition is just horrific. The country that would survive a EU collapse the best is france. Other then that its case by case.

Amazing even after those gifs of mad US burecrats brrrring all the dollars out it will still be doing ok.

 

[Cherico]

Amazing even after those gifs of mad US burecrats brrrring all the dollars out it will still be doing ok.

Its more that as bad as the united states is on a bunch of issues every one else is worse...

 

[Zachowon]

Except he is making a mistake that I have seen alot of from military officers. The US has been engaged in economic, informational, and cyber-warfare for decades; the US just doesn't do it through DoD and the US government really doesn't talk about it much at all.

The Special Activities Division of the CIA is most widely known for their Special Operations Group (basically the US James Bonds) but the vast majority of their manpower, funding, and focus is on their primary purpose; informational shaping, propaganda, and counter propaganda. In that field they are hands down the varsity. People bitch about Russia interfering in US elections? SAD has had ensuring the election of US prefered candidates around the world as one of its primary purposes since its founding.

Cyberwarfare? Reagan signed the first EO laying out the US's philosophy to cyberwarfare and setting the NSA's strategic goals; and it wasn't defense. Since the 80's the NSA has invested massive amounts of resources into offensive cyberwarfare for the express purpose of crashing (permanently) everything with a microchip in a hostile nation. The US designed and built the entire internet and basically everything involving the microchip. Russia, China, and everyone else are playing catchup in a game that the US won thirty years ago and continues to invest more money in annually than the entire Russian military budget.

Financial/economic warfare? The US has been using that tool since the end of WW2 and under Obama we raised it to a primary weapon. Look at the response to the Iran Nuclear deal; despite the EU and all of its major governments trying to resist US sanctions, not a single European company was willing to risk said sanctions. Even China played ball with them to a large extent.

---

Kilcullen talks about the evolutionary pressures that the US has forced on hostile powers and the lessons that Russia and China (and others) have taken from US actions since '91 - but what he overlooks is that those pressures were artificial.

The US hasn't played for keeps or used its military seriously since (at least) Vietnam; realistically it hasn't done so since WW2. At the same time, the US military is designed and built to fight WW3; not to nation build, not to occupy, not for counter insurgency, not for regime protection.

Everything that the US military has been doing since 9/11 has been a tertiary mission where the objectives were entirely political and where the endeavour was never actually seen as a military operation.

Real war? The opening move is cruise missiles targeted on power plants & transformers, communications hubs, and relevant industrial targets. Simultaneous with that, stealth aircraft are rolling up the air defense network of the target as F-35's down everything that flies. Then comes the guided bombs on everything from the local police station to rail bridges to the cellphones of everyone of note (military officers, high ranking government officials, religious leaders, community organizers, etc.). At the same time, the cyberweapons start striking and you see zero day vulnerabilities being exploited in essentially every networked device in the entire nation to infect them with viruses that will do things like encrypt the entire device before literally burning out critical components.

If the US decides that a nation is a proper enemy and said enemy doesn't have a sufficiently capable nuclear arsenal to threaten the US with then that nation will be ended not in years, or months, or even weeks but in days. The enemy will have no factories left standing, no intact transportation links, no communications infrastructure, no surviving governmental or community leaders or infrastructure, no electricity, no water, and no heavy weapons.

Remove the nukes and China is just as fucked as, say, Iran.

So the lesson that those other powers have been learning isn't how to fight and win against the US, it is how to be sufficiently enraging to the US to get the US to take them seriously. Should China (or Russia) study US operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the broader world? Absolutely. Should they think those operations are even remotely similar to what they would face in US operations against them? No, not if they are remotely sane.

The US will engage in "peacekeeping" against fourth rate powers pretty much whenever the US President feels like it and on the slimmest of justifications. The idea that the US would even contemplate the same against a real power is, however, farcical. If the US conducts active military operations against Russia, China, or any other decently capable power then it will be war.

Actually Trippy, America is actually behind in the Cyber field. That is all I can say.

I can see why whistleblowers and leakers aren't well liked by Zachowon. Any exposure of techniques or info in what you mentioned jeopardises American interests.

As can I; but the intelligence community cannot be left unchecked, because not everything they do is necessarily in the American people's best interest. Need I remind people of how they've basically been turned into a political tool of the Democrats ever since Obama was in office? Which honestly, as far as I'm aware, has undermined their ability to effectively combat China's efforts at espionage. There are countless stories of the Chinese basically being allowed to do whatever they want, while our government, who was apparently more interested in spying on American citizens, did nothing to stop them.

Seriously; if Trump hadn't become president, there's a very real possibility that Hillary would right now be handing the Chinese our country on a silver platter, and our intelligence community would be helping her.

Comes with the package of being the world police.

"American interest" is vague with what policy the branches get up to with their shenanigans.

If yall want, you can look up exactly what the IC is allowed to do... there are whole Executive Order in charge of us.

But yeah, the enemy knowing what we do is why we cant do our job.
Snowden, Manning, etc etc. They have caused hs to have to change what we do, and gave our enemies a chance to beat that. Hell it hurts us very bad in some places.


As for this, China has the manpower to take on the IS in a war, but if nothing else makes them crumble, it only takes the Air force and Navy to really make them submit if that doesnt work, invasion. Unlikely but would be a last resort. Of course no nukes invovlrd

 

[Terthna]

Actually Trippy, America is actually behind in the Cyber field. That is all I can say.



If yall want, you can look up exactly what the IC is allowed to do... there are whole Executive Order in charge of us.

But yeah, the enemy knowing what we do is why we cant do our job.
Snowden, Manning, etc etc. They have caused hs to have to change what we do, and gave our enemies a chance to beat that. Hell it hurts us very bad in some places.


As for this, China has the manpower to take on the IS in a war, but if nothing else makes them crumble, it only takes the Air force and Navy to really make them submit if that doesnt work, invasion. Unlikely but would be a last resort. Of course no nukes invovlrd

Which apparently includes spying on an American presidential candidate, in an attempt to try and manipulate the election in his opponent's favor; which they couldn't even manage to pull off. Not exactly reassuring, in my opinion.

 

[Arch Dornan]

But yeah, the enemy knowing what we do is why we cant do our job.
Snowden, Manning, etc etc. They have caused hs to have to change what we do, and gave our enemies a chance to beat that. Hell it hurts us very bad in some places.

That's the rub with the IC's secrets. I or Terthna am not in your position to understand the significance of any leaks.

What was it that Snowden leaked again? The Prism program something that involved a US citizen's privacy being intruded on?

Sticking to the topic with China, thanks to Snowden they now have an idea of what the US is using domestically and possibly overseas? They can then warn their own agents infiltrating the US to be aware and when they're stealing secrets from someone?

You can say you can't comment on it if you can't answer and I'll understand.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

Actually Trippy, America is actually behind in the Cyber field. That is all I can say.

That's something that can't actually be discussed outside a SCIF.

 

[Zachowon]

Which apparently includes spying on an American presidential candidate, in an attempt to try and manipulate the election in his opponent's favor; which they couldn't even manage to pull off. Not exactly reassuring, in my opinion.

Other countries are not as good as we think.

That's the rub with the IC's secrets. I or Terthna am not in your position to understand the significance of any leaks.

What was it that Snowden leaked again? The Prism program something that involved a US citizen's privacy being intruded on?

Sticking to the topic with China, thanks to Snowden they now have an idea of what the US is using domestically and possibly overseas? They can then warn their own agents infiltrating the US to be aware and when they're stealing secrets from someone?

You can say you can't comment on it if you can't answer and I'll understand.

Cant comment.

That's something that can't actually be discussed outside a SCIF.

That I understand

 

[Terthna]

Other countries are not as good as we think.

Not sure what you're referring to here; "other countries" are not in charge of America's Intelligence Community.

 

[Arch Dornan]

Cant comment.

Understandable you work in a organisation that must keep secrets. What people like Snowden and Bradley have done I can at least understand from a strategic perspective is show what cards the US has.

The Chinese would be just as pissed if defectors started leaking to the world their secrets. Imagine a a chinese Yuri Bezmenov who had a moral crisis and left for the West and appeared on tv to talk about the secrets of the belt and road plan or chinese subversion of the West.

I don't think there's any yet but it would be a treasure trove if there is a leaker from the mainland to spoil China's plan to be number one?

 

[Zachowon]

Not sure what you're referring to here; "other countries" are not in charge of America's Intelligence Community.

I miss read what you were saying. My bad.

Understandable you work in a organisation that must keep secrets. What people like Snowden and Bradley have done I can at least understand from a strategic perspective is show what cards the US has.

The Chinese would be just as pissed if defectors started leaking to the world their secrets. Imagine a a chinese Yuri Bezmenov who had a moral crisis and left for the West and appeared on tv to talk about the secrets of the belt and road plan or chinese subversion of the West.

I don't think there's any yet but it would be a treasure trove if there is a leaker from the mainland to spoil China's plan to be number one?

It would. I just think China kills them though if they try

 

[Arch Dornan]

It would. I just think China kills them though if they try

They certainly will like Putin going after those defectors with polonium.

 

[Zachowon]

They certainly will like Putin going after those defectors with polonium.

That is where the US struggles. Treason is a death sentence, but they usually domt go to death. Manning fir instance got out..and well ended up back in but still. Snowden is wanted

 

[Arch Dornan]

That is where the US struggles. Treason is a death sentence, but they usually domt go to death. Manning fir instance got out..and well ended up back in but still. Snowden is wanted

You Americans have it hard when it comes to similar situations for better or worse. Your founding fathers and their ancestors in Britain wouldn't hesitate with a hanging after a conviction.

The British did not hesitate with Nathan Hale.