St Petersburg, where Putin hails from and which was the launchpad of his political career, is very close to Finland. He surely knows the country well, as do many Russians who have property there as an insurance against arbitrary expropriation by the Russian state. So unlike Estonia, say, there is unlikely to be a pretext for Russian aggression coming from ethnic Russians living in the country. The other route, namely "provocation" is also very unlikely as the Finns know how to tread a delicate path with their unpredictable neighbour, indeed it has been the basis of their foreign policy, sometimes labelled unkindly "Finlandization".
In WW2, the Finns deliberately did not attack Leningrad for that same reason. If they had of done so, the city would likely have fallen quite quickly.
I doubt it. They endured and survived a horrendous prolonged siege from the Germans, obviously a more formidable force than the Finns.
Look at the map. If the Finns had attacked it would have created another front.
People make very weird assumptions about how easy it would be for China to invade Taiwan.
Never mind that doing so would blow up the world economy (via shattering compiter chip supplies) that China is currently entirely dependent on. If ASML ever sell top end machinery to China then otnos a different matter but everything goes boom if China invades Taiwan.
Good point. I assume they want to get Taiwan the long way, via attrition.
Similarly an invasion of Ukraine would presumably bring massive sanctions down on Russia (exclusion from Swift has been mentioned), which would not make life very pleasant in the Kremlin.
Let's say Russia invades and gets kicked out of SWIFT. It then turns off gas supplies to Europe.
And then let's say the US does this, does Putin stick or twist? Withdraw from Ukraine or invade the Baltics (with help from Belarus) and dare the US and its allies to take the ultimate step?
How many US / EU citizens would be prepared to perish for the Balts?
(PS there is a reason why Russia kept relatively quiet when Trump was in office and it wasn't because he was a Russian spy, it's because he was considered nuts enough to possibly go OTT)
As to 'perishing for the Balts'; here we are in unknown territory for reasons. In the whole history of NATO no state has laid a warlike finger on an inch of NATO territory. That is what is involved in at attack on the Baltic states. We don't know, but it has worked so far.
Perish the thought but surely the Russians have wondered what happens if they attack the non NATO, democratic European state in the EU with which they have a border, Finland. A more interesting target in all sorts of ways than Estonia etc.
Last time the Russians went up against Finland, they won, but they got a hell of a bloody nose from the Finns.
Finland is also a bit of a dead end. Ok, you are up next against Sweden but they are not NATO either. You might go for Norway but you already have a border with them.
If Putin invaded the Balts and eventually got away with it without serious military escalation, then that's a massive victory for him - almost certainly would lead to the restoration of the old USSR and would destroy Nato. Nigel might believe that Biden would stand firm against Putin, I don't.
Finland was never a part of the USSR
Putin is like Xi. Revanchist. Both want to erase perceived shame and humiliation by restoring lost territories. Putin just has a longer list and a more difficult job
True, although to be fair it was part of the Russian Empire. It depends on how far Putin wants to go back. In any event, I don't think he is interested in Finland, it is already neutered and it would be too problematic. The Balts are a different story
The thing Putin is interested in above all else is Eastern Ukraine.
I know plenty of Russians. Many of them are in the West, some in Russia.
All of them detest Putin ...
But, all of them -- without exception -- believe that the Eastern Ukraine & the Crimea belong to Russia.
There is little doubt that most Russians would support the recovery of this territory, even if they don't support Putin.
(Lviv and Western Ukraine are a different matter).
NYT ($) - Dog Is Hailed as ‘Real-Life Lassie’ After Leading Police to Truck Crash Two men lay unconscious on a frigid Vermont night until Tinsley, a Shiloh Shepherd, led the authorities back to the site of the wreck.
As Cam Laundry lay unconscious in the snowy woods near his battered pickup after a rollover crash, his dog Tinsley ran off into the icy Vermont night and returned with help.
The authorities and local media are now hailing the 1-year-old Shiloh Shepherd as a “real-life Lassie” for her actions on Monday night.
Rescuers said they would not have spotted Mr. Laundry and his seriously injured passenger if not for Tinsley.
They credited her with preventing a terrible night from becoming a lot worse for Mr. Laundry and his passenger. The Vermont State Police said Mr. Laundry, 31, was intoxicated and cited him with driving under the influence. He says he is cooperating with the investigation.
He spoke with gratitude about Tinsley in a phone interview on Wednesday. “She’s my guardian,” Mr. Laundry said as she played with her squeaky squirrel toy. “The night was very cold. We were in hypothermic conditions when they reached us.”
After the crash around 10 p.m. Monday night, Tinsley crossed into New Hampshire, a mile or so away, and led the authorities back into Vermont to the wreck, which officials said they would not have noticed unless someone had seen the damaged guardrail that the truck had tumbled over.
At first the officers were simply trying to catch Tinsley to get her out of traffic on Interstate 89 after a driver reported a dog running loose. But she kept running north, slowing occasionally to keep the officers close behind, Lt. Dan Baldassarre of the New Hampshire State Police said in a statement. She eventually led them to a bridge over the wreck.
“It’s a real-life Lassie story,” he said, referring to the fictional collie from long-running TV and radio programs who had a penchant for saving humans who got themselves in trouble. “She’s the hero,” Lieutenant Baldassarre said. . . .
People make very weird assumptions about how easy it would be for China to invade Taiwan.
Never mind that doing so would blow up the world economy (via shattering compiter chip supplies) that China is currently entirely dependent on. If ASML ever sell top end machinery to China then otnos a different matter but everything goes boom if China invades Taiwan.
Good point. I assume they want to get Taiwan the long way, via attrition.
Similarly an invasion of Ukraine would presumably bring massive sanctions down on Russia (exclusion from Swift has been mentioned), which would not make life very pleasant in the Kremlin.
Let's say Russia invades and gets kicked out of SWIFT. It then turns off gas supplies to Europe.
And then let's say the US does this, does Putin stick or twist? Withdraw from Ukraine or invade the Baltics (with help from Belarus) and dare the US and its allies to take the ultimate step?
How many US / EU citizens would be prepared to perish for the Balts?
(PS there is a reason why Russia kept relatively quiet when Trump was in office and it wasn't because he was a Russian spy, it's because he was considered nuts enough to possibly go OTT)
As to 'perishing for the Balts'; here we are in unknown territory for reasons. In the whole history of NATO no state has laid a warlike finger on an inch of NATO territory. That is what is involved in at attack on the Baltic states. We don't know, but it has worked so far.
Perish the thought but surely the Russians have wondered what happens if they attack the non NATO, democratic European state in the EU with which they have a border, Finland. A more interesting target in all sorts of ways than Estonia etc.
Last time the Russians went up against Finland, they won, but they got a hell of a bloody nose from the Finns.
Finland is also a bit of a dead end. Ok, you are up next against Sweden but they are not NATO either. You might go for Norway but you already have a border with them.
If Putin invaded the Balts and eventually got away with it without serious military escalation, then that's a massive victory for him - almost certainly would lead to the restoration of the old USSR and would destroy Nato. Nigel might believe that Biden would stand firm against Putin, I don't.
Finland was never a part of the USSR
Putin is like Xi. Revanchist. Both want to erase perceived shame and humiliation by restoring lost territories. Putin just has a longer list and a more difficult job
True, although to be fair it was part of the Russian Empire. It depends on how far Putin wants to go back. In any event, I don't think he is interested in Finland, it is already neutered and it would be too problematic. The Balts are a different story
The thing Putin is interested in above all else is Eastern Ukraine.
I know plenty of Russians. Many of them are in the West, some in Russia.
All of them detest Putin ...
But, all of them -- without exception -- believe that the Eastern Ukraine & the Crimea belong to Russia.
There is little doubt that most Russians would support the recovery of this territory, even if they don't support Putin.
(Lviv and Western Ukraine are a different matter).
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack of a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence mateiral is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the, 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
As I said, the key is the enemy's / unwillingness ability to absorb losses. Unless you are seriously making the argument Taiwan can defeat China, China will eventually win. The question is how far it goes.
Also, you are assuming a straightforward obliteration of the air defences with simultaneous landings happening. It probably wouldn't work like that. If you had control of the air, your better bet would be to diminish the remaining resources. As happened with the Germans in Normandy in 1944, your ground units get obliterated even if they are mobile if the other side has air control. We also do not know how much cyber attacks would impact the defence chain (I'm not going Battlestar Galatica).
As a final point, Taiwan may have very good plans as RCS said but we do not know much about the quality of their pilots. Dura probably knows more.
It's not the 1940s. The situation is not similar. Taiwan has modern air defence system situated in rugged terrain with plentiful spots to hide it.
People make very weird assumptions about how easy it would be for China to invade Taiwan.
Never mind that doing so would blow up the world economy (via shattering compiter chip supplies) that China is currently entirely dependent on. If ASML ever sell top end machinery to China then otnos a different matter but everything goes boom if China invades Taiwan.
Good point. I assume they want to get Taiwan the long way, via attrition.
Similarly an invasion of Ukraine would presumably bring massive sanctions down on Russia (exclusion from Swift has been mentioned), which would not make life very pleasant in the Kremlin.
Let's say Russia invades and gets kicked out of SWIFT. It then turns off gas supplies to Europe.
And then let's say the US does this, does Putin stick or twist? Withdraw from Ukraine or invade the Baltics (with help from Belarus) and dare the US and its allies to take the ultimate step?
How many US / EU citizens would be prepared to perish for the Balts?
(PS there is a reason why Russia kept relatively quiet when Trump was in office and it wasn't because he was a Russian spy, it's because he was considered nuts enough to possibly go OTT)
As to 'perishing for the Balts'; here we are in unknown territory for reasons. In the whole history of NATO no state has laid a warlike finger on an inch of NATO territory. That is what is involved in at attack on the Baltic states. We don't know, but it has worked so far.
Perish the thought but surely the Russians have wondered what happens if they attack the non NATO, democratic European state in the EU with which they have a border, Finland. A more interesting target in all sorts of ways than Estonia etc.
If you were a British prime minister, would you send our young men and women to go and fight and die for.... Estonia, against Putin, in a battle we would likely lose?
I'm really not sure we would do that. In fact I wonder just where our red line is. Which country is our "Poland". It might, ironically, be Poland. We have emotional ties to them and 1m Poles live in the UK
Bulgaria and Romania, I'm not so sure. Western Europe definitely yes. Even France, damn them
IIRC there was a suggestion that Prince Edward became King of Estonia, which the foreign office opposed because of the risk of the UK being dragged into war after a Russian invasion
People make very weird assumptions about how easy it would be for China to invade Taiwan.
Never mind that doing so would blow up the world economy (via shattering compiter chip supplies) that China is currently entirely dependent on. If ASML ever sell top end machinery to China then otnos a different matter but everything goes boom if China invades Taiwan.
Good point. I assume they want to get Taiwan the long way, via attrition.
Similarly an invasion of Ukraine would presumably bring massive sanctions down on Russia (exclusion from Swift has been mentioned), which would not make life very pleasant in the Kremlin.
Let's say Russia invades and gets kicked out of SWIFT. It then turns off gas supplies to Europe.
And then let's say the US does this, does Putin stick or twist? Withdraw from Ukraine or invade the Baltics (with help from Belarus) and dare the US and its allies to take the ultimate step?
How many US / EU citizens would be prepared to perish for the Balts?
(PS there is a reason why Russia kept relatively quiet when Trump was in office and it wasn't because he was a Russian spy, it's because he was considered nuts enough to possibly go OTT)
As to 'perishing for the Balts'; here we are in unknown territory for reasons. In the whole history of NATO no state has laid a warlike finger on an inch of NATO territory. That is what is involved in at attack on the Baltic states. We don't know, but it has worked so far.
Perish the thought but surely the Russians have wondered what happens if they attack the non NATO, democratic European state in the EU with which they have a border, Finland. A more interesting target in all sorts of ways than Estonia etc.
Last time the Russians went up against Finland, they won, but they got a hell of a bloody nose from the Finns.
Finland is also a bit of a dead end. Ok, you are up next against Sweden but they are not NATO either. You might go for Norway but you already have a border with them.
If Putin invaded the Balts and eventually got away with it without serious military escalation, then that's a massive victory for him - almost certainly would lead to the restoration of the old USSR and would destroy Nato. Nigel might believe that Biden would stand firm against Putin, I don't.
Finland was never a part of the USSR
Putin is like Xi. Revanchist. Both want to erase perceived shame and humiliation by restoring lost territories. Putin just has a longer list and a more difficult job
True, although to be fair it was part of the Russian Empire. It depends on how far Putin wants to go back. In any event, I don't think he is interested in Finland, it is already neutered and it would be too problematic. The Balts are a different story
The thing Putin is interested in above all else is Eastern Ukraine.
I know plenty of Russians. Many of them are in the West, some in Russia.
All of them detest Putin ...
But, all of them -- without exception -- believe that the Eastern Ukraine & the Crimea belong to Russia.
There is little doubt that most Russians would support the recovery of this territory, even if they don't support Putin.
(Lviv and Western Ukraine are a different matter).
England demands the return of Monmouth….
I think you mean Occupied Wales demands Monmouth...
People make very weird assumptions about how easy it would be for China to invade Taiwan.
Never mind that doing so would blow up the world economy (via shattering compiter chip supplies) that China is currently entirely dependent on. If ASML ever sell top end machinery to China then otnos a different matter but everything goes boom if China invades Taiwan.
Good point. I assume they want to get Taiwan the long way, via attrition.
Similarly an invasion of Ukraine would presumably bring massive sanctions down on Russia (exclusion from Swift has been mentioned), which would not make life very pleasant in the Kremlin.
Let's say Russia invades and gets kicked out of SWIFT. It then turns off gas supplies to Europe.
And then let's say the US does this, does Putin stick or twist? Withdraw from Ukraine or invade the Baltics (with help from Belarus) and dare the US and its allies to take the ultimate step?
How many US / EU citizens would be prepared to perish for the Balts?
(PS there is a reason why Russia kept relatively quiet when Trump was in office and it wasn't because he was a Russian spy, it's because he was considered nuts enough to possibly go OTT)
As to 'perishing for the Balts'; here we are in unknown territory for reasons. In the whole history of NATO no state has laid a warlike finger on an inch of NATO territory. That is what is involved in at attack on the Baltic states. We don't know, but it has worked so far.
Perish the thought but surely the Russians have wondered what happens if they attack the non NATO, democratic European state in the EU with which they have a border, Finland. A more interesting target in all sorts of ways than Estonia etc.
Last time the Russians went up against Finland, they won, but they got a hell of a bloody nose from the Finns.
Finland is also a bit of a dead end. Ok, you are up next against Sweden but they are not NATO either. You might go for Norway but you already have a border with them.
If Putin invaded the Balts and eventually got away with it without serious military escalation, then that's a massive victory for him - almost certainly would lead to the restoration of the old USSR and would destroy Nato. Nigel might believe that Biden would stand firm against Putin, I don't.
Finland was never a part of the USSR
Putin is like Xi. Revanchist. Both want to erase perceived shame and humiliation by restoring lost territories. Putin just has a longer list and a more difficult job
True, although to be fair it was part of the Russian Empire. It depends on how far Putin wants to go back. In any event, I don't think he is interested in Finland, it is already neutered and it would be too problematic. The Balts are a different story
The thing Putin is interested in above all else is Eastern Ukraine.
I know plenty of Russians. Many of them are in the West, some in Russia.
All of them detest Putin ...
But, all of them -- without exception -- believe that the Eastern Ukraine & the Crimea belong to Russia.
There is little doubt that most Russians would support the recovery of this territory, even if they don't support Putin.
(Lviv and Western Ukraine are a different matter).
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
Nope. The absolute crash in hospitality takings was in good part a consequence of bizarre mixed messaging from government and its scientists. Which is one thing. Except it laid waste to thousands of bookings without any compensation offered - equivalent to the government discouraging your customers from using your services, yet offering no compensation to you for the loss of trade. Which of course you would be fine with?
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Taiwan's got a pretty decent air force - and I'd rate the latest V block F16s as at least as good as the J-20. A total of 250 fourth gen fighters with the latest US missiles, fighting over their home territory, (backed by a lot of air-to-ground missiles) is a pretty strong deterrent.
China will probably just threaten and bully Taiwan into submission. Cf Hong Kong
I don't see how China can invade Taiwan - it's a monumental ask, against a heavily armed (with the latest Western weapons) state across quite a lot of ocean. I mean, they clearly *could*, but Xi wants a sure victory, not to enter into what could be a very expensive war. (Plus, of course, the Chinese economy is surprisingly dependent on Taiwanese exports.)
Threats and bullying?
On their own, that's probably insufficient.
They would need to make Taiwan's life very difficult, because otherwise all Taiwan does is buy more military hardware.
I think a growing blockade is the only thing that works. It's bloodshed free. But it slowly makes it hard for Taiwan to sell its exports or import food.
Yes - as I said on here a couple of hours ago, that's the way to go if you're Xi
China has such enormous power as a trading nation: she is the biggest trader in the world. And so many impoverished nations now owe China money. See Sri Lanka as an example
China can say to all these countries: we will stop trading with you, and call in our debts, unless you stop trading with Taiwan. That might easily work. It would then require America to do a sort of Berlin airlift for years - forever? - to keep Taiwan going
And I can see the Taiwanese eventually thinking Oh God fuck this, and yielding to some "Treaty"
Seems unlikely in the near future. The West is too dependent on Taiwanese exports to give up on them anytime soon, and Chinese pressure so far has been entirely counterproductive.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack over a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence material is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
Even that attack requires enormous marshalling of resources at air bases in Western China. Resources that China does not currently have.
Worth remembering that a Hercules can carry a stunning... 62 parachutists.
62.
A parachute landing requires a *lot* of planes. And it requires that pretty much all ground defences have been eliminated first. Because otherwise those floating things get lots of holes in them.
Ahem, leave the parachutists out of it for a moment and step back.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
People make very weird assumptions about how easy it would be for China to invade Taiwan.
Never mind that doing so would blow up the world economy (via shattering compiter chip supplies) that China is currently entirely dependent on. If ASML ever sell top end machinery to China then otnos a different matter but everything goes boom if China invades Taiwan.
Good point. I assume they want to get Taiwan the long way, via attrition.
Similarly an invasion of Ukraine would presumably bring massive sanctions down on Russia (exclusion from Swift has been mentioned), which would not make life very pleasant in the Kremlin.
Let's say Russia invades and gets kicked out of SWIFT. It then turns off gas supplies to Europe.
And then let's say the US does this, does Putin stick or twist? Withdraw from Ukraine or invade the Baltics (with help from Belarus) and dare the US and its allies to take the ultimate step?
How many US / EU citizens would be prepared to perish for the Balts?
(PS there is a reason why Russia kept relatively quiet when Trump was in office and it wasn't because he was a Russian spy, it's because he was considered nuts enough to possibly go OTT)
As to 'perishing for the Balts'; here we are in unknown territory for reasons. In the whole history of NATO no state has laid a warlike finger on an inch of NATO territory. That is what is involved in at attack on the Baltic states. We don't know, but it has worked so far.
Perish the thought but surely the Russians have wondered what happens if they attack the non NATO, democratic European state in the EU with which they have a border, Finland. A more interesting target in all sorts of ways than Estonia etc.
Last time the Russians went up against Finland, they won, but they got a hell of a bloody nose from the Finns.
Finland is also a bit of a dead end. Ok, you are up next against Sweden but they are not NATO either. You might go for Norway but you already have a border with them.
If Putin invaded the Balts and eventually got away with it without serious military escalation, then that's a massive victory for him - almost certainly would lead to the restoration of the old USSR and would destroy Nato. Nigel might believe that Biden would stand firm against Putin, I don't.
Finland was never a part of the USSR
Putin is like Xi. Revanchist. Both want to erase perceived shame and humiliation by restoring lost territories. Putin just has a longer list and a more difficult job
True, although to be fair it was part of the Russian Empire. It depends on how far Putin wants to go back. In any event, I don't think he is interested in Finland, it is already neutered and it would be too problematic. The Balts are a different story
The thing Putin is interested in above all else is Eastern Ukraine.
I know plenty of Russians. Many of them are in the West, some in Russia.
All of them detest Putin ...
But, all of them -- without exception -- believe that the Eastern Ukraine & the Crimea belong to Russia.
There is little doubt that most Russians would support the recovery of this territory, even if they don't support Putin.
(Lviv and Western Ukraine are a different matter).
England demands the return of Monmouth….
I think you mean Occupied Wales demands Monmouth...
I think you mean we demand the return of all present day England and Southern Scotland.
I use the boundaries prior to the Anglo-Saxon invasion.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
Nope. The absolute crash in hospitality takings was in good part a consequence of bizarre mixed messaging from government and its scientists. Which is one thing. Except it laid waste to thousands of bookings without any compensation offered - equivalent to the government discouraging your customers from using your services, yet offering no compensation to you for the loss of trade. Which of course you would be fine with?
I'm guessing Al doesn't work in the hospitality trade.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
“Shall we play a game?”
Chess, Poker, Global Thermonuclear War -- which would you choose?
"29 November 2020, 12.59pm Hi David I am afraid parts of our flat are still a bit of a tip and am keen to allow Lulu Lytle to get on with it. Can I possibly ask her to get in touch with you for approvals ? Many thanks and all best Boris "
...with the idea that Boris claims not to have known that Brownlow was funding renovations to the No 11 residence?
He claims he thought that Brownlow was managing the fund not funding it himself
It’s a theoretically possible answer, and difficult to disprove, but does engender a degree of scepticism
I like it! From you, I translate "does engender a degree of scepticism" as akin to "even I, Charles, think he's a lying toad".
I’ve known him for 25 years. I’m well aware that he’s a lying toad.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack of a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence mateiral is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the, 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
As I said, the key is the enemy's / unwillingness ability to absorb losses. Unless you are seriously making the argument Taiwan can defeat China, China will eventually win. The question is how far it goes.
Also, you are assuming a straightforward obliteration of the air defences with simultaneous landings happening. It probably wouldn't work like that. If you had control of the air, your better bet would be to diminish the remaining resources. As happened with the Germans in Normandy in 1944, your ground units get obliterated even if they are mobile if the other side has air control. We also do not know how much cyber attacks would impact the defence chain (I'm not going Battlestar Galatica).
As a final point, Taiwan may have very good plans as RCS said but we do not know much about the quality of their pilots. Dura probably knows more.
It's not the 1940s. The situation is not similar. Taiwan has modern air defence system situated in rugged terrain with plentiful spots to hide it.
And it's the 1940s in terms of satellite and electronic measures to find and neutralise those resources. The analogy plays out both ways.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
Of course it's the second.
And what would you suggest "the West" does? The government of Kazakhstan asked for help for help from the Russians. And they gave it.
Now, it's a brutal repressionary regime in Kazakhstan, that you would not wish to be a citizen of. It's also a Russian client state (like most of the other poor countries on Russia's southern border). But ultimately, there's nothing the West can do about it.
But it’s all about Joe Biden…
Well, he is the US President. If it was Trumpy in charge, would you be similarly absolving him of any blame?
In this case, yes. As has been pointed out to you already, Putin was invited in. Have a look at a map, and tell us how the West could possibly have intervened.
I've answered already, a long time back. No one is saying intervention. But you can signal disproval and make sanctions, which sends a signal of what could happen if the Ukraine or anywhere else is invaded.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack over a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence material is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
Even that attack requires enormous marshalling of resources at air bases in Western China. Resources that China does not currently have.
Worth remembering that a Hercules can carry a stunning... 62 parachutists.
62.
A parachute landing requires a *lot* of planes. And it requires that pretty much all ground defences have been eliminated first. Because otherwise those floating things get lots of holes in them.
Ahem, leave the parachutists out of it for a moment and step back.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
An additional point.
In war it is customary to seize the enemies assets.
In the case of China and the US, the US would simply indicate the US government bonds owned by China were now it's (the US) property. And tear up a huge chunk of the national debt.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
Nope. The absolute crash in hospitality takings was in good part a consequence of bizarre mixed messaging from government and its scientists. Which is one thing. Except it laid waste to thousands of bookings without any compensation offered - equivalent to the government discouraging your customers from using your services, yet offering no compensation to you for the loss of trade. Which of course you would be fine with?
I'm guessing Al doesn't work in the hospitality trade.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
“Shall we play a game?”
Chess, Poker, Global Thermonuclear War -- which would you choose?
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack over a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence material is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
Even that attack requires enormous marshalling of resources at air bases in Western China. Resources that China does not currently have.
Worth remembering that a Hercules can carry a stunning... 62 parachutists.
62.
A parachute landing requires a *lot* of planes. And it requires that pretty much all ground defences have been eliminated first. Because otherwise those floating things get lots of holes in them.
Ahem, leave the parachutists out of it for a moment and step back.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
An additional point.
In war it is customary to seize the enemies assets.
In the case of China and the US, the US would simply indicate the US government bonds owned by China were now it's (the US) property. And tear up a huge chunk of the national debt.
However, there is a cost to that - the US loses its reputation as a 100% safe haven.
Have you ever read the "Hidden Hand" by the way. Worth a read and quite worrying about the potential infiltration tactics of China.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
“Shall we play a game?”
Chess, Poker, Global Thermonuclear War -- which would you choose?
The BBC have been plugging The Apprentice the last few days. They even had the winner of Series 1 on BBC London News this evening (I hear he is one of Sugar's helpers this series).
Watching the plugs, you'd think it was quite a serious programme. I start watching it, and it's business as usual. What a bunch of obnoxious w*****s.
For reasons I don't quite understand, it's been a spoof/pastiche/send-up of itself for the past several years.
So much television seems to do that.
Mrs P. likes Digging for Britain and I half watch it with her... but half the programme now seems to be watching Dr Alice Roberts do a catwalk across a field whilst pouting to camera.
See also Nigella Lawson's cookery progs which when they started were actually about, you know, cooking rather than La Nigella.
Dr Roberts does look nicer than Dr Oliver, to some tastes at least. Very important for TV.
St Petersburg, where Putin hails from and which was the launchpad of his political career, is very close to Finland. He surely knows the country well, as do many Russians who have property there as an insurance against arbitrary expropriation by the Russian state. So unlike Estonia, say, there is unlikely to be a pretext for Russian aggression coming from ethnic Russians living in the country. The other route, namely "provocation" is also very unlikely as the Finns know how to tread a delicate path with their unpredictable neighbour, indeed it has been the basis of their foreign policy, sometimes labelled unkindly "Finlandization".
In WW2, the Finns deliberately did not attack Leningrad for that same reason. If they had of done so, the city would likely have fallen quite quickly.
I doubt it. They endured and survived a horrendous prolonged siege from the Germans, obviously a more formidable force than the Finns.
Look at the map. If the Finns had attacked it would have created another front.
And the Finns would have proactively allowed the Germans to attack from that front if they had joined in. Leningrad would have been screwed.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
“Shall we play a game?”
Chess, Poker, Global Thermonuclear War -- which would you choose?
"Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?"
"Global Thermonuclear War"
I should reach Defcon 1 and release my missiles in 28 hours. Would you like to see some projected kill ratios?
69% of the housing destroyed. 72 million people dead. Is this a game or is it real?
St Petersburg, where Putin hails from and which was the launchpad of his political career, is very close to Finland. He surely knows the country well, as do many Russians who have property there as an insurance against arbitrary expropriation by the Russian state. So unlike Estonia, say, there is unlikely to be a pretext for Russian aggression coming from ethnic Russians living in the country. The other route, namely "provocation" is also very unlikely as the Finns know how to tread a delicate path with their unpredictable neighbour, indeed it has been the basis of their foreign policy, sometimes labelled unkindly "Finlandization".
In WW2, the Finns deliberately did not attack Leningrad for that same reason. If they had of done so, the city would likely have fallen quite quickly.
I doubt it. They endured and survived a horrendous prolonged siege from the Germans, obviously a more formidable force than the Finns.
The historical record on this is crystal clear: Hitler and the OKH kept encouraging - urging - begging Marshal Mannerheim and the Finns to attack Leningrad from the North. In vain.
People make very weird assumptions about how easy it would be for China to invade Taiwan.
Never mind that doing so would blow up the world economy (via shattering compiter chip supplies) that China is currently entirely dependent on. If ASML ever sell top end machinery to China then otnos a different matter but everything goes boom if China invades Taiwan.
Good point. I assume they want to get Taiwan the long way, via attrition.
Similarly an invasion of Ukraine would presumably bring massive sanctions down on Russia (exclusion from Swift has been mentioned), which would not make life very pleasant in the Kremlin.
Let's say Russia invades and gets kicked out of SWIFT. It then turns off gas supplies to Europe.
And then let's say the US does this, does Putin stick or twist? Withdraw from Ukraine or invade the Baltics (with help from Belarus) and dare the US and its allies to take the ultimate step?
How many US / EU citizens would be prepared to perish for the Balts?
(PS there is a reason why Russia kept relatively quiet when Trump was in office and it wasn't because he was a Russian spy, it's because he was considered nuts enough to possibly go OTT)
As to 'perishing for the Balts'; here we are in unknown territory for reasons. In the whole history of NATO no state has laid a warlike finger on an inch of NATO territory. That is what is involved in at attack on the Baltic states. We don't know, but it has worked so far.
Perish the thought but surely the Russians have wondered what happens if they attack the non NATO, democratic European state in the EU with which they have a border, Finland. A more interesting target in all sorts of ways than Estonia etc.
Last time the Russians went up against Finland, they won, but they got a hell of a bloody nose from the Finns.
Finland is also a bit of a dead end. Ok, you are up next against Sweden but they are not NATO either. You might go for Norway but you already have a border with them.
If Putin invaded the Balts and eventually got away with it without serious military escalation, then that's a massive victory for him - almost certainly would lead to the restoration of the old USSR and would destroy Nato. Nigel might believe that Biden would stand firm against Putin, I don't.
Finland was never a part of the USSR
Putin is like Xi. Revanchist. Both want to erase perceived shame and humiliation by restoring lost territories. Putin just has a longer list and a more difficult job
True, although to be fair it was part of the Russian Empire. It depends on how far Putin wants to go back. In any event, I don't think he is interested in Finland, it is already neutered and it would be too problematic. The Balts are a different story
The thing Putin is interested in above all else is Eastern Ukraine.
I know plenty of Russians. Many of them are in the West, some in Russia.
All of them detest Putin ...
But, all of them -- without exception -- believe that the Eastern Ukraine & the Crimea belong to Russia.
There is little doubt that most Russians would support the recovery of this territory, even if they don't support Putin.
(Lviv and Western Ukraine are a different matter).
England demands the return of Monmouth….
I think you mean Occupied Wales demands Monmouth...
I think you mean we demand the return of all present day England and Southern Scotland.
I use the boundaries prior to the Anglo-Saxon invasion.
Also Brittany.
Hey, what about us Neanderthals with ginger hair? We were here first.
Djokovic’s dad showing a laudable sense of proportion… Shame on them, the entire freedom-loving world should rise together with Serbia. They crucified Jesus and now they are trying to crucify Novak the same way.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack over a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence material is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
Even that attack requires enormous marshalling of resources at air bases in Western China. Resources that China does not currently have.
Worth remembering that a Hercules can carry a stunning... 62 parachutists.
62.
A parachute landing requires a *lot* of planes. And it requires that pretty much all ground defences have been eliminated first. Because otherwise those floating things get lots of holes in them.
Ahem, leave the parachutists out of it for a moment and step back.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
An additional point.
In war it is customary to seize the enemies assets.
In the case of China and the US, the US would simply indicate the US government bonds owned by China were now it's (the US) property. And tear up a huge chunk of the national debt.
However, there is a cost to that - the US loses its reputation as a 100% safe haven.
Have you ever read the "Hidden Hand" by the way. Worth a read and quite worrying about the potential infiltration tactics of China.
No, it wouldn't.
In WWI and WWII, both sides seized the assets of the other. The assets were never returned and no-one even raised the question that they might be.
During the Falklands War, the UK government seized a number of assets of the Argentine government. Including the catapults for the aircraft carrier, which happened to be in the UK for repair at the time. There is a story that they lie in a warehouse, yet.....
People make very weird assumptions about how easy it would be for China to invade Taiwan.
Never mind that doing so would blow up the world economy (via shattering compiter chip supplies) that China is currently entirely dependent on. If ASML ever sell top end machinery to China then otnos a different matter but everything goes boom if China invades Taiwan.
Good point. I assume they want to get Taiwan the long way, via attrition.
Similarly an invasion of Ukraine would presumably bring massive sanctions down on Russia (exclusion from Swift has been mentioned), which would not make life very pleasant in the Kremlin.
Let's say Russia invades and gets kicked out of SWIFT. It then turns off gas supplies to Europe.
And then let's say the US does this, does Putin stick or twist? Withdraw from Ukraine or invade the Baltics (with help from Belarus) and dare the US and its allies to take the ultimate step?
How many US / EU citizens would be prepared to perish for the Balts?
(PS there is a reason why Russia kept relatively quiet when Trump was in office and it wasn't because he was a Russian spy, it's because he was considered nuts enough to possibly go OTT)
As to 'perishing for the Balts'; here we are in unknown territory for reasons. In the whole history of NATO no state has laid a warlike finger on an inch of NATO territory. That is what is involved in at attack on the Baltic states. We don't know, but it has worked so far.
Perish the thought but surely the Russians have wondered what happens if they attack the non NATO, democratic European state in the EU with which they have a border, Finland. A more interesting target in all sorts of ways than Estonia etc.
Last time the Russians went up against Finland, they won, but they got a hell of a bloody nose from the Finns.
Finland is also a bit of a dead end. Ok, you are up next against Sweden but they are not NATO either. You might go for Norway but you already have a border with them.
If Putin invaded the Balts and eventually got away with it without serious military escalation, then that's a massive victory for him - almost certainly would lead to the restoration of the old USSR and would destroy Nato. Nigel might believe that Biden would stand firm against Putin, I don't.
Finland was never a part of the USSR
Putin is like Xi. Revanchist. Both want to erase perceived shame and humiliation by restoring lost territories. Putin just has a longer list and a more difficult job
True, although to be fair it was part of the Russian Empire. It depends on how far Putin wants to go back. In any event, I don't think he is interested in Finland, it is already neutered and it would be too problematic. The Balts are a different story
Reckon that You-Know-Who would be open giving back Alaska, as a "thank you"?
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack over a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence material is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
Even that attack requires enormous marshalling of resources at air bases in Western China. Resources that China does not currently have.
Worth remembering that a Hercules can carry a stunning... 62 parachutists.
62.
A parachute landing requires a *lot* of planes. And it requires that pretty much all ground defences have been eliminated first. Because otherwise those floating things get lots of holes in them.
Ahem, leave the parachutists out of it for a moment and step back.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
An additional point.
In war it is customary to seize the enemies assets.
In the case of China and the US, the US would simply indicate the US government bonds owned by China were now it's (the US) property. And tear up a huge chunk of the national debt.
Another additional point to the seizing of Treasury debt. The Chinese retaliate by seizing all US assets in China, including from private companies.
Literally trillions wiped off stocks (apple would be f**ked), trillions off Americans' household wealth and their pension plans. Not pretty.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
Of course it's the second.
And what would you suggest "the West" does? The government of Kazakhstan asked for help for help from the Russians. And they gave it.
Now, it's a brutal repressionary regime in Kazakhstan, that you would not wish to be a citizen of. It's also a Russian client state (like most of the other poor countries on Russia's southern border). But ultimately, there's nothing the West can do about it.
But it’s all about Joe Biden…
Well, he is the US President. If it was Trumpy in charge, would you be similarly absolving him of any blame?
In this case, yes. As has been pointed out to you already, Putin was invited in. Have a look at a map, and tell us how the West could possibly have intervened.
I've answered already, a long time back. No one is saying intervention. But you can signal disproval and make sanctions, which sends a signal of what could happen if the Ukraine or anywhere else is invaded.
There are only so many times you can impose sanctions on Russia - and the justification here would be comparatively slim. The real confrontation will come over Ukraine.
Djokovic’s dad showing a laudable sense of proportion… Shame on them, the entire freedom-loving world should rise together with Serbia. They crucified Jesus and now they are trying to crucify Novak the same way.
Djokovic’s dad showing a laudable sense of proportion… Shame on them, the entire freedom-loving world should rise together with Serbia. They crucified Jesus and now they are trying to crucify Novak the same way.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack over a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence material is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
Even that attack requires enormous marshalling of resources at air bases in Western China. Resources that China does not currently have.
Worth remembering that a Hercules can carry a stunning... 62 parachutists.
62.
A parachute landing requires a *lot* of planes. And it requires that pretty much all ground defences have been eliminated first. Because otherwise those floating things get lots of holes in them.
Ahem, leave the parachutists out of it for a moment and step back.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
An additional point.
In war it is customary to seize the enemies assets.
In the case of China and the US, the US would simply indicate the US government bonds owned by China were now it's (the US) property. And tear up a huge chunk of the national debt.
However, there is a cost to that - the US loses its reputation as a 100% safe haven.
Have you ever read the "Hidden Hand" by the way. Worth a read and quite worrying about the potential infiltration tactics of China.
No, it wouldn't.
In WWI and WWII, both sides seized the assets of the other. The assets were never returned and no-one even raised the question that they might be.
During the Falklands War, the UK government seized a number of assets of the Argentine government. Including the catapults for the aircraft carrier, which happened to be in the UK for repair at the time. There is a story that they lie in a warehouse, yet.....
It is according to the customary laws of war.
But that is in the event of war. And that would depend on the US etc declaring a conflict because China isn't going to declare war on the US and will say it is an internal matter.
So the war analogy doesn't hold unless you actually declare a war / conflict - in which case, we are back to the question of what the US would do.
Djokovic’s dad showing a laudable sense of proportion… Shame on them, the entire freedom-loving world should rise together with Serbia. They crucified Jesus and now they are trying to crucify Novak the same way.
Yes, but Jesus never went deeper than the quarters of a Grand Slam.
St Petersburg, where Putin hails from and which was the launchpad of his political career, is very close to Finland. He surely knows the country well, as do many Russians who have property there as an insurance against arbitrary expropriation by the Russian state. So unlike Estonia, say, there is unlikely to be a pretext for Russian aggression coming from ethnic Russians living in the country. The other route, namely "provocation" is also very unlikely as the Finns know how to tread a delicate path with their unpredictable neighbour, indeed it has been the basis of their foreign policy, sometimes labelled unkindly "Finlandization".
In WW2, the Finns deliberately did not attack Leningrad for that same reason. If they had of done so, the city would likely have fallen quite quickly.
I doubt it. They endured and survived a horrendous prolonged siege from the Germans, obviously a more formidable force than the Finns.
The historical record on this is crystal clear: Hitler and the OKH kept encouraging - urging - begging Marshal Mannerheim and the Finns to attack Leningrad from the North. In vain.
The Finns knew they would always have to be Russia's neigbours. Mannerheim's forebearance was natural and wise.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
“Shall we play a game?”
Chess, Poker, Global Thermonuclear War -- which would you choose?
"Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?"
"Global Thermonuclear War"
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play".
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
Of course it's the second.
And what would you suggest "the West" does? The government of Kazakhstan asked for help for help from the Russians. And they gave it.
Now, it's a brutal repressionary regime in Kazakhstan, that you would not wish to be a citizen of. It's also a Russian client state (like most of the other poor countries on Russia's southern border). But ultimately, there's nothing the West can do about it.
But it’s all about Joe Biden…
Well, he is the US President. If it was Trumpy in charge, would you be similarly absolving him of any blame?
In this case, yes. As has been pointed out to you already, Putin was invited in. Have a look at a map, and tell us how the West could possibly have intervened.
I've answered already, a long time back. No one is saying intervention. But you can signal disproval and make sanctions, which sends a signal of what could happen if the Ukraine or anywhere else is invaded.
There are only so many times you can impose sanctions on Russia - and the justification here would be comparatively slim. The real confrontation will come over Ukraine.
Djokovic’s dad showing a laudable sense of proportion… Shame on them, the entire freedom-loving world should rise together with Serbia. They crucified Jesus and now they are trying to crucify Novak the same way.
"The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the US PM in all but name and has more control over US domestic policy than the President does"
And here is my learned rebuttal:
The notion that the "Speaker of the House of Representative is the US PM in all but name" is total BS.
Certainly the Speaker, however powerful, is NOT responsible in any way for the Executive Branch (unless and until see succeeds POTUS as per US Constitution, when she would automatically cease to be Speaker).
Do you think Denny Fucking Hasstert was the Prime Minister of the United States? OR even Nancy Pelosi, when #45 was (actual) President? Somehow I doubt it.
I disagree. In terms of US domestic policy the Speaker of the House of Representatives has more influence than the Vice President or even the President.
Just look at Speaker Newt Gingrich's Contract with America which totally shifted the US Federal government back to a small government agenda after just 2 years of President Clinton's Presidency in 1994. Obamacare would also never have passed without Speaker Pelosi in 2010. Reagan also had to work closely with Tip O'Neill to get things through.
The US President largely controls foreign policy and the armed forces regardless of which party controls Congress, though he needs the Senate to get Treaties approved. However the Speaker of the House can control the domestic agenda and effectively act as the equivalent of the UK PM on the domestic front if they have the desire
Good to see Biden coming out and punching hard against Trump's lies.
Doubt it will be enough, sadly.
The States actually needs a more competent version of Macron i.e. someone not aligned to either party. Unfortunately, it will not get it.
Actually, it simply needs Republican voters to punish their side for straying so far from the centre and for abandoning norms and standards that should be shared by both sides. That’s the way it is supposed to work.
St Petersburg, where Putin hails from and which was the launchpad of his political career, is very close to Finland. He surely knows the country well, as do many Russians who have property there as an insurance against arbitrary expropriation by the Russian state. So unlike Estonia, say, there is unlikely to be a pretext for Russian aggression coming from ethnic Russians living in the country. The other route, namely "provocation" is also very unlikely as the Finns know how to tread a delicate path with their unpredictable neighbour, indeed it has been the basis of their foreign policy, sometimes labelled unkindly "Finlandization".
In WW2, the Finns deliberately did not attack Leningrad for that same reason. If they had of done so, the city would likely have fallen quite quickly.
I doubt it. They endured and survived a horrendous prolonged siege from the Germans, obviously a more formidable force than the Finns.
The historical record on this is crystal clear: Hitler and the OKH kept encouraging - urging - begging Marshal Mannerheim and the Finns to attack Leningrad from the North. In vain.
The Finns knew they would always have to be Russia's neigbours. Mannerheim's forebearance was natural and wise.
Which is true. But it doesn't negate that if Mannerheim had agreed to the Germans' calls, Leningrad would almost certainly have fallen.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
Nope. The absolute crash in hospitality takings was in good part a consequence of bizarre mixed messaging from government and its scientists. Which is one thing. Except it laid waste to thousands of bookings without any compensation offered - equivalent to the government discouraging your customers from using your services, yet offering no compensation to you for the loss of trade. Which of course you would be fine with?
I'm guessing Al doesn't work in the hospitality trade.
No, I don't. But my daughter is a chef; she's had an extraordinarily tough time over the last couple of years, and I've had to bail her out frequently.
"29 November 2020, 12.59pm Hi David I am afraid parts of our flat are still a bit of a tip and am keen to allow Lulu Lytle to get on with it. Can I possibly ask her to get in touch with you for approvals ? Many thanks and all best Boris "
...with the idea that Boris claims not to have known that Brownlow was funding renovations to the No 11 residence?
He claims he thought that Brownlow was managing the fund not funding it himself
It’s a theoretically possible answer, and difficult to disprove, but does engender a degree of scepticism
I like it! From you, I translate "does engender a degree of scepticism" as akin to "even I, Charles, think he's a lying toad".
I’ve known him for 25 years. I’m well aware that he’s a lying toad.
Please don't take this personally, but...
Between about 2015 and 2020, an awful lot of people in the corridors of power promoted BoJo, despite knowing that he was/is/will be a lying toad. Arguably earlier, though it was a bit different when he was a kind of court jester, rather than a kind of king. Mayor of London was actually a pretty good fit for his talents and weaknesses.
And yes, he got you-know-what sort of done, and yes, he saw off Corbyn. But one of the reasons that Brexit got constipated was that a scruffy blond gobshite wouldn't give his seal of approval for the May plan (highly flawed, way harder than many people would have liked, more tied to Europe than others wanted, but it would have put the whole thing to bed for a bit). And Jezza would have never got as close as he did to power without the Brexit effect. As with Howard Kirk in The History Man, Boris solved a problem he largely fomented, which isn't all that creditworthy.
And now we're all stuck with him for the foreseeable. Because if the plan was "use Boris's charms to get through 2019 and 2020, then dump him for someone less useless", it's not working. Because toads are very good at squatting.
And a lot of this should have been foreseeable by the people who put him there.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack over a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence material is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
Even that attack requires enormous marshalling of resources at air bases in Western China. Resources that China does not currently have.
Worth remembering that a Hercules can carry a stunning... 62 parachutists.
62.
A parachute landing requires a *lot* of planes. And it requires that pretty much all ground defences have been eliminated first. Because otherwise those floating things get lots of holes in them.
Ahem, leave the parachutists out of it for a moment and step back.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
An additional point.
In war it is customary to seize the enemies assets.
In the case of China and the US, the US would simply indicate the US government bonds owned by China were now it's (the US) property. And tear up a huge chunk of the national debt.
However, there is a cost to that - the US loses its reputation as a 100% safe haven.
Have you ever read the "Hidden Hand" by the way. Worth a read and quite worrying about the potential infiltration tactics of China.
No, it wouldn't.
In WWI and WWII, both sides seized the assets of the other. The assets were never returned and no-one even raised the question that they might be.
During the Falklands War, the UK government seized a number of assets of the Argentine government. Including the catapults for the aircraft carrier, which happened to be in the UK for repair at the time. There is a story that they lie in a warehouse, yet.....
It is according to the customary laws of war.
But that is in the event of war. And that would depend on the US etc declaring a conflict because China isn't going to declare war on the US and will say it is an internal matter.
So the war analogy doesn't hold unless you actually declare a war / conflict - in which case, we are back to the question of what the US would do.
If US military assets are used against Chinese assets in a China/Taiwan fight, the laws of armed conflict apply.
So a US President knows that the moment the missiles fly, x% of the US national debt vanishes. Forever.
It's not the 1940s. The situation is not similar. Taiwan has modern air defence system situated in rugged terrain with plentiful spots to hide it.
And it's the 1940s in terms of satellite and electronic measures to find and neutralise those resources. The analogy plays out both ways.
The Serbian Forces in Kosovo showed that it was trivial to hide military assets against an air only attack even if the air attack was by the most advanced sophisticated military on the planet.
You are managing to meld this weird perfect scenario for China where they are both lighting fast to overwhelm, and also slowly and methodically spread their attack out over months backed by all the latest technology that they are experts in using despite having zero adversarial use of it, a ghost in the machine cyber warfare effort to cripple the Taiwanese response and a complete network of spies throughout Taiwan ready to undermine it.
Good to see Biden coming out and punching hard against Trump's lies.
Doubt it will be enough, sadly.
The States actually needs a more competent version of Macron i.e. someone not aligned to either party. Unfortunately, it will not get it.
Actually, it simply needs Republican voters to punish their side for straying so far from the centre and for abandoning norms and standards that should be shared by both sides. That’s the way it is supposed to work.
You are making the mistake of assuming it is only the Republicans that have extreme voters and that the Democrats don't. I go back to what I posted yesterday - 15% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans would be happy if large numbers of their political opponents died. There is a meaningful percentage of Democrat voters who are similarly rabid in their view. Unless you accept this is a problem for both parties, not just one, it won't get solved because one side will think - reasonably - they are shouldering all the blame.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
Nope. The absolute crash in hospitality takings was in good part a consequence of bizarre mixed messaging from government and its scientists. Which is one thing. Except it laid waste to thousands of bookings without any compensation offered - equivalent to the government discouraging your customers from using your services, yet offering no compensation to you for the loss of trade. Which of course you would be fine with?
I'm guessing Al doesn't work in the hospitality trade.
No, I don't. But my daughter is a chef; she's had an extraordinarily tough time over the last couple of years, and I've had to bail her out frequently.
She blames Covid, though, and she's right.
The darkly funny bit is that those that demanded no more lockdowns, got no more lockdowns. Then realised they really wanted another lockdown.....
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack over a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence material is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
Even that attack requires enormous marshalling of resources at air bases in Western China. Resources that China does not currently have.
Worth remembering that a Hercules can carry a stunning... 62 parachutists.
62.
A parachute landing requires a *lot* of planes. And it requires that pretty much all ground defences have been eliminated first. Because otherwise those floating things get lots of holes in them.
Ahem, leave the parachutists out of it for a moment and step back.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
An additional point.
In war it is customary to seize the enemies assets.
In the case of China and the US, the US would simply indicate the US government bonds owned by China were now it's (the US) property. And tear up a huge chunk of the national debt.
Another additional point to the seizing of Treasury debt. The Chinese retaliate by seizing all US assets in China, including from private companies.
Literally trillions wiped off stocks (apple would be f**ked), trillions off Americans' household wealth and their pension plans. Not pretty.
The reality of any military confrontation of scale over Taiwan is that both US and Chinese economies (and ours) would be fncked.
Which is one reason there is slowly increasing cooperation between Taiwan, S Korea, Japan and the US to deter any Chinese action.
Good to see Biden coming out and punching hard against Trump's lies.
Doubt it will be enough, sadly.
The States actually needs a more competent version of Macron i.e. someone not aligned to either party. Unfortunately, it will not get it.
Actually, it simply needs Republican voters to punish their side for straying so far from the centre and for abandoning norms and standards that should be shared by both sides. That’s the way it is supposed to work.
You are making the mistake of assuming it is only the Republicans that have extreme voters and that the Democrats don't. I go back to what I posted yesterday - 15% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans would be happy if large numbers of their political opponents died. There is a meaningful percentage of Democrat voters who are similarly rabid in their view. Unless you accept this is a problem for both parties, not just one, it won't get solved because one side will think - reasonably - they are shouldering all the blame.
You miss the point; moderate voters are supposed to punish extreme candidates, leaving the extreme voters out in the cold.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
Nope. The absolute crash in hospitality takings was in good part a consequence of bizarre mixed messaging from government and its scientists. Which is one thing. Except it laid waste to thousands of bookings without any compensation offered - equivalent to the government discouraging your customers from using your services, yet offering no compensation to you for the loss of trade. Which of course you would be fine with?
I agree that compensation should be offered. But I strongly suspect that whatever your opinions, a large number of the public would have voted with their feet whatever the government/scientists had said, because they didn't want to catch Covid. We're not all as fearless as you. That's all. And, as I indicate elsewhere, I was indirectly affected by all this as my chef daughter was laid off two weeks before Xmas.
It's not the 1940s. The situation is not similar. Taiwan has modern air defence system situated in rugged terrain with plentiful spots to hide it.
And it's the 1940s in terms of satellite and electronic measures to find and neutralise those resources. The analogy plays out both ways.
The Serbian Forces in Kosovo showed that it was trivial to hide military assets against an air only attack even if the air attack was by the most advanced sophisticated military on the planet.
You are managing to meld this weird perfect scenario for China where they are both lighting fast to overwhelm, and also slowly and methodically spread their attack out over months backed by all the latest technology that they are experts in using despite having zero adversarial use of it, a ghost in the machine cyber warfare effort to cripple the Taiwanese response and a complete network of spies throughout Taiwan ready to undermine it.
I think you have misread both what I said and what I am arguing, and in at least one case putting words in my mouth I never said. I will repeat again.
If China decides it wants to invade, and it is confident Taiwan's allies will not intervene militarily, then the key question is how far it is willing to accept losses to reach it's aims.
No one - and least of all me - is saying it would be a prefect plan. It would be a bloodbath. But force of numbers, just as they did on the Eastern front (and yes we are back to the 1940s) would win out. Eventually. The discrepancy is too big, even given the island analogy. Taiwan is not the UK of the 1940. It does not have a vastly superior fleet or a comparable air force. It is massively outnumbered.
Re the point re spies, the CCP places a great deal of emphasis on its historical actions and roots. As I said, I have no idea of any network - I find it totally bizarre you claim my words state there is a "complete network" of spies - what I said was that, given the above and their very successful usage in the Civil War plus the familial links between Taiwanese and mainland families, it would be bizarre if they did not deploy that tactic and therefore this is an unknown that could (or not) be significant.
The way to discourage Xi is to make it very openly clear we will use military force to protect Taiwan and be unambiguous. The sooner we do this, the better.
Good to see Biden coming out and punching hard against Trump's lies.
Doubt it will be enough, sadly.
The States actually needs a more competent version of Macron i.e. someone not aligned to either party. Unfortunately, it will not get it.
Actually, it simply needs Republican voters to punish their side for straying so far from the centre and for abandoning norms and standards that should be shared by both sides. That’s the way it is supposed to work.
You are making the mistake of assuming it is only the Republicans that have extreme voters and that the Democrats don't. I go back to what I posted yesterday - 15% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans would be happy if large numbers of their political opponents died. There is a meaningful percentage of Democrat voters who are similarly rabid in their view. Unless you accept this is a problem for both parties, not just one, it won't get solved because one side will think - reasonably - they are shouldering all the blame.
You miss the point; moderate voters are supposed to punish extreme candidates, leaving the extreme voters out in the cold.
Your comment was "Actually, it simply needs Republican voters to punish their side for straying so far from the centre and for abandoning norms and standards that should be shared by both sides." Pretty clear you think only one side has extreme voters.
My point was that both parties do and both need to do something. You don't. There's our difference,
Djokovic’s dad showing a laudable sense of proportion… Shame on them, the entire freedom-loving world should rise together with Serbia. They crucified Jesus and now they are trying to crucify Novak the same way.
Just seen the redecorated No 10 flat on the news. That is going to take a bucket load of money to undo. Shudders.
Not the flat, but examples of the designer’s other work
. That's a relief. Let's hope she was restrained. Absolutely gastly. Like a 3 year old had been let loose.
That no cameras have been allowed inside the flat since, probably isn’t a good sign, however
Voters might not be impressed when they see what the £££££ has actually achieved?
Surely it matters to no one but the next PM who will occupy the flat and have to live with the designs other than where did the fecking money come from?
Italy's coronavirus cases hit new daily record of 219,441 Thursday http://reut.rs/3HGzpRN
I think they have a spot of the old big O.....
A total of 125 passengers who arrived in the northern Indian city of Amritsar on a chartered flight from Italy have tested positive for Covid-19. They were among 179passengers on the flight from Milan which landed in Amritsar on Wednesday afternoon.
Looks like World Affairs night tonight on PB, with our resident experts playing out their war games scenarios.
While in a parallel thread others blame well-meaning medics and scientists for a downturn in hospitality takings, which was actually due to the fact that people (the public), in light of rising and slightly scary Covid rates, followed government (i.e. politicians') advice and were cautious before Xmas, when not much was known about Omicron.
Nope. The absolute crash in hospitality takings was in good part a consequence of bizarre mixed messaging from government and its scientists. Which is one thing. Except it laid waste to thousands of bookings without any compensation offered - equivalent to the government discouraging your customers from using your services, yet offering no compensation to you for the loss of trade. Which of course you would be fine with?
I'm guessing Al doesn't work in the hospitality trade.
No, I don't. But my daughter is a chef; she's had an extraordinarily tough time over the last couple of years, and I've had to bail her out frequently.
She blames Covid, though, and she's right.
The darkly funny bit is that those that demanded no more lockdowns, got no more lockdowns. Then realised they really wanted another lockdown.....
Yes. I have been contemplating that irony for a while.
Good to see Biden coming out and punching hard against Trump's lies.
Doubt it will be enough, sadly.
The States actually needs a more competent version of Macron i.e. someone not aligned to either party. Unfortunately, it will not get it.
Actually, it simply needs Republican voters to punish their side for straying so far from the centre and for abandoning norms and standards that should be shared by both sides. That’s the way it is supposed to work.
You are making the mistake of assuming it is only the Republicans that have extreme voters and that the Democrats don't. I go back to what I posted yesterday - 15% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans would be happy if large numbers of their political opponents died. There is a meaningful percentage of Democrat voters who are similarly rabid in their view. Unless you accept this is a problem for both parties, not just one, it won't get solved because one side will think - reasonably - they are shouldering all the blame.
You miss the point; moderate voters are supposed to punish extreme candidates, leaving the extreme voters out in the cold.
Your comment was "Actually, it simply needs Republican voters to punish their side for straying so far from the centre and for abandoning norms and standards that should be shared by both sides." Pretty clear you think only one side has extreme voters.
My point was that both parties do and both need to do something. You don't. There's our difference,
It’s the extreme candidates that need punishing, not the voters. That’s the difference.
Just watched The Apprentice because one of the contestants is from my home town. Would not give house room to any of them.
Either there are lot of utterly self confident, bullshitting, puffed up, over made up, thick as mince millennials who couldn't manage a lemonade stall floating around or the BBC production team are incredibly good at finding them.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Let's assume that China completely obliterates all Taiwanese air defences and Airforce in an amazing surprise attack over a hundred odd miles of flat water - bearing in mind that a great portion of the air defence material is self-mobile and so can be stashed away. To actually then land parachute troops would be a feat unmatched in modern warfare. China's paratrooper corp is, comparative to the task, tiny. Modern personal weaponry has incredible rates of fire and accuracy that would have obliterated the Crete landing. And modern advancements don't benefit the paratrooper floating through the air at all - they don't get any bonus.
An attempted paratroop invasion of Taiwan (population 24 million, area 35,000 square kilometres) By the 30-40,000 paratoopers of the PLA would be a farce of epic proportions. To try and draw parallels to Crete is, em, misguided.
Even that attack requires enormous marshalling of resources at air bases in Western China. Resources that China does not currently have.
Worth remembering that a Hercules can carry a stunning... 62 parachutists.
62.
A parachute landing requires a *lot* of planes. And it requires that pretty much all ground defences have been eliminated first. Because otherwise those floating things get lots of holes in them.
Ahem, leave the parachutists out of it for a moment and step back.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
An additional point.
In war it is customary to seize the enemies assets.
In the case of China and the US, the US would simply indicate the US government bonds owned by China were now it's (the US) property. And tear up a huge chunk of the national debt.
Another additional point to the seizing of Treasury debt. The Chinese retaliate by seizing all US assets in China, including from private companies.
Literally trillions wiped off stocks (apple would be f**ked), trillions off Americans' household wealth and their pension plans. Not pretty.
The reality of any military confrontation of scale over Taiwan is that both US and Chinese economies (and ours) would be fncked.
Which is one reason there is slowly increasing cooperation between Taiwan, S Korea, Japan and the US to deter any Chinese action.
The concern is they are not making it clear enough that it will not be tolerated. I will know I will be accused of making this a Trump v Biden issue etc but it's more I am fearful that, if Xi thinks Biden is weak, he will try something and we could all be f**ked.
Djokovic’s dad showing a laudable sense of proportion… Shame on them, the entire freedom-loving world should rise together with Serbia. They crucified Jesus and now they are trying to crucify Novak the same way.
Just watched The Apprentice because one of the contestants is from my home town. Would not give house room to any of them.
Either there are lot of utterly self confident, bullshitting, puffed up, over made up, thick as mince millennials who couldn't manage a lemonade stall floating around or the BBC production team are incredibly good at finding them.
The same way as X-Factor, none of the real talent actually queues up for the audition, these type of shows no serious person applies. The morons come to them.
Just watched The Apprentice because one of the contestants is from my home town. Would not give house room to any of them.
Either there are lot of utterly self confident, bullshitting, puffed up, over made up, thick as mince millennials who couldn't manage a lemonade stall floating around or the BBC production team are incredibly good at finding them.
No Apprentice, No Trump POTUS, No threat to democracy
Lesson. TV moguls be careful who you cast in reality shows.
"29 November 2020, 12.59pm Hi David I am afraid parts of our flat are still a bit of a tip and am keen to allow Lulu Lytle to get on with it. Can I possibly ask her to get in touch with you for approvals ? Many thanks and all best Boris "
...with the idea that Boris claims not to have known that Brownlow was funding renovations to the No 11 residence?
He claims he thought that Brownlow was managing the fund not funding it himself
It’s a theoretically possible answer, and difficult to disprove, but does engender a degree of scepticism
I like it! From you, I translate "does engender a degree of scepticism" as akin to "even I, Charles, think he's a lying toad".
I’ve known him for 25 years. I’m well aware that he’s a lying toad.
Please don't take this personally, but...
Between about 2015 and 2020, an awful lot of people in the corridors of power promoted BoJo, despite knowing that he was/is/will be a lying toad. Arguably earlier, though it was a bit different when he was a kind of court jester, rather than a kind of king. Mayor of London was actually a pretty good fit for his talents and weaknesses.
And yes, he got you-know-what sort of done, and yes, he saw off Corbyn. But one of the reasons that Brexit got constipated was that a scruffy blond gobshite wouldn't give his seal of approval for the May plan (highly flawed, way harder than many people would have liked, more tied to Europe than others wanted, but it would have put the whole thing to bed for a bit). And Jezza would have never got as close as he did to power without the Brexit effect. As with Howard Kirk in The History Man, Boris solved a problem he largely fomented, which isn't all that creditworthy.
And now we're all stuck with him for the foreseeable. Because if the plan was "use Boris's charms to get through 2019 and 2020, then dump him for someone less useless", it's not working. Because toads are very good at squatting.
And a lot of this should have been foreseeable by the people who put him there.
I'm sure that it was foreseeable and many of them did foresee it. But knowing the likely path doesn't always mean it will be easy to avoid obstacles on it.
The initial problem, in part caused by Boris as you note, of government paralysis and collapsing authority and popularity, meant the immediate choices to avoid losing power were not multitudinous. They grasped at one, some in hope, some in despair, and it solved that immediate problem. The additional issues it would probably cause down the line were their future self's problem - and given the choice most of us will hope something will come along to solve our problems, so it was a rational choice even knowing how likely he was to become a big problem.
Off topic, re Kazakhstan, it feels like one of two things has happened:
1. The US / EU have essentially done a backroom deal with Putin that says "fine, you can intervene in Kazakhstan but the quid pro quo is no Ukraine movements (for now)"
OR
2. Putin knows Biden / the EU is so spineless that he can send his troops into Kazakhstan without serious implications, in which case he is probably going to be emboldened to do something in the Ukraine.
I hope it's the first, I fear it's the second.
An unopposed Putin incursion into Kazakhstan will also embolden Xi re Taiwan
We are beginning to see what a world Not run by the West will look like. Not pretty; quite sad
The world will miss its just and boyish master
Others have said the situation between Taiwan and Kazakhstan are different but in two key ways they are not. The first, as you pointed out, is the message of Western inertia bringing parallels with the the 1930s. The second is that both Russia and China see the respective territories as renegades that rightfully belong to their home nation.
The other way I would look at this is to say, if you are Putin or Xi, why would you NOT invade now? I would argue there might not be a better time - the US is run by a weak President (and, let's be honest, who would bet their mortgage on saying that the Chinese / Russians also don't have something on Hunter Biden - an interesting parallel with Hitler's coming to power in 1933), the EU is weak, America's allies are disheartened by its lack of spine and there are mid-terms coming up where the President's party faces electoral disaster if things continue. If I was Putin or Xi, I would be seriously tempted to call Biden's bluff.
Yes, Hitler progressively taking bits of europe that were ‘rightfully German anyway’ is a striking parallel. First the Ruhr. Then Austria and the Sudetenland. Likewise HK and Taiwan to China
Let's do "would you bet the mortgage on..." question again. How many on here would bet their mortgage that the US would be prepared to inflict severe economic sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine or China intervened in Taiwan?
Well, China can't simply invade Taiwan. It's 120 miles of Ocean from China, and there aren't nice flat beaches on the China side. You would need a flotilla of landing vessels that went all the way around to the far side of the island. Plus, of course, you would need to actually build tens of thousands of barges. In secrecy.
Now, could they, if they committed, invade Taiwan?
Yes, absolutely. But it wouldn't be an "out the blue" thing, because this would be an amphibious invasion over a distance much greater than the channel with at least as many troops as the D-Day landings (against a heavily armed enemy with the latest Western fighter jets and French submarines). Sure, they could do it. But not tomorrow.
So, the question is a very different one. If China was building a force of barges and martialling them in the ports nearest Taiwan, what would the West do? And I suspect the answer is that they'd happily sell the Taiwanese lots more weapons. The French certainly would and I suspect the Americans would too. You might also see some exercises around Taiwan, that would make the Chinese job much more difficult.
If the Chinese wanted to take Taiwan, the only plausible way is via strangulation. It would be a slow uptick in diplomatic pressure; you'd refuse flights from Taiwan being able to overfly China; combined with - eventually - ships outside Taiwanese ports.
The military plans that have heard discussed (obviously I'm not privy to Chinese military plans) is, actually similar to your analogy but more with Sealion in 1940, i.e. they would establish air superiority by knocking out Taiwan's air defence systems and air force, launch cyber attacks, parachute in soldiers to take key installations and airbases, fly in more troops where possible and then would come the amphibious assaults
Now, as Crete showed in 1941, airborne landings can get very messy. However, if you also have complete air control and can fly soldiers in to captured air bases, then less so.
I'm not sure the strangulation policy would work - a lot of nations have a vested interest in making sure Taiwan stays independent and, while they might not go to war, they would support it. Look at what is happening with Lithuania and China after the former allowed Taiwan to establish relations. The US gave Lithuania a nice big juicy credit facility for a start. Better to go full in and then dare others to take military action.
Taiwan's got a pretty decent air force - and I'd rate the latest V block F16s as at least as good as the J-20. A total of 250 fourth gen fighters with the latest US missiles, fighting over their home territory, (backed by a lot of air-to-ground missiles) is a pretty strong deterrent.
China will probably just threaten and bully Taiwan into submission. Cf Hong Kong
I don't see how China can invade Taiwan - it's a monumental ask, against a heavily armed (with the latest Western weapons) state across quite a lot of ocean. I mean, they clearly *could*, but Xi wants a sure victory, not to enter into what could be a very expensive war. (Plus, of course, the Chinese economy is surprisingly dependent on Taiwanese exports.)
Threats and bullying?
On their own, that's probably insufficient.
They would need to make Taiwan's life very difficult, because otherwise all Taiwan does is buy more military hardware.
I think a growing blockade is the only thing that works. It's bloodshed free. But it slowly makes it hard for Taiwan to sell its exports or import food.
Yes - as I said on here a couple of hours ago, that's the way to go if you're Xi
China has such enormous power as a trading nation: she is the biggest trader in the world. And so many impoverished nations now owe China money. See Sri Lanka as an example
China can say to all these countries: we will stop trading with you, and call in our debts, unless you stop trading with Taiwan. That might easily work. It would then require America to do a sort of Berlin airlift for years - forever? - to keep Taiwan going
And I can see the Taiwanese eventually thinking Oh God fuck this, and yielding to some "Treaty"
Seems unlikely in the near future. The West is too dependent on Taiwanese exports to give up on them anytime soon, and Chinese pressure so far has been entirely counterproductive.
It all depends on the Chinese leadership. By all accounts Xi is intent on doing this, one way or another. as his ultimate legacy.
Xi is 68.
Chinese leaders go on for a long time, but ten years seems a decent estimate of Xi's limit. 78 is pretty old. My guess is he will try to take Taiwan before he quits or is removed
Neo Nazi who got a suspended sentence if he read a load of Jane Austen and Shakespeare rather than Mein Kampf has had to go back to court in Lincoln to be tested by the judge to see if he is actually doing the reading.
Neo Nazi who got a suspended sentence if he read a load of Jane Austen and Shakespeare rather than Mein Kampf has had to go back to court in Lincoln to be tested by the judge to see if he is actually doing the reading.
Only two Republicans observed the silence for the Capitol Police officers who died a year ago. Dick and Liz Cheney. But hey, both sides are as bad as each other.
It's not the 1940s. The situation is not similar. Taiwan has modern air defence system situated in rugged terrain with plentiful spots to hide it.
And it's the 1940s in terms of satellite and electronic measures to find and neutralise those resources. The analogy plays out both ways.
The Serbian Forces in Kosovo showed that it was trivial to hide military assets against an air only attack even if the air attack was by the most advanced sophisticated military on the planet.
You are managing to meld this weird perfect scenario for China where they are both lighting fast to overwhelm, and also slowly and methodically spread their attack out over months backed by all the latest technology that they are experts in using despite having zero adversarial use of it, a ghost in the machine cyber warfare effort to cripple the Taiwanese response and a complete network of spies throughout Taiwan ready to undermine it.
I think you have misread both what I said and what I am arguing, and in at least one case putting words in my mouth I never said. I will repeat again.
If China decides it wants to invade, and it is confident Taiwan's allies will not intervene militarily, then the key question is how far it is willing to accept losses to reach it's aims.
No one - and least of all me - is saying it would be a prefect plan. It would be a bloodbath. But force of numbers, just as they did on the Eastern front (and yes we are back to the 1940s) would win out. Eventually. The discrepancy is too big, even given the island analogy. Taiwan is not the UK of the 1940. It does not have a vastly superior fleet or a comparable air force. It is massively outnumbered.
Re the point re spies, the CCP places a great deal of emphasis on its historical actions and roots. As I said, I have no idea of any network - I find it totally bizarre you claim my words state there is a "complete network" of spies - what I said was that, given the above and their very successful usage in the Civil War plus the familial links between Taiwanese and mainland families, it would be bizarre if they did not deploy that tactic and therefore this is an unknown that could (or not) be significant.
The way to discourage Xi is to make it very openly clear we will use military force to protect Taiwan and be unambiguous. The sooner we do this, the better.
dixiedean:
There are spies and will be fifth columnists you are correct. One thing hindering this is the divergence of accents, and increasing integration of Taiwanese language terms into what really ought to now be known as Taiwanese Mandarin. Plus, of course. The total absence of short form characters on the island. Long form isn't even taught or much known on the Mainland by anyone under 60 now. So. Linguistically they are diverging. As in so, so many other ways. Ironically. It was the PRC granting easy visas to the Taiwanese some 30 odd years ago to attract investment which made many on the island actually realise how different they were. Similar race and language. Culturally alien.
Only two Republicans observed the silence for the Capitol Police officers who died a year ago. Dick and Liz Cheney. But hey, both sides are as bad as each other.
It's incredible sad, but it is hard to see how the US survives as a single entity much longer.
Good to see Biden coming out and punching hard against Trump's lies.
Doubt it will be enough, sadly.
The States actually needs a more competent version of Macron i.e. someone not aligned to either party. Unfortunately, it will not get it.
Actually, it simply needs Republican voters to punish their side for straying so far from the centre and for abandoning norms and standards that should be shared by both sides. That’s the way it is supposed to work.
You are making the mistake of assuming it is only the Republicans that have extreme voters and that the Democrats don't. I go back to what I posted yesterday - 15% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans would be happy if large numbers of their political opponents died. There is a meaningful percentage of Democrat voters who are similarly rabid in their view. Unless you accept this is a problem for both parties, not just one, it won't get solved because one side will think - reasonably - they are shouldering all the blame.
You miss the point; moderate voters are supposed to punish extreme candidates, leaving the extreme voters out in the cold.
Your comment was "Actually, it simply needs Republican voters to punish their side for straying so far from the centre and for abandoning norms and standards that should be shared by both sides." Pretty clear you think only one side has extreme voters.
My point was that both parties do and both need to do something. You don't. There's our difference,
It’s the extreme candidates that need punishing, not the voters. That’s the difference.
So, to be clear, you are saying the Democrats do not have extreme candidates? Ok, that's a view. Quite a few of them still claiming Stacey Abrams is the true Governor of Georgia - that fit into your moderate category?
As I said, extremists are a problem for both parties, you think it is only for one. That's our difference.
No one - and least of all me - is saying it would be a prefect plan. It would be a bloodbath. But force of numbers, just as they did on the Eastern front (and yes we are back to the 1940s) would win out. Eventually. The discrepancy is too big, even given the island analogy. Taiwan is not the UK of the 1940. It does not have a vastly superior fleet or a comparable air force. It is massively outnumbered.
Re the point re spies, the CCP places a great deal of emphasis on its historical actions and roots. As I said, I have no idea of any network - I find it totally bizarre you claim my words state there is a "complete network" of spies - what I said was that, given the above and their very successful usage in the Civil War plus the familial links between Taiwanese and mainland families, it would be bizarre if they did not deploy that tactic and therefore this is an unknown that could (or not) be significant.
The way to discourage Xi is to make it very openly clear we will use military force to protect Taiwan and be unambiguous. The sooner we do this, the better.
What I'm saying is you've continually shifted how China would invade. It started off with a lighting quick Paratrooper invasion and when I pointed out how completely infeasible it was it started morphing into this slow and steady approach.
If China wanted to flatten Taiwan they could do that. But that is not an invasion, that doesn't give them control. At some point they have to get troops there and you seem to be ignoring the huge challenges of doing so even without any outside intervention from the 7th fleet. You have to describe the practical realties of this to make your invasion scenario realistic. How far Xi will go includes him actually constructing the forces necessary. If he doesn't construct the necessary forces then the 7th fleet can pop back to Hawaii for some R&R for all it matters.
And you also ignore the issue with any invasion of Taiwan. A huge chunk of the Chinese economy relies on the flow of chips from Taiwan to China. Every day that a war continues without those chips flowing is a day that factories are shut down. Anything other than a 'quick' war would lead to the shattering of the Chinese economy. A "flattened" Taiwan, pounded by ballistic missiles says would in turn devastate China.
It is in fact Taiwan's trump card. In the face of an invasion they can threaten to blow the fabs.
Comments
Two men lay unconscious on a frigid Vermont night until Tinsley, a Shiloh Shepherd, led the authorities back to the site of the wreck.
As Cam Laundry lay unconscious in the snowy woods near his battered pickup after a rollover crash, his dog Tinsley ran off into the icy Vermont night and returned with help.
The authorities and local media are now hailing the 1-year-old Shiloh Shepherd as a “real-life Lassie” for her actions on Monday night.
Rescuers said they would not have spotted Mr. Laundry and his seriously injured passenger if not for Tinsley.
They credited her with preventing a terrible night from becoming a lot worse for Mr. Laundry and his passenger. The Vermont State Police said Mr. Laundry, 31, was intoxicated and cited him with driving under the influence. He says he is cooperating with the investigation.
He spoke with gratitude about Tinsley in a phone interview on Wednesday. “She’s my guardian,” Mr. Laundry said as she played with her squeaky squirrel toy. “The night was very cold. We were in hypothermic conditions when they reached us.”
After the crash around 10 p.m. Monday night, Tinsley crossed into New Hampshire, a mile or so away, and led the authorities back into Vermont to the wreck, which officials said they would not have noticed unless someone had seen the damaged guardrail that the truck had tumbled over.
At first the officers were simply trying to catch Tinsley to get her out of traffic on Interstate 89 after a driver reported a dog running loose. But she kept running north, slowing occasionally to keep the officers close behind, Lt. Dan Baldassarre of the New Hampshire State Police said in a statement. She eventually led them to a bridge over the wreck.
“It’s a real-life Lassie story,” he said, referring to the fictional collie from long-running TV and radio programs who had a penchant for saving humans who got themselves in trouble. “She’s the hero,” Lieutenant Baldassarre said. . . .
The West is too dependent on Taiwanese exports to give up on them anytime soon, and Chinese pressure so far has been entirely counterproductive.
There are two questions here (1) would Taiwan's allies fight for Taiwan and (2) how far is Xi is willing to go?
If the answer to (1) is yes, then China loses - it would be severely mauled (and the US, Japanese etc have better trained troops). In that case, it's nuts for China to try.
If the answer to (1) is no, then (2) becomes the key question. Is he like Stalin or he is too fearful of the consequences?
If he is determined, even if there was no surprise attack or diminishing of capabilities, it would be very hard for Taiwan to stop the Chinese gaining air superiority even if (for some reason) the Chinese decided not to strike at the air defence systems etc etc. At some point, with enough determination, the Chinese will establish that superiority.
Once that happens, then the Chinese have a massive advantage. Essentially you can pound the ground - and the ships, naval defences etc.
One other thing which hasn't been discussed and, to be honest, I have no clue about is the amount of support China could get from inside Taiwan either from civilians or through its network. That may sound bizarre but, in the 1940s Chinese Civil War, one of the key attributes to Communist victory (and they were heavily outnumbered) was that they had an extremely successful spy / espionage network working within the Nationalists. I would doubt the Chinese have forgotten that lesson.
I use the boundaries prior to the Anglo-Saxon invasion.
Also Brittany.
Chess, Poker, Global Thermonuclear War -- which would you choose?
In war it is customary to seize the enemies assets.
In the case of China and the US, the US would simply indicate the US government bonds owned by China were now it's (the US) property. And tear up a huge chunk of the national debt.
Doubt it will be enough, sadly.
Progress
Have you ever read the "Hidden Hand" by the way. Worth a read and quite worrying about the potential infiltration tactics of China.
I don't watch it, so can't comment knowledgeably.
69% of the housing destroyed. 72 million people dead. Is this a game or is it real?
What's the difference?
Shame on them, the entire freedom-loving world should rise together with Serbia. They crucified Jesus and now they are trying to crucify Novak the same way.
In WWI and WWII, both sides seized the assets of the other. The assets were never returned and no-one even raised the question that they might be.
During the Falklands War, the UK government seized a number of assets of the Argentine government. Including the catapults for the aircraft carrier, which happened to be in the UK for repair at the time. There is a story that they lie in a warehouse, yet.....
It is according to the customary laws of war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ross,_California
Literally trillions wiped off stocks (apple would be f**ked), trillions off Americans' household wealth and their pension plans. Not pretty.
So the war analogy doesn't hold unless you actually declare a war / conflict - in which case, we are back to the question of what the US would do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxpYW_w5pgo
Just look at Speaker Newt Gingrich's Contract with America which totally shifted the US Federal government back to a small government agenda after just 2 years of President Clinton's Presidency in 1994. Obamacare would also never have passed without Speaker Pelosi in 2010. Reagan also had to work closely with Tip O'Neill to get things through.
The US President largely controls foreign policy and the armed forces regardless of which party controls Congress, though he needs the Senate to get Treaties approved. However the Speaker of the House can control the domestic agenda and effectively act as the equivalent of the UK PM on the domestic front if they have the desire
She blames Covid, though, and she's right.
Between about 2015 and 2020, an awful lot of people in the corridors of power promoted BoJo, despite knowing that he was/is/will be a lying toad. Arguably earlier, though it was a bit different when he was a kind of court jester, rather than a kind of king. Mayor of London was actually a pretty good fit for his talents and weaknesses.
And yes, he got you-know-what sort of done, and yes, he saw off Corbyn. But one of the reasons that Brexit got constipated was that a scruffy blond gobshite wouldn't give his seal of approval for the May plan (highly flawed, way harder than many people would have liked, more tied to Europe than others wanted, but it would have put the whole thing to bed for a bit). And Jezza would have never got as close as he did to power without the Brexit effect. As with Howard Kirk in The History Man, Boris solved a problem he largely fomented, which isn't all that creditworthy.
And now we're all stuck with him for the foreseeable. Because if the plan was "use Boris's charms to get through 2019 and 2020, then dump him for someone less useless", it's not working. Because toads are very good at squatting.
And a lot of this should have been foreseeable by the people who put him there.
So a US President knows that the moment the missiles fly, x% of the US national debt vanishes. Forever.
The Serbian Forces in Kosovo showed that it was trivial to hide military assets against an air only attack even if the air attack was by the most advanced sophisticated military on the planet.
You are managing to meld this weird perfect scenario for China where they are both lighting fast to overwhelm, and also slowly and methodically spread their attack out over months backed by all the latest technology that they are experts in using despite having zero adversarial use of it, a ghost in the machine cyber warfare effort to cripple the Taiwanese response and a complete network of spies throughout Taiwan ready to undermine it.
Which is one reason there is slowly increasing cooperation between Taiwan, S Korea, Japan and the US to deter any Chinese action.
Fast track to Ratnerisation.
Voters might not be impressed when they see what the £££££ has actually achieved?
You are managing to meld this weird perfect scenario for China where they are both lighting fast to overwhelm, and also slowly and methodically spread their attack out over months backed by all the latest technology that they are experts in using despite having zero adversarial use of it, a ghost in the machine cyber warfare effort to cripple the Taiwanese response and a complete network of spies throughout Taiwan ready to undermine it.
I think you have misread both what I said and what I am arguing, and in at least one case putting words in my mouth I never said. I will repeat again.
If China decides it wants to invade, and it is confident Taiwan's allies will not intervene militarily, then the key question is how far it is willing to accept losses to reach it's aims.
No one - and least of all me - is saying it would be a prefect plan. It would be a bloodbath. But force of numbers, just as they did on the Eastern front (and yes we are back to the 1940s) would win out. Eventually. The discrepancy is too big, even given the island analogy. Taiwan is not the UK of the 1940. It does not have a vastly superior fleet or a comparable air force. It is massively outnumbered.
Re the point re spies, the CCP places a great deal of emphasis on its historical actions and roots. As I said, I have no idea of any network - I find it totally bizarre you claim my words state there is a "complete network" of spies - what I said was that, given the above and their very successful usage in the Civil War plus the familial links between Taiwanese and mainland families, it would be bizarre if they did not deploy that tactic and therefore this is an unknown that could (or not) be significant.
The way to discourage Xi is to make it very openly clear we will use military force to protect Taiwan and be unambiguous. The sooner we do this, the better.
Italy's coronavirus cases hit new daily record of 219,441 Thursday http://reut.rs/3HGzpRN
Testing rate half the UK’s….
My point was that both parties do and both need to do something. You don't. There's our difference,
Albeit fatally.
A total of 125 passengers who arrived in the northern Indian city of Amritsar on a chartered flight from Italy have tested positive for Covid-19. They were among 179passengers on the flight from Milan which landed in Amritsar on Wednesday afternoon.
Key question with Omicron wave is whether severe disease — hospitalisations & ICU — decouples from cases.
In the UK it has, but there are signs the US decoupling is weaker, perhaps due in part to lower vax rates.
Track it here for every state:
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1479218302954221570?s=20
Lesson. TV moguls be careful who you cast in reality shows.
The initial problem, in part caused by Boris as you note, of government paralysis and collapsing authority and popularity, meant the immediate choices to avoid losing power were not multitudinous. They grasped at one, some in hope, some in despair, and it solved that immediate problem. The additional issues it would probably cause down the line were their future self's problem - and given the choice most of us will hope something will come along to solve our problems, so it was a rational choice even knowing how likely he was to become a big problem.
Xi is 68.
Chinese leaders go on for a long time, but ten years seems a decent estimate of Xi's limit. 78 is pretty old. My guess is he will try to take Taiwan before he quits or is removed
If China decides it wants to invade, and it is confident Taiwan's allies will not intervene militarily, then the key question is how far it is willing to accept losses to reach it's aims.
No one - and least of all me - is saying it would be a prefect plan. It would be a bloodbath. But force of numbers, just as they did on the Eastern front (and yes we are back to the 1940s) would win out. Eventually. The discrepancy is too big, even given the island analogy. Taiwan is not the UK of the 1940. It does not have a vastly superior fleet or a comparable air force. It is massively outnumbered.
Re the point re spies, the CCP places a great deal of emphasis on its historical actions and roots. As I said, I have no idea of any network - I find it totally bizarre you claim my words state there is a "complete network" of spies - what I said was that, given the above and their very successful usage in the Civil War plus the familial links between Taiwanese and mainland families, it would be bizarre if they did not deploy that tactic and therefore this is an unknown that could (or not) be significant.
The way to discourage Xi is to make it very openly clear we will use military force to protect Taiwan and be unambiguous. The sooner we do this, the better.
dixiedean:
There are spies and will be fifth columnists you are correct.
One thing hindering this is the divergence of accents, and increasing integration of Taiwanese language terms into what really ought to now be known as Taiwanese Mandarin.
Plus, of course. The total absence of short form characters on the island. Long form isn't even taught or much known on the Mainland by anyone under 60 now.
So. Linguistically they are diverging.
As in so, so many other ways.
Ironically. It was the PRC granting easy visas to the Taiwanese some 30 odd years ago to attract investment which made many on the island actually realise how different they were.
Similar race and language. Culturally alien.
Blockquote fail here sorry.
As I said, extremists are a problem for both parties, you think it is only for one. That's our difference.
If China wanted to flatten Taiwan they could do that. But that is not an invasion, that doesn't give them control. At some point they have to get troops there and you seem to be ignoring the huge challenges of doing so even without any outside intervention from the 7th fleet. You have to describe the practical realties of this to make your invasion scenario realistic. How far Xi will go includes him actually constructing the forces necessary. If he doesn't construct the necessary forces then the 7th fleet can pop back to Hawaii for some R&R for all it matters.
And you also ignore the issue with any invasion of Taiwan. A huge chunk of the Chinese economy relies on the flow of chips from Taiwan to China. Every day that a war continues without those chips flowing is a day that factories are shut down. Anything other than a 'quick' war would lead to the shattering of the Chinese economy. A "flattened" Taiwan, pounded by ballistic missiles says would in turn devastate China.
It is in fact Taiwan's trump card. In the face of an invasion they can threaten to blow the fabs.