Regrettably I have loved bright swords for their sharpness alongside that which they defend, but fighting pretend battles over familiar terrain really drove home that war is not a game. Asymmetric options are mostly 'this hurts me more than it hurts you' you just hope your pain tolerance is higher.
This is kind of what I moved on to when overwhelmed by the Strait in 2016—smaller exercises imagining Vancouver Island or Newfoundland as stand-ins for Taiwan. Particularly intrigued by the potential for high-frequency surface wave radar to cue-up long-range USV/UUV or ASM. I just think they're neat
Exactly this! I can't imagine what that kind of security dilemma does to a civil society, but I can get some inkling of it by wargaming how Canada might close the Juan de Fuca or St. Lawrence...
I learned a lot about missiles, radar & so on but also theory of victory, because 'win' conditions for either side looked Pretty Grim with even a relatively light blockade likely to escalate. You might get your golden goose but it won't lay semiconducting eggs if you strangle it. I hope that deters.
Demoralizing, but presumably in no way conclusive so I stopped working on it. It was the worst scenario I could imagine for Taiwan short of invasion: US/Iran war > Closed Hormuz > PRC blockade of isolated, LNG-starved ROC. On my mind lately for obvious reasons. Seems unlikely but so did Iran war...
10 years ago I drafted a C:MANO scenario set in 2025 where 100s of J6 drones are used as decoys & missiles in phase 1 of an aggressive PRC blockade & uhh I hope Taiwan is better at air defense than I was, bc my results were demoralizing absent a lot of allied help & passive detection/countermeasures
"Their barbarous wastes' primitive stake-burnings were suppressed by our blessed homeland's application of specific laws designed not to hang, draw, & quarter people for being Catholic, but to thwart the treasonous objective of making England a Catholic country."
It galls me that America may be relativey insulated from the worst of these shocks, as most countries with anything like the navies that could conceivably reopen the straits, & anyway how do build a coalition around unclogging the rules-based international toilet after the hegemon shits its pants?
Immense suffering as arterial embolism strokes world economies. Mare clausum where PRC declares nine-dash line closed to contraband bound for renegade provinces? Trump take Cuba/toll Panama/Donbas Alberta to soothe wounded pride? It can only bad happen.
WE AFFIRM THAT MALE-TO-MALE CORDS CANNOT BE USED & MUST NEVER BE MADE
Sending this message was important to us
We considered ourselves to be a powerful hardware store
THIS IS NOT A CORD OF SAFETY
Nothing festive is here
The danger is to the body
THE DANGER IS PRESENT IN YOUR TIME AS IT WAS IN OURS
folding linen fuss & freckle
glean ungated moltenwater
bent to ear of corn unbreathing:
Lord Midas has asses' ears
sneering wolf at western door
painted lambsblood silentspring
cleric error clause of sabre
some year of our gravest danger
palmbranch for a prince of peace—
Calvary's a one-way street
I dunno about flaking but yea, we were more forgiving of delay or absence in "the late 1900s," especially before GPS when we had to print out maps or agree on landmarks. But there were a lot more public phone booths back then so telecoordination wasn't as difficult as it might seem.
Hi, Max expert here! Poasting, rapping, & making memes is not funny, Maxes only do this when they're in extreme distress
Ubi sunt JASSMeri mei?? LRASMiones redde!!
A scene from The Simpsons episode 12, season 5, 'Bart Gets Famous'. "SAY THE LINE, SAL" implore classmates as, below, Sal Mercogliano says Bab-el-Mandeb, followed by the whole classroom saying CHEERS!
Weaponized interdependence is happening
Rolling Thunder 2: Khe Sanh Boogaloo if we're lucky.
I think you're right, it's just still hard to accept 'cause there's so many things we could really use America's help with.
So yea I guess this is it by the way this is the nightmare I'd like to wake up from. I prefer when my special interest in maritime supply chains is "niche" & "boring" & not horrifyingly topical.
*sigh* that tracks I guess.
also conforms to my civilian experience fighting China in Command: Modern Operations, so watching Pete do big boy stuff in the Gulf like a newb with no theory of victory or care for magazine depth terrifies me. It feels like the rug being pulled from under Pacific allies
Out of curiosity, may I ask—have they changed their mind? Like, are we 'touching the stove' yet?
*slaps roof of Zagros Fold & Thrust Belt* "This bad boy can fit so many radar shadows in it"
& it's your unquestionable anglophone right to do so because English has never had a powerful institution like l'Academie Francaise or OQLF to tell you to stop stealing loanwords when you could call it longbread instead!
lol maybe your comeuppance is that you're making your miso wrong if you're boiling the water? (same with coffee & many other things btw!) I hope that soothes your karma anxiety
Right? Miso is surprisingly amenable to instant preparation however I've found it best not to bring water to a boil completely
giving big synecdochenergy, he do the unthinkable:
take the berg side when the Titanic sinkable;
fedpoasting drinkable Mr. monochrome Incredible
red-laser-eyeing Ed McMahon on edibles I'M IN DANGER
temple-tapping the sign of her body machine
Spotify-rapping your rotten mind at the crime of the scene
True! I guess my inclination would be to 'vaguepost' if I were disinclined to @ but in such cases I typically say nothing. I've only regretted it once.
I feel I'd want to be in the loop even if I'm not meant to join the conversation, but in practice probably I wouldn't want that?
I appreciate your reasoning & it's your prerogative to protect your peace of mind, but on public accounts I can see both sides, in that people have very different ideas about what's rude or respectful, & it's fair to say there is some overlap between politeness & cowardice.