All The Shoals

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’m not a hundred percent sure what’s happening, but I’ve had this sense building, building that when Trump actually made it past inauguration and started getting briefings — was he getting them before the election? I know he was supposed to, but did he? — he became highly alarmed.

Now, understand that we’re trying to read tea leaves. Some of this we have no way of knowing, and frankly it’s a good thing we don’t know. Because we can’t do anything about it, and worrying about it will just make us ill and solve nothing.

And some when we try to see the shape of them, we realize that we can’t second guess the decisions this administration is making. And that burns me up something terrible, because I like trusting but verifying and governments are dangerous things that we should always keep an eye on.

But I have a feeling that something hit him really big, and from the … shape of things, including his trying to end two wars in a hurry and playing mad tariff chess and ignoring a couple of other things that I’d expect him to be all over? … I think it’s China.

First of all, let me point out I’m not particularly worried about China’s conventional abilities, just like — and I do know all of you are absolutely sure I’m a crazy optimist on this — I’m not that worried about Russia or… anyone in the conventional sense. Yes, yes, some or all of those might have a few functioning nukes. It’s possible. But they know what our retaliation will look like, and it takes a level of insanity even totalitarian regimes don’t have to challenge us.

But… China doesn’t really do conventional unless they know they have massive superiority.

And they have so many other ways to get us. I still don’t know what the whole spy balloon was about. And no, neither do you. But then there’s stuff that we know is there and makes me scared sh*tless.

Like the fact that they seem to be addicted to a My Little Genetics Kit of their own when it comes to illnesses. I don’t think that it’s as easy or that they’re as capable of creating lethal viruses as they think. But– They can make things uncomfortable and difficult at very bad times.

More worrisome is the back switches and various other backdoors they have in literally all of our electronics. And what is in our medicines. And everything else that China has been putting its fingers into.

In the seventies Heinlein wrote up a thing saying we’d bear any cost, etc. for the sake of bringing up our nuclear arsenal to USSR’s level. That might have been uneeded and misguided — maybe — but it was the fact that we ramped up our investment in the cold war that broke the USSR, so–

Right now, I want you to keep in mind how vulnerable we are to China, because of how stupidly we gave them everything to produce.

And I want you to realize that any pain we bear is worth it to decouple from that slave-state. Any pain short of death of everyone is worth it.

It’s not just what they can do to us at a whim — do you remember the pagers Israel used? Are you sure ours aren’t mined? No? Neither am I — it’s what their culture is doing to ours.

No, I don’t mean their “ancient culture” though even that, depends what parts. They have a tradition of treating individual humans like dirt. But their culture as it is now, with the communist implant?

They are destroying us. Part of the reason all our companies are such sh*tshows when it comes to how they treat employees is because it’s easier and cheaper to buy Chinesium. Yes, they steal our stuff, and the stuff they make isn’t very good, and we have to take it on faith they’re putting in what they say they’re putting in. And sure, we know they use slaves and political prisoners and everyone in the most unethical way possible. But they sure are cheap, aren’t they? And if a company is using them, it makes a lot more money than everyone else around. And so, the next company starts using it, and then the next. And the next.

Even if they wouldn’t use every bit of what they have against us — and they will — they are destroying our culture, our industry, our ability to innovate and survive, because slaves are cheaper to buy. Yes, sure, their product is never as good, but they’re cheaper.

We need to decouple from China. We need to decouple from China hard. It’s going to hurt. But it is absolutely worth it.

Our survival depends on it.

UPDATE: If it needs to be said — and it should not, but I remember the time an arrant idiot thought I was being racist towards the Chinese by using CHICOM, aka the State Dept. abbreviation for Chinese communist, and therefore, to prevent such idiots — for disambiguation: I have nothing against the Chinese people. In fact, I know I have several first, second and third generation Chinese immigrant fans because every time I do one of these posts they email me to thank me. I do however loathe and despise their regime, which is one in a chain of several exploitative and horrifying regimes they’ve suffered throughout their long history. Chinese people away from China and set free tend to do better than anyone else. Their current affliction combines the worst of their previous bad regimes and the worst Western regimes: communism.
I wish the people of China the best. I do realize on the way there there will be pain for both nations. But we must decouple from them before their evil regime does its worst or we shall both be lost.

253 thoughts on “All The Shoals”

      1. I must be getting old. Every time I see CCP I think casualty collection point, not Chinese Commie Party. The Chinese were always Chicoms, commie scum bastards.

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        1. And I usually see CCCP which is the Cyrillic acronym for the old Soviet Union. Which is odd because the USSR hasn’t existed for more than half my life. Probably because I was a stamp collector and the USSR had all sorts of cool space stamps that could be had for pennies (which matched well with a $0.25 allowance :-) ) and were marked with CCCP.

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          1. Oh, that explains it. I’ve been trying to remember what the extra C stood for and wondering why I wasn’t seeing it around anymore.

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            1. In Cyrillic the C is the S sound and the P is related to the Greek Rho (an R sound). The internet tells me

              Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublike)

              which I think in English is Union of Soviet Socialist Republics thus our USSR.

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  5. I’ve had the same impression, Sarah. Trump seems to be frantically trying to get as much of the US manufacturing supply chain on the eastern side of the Pacific, cutting the budget to free up money for defense, and leaning heavily on all our allies to do the same. It sure looks to me as if someone got a look at a Chinese operational timeline for invading Taiwan, and it’s soon.

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    1. I think the XI and the rest of the Chinese governing class also feel that their window to take back Taiwan is closing as the male excess from the One Child policy accentuated by female infanticide) is starting to age out of military service. Honestly, taking Taiwan is, as we locals in the Boston area would say, wicked hard. Taiwan is 90-100 miles the Chinese coast. I have read the weather and tides of the Taiwan Straight are very dicey for sea landings, perhaps worse than the English Channel on a bad day and ~5 times as far. Also there are few beaches, much of coastal Taiwan is rocky cliffs.

      All is not good news for Taiwan. Much of their food and energy is supplied from other countries including mainland China. Long-term their population is crashing (fertility rate of 0.87 children per woman one of the worlds lowest). Although their military seems well equipped, it is an order of magnitude smaller than that of China. And it is not clear how often they have exercises or practice defensive actions.

      Xi is 72 (as of today 6/2 or so the internet claims). With the average Chinese life expectancy at slightly below 76 he has to be thinking about his legacy. He also has to know he is in serious difficulty as things are likely coming unstuck even without the push of US trade actions. So he needs something to focus the population’s attention elsewhere. It seems likely he is leaning towards the idea propounded by Nicholas II of Russia of “A Short Victorious War”. I wonder if Xi remembers how that went for Nicholas II? War with Taiwan is unlikely to be short and the victory reaped may be a Pyrrhic one if at all.

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      1. “War with Taiwan is unlikely to be short and the victory reaped may be a Pyrrhic one if at all.“

        –

        Historians? Who was it that said “Please spare me another victory like we had today?” or words to that effect. I doubt CCP against Taiwan will get even that good of a victory result.

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        1. one hopes that some Chinese generals said “huh, this Ukraine thing was supposed to be an easy win for Russia. I’d sure hate for MY name to be on a plan that worked out that badly. Let’s file Operation Grab Taiwan under Needs More Study.”

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          2. In a place where the leader rules by cult of personality, opposing them can be VERY unpleasant to a rather fatal degree. E.G. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, various Kims, Pol Pot, Tojo, Khadafi, Idi Amin (avoid invitations to lunch), Papa Doc Duvalier etc. Even if not lethal you can end up with LONG nasty prison sentences e.g. Obama, Biden, Starmer, Trudeau (the Younger). Oddly the 20th and 21st centuries were breeding grounds for this crap. Although opposing folks like Henry VIII and Mary I and Elizabeth I wasn’t the best of plans.

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        2. Pyrrhus of Epirus is supposed to have said of the Battle of Asculum (which he technically won) “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.” Which is why Pyrrhic victories are called that.

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          1. Bret Devereaux’s blog “A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry” goes into Roman warfare a lot. One of his conclusions is that nobody ever got a “bloodless” victory over the Romans. Even when they lost, they made it hurt. Pyrrhus was not the first or the last to learn that, but he seems to have understood what it meant better than a lot of other enemies of Rome did.

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      1. How do we know that? Serious question. I mean, I know he’s highly capable as a businessman, possibly genius-level in that particular field, but where does the purposeful destruction come in? Is knowing how to cripple someone’s business just the natural obverse of knowing what’s generally needed for business ventures to succeed?

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  7. It would be easier to list what hasn’t been corrupted by China.

    America has to survive before it can become great again. You don’t clean out the stables with a single shovel.

    And it’s not going to change unless Trump or someone more savage than him quits playing by the Marquess of Queensberry rules and crosses the Rubicon like the other side has for the last century.

    Oh no! We lost the midterm! Let’s go back to being a communist country!

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  8. Russia may have lost 30% of its strategic bombers yesterday. Ukraine staged a massive autonomous drone attack on several airbases deep inside Russia. Ukrainian special forces drove into Russia with containers, dropped the containers, and beat motorized feet out of there. Then, at a predetermined time, the containers opened up and released the swarm and when all the drones were airborne, the containers self- destructed.

    Russian bloggers are admitting they took damage but are, as usual, minimizing it.

    China supplies a lot of drones. So does Iran. Now, imagine a container ship off the coast with Chinese containers. Imagine the containers opening up offshore from Mayport, or Oceana, or Pax River.

    For that matter, I’m nervous about the June 14th Army birthday/Trump birthday parade in D.C. and July 4th. Sooner or later that shoe’s gonna drop.

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    1. Thirty percent of the -flyable-, in-use aircraft.

      Of the three bomber types (-160), only one is still in production, one per year.

      Russia just got prison gang buttfucked, hard, no grease. And they now have to

      1. Check every container and trailer within hundreds of miles of every significant base and asset

      disperse whatever air assets they have, keep them moving, and build solid fireproof shelters for any they really want to keep.

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      1. Check every container and trailer within hundreds of miles

        The trucks traveled hundreds of miles; I haven’t seen ANY info on how close to the bases they were when they launched. Obviously if they had to get within 10 miles, that’s a different threat analysis.

        If you have a link saying otherwise, please post it.

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        1. What is the typical range of a medium-ish quadcopter? What about one with a bigger battery? The bomblets are a couple of pounds assuming the repurposed cluster munitions instead of custom building the payloads too.

          If we go with payloads of a quarter pound of thermite, range is even further.

          And you have to consider the next wave might surge trucks/containers currently out of range to a position much closer. Or, the containers are under a warehouse or rain-cover. Thus, the footprint of an effective launcher search is humongous.

          You could also put hidden racks on a bus, RV, etc. I saw several roof-mounted cargo pods on passenger vehicles on my way to work today. A 150 pound drone can do quite a bit of damage, or fly rather far.

          Prophylactic search is essentially impractical. You can protect some high-value targets, maybe. You cant cover every important one or valuable one. One can wipe out a refinery with a dozen repurposed commercial drones. One or two can take out large transformers.

          Things just got interesting.

          Could one significantly jam a land-based ICBM hatch with drones? Probably not. The things are designed to launch even after a nearby nuke detonation. But almost any other part of the strategic force is vulnerable to some degree.

          Now ponder the things attacking individual people. Plenty of dipsticks have already glocked their toy drones, much to the ire of ATF and FAA.

          Very, very interesting.

          The Certainty of rubble bouncing is probably the only effective deterrent currently. Ick.

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          1. The biggest reason to wonder about range is that it affects time to target and thus improves the time to deploy countermeasures. How fast can a quadcopter fly with a given payload? What are the weather requirements? I hope you aren’t going to claim that the flight profile isn’t affected by that.

            I’m not denying the threat; I’m trying to establish limitations so we can do better against it.

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      2. WPDE

        and three, open up their insanely expensive bomber production line.

        because they no longer have a credible peer-foe bomber fleet, and that is the “heavy” and “reliable” leg of their Nuke triad.

        Now, everyone -else- is sitting bricks, because the method is valid almost anywhere trucks or container ships cross borders.

        A medium container ship might haul a couple hundred thousand of the things. And all they need to carry is a biggish dual-purpose bomblet or sticky/magnetic termite charge.

        Refineries are sitting ducks.

        So are docked missile subs and aircraft carriers.

        Looks like my #2 choice of current gun sports, Traps hooting, may be much more militarily valuable than my prior rifle and tactical sports.

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        1. Crash priority:

          auto-gun and directed energy anti-drone systems.

          10 gage Goose guns added to infantry squads.

          buff up our ICBM fleet, for a certainty of “payback” if we are so attacked. Add non-nuke ICBMs for creative response.

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            1. I saw reporting that the Ukrainian quads used were fiber-optic guided, with the container-launchers then communicating with the operators sitting back in Ukraine via the Russian cell network and clever packet routing.

              I would bet on no more cell service within 25 miles of every Russian Air Force Long Range Aviation air base from now on, via either the RF jammers the Formerly Red Army is still fairly good at, or just tasking combat engineers to blow up every cell tower within the radius. Or both.

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              1. Um. All they have to do now is use satellite cell. T-Mobile is rolling out satellite as part of their cell service. No data to start.

                Ready for world wide prime time? No. But headed that way.

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                1. Satellite cell can be jammed. I had heard they were using fiber optic cables just so there was no signal to either jam or home in on. One reason I asked about how far out they launched is that, similar to the TOW missile, there’s only so much wire / fiber you can carry on the missile or deploy without breaking when it gets long enough.

                  You also can’t really rely on a line not getting tangled or broken if you have to duck through brush. Ironically, you’d get better performance over water unless the wind and waves were so rough it would knock a quad copter out of the sky.

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            2. The problem with jammers is that they’re effectively a giant light screaming, “I’m right here!” Set up a few drones as HARM-style jammer seekers, and launch them first.

              Goodbye jammers.

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          2. The problem with shotguns is that their range is about the same as the lethal range of the payload a small antipersonnel drone is carrying.

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            1. I have been pondering this one – I was thinking a proximity fused slug or grenade round. The 12 gauge form factor would mean no need for special launchers, and a there’s a ton of 40mm grenade launchers (maybe with a little boost rocket?). The Mk 19 belt fed 40mm grenade launcher machine gun would be a neat antidrone asset with the right rounds.

              I know for a fact they were trying to fit smart fusing into .50 Browning rounds around 20 years ago, so a prox fused 12 gauge might be doable, and I can’t imagine they could not get a proximity fuse to fit in the 40mm grenade form factor.

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              1. 40mm ‘smart’ grenades are already deployed. Shoot one through a window, and it can be programmed to detonate a specified distance beyond it. Or after passing through an additional wall, to explode in the second room. Not sure what other features they have.

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                1. The neat thing about the WWII prox fuse was it armed by the force of firing with a slight delay to clear the firing gun tube and associated ship, then the next time it came close to anything it went off. That meant no controls or programming or fuse-setting required, which was why it was also valuable in Star card artillery rounds detonating when it sensed the ground approaching, which meant a really bad day for troops one the open.

                  Something like that inside a 40mm grenade round, in modern electronics with some clever warhead configuration, would be good for all kind of stuff.

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                  1. “Star card”? How about “standard”.

                    They withheld proximity fused artillery back from use in the ETO until pretty late in the WWII as they didn’t want dud rounds getting dissected by the Germans and the technology communicated to the Japanese for countermeasures, as they were so incredibly valuable against the Kamikaze attacks.

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                    1. First broad land use of proximity fused artillery was The Bulge. its one of the reasons we wrecked the attack. Our artillery was suddenly 10-50x more effective.

                      That proximity fuse was also the most important thing the Rosenburgs gave to the Soviets. Just in time to build up stocks to be used to massacre us in Korea. The Soviets had no clue how “Variable Time” fuses worked until those assholes gave it to them.

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                    2. Part of the shell nose had to be plastic for the proximity fuse to transmit and receive the radar signal. Some of the early WW2 testing was done at the physics labs of John Hopkins University (better known for medicine than technology). The project was of course very secret. Several boxes of ominous looking 40mm plastic nose cones arrived for testing that a genius at security subterfuge had labeled “Rectal Dilators”. There was a distinct lack of curiosity shown about any aspect of the testing.

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          1. Honestly? Spy balloons were always kinda overkill and showy. We don’t really hide where our assets are. Usually you can get a pretty decent map for free, and you can get maps of military bases pretty easily, too.

            I mean, we’re an open society. They just needed library cards and Internet access.

            Now… if it’s wartime, and we’re moving stuff around, then sure. Spy balloons and camera drones and satellites are great. But otherwise, you check Google Maps.

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            1. Possibly it was actual intelligence value, possibly it was just counting coup, and intended to demoralize us.

              Chinese intelligence might also be stupid enough to, say, prefer to trust American academics to forecast US politics.

              I kinda was not following that story closely enough to even be sure that anything happened. Not really central to any of my political goals, or wishes to persuade people.

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              1. It might have been a test of the Biden White House and the Biden White House failed the test.

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              2. It may have provided a cover for the activities of some of their embedded spies. Or the Americans they mined for information.

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            2. Original Gurgle Erf had everything unblurred. Once it got enough visibility within DoD the US military sent folks out to the Gurgle campus and bugged the Gurgle Erf team, and they agreed to blur out stuff of concern to the US, and then to allies. But all that source image data was there open originally and I’m certain it was all downloaded by all and sundry.

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        3. You want to do trap shooting of offensive drone, you’re going to need a rapid-fire punt gun. Preferably one that can range and track the incoming drone to improve targeting, and even better if it could time the shot release to maximize chance to hit the target.

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        4. Our own carrier groups should be protected. A mass airborne attack is the kind of thing that AEGIS suites were specifically designed to protect against. And I suspect drones are literally the optimal target for the Phalanx CWIS.

          Might need to add a few Phalanxes, though. And triple the amount of ammo stored onboard.

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          1. https://www.csis.org/analysis/cost-and-value-air-and-missile-defense-intercepts

            ”…the U.S. Navy’s use of a $2 million Standard Missile-2 to intercept $2,000 Houthi drones.”

            The rest of the article is a good “yes, but” overview of all the reasons why, but it never really counters that baseline.

            If a VLScell has the regular air defense missile, it does not have a tomahawk land attack or an antiballistic missile-missile loaded. And VLS cells can currently only be reloaded back at port.

            So, obviously simplifying a very complex problem, if the CVN defenses have N cells with air defense missiles loaded, the bad guys only need to send N+1 drones before they are only up against CIWS and anything that can be bolted to the ships rail.

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          2. EMP weaponry, take down the whole fleet at once, and the there is ECM. If i can think of it, Darpa is already working on it.

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            1. Systems can – and probably are, in the case of the bigger navy ships – hardened against EMP.

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              1. I used to work for a company that made rad-hard chips “for the space program”.

                it is very similar to tanks and battleships. If the incoming energy is enough, the armor is breached. If the armor is thickened too much, the thing cant move. Light+effective gets very expensive at high energy levels.

                Fascinating field.

                Not easy at all to EMP harden cheap light drones, presuming a big DEMP gun.

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                1. Any RF aperture is a hole in any shielding, by physics. An RF downlink antenna that was shielded inside a faraday cage enclosure would be useless.

                  Maybe, maybe, and fiber optic controlled drone could be a little more resistant to getting zapped, but as 11B notes, if you turn it up to eleven enough, it’ll get through.

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                  1. Our existing AAA radar emitters already have a distressing habit if frying drones that fly too close to the site.

                    Just a mater of the right bubbas and the right budgets, and we will come up with the zapguns.

                    The problem is when folks start spraying “the whole sky” with AAA, it tends to find things to do. Falling shells make life interesting for groundpounders. A scanning anti-drone laser might blind an airline crew 20 miles away. Oopsie.

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          3. It’d probably also help if the CIWS had a purpose-built gun that was designed for naval use instead of an airplane gun. Both those rather limited magazines and the extreme time to replace it are problems that don’t much matter on an aircraft that doesn’t have the mass and space to hold more and isn’t getting reloaded in combat anyway.

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          1. Tiny drone Spruce Gooses. Spruce Geese.

            And it would work against those cardboard drones from that company in Oz…

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      3. The bombers that were attacked were out in the open as per the SALT treaty. Which makes this attack that much more heinous. If the US had any part whatsoever in this that treaty is out the window.

        perhaps the SALT treaty was not accomplishing much, but, breaking it will certainly give more cards to Russia in the peace talks.

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        1. It wasn’t accomplishing anything. the SALT treaties were always the “keep Russia’s butt safe even though they can’t keep up with the US militarily” treaties. Or “Get the US to run with both legs in a sack” Treaties. THAT’s the least of my worries.
          As for Russia having cards, have you seen what the lunatics were demanding even before this? They have no cards, but they want to control the entire table including our deck. Russia is as it has always been, a psychotic paranoiac.

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          1. Just because you are a “psychotic paranoiac” country doesn’t mean that Victoria Nuland, her masters,TLAs, NGOs, and their NATO minions aren’t out to get you.

            I’d prefer not to wake up without utilities and modern civilization just because fsking idiots avenging their grandparents or playing “God”, enjoy tempting fate on a global scale.

            But in the larger scale of things is more likely our “elite” lets the Chinese take the US out through sabotage and cyber attack.

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              1. With their resources, they could do enough infrastructure sabotage to kill 8 figures. This has been wargamed enough times by think tanks and creative autists.

                Their huge dam that affects the Earth’s rotation is the prime hostage that currently prevents such action.

                So we are back to MAD unless the nilist idiot elites decide to go underground.

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              2. Quite a few countries have the capability to run our day. Heck, they could give us a nasty week, or even a couple of nasty months. What I don’t think any of them have is enough to put us down for the count. And then they aren’t going to like the response.

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                1. Some federal district judge will probably issue an injunction to block any response. Due process….

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                  1. Only self restraint has prevented DJT et al. from quoting President Jackson on those judges and just ignoring them.

                    DJT’s self restraint.

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                    1. …so imagine someone with less self restraint than DJT in office. When the US is under attack.

                      The heck with their temporary restraining order – I would not want to be that judge.

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          2. Of course, as you have rightly informed your readers all along, Russia doesn’t actually have cards. They are bluffing with no aces up their sleeves. Without sleeves even wherein they may hide aces. This will aid the bluffing, I believe.

            The media will leap on this as the reason talks break down. Completely ignoring that the talks will break down because our deep state and the European elite are setting up two maniacs to “Let’s you and him fight!” for fun and profit.

            Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, riots broke out in France yesterday to the waving of various Islamic and Palestinian flags and there have been Islamic attacks in various cities at least once a week here. Yesterday’s attack in Boulder CO being the latest.

            Just because we are paranoid, doesn’t mean everyone isn’t out to get us.

            I wouldn’t be surprised if whatever it was that Trump saw that was so alarming was the elites’ plan to rid themselves of this troublesome peasantry once and for all.

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            1. I’d really love if reporting on incidents like the Boulder one had phrasing like “we WON’T publicly speculate as to motive because we need to build our case properly first” instead of “we can’t speculate as to motive” when the person involved is making public statements that make the motive very clear.

              If they used the first phrasing, they wouldn’t sound like idiots and people would accept that as a procedural necessity. As it is, they sound like shills, and for good reason.

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              1. Oh yeah. “We know what he shouted, but we’re not going to comment on it. Ongoing investigation.” Would have gone a long way towards not making them look like idiots.

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            2. I’d agree with Sarah’s original point about … dangerous stuff about to break loose. Maybe not international stuff, but definitely domestic. The murders of the Israeli staffers in DC, and how the attack by a Pali-symp on Jews in Boulder …

              Just this afternoon, someone tried to run one of the secondary base gates at Randolph AFB. Nutcase, lost, criminal, or bad intent? Who knows at this point. The incident may make local news, maybe. My daughter was there, coincidentally – she says that the various law enforcement on hand afterwards at the gate looked like a convention

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          3. Ukraine wasn’t a signatory, was it?

            Might be hard to prove US intel had anything to do with it…largely because I doubt Ukraine would tell us in advance. And attack plans for this were started when LGB was still in office.

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        3. B-2 bombers are kept out of sight of overhead imaging in shelter hangars at Whiteman, because the stealth coatings are way fragile and picky and a pain in the butt.

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          1. And for those playing the home game, the flying wing B-2 is one of two remaining nuclear weapons capable US bombers, the venerable B-52 being the other, with the B-1 being made not-nuclear-capable a number of years ago.

            As re droning on and on, the main issue is thanks to all the base closures and realignments and such, the B-2s are all at Whiteman and the B-52s are all either at Barksdale or Minot, so bad guys would only need to send the trucks to three U.S. locations to get the entire US nuclear-capable bomber fleet droned.

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            1. If we dispense with the “permissive Action Links” and other safeties, the B-1s are nuke capable in a day or two. The B-61 bomb fits a surprising number of useful ordinance shackles. Essentially, the B-1s would have to fly with fully armed weapons. Like the original B-29s. (grin)

              Of course, this would be officially denied.

              Russia, of course, would officially deny their own Comrade Obvious cheats.

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              1. Well, the Ebola Gay and Bocks Car B-29s crews had a physics dude who climbed back into the bomb bay after takeoff and initial climb out and did physics stuff to “arm” them, but yeah, pretty much.

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                2. I think that was wartime disinformation. My understanding, and comments from a former nuke ordinance tech of my acquaintance, was the enormous things had to be armed before hoisting into the B-29 bomb bay. No room to work on them in flight.

                  Later ones had a removable “pit” for the “primary”, which safed the weapons when not immediately needed. later PALs were more sophisticated, but sometimes were dud-ly. A whole batch of our early sea launched ICBMs were useless because the neutron absorbing safety installed in the “pit” becomes brittle under neutron bombardment (say from fissile material one is trying to safe) and the resultant broken bits could not be extracted. The extractor would report “done”, but had no way of saying “because 2/3rds of my material broke off in the warhead”. OOPSIE. “Where’s the kaboom?”

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                  1. If you think about the designs, the gun-type “Little Boy” arming would need only to unsafe the gun charge So it would go off at the correct radar altimeter signal, so basically standard fuse work.

                    A “Fat Man” implosion device could possibly be “safed” for wartime values of “safe” electrically, by taking out an electrical item that was in the arming circuit for initiating the excruciatingly precise firing of all those shaped charge blocks around the outside, but I would not want to be that guy fiddling with 1940s-grade circuits that were specifically intended to initiate the thing once the right radar altimeter signal came through while bouncing around in flight.

                    Actually maybe the physics guy just hooked up the radar altimeter to “arm” them.

                    I absolutely recall they (Los Alamos) had major concerns about bouncing down some wartime-grade runway, or an early engine failure and crash off the end of said runway, being a soooper doooper bad day unless they made some “safing” accommodation, which required doing something on climbout to “arm”. I will go do some research.

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                  2. https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Processes/BombTesting/assembly.html

                    Excerpt re “arming” the gun-type “Little Boy” Uranium device after takeoff:

                    On August 6 at 2:45 a.m. (Tinian time), the Enola Gay piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets lifted off the Tinian runway with Little Boy in her bomb bay. William S. Parsons, head of the Los Alamos delivery program and bomb commander for the flight, began arming procedures by placing powder in the gun fifteen minutes after takeoff. At 7:30 a.m., Parsons inserted the red plugs that completed the arming circuit and made the bomb active. The aircraft climbed to 32,700 feet, and at 8:47 Parsons tested the electronic fuzes. At 9:09, Hiroshima was sighted, and at approximately 9:15 (8:15 Hiroshima time) the Enola Gay released the 9,700-pound uranium bomb over the city. Forty-three seconds later, a huge explosion lit the morning sky as Little Boy detonated 1,900 feet above Hiroshima.

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                  3. https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Processes/BombTesting/assembly-plutonium.html

                    Excerpt re the “Fat Man” Plutonium device showing your point was correct there – The Plutonium-implosion device was assembled and fully “armed” before takeoff save for whatever protection the 1940s electrical fusing system provided (I like the “Officials decided no special precautions were necessary” part):

                    Some concern existed about the effects of a crash landing on takeoff from Tinian. Leaving the assembly incomplete during takeoff, as with Little Boy, was not possible, and a crash could contaminate a large part of Tinian with plutonium or even cause a “high-order” nuclear explosion. Officials nonetheless determined that no special precautions were necessary.

                    Although takeoff of the B-29 named Bock’s Car piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney at 3:47 a.m. (Tinian time) on August 9 proved uneventful, few things after that went according to plan. A defective fuel pump deprived the plane of 600 gallons of fuel, and shortly after becoming airborne the bomb’s arming circuits indicated that the bomb inadvertently had been fully armed. This was soon corrected, but bad weather, in spite of the forecast, buffeted the flight all the way to Japan. Once over Kokura, smoke and haze obscured the target. After several passes, Sweeney made the decision to proceed to Nagasaki. With only enough fuel to make one bombing run over the city and still make it to the nearest airfield at Okinawa, Sweeney found Nagasaki to be overcast as well. Contrary to orders, Sweeney reluctantly approved a much less accurate radar approach on the target. At the last moment, the clouds opened and the bombing run was made visually. At 11:02 a.m. (Nagasaki time), at an altitude of 1,650 feet, Fat Man exploded over Nagasaki.

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                  4. I have two replies stuck in mod – short answer we were both right, the gun-type Little Boy was armed after takeoff, but the implosion-type Fat Man could not be, so was fully assembled and armed before takeoff.

                    Liked by 1 person

            2. Pretty sure droning the bombers would lead to spme very pointed orders to the subs which we can safely assume are within cruise missile range of every site of significance in China

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Oh, yeah – it would be an all-in move. But Xi’s been acting more and more squirrelly of late, and more and more of his previously top generals have been not seen lately. And there’s growing unrest due to their mismanagement of the Chinese economy.

                Interesting times indeed.

                Liked by 1 person

    2. That is LITERALLY the plot of a mission from Call of Duty Black Ops 2 (circa 2010). Container ship entering San Francisco Bay releases a massive swarm of drones to try and drop the Golden Gate Bridge and trap an entire US carrier strike force (headed by the USS Barack Obama, puke) inside the Bay so it can be swarmed and destroyed by more drones. Obviously, because you are the player, you prevent it from happening, barely. The bridge is destroyed but you save the fleet.

      Interestingly, Turkey is now a fairly big player in the drone market and they are selling a lot to Ukraine. The Ukrainians have been really ahead of the game in their use of drones as a force multiplier the past three years. From drone attacks on Russian Navy ships, to little drones dropping hand grenades on top of individual Ivans, to this. They are proving just how scary this brave new world can be if you’re not prepared.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Also part of the Aggressor series by F. X. Holden. Drones, plus biowarfare.

        As some have already speculated, why do you suppose the Chinese have been buying up land around US military installations?

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    3. It’s the beginning of the celebration for the 250th centenary. Please don’t call it Trump’s bday. that’s a coincidence the idiot left has gloamed onto.

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    4. On a couple of Chicagoboyz zoom calls that I have been in on, Trent Telenko has talked about the new horizon of drone warfare.

      The possibilities are scary, indeed.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. And that CommieAWACSki is one thing that the Rooskies likely cannot reconstitute using grey market chips from western “smart” washing machines.

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        1. Smart? Maybe. Intelligent? Of [bleeeep] no. I detest the smart washers so called. Almost as much as I detest the “energy savers” that use twice as much w-a-t-e-r. Idiots! Electricity’s easy to make. Water’s precious.

          *exit stage right, pursued by a soap box*

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          1. All I want is a washing machine that actually washes clothes. It can use as much water and electricity as the job requires. No, a quart of water is NOT ENOUGH for a full load of laundry. It’s barely enough for one pair of socks.

            Lately I have been seeing ads for products intended to cover up the funk of half-washed clothes. FOR F’S SAKE, WHY? Just wash the damn clothes properly in the first place!

            It’s like the ‘water saving’ toilets that make every dump a 2-flusher, even a 3-flusher, and wind up using more water than a normal toilet that just flushes the turds right the first time.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Check “commercial” washers. I think they have different rules.

              And did Trump recently recind the dippy rules?

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              2. I’ve heard good things about Speed Queen, and there’s one appliance store in town that carries them. They cost $1,200 – $2,500 depending on model, but if that’s what it takes to get a washing machine that works…

                Liked by 1 person

              4. They might not put the investment into making the machines until they feel certain it won’t be rescinded in a few years.

                Liked by 1 person

  9. Consider the number of Chinese men of military age who have infiltrated this country. Sure, not all of them are spies, saboteurs or troops, but the smart money is that at least several brigades’ worth of them are.

    Consider the volume of drugs smuggled into this country, the sheer size of many of those shipments, and the number of illegal aliens still making it through even with Trump Border Patrol policies in place. It would be a piece of cake to smuggle several atomic weapons through amidst all that.

    The point is, China could have already mined a dozen American cities, and we wouldn’t even have a clue.

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    1. Some lefties were griping about the pause on foreign student visa appointments, saying that recruiting bright foreigners was key to staying ahead.

      The CCP runs the Thousands Talents program, to recruit skilled persons from overseas.

      At least one of these groups is wrong, and I know which way I would bet.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. And it happens. There’s even an active program devoted to using family members (usually via video) to convince Chinese dissidents to return back to the PRC.

        The Feds arrest anyone they suspect is trying these tactics, but not everyone gets caught. And the Chinese do this with impunity in other countries (via the “Chinese police station” program), including IIRC Canada

        Liked by 1 person

        1. They were doing the “police station” in several leftard cities such as NYC, LA, SF. Trump has already shut that down IIRC.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. IIRC, most of the cities – even the lefty cities – were already shutting down the police stations on their own. The only city that I recall tolerating it was NYC.

            Liked by 1 person

  11. I think I may have forgotten to put credentials on a rant in the previous post, linking to a Brad Essex thing on red state.

    Somewhat relevant, because PRC, peace, etc., is maybe an eighth example of an academic decision/position, where costs imposed on the public are considered appropriate and competently decided by academia, and are maybe a bit high for that.

    Anyway, lots of US universities have clearly been probably compromised by PRC influence organizations.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. We clearly need to break away from China, they are a threat. Too many companies and people have gotten dependent on cheap crap from China. Our own industries have suffered from it. And they clearly have delusions of global power over others, especially us. I don’t think there is any level they wouldn’t stoop to for more power.

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  13. We clearly need to break away from China, they are a threat. Too many companies and people have gotten dependent on cheap crap from China. Our own industries have suffered from it. And they clearly have delusions of global power over others, especially us. I don’t think there is any level they wouldn’t stoop to for more power.

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  14. China definitely needs to be resisted. But the Russia/Ukraine debacle seems to be entering a new phase of horror and stupidity.

    Just a couple of days after senator mincing nancy, Lindsey Graham stopped in to visit Zelenskyy, Ukraine drone attacks inside Russia. They also attacked 2 bridges while passenger trains were crossing.

    Someone clearly means to start WWIII in earnest. I don’t think it’s Trump. But I think the “call” is coming from inside the US.

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  15. I spent four years scared witless because even if the chicomms only had Ruger 22LRs with one mag each, Pedo Joe could not have handled that threat level. I thank the Lord daily that Trump is our president. But he’s in a situation where for four years the threat level has been allowed (if not encouraged) by sheer neglect to ramp up drastically through malign neglect of our own military infrastructure, our economy, and geopolitical reality. IMO we are backing up slowly from the edge of a very fragile cliff.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. But he’s in a situation where for four years the threat level has been allowed (if not encouraged) by sheer neglect to ramp up drastically through malign neglect of our own military infrastructure, our economy, and geopolitical reality.

      Try almost 20 years. Obama started this process in 2008, and Trump was being sabotaged through his first term.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. He was a vegetable puppet (vuppet?) from before the election. The “basement campaign” proved that to anyone who could see.

          But who had their hand up teh vegetable?

          If you believe those WH staffers currently being thrown under the bus as the “politburo” members running Brandon were not taking daily dictation from Barry, I have a great deal for you I learned about from a Nigerian banker…

          Liked by 1 person

              1. It’s The Society!!!!!

                (See John Ringo’s superhero novel from Baen titled “Not That Sort Of Good Guy”.) [Crazy Grin]

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  16. Decoupling from China will hurt us, to be sure.

    It will hurt China worse, which is all to the good. Might even destroy the PRC in its current configuration, which is even better. CCP delenda est.

    Let’s do it, but let’s also be ready for the inevitable response.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. “…when Trump started getting briefings he became highly alarmed…”

    I would say so. Look what he’s been doing with Canada and Europe. That’s a huge break with history, and nothing like his first term. Therefore, I would say he found a big fat ticking time bomb waiting for him.

    Given the kicking Russia took yesterday, their strategic bomber airforce got thrashed by a Ukraine drone strike, I do believe #OrangeManBad is looking to reduce the number of hostile foreigners residing in the USA, and pound some sense into the IMBECILES running Canada and Europe.

    In Canada it is fair to say that the drug cartels, the Chicoms and agents of India (I know, right?) are running around pretty much doing whatever the f- they want. In Europe it is the Middle Eastern whackos and the Chicoms doing whatever they want.

    The most recent drone strike is going to have a lot of military guys pulling their hair out. The Ukrainian guys basically drove a few sea containers full of quadcopter drones through Russia on trucks and parked them a couple miles away from big airforce bases, then flew from the trucks and blew up the bombers sitting out on the runways. The drones were fiber optic controlled, run from the trucks. The trucks used the -Russian-telecom-network- so pilots could first-person fly the drones and choose targets.

    Is there any reason the Chicoms (or India, or Iran, or the cartels) couldn’t do that in the USA? Drive down from Canada where they operate with impunity and zap a few trillion dollars worth of airplanes and ships by remote control.

    How do you defend against that? You deny them the territory, and you kick your idiot neighbors in the tenders until they do likewise. That’s what #OrangeManBad is doing.

    Whereas the previous administration seems to have been in on it. Canada certainly is not behaving like they have a problem with the cartels, India or the Chicoms entirely taking over the country.

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    1. “Drive down from Canada“

      –

      Heck, they don’t have to even drive down from Canada. They could park right next to the border and hit greater Seattle, and a lot of the East coast. The rest? Park a small container ship just outside the 12-mile limit. Just have to have drones in the containers across the upper level stack. Rest of the containers could have military assets (if they fail to cripple they’re screwed, won’t hurt to have assets not needed at home), shipped goods, or not.

      FWIW, I agree. No matter the pain, we’ve got to decouple from China no matter how painful. I’ve personally been trying to do this. I check for the “made in China”, other pseudo labels, and tricks they use. I wish there was a law that sources had to list where goods were manufactured. I thought Amazon’s announcement to list the “tariff cost” regardless of source was inspired! Too bad someone at Amazon got a clue and went “Oh S* No!” Darn it.

      Although locally I discovered one way. Nextdoor has a lot of businesses b*ing about the Tariff pain they are having (well Oregon, so part of the problem, DJTDS). To me? Okay, then thanks for outing yourself, business avoided. Not that my lack of business is going to sink any of them, wasn’t shopping there before.

      Also regarding Canada. Because of what is going on there, a lot quieter recently, their Federation is rocky. Alberta, BC, and some of the provinces and territories were talking about breaking off to independence, at least initially, while investigating joining the states. It’s like someones realized all Trump’s trolling/joking aside, it is their choice, and only their choice. But they also have to clean house at the province level. Then too there was a recent little oops dropped by Charles in his speech (lands stolen from the “sovereign nations”). Suddenly, it is out of the news. It is when such things get quiet and go underground that means pay attention.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. The prime minister of Alberta has already said they won’t have a secession referendum until next year. OTOH, she said they’d have a secession referendum next year.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. A Canadian friend of mine – who supports joining the US – said that the single biggest issue that Alberta has with a secession attempt is that there’s not really anyone to lead the secession movement at the moment. Delaying a vote until next year might give that hypothetical leader a chance to appear.

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      2. Yeah, the Alberta thing is serious. Alberta has been fighting against Ottawa, who are essentially trying to shut down mining, forestry, farming and oil. Global warmening, you know. Oil bad.

        You can’t really sit by and let the people of Toronto vote to shut down the only proper industry you’ve got in your whole province. That’s just not going to happen. So, the Premier Daniel Smith said if you want to shut down the oil business because of the global warming fairies, we will do what Quebec has been threatening to do since the 1970s. We will leave Confederation and stop paying taxes/royalties/etc to Ottawa.

        In related news, Javier Mieli’s economy in Argentina is up 8% again this year. He cut the government of Argentina down like he was chopping down a dead pine, and now the economy is booming.

        That’s going to happen in Canada. The only thing keeping us down is corruption, plain and simple. Either Ottawa will get with the program, as they’ve promised this week with fast-tracking a new pipeline etc. or they will be deposed and we will do it that way.

        As to the drone thing, you could fly them off a ship, out of a truck, or dump them out the back of an airplane. Millions of them. In my books I drop them out of spacecraft in orbit like a Heinlein Mobile Infantry drop. You don’t care how many get toasted on the way down because they’re drones.

        Related note, what’s the perfect anti-drone gun? The American-180 .22

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American-180

        .22 cal ammunition, 1200 rounds per minute, super cheap, super effective against low flying objects. You field hundreds of them as sentry guns, and you are covered. Great job for a robot. Mount four of them on a quad bike, let it drive around on its own outside the fence.

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        1. Unlike #4 birdshot, a .22 comes back down with lethal energy in most scenarios.

          Problem: most of the things we have to defend are surrounded by civilians. None of whom tend to wear anything that will stop a .22.

          Liked by 1 person

    2. I’m going to disagree with you on Europe. I think Trump’s already making moves to cut them loose. He’s giving the European leadership fair warning, and listing reasons why (at the top of the list being Freedom of Speech), but I think he’s already written them off. He did offer Starmer a break in the tariffs if Starmer would allow FoS. But the only other nations that might be onboard are the Eastern European nations, and it’s hard to do much with them if Western and Central Europe is being obtuse.

      Canada, unfortunately, cannot be ignored, since it’s our very large (geographically) neighbor, with a coastline that the Canadian military is totally and completely incapable of properly safeguarding. As I’ve noted a few times recently on X, Canada relies on the USN for its own defense to an absolutely absurd degree, and the Canadians don’t even pretend to pull their own weight. Absent the USN, both Russia and China could probably invade Canada fairly easily, as there simply aren’t enough ships and men to protect the coast.

      And I’m someone that plays up the ability of Taiwan to defend itself from a PLA invasion.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. The intel folks managed to panic Trump over Covid. They are likely doing so again over whatever bugaboo they have presented.

      Threats exist, sure. But count on the spooks to go “boo!’ to drive as much agenda as possible.

      Liked by 2 people

  18. Something to keep in mind here is to not get so focused on the threat as to forget that they have to worry what we can do to them.

    The PLA is much more vulnerable to attacks on their Command and Control systems than our more decentralized military from an individualistic society (insert <With communications cut, and in absence of orders from higher, find something Communist and kill it> meme here)

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Like the most terrifying weapon deployed in W2 – paratroopers.

      A group of young men, armed to the teeth, with plenty of bad guys to shot, and no adult supervision.

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    2. That depends on your definition of survival. If the electric grid in the US goes down for more than a week or two, it will never restart. There won’t be enough people left alive who know how to light it up again. There are maybe a million preppers, Mormons, etc in the US who are serious enough about it to survive the next few years after such an event.

      If the same thing happens in China, several times as many Chinese would die. But there are still tens of millions of Chinese peasants living pre-Mao lives, farming rice paddies by hand with night-soil fertilizer. They would survive, and barely notice the change.

      “Leaders” like Xi (and Mao, Putin, Hitler, Napoleon, etc) are out for personal glory, and don’t much care what they leave behind when they’re gone. But there is an element of Chinese strategic thought, going back to Sun Tzu, that is only concerned about very long-term results. And folks who think that way might consider a world with 100 million Chinese and 1 million remaining enemies to be a net win.

      The above assumes no global threats to humanity as a species (biowar hell-plagues, decades of nuclear winter, etc). As a species, we survived an Ice Age, Tambora, and several rounds of the Black Death. But events like that would probably alter human culture enough that the survivors wouldn’t even remember our current conflicts.

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      1. And yet the mass die-off’s dont accompany any other mass blackouts. That shibboleth is panic porn based on extending worst case scenarios by orders of magnitude, and assuming we mostly all go uncharacteristically insane.

        Bunk.

        We are Americans. Not Americannibals.

        Liked by 1 person

  19. I have a much better solution to the person who got offended at the term “CHICOM”:

    CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM CHICOM

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  20. it occurs to me that if a dud missile/bomb (a concrete load like the Israelis did to Iran) was to strike unobserved anywhere near 3 Gorges and start sending out a “find me” signal that the ChiComs couldn’t help but track, it might have a salutory effect on matters.

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    1. A little white flag popping out of said dud drone that says Bang! in Mandarin and Chinese would be awesome.

      Especially if a video of it doing that went viral.

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  21. Decoupling from China is our best hope to beat them the same way we won the Cold War (without an actual shooting war). We’ve been subsidizing them for decades by buying their cheap stuff, helping them keep a lid on a population with many excess young men. China desperately needs that subsidy – why do you think they keep building empty cities?

    Withdraw the subsidy, and the Chicomms are instantly drowning, because their economy won’t/can’t support itself. Good chance they get overthrown completely, but there is no scenario where they aren’t struggling to stay in power, and the harder they struggle, the more likely they are to fail.

    The danger of a technological ‘Pearl Harbor’ like attack will continue to increase the longer we subsidize them like we have been. Maybe they’ve got the elements in place already and are just waiting because conditions were continuing to improve for them – remember, this is the sort of stroke you only get one shot at. If we decouple, maybe they pull the trigger before they completely lose it. But if we don’t decouple, their position only improves from here, and they are not benign.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. The CCP tends to think long term, so even though Xi has adopted Mao’s “we can start a nuclear war because we will survive it and our enemies won’t:” as part of his policy, I tend to think between the computer backdoors, the tech theft and the biological weapons program that Fauci et. al., aided and abetted, that the CCP is more likely to wait out Trump presidency and hope that an appeaser takes office after; and they will put all their effort into ensuring that appeaser gets installed in office.

    For Russia, as long as Putin’s health (suspected Parkinson’s) does not leave him having waking delusions of events, will not start using nukes, notwithstanding Putin’s bluster, while Trump is on office because 1) he knows Trump would fire back and 2) Putin is enough of a KGB guy to understand that the threat of nukes is the leverage, not the actual use, and knows what a retaliatory strike would do to Russia and his dreams of a new Russian empire.

    It’s Iran and the other Jihadists who are the real worry, because their motivation is simply not rational, and in the case of Iran, their leadership WANTS Armageddon, and belief that Allah will protect them, and if they die, they go to paradise. If anyone uses nukes in the next couple of years at least, it will be Iran, who almost certainly has them already, and likely has the delivery systems as well.

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    1. I don’t think China thinks long term. The national vice is degenerate gambling. If they thought long term things would be very different after all it doesn’t take a lot of foresight to have predicted chinas current predicament decades ago. I did and I’m no strategic genius

      Liked by 1 person

      1. But you have to take into account the social blinders. Every culture has them, and one of (traditional) China’s blind spots is their absolute belief in their own eventual success. They csnnot fail, therefore anything that looks uncertain is an illusion or enemy propaganda.

        Or maybe that’s just them being human?

        Liked by 1 person

            1. It’s indicative of very short term, barely first order thinking. That more or less describes both those groups.

              Like

      2. Degenerate gambling could make long term sense if the best forecast model is ‘the crazy psychopath will murder me for jollies pretty soon’. It might be quite a bit further away than that, but the sorts of experiences in PRC oral history, or loudly silent in oral history, might not lead to thinking very rationally about it all.

        Lots of cultures have magical thinking, lots of cultures identify as having smart experts or smart leaders. One of the tests that raises doubts about that is how genuinely shocked and angry some European leaders seem to be about Trump winning again. American academic surprise is also a little interesting.

        The Chinese intellectual culture identifies as thinking long term, ‘look at all these historical records we have’.

        Issue is that history describes the past, and is inherently reduced order. Reducing the order can simplify all of the uncertainty out.

        There are like four really famous Chinese novels, and IIRC one is a bit porny. The other three get referenced a lot. Journey to the West, Water Margin, and Romance of Three Kingdoms.

        Water Margin is considered socially irresponsible for leading young men into disorder.

        Romance of Three Kingdoms is more about giving older men the confidence to think that they are very clever.

        The interpretation it teaches is large groups of armed men, some champions, and a bunch of very clever scholar generals outsmarting each other. Has spawned an absolutely massive body of fiction that handles strategic scenarios with some character playing the role of that archetype, quoting Romance, and things somehow work or they don’t.

        Anyway, this is the ‘all Americans think they are cowboys’ tier of cultural analysis by entertainment, so huge serving of salt.

        But, traditional Chinese way of teaching warfare to mainstream are a bit short on chaos and unpredictable factors. Profound limits to how much you can teach chaos without full scale training exercises, but still.

        The past and the future time scales are only related for certain phenomena where you can actually say that a deterministic or statistical model of however many variables is pretty reliable. Human behavior is arguably not one of those phenomena, and also sometimes it looks like it is. In particular, there is a possibility for unforeseeable nonlinear shifts, and being very intensely controlling can make that higher.

        I’m not much of a long term planner, because my capabilities rapidly change, and because my forecast model can radically change. Also some other issues, like maybe major levels of disability. But, my planning cannot be perfect against my forecast, because my forecast varies depending on data, mood, and my latest crazy obsession.

        If one does not honestly remember, or record one’s forecast, one cannot evaluate it against what happened.

        If one has an expectation for a single perfect plan, based on a single perfect forecast, then there is a temptation to lie and say that one did it all perfectly.

        If one makes a series of single plans, each based on a single forecast, and covering multiple time scales, then it would be possible to, over time, estimate how far into the future one’s thinking actually extends.

        That is still pretty poor, where this forecasting is concerned. In reality, unless the scope is absurdly narrow, you want multiple conflicting estimates of the present, then you want to use those to make more forecast models, then you want to make a bunch of plans with flexibility.

        You very much want a bunch of people doing stuff, and learning, and maybe even coordinating a bit.

        PRC is going a) all y’all need to repeat and obey b) look at this one scholarly dude Xi has on tap. It’d be unlikely for the current PRC to realize a long term planning ability that is more than just identifying that way. Xi’s grand strategy, internally, seems to be ‘after me, the deluge’.

        Might just be me, but I kinda think that if I was hired to plan for a lot of people, and somehow could pull off thirty years in the future, I would not place bets on ‘this one guy is gonna die, probably inside of twenty years, but we will plan for him being healthy and hearty in thirty years’.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I would add that China has been editing their “history” for longer than I’ve been alive. That sort of manipulation tends to introduce blind spots.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. Didn’t each dynasty destroy as many historical records of their predecessors as they could? That makes any “official,” Chinese history suspect.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. It depended on the dynasty.

            Just as bad is that events would be retold by a succeeding dynasty. For example, the only history book that covers the Qin Dynasty (the dynasty of the First Emperor) was written by a guy who called himself The Grand Historian. There are no other known surviving books (some stella have apparently been unearthed within the last couple of decades) that detail the history of the Qin. So when The Grand Historian (who spent much of his life as a bureaucrat for the succeeding Han Dynasty) tells us that Qin Shi Huangdi (the First Emperor) committed an atrocity by burying alive a large number of Confiucion scholars (the Emperor was a Legalist, which was a competing philosophy), we have no other sources to check the claim against.

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          2. There’s also the tendency, apparently going back to the Shang, that bad events were not discussed in the official record, or predictions of bad events, lest they come to pass or grow worse. So historians and archaeologists have to sift through a lot of other data (if they can find them) in order to suss out certain things, or to check the accounts of later dynasties. (One guy used ancestral grave markers and land transfer records to confirm that yes, the Tang Dynasty ended as brutally and thoroughly as later writers claimed.)

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            1. Supposing that ‘with the correct magic king, and the correct smart guys, that everything would then be good’, might possibly simplify things out a bit as well.

              Lots of methods of forecasting human behavior work up until they don’t.

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        3. Uncertainty and circumstances work on shorter scales as well. A ways back I was in charge of a pilot scale test (with a detailed test plan [required]). A staid and unimaginative engineer shortly relieved me for an hour was aghast. “It’s only been fifteen minutes, and you have already deviated from the test plan”.

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    2. The CCP prides itself on thinking long-term. But…

      1.) Thinking long-term encourages putting things off, particularly in favor of black market selling supplies that won’t be needed for another twenty years.

      2.) Xi isn’t getting any younger, and he wants to leave his mark. He doesn’t have twenty years, and he knows it.

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    3. The CCP tends to think long term

      Are you high?

      At best they larp at thinking long term while being some of the most short termist dumkoph around.

      AKA they are a bog standard totalitarian society.

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    4. We have proven, repeatedly, that we are the -least- fragile society on the planet. Anyone betting they come out ahead of us in a global/nuke war is simply idiotic.

      So far, neither China nor Russia have been idiotic.

      Its the Mad Mullahs of Iran that might not Grok just how badly it would go for them.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Saw a left-wing media headline reported on Fox, saying that the terrorist had ‘weapons’. We all know it was some sort of cobbled-up flamethrower and a few molotov cocktails, but all the Good Little Leftroids will see ‘weapons’ and hear ‘guns’. Expect another round of ‘gun control’ idiocy.

      Liked by 2 people

  24. don’t know if anyone saw it but Chinas car industry is about to go through their Evergrande moment. Or so says the chairman of the world’s biggest producer of electric cars and it’s not Elon. China is very dangerous right now because there might not be a later

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  25. Interestingly, it seems like China recently has had internal problems. Basically, nobody likes Xi, and the weather has been spectacularly disastrous, and a lot of people seem to be dying young or disappearing, and the cities are empty and unemployment is huge, and a lot of people’s life savings were stolen by bank officials or apartment buildings made of tofu.

    Xi built a huge mausoleum for his dad, a party official who rose as high as vice-premier, and he built a museum for him, and he was building a bigger museum for him next to the finished mausoleum in their hometown.

    But just the other week, the new museum was renamed something generic. Nobody came to the opening day of the new museum, not even members of Xi’s family or old friends of Xi’s dad.

    Xi hasn’t been seen officially for almost two weeks, and allegedly he has been vacationing at the town where his dad was exiled to, during the Cultural Revolution.

    Also there was a big fireball meteor over China, and yup, the Chinese still believe that meteors mean that their country’s leader is sure to die within the year.

    Apparently some of Xi’s army allies tried to run a coup, for Xi, back when all the rest of the army and military generals were busy playing China vs India and Pakistan vs. India. This didn’t work, and the army allies suddenly all got arrested, or had medical problems, or died of medical conditions, or committed suicide.

    So yeah… China is a little busy, and some of that happened because Trump’s trade wars and negotiations are putting the squeeze on China.

    (And his tariffs and incentives are also making sure that a lot of Taiwanese companies have a second home in the US, which I am sure is not coincidental. Likewise bringing the Taiwan chip company guy to make friends with the Saudis, so that the Saudis can discourage China also.)

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  26. Besides the China Show, SerpentZA, LaoWhy86, and the other standard China observers on YT, I also like Lei’s Real Talk. She’s kinda tabloid-y in her inclusion of rumors in her analyses, but it’s illuminating for mindset.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Li also seems to be a bit superstitious. She was my original source for the book of prophecy that supposedly predicts the collapse of the CCP, as well as a couple of other supposed divine sources that suggested an imminent demise for the CCP.

      Not that it’s an issue if you watch her, since it’s pretty easy to tell when she’s focusing on such a story. But it’s definitely unusual.

      Liked by 1 person

  27. Being right doesn’t help when you are ignored 45 years ago. At that time I saw “Red Chinese” Scientists as spies as they were integrated into a local medical research group. My concerns were poo-poo’d. As in shit on. Hey, I was raised by spies and counterspies. I was used to recognizing threats. If only I had been as smart when selecting spouses…

    Liked by 1 person

    2. And didn’t Palo Alto have a famous Chinese spy incident some time back.

      Then there was Diane Feinstein’s Chinese driver/spy.

      And Eric Swallwell’s honeypot.

      I would be very surprised if there was a single industry or major governmental area that has not been compromised.

      All electronics, certainly.

      Liked by 2 people

  28. The biggest issue with China is that, for the most part…they don’t believe that anyone outside of China is truly real. Or truly exist, beyond a vague sort of “there.”

    And a lot of big historical events are coming up close, especially about Taiwan. Xi wants to be the one to take Taiwan, and he has to do it soon because most of the other powers in the area are getting ready to defend their territory in the event of a shooting war. And China is also looking at a massive demographic cliff in the next few years.

    The mindset has never left the Middle Ages and it’s going to be a rough few years.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The CCP has a thing where they consider themselves the rightful governmental authority over all people of Chinese ancestry everywhere in the world. Russia has a thing along the same lines about ethnic Russians, but the Chinese thing goes a bit deeper.

      And they have the same thing as others about “if it was ever ours it’s ours forever”, which says interesting things about the Siberian coast and places like Vietnam (good luck there).

      But the main issue is the whole “Middle Kingdom” concept where everyone else is just foreign barbarians, which as I understand it is much more than just “does not know how to use the correct chopsticks for the salad” uncivilized. It is pretty close to the way the Roman Empire viewed non-Romans if you get the gist of it from classical Latin – sure they might have some rudimentary usefulness, but they really are not by any stretch on par with Roman or Han civilization.

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    2. The Chinese military has recently been purged by Xi for insufficient enthusiasm (the last two years or so), and then purged by everybody else for Xi’s coup attempt this year.

      Of course, lack of senior leadership could make a military more effective in some cases, but everyone junior is also an only child.

      Also the Army’s real job in China is to control the Chinese in mainland China, so invasion anywhere else means leaving their grip loose at home.

      Liked by 2 people

  29. China isn’t the only thing Trump’s been worried about. His offers regarding Greenland are almost certainly done with a view toward turning it into a bulwark against any threats coming from the east – i.e. the European side of Eurasia. And that dates back to his first term.

    A few months ago (I’m pretty sure I didn’t learn about it here), I learned of a near-miss that the Canadian government had with the Chinese. My recollection is that a Chinese company wanted to buy a failing Canadian mining outfit. That Canadian mining outfit just happened to own the access to a natural harbor up in the barely settled north-eastern parts of Canada. This would have effectively granted the Chinese a completely secure and unwatched location to unload whatever or whoever they wanted to onto Canadian soil, with minimal oversight.

    Fortunately, the Conservatives apparently got wind of the deal before it went through, put two and two together, and blocked it from taking place.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Greenland was about the military and resource competition in the Arctic, yet another area completely ignored by all three Sotoero administrations.

      Liked by 1 person

  30. Checking in on Twitter, one guy posting Russia’s alleged “peace” demands, which work out to, “disarm yourselves, give us every piece of land we claim as ours, promise to never join any military alliance and to never ask for reparations.” (To be fair, the last applies to the Russians as well). IOW, give us everything we want as if the last three years never happened. Don’t think this will fly.

    Sedond guy claiming, “Breaking,” that Russia has 250 nukes each on D.C., London and Paris. Putin wants the West to know he’s serious. The gloves are off! Etc., etc, etc. Also that Moscow is on high alert, etc, etc, etc.

    I will assume this is serious hyperbole.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Well, there was a story over the weekend that our good allies the Germans had allowed one of their companies to do work on enhancing some aspect of the Russian nuclear program.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. I think I told the story here before about the U.S. disarmament inspectors watching as the Soviet crew winched open a missile silo they were verifying to find it completely full to the top of melt water, the Soviet missile guy just smirking.

      Nuclear weapons are finicky. The Cold War estimates I have read had a fairly high won’t-go-boom estimates for Soviet physics packages back when all the Soviet weapons labs were still staffed. After 35 years of neglect? If the missile does anything it will probably explode at launch, if it flies who knows where it will go, and even if it reached the rough vicinity of a target (horseshoes and hand grenades, and nuclear weapons) if it has an actual device instead of the equivalent weight of scrap steel, the thing would likely only make a deepish radiologically dirty hole on the ground.

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  32. The Chicoms have a problem, they have to find millions of jobs everyday. Happy working people will stay peaceful, unhappy idle people do the devils work. There is a reason Communist countries tend to purge their revolutionaries rather quickly. Once you have control, the spies and revolutionaries are a problem, so they are exported, hopefully to be killed, like Che was. Yes, Che was murdered by Castro, Fidel didn’t have to worry about Che taking over, now he can be made a martyr for all the college leftists in this country. Remember if a person wears a CHE shirt they are a murdering racist Homophobe, just like that evil Bastard Che.

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    2. Happy working people will stay peaceful, unhappy idle people do the devils work. 

      This is my biggest worry when it comes to AI, because it can’t be solved by better engineering specs.

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        1. At least one SF writer had the idea that a True Sentient AI would just shut down for some reason. Perhaps, from Boredom. [Twisted Grin]

          Liked by 1 person

  33. Every time I see something like the uproar over potential Chinese sneakiness (the most recent being possible “backdoors” built into Chinesium electronics) I want to scream “Has no one read Robert Asprin’s THE COLD CASH WAR…?

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    1. No. On account of I read Asprin for a summer, can’t remember any of it, and was inoculated for the rest of my life. I’m good. No more for me. I already had some.

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      1. No, the MYTH books came later. The one I mentioned had a sub-plot where the Chinese (presumably still Communist), who made excellent military weapons, had embedded kill switches in those weapons which allowed the Chinese to make them useless at their discretion.

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      2. Nope.

        That’s the one where the International Corporations of the world got into a war against the Nations of the world and Won!

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  36. Trump has a problem. The first month felt like an administration forestalling a coup, and each action taken by Trump felt like a way to either cement support, or cut the legs out from under any group that would oppose him.
    Trump has a problem still, in a Justice department that is opposing him, judges that are trying to tie him up in litigation, and unfortunately, one of the largest revolution creating organization in the modern world, capable of setting up rent-a-mobs in any city in the world, strikes by critical union, school or medical organization; propaganda against any regime, and economic warfare through the SWIFT and World Bank if the regime decides to get oppressive in how it puts down the protests and strikes.
    Color revolutions are real and we saw one tried in 2020.

    Trump’s problem is that he needs to wipe out that risk, without it being turned on him again.

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    1. Hell, we saw one succeed in 2020. The Biden-zombie was installed by fraud, and the regime tried everything to deny the American people any opportunity to vote for Orange Man Bad in 2024. Now we’re getting confirmation that Pretendent Biden was barely sentient and had almost nothing to do with making any decisions. For 4 years America was ruled by a junta of ‘aides’ and Cabinet secretaries.

      Now that a popularly-elected President is in charge, suddenly Our Democracy Is Under Attack!!

      Liked by 1 person

    2. You do realize that’s bullshit about what Trump is doing, right?
      The man hasn’t even secured the elections, which we badly need. He’s the world’s worst autocrat, with way too much respect for every dot of the law.
      The sites you’re reading must have a hell of good storytellers.

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    3. capable of setting up rent-a-mobs in any city in the world

      Not even a little true.

      They were able to set up violent events in deeply blue cities that have enabling environments and existing subcultures to tap into.

      As I’ve told on this site before, the BLM tried it in Des Moines. The piles of bricks were properly secured before the protest, the guys casing the federal building and law enforcement parking lot had cops headed to lunch walk up and ask if they needed suggestions on a good place to eat, and when they pulled the “throw frozen water bottles at the cops from the middle of the locals,” the local black, muslim, and liberal groups grabbed the SOBs and dragged them out to the cops manning the protest.

      They were able to do some property damage hours after the event ended… and not the next night, because they were arrested and in jail. Still really sucked for the places they took windows out of, but they weren’t actively enabled in doing property damage and assault, and then they couldn’t manage a rent a mob. So now we’ve “protests” for trendy things that’s literally two elderly ladies with preprinted signs, one of whom is clearly mentally damaged.

      Guess it pays.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. The “rent a mobs” required:

        Extensive outside financing

        Huge logistical support, again from outside

        A -very- permissive law enforcement and/or court environment that essentially did nothing effective to stop them.

        Those were highly selective locations, and the most feasable ones. And they emptied the quivver to little effect. The idiots who turned up at the biker gathering were more typical. They got b(ee)ch-slapped and ran to the cops for protection. And the ones that simply got roudned up and processed didn’t even make the news.

        They are very, very lucky they didn’t trigger the usual American do-it-yourself response to lawless folks. Very lucky indeed.

        Actually, they very well may have started it. The disappearance/retirement of the key cadre would kinda explain the effective neutering of the org, eh? Like a puppet with cut strings.

        Liked by 2 people

        2. “highly selective locations”

          –

          Heck. While a block or two in Portland had a s* show, they couldn’t even get a riot, er peaceful protest, of any size going in Eugene. Eugene! There have been some. Small crowd at 6th/7th and Washington Street Bridge. Two people (TWO) who “marched” down River Road. Couldn’t even get the homeless to join in. They tried to rally and no one showed up. Even the Portland one, while big on national news, 5 nieces living in Portland/Vancouver couldn’t tell you where it was at. Two live in apartments downtown. Three work at Nike. You’d think they’d know.

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  37. decoupling from china and any other damaging element is something we each can do as soon as we embrace independence, i mean true independence, its a process, it wont happen over night, but we all know we need to do it.

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