Comments by "" (@tomk3732) on "Can China Actually Pull Off the Taiwan Invasion?" video.

  1. To be honest it was not really at peer. Plus it was like 40 years ago.
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  2.  @johnconner4695  I never said it was simple, but lets not make it into a longer project then it needs to be. Nord Stream 2 took only couple of years to make. And that is with a lot of various regulatory delays. Without delays, just laying and welding pipe you can move quite fast. Its not like 10 years plus project to build even uber long pipelines.
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  3. This would be a very difficult war for China. They need to up their military spending and build more air power. They need, like Russia, large air mobile component in their army. Also they need BTG idea from Russians which works very well in Ukraine. They need 1000s of cruise missiles to take out infrastructure of Taiwan. Essentially China needs to learn from Russia how to do war - as seen in Ukraine - it can be done against mobilized enemy with full western support.
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  4. 1 - 5 are not really valid - there are now multiple rail links between Russia and China and in few years far more pipelines will be there as well.
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  5.  @johnconner4695  Sure it is. We build pipelines that fast in north America. Also huge distances.
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  6.  @Ryanowning  Oh, and rail is far and wide better then highways used in ... USA. Well, if US can make it with far less efficient transport then I beg to differ regarding China and Russia ;) I see - naval travel more efficient then rail. I wonder why then idiot Chinese are building one belt road. I know a lot about pipelines as I live in oil country. Demographics catastrophe is all over the planet with exception of say Africa and India (plus Pakistan + Bangladesh).
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  7.  @johnconner4695  Its much easier to lay pipe over land then sea bottom. And faster as well. Depends on what do you mean by "pivot" - Trade between China and Russia posts double digit growth per year. The whole oil thing as an example shows strange stuff - Russian oil production in 2022 is actually UP vs. 2021. So they must sell more oil today then in 2021 (they do not have much storage capacity). And its not up by fraction of a percent, its like few percent! This means that if they do not sell it to EU they have to sell it to someone else and they did pivot. How else would you explain it? Local economy boom accounting for rapid growth in oil use?
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  8.  @johnconner4695  Oh so you don't have to survey the sea floor? It is easier to deal with laying pipe on land as for example, your welders can work on multiple parts of the pipeline. Moving the pipe along the land is much easier then at sea - one way to slow down NS 2 was to sanction pipe laying ship - Russia had to move another one from the other side of the planet. No such issues on land. Also type of pipe is much simpler for land then sea - for sea you need more specialized pipes for the actual sea at hand - i.e. what works for say Baltic sea does not mean it would be OK for Black sea - no such issues (or at least to such degree) for land. Any undersea pipeline needs to be more safe/ robust then anything on land - on land a touch easier to fix. Finally, Russia already HAS pipelines between it and China, so to double the capacity you don't really have to do a lot of extra work - you can twin the pipeline - not much survey work needed! https://www.gem.wiki/Oil_and_Gas_Pipeline_Construction_Costs as you can see it costs almost 2x as much to lay on sea bed then on ground. Also above shows construction speed of NS 2 at over 1km per day. So speed of over land would be much higher. Thus once could expect 3000km pipeline from start to finish, including survey, permits etc. take about 4 years.
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  9.  @johnconner4695  I been to the area. I know the terrain. I know that 80% may be mountains but 20% is not. Its flat. You do not have to go over mountains, only a fool would. You go where its flat and easy access, which is plenty. So no major terrain issues at all. You cannot just unroll onto sea bed everywhere, surprise, but sea bed does not have to be flat ;) There is no immediate need to build pipelines today - Russian production increased in 2022 vs. 2021. Clearly if EU is not buying much then someone else is. And the means they use to transport goods are sufficient (otherwise we would see a drop). Pipelines may be used to lower transport cost from today - but with current prices of energy Russia is making huge $$$ - so decreasing costs via cheaper transport is for the future, when prices drop to say $60.
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  10.  @Ryanowning  Rail is far more efficient then hwys. There is simply no other way around it. Its not like rail stood still. China will not start WWIII - US will as history tells us no outgoing empire went without at least small bang - i.e. no one wants to give up their first position without at least small fight for it. Thus US, will do a little fight as everyone else, which as everyone else, it will loose. US already started economic war with China which it is, predictably, loosing. Its simple order of things, we been here before many times.
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  11.  @Schwarzvogel1  US has... no oversea holdings? Really? Seriously??? It has most of Europe, small parts of Asia and to control it all a large feel. It has around 200 military bases around its colonies. As for the British, it is true they did not fight too hard after the descent started, but not so much due to some kind of pacifist feelings but more in line with simply being unable to do so - after all, falling WWII UK was bankrupt and needed emergency loan from the US - this is hardly a position to start wars - " In this context, while other European powers such as France and Portugal waged costly and unsuccessful wars to keep their empires intact, Britain generally adopted a policy of peaceful disengagement from its colonies. In reality, this was rarely peaceable or altruistic. Between 1945 and 1965, the number of people under British rule outside the UK itself fell from 700 million to 5 million, 3 million of whom were in Hong Kong". What they mean above that through UK could not do any major actions for a bit and tried to "disengage" they did not do so to the degree you suggest. There was blood - and lots and lots of it. I.e. despite UK more or less being bankrupt it still fought as much as it was able to. I do not see why US would be today or even anytime soon as weak as UK was. Also others that were a bit stronger did fight. " please tell me the last time the US attacked a country which anyone actually liked, or which had any major significance to the global economy." Are you kidding? US invaded a lot of countries - there is a huge list. We have Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria just recently - I am sure everyone knows about Vietnam. " country which anyone actually liked" - I am not sure what does it mean. "it attacks countries which are already borderline pariahs on the global stage, and which no one cares much for (or about)." Wow, just wow, so its not OK somewhat to attack countries that US designates as targets which it says are "borderline pariahs on the global stage"? I guess Russia should just designate Ukraine that - and just like that its OK. Heck, Taiwan is not even a country - so totally fine.
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