Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "Binkov's Battlegrounds" channel.

  1. Up until 1989, the PRC looked to be on the path to ultimately liberalizing its politics as well. Since then Beijing has proven to everyone but shortsighted corporatists that the Party would rather have absolute rule over tofu dreg rubble than allow the Chinese people to directly change their policies and leadership.
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  2. Drones need to know where to look first, and be able to communicate the whole way. Remember the US is also top dog in electronic warfare, and for larger targets their radar arrays nowadays can output so much power that they double as sensor fryers.
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  3. Western unarmed civilian ships. The warships sail about just fine.
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  4. No, the distraction and resulting power vacuum would actually spark more conflicts. Without America being the undisputed hate sponge, the fighting would inevitably turn onto those far less capable of protecting themselves.
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  5. That’s assuming the PLA Navy even knows how to perform real effective damage control; China hasn’t had a credible ocean-going navy since like the Ming Dynasty. I’d imagine Beijing’s plans to use civilian ships are akin to Russian tank designs: strength only through numbers but individually not survivable in combat.
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  6. The isolated grid might actually make it harder to contain outages and reroute power, depending on how the relay stations get struck.
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  7. CA is exporting what other states desire (tech-based growth), receiving states are often spending their own tax money specifically to incentivize the immigration.
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  8. Hoover primarily serves Las Vegas, and holds the quota reserved for Mexico. CA gets its water from some others downstream, in addition to what it gets internally. Also damaging these dams risks igniting hostilities with the other states they serve.
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  9. ⁠Most of those boats lack effective air defense. They’d be mere targets for cheap glide bombs, drones, and even autocannon strafing. Ask the Russians how well they conquered Ukraine through their deviance from the “Western” notion of first estabilishing air superiority.
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  10. China itself is surprisingly fragile. America will bounce back as it has a vibrant civic culture to the individual level, whereas the PRC is held together with constant promises of money, artificial nation-building programs, and a police state. A national trauma would likely see China shattering like china.
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  11. It's not promising for the formal forces of the ROC, but this analysis stops short of the generation or two of insurrection that would inevitably follow. Rumor is that the Taiwanese are already consulting with the US on how through a land war minimally trained casual combatants could neutralize the technological advantages and overwhelming firepower of a modern military, and defeat the political objectives of even the richest and best equipped occupiers.
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  12. Right, I've heard there's quite a bit of buyer's remorse with Chinese drones already due to the shoddy uptime and inability to procure replacement parts.
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  13. "Significant" as in they have to fix the damage, but it's more on the annoying end of the scale rather than devastating.
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  14. ​ @amunra5330 And many of those when inspected were found to be rotting and inedible, if some unexplained granary fire didn't get to it first.
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  15. Not to mention its equipment, which aren't nearly as ready for deployment as their parades suggest. Rumor is they haven't yet figured out how to fly when it's raining ☔
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  16. You might underestimate how much Americans do things the hard way for fun
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  17. China is politically kind of like the US: legally federated but with each province given fairly wide latitude to pursue policies and programs. Hence why separate aviation design bureaus centered in provincial capitals like Chéngdū, Xī'ān, and Shěnyáng.
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  18. If the enemy has to pull back to get out of range, they're essentially losing ground and that's the whole point. And then the munitions can be saved for those units who dare come closer.
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  19. Especially as they lack credible air defense (along with much of the PLA “Navy”), meaning they’re sitting ducks for cheap glide bombs and suicide drones.
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  20. It's not unrealistic though, nukes are expensive to maintain, and China has prioritized a second-strike capability with its "Underground Great Wall" deep tunnel network. Dozens of protected warheads would be preferable to hundreds of vulnerable ones.
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  21. Wasn't Portugal neutral throughout the war? 🇵🇹
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  22. That's part of the popularity of US forces abroad. Between fairly rare events of crime, American servicemembers provide a constant source of commercial profit and public engagement. If they're not allowed to come out of the wire on their free time, it would make US bases look more like an occupier than a neighbor in a walled community.
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  23. Chip fabs are extremely delicate, even simple neglect could cause them to go out of spec permanently especially with the advanced single-digit nanometer generations. A big reason Taiwan and South Korea are the leading chip makers is because they're small enough to get the right engineer from anywhere in the country onsite within a couple hours when deviances and faults start rising out of a given batch.
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  24. Which is why the PRC pushes so hard for BRI and an open Arctic passage -- they literally can't afford to lose access through even just Indonesia let alone all of SE Asia. Their very ability to feed its population depends on open lanes to the seas especially with so many people and how much of their land is either polluted or deserted.
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  25. It wouldn't damage Russia nearly as much, as their transportation and energy sources are more diversified over a far wider area. Plus targeting civilians tends to align them with their government more than dishearten them. This is why Ukraine has been focusing their limited capacity for deep strikes on the military assets most involved in supporting Russia's front.
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  26. I'd imagine that the Soviets would have taken Hokkaido anyway, possibly dipping into Honshu itself and creating a Communist North Japan. To this day there is still no actual peace treaty between Japan and Russia.
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  27. Two if you count Manchuria, who conquered the Ming and became the Qing that modern China is based off of today: territorial claims, the Mandarin language, and all.
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  28. Russia isn't "losing", but it's not gaining nearly as much as it expects for the effort it's throwing into Ukraine.
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  29. It's too big and less effective from the ground. Part of the effectiveness comes from lobbing the rounds from above where the armor is weaker and the target is bigger.
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  30. Apaches are even more vulnerable, having neither the range or durability of a Hog. F35s don't have the payload to take out an entire company of enemy assets, and have to be more selective of what they target (i.e. early warning radars). A10s would be the ones duking it out with the bulk of enemy shooters, especially if SEAD support lets them get close enough to break inside the minimum range of advanced SAM systems and render them targets.
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  31. More like it's seeing targets and pointing them out through the local fog of war, and merely flagging which ones not to engage.
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  32. But will they have the experience to use it to the maximum potential? The PLA social structure and and logistical capabilities make the US counterpart look elegantly effective.
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  33. Not Principle, they follow the Policy that there is one "China" but not necessarily recognizing PRC sovereignty over Taiwan. That's why most of the countries outside of Africa and Central Asia justify maintaining a "Taipei Trade Office" or other practically diplomatic presence separate from its embassy with Beijing.
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  34. A complacent Nighthawk at that, flying the same routes every night where the air defenders could focus looking at
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  35.  @TheAhmedRabia All that bluster is really meant for the domestic audience, trying to inflate their strength. In reality, Russia knows America’s nukes actually work, and China knows America can ensure they arrive wherever it desires.
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  36. USMC also has centuries of uninterrupted combat experience, along with being the poster child of the American style of fighting that only gets more aggressive when their leadership gets taken out of action.
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  37. The aircraft carriers were a pipe dream anyway, the PLA strategy was always geared more towards land-based artillery (these days meaning long-range guided missiles)
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  38. The Communist takeover of Mainland China was an unfortunate side effect of America yet again trending isolationist and disengaging from the world, just like it had leading into WW1 and 2, as well as after the Cold War until 9/11. There’s a reason US forces get deployed worldwide, often at the tolerance if not invitation of host nations to overseas bases who fear the alternative of American absence.
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  39.  @dariomladenovski7047  China can make quality products, but at quality prices. High prices and specialization don't exactly market well to a Communist government who are attracted to low-cost multifunction products.
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  40. All we have to do is show up at half-time when the other side has already extended itself in the other direction
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  41. Hence why the shift towards more mobile Marine teams hiding in the islands, along with attritable cargo drones.
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  42. Or not even blockade, just deny insurance for ships going through the East and South China Seas. Civilian traffic to Mainland China would quickly drop, along with nearly all the agriculture and liquid fuel they need.
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  43. Republicans won’t allow that, or any new state as the two Senators added will be consistently left-leaning. Hence why Puerto Rico isn’t admitted either (along with all its debts to tax-avoiding speculators). Turns out that around the world American conservatism isn’t that popular.
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  44. Taiwan would tell those ferries to turn around, or be forced to quarantine offshore under threat of getting sunk. Plus I doubt Mainlanders would try to escape towards the battlefield.
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  45. Electronic warfare, blinding the long-range sensors and possibly making a Chinese missile mistake a container ship for a similarly sized aircraft carrier, or an airliner for an aerial tanker (missiles themselves don't have the computing power to discriminate approaching targets very well). Scaring off civilian traffic would make China's massive missile stock a liability, and introduce huge strategic difficulties paying for overland alternatives to all the food and fuel it needs to import.
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  46. Short term yes. Long term it means the end of toxic Communism especially from a nation which simultaneously desires to impose a racialized caste system (in this case topped by Han Chinese) wherever it controls, which is eventually the entire world (tiānxià).
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  47. But good luck inviting the former customers to resume peaceful trading with China, right as it enters a downward slide of unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, and widespread industrial pollution. China already relies on imports to feed itself because its own soils and waters are too contaminated, on top of all the uncontrolled use of chemical preservatives and accelerants on their farms and ranches.
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  48. A good chunk of China's food comes by sea. Not all of what they eat can be brought in overland, especially since much of China's own lands are either polluted or deserted.
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  49. ⁠NAFTA was superseded by USMCA, that ‘great trade deal’ Trump was so proud to negotiate and sign personally. It’s colloquially still called NAFTA because the parties are the same, and it doesn’t change names in Canada or Mexico (aka CUSMA/ACEUM and T-MEC)
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  50. There's already anti-air defenses against incoming mortar shells, which are smaller, spend less time aloft, and are just as cold by the time they start falling.
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