Comments by "buddermonger2000" (@buddermonger2000) on "VisualPolitik EN" channel.

  1. Vietnam is playing the best geopolitical game it can. It's not so much playing the powers off of each other but more like just trying to keep itself by being invaded by using the other 2 powers as a shield against China. Also in terms of not helping out Taiwan, given that the Vietnamese navy is primarily green water, there's not much they could do anyway, and also if they did try they'd probably be invaded which really negates basically all attempts they've done since they're really just trying to dissuade an invasion.
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  2. Hyper industrialized small population with artillery focus. Beautiful.
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  3.  @qjtvaddict  Yeah the link between education and innovation isn't exactly linear tbh. The education levels have little to do with that as the issue with innovation comes from the bureaucracy of the company and government limiting it as well as natural barriers to starting a new manufacturing business which means that the system favors entrenched players. New up and comers have to face the behemoths without any of the capabilities to even begin to compete. And of course the complexity and size of the systems themselves lend themselves to difficulty with starting. When your Missile costs a several million it's often because it costs a few million to produce. And of course you're not making just one. Not to mention how you'll go under if you don't land a contract.
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  4. You have an island. It should be a lot easier to curb that
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  5. ​ @TheVvolfgang Someone responded to your point about a naval blockade but I also want to say something: Blockades do not work unless you intend to shoot the ships. There's simply no volume of ships large enough to actually plug in all of the holes. So it simply wouldn't work. So this entire idea simply falls flat on its face and it's why blockades are an act of war.
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  6. Usually the pensions are outside the military budget.
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  7. I was surprised he actually ran. He's recently been re-elected governor of Florida (which is coincident with midterm congressional elections), and it would've made sense to continue gaining wins in his home state to outlast this presidential cycle and make a genuine bid. This just isn't really going to work overall, and he's just been floundering hard because of it.
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  8. How do they even produce this stuff when they're literally a city-state?
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  9. still use uranium
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  10. Worth mentioning that Taiwan would only need to defend 70 days because after that an amphibious invasion is impossible for another half year
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  11. Not necessarily. Bringing 100 year old regulation isn't a real solution. And it's not like they're not competing either. The anti-trust laws were also created to prevent monopolies which clearly aren't the case given that there still is a decent amount of competition in the field. Not to mention, the biggest issue regarding the industry is that for proper industrial companies (especially military industry) there are a LOT of natural barriers to entry which means small companies don't really come up a lot. In fact that's what's happened with the airline sector as well. The entire field is very capital intensive with very long waits for a proper return on investment and able to make ANY profit. Thus, the system favors entrenched players. And it applies on a global level as well. Especially with larger systems as unlike with small arms who really can be invented by a few dudes in a garage, all of those systems are incredibly complex and expensive to produce. With another final problem being, like he said, bureaucratic hurdles which makes it more expensive to compete.
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  12. ​@junyuanma4243 I'll say this: taking an island, and preventing it from being taken, are two very different things. Air and sea power could level any defenders, but wouldn't necessarily allow it to actually be taken or used as an effective supply hub
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  13. I think the modern consensus is that naval invasions are even harder now than before. Missiles make fire support much easier, satellites allow improved ISR to know exactly when the enemy is coming, and contested naval invasions are effectively impossible tasks. Normandy was a hard invasion that almost actually failed, and that was under the most optimal conditions of 1944 with no real ISR, a very long deception campaign, and second line units that no-one actually thought would end up fighting as they were already injured or deemed unfit for combat.
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  14. Who the hell actually thought war was over?
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  15. It was said from the beginning that they'd join in
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  16. No there isn't. That's why there's non-violence as a concept
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  17. Sounds like Putin needed a varangian guard when he made a praetorian guard.
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  18. Yeah China is kind of boxed in. And frankly the everyone around it is wary and starting to get wise to the threat a power like that actually poses. I think people everywhere are finally starting to realize that militaries are possibly an even more important tool in foreign policy than diplomacy. Only power checks power and from that has come one of the oldest phrases in the west: "If you want peace, prepare for war"
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  19. The Indians actually did seem to build a military culture under the British and there were some genuine world beaters in the kingdoms the British fought in the conquest of the subcontinent with some very well regarded units even after occupation. Not to mention the Indo-Pakistani wars during which it embarrassed Pakistan multiple times (Pakistan more than once suffered more casualties with the smaller army).
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  20. The rather brutal lesson Russia has taught us is not anything about peace or prosperity, but instead, something far more ruthless: if you smell blood in the water, there are no half measures. If you engage in half measures you just lose. Because your opponents, who go fool out from day one, will stop you. Russia had its opportunity in 2014 but instead decided to just take Crimea and launch a civil war. Even in the invasion Russia launched it with a peacetime strength rather than a proper war footing. It didn't mobilize, it didn't prepare for war at all. It went in and expected the Ukrainians to fold like they did in 2014. And now it's summer 2023, they're on the defensive, and still losing territory.
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  21. @bleeding paper poetry  You read the situation entirely inaccurately and then took the wrong lessons. The Vietnam War, and even the end of the Afghanistan occupation, was due to changes in political will and not due to any military failures. In fact, in Vietnam the Vietnamese admitted that any longer than the Tet Offensive and they would've given up. The Afghanistan pull-out was managed poorly but because there was no plan and a deadline with little notice which isn't being cowardly but instead a failure of politics and bureaucracy.
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