The island-hopping strategy that paved America’s way to Tokyo isn’t forgotten. China needs to defend some 7,200 islands off its coastline in the event the US decides to launch a first-strike. That means being able to retake territory they lose, which means needing landing craft to get them there.

For some reason, American China-Watchers only recognize one island as possible contested territory when you’ve got whole archipelagos that rival militaries would compete to secure. That’s before you get to Chongming Island or Hainan Island, both pivotal to Chinese domestic security.

The invasion of Grenada took twelve days, from the coup to US intervention.

The invasion of Panama took five days between Panama declaring war and US having boots on the ground.

The invasion of Afghanistan began fifteen days after 9/11.

Maybe Americans really do think in hours while Chinese folks think in centuries. But even by that standard, a 2050 invasion would be a bit slow.

I recall similar mockery when Trump came out and said a Mexican invasion of Texas was imminent.

The Russians attacked Poland with only two years of independence under their belt

Wait, are you talking about the Second Polish Republic of 1918? What does that have to do with Polish military readiness in 2025?

You fail to understand Polish history and their mindset

Karol Nawrocki is a football hooligan and partisan hack more interested in pushing a Catholic theocracy on his people than improving its economic outlook or its domestic security. The only war he’s going to successfully wage is on his country’s husk of a labor movement, as he turns the guns of the state on their migrant population.

He’s building up the same nativist police state as his peers in the US with a tiny fraction of the budget. It’s going to be a death sentence for their domestic economy and interstate trade. If anyone’s neglecting the history of the country, its this fascist chauvinist POS. When the Polish government falls, it’ll be Nawrocki’s teeth on the curb.

Swap China for Russia

I love that you think these two countries are interchangeable.

How many sock puppets are you on now btw?

Every single post you read that upsets you is authored by me, personally. That’s not just on Lemmy. It’s all me. It’s always all been me.

Grinding coffee in the store is an act of self-harm. Just get a kerieg if you hate fresh coffee that much.

Otherwise, get yourself a Capresso Burr Grinder. Or just a hand-cranked one if you’re low-budget and old school. Use the finer grain if you’re making coffee in the moka pot. Coarse grain if you’re just using the boiled water in the press pot - pour in a little slightly below boiling water first so the coffee grounds can bloom (it’ll sort of foam up a bit if you let it sit for a few seconds) and then add the rest. Enjoy the actual freshly released oils of the coffee bean, ffs.

The lesson is don’t tell lies, but also of note – THE WOLF DID COME.

I do love setting all my foreign policy on the plot line of an Aesop’s Fable.

But, just out of curiosity, why is the wolf China? Isn’t the wolf typically aligned with Italy, Turkyie, or Estonia? Perhaps the moral of the story is that Europe plans to invade Taiwan. After all, its not called the “Boy who cried Dragon”.

Poland is ready for it

That country is as mired in right-wing reactionary dysfunction as any of Russia’s proxies. And they’re larded up with debts in an EU that loves to punish poorer countries with austerity during economic contraction.

All of Europe is hanging on the sustained global bull market. If that flags, you’re going to see more than just Poland going to shit very quickly.

without a reason

Trump wanted to be the guy who Made A Deal with Russia and ended the war. Putin made a big show of the Alaska Summit and then delivered exactly dick-all (which - to be fair - is the smart move when dealing with Trump). At the same time, Starmer’s been licking his taint in hopes of winning concessions for the UK tech industry. So now Trump’s incredibly sore at being burned by Russian and Starmer-curious.

But this will only last until Ukraine starts “looking like losers” according to his right-wing media friends. I would give it a few more months before he flips back again.

If you don’t take everything Zelensky says as infallible wisdom from on high, you’re a Russian Wumao AI Trumpist Tankie and you should get back to the Evil Country you came from or perhaps be hung for treason, idk anymore.

As the Ukrainian front is losing ground, more and more of the staging and deployment is occurring in neighboring Poland and Slovakia. Moldova just voted in a pro-EU government, after a hotly contested election in which each party accused the other of taking support from foreign neighbors. If they align with Ukraine, that opens up a new route of supply into the south, where Russians have made the largest gains in territory.

We have already seen Russian surveillance drones passing through EU airspace, with attacks running right up to the western-most border (and dipping over depending on which intelligence service you ask). We’ve already seen incursions into Russian territory that have implied support from Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuiania, with Russian digital offensives retaliating in kind.

Then throw in the wild card of Israel - a country that is taking a lot of political heat from Europe for its genocide in Gaza and the surrounding Arab states - whose PM has long since demonstrated friendly ties with Putin. Not inconceivable that Mossad and the RSB conduct joint operations on a country that has threatened sanctions on Israel over the genocide in Palestine. Hell, the recent sweeping shutdown of airlines across Europe following the condemnation of Israel at the UN is… conspicuous.

You’d think escalating the war would be suicidal for the Russian economy. And you’d think Europe doubling down on Ukraine at this point would be a recipe for more far-right parties winning elections. So they both have strong incentives to de-escalate. Nevertheless, they persist in one of the worst foreign policy follies since WW1. I wouldn’t count anything out, at this point.

China’s Possible Invasion of Taiwan – Part I: 2019, 2020, 2021, or 2023

China’s Possible Invasion of Taiwan – Part II: 2025, 2030s, 2049, or 2050

We are literally never going to hear the end of this.

Edit: To all the losers and haters downvoting me, I’m linking to your boys at GlobalTaiwan.org. They’ve been screaming about China’s plot to conquer Taiwan for the last decade. You should love this shit. Why do these citations make you so sad and angry?

A lot of these articles only want to talk about the handful of people we already know associated with Epstein.

Bringing up the same old names, because they are A) untouchable and B) barely even news anymore.

You don’t even need to be an Epstein Guy for this. It was rampant all through the 00s.

Mark Foley was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, having been appointed by Dennis Hastert, who was in the middle of making hush money payments to one of his own victims.

This was also when a bunch of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal was breaking into the news.

Go back farther, to the 80s, and you might learn about The Franklin Scandal, a historic intersection of child prostitution and banking.

It’s Cost Efficiency, which is a vital calculation in any business enterprise.

Virginia class nuclear subs cost $2.7B.

Submarines aren’t normally used for bulk transport of civilian cargo.

The prototype NS Savannah cost $46M to build in 1955 (roughly $500B today) with half the cost being its nuclear engine. So, on the high end of modern container shipping, but with the benefits of rarely needing to refuel.

And that’s before an economy of scale on bulk construction.

Wind power is path to decarbonizing shipping.

Sailing ships don’t operate well at the scale we’re building.

Beginning to think I’m arguing with a bot

Sure, lets give the Houthis and Somali pirates the capability of building dirty bombs.

What are you talking about?

And if solar power is cheaper on Earth, think of how much more cheaper it is in space

There’s an R^2 drop off as you travel away from the sun.

SMR’s can pretend lower capital costs per watt, when excluding design/prototype time, but trade much more expensive enriched (proliferation risk) fuel that is less efficient

The primary appeal of SMRs is their portability. Pointless for a data center, but vital for a large vehicle like a cruise liner or a shipping frigate.

Replacing our fleet of bunker fuel powered ships would be enormously beneficial.