• Parzivus [any]@hexbear.net
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    5 days ago

    Yeah they’re hoping for an invasion of Taiwan, they talk a fair bit in the article about the difficulty of naval invasions. Which is like, fair enough, but a hundred miles gap puts Taiwan and any US troops there in range of thousands of Chinese missiles. One imagines that an invasion gets a lot easier after sinking a US carrier group or two.

    That said, I don’t see China going for it. Both countries are pretty okay with the status quo or maybe reunification in the coming decades, but very few people want war.

      • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        5 days ago

        With modern missile tech is there even any reason to put nuclear missiles in Taiwan? I was under the impression that ICBMs have basically made that pointless. Oh no, the targets will live for 5-10 whole minutes longer during the travel time.

        • Parzivus [any]@hexbear.net
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          5 days ago

          It kinda matters in that there’s a chain of command before you can retaliate. Someone has to see the missiles, make sure it’s not a malfunction, tell their boss who tells their boss, etc. Ideally your missiles land before the counterattack starts. This is why deploying missiles in eastern Europe was such a big deal to Putin as well.

            • REgon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              5 days ago

              I don’t think the US has capacity to make hypersonic missiles though, so that would require the arms manufacturers to actually do some research and improve manufaturing

              • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                5 days ago

                Hmm, you’re right, and that wouldn’t be very profitable. Perhaps they should see if they can buy the technology from China! i-love-not-thinking

    • Speaker [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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      5 days ago

      I expect that reunification will only become more likely when the US appropriates the TSMC foundry in Arizona and leaves Taipei to rot.