One could argue it would not be a good thing for any of us.
As you note, genuine facts are thin on the ground – fog of war, and all that. Made worse by the reality that the declining West is neck-deep in the mess in the Ukraine, although Our Betters pretend they are not belligerents. The following cannot be counted as fact, but the impression from close observers like Doctorow is that the biggest threat to President Putin’s internal support (~80% in the last election) comes from the large group of Russians who want him to take the gloves off and give NATO the war it so desperately seeks.
First attention is being given to leveling the Ukrainian city of Kharkov to the ground. Why Kharkov? Because it is from that city and its environs that the Ukrainians are launching daily missile attacks on the civilian population of the neighboring Belgorod region of the Russian Federation. Per Solovyov, this should be done in a civilized manner, giving the city’s inhabitants three days to clear out before the bombs will fall.
But that is not all. Solovyov, who is widely watched in Russia, is calling for the leveling to the ground of Odessa, from where the ATACMS attack on Sevastopol may have been launched and also of Kiev, where the decisions to launch were taken. …"
I am not a great fan of videos – a relatively inefficient way to convey information. But let’s make a 7 minute exception for this video by Kevin Walmsley from China.
His point is that the US is critically dependent on Chinese suppliers for “US” weapons systems. For example – there are 7 main US (& European) contractors for US air-launched missiles. Those main contractors rely on over 1,500 Chinese suppliers just for electronics.
A Ford Class US aircraft carrier has about 6,000 Chinese semiconductor chips. The Patriot missile relies on chips from around 60 Chinese manufacturers. Of course, in addition to computer chips, there are other components of US weapons systems which come from Chinese suppliers.
Our Betters complain that China may be supplying components of weapons to Russia. But there is no doubt that China is supplying essential components of weapons to the US. What if, in the interests of world peace, China’s rulers decided to stop supplying the US arms industry? Shouldn’t Our Betters have thought about this before their great “pivot to Asia”?
I have often wondered (over many years) whether the US surreptitiously installs means by which any given weapons system could not be used against us. Given the complexity of modern weapons, there must be a fair number of single point of failure nodes exploitable for such a purpose. No? (Better hope it applies to who knows how many manpads have been left in failed states or purloined over the years).
Might that also apply to some of the many Chinese suppliers who provide the components on which US weapons depend? And how would Woke Low-Competence US find out – short of trying to fire some weapon at China?
I would not doubt at all that both we and the Chinese have “back doors” into important software. We have certainly done that in the past. Look at the sabotaged Iranian centrifuges we provided the software for - with said back door. The Chinese have already been found out to have done similar work on a number of American things using Chinese chips.
Well, somewhere I clearly remember reading that the CIA finally admitted to having installed a “back door” in the software. But then it IS the CIA speaking and we’ve come to understand - they lie. They may lie just as a natural response to anything. It may well be in their nature to simply lie.
So you could be right - I don’t know. I only know what I read and experience.
Bruce Schneier has written quite a bit on Stuxnet, the name of the malware generally credited with the Natanz incident (see here and here for instance)
The book of knowledge has another helpful starting point
Ralph Langner, the researcher who identified that Stuxnet infected PLCs,[21] first speculated publicly in September 2010 that the malware was of Israeli origin, and that it targeted Iranian nuclear facilities.[94] However Langner more recently, at a TED conference, recorded in February 2011, stated that, “My opinion is that the Mossad is involved, but that the leading force is not Israel. The leading force behind Stuxnet is the cyber superpower – there is only one; and that’s the United States.”[95]
That is rather how I remember it spoken about, with the CIA being the author of the software in question, or at least the unleashing of “unforeseen consequences”.
Sorry, I had tuned out the US/NATO proxy war. I had not realized that the great Ukrainian advance was closing in on the gates of Moscow. Napoleon would be proud.
Or, to be more realistic – in war, both sides have successes and failures. And certainly one side has a history of staging photo ops to encourage continued foreign funding. We have to step back to see which way the tide is flowing.
“Using AIM-174B … would be a major enhancement in the Navy’s air combat capabilities and a huge threat to these lumbering enemy aircraft. This would be one key way the U.S. could help counter a portion of China’s looming anti-access infrastructure.”
Are people really that dense? If the DC Swamp has the US Navy shoot down any Chinese aircraft around China’s coasts (thousands of miles from the US), the obvious immediate consequence is that the US would be immediately shut off from all imported Chinese products – including the Chinese components in US missiles. Meanwhile, the shelves at Walmart and most other stores would be rapidly emptied by panic buying.
If the Swamp really wants war, then they need to repeal most regulations, impose sweeping tariffs, and commence re-industrialization. It will only take about 20 years.
The assumption is the balloon has already gone up. China has quite competently created long range anti-ship and anti-air missiles that would keep us out of the theater.
We had no defense because we got rid of long range AA missiles and basically spiked our cannons by building the F-35 whose tiny weapons bays can never have long range capabilities.
“Despite the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that bars the US government agencies from contracting with any entity using Huawei components, the Pentagon is pushing for an exemption from the ban on the Chinese tech giant, with defense officials warning that it could jeopardize national security if not resolved, according to a Bloomberg report on Wednesday. Ironically, the US had used “national security” as an excuse when it imposed the ban on Huawei.”
Any high school graduate could readily identify the problem with making an enemy out of the country which supplies us with critical components for the weapons Our Betters plan to use against that country. Apparently, the graduates of prestigious Ivy League institutions who populate our bureaucracies don’t quite measure up to that high school level.
The sensible approach would instead to be friendly and non-threatening to any country which supplies us with essential components – at least for the two decades of hard work it would take to re-build the lost domestic production capacity.
