This what most "why Americans have no healthcare" proponents not realizing. 11 carriers a pittance in terms of sortie generation. ~80% CENTCOM strikes was from now degraded land basing. 3 carriers = ~20% of total fires... ~10% when pushed to standoff range and have to spare sorites for tanking + cap... ~5% when tanking from land basing disrupted. >5% because original ~20% assumes unsustainable high tempo operations. If US waves magic wand and somehow got 11 carriers doing standoff strikes on Iran tier threat, that's ~10% of CENTCOM land strike generation. Iran degrading regional land basing and pushing CSGs to standoff in Arabian Sea basically broke CENTCOM logistics posture in ways that compound. NVM global (not just theatre) stockpile of highend munitions and interceptors would likely be gone before dismantling Iranian ghetto regional strike complex... who could also reconstitute faster. TLDR even if US could, 11 carrier are likely not enough.
Great points I think. And even more poignant when you realize that this is basically the only game in town. No other country or combined group of countries has the ability to even attempt what the United States is doing. So without the US, well, you don't really have a way to stop Iran if they decided to get a nuclear bomb or close the Strait pending tribute.
There's ongoing geopolitical undersea cable war between US trying to kill PRC undersea / digital silkroad projects for years, it be interesting asymmetric warfare for PRC to support Iran crippling western cables powering western data centers OR building up some leverage so regional data centers has to go through some % of Chinese pipes. TBH one of the easiest way to effectively undermine US compute / ecosystem advantage is to normalize splinternet and reduce network effects (and no spacex / megaconstellation won't have bandwidth to replace). The premise of 100s of billions to buy US hardware to support/integrate into US ecosystem breaks if the literal physical link breaks. And not many regions out there with 100s of billions of surplus burn on US hardware. Iran knows whats up. Don't get me wrong, everyone loses from cutting cables, but some lose much more. That said, I can see a future of siloed sovereign internet, where regional cables are constantly degraded.
Latest Chinese pro/industrial handtools from DongCheng (DCK in west) basically on par with topshelf like Makita in performance and feel for 50% the price. They've closed gap. Probably one of those sectors where legacy brands are on their way out. Tools are getting better and cheaper but obfuscated behind market segmentation in different regions.
Pseudo related is I really enjoy well designed lifestyle DIY tool brands like HOTO, started with slick electric screw drivers for building PCs, and now pretty DIY kits that's nice to look at on small projects.
So what happens to the stuff after, I presume the embassy picks it up for processing, or it gets forwarded to US on another flight for processing, presumably some Chinese janitor is not going to have access to Rubios burner phone to resell.
But we already know US doesn't, the AI competition is largely Chinese talent vs Chinese talent that the Chinese gov allows to work in west, which they control plurality of global AI talent pipeline, and can cut off at any time, like the reverse has already happened for western semi talent in PRC. Leverage applies to many other sectors.
Simple law of large numbers, i.e. generating comparable STEM than RoW combined = the best talent going forward is some Chinese... with little English fluency. English fluency deprioritized from mandatory a few years ago in PRC, the smartest kids with access to most modern corpus of research in most productive academic system is going to be locked behind mandarin in future.
Western models are not getting better vs massive compute difference predicted during period where compute gap vs PRC is expanding. And better in what which ways? There's entire industrial sectors US models can't get better in va PRC for the simple reasons the industrial chains do not exist in US (or at scale in west as whole). Throwing $$$ at half the problem... is severe misallocation, but the group think in the $$$ group probably feels like everything is peak because muh valuations and fomo investments while digital companies figure out how to integrate AI to write better newsletters, meanwhile some PRC dark factory goes brrrrt. A little hyperbolic, but you get the point.
I think something to be said that PRC can cut off talent pipeline to US AI at anytime, but hasn't... nor losing shit over AGI threat complex. They see absurd amount of $$$ being dumped into western AI and ask themselves, why stop this hyper financialized capital bonfire.
My feeling is people in west extrapolate asian within group variations into whole. Rich international students who invest in western degrees as pay-to-win not representative / sampling bias vs whole. Reality is international students pay for degree, university accommodates, lack of language proficiency = they'll visibly "cheat" more (i.e. patch writing) to get what's theirs, but those conditions to specific subculture/cohort. Broad statistically show western institutions has like 15-50% plagiarism/cheating rates, most of which just get swept under rug because academic misconduct not elevated officially to keep misconduct stats at ~1%. For reference PRC plagiarism data (CNKI / big data audit used to sweep through tertiary thesis) was like ~10%.
I suppose one conclusion is academically inclined East Asians cheat less in aggregate... because broadly you can't cheat national examinations (yes there are very elaborate cheating rings, but this should only reinforce it's not easy / trivial). The ones who buys academic performance, i.e. dummies who can't hack PRC tertiary and has to go western tertiary (including Ivys) cheat more than baseline. But broadly west cheats more... but institutions minimize misconduct stats because incentivized to cover/underreport/juke stats to protect brand.
I like the almost lego arm attachment, I enjoy the thought that in future, some kid is bolting 4 junk yard arms to a scrap roll cage to build a quadruped menace.
Iran extracting Hormuz tax rounding error on prewar $60 barrels vs current $100 war premium. Paying Iran what they ask is pocket change.
The geopolitical reality is US gets disproportionately fucked if OPEC+ doesn't have to care about US regional US security umbrella leverage... forced to cooperate with Iran, GCC countries and Iran can price US shale out of export market while saving 100s of billions per year on not buying US services/hardware (which potentially drops their fiscal breakeven per barrel below US shale). Iran can increase toll 500%, i.e. $50 barrel + $5 Iran tip and every sane global actor would still choose MENA oil who can push prices and supplies that bankrupt US+VZ+CA oil network, if only out of cathartic lulz.
This is the real strategic dilemma, US protection racket leverage is what incentivizes GCC producers to price barrels that allow US shale to survive, and recycle 100s of billions of petro dollar into US hardware and services. If US unable protect i.e. US doesn't have capabilities to prevent Iran from glass GCC infra and US doesn't have capacities to survive forward basing as security provider, then that leverage gone. Now obviously US won't let shale go bankrupt, but CONUS energy would simply become another subsidy/burden item.
Better to preserve the illusion of military hegemony than to stalemate against tier2 power and remove all doubt. - Mr Rogers, probably. At least Kagan losing some sleep.
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