• China has won the first round of its contest for control in the South China Sea
    48 replies, posted
Sobotnik is smarter than the whole of China
[QUOTE=JohnFisher89;48586351]Don't think this is much of an issue for anyone except Japan, which won't really do much of anything.[/QUOTE] It's an issue for anyone operating in the Pacific. Read the article.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;48587132]Sobotnik is smarter than the whole of China[/QUOTE] They've literally built these military bases on a bed of sand. Engineers follow the orders of politicians in China, regardless of whenever or not the thing is structurally sound. Trust me, if a 9 meter wave hits that place it's fucked.
New south china?
[QUOTE=jA_cOp;48587167]It's an issue for anyone operating in the Pacific. Read the article.[/QUOTE] yes, it's bad for all people operating there however Japan has been known to do more quarrels with China over that area.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;48587209]They've literally built these military bases on a bed of sand. [B] Engineers follow the orders of politicians in China, regardless of whenever or not the thing is structurally sound.[/B] Trust me, if a 9 meter wave hits that place it's fucked.[/QUOTE] I think politicians just take the decision to go ahead with the project, but I think the construction and planning is done by professionals, not by politicians. It would be ridiculous if that were the case. Either way, if they were built just with sand, it would be a show of force. Like, showing off that if they wanted, they could build them and nobody would stop them- type of thing. But I don't think they'd purposely build the islands with sand. [editline]1st September 2015[/editline] And i think those aussies are right, this is not a one time only thing. It's a step, and more will probably follow. Otherwise they'd just be laughted at if all they did was build sand castles that are washed away by sea.
[QUOTE=download;48585861]They have a combination of being a nuclear weapon state and controlling most manufactured goods in the world. Not much anyone could have done to stop them.[/QUOTE] Launch a nuke. Just one and it can be targeted ANYWHERE in a chinese territory. It doesn't need to be strategic. Weather or not it is shot down before it detonates is irrelevant because you still manage to broadcast a VERY strong message: "Fuck off, China." The rest is just collateral damage which you would of taken anyways simply because you're pushing an economic powerhouse around.
[QUOTE=godfatherk;48587415][b]I think politicians just take the decision to go ahead with the project, but I think the construction and planning is done by professionals, not by politicians. It would be ridiculous if that were the case.[/b] Either way, if they were built just with sand, it would be a show of force. Like, showing off that if they wanted, they could build them and nobody would stop them- type of thing. But I don't think they'd purposely build the islands with sand.[/quote] Of course it's ridiculous, the whole dammed thing is. China has a poor track record of engineering when it comes to megaprojects that are built quickly and for political purposes. To give an example of the ineptitude in such a project, they actively destroying coral reefs through construction. [quote]And i think those aussies are right, this is not a one time only thing. It's a step, and more will probably follow. Otherwise they'd just be laughted at if all they did was build sand castles that are washed away by sea.[/QUOTE] I'm going to laugh at them when it does. These islands aren't built to last. Even things which are much bigger and more substantial have been washed away by the sea in a matter of years.
China spent a while building these, I highly guarantee they knew the problems and have solutions to those problems involving these islands.
[QUOTE=download;48586672]It's illogical on several levels. MAD firstly assumes that any nuclear conflict will either start with strategic weapons or that it will escalate too fast to control to strategic weapons level. Therefore it argues that in the event of any level of nuclear attack, you should escalate immediately to strategic weapons because it will escalate quickly to that level anyway and do as much damage to the enemy as possible economically (a "counter-value" strike) i.e. kill as many people and as much infrastructure as possible. The idea is that by having this as your official policy and by being prepared to carry this out you provide a deterrent to would-be attackers. The problem with that though is that if [I]you are[/I] attacked with nuclear weapons then the deterrent hasn't worked, and if you do deliberately escalate the situation to the strategic weapons targeted as a counter-value strike then you are killing a good 50% of your population (and probably more) and destroying you nation as a country. This is because a counter-value strike leaves the enemy's weapons intact. The nuclear theory that most militaries worked under was known as Nuclear Utilization Target Selection ("NUTS") here in the West. NUTS is multifaceted and had quite a few possible courses of action based on the type of attack but one of the key ideas was that a purely counter-value attack is suicide and that no sane nation would take that course of action as a first strike (as opposed to MAD that argues than [I]any[/I] nuclear attack is suicide). Other key ideas are proportional response such as not responding to tactical weapon use against military targets with strategic force against populations etc, deliberate trying not to move up the "escalation ladder" by keeping tactical weapon use as close to the front-line as possible, not targeting strategic weapons unless you can take them all at once with a high level of success to avoid the "use them or lose them" mentality. Much of these action are called "counter-force" and deal with destroying the enemies ability to conduct nuclear warfare against you. The problem politically with NUTS and why it has never taken off on the political side of things is that firstly it's far more complex than MAD and therefore more difficult to understand for both politicians and the layman, and secondly because it argues that nuclear warfare is survivable as a nation a lot of people think nuclear war is more likely to happen under the doctrine - they simply don't want it to be true. Unfortunately for them sticking your head in the sand doesn't make the problem vanish. The deterrence in NUTS comes from the fact that a limited nuclear war would still be horrific and that casualties would still be measured in the millions. Probably the most highly ranked political proponent of NUTS at the moment would be the United States' own SecDef. He wrote several books on the topic at the tail end of the Cold War.[/QUOTE] It's like DEFCON (the game). You can't just expend all your nuclear missiles at once, you need to send in the Short and Medium range ICBMS (Like submarines or SRBM armed bombers) in first, and wait for the counter-attack to expend what's in your actual silos.
[QUOTE=Pilot1215;48587556]China spent a while building these, I highly guarantee they knew the problems and have solutions to those problems involving these islands.[/QUOTE] That's an empty guarantee, especially since what artificial islands have been made previously have shown in their cases numerous issues and threats. The Palm Islands alone in Dubai are already suffering from the effects of erosion by both the water itself and even the wind, and I'm not even mentioning how they're literally falling apart because of how weak their soil (a combination of sand and rock) has become (because, you know, it's exposed continuously to [i]water[/i]); beyond that, they're vulnerable to both earthquakes and waves (a mere 2-meter swell would be sufficient to overwhelm them). And again, that's the Palm Islands; they're connected to the shoreline and the mainland of what is the Arabian Peninsula. The Spratly Islands that China is trying to construct here are out in the middle of the goddamned sea, not connected to the mainland, and are even more vulnerable as a consequence to the elements of nature. The World Archipeligo which Dubai tried to build literally right next to the Palm Islands in the Persian Gulf isn't connected to the mainland either, and it's a mess-- even when you give Dubai the consideration that yes, they had to halt work on it briefly several years ago because of how expensive the project was-- that's already starting to sink back into the sea, despite ongoing construction efforts. We live in the 21st century, and it's an amazing time for science and engineering, but we're a long way off from managing to terraform and colonize our own world's oceans in this kind of fashion. Not in a practical, cost-efficient sort of way that is. It's dubious that the Chinese can pull this off in a sustainable fashion, let alone go on to convert the area into a gigantic base as they hope to do and cover it in buildings and facilities (again, look at the Palm Islands; they're attached to the mainland, not stuck way out in the middle of the sea, and it was not only a major pain in the ass to install waterlines and to electrify the area, but it's still a major pain in the ass just because of all the maintenance that has to be done because the islands are under a constant barrage of erosion and degradation by nature itself). It's going to be fun to watch them struggle with this. This is a megaproject, and they're complicated as fuck-- even for countries like China. The only thing I'm actually angry about here is how much marine life they've destroyed attempting to do this.
"Mischief Reef" is a fitting name :v:
Are there any pictures of the completed islands? If it's just dredge material with no solid protection it's going to get washed away without constant dredging. That's just simple science. Especially if it's out in the middle of the ocean perched on a tiny reef. There's no barrier reef/structures stopping it from being wiped away in a bad storm. [editline]1st September 2015[/editline] If I was a betting man though, I'd say that they'll probably cover the coasts in blocks like this: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapod_%28structure%29[/url]
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;48587209]They've literally built these military bases on a bed of sand. Engineers follow the orders of politicians in China, regardless of whenever or not the thing is structurally sound. Trust me, if a 9 meter wave hits that place it's fucked.[/QUOTE] hmm, you make a good case but I'm not sure if I believe you or not. Would you be willing to eat your hair if you turn out to be wrong?
[QUOTE=OvB;48592539]Are there any pictures of the completed islands? If it's just dredge material with no solid protection it's going to get washed away without constant dredging. That's just simple science. Especially if it's out in the middle of the ocean perched on a tiny reef. There's no barrier reef/structures stopping it from being wiped away in a bad storm. [editline]1st September 2015[/editline] If I was a betting man though, I'd say that they'll probably cover the coasts in blocks like this: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapod_%28structure%29[/url][/QUOTE] Here: [img]http://i.imgur.com/BYMfTgl.jpg[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/6YksebJ.jpg[/img] It's pretty clear they put in concrete seawalls for erosion control. It's not exactly a challenging engineering task in this day and age.
[QUOTE=download;48592707]Here: [img]http://i.imgur.com/BYMfTgl.jpg[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/6YksebJ.jpg[/img] It's pretty clear they put in concrete seawalls for erosion control. It's not exactly a challenging engineering task in this day and age.[/QUOTE] That looks much better and more stable than the pictures in the OP. Argument was for nothing.
for some reason in this day and age i feel like a US-China conflict would be stupid on an international level first off most of the chinese population literally doesn't care or is in favor of the US, because business is good and not having missiles raining down on you is even better even if there are some anti-american sentiments it's not enough to justify clashing against one another just because we are so interdependent. the same goes for a majority of american citizens, i sincerely doubt there's very many people who'd want to go off and wage a war against an economic superpower. it'd be a pyrrhic victory at best, waged over national pride
[QUOTE=aznz888;48592992]for some reason in this day and age i feel like a US-China conflict would be stupid on an international level first off most of the chinese population literally doesn't care or is in favor of the US, because business is good and not having missiles raining down on you is even better even if there are some anti-american sentiments it's not enough to justify clashing against one another just because we are so interdependent. the same goes for a majority of american citizens, i sincerely doubt there's very many people who'd want to go off and wage a war against an economic superpower. it'd be a pyrrhic victory at best, waged over national pride[/QUOTE] As long as things ranging from forks to Apple phones are made in China USA can't do shit. And as long as China's biggest market is the USA, China also can't do shit. It's not like with USA and USSR where they were two completely different planets. They can ignore themselves or talk about it and that is it.
[QUOTE=JohnFisher89;48587262]yes, it's bad for all people operating there however Japan has been known to do more quarrels with China over that area.[/QUOTE] You're thinking of the [i]East[/i] China Sea.
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