Asked by @AP's @AJJaffe on China's space nukes, Jen Psaki says she won't be "comment[ing] on the specific report," but claims the U.S. "welcome[s] stiff competition" from China though they "do not want that competition to veer into conflict." pic.twitter.com/qERh76FmGp
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 18, 2021
We will never field a hypersonic weapon like the Chinese have.
We have no one to field it against.
Our hypersonic program is a make work job for a fat, bloated, inefficient, and corrupt military individual complex.
First of all, you need to understand our elites.
They are not Socialists or Communists or have anything like that.
They believe on two things: money and power.
Whatever gives them the most money and power, they do. That’s it.
It’s greedy nihilism.
The Chinese are ideologically driven. They are Communists and ethno-supremacists.
They want Chinese hegemonic domination.
They have taken full advantage of the greedy nihilism of our elites.
They have strategically defeated us by making our elites obscenely wealthy.
Every outsourced job, shutdown American factory, and overseas manufactured product that made some CEO or holding company executive richer was a victory for them.
So who are we going to launch hypersonic missiles at?
China?
Never, our elites will never launch missiles at their cash cow.
Iran?
It’s backed by China for oil resources.
Russia?
Also strategically partnered with China for natural resources.
There is nobody worth shooting hypersonics at that wouldn’t be our elites shooting themselves financially in the foot.
In the end, the “stiff competition” is merely justification for a hypersonics budget for Lockheed and Raytheon.
In the end, it’s the American and Taiwanese people who lose.
And that assumes you believe China’s hype.
Ever hear of ‘cha bu duo’? Translates to ‘eh, good enough’ (roughly speaking).
It’s the bane of every business that tries to source stuff from China.
My late sister in law often referred to products as “CCC” — “cheap China crap”.
“Chinesium” is a word thrown around a lot.
“Stiff competition” is for businesses.
“Welcom[ing] stiff competition” in military matters with a rival superpower — in essence, wanting our adversaries to become stronger or ourselves to become weaker — borders on treasonous.
When it comes to national defense, nothing short of absolute superiority is acceptable. There’s no “equity” on the battlefield. Try that against a nation whose population outnumbers ours 3-to-1, see who’s left standing.
Leave competition where it belongs: in the financial/economic sector.
Toast: wonder if that approach works for PLA contractors?
Or if Kalishnikov ammo is cheap enough to….encourage…. them to exercise a bit of quality control?
Well, it wasn’t enough to generate good QA back in the Soviet Union, so I’m not exactly convinced it’s enough in China.
I mean, I’m not downplaying China overall as a threat. But communism doesn’t breed innovation. Hell, they’ve spent 40 years stealing tech from everyone (including us) and they’re still working to catch up in some respects.
Toast – I remember seeing stories from the ’30s about Japan only being able to copy things made in the West. Some truth, but only slightly. Look at the Chinese names associated with discoveries/breakthroughs in the US. Then look at the Chinese espionage system (even if a researcher is not “loyal” to the CCP, their family back in China can still be threatened). They may have stolen ideas & techniques, but every country who can, does. The US is much less likely to get ideas out of China. Bottom line: just because they steal doesn’t mean that they can’t also originate.
Problem is, when the Cultural Revolution 2.0 kicks off, the actually innovative people in China will be the first to get the chop, just like during the first Cultural revolution. Or consider how many innovators were arrested or killed as Wreckers during Stalin’s purges?
Communism has a hard time innovating organically, because innovation requires freedom- the freedom to ask questions, to take risk, to profit from ideas, to go against dogma.
Post WWII Japan became successful because they weren’t tied to any ideology, and they had the freedom to actually innovate.
Joe, you are probably correct about a lot of research in China coming to a halt, but with the number of military/”ex-military”/vulnerable, etc researchers in the US, it is almost like we are funding their research. I guess I’m cautioning against underestimating and dismissing them. A real question is: is what they provide to their own gov’t (which can be quite draconian in punishment) the same level of QA (i.e. “junk”) as what they provide to the rest of the world?
Even then, stealing research means that they are always a few steps or more behind, because there’s only so much info even the most highly placed assets can pass on. The one scientist may have the plans, but the people in production found that they needed to make certain changes for it to actually work- and that info didn’t make it back to the asset.
It’s interesting that Igor Kurchatov was very adamant that the Soviets not rely too much on Fuch’s stolen information about atomic bomb research, and that they needed to develop their own theoretical base & research, lest they fall behind.
Toast, true indeed. It is generally forgotten now and it was quite a while ago, but Huawei got its start by stealing Cisco networking devices, hardware and software, mistakes and all. That’s how they were caught — they copied the software and it was revealed they had an obscure bug, exactly as the Cisco original did, which was impossible to explain as the result of independently implementing that feature.
I had a Norinco AK that was absolute rubbish. If there was a possible jam, it did it, and on every single mag.
The Romak sidefolder, on the other hand, just plain ran.
Theoretically, “build good stuff or we shoot you” looks like it should be an effective motivator… but it never ever really seems to work out that way.
Even the Nazi production guys got pissed at the SS overseers for shooting their trained slave workers, and advocated “performance feeding” instead, because it worked better.
In a less extreme case, the Soviet Union shows that if the threat is too great, then the supervisors just lie about the results, and cover up the problems.
Communism always brings tons of unintended consequences and perverse incentives, even for their armies.
This is what you get when you allow domestic terrorists to sit in the White House and do pay-for-play with foreign governments.
“Stiff competition”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is a traitor with the PLA on speed dial, I don’t think there will be any competition.