Had Russia's invasion of Ukraine not turned into a complete clusterfuck, do you think China would have invaded Taiwan?

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

Yes

No

[jshm2]

Don't be silly,

This benefits China as it can now sell weapons and resources at higher prices. Plus the West has less weapons to point at China or Iran, as it's selling them for use against Russia.

The West has shot itself in the foot as it was hoping Russia would be buried by now.

Make no mistake, this is Russia vs the West, via Ukraine. Calling it "the Russian invasion of Ukraine" is like saying The West is not the proxy, arms dealer, and war monger in the situation.

[Soteris]

Wow.. you dont know how this works at all do you?

First of all, China is furious at Russia and this can easily be seen in how China is no longer supporting Russia outside of just abusing their relationship for personal benefit and also no longer votes alongside Russia on important votes.

Also, this will result in the "west" having MORE weapons, not less. The weapons sent to Ukraine has generally been old stockpiles waiting for decommission and the resulting investments into new weapons has massively increased new production as well as allowed us to refine them and develop better tactics. Pretty much every NATO country is already scaling up their own military and boosting its spending to replace old weapons with modern ones.

The longer the conflict in Ukraine will be the larger the arms manufacturing in NATO will become and the more weapons the NATO countries will order for their own units. As the saying goes, there is no business quite like war.

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

If this was the West versus Russia the convoy stuck outside Kiev for 8 days would be the highway of death 2.0 and Russia's trench works would have bee turned into mass graves (look up the Bulldozer Assault).

[richardcory]

I think China is smart enough to realize that even if they win, an invasion of Taiwan will leave them in charge of a devastated and rebellious region, not the economic power it is now. I think they will still try to absorb Taiwan economically.

But the current Chinese leadership isn't very smart, so they might do something stupid

[PeanutbutterAnd]

The Dems gave the green light to the Ukrainian invasion. Where did the money go?

[Adam1978]

The odds would have been higher almost certain if west hadn't involved itself with Ukraine. It's not only about their bad performance. Which I think china also would be performing. Their soldiers are mostly holding parades. Not do tactical combat simulations.

[Avicenna]

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan is much more likely after the US has run down the supplies of some critical military equipment in helping Ukraine and has shown it has bad, compromised "leadership".

It's fallacious to conflate Taiwan and Ukraine- the latter is primarily a ground war with a neighboring country whereas the former would primarily be naval and air.

[Soteris]

This is propaganda. USA has not actually depleted their own supplies to any meaningful degree outside of certain weapons which they no longer have a doctrinal use for and as such is just leftover equipment without a replacement.

For example is USAs tiny amount of artillery compared to countries such as Russia. Why? Because the current American doctrine does not really use ground based artillery anymore. There is some room for rocket based artillery such as the HIMARS but even that is limited. USA instead relies on air power as their platform to carry bombs and missiles which means USA can send pretty much all their m777 to Ukraine without worrying too much about replacing them.

Its also worth pointing out that when USA says they are experiencing a "critical shortage" of something, that just means they only have enough to destroy China a few times over and it is time to stock up again. It is a normal part of resupplying and the only thing different right now is that it happened sooner, not that it is a more acute shortage.

[Avicenna]

@Soteris: Propaganda? LMAO.

www.businessinsider.com/us-munitions-stockpile-low-weaponry-sent-ukraine-russia-war-2022-8

And the US still hasn't delivered $19 billion (IIRC) worth of weapons that Taiwan has already paid for.

[Soteris]

Yes, Propaganda. The weapons which are going to Ukraine is not the ones Taiwan is waiting for. They are not related to each other. I mean, the things Taiwan wants is anti ship missiles and such, not m777 howitzers and old Bradleys.

[Avicenna]

@Soteris: While your claim is not entirely wrong regarding the age and quality of some weapons going to Ukraine, your overall claim is obviously incorrect. The fact that other weapons systems have not been delivered to Taiwan indicates a lack of industrial base to produce enough weapons. And that is the larger point.

[Soteris]

Its not a lack of industrial base, its corporate fuckery and others, more specifically the US military getting first dibs on new production. This backlog also started long before Russia invaded Ukraine which is not particularly surprising since the defense industry is notorious for fucking things up for various reasons.

Point is that USA itself does NOT suffer any actual critical shortages in stocks and those it has "depleted" is still more than the military actually needs with the replacements just rebuilding the buffer of what they expect to use during training and such things without dipping into what USA keeps in stockpile for in case of war.

[Avicenna]

@Soteris: What you're claiming is at odds with what has been reported, which cites military sources. But, as usual, you're also talking out of both sides of your mouth.

A larger number of factories involved in production would prevent shortages or drops in inventory- that's the point about "industrial base". Keep in mind that the US military needs to be prepared to fight two wars at once, and that the Taiwanese defense forces don't fully arm themselves, meaning a shortage of weapons due to Ukraine affects them as well.

[Soteris]

The military is not a credible source my dude. If you are just limiting yourself to "military sources" then you can construct whatever story you want and then find an idiot in the military infrastructure who is willing to collaborate your views. It is not an institution that functions on being truthful or even particularly competent outside (arguably) of their specialty which is fighting a war.

Also you obviously have NO idea how military procurement works. The military industry dont just have free factories sitting around waiting for orders so that they can be retooled and started up. They are private businesses, they close down and decommission industry that is not actively in use. They rather take longer manufacturing orders than have spare industry capacity just wasting money.

This in turn is made worse by the fact that militaries dont generally need to order the same item year after year after year which means that every few years when the military makes a new order it becomes a bulk order intended to last many years followed by that many years of no further purchases and the company has to figure out what to do to continue earning money.

[Soteris]

Militaries like the USA sometimes solves this by literally putting in orders for equipment they DONT WANT year after year just so that the company in question can continue to produce it and be ready in case there comes a time when USA wants a lot of that something very quickly.

Because of all of this nonsense, and how corporations are more focused on making a profit rather than protect the country or whatever, the industry will constantly produce military equipment SLOWER than they need to make sure that they never over invest into something that will not make them money.

Also the Taiwan backlog existed since 2021 where as the Ukraine invasion started in 2022. They are not related. Ukraine and Taiwan is also drawing on different weapons and neither of them threatens USAs ability to fight a war against their two biggest rivals because USA has always considered their stockpiles reaching critical levels long before they start eating up the equipment put aside for this specific scenario. That equipment is still there and USA is not going to give that to anyone.

Stop talking on topics you dont understand. It is embarrassing for the both of us.

[Soteris]

Maybe, but probably not. China is upset at Russia because they ruined their chances at Taiwan, not because they stopped an actual plan to do so. China was still far away from having a realistic way to achieve a conquest of Taiwan and they know it.

[ibodi]

Yes those taiwanese who want to be independent are now found sucked still as your impression about China.

If they don't keep promise. I think it is like what westerners do

[OddBeMe]

Good Q. They are prob looking at the world’s support of Ukraine and like, “Nope, that could've been us…”

[WalnutButter]

No, Biden wanted this.