Air Force announces major shakeup to prep for war with China | Hacker News Reader

Air Force announces major shakeup to prep for war with China

defenseone.com

14 pointsjseliger18 comments

No reasonable citizen anywhere in the world wants WW3. It's irresponsible to talk about this like it's some sport.

There's an old saying, "Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum" - "Therefore who desires peace, prepares for war."

very irresponsible. There is no way to prepare for such a war. It doesn't matter how wonderful our ship-building ports are--if we had a war with China, life would not be worth living anywhere in the world for tens of thousands of years.

How about instead of saber rattling, we all start making boatloads of money together like we've done for the past 25 years? Only on an even larger, AI-turbocharged scale.

It's up to Xi: he can choose not to invade Taiwan, or commit other acts of war like a blockade. I don't have his phone number, or I'd encourage him not to start a war.

If a blockade is an act of war, does that mean Israel declared war on Gaza in 2007?

Yes, but it's well known that Israel gets away with it because US backing. Just take a look at the UN resolutions for a cease fire.

I don't think anyone in Israel or the wider Arab world would tell you they havent been at war in Gaza since like the 40s. Come on, do better.

No one is talking about it like it's a sport. If anything you need to expand your vocabulary so that you do not suffer these ossifying 1-to-1 associations that limit your understanding in such a way. As you eagerly complain, it could be fatal.

> Always two there are, no more, no less. — Y

The last war in the Pacific was won in the shipyards of the US. We basically buried Japan in steel. Since then ship building has left the US and moved to ... China. The US Air Force should plan to operate their assets at very long range.

> The US Air Force should plan to operate their assets at very long range.

The future is arguably orbital and ballistic, not subsonic.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-pentagon-military-miss...

Relevant: https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-shipyards-are-ready-f...

> We basically buried Japan in steel

Not entirely correct. We basically won the war at Guadalcanal, way before the war time production kicked in. At that point, the US was fighting a two-ocean war, and Japan had numerical superiority in the Pacific. Despite that, the US managed to win a close call at Coral Sea, a major victory at Midway, and then dominated on land on Guadalcanal and won an attritional naval contest there too. The US would have won the Pacific war even without all the Essex-class carriers and all the new stuff that came after mid-43.

The US Navy was simply a much better fighting force than the Imperial Japanese Navy.

However after the publication of the (otherwise phenomenal) Shattered Sword, the popular impression has been that Midway was not that consequential, and the US owed the Pacific victory to its industrial might. I think this is an unfortunate and unwarranted conclusion.

A really shockingly bad way to editorialise "the air force is changing force preparedness"

Prepping is good. It is not specific to any economy, there is no economy-specific doctrine worth a damn. No plan survives the first landing craft &c &c

Meanwhile, the US Navy's V-22 tiltrotor aircraft have been found to be "not operationally suitable", citing ongoing problems with de-icing systems and maintenance to flight-hour ratios exceeding 45%.

Having retired its C-2 carrier-rated cargo aircraft, the grounding of the V-22 fleet is particularly painful.

PDF report summary: https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2023/navy/...

Osprey has been a death trap for decades unfortunately.

What's the plan for avoiding the war with China?

None.

Didn't you know that 'we is exceptional!'.

The Greeks had a couple of words for that: hubris and nemesis.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com