Comment by SiempreViernes
3 months ago
> Just that the political calculus is that it's better for China to spend their resources on that, rather than building up troops and warships.
Note that this calculus only makes sense if you invade China while they are busy with the EUV machines, otherwise they catch up technologically and then build all the scary military.
Of course, the the calculus doesn't make sense at all, because the obvious order when you can't do both is you build enough military to feel safe first, then you try for the tech race.
Their plan was to buy those chips and equipment and have the troops/ships/weapons sooner.
Now China has to build EUV themselves, then mass produce chips. It slows them down regardless and costs them resources.
Cut off the market before it becomes a problem.
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Militarily, delaying China into 2040s after the USA has stealth destroyers of our own (beginning production in late 2020s, mass production in the 2030s) means China has to fight vs 2030s era tech instead of our 1980s era Arleigh Burke DDGs.
What, do you want to have the fight in late 2020s or would you rather have the war in late 2030s? There is a huge difference and USAs production schedule cannot change. But we can change Chinas production schedule.
> the obvious order when you can't do both is you build enough military to feel safe first, then you try for the tech race
Literally zero actual wars with a technological component have progressed like this. (The first tradeoff to be made is the one Russia is making: sacrificing consumption for military production and research. Guns and butter.)
That's not true. Mass/quantity can still resist/delay/push back until you're exhausted and done.
We're not anymore in the swords vs guns era. We're talking about hypersonic missiles vs super intelligent hypersonic missiles. Still, all it takes is 1 dumb missile to pass through the defenses and an entire city can be wiped off. At the end of the day, they don't care if a missiles didn't reach the precise target. As you can see in Ukraine, Russia is bombing all types of buildings, they don't give a damn about schools, kindergarten or so.
The tech component is not everything.
> We're not anymore in the swords vs guns era. We're talking about hypersonic missiles vs super intelligent hypersonic missiles
These are still hypotheticals. Every war since the Civil War has had a decisive technological component. If the model doesn't apply there, this time probably ain't different.
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