Pentagon: China Preparing Taiwan Attack

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CaptainChewbacca
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Post by CaptainChewbacca »

MKSheppard wrote:
Posbi wrote:Actually, the number of Chinese ICBMs is a bit above that number, Mike. It's close to 150, with the entire nuclear arsenal numbering about 600 warheads.
*runs over Posbi with 79 chevy*

The actual number that can HIT the US is only 30~ or so...we'd win easily
in a nuclear exchange :P
Speaking as a Californian, I've gotta say I don't count that a win. Detonate 30 ICBMs on the west coast of America and you've got fallout spreading all the way to Omaha. Plus, your agriculture goes down the crapper, along with any pacific defenses against further Chinese aggression.

We wouldn't loose, but we sure as hell wouldn't win.
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Post by Sea Skimmer »

CaptainChewbacca wrote:
Speaking as a Californian, I've gotta say I don't count that a win. Detonate 30 ICBMs on the west coast of America and you've got fallout spreading all the way to Omaha. Plus, your agriculture goes down the crapper, along with any pacific defenses against further Chinese aggression.

We wouldn't loose, but we sure as hell wouldn't win.
Except they'd be airbursted for maximum effect aginst cities, and thus produce almost no fallout at all. Well, there might be one or two groundbursts to kill naval bases but that's it.
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Post by Nova Andromeda »

--I should point out that the U.S.S.R. and China used nuclear testing to spread radiation throughout each other's boarder province. Large areas of Xingian in China are a radioactive wasteland. You can bet that China will use its nukes in the dirtiest manner possible.
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Post by Howedar »

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: Are you smoking a bong today Posbi? Try to remember the damage your country took after WWII--cumulatively vastly worse than that doled out from a hundred atomic bombs, easily--and how quickly Germany was restored into an economic power.
Little nitpick: that rebuilding effort was greatly assisted by another large economic power. Germany didn't rebuild alone.
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Post by TrailerParkJawa »

I only live 3-5 miles in a straight line from Onizuka Air Station aka "The Blue Cube" in a big exchange it would most like be ground zero, hence Im in a world of hurt.
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Post by Bob McDob »

Mmm, I live in Hawaii which is Target Numero Uno for every East Asian country and tinfoil dictator, but I'm oddly unconcerned about it all ...
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Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

TrailerParkJawa wrote:I only live 3-5 miles in a straight line from Onizuka Air Station aka "The Blue Cube" in a big exchange it would most like be ground zero, hence Im in a world of hurt.
Do you have any windows facing the base? And what colour is your house painted? At five miles these factors could affect your chances for survival. Better yet: Do you have a basement?
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Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Howedar wrote:Little nitpick: that rebuilding effort was greatly assisted by another large economic power. Germany didn't rebuild alone.
One grants; but the whole of Germany was ruined in that case. Why couldn't we rebuild our own plastered west coast?
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Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Axis Kast wrote:I'm not so certain an American president would authorize anything more than retalatory strikes in kind - i.e. against similarly tactical military targets in China. I doubt the growth of the conflict into an inter-continental war.
We would have to destroy their nuclear capability if they employed nuclear weapons against us, and the Chinese would pretty much know that, so I suspect if they were in a situation where they felt they had to do it, they'd launch everything.
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Post by Pu-239 »

MKSheppard wrote:
Nova Andromeda wrote: As several members seem to be advocating here [cough]MKSheppard[/cough] the primary reason for using nukes against China in the advent of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be to ensure that Ca. is nuked into the stone age. This would have numerous benefits in their eyes such as ensuring the current hardcore right wing trend in the U.S. remains on track, getting rid of those annoying liberals, circumventing the nuclear test ban treaty, etc.
Thats a side bonus, but remember that I live 20 miles from the biggest
primary target of them all - Washington DC, so in case this nuke exchange
goes global, I'm fucked six ways to sunday.
:? I'm slightly closer- 29 klicks or ~15 miles, but to the SW.
Used to live closer in Springfield.

Calc was done on this map.
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but my actual location since I'm so lazy is:
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which leaves me a mile or so closer.
Of course their is the fact that I live less than a mile to Ft. Belvoir... Is that a very important military installation?

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Post by Pu-239 »

Shit, the water supply would be fucked too. Well I guess that's what bottled water is for.

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Post by Hasler »

You forget one thing when you talk about an economic colapse. The market will most likely take an intial hit, but think of all the extra jobs and manufacturing that will fall to the US after.

1. you have to rebuild the cities. This will drop massive amounts of mony into construction steel textiles etc.

2. The void left by chinas demise will have to be filled. The US is only running at 72% industrial capacity right now and we would easily shift back into the china's former markets faster than most other countries and the fact that the US' industrial core is uneffected it will be able to expand further.
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Post by Howedar »

Industrial core unaffected? We would lose millions of workers and a good deal of factories.
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Post by Hasler »

the industrial core of the US is not located on the west coast. Most is on the eastern seaboard and the great lakes.
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Post by Alex Moon »

Hasler wrote:You forget one thing when you talk about an economic colapse. The market will most likely take an intial hit, but think of all the extra jobs and manufacturing that will fall to the US after.

1. you have to rebuild the cities. This will drop massive amounts of mony into construction steel textiles etc.
Money which could have been spent on expanding businesses in other ways if those cities hadn't been destroyed. It's like saying that I can improve the economy by going around and breaking windows. Sure, people will pay to have their windows repaired, but that only brings the economy back up to where it was before. If I hadn't broken those windows, that money could have been invested elsewhere, still helped provide jobs, and everyone would be better off.

Plus, you are looking at trillions of dollars in lost assets. Where are you going to find money if you don't have any assets to put up for a loan?
2. The void left by chinas demise will have to be filled. The US is only running at 72% industrial capacity right now and we would easily shift back into the china's former markets faster than most other countries and the fact that the US' industrial core is uneffected it will be able to expand further.
Any nuclear war with China will probably end up as a World War in Asia, and as such draw in India, Japan, Korea, Russia and most of Europe through NATO. That means trillions of dollars in Government spending, and thus higher taxes and less private investment. Crippling debt isn't fun, especially when you're trying to rebuild.
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Post by Hasler »

A world war that knocks Japan and SK out will benifit the US's even more. Their infrastructure will be totall decimated while ours will be slightly damaged. The UIS will pick up all markets lost by them.

I was refeing to the fact that the extra construction will help pick back up the economy by generating jobs and business.
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Post by Alex Moon »

Hasler wrote:A world war that knocks Japan and SK out will benifit the US's even more. Their infrastructure will be totall decimated while ours will be slightly damaged. The UIS will pick up all markets lost by them.
What markets? China won't be buying anything, nor india for that matter. Asia will be pretty much gone, and the rest of the developed world will be so economically ruined that they won't be able to afford American goods.
I was refeing to the fact that the extra construction will help pick back up the economy by generating jobs and business.
Any capital used to rebuild would be better used expanding the economy without a major war. It doesn't matter that your GDP is growing by 3% a year if you lose 35% of it to a nuclear war.
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Post by Hasler »

Well lets see china and japan do a large amount of buisness with the US if their business alls of us companies move back into that market. Europe buys alot of Asian goods also another source for the US to take.

The hit will end up leading to a much larger gain.
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Post by Sea Skimmer »

Pu-239 wrote:
Of course their is the fact that I live less than a mile to Ft. Belvoir... Is that a very important military installation?
Yes, it holds the offices to an number of branches and has a lot of important officers in that don't fit in the Pentagon. The Chinese wouldn't drop a nuke on it. But the Russians would.
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Post by Grand Moff Yenchin »

Bob McDob wrote:
Aren't most of the Taiwanese moving to mainland China?
Actually not. Some businesses move there for the cheap laborers, the "out-province people" go there and usually find a very poor place and treated as "Taiwanese" so they come back to Taiwan. Only some politicians seem to have a good time with Beijing, though they still stay in Taiwan sucking all benefits they could get.
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Post by Alex Moon »

Hasler wrote:Well lets see china and japan do a large amount of buisness with the US if their business alls of us companies move back into that market. Europe buys alot of Asian goods also another source for the US to take.
China forces down prices on goods big time. If U.S. companies were to take over the marketplace, they would have to raise prices on these goods in order to succeed. Furthermore, the loss of most of our pacific ports would cause worldwide disruptions in shipping of goods and raw materials, and would force prices to go even higher. Basic economics shows that higher prices equals lower demand, and forces firms out of business.

Europe already faces bugetary problems (ie France and Germany) and needs solid economic growth in 2003 and 04. Any war between the US and China will disrupt trade, driving down revenues from European companies, force the EU to spend more in support of the US war (Darn NATO treaty) as well as scare away investors worldwide. As said before, loosing all assets your company currently has in Asia isn't going to help the bottom line, and these days everyone has assets in Asia, or Asia has assets in them.
The hit will end up leading to a much larger gain.
Bullshit. It's in the U.S. best interest to see free trade with expanding economies overseas, since that allows us open markets for our goods and services, and offers our consumers lower prices as well. Furthermore, China's policy of propping up mismanaged state-run firms will eventually leave those firms open to being picked up cheap by US companies, allowing us access to over a billion consumers.
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Post by CaptainChewbacca »

I'm guessing Hassler never took a class on economics.

Tell you what. Open a business, like a restraunt, and then I'll raze the city for a mile in every direction and we'll see how much your business picks up.
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Post by MKSheppard »

CaptainChewbacca wrote:I'm guessing Hassler never took a class on economics.
:roll:

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He's talking about the economic effects of having to rebuild a large urban
area.......can you imagine the construction contracts being let? Shit, If
I landed only a single contract for rebuilding Los Angeles, I'd be set for
life!
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Post by apocolypse »

Actually, I just thought about this while reading the posts. If LA was nuked, and the harbor was damaged, wouldn't that fubar the economy pretty hard? When the dockworkers went on strike last year, they said it cost the economy about 1 billion a day. LA/Long Beach harbor has more goods and cargo flowing through it than any other one in the US.
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Post by Worlds Spanner »

MKSheppard wrote:
Posbi wrote: You don't get it, Mike, do ya? ONE nuke is enough to ruin you, enough to send the global markets, lead by the US economy down the gutter.
I think you're underestimating the resilence of the US market. Insurance
losses would probably ruin the insurance industry, unless they've all
put in that clause that gets them out in case of a nuclear exchange.
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