Nope. Link is spot on.
Quibbles, IMO:
1. The risk of US defection under Trump or similar is greater than the risk of PRC aggression.
2. The US will not field its projected counter-PRC capabilities by c.2030, as OP says; it will never field them at all. The US has lost the ability to field anything significant in peacetime.

I agree with Mossy's 1.1. Or at least, the risk of PRC aggression given no US defection is certainly smaller than the risk of US defection. (With US defection, it gets quite large, no? Do we have any reason to think Trump would risk things for Taiwan?)

Don't worry: we always show up in the end, ready to be big damn heroes. But your continent may be in ruins by the time we get there. (Some restrictions apply. Deal not valid for Kurds or any Muslim ethnic minorities.)

The military lobby here has started making noise that while the UK probably doesn't need conscription, it needs to drastically increase the size of its voluntary military. The Defence Secretary said we've moved "from a post-war to a pre-war world."

I'm going to outsource my comment to Dan Davies:"why are we talking about Russia, a country which is visibly incapable of conquering Ukraine, launching a simultaneous war against Germany, France, Italy and the UK?"

Do we have any reason to think Trump would risk things for Taiwan?

His recent interview gave a pretty strong signal that he would not.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-taiwan-remarks-spark-fury-concern-1862602

The link makes a lot of sense. I'd also add that Europe needs to get more serious about readiness - the delta between "number of tanks I own" and "number of tanks I own that are in operational condition" will always be significant, but it is at present way higher than it needs to be. Long-range artillery. Anti-aircraft systems. 155mm shells. 155mm barrels. Repair and maintenance units. Spare parts. Drones in vast quantities. Loitering munitions. Recruitment and retention.
Maybe even a rocket artillery division or two? https://wavellroom.com/2022/02/23/rise-of-the-rocket-launcher/

I am less worried about an actual invasion of Taiwan - crossing 110km of stormy water to throw my untested troops onto a beach that has been registered by artillery for seventy years just doesn't sound like fun. The window of 2026-28 just seems far too close. Really? In 28 months, the ramps go down and the PLA storms ashore?

The US will not field its projected counter-PRC capabilities by c.2030, as OP says; it will never field them at all. The US has lost the ability to field anything significant in peacetime.

I'm not sure what this is trying to say. Are you arguing that Raider will never reach IOC? Why won't these projects get fielded? The US has fielded Ford-class CVN in peacetime.

3 I'm not clicking through, but if Trump is elected the situation in Ukraine could certainly change.

3: It seems strawmanning to gloss the risk presented as for Russia to invade every major country in Western Europe. The vast majority of the article is about the need to supply Ukraine with what it needs to resist Russia when the US is halting support for an indeterminate time. And I can't imagine anyone thinks it would be good for European collective security for Ukraine to fall and Russia with a much enlarged military industrial base to cast its eye to others near its borders of influence.

Yes, it says:

...the only likely scenario in which Russia might directly attack a European NATO country is during a concurrent standoff or actual conflict that leaves US forces largely fixed in the Indo-Pacific. In the event of such a military confrontation with China in the mid-to-late 2020s, Russia will have a strong incentive to take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break NATO while the US cannot reinforce Europe effectively.

Presumably it's talking about NATO in eastern Europe - the Baltics, maybe Poland or Romania, etc.

And yes, officially invading any NATO member is tantamount to invading them all. But that comes back to the very point of the article, that if the US's hands are tied and the rest of NATO has still not geared up to fill the gap, then that guarantee will inevitably waver.

Also "visibly incapable of conquering Ukraine" is a pretty bad gloss. Ukraine has resisted well -- with massive outside support. Now it's becoming attritive, and while Ukraine is certainly punching well above its weight, Russia still has a lot more population and industrial base. Without continued support it does seem likely that Russia eventually grinds them down.

Russia does control 25% of Ukraine.

2.last: Oh good, a source: an actually unedited digital transcript of the speech, posted to the government website? I find that slightly embarrassing but I suppose it doesn't matter.

My search for the "post-war to pre-war" phrasing led first to this article, originally from the Independent, casting doubt on some of Shapps' claims:

This leads on to the second question - how prepared is the UK to meet the challenges before it? Here Shapps looked at the UK armed forces through rose-tinted spectacles. . . . The two Type 23 frigates and a Type 45 destroyer deployed to the Red Sea are a reminder how much the Royal Navy has shrunk. The frigates were originally designed to serve for 18 years and are now expected to last for nearer twice that. The Type 45 destroyer is still to have a reliable power plant installed and remains under-armed, with a plan to add additional air defence missiles still to be implemented.

Moreover, the navy is unable to resupply these ships at sea with additional self-defence missiles because the government sold off two ships to Egypt in 2021 - and the one remaining ship is undergoing refurbishment. Their replacements have only recently been ordered, with the first not due for delivery until the next decade. . . .

Shapps's optimistic tone covers up major shortfalls and the government's pledge to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP remains an aspiration.

It's hardly news that political speeches employ "rose-tinted spectacles" as a matter of strategy. This is not my usual beat, of course -- I can share my expert opinion that I saw some naval vessels in San Diego Harbor in 2018 and they were super cool looking, and I also saw a prototype fuel cell production car that day and that was also super cool, and the third thing I saw was a tame Harris hawk up close scaring seagulls and THAT WAS MY FAVORITE -- but there's got to be a whole literature on various threadbare pieces of the U.S. military and how it's all Boeing 737 doors flying off and freeway overpasses collapsing and spray-tanned horrors of pickled machismo. Do I want to read it all? Maybe not this afternoon specifically, but sometime.

3 looks suspiciously tweet-like. That's where dsquared's head is these days, huh?

I don't know if he's still on Twitter. He's definitely on Bluesky.

Skeets are suspiciously tweet-like. I'll bet it's not a coincidence.

9,10 He's published a book that looks promising, The Unaccountability Machine, kindle US in April, I think available now in UK.

I guess for me ground zero on this is that DJT is compromised by Russia, with public proof of that. But he's not just is still in public life, he may actually regain power. Scholz is appalling, not as bad as Schroder though. The UK is still happy to serve as Russia's banker. Basically sane policy would come from an informed populace, but that's unlikely. For narrow decisions, the US wanted to keep the Ukrainians on a short leash so did not give long-range missiles last year, now clear how unfortunate that was. I don't know enough about German politics to comment meaningfully on what they're thinking-- Scholz's words about his/Pistorius' bad Taurus missile decision were that Ukraine would use them against the bridge.

Wow, the US Will Be At War With China people are *still* around? I thought they all pivoted to Islam in 2001 then gradually died out. Or is this Son of USWBAWWC?

13: It was stupid when it was The Great Powers Inevitably Clash, but Taiwan is a pretty big concrete flashpoint, and more salient given what they just did to Hong Kong.

I've long thought that if Trump wins in 2024, Taiwan (and Ukraine) will be in great danger of being swallowed. I don't think that has anything do to with what weapons the U.S. can or can't deploy as much as it does with the way division (within the U.S. and with our allies) will weaken their allies.

OT (mostly): did Nitter finally croak? Apparently yes.

13: I feel like the form of this question is self-undermining. Relations between the U.S. and China, and between both parties and the rest of the world, have changed tremendously since 2001. Anyone, not just warmongers, carrying forward assumptions from 1999 is useless. So what?

I thought the big deterrent to invading Taiwan, beyond the fact they'd probably fight back, is Taiwan's economic importance. Also, I don't know how likely Taiwan would be to counterattack by hitting China but there are, like, a lot of people in range.

China has no path to treat taking over Taiwan like a legal-administrative task. Unlike Hong Kong, there's no "return" date, and Taiwan was a part of Japan until the end of WWII and then de facto independent after that (under US occupation, then the KMT/GMD). So it's been over a century since Taiwan and China were under the same administrative state.

I suppose there's a possible future where invading Taiwan is less devastating economically because semiconductor production is more geographically distributed around the world.

I think it is reasonable to take the threats Xi makes seriously. He's clearly willing to commit atrocity to enforce what he sees as unity.

This defunding of UNRWA has me puzzled. Whatever your criticisms of UNRWA, they are the primary organization that is both charged with and has the capacity to respond to ongoing humanitarian crises in Gaza. Are western powers really prepared to take that capacity off the table in the middle of an ongoing war/famine? Who exactly do they have in mind to take on that role in a post ceasefire scenario?

Is UNRWA Israel's booby prize? In other words, because Israel really have the power to destroy Hamas, is Bibi being allowed to destroy UNRWA as part of a deal for a ceasefire? I'm puzzled as to why else the western powers opted to go along with this. It can't be all about thumbing their noses at the ICJ.

3: a reply to Davies is Anders Puck Nielsen's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY7GPBSyONU

His point is that *of course not* Russia won't attack *all of NATO*. What they'll do, is arrange things so that they can attack a small part of NATO (e.g. the Baltics) while making it sufficiently costly for the rest of NATO to intervene, that they'll decide "nah, brah".

I'm disappointed in Davies. But hey, he's an economist, not a military analyst. He should know better than to just theorize, when he can outsource to actual experts. Like Nielsen.

20: Josh Marshall has a (expectedly) realist take on this UNRWA mess: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/about-that-un-hamas-story

B/c it's members-only, I'll summarize (but worth reading):

1. no shit UNRWA is gonna have pro-Hamas (heck, actual Hamas) members: it's a putative Palestinian state in the refugee camps, and *always has been*

2. There's no way Israel will just cut them off: if Israel did, they'd instantly become responsible for everything in the camps, and that would be much, much, much worse than the status quo

3. And all of this has been true *forever*. None of this is new.

In short, he's saying "geez, grow up, world". I wasn't of his opinion, but he makes a pretty compelling case.

Taiwan is ok for now but they need to build capability and stockpile. China still can't do combined arms at operational scale and it will be years from now before they can (and I think there is little indication that they're working hard or well at this). The US Navy badly needs to get it's shit together and has needed to for decades now. No more multi-billion dollar boondoggles for poorly conceived missions that don't even work as advertised like the LCS. I don't see this getting fixed anytime soon. Meanwhile Boeing is fucked https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/manufacturing-supply-chain/opinion-can-boeings-misguided-leaders-be-stopped.

22.2 Likud has long had UNRWA in its sights. It's mere existence is an offense to them since its very existence admits of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. They'd love to see it gone. A humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank that is worse for Palestinians than the status quo is fine by them. The whole timing of that is deeply suspicious right after the ICJ ruled that humanitarian aid to Gaza needs to be stepped up, a point even Israel's own judge on the ICJ signed on to. JMM has had his head up his ass about the whole situation. I was so incensed by the US's canceling of aid to UNRWA in the midst of this catastrophe that I donated a couple of hundred dollars for Gaza relief to them.

Also firing off a years' worth of production of PGMs at the Houthis which will do nothing to deter them from lobbing missiles into the Red Sea is deeply stupid. We'd need those for any potential clash with PRC over Taiwan.

Also a drone war with Iranian proxy militias isn't going to end well for anybody. Especially now that they have drones too.

I will throw in a few reasons for optimism.

1. Even if Russia gets to the point of negotiating a ceasefire while in occupation of some Ukrainian territory, it still has to garrison that territory; any invasion force intended for the Baltics is going to have to be generated in addition.

2. That invasion force would have to be huge. Russia would also need a credible air force and they seem to have no way to build one? Manufacturing there is at a generally basic level.

3. Afaict, 'western' defence production is running 24/7 today. It's just not very obvious.

4. In summary, it's not very obvious (to me) that Russia can overmatch its neighbours in terms of war production.

Otoh, how to end things successfully in Ukraine isn't yet clear either.

"why are we talking about Russia, a country which is visibly incapable of conquering Ukraine, launching a simultaneous war against Germany, France, Italy and the UK?"

I hope this won't turn out to be the remark that takes the Stupidest Thing Dsquared Has Ever Said title away from his June 2008 classic "as far as I can tell, chaps, this isn't as serious as the peso crisis".

I agree with this: "*of course* Russia won't attack *all of NATO*. What they'll do, is arrange things so that they can attack a small part of NATO (e.g. the Baltics) while making it sufficiently costly for the rest of NATO to intervene, that they'll decide "nah, brah"."

And accompanied by a lot of nuclear threats, of course. The last few years have finally buried the disarmament argument that nuclear weapons are useless because they're unusable; nuclear weapons, we now know, are invaluable. Betting that the US won't go to war to protect some tiny European country is probably a fairly rational bet - if you make enough nuclear threats it'll have the desired effect.

Britain will, Poland will, the Nordics will, France might; let's just hope that's enough.

And don't forget that Dsquared has framed his argument inconsistently. Russia is obviously not going to war against NATO unless it has beaten Ukraine first. In which case it ipso facto won't be incapable of conquering Ukraine, will it? Also, it'll have a lot of Ukrainian conscripts to use as ablative shielding in its next war.
Conversely, if you're asserting that Russia is incapable of conquering Ukraine - well, they still tried, didn't they? So that means they're bad at assessing their chances of military success? And therefore, even if we can be sure they wouldn't win against NATO, that doesn't mean they won't try, and I don't want to fight a war against Russia even if I know from the start we're probably going to win. I'd rather deter them.
And I'm not even sure we would win. In this scenario the US has already abandoned Ukraine. I can easily see the US doing its best to weaken the European nations while they're fighting, in order to achieve maximum competitive advantage for the US post war. It's not like they haven't done it before. We could see refusals to resupply European armed forces with munitions, for example, in order to exert pressure for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds.

firing off a years' worth of production of PGMs at the Houthis

The US produced 500 LRASM and JASSM and I think around 200-300 TLAM in 2023 (it's difficult to find an overall TLAM rate because several countries are buying them. Japan is getting 400 in FY2025-27, but LM is simultaneously building them for Australia and I think the UK, as well as a couple of US Navy contracts for Block IV and V). This year they will double production to 1000 LRASM and JASSM, and are looking to increase TLAM production per year by a factor of six from 2026 (not confirmed).
So far they've used about 100 TLAM in Yemen and, presumably, no LRASM and JASSM at all, because why would they, when they can drop precision-guided bombs - which obviously won't be any use at all against China?
I don't think there's a danger of running out.

Even if Russia gets to the point of negotiating a ceasefire while in occupation of some Ukrainian territory, it still has to garrison that territory; any invasion force intended for the Baltics is going to have to be generated in addition.

This is also a good point: I was optimistic even in February 2022, when it looked briefly as though Russia would take Kyiv, because the Ukrainian insurgency would have been very large and damaging. That will still be the case if Ukraine falls in 2024 or 2025. They'll need a garrison of at least 400,000 (one per 100 population) and ideally double that. Some of it can be collaborator militia from the Donbass, but not much, because they're mostly dead now.

The obvious solution from their point of view is to drive a large part of the population out. That allows them to stress Europe by dumping 10-15 million refugees on them, and also means that they won't need as many garrison to hold the rest. Or, I suppose, to kill a large part of the population and resettle with Russians. They could do either of those pretty much with impunity, as we saw in Azerbaijan/Armenia - the international community tends not to mind about that sort of behaviour except in exactly one specific case. The only issue is of course that if you turn them into refugees you can't then use them as ablative troops, but I suppose they expel the women and conscript the men.

Russia does control 25% of Ukraine.

It did, briefly, in early 2022. Now it controls about 16%.

Um, some carpet bombing in comments ...

Anyway, look, I do not fancy the Russian chances in any fresh offensive in some other part of Europe. Everyone will see them lining up the tanks well in advance and will set defences accordingly, including the minefields. And the re-run would then take place under an absolute battering of JDAMs, with or without the USAF.

There's also a scenario where there's also a long pause for up-arming on the Russian side. But this is equally visible, and would be countered in the same timeframe by Cold War scale re-equipping of the blue team. It is all very zero sum, and you'd imagine it all decided in the end by economics.

Beyond that, I do not have much clue as to the grand geopolitical picture, longer term. Would strongly recommend decarbonisation, since why afford Russia and others an income with which to build armies. Still, lots of petrostates are going to experience stress, and fairly predictably there'll be bumps, maybe nasty ones.

Also, also, where is the faith in the military-industrial complex? Business has been absolutely fantastic this last year. They're not going to settle for border surveillance drone contracts, surely.

the re-run would then take place under an absolute battering of JDAMs, with or without the USAF.

The worst case here is that the US not only doesn't help Europe against Russia, but actually hinders it, by financial/economic pressure (as in 1956), arms embargo (as in Bosnia), or other means. We are pretty dependent on US intelligence resources - satellite imaging, SIGINT/ELINT and so on. All that US kit needs US spare parts, of which Europe has limited stockpiles; the US could refuse to transfer them. Presumably the US could screw around with GPS - introducing a much larger error to make it useless for guidance purposes.
The US could make our lives really quite difficult. If it is willing to abandon NATO, it's not that much more of a leap to taking sides (non-militarily) against it.

Well yes, although disentangling the transatlantic security establishment (also: Australia, Japan, SK?) is a large and I guess not an overnight task. Folds military, intelligence and manufacturing into one (somewhat fuzzy edged, admittedly) entity currently. Is the GOP really up to that task? Would they even want it?

Might as well put these here.
https://www.38north.org/2024/01/is-kim-jong-un-preparing-for-war/
https://www.38north.org/2024/01/a-fundamental-shift-or-more-of-the-same-a-rebuttal/

If North Korea is preparing for war, why are they exporting so much of their munitions stockpile to Russia?

35 me. 36 was my first thought also.

Maybe they want to make room for better, new ammunition.

Well, they do have working nuclear missiles now.

If North Korea is preparing for war, why are they exporting so much of their munitions stockpile to Russia?

Possible explanations, non-exclusive:
1. North Korea isn't preparing for war.
2. North Korea is preparing for war in the medium term;
a) In the short term it has made a deal in which it gives Russia artillery rounds now, and Russia gives it more advanced weapons later.
b) With the significant amounts of money it is getting for the artillery rounds, (https://www.38north.org/2023/09/what-do-weapons-sales-to-russia-mean-for-north-koreas-economy/) it can expand and modernise its arms production, putting it in a position to surge production in, say, 2025, ahead of a war in 2026.
3. It isn't actually exporting very much compared to the total size of its stockpile, which includes tens of millions of shells - and they're decreasing their reliance on gun artillery in favour of rockets (https://www.npr.org/2022/09/07/1121477374/north-korean-ammo-will-stretch-russias-supply-but-with-clear-limits-and-drawback).

||

"I have only one Thessaloniki, which I have surrendered."

2.2 Deal was valid for Bosnians and Kosovars.

4. It believes that it will gain a strategic advantage by arming Russia that outweighs the loss of fighting power. The obvious retort in this case is "If America in 1940 is preparing for war, why is it exporting so much ammunition, weapons, aircraft etc to the British Empire?"

42 to 41.

40 good thread here https://x.com/armscontrolwonk/status/1750165226085830725?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ

I think North Korea is in the process of discovering that it can get more money by selling arms than by using them. Now that they have pretty much figured out intermediate range ballistic missile technology, they can make a high-margin product that will find a market.

46: given it's under sanctions there are very few potential customers, see the RUSI occasional paper from last year.

Ok but they share a border with their potential #1 customer, who is already under sanction themselves.

I don't think Russia is buying IRBMs from North Korea in any great quantity - are they?

Just artillery shells. But it's often states that are under sanction that want to buy weapons but can't buy them from traditional sources, so North Korea could try for a market.

Shells, artillery rockets and IIRC launchers and probably SRBMs.

15: I don't think that has anything do to with what weapons the U.S. can or can't deploy as much as it does with the way division (within the U.S. and with our allies) will weaken their allies.
33: The US could make our lives really quite difficult. If it is willing to abandon NATO, it's not that much more of a leap to taking sides (non-militarily) against it.

With a Trump/R congressional win, I agree mostly with MH in 15, but I think a good chance it will go farther if not quite as far as ajay worries in 33. Or at least not publicly.

I think the true Trump/Trumpist* vision is a very informal Axis of Strongmen: Trump/Putin/Xi/Netanyahu/Orban/Modi/Kim Jung Un/MBS controlling the international scene**.
There are a number of significant political and institutional obstacles in the way of that, but there will absolutely be movement in that direction (it may a fair period of time) which will at a minimum engender the division MH foresees.

I think cementing the control of the internal security/judicial apparatuses will be the priority for the Trumpicans and probably the easiest to accomplish. Military is a much tougher nut to crack and I suspect there will be a fair bit of resistance from Senate (House will be all in if it stays R). So it will be a journey, but absolutely concrete steps that would weaken the Atlantic alliance. Would there be significant competence, focus, and discipline to really move this? Maybe not, but chaos can be its own end.

Who really knows, but I think it would be most significant and destabilizing development since the fall of the Soviet Union. (Of course, in reality just one step of many in developments across many countries and a number of years, but it would be a final ratification of 2016 et al.

*Thinking of guys like Michael Flynn. So great that his brother who is credibly accused of lying about his role in military deliberations on Jan 6 is commander of United States Army Pacific.

**And of course a lot of internal complications within such a soft "alliance" and flashpoints like Iran and the role of multinationals, Brazil etc. A good chance there would be some very hard to predict developments.

An intermediate range missile can be a short range missile if you use less fuel and a bigger warhead.

That said, I think the big missiles are more of a halo product to get customers into the showroom. The money to be made right now is on short range missiles that are cheap enough that you can shoot a bunch of them at a target at once, as to overwhelm your enemy's missile defense capabilities.

Sure, but where is the heart? The point of missiles as always knowing you were important enough to be deliberately targeted.

Its the future now, everyone can be targeted.

"I think the true Trump/Trumpist* vision is a very informal Axis of Strongmen:"

I think this is spot on. The idea is that there should be proper Great Powers with spheres of influence, and lesser countries, basically female countries, which can get grabbed by the strategic mineral reserves with impunity. It's a common worldview on left and right.

I've been talking up my suggestion that in return for a return of the USVI, Denmark declares Donald Fairhair the new king of Greenland. He'd have head of state immunity, so his legal troubles would go away, and could sell titles of nobility and rights to exploit the mineral wealth of his realm. The primarily Inuit communities could be given to Canada.

Icelanders I'm meeting in the gondalas are down. Now I just need to hit up some Danes.

Do the Danes even want the Virgin Islands back?

I'm not sure the Greenland Inuit want to be part of Canada either, for that matter.

Trump isn't great but I'm fairly against any anti-Trump plan that involves committing actual ethnic cleansing.

I would support him being crowned king of Rockall.

60: As long as there's a requirement for continuous residence. I like that Wikipedia characterizes it as uninhabitable, and the pictures of the birds clinging to it imply a lot of guano in his future, which I also think is fine and dandy.

Rockall has less guano than you might think, because the North Atlantic waves are yuge enough to wash it away from time to time.

I've tried to get bird shit out of clothing without using detergent. It didn't work well.

62: If it had a useful amount, it'd be American.

Baron Barron.

Speaking of Guano islands. As you may recall at some point the Supreme Court decided the US could have both normal "incorporated" territories where the constitution applies and also lawless colonies callled "unincorporated." There's now only one incorporated territory left.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmyra_Atoll

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024