A weak President like jimmy carter resulted in the Fall of Afghanistan, The Fall of Iran and a 1 china policy.

40 years later those debacles are still pertinent and impacting us.

I do not expect any less from mr. potato head.

Something like 30% of the world's microchips are made in Taiwan. That could be an issue.

How long until pronouns are a mandatory item and not optional? I give it 6 months to a year.

You can always identify the woke libtards on Twitter, they ALWAYS have the pronouns in their bio. That and blue or purple hair I swear to God are like a uniform to them.

I’m quite certain that some of these woke wonders, would be thoroughly surprised with the response in pronouns some of us would give them; some may be adjectives, nouns or verbs, rest assured their precious ears wouldn’t like what I’d say.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Something like 30% of the world's microchips are made in Taiwan. That could be an issue.

It's easy to say that the Ukraine and Taiwan don't matter in regards to the U.S. defense and national security interest but, just as many ignored the importance of Afghanistan and Bagram Air Base, so too will they ignore the strategic importance of these other countries.

Forgetting for a moment the obvious fact that both our adversaries and our allies will take significant note of territories or allies abandoned by us, and the fact that we no longer have the will to fight for principles we've invested decades in.. yes, Taiwan not only has been allowed to grow into one of the world's largest producers of cutting edge semiconductor microchips, but the state of the art technology/ equipment/ and processes needed to make these important chips has largely been ceded to Taiwan.

As the U.S. has moved to ever more high tech defensive and offensive capabilities, we are ever more dependant on a reliable supply of these chips.. with a large amount manufactured in Taiwan. Now consider the fact that if China invades and conquers Taiwan, not only does the U.S. lose an important flow of an item critical to our defense, but now China has control of this cutting edge technology/ process/ and equipment used to make them. So, they end up controlling both the critically important product itself, as well as the tech behind it..and a large chunk of the world market for them, which would play very nicely into China's Belt and Road global domination plan.

Show of hands.. how many here think China would sell these critical microchips to the U.S. and our allies (if we even have any allies left) if a shooting war breaks out? Hell, even if a shooting war doesn't happen, why would Communist China sell these to a nation it considers both an enemy and a market competitor?

Semiconductor manufacturing should be viewed as critically important to U.S. national interests as oil... and standing against aggression and with whatever allies we have remaining is just as critically important.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Something like 30% of the world's microchips are made in Taiwan. That could be an issue.

Semiconductor manufacturing should be viewed as critically important to U.S. national interests as oil.

This Administration isn’t concerned with oil production or microchip production domestically, they’re more concerned with keeping China happy and not offending the Chinese, with tariffs and sanctions. God forbid we make our own and be independent from China.

An effort to weaken our country for sure in exchange for china payoff. America under President Trump was just too strong for the world to take.

quote:

Originally posted by spunk639:

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Something like 30% of the world's microchips are made in Taiwan. That could be an issue.

Semiconductor manufacturing should be viewed as critically important to U.S. national interests as oil.

This Administration isn’t concerned with oil production or microchip production domestically, they’re more concerned with keeping China happy and not offending the Chinese, with tariffs and sanctions. God forbid we make our own and be independent from China.

Oh, I'm all too painfully aware of the Biden administration's many failings and shortsightedness.

Oil extraction and production comes with its own set of challenges and expenses.. but at least the U.S. has domestic oil and natural gas under our own soil.

Many don't seem to understand that semiconductor microchip manufacturing is highly technical, requires a tightly controlled environment and expensive high tech tools, and an experienced work force. Building new state of the art semiconductor fabrication plants (fabs) takes years to build, years to equip, years to adequately staff under normal workforce supply conditions, a year or more to establish processes, and billions of dollars to build.

Even after you get a Fab built, fully equipped, and fully staffed, it's not like someone just hits a button and microchips just magically appear ready to be sold. It takes many months, sometimes even a year or more before the first saleable product is ready to ship... so the U.S. government can't even take the take a bunch of money and throw it at the problem approach to solving this critical need.

Taiwan is the only nation in that immediate part of the of the world that practices any form of democracy and is pro U.S. Once the U.S. starts to abandon world allies it gets easier and easier to abandon others as well...and easier for them to abandon us.

If Taiwan falls we are in deep hurt.

quote:

If Taiwan falls we are in deep hurt.

(Sigh) Thank God (I guess) that millenials and basement dwellers, Biden's "natural" constituency, are hooked in online games and digital porn.

One of these days Taiwan's going to have to raise a commemorative statue to otaku and the glorious role that octopus panty hentai played in preserving the last bulwark of democracy in Asia. Kill La Kill ichiban!!

Are wa sugoi iikata dato omoimasu, neh?

It is almost like our politicians are owned by China.

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:

quote:

If Taiwan falls we are in deep hurt.

(Sigh) Thank God (I guess) that millenials and basement dwellers, Biden's "natural" constituency, are hooked in online games and digital porn.

One of these days Taiwan's going to have to raise a commemorative statue to otaku and the glorious role that octopus panty hentai played in preserving the last bulwark of democracy in Asia. Kill La Kill ichiban!!

Are wa sugoi iikata dato omoimasu, neh?

Il Cattivo, I stop to read your posts and appreciate your perspective and knowledge, and generally track with your comments... but, other than references to sexual deviancies and ending up with Japanese anime porn on my phone, I struck out with internet translations on this post.

Would you mind taking another crack at it and explaining what you mean by your comments?

Otaku are classic Japanese basement dwellers. They honestly have little or no human contact; their lives are video games and internet porn.

Many of today's youth vote for Biden reflexively. I'm saying that those that do have little or no human contact and are, as a result, ignorant and stunted. Sorta like basement dwellers whose lives revolve around video games and internet porn, which many of them, in fact, are.

You need computer chips in order to have video games and internet porn. If Taiwan is our source of supply, then the pro-Biden otaku would raise hell if Red China managed to cut off their supply. I'm somewhat joking, but the idea is that Biden would be willing to go to war for Taiwan in order to protect his otaku constituency - rather than for moral reasons, to honor commitments made on the international scene, or fend off Chinese communist domination of a friendly power.

Thus, if Biden defends Taiwan, a commemorative statue to otaku and the perverted anime (cartoon) pornography that one supposes they can't do without would be entirely appropriate because those would be the 'forces' that drove the US to honor its commitments to Taiwan in the face of communist Chinese aggression.

Kill La Kill is a Japanese cartoon series that sexualizes fifteen-year-old Japanese girls to a fare thee well. The story itself is entertaining, but it's all about the underboob, high heels and sharp objects.

Are wa sugoi iikata dato omoimasu seems to be a somewhat rueful way of saying "That may or may not be a particularly good or bad way of putting it". In this case that seemed appropriate because it would hilarious (in a sickening way) if video games and internet porn were in fact to be what drove Biden to defend Taiwan. IOW, it's a somewhat restrained way of saying (in this context) "this is sick humor" - particularly since it implies that many young Americans are or are becoming neurotic basement dwellers.

We do have fabs in the US, we know how to build them. Maybe we need to deal with the fact that we get a major amount of the supply of them from an indefensible island sitting off the shore of one of our major geopolitical adversaries (who consider that island their territory.)

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

quote:

Originally posted by spunk639:

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Something like 30% of the world's microchips are made in Taiwan. That could be an issue.

Semiconductor manufacturing should be viewed as critically important to U.S. national interests as oil.

This Administration isn’t concerned with oil production or microchip production domestically, they’re more concerned with keeping China happy and not offending the Chinese, with tariffs and sanctions. God forbid we make our own and be independent from China.

Oh, I'm all too painfully aware of the Biden administration's many failings and shortsightedness.

Oil extraction and production comes with its own set of challenges and expenses.. but at least the U.S. has domestic oil and natural gas under our own soil.

Many don't seem to understand that semiconductor microchip manufacturing is highly technical, requires a tightly controlled environment and expensive high tech tools, and an experienced work force. Building new state of the art semiconductor fabrication plants (fabs) takes years to build, years to equip, years to adequately staff under normal workforce supply conditions, a year or more to establish processes, and billions of dollars to build.

Even after you get a Fab built, fully equipped, and fully staffed, it's not like someone just hits a button and microchips just magically appear ready to be sold. It takes many months, sometimes even a year or more before the first saleable product is ready to ship... so the U.S. government can't even take the take a bunch of money and throw it at the problem approach to solving this critical need.

Taiwan is the only nation in that immediate part of the of the world that practices any form of democracy and is pro U.S. Once the U.S. starts to abandon world allies it gets easier and easier to abandon others as well...and easier for them to abandon us.

If Taiwan falls we are in deep hurt.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
We do have fabs in the US, we know how to build them. Maybe we need to deal with the fact that we get a major amount of the supply of them from an indefensible island sitting off the shore of one of our major geopolitical adversaries (who consider that island their territory.)

I'm well aware that we have fabs in the U.S., as I worked in 3 of them, including one that was a "new" one that was refurbished and ramped from a previously existing one. Both the companies I worked for had fabs in the U.S., along with additional fabs throughout Europe and one in the Middle East.

In one instance, a company I worked for spent millions to lay the ground work infrastructure for an additional new state of the art Fab on the existing site of older fully functioning fabs, with plans (and hopes) that when the market timing and money flow was right, they were positioned to build it out and capitalize on their forethought. They also went "shopping" and came incredibly close to buying a smaller older existing U.S. Fab.

But the older fab purchase was ultimately nixed and after 10 or 12 years the pre-laid ground work for a new state of the art fab was bulldozed over. Why? Because market conditions changed and never fully materialized.

As government regulation, taxes, and U.S. wages increased, it became increasingly difficult to justify building incredibly expensive fabs in the U.S. The same was true for fabs in Europe, and in some of the cases I'm familiar with, several of the brand new state of the art fabs in Europe never even became fully functioning or productive and were eventually closed down (even before their older U.S. counterparts were still productive and generating revenue) because of even tighter government regulation, even higher taxes, and especially due to European labor laws that favored workers rights and penalized companies such as microchip makers that took a chance on European manufacturing.

Eventually, several dominant microchip manufacturers moved to a strategy of de-emphasizing the production/ manufacturing end of the business and allowing Asian microchip manufacturers with their cheaper costs, to fill that role, and instead the U.S. manufacturers concentrated on Microchip design.

Yes, we have some microchip fabs in the U.S., but not enough to meet the growing domestic need, let alone the global need. I've already outlined the expense, difficulties, and time it takes to build state of the art fabs in the U.S. It's really not so unlike trying to build a nuclear power plant reactor.

Microchip manufacturing supremacy has been ceded to the Asian makers. Due to governmental factors and market conditions, they are winning the microchip manufacturing race. It's theoretically possible that the U.S. could once again overtake the market, but only if the U.S. government and states relaxed regulations, lowered taxes, and they were located in areas with sufficiently skilled and available work force, while still being located near both major transportation hubs, and also near the myriad of supply chain vendors required to keep a fab operating. Hell, because of both C-19 restrictions and companies scrambling to comply with lockdowns and vaccine mandates, and government subsidies that encourage workers to stay home, they can't even fully staff existing U.S. fabs, let alone staff any new future ones.

I stand by my previous comments. It will take years, billions or perhaps even trillions of dollars to build/ equip/ dial in processes/ and staff new U.S. based fabs sufficient to meet our needs and like it or not, the U.S. domestic market, and national security needs demand microchips now... and Taiwan is crucial to meeting that need.

If Taiwan falls, for several reasons, the U.S. is in deep hurt and the "non-interventionist" crowd better wake up to that reality and reevaluate their dogma.

I've ignored Ukraine in this discussion, but the same is true for them, although perhaps to a lesser extent. I have zero interest in adding stars to the U.S. flag and making the Ukraine a 51st or 52nd U.S. state...but I have a keen interest in denying Russia and Putin significant strategic territory, ports, and food production that Ukraine would provide them. Part of warfare is denying territory and resources to aggressive adversaries or enemies, that would otherwise give them advantage.

Food production, water production, to a large extent energy production and transmission (although not enough), even national defense and weapon/ munitions production can largely be handled by U.S. manufacturers, but if we have learned anything from recent supply chain disruptions, it is which items crucial to national interests are lacking and require a national initiative to re-establish a domestic manufacturing capability.

While the Biden/ Harris administration is scrambling to ram through their social justice/ domestic taxation Green New Deal/ federal vote control grab for increasing power and one party rule, they are ignoring crucial national interests.. and one of those is domestic microchip needs.

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:

[Snip]
Thus, if Biden defends Taiwan, a commemorative statue to otaku and the perverted anime (cartoon) pornography that one supposes they can't do without would be entirely appropriate because those would be the 'forces' that drove the US to honor its commitments to Taiwan in the face of communist Chinese aggression.[/Snip]

Ahhh, gotcha. So, yeah, I see the irony you were laying out. Thank you for taking the time to explain your comments, they really did help me to gain perspective.

We should not send troops to defend Ukraine; we should not send troops to defend Taiwan.

There, I said it. I'm a pretty isolationist guy.

Troops in Poland and thats it.

Make NATO pay their fair share. Sick of Germany skimping out. France too.

Let Europe take care of it (oh they can't, they have weak armies).

Tanks and troops in Poland, establish a water port, hold that.

^^^ Taiwan looks like it would be one hell of a lot less of a challenge than Ukraine, if only because Ukraine's already one hell of a mess. The fact is, though, that we're building up to a big fight in the waters around Taiwan - and will desperately want access to Taiwan if that fight ever happens.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
Thank you for taking the time to explain your comments, they really did help me to gain perspective.

Well, I might've once again disappeared up my own...ah, not a problem.

Ukraine has already been conquered. They just don't know it.

Taiwan is a bigger deal. Very close to Japan. The Japs should get nukes. We should give them nukes.

Modify their constitution to allow it.

Stop China in their tracks.

No way we could launch a massed amphibious invasion required to protect Taiwan. We just don't have the capability. We don't have the ability to put the required men and material on the beach. We don't. MPF is gone.

Taiwan should remain a free country. But today, we cannot guarantee that.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
Ukraine has already been conquered. They just don't know it.

Taiwan is a bigger deal. Very close to Japan. The Japs should get nukes. We should give them nukes.

Modify their constitution to allow it.

Stop China in their tracks.

No way we could launch a massed amphibious invasion required to protect Taiwan. We just don't have the capability. We don't have the ability to put the required men and material on the beach. We don't. MPF is gone.

Taiwan should remain a free country. But today, we cannot guarantee that.

Sure, why not. The aging U.S. nuclear missile capability and woke military might is apparently not enough of a deterrent to an increasingly expansionist aggressive CCP China and its military modernization... but, somehow, a tiny string of nearby Japanese islands with an aging and declining population, so declining in population in fact that at present rates the island will be deserted in 200 years... and yet providing Japan, with nuclear capabilities will somehow act as the deterrent against Chinese aggression and expansion that the U.S. isnt, especially when considering the long history of animosity and hatred between the two countries?

So, your plan for defense of U.S. national interests is to cede territory and resources that can be used to strengthen adversaries/ enemies, abandon forward bases that offer a strategic capability and serve as a deterrence to nations with aggressive tendencies, abandon some allies while equipping others with nuclear capabilities, leaving a power vacuum to be filled by aggressive nations bent on regional and global domination. Good plan.

If Taiwan falls, wouldn't the Philippines be next?