[ExI] Poised for defeat?

[Dave Sill]

On Mon, Oct 7, 2019 at 3:04 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> As the technological edge the U.S. has with it's military, continues to
> slip, what should America do to maintain the advantage?
>

The US government and military/industrial complex are so broken I don't
think anything short of rebuilding from scratch will work...and that's both
highly unlikely to happen and extremely unlikely to work. We've spent
obscene amounts on defense but haven't won a war in decades. We've got
hundreds of military bases around the world. We kill more innocents than
"combatents". We've become the evil empire.


> If Iran, a second or third tier rival, is a problem for us,
>

They're not a threat. That's BS intended to scare us into spending more on
defense and giving up more liberties.


> how do we prepare for a possible conflict with a resurgent China?
>

We stand no chance against China if comes to war.


> Do we improve the range and stealth capacity of our anti-ship missiles?
> Build more advanced drones for destroying enemy aircraft, missiles, aquatic
> mines and subs? Create a new form of stealth tech, should China's "quantum
> radar" prove to be effective? Install laser weapons on all our larger
> vessels, to stop hordes of incoming planes and missiles? Build more
> destroyers, to lessen the urgent need to use our carriers? Deploy massive
> rail guns for very long range bombardments (which could be nice for
> leveling artificial islands in the South China Sea)? Have a 21st century
> return to the battleship, through this technology? Oh, and what about
> improving private corporate security measures, so our research and
> development efforts are not stolen by China's very effective espionage
> machine?
>

In a tech war, China will win, too.

I have a Russian "frenemy" online, who would mock me by saying the problem
> with the American military industrial complex, is that it throws huge
> amounts of money at various weapons programs, but the private companies who
> take up the contracts, are not fully held accountable. And so after a vast
> budget is spent, they may not have any real solid results, to show for it.
>

He's right.

What are your thoughts?
>

We're fucked, and, unfortunately, we deserve it.

-Dave
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