[ExI] Report: Gen. Milley held top-secret meeting to block Trump’s nuke access; told staff to disobey all but his orders

[John Grigg]

 Spike wrote:

"John watch the non-fiction version of this story unfold.  With Gen.
Milley’s action and the lack of response to it, the USA just signaled that
it will do nothing if China invades Taiwan."


I disagree with your conclusion. The U.S. has not signaled that it will do
nothing if China invades Taiwan. But what we have signaled is
weakness/sloppiness, which can only encourage the CCP.


I suspect it will be a real dogfight in Washington as Biden's
administration squares off against those who want to see Milley court
martialed, or at the very least, fired. The end result will be a message to
future generations of senior ranking American military officers. The long
range consequences here could be staggering! I don't want us becoming like
the banana republics of the world...



"OK then.  What if they do?  What if China accepts the invitation, invades
Taiwan and restricts the west’s access to the stuff Taiwan makes.  Do we
really need it?  Can we find alternative ways to get computer chips and
such?"


I just don't see China winning, within the near future, anyway. And in
fact, senior ranking CCP generals are begging Jinping not to prematurely
start a war, before they are fully ready. But Jinping wants the history
books to state that he was the CCP leader who conquered Taiwan, and so his
ego is in the way of his nation's potential victory.


But there is the argument that because America got obsessed with fighting
global boogeymen, that we did not see the threat of China early enough, and
take the appropriate measures. And in many ways, we ourselves built this
Frankenstein Monster... The U.S. Navy is seen now as too small and in need
of upgrading, powerful next gen lasers (not the underpowered current ones
on our vessels) and rail guns need to be mounted on our warships, an in
depth missile/anti-missile coordinated system needs to be built to protect
American/ally bases close to China, and large numbers army and air force
servicemen need to be forward deployed to Southeast Asian nations, to be
close to the fight.


On top of that, Taiwan needs to radically change their defense policy,
which they now recognize, belatedly. And so they are moving away from
conventional approaches to great power land war, and instead embracing
guerilla warfare training, drones, inhome anti-ship and anti-air missiles,
inhome submarines, and scores of small attack patrol boats that can hit and
run against enemy transport  ships. The new focus will make the Taiwanese
military a hard target to hit & defeat, and frustrating for a big
conventional enemy like China to fight. And I hope the rumors are true that
Taiwan has a nuclear deterrent, because they may need it, should the CCP
consider nuclear blackmail.


But the problem is that these improvements will take time to do, perhaps
five to ten years in some cases, and so there is a window of vulnerability
for the U.S. and her allies. And so I suspect CCP strategists think that
they should either invade Taiwan soon, within the next 2-3 years, to take
advantage of our lack of preparation, or they should wait two or three
decades, when in many areas they will have probably caught up to America in
terms of technology and operational capacity. I suspect Jinping will choose
the former option.


I believe that if our warships can survive the initial massive barrages of
anti-ship missiles, that an invasion by China would fail. Despite our
current weaknesses, our technological advantage, operational experience
advantage, deadly submarine advantage, and strong allies like Japan, would
ultimately overwhelm China. I wish I could say such a defeat would cause
the CCP to be overturned by their people, but I just don't see it
happening. But as Yee Quan, the former leader of Singapore stated, "China
may even be defeated by America and her allies three or four times over the
years as they try to conquer Taiwan, but ultimately, they will win, because
they are relentless on the matter and will only get stronger as time goes
on."


Despite the economic concerns and global house of cards we inhabit, if the
U.S. does not defend Taiwan successfully, the world will view American
economic and military hegemony as being in severe decline, and see China as
the superpower to be followed. This schoolyard bully must not be allowed to
win.


And if the West is smart, we will build many more semiconductor plants away
from Taiwan as soon as possible. I envision a western victory, but with
many of the computer chip factories unfortunately having been destroyed due
to the chaos of war.


John



On Thu, Sep 16, 2021 at 12:43 PM John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Anton Sherwood wrote:
> "Why would Trump dream of being loyal to one woman?"
>
> What he would dream of, is the public adulation/respect that comes from
> being *seen* as a man/president loyal to only one woman.
>
> John
>
> On Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 9:31 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On 2021-9-15 13:23, John Grigg via extropy-chat wrote:
>> > The general [in the novel] is the quality of man Trump could only dream
>> of being.
>> > Handsome, highly intelligent and shrewd, worldly wise, extremely
>> > charismatic, loyal to one woman, and adored by much of the public, he
>> > wins by a landslide and then goes to work remaking the nation in his
>> image.
>>
>> Why would Trump dream of being loyal to one woman?
>>
>> --
>> *\\*  Anton Sherwood  *\\*  www.bendwavy.org
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>
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