The Ukraine-Russia war largely changed my opinion on this type of stuff.
War is still the ultimate leverage. A hostile nation deciding to take you out forces you to defend yourself. Russia has shown that quantity largely outweighs quality. I see two reasons for this:
1. Quantity can exhaust supplies. It’s hard to defend yourself when you’re out of ammo or people.
2. Quality is concentrated. It’s easier to destroy and be done with.
This type of tech is the future of defense and deterrence. Being able to send hundreds or thousands of smaller drones ensures at least some make it through.
And the final step is component standardization at the dimensions and interface level.build new cheap systems on the fly using automation and cheap standardized subcomponents. 3 batteries, 1gyro, 1 motor,1 cpu, 1 explosive , wrap it in shrinkwrap,firmware + mission upload and every one can buy it, every can use it, end of world, MOSAICs
Forgot the camera. Basically push a cellphone into standardized brick, not to unsimilar too industrial plc bus cards.
ps:in picture a bigdog like system built by lego of death:
Russia has a big hammer. It can unquestionably kill a target it decides to kill and Ukraine is basically powerless to prevent that.
Ukraine has pinpricks. They have to wait for the best conditions to attack and have no certainty as to whether they can kill their target or not. But the Russian ships can't be wily all the time, they have to sometimes be sitting ducks. And the only weapons Russia has that can engage those sea drones is guns.
I believe that in reality you need some of each. Quality fights quality, quantity fights quantity. Quantity does very little against big quality, but big quality does very little against quantity. You want to knock down that LORASM that your radar just picked out of terrain? You need something that can get there fast, drones won't do it.
I was thinking exactly the same. But then war came to my home in Kiev.
Problem is, no matter how deep are your philosophical thoughts on arms and peace, there are countries that just want to kill you, plain and simple.
In order to have the ability to continue being concerned on the spending on mass killing, you have to be ready to physically defend your favorite Starbucks.
Other than the US and maybe England does anyone else in the “western democracies” have any more than some high tech gizmos in short supply that military economy Russia can’t overcome with their 50’s and 60s style warfare? I didn’t agree with 95%of what Trump said but I did agree with him trying to push for NATO countries to get on the ball and remilitarize because Russia is running their economy on war and oil now and Europes seems to be in lala land
England has no real defense industry to speak of. They no longer have the ability to produce the steal needed for e.g. surface ships, they have to import it. Germany still has the ingredients for a defense industrial base, and so does France. Trump, well, he's right on this one. There's a pretty serious free-rider problem that's been festering since the Berlin wall fell.
I agree it is very sad. Not enough effort on de-escalation, negotiation and understanding. And with a stockpile of cheap weapons it will be ever easier for greedy, lazy, corrupt and cowardly policy makers to simply press a button and hope it gets them what they want. It won't though.
This is the fundamental failure of the left--the *faith* in there always being a path to avoiding conflict. This is most definitely a faith-based position, never defended by reason. It's simply always taken as a sign that the side with "more power" (by their yardstick, not always correct) failed to use it's power responsibly.
If both sides are sure of what would happen with conflict there will always be peace. Nobody's going to pick a fight they know they will lose unless losing is just as bad as not fighting in the first place (say, your opponent wishes to kill you.) However, in the real world knowledge is far from perfect and circumstances can change. War happens when the two sides have different evaluations of the expected outcome.
(And you also have cases where losing is the objective--at least a double digit percentage of police shootings are suicide by cop and plenty more are people who evaluate dying as preferable to jail. Not outright suicide but pretty close to it. De-escalation is completely useless against both of these groups.)
What forms of 'de-escalation, negotiation and understanding' do you think could have deterred Putin - whose demands included control of Ukraine's national direction and foreign policy, the removal of the democratically elected government and a crippled army?
An awful lot of gunning for war. The words inclusion are very much talked about in context of human beings but it disappears out of the window when talking about foreign policy. Perhaps inclusive foreign policy could have resulted in the avoidance of the Ukraine war? Instead everything is focused on escalation and exclusion.
> Perhaps inclusive foreign policy could have resulted in the avoidance of the Ukraine war?
Ukrainians had chosen a turn to Europe and the West before 2013. Should they have abandoned a national aspiration because it would annoy their neighbour?
> Perhaps inclusive foreign policy could have resulted in the avoidance of the Ukraine war?
Maybe but negotiations are always bound by the alternatives of which war is one and as a country it is better if the calculation looks grim when it is considered.
What is certain is that Russia didn’t hesitate to start an invasion when they felt threatened and thought they could get something from it.
I think it’s a fallacy to view it as an either/or situation. We should strive for both an efficient diplomatic service, enlightened leaders who strive for peace and are intellectually able to navigate a complex international situation, and a strong army.
Obviously it's the woman's fault her husband beat her. She clearly wasn't inclusive enough in her actions. She deserved to be rape when she wouldn't put out when her husband came home drunk.
Literally all Russia had to do was not invade Ukraine, and none of this would happen. Ukraine will never be a “threat” to Russia at any point in the foreseeable future. However, Russia is maintaining that if it exists that it will become the next super power and overrun them. Or is it more likely that Putin was scared that Russians would see a richer sister country prospering under a western economy and challenge his tyranny?
yeah, more surrender to aggressive dictatorships by 'change through trade'. right now someone is bleeding out in ukraine because you peaceniks had your way for thirty years. bloody handed well spoken monsters in a world they want to leave ...
The Ukraine war is not due to peaceniks. Had the hawks been in charge we would be in pretty much the same situation as we are now.
Up until 2014 there is nothing any reasonable hawk would have done differently with Ukraine. Even after they had their come-to-Jesus moment and cleaned up their act there's still little more we could have done. We were helping them get their military in order, what else was there to do?
I do think the peaceniks are very wrong in saying it could have been avoided by diplomacy, but that doesn't mean they caused the war.
The blatant nature of land empire of "grab all you can get ,never let go, lie through your teeth,assume everyone else is a lying land empire also " was visible even during the fall of the sovjet union in grosny , the various border raids of china into its neighbors (vietnam), and the various persian proxy wars. but the problem was that dove liberal future optimism incompetence infected a whole generation of politicians. including the "warmongery" group around bush junior . which removed one landempire containing another from the map and just ignored the other unreformables while they staged blatant psyops.
Sometimes the person you're negotiating with has already decided to expand territory, and they use your goodwill as a tactic to extract benefits from you. The only thing that works is deterrence, and then to beat them in a war if they decide to fight it.
The obvious example is WW2, where appeasement backfired. The recent example is Ukraine, where the West appeased Putin in 2008 around Georgia, in 2014 around Eastern Ukraine, and again after he invaded in 2022 by slowrolling arms and placing restrictions on Ukraine.
This appeasement mindset is a failure of cognitive empathy. You as an individual can be reasoned with. The people around you can be reasoned with. So you can't imagine someone who is a ruthless empire builder. You extend the benefit of the doubt in places it shouldn't be extended. And in turn develop this naive worldview where war is always unnecessary. But this worldview can lead to more people getting killed.
I think this is a logical consequence of miniaturization (and cost reduction) of electronic components and sensors. Signal processing algorithms (perhaps used for target tracking) can be done in software instead of custom analog electronics. I’ve been contacted by recruiters from multiple venture funded cruise missile (and related weapons systems) companies.
If that's the case, it is only a matter of time before we all can afford our own cruise missiles.
I see your point.
The way I see it there's a great advantage to having big very expensive weapons, such as only a few countries can afford them and they are so expensive and destructive that leaders aren't so quick to use them.
That acts as a deterrent to big actions, nuclear nation Vs nuclear nation in direct conflict World War scale confrontations.
As the entire post WWII Cold War era and recent post 9/11 decades have shown, however, is that big expensive weapons that destroy entire cities in a single package have done little to stop endless low level warring. Small conflicts continue none the less, the US invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Russian actions in Syria, the Crimean and Ukraine invasions, etc. (many many other "et cetera's").
A Chinese expansion to take Tawain would be of a similar "small" scale from the PoV of "does this warrent a nuclear response".
It would be a naval battle in many ways and the best deterrance, perhaps, is an over supply of "cheap" semi autonomous self guiding over the horizon evasive ship killer missiles.
The knowledge that any ships that engage could be rapidly removed from the board is the very thing that might see such usage not come to pass.
> If that's the case, it is only a matter of time before we all can afford our own cruise missiles.
What do we do when the Sinaloa cartel gets the capability to attack LA? They're already heavily involved in preventing the election of officials opposed to them.[1]
They have such an ability right now. They could easily get a fleet of quarter scale R/C aircraft with autonomous control ala pixhawk, load them up with explosives and fuel, and send them on a one way trip to the big city. Maybe $5-10k ea. The first attack would likely be very successful, because nobody is ready for it. Expect effectiveness to degrade over time as air defense systems and fighters are deployed.
I wouldn't expect them to do this, though, because anyone contemplating such a thing would realize the response would be immediate and decisive. Cartels are after all business organizations, and you can't do business if you're spending all your time dodging hellfire missiles.
I don't really think there's a market for personal Iron Dome products. If nothing else the interceptors are inherently seriously restricted items that simply wouldn't be legal under any conditions in a suburban environment. The high power amateur rocket community bumps into this all the time--most people are not in a position that there is any possible way for them to comply with the hazmat rules regarding their rocket motors (you do *not* want one of those lighting off in a house fire!) They buy their motors at the launch site from those who are able to comply with the hazmat rules.
I have an even hazier understanding of the hazmat rules on possession and transport of explosives. When they blow down a building around here bringing in the explosives is something of an event and not done until the last minute because they're not allowed to store them on site.
Not to mention that explosives + motor falls deep into NFA stuff if it's legal at all. Or look at Mythbusters. All the explosions on the show? Nope, permits to do most of that simply do not exist. Behind the scenes it was actually being done by the local bomb squad.
Now, Iron *Beam* is another matter. I'm not aware of any applicable rules.
I mean, all the homeowners can just shelter-in-place in their Cybertruck that's required to be parked in the drive by the HOA rules, and use it's HEPA filters, right?
I've been trying to find it for years but about 20 years ago when that guy from New Zealand was trying to build his own cruise missile for under $20k I found a DoD paper that had a line I'll paraphrase that stood out to me: 'the DIY cruise missile will become the AK-47 of the 21st century'
I agree somewhat, but I would like to point out that a huge portion of the cost of advanced weapons systems is waste intentionally baked into the processes of designing, manufacturing, and testing these systems to squeeze as much money out of governments as possible. This sort of thing has huge potential benefits for tax payers everywhere
It's good to have a moral compass that dislikes the concept of war. But we shouldn't confuse that for an effective strategy to deter violence.
In a complex world that continues to have ideological challenges, economic constraints and susceptibility to coercion by violent thugs (Putin), forgiving weapons supremacy is betrayal of our peaceful ideals, families, neighbours.
Anti-weapons as a policy to achieve peace is quite an incomplete train of thought.
I think only those who make money off of war “like it”. The rest of us who are pro military simply see it as the only way. Diplomacy will only get you so far and if you don’t have a big pile of bombs to back it up then your diplomacy is worthless against a power hungry fool like Putin. All they understand is loss of power or gaining of power, nothing else registers in the brains.
I think it's incredible how the tech industry has turned from "don't be evil" to supporting all manner of vices. On Twitter, SV VC's openly support Trump, and not just Peter Thiel. They're just corrupted and went from counter-culture to accelerating all of the old power structures.
