Sometimes I wonder what'll happen if the United States ever has to fight a war against an opponent whose industrial base is not 150 years behind it.

Then again, I've heard Russian military equipment is in just as sorry a state. No idea what the Chinese military is like, but I'd imagine the real money is in selling to Americans rather than killing them.

We're in this interesting place where it's entirely possible that the best military equipment is actually in the hands of private, ostensibly civilian companies. SpaceX has ballistic missiles with a CEP significantly smaller than a drone ship, for example, a feat that was unheard of during the Cold War. For that matter, the very concept of a drone ship would've been awfully helpful during the Battle of the Atlantic.

I think a war between China and the US, with neutral Russia [1], would be truly terrifying. To given example of the level of sophistication, just have a look at [2]. All the signs point towards China overtaking the US in industrial power, if it hasn't already happened.

[1] if Russia isn't neutral it would stay cold anyways due to MAD I think.

[2] https://dms.licdn.com/playback/C4D05AQE8hl2GCSdo1Q/feedshare...

As a Russian, I hope that nuclear weapons still provide enough deterrence to avoid large-scale war between superpowers.

However, this might not be the case, as said superpowers can just decide to avoid nuclear confrontation (because of immediate counterstrike) and still fight conventionally — just like chemical weapons weren’t used on large scale in WW2, compared to WW1.

What worries me is that the mechanics of MAD may be approaching their end. With increasing space technology, perimeter defense against ICBMs have become feasible (albeit still very expensive). Thinking this forward a couple of decades, I think that defense may become cheaper than offense, even with multiple warheads per ICBM. In a way that's good, as nuclear annihilation might be averted, on ther other hand it could also lead to nations feeling cornered to strike first (before defense is built up sufficiently), and also we might be seeing a rebirth of conventional industrial warfare like in WW2.

I don't have such a feeling at all. It is my understanding(and please correct me if I'm wrong) that even with the best technology there is little to no defense to ICMBs. We have tech to stop some missiles, but with the sheer number of them in existence and the fact that every ICMB carries 12-16 warheads which split off early in descent stage, I think you can quite safely say that whatever target needs destroying it would be destroyed. Then there are weapons like the Russian System-6 torpedo which launches from a sub and detonates off shore to cause a gigantic tsunami destroying any coastal city(and if that wasn't bad enough, it can be salted with cobalt so that any area flooded by the tsunami is uninhabitable for at least few hundred years).

I don't know what sort of confidence level you'd need to have in your defence systems to even start thinking of actually using nuclear weapons against another superpower - the risk is just too great.

Hypersonic cruise missiles are an "interesting" development to the equation as well. Much harder to shoot down but also more sneaky so harder to have the mutually assured part.

Still probably impossible to fire enough sneaky missiles to disable enough ICBM silos. I think they are an interesting development, but I don't think they are meant as first strike weapons against another major nuclear, at least not without excepting a full lobby back.

They are terrifying against a state without a "nuclear umbrella". A few of these sneaky nukes could take out any ability to strike back conventionally. (Thinking of Sweden. Not that it longer could strike back anyway since about 1992.)

As long as nuclear subs are a thing there is no possibility to take out the other side's ability to attack first.

Think about how quickly drone technology will evolve. The amount of explosives needed to destroy a sub is fairly small I presume. That means it should be feasible to mass produce underwater drones to cover coastal area, such that missiles launched from subs should be outside the zone that's too close to defend. I think AI / drone technology will completely change the military landscape fairly soon, as producing them will be cheaper than defending against them.

Idk. I think we’re facing a different kind of MAD. Nations are full of sensitive spots that could utterly cripple their economies. Satellites, data centers, energy plants...

Or just send some hackers to cause as much chaos as they can with rewards instead of consequences.

Imagine the impact of deleting all financial records at a big bank.

> Imagine the impact of deleting all financial records at a big bank.

As the crisis management consultant for trading companies, I can say what the impact will be -- about two weeks of sleepless nights and endless phone calls for the likes of me, grabbing all the data they can find from old backups, other counterparties, clearing agencies, and other guys and girls from the banking tech mafia, and plugging it back to the databases while the executives make their best poker faces and try to convince everybody that everything is all right.

Stuff like that (maybe with less scale, but still quite a lot of damage) happens occasionally... by accident, and thankfully stays unknown for the general public.

This is fascinating

But modern firepower between two nuclear nations only requires a few nuclear facilities, not the sort of industrial complex that made the difference in ww2. Good intentions of not using nukes don't really matter, as the conflict would invariably escalate as one of the parties takes over. Which is why this noise of direct war between US and Russia or US and China isn't really credible.

A supply chain war is more credible, China refusing to ship certain products to the US in a conflict. But it is self-destructing too. The world pulling its supply chain out of China would be the end of the Chinese economy.

in my other comment I'm kinda replying to the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=m_mueller#19672286

> The world pulling its supply chain out of China would be the end of the Chinese economy.

I'm not so sure this is true. China has a huge domestic market, and even more potential to build it up more. It's also likely that in such a scenario, a whole block of nations would form, replacing some if not much of China's output with war efforts as it happens in a WW.

Let's just hope it never comes to this, really, for the sake of our daughters and sons if not ourselves.

There are more than a billion people in China, most of which don't have a particularly great standard of living. The domestic market in China is massive and has huge potential for growth. I think China would be fine without the rest of the world.

Not if there is a massive loss of jobs an rioting in the streets.

Didn't they already try that?

"SpaceX has ballistic missiles with a CEP significantly smaller than a drone ship"

It goes quite slowly compared to a real ICBM and relies on GPS that will be jammed in a real war.

Also they run on kerosene. By the time they are fueled and prepped the other side will have taken out the facility.

IIRC also the drone ship has active role in the guidance loop. ICBM targets usually don't do that.

F9 has multiple IMUs. Won't be accurate enough to fly a cruise missile through someone's window, but if you're sending a big enough bomb it doesn't matter if you're a few hundred meters off.

A single bomb is not as good as lots of MIRVs

Don't you think they could easily replace the GPS with some other navigation module?

I don't. The most accurate navigation system that doesn't require an off-platform signal is inertial (INS). INS units drift badly (relatively speaking), with errors measured in tens or hundreds of meters after only an hour. I have personally seen data from a unit that was off by kilometers after a couple days without GPS correction.

INS drifts a lot, not sure how precise is stellar

There definitely are, or at least were, H-1Bs at Boeing. In the beginning of my career, I nearly became one myself (this was at the time when Russia and the US were on much friendlier terms), but I decided to steer into computational finance instead.

Not all H-1Bs are incompetent or lazy. I still have good memories of my team back in Russia — some people there did contractor work for Boeing (documentation management software), and a few moved to the US via H-1Bs. They were competent professionals, I’d vouch for them anytime.

There are no guarantees for all contractors, of course.

“Not all H-1Bs are incompetent or lazy.”

You don’t say!

Boeing is full of H1Bs...

  had this happened at a company that hired H1-Bs

But they do, so I don't understand what point you seek to make.

https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=THE+BOEING+COMPANY

Most h1bs at boeing will be restricted to internal IT support work. You need to be a US-person (citizen/greencard) for aircraft/military products.

Usually, H1-Bs aren’t supposed to work on core pieces like aircraft design software and such. This stuff is sensitive and subject to US laws. I know this because I interned at a similar defense company and most H1-Bs were limited to back-office IT apps and such.

This doesn’t even begin to make sense. First of all, everything a US company works on is “subject to US laws”. Second, where clearance is required, there is a bright line defining the rules, no “isn’t supposed to...”. Third, security clearances are available for foreigners as well.

Clearances are one piece. Trade restrictions like ITAR are another.