The funny thing about a centrally-planned dairy system is that it takes very little disruption to destabilize it.
The stuff is so specialized and automated now that even the workers probably wouldn't have much translatable knowledge as WW2 days. You would i guess have a supply of welders to lean on at least that would ramp up faster than someone fresh.
But I doubt a factory that makes modern cars can handle making M1 Abrams without so much additional tooling and extra equipment that you are halfway to making a new factory anyways. (they could probably handle making light vehicles like cars and bikes at least)
Maybe if we had mass production style designs that were built purpose first to get cranked out. But we don't, and there isn't profit in that for the Military Industrial Complex.
One scary fact that I learned is that, in war games between China and the USA, China almost always wins due to superior production capacity. Those $100B American battle carriers and $40MM advanced fighter jets can be taken out by $50,000 rockets/missiles produced at a rate of hundreds or thousands per day.
The US loses many war-games against China in the short term as China has local numerical superiority of weapons. US armed forces are spread all around the world while almost all of the PLA is near mainland China. In the opening salvos of a Taiwan conflict China would flatten US bases in the region which would be devastating.
But long term China is effectively an Island. Its geography means that it imports nearly everything it needs by Sea. It imports 10 Million barrels of oil a day. It is not food secure. It imports nearly all of the raw materials it needs. While the PLAN could dominate their near shore, they cannot escort super tankers from the Middle East all the way back to China. The USN has had a carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf for decades.
The missile argument is also just nonsense.
> The issue is that China needs energy and other natural resources to sustain production which the US and allies can effectively blockade.
You just answered your own question.
They are so hostile, and aggressive exactly because of that immense insecurity, and fear.
It's the mental model you pickup growing in any red country: you never acknowledge your weaknesses, lest you want them being instantaneously exploited.
On other hand, you feign a polar opposite. It's everywhere in China:
— Far from rich people in small towns buying fake Ferraris
— Dumb companies hiring fake "big name foreign executives" to mumbo jumbo their plans to investors
— "Advance to retreat" tactic
— Chinese businessmen hiring a service of "fake thugs" and tatooing themselves to appear "tough mafia men" to scare off actual mafias
Also, US China conflict depends on entirely 'where' and 'over what' and what each nation is holding up it's sleeve.
China does not have $50K rockets that it can use to down 'reasonably stealthy fighters' and as we have seen before, tactics combined with good tech gives overwhelming odds. For example, if (big 'if' but entirely plausible) the US can maintain air superiority in a particular region ... then it will basically maul whatever is before it. As just one example.
China is building 100 subs that are a pretty big threat to any navy ... but we also don't know about advanced US tech that may render them completely moot.
If there is no huge leverage by one side, it happens on land, and over a long time ... the then 'home team' will win.
Stealth is a lot easier in water than it is in the air.
US has enough nuclear munitions to outright defeat 1 equal superpower in a first strike scenario.
I wouldn't call half the population of the US dying in 30 minutes, and most of the other half over the next 30 days to be much of a 'victory', and I don't want the DoD to even consider employing anyone who would.
Plus, any destroyer launching these at targets deep in Chinese territory will be within range of Chinese missiles. And, as we saw in Syria, Russian air defense systems are pretty effective against Tomahawks, and we should expect Chinese systems to be at least as effective.
No they aren't. They were designed with the assumption that GPS wouldn't be available and instead will rely on terrain tracking.
>Plus, any destroyer launching these at targets deep in Chinese territory will be within range of Chinese missiles. And, as we saw in Syria, Russian air defense systems are pretty effective against Tomahawks, and we should expect Chinese systems to be at least as effective.
What are you talking about? We had satellite imagery with holes in the ground that disproved the Russian claims that they shot down most of it.
Nothing you said is factual.
> whether light and heavy armor is actually of military worth in an era of drones and air power is a question I don't have the military training or knowledge to answer.
On this point, it obviously depends on what kind of war we're fighting. The British used unarmoured and open top Land Rovers with 50cals mounted on the rear for the first few years in Afghanistan until the government got its act together (they looked cool, but were IED death traps). There's a similar story with the Humvee.
Nonetheless, civilian style vehicles had their use.
Car factories might not make good tanks, but the mechanical engineers and tooling knowledge is invaluable and can't be scaled up overnight.
Same with solar panels, there's a reason both Obama and Trump imposed protective tariffs. One of the few areas both parties agree to. PV panels are the future of energy, so you need to have domestic factories no matter the cost.
Another benefit of domestic factories is domestic innovation. It's much harder for an engineer coming out of university and going through their career working at an office computer terminal to ever make a breakthrough innovation, if they can't step inside the factory to see how things are really done.
If that factory is down the street, it's much easier to do an apprenticeship, get a tour, or chat with the manager about their pain points. If it's in another country, you'll have to schedule a formal visit and you'll probably need to be a very important customer for that to happen.
Grad students coming out of a research lab would tend to focus on getting an extra 0.2% cell efficiency, but it's more likely that the innovation that makes PV competitive is something like reducing the scrap rate, or figuring out how to run cells through the QC machines more quickly.
Worst? Really? You think corn fields survive nuclear war? An asteroid the size of you know what?
What would the land be doing without subsidies?
War. In the event a war breaks out, a running auto plant can be re-tooled relatively rapidly into a light and heavy armor plant. It's not even a question of whether allies could supply tanks and troop transports; it's about having domestic capacity to make them because enemies could execute blockades and disrupt allied resource supply.