China's Electric Tech Stack Mastery Reduces Vulnerability to Cheap Drones

@Noahpinion In terms of defense, no. In terms of offense, yes.

@Noahpinion America didn't lose to Iran because our military assets were destroyed by drones. We lost because we couldn't protect large, fragile, slow-moving oil tankers from missiles, mines, and men in speedboats. (And because we didn't have a Plan B if Iran didn't immediately surrender.)

@Noahpinion On the bright side, Trump could have easily gone ballistic and escalated this crazily. People underappreciate how much he took the public L on this and retreated.

@Noahpinion Chinese invasion would make heavy use of airdropped ground-based armed rob-dogs operating behind the front, which sounds like I'm joking, but it would make a huge shift what defensive tools are needed.

@Noahpinion A giant chunk of their manufacturing capacity is like <100mi from the shore

@Noahpinion The real last moat against invasion in Taiwan is not America, nor technology. But the island's population. If they were willing to defend the land like Israeli's or the Swedes would, China would not see the value of owning a torched island. But if they think they would cave, yes.

@meta_x_ai @Noahpinion He was scared of a bigger L. We weren't prepared to invade. It would have required transport through bases Trump has said we no longer need in countries he has insulted and troops massing in the Middle East in countries who don't want the attention and under constant drone threat

@marsyasnyc @Noahpinion We “lost” because Trump got bored

We just spent like 2 months *not bombing them* while the strait remained closed

Drones are important but the Iran was was nothing like Ukraine

@meta_x_ai @Noahpinion Between an obviously pyrrhic victory and an attempt to sell surrender as a small victory, he chose the second.