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In the context of Mars, it is clear that a strong military defense capability is needed from the beginning of human settlement of the planet.
The primary threat at the beginning of settlement is asteroid or other naturally occurring object arrival.
A strong, capable defense against the inevitable arrival of objects moving randomly through the Solar System will be understandable to the population, some of whom might otherwise worry about the allocation of resources to planetary defense, when so many other urgent needs are facing the population.
However, a new topic along these lines will have the benefit of providing a place for those with interests along these lines to offer their best judgement about how to deal with threats faced by humans right now on Earth.
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This post is reserved for an index to posts our members may contribute over time.
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In the Google Meeting topic, kbd512 added a post about China. A significant point included in the post was the observation that China imports oil.
I asked Google for a summary, and this came back:
Generative AI is experimental. Learn more
China imports most of its oil from the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia being its main supplier. In 2022, China imported 87.5 million metric tons of crude oil from Saudi Arabia. In the first half of 2023, China also imported oil from Russia, Iran, Brazil, and the United States.Statista
China: oil imports by country 2022 - Statista
Jan 9, 2024 — Saudi Arabia is China's main crude oil supplier. In 2022, China imported nearly 87.5 million metric tons worth of crude oil from the Middle Eastern producing giant. In fact, the majority of China's oil imports originated from countries in the Middle East.EIA
China imported record volumes of crude oil in the first ... - EIA
Sep 18, 2023 — China sourced much of the additional crude oil it imported in the first half of 2023 from Russia, Iran, Brazil, and the United States. Compared with 2022 averages, China's imports from Russia increased by 23% (400,000 b/d), from Saudi Arabia by 7% (130,000 b/d), and from Brazil by 49% (250,000 b/d).
China also has an oil drilling rig in the South China Sea, called the Haiyang Shiyou 981, which began drilling in 2012.
China imports over half of its oil, with about 60% of those imports transported by sea. China must pass through Malacca to transit around 70–85% of its imported oil supply.
China's main reason for increasing its oil imports and refining capacity is to sell to other countries, especially in Asia.
Does China drill its own oil?
Why does China import so much oil?
Who is the producer of oil in China?
Ask a follow up...Show more
Presently, Russia is China's top crude oil supplier, followed by Saudi Arabia, Angola, Iraq, and Oman.
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tahanson43206,
China consumed 14.7 million bbl/day in 2023, or about 729.708 million metric tons, at 136kg per bbl of crude.
China imported 563.99 million metric tons of crude in 2023.
China's crude oil production rose to 208 million metric tons in 2023, equivalent to 4.16 million barrels per day, state broadcaster CCTV said on Tuesday.
1.4B people only use 148.57kg of oil per person per year?
That's 131 gallons of gasoline and 197 gallons of everything else, for all possible uses across their entire society. Gonna make everyone walk everywhere all the time? Getting things done is going to take a lot longer. It's not impossible, but it won't be quick.
Can you imagine what would happen if 77% of their crude supply was no longer available to them?
The overall point is that China's military runs on oil, not coal, not gas, not nuclear power. If all of their oil storage farms near the coast start disappearing, and no more crude oil tankers enter Chinese ports, then their ability to sustain a war against Taiwan will be severely affected. Without resupply, military vehicles will run out of fuel within a day or two. Ships can steam for 2 weeks or so. When 3/4ths of the oil supply is not available, they will have to drastically curtail military operations. Rebuilding an oil refinery and storage tank farm is not a fast process.
While rebuilding Liaoning, the Chinese navy laid down the keel of domestically designed aircraft carrier Shandong in 2013 and got it combat-ready in 2019. Three years later, a more advanced third carrier, the Fujian was launched on June 17, 2022.
It took them 6 years to build and launch an aircraft carrier with no shortage of workers, materials, or shipyard capacity. It takes us about the same amount of time. That means building a warship is not typically a fast process, no matter who is doing it, they simply have more functioning ship yards than America does.
Care to guess at what the next targets should be after their oil supply is largely cut off?
No oil, no motor vehicles. No ships, no shipping. No shipping, no trade. No trade, no economy. No economy, and it's back to the conditions that created young Xi Xinping, which is what he fears most.
This is in response to China invading Taiwan, not simply to be mean to the Chinese people, who don't deserve what "dear leader" has inflicted upon them in his lust for power.
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Some 80% of China's oil is imported and most of that has to traverse the narrow straights of Singapore. A single destroyer could cut off Chinese oil supply at this point. There are any number of countries that could do that. There are other strategic choke points for the Chinese. The first island chain, which could easily be cut off by the Japanese is they chose to exert their navy. The Indian ocean sea lanes, that could easily be disrupted by India. The Persian gulf itself. Easily disrupted by anyone with blue water ships, or even bordering countries without them, as the Houthis have shown. And this is just oil supply. The Chinese are dependant on imports for a whole range of raw materials, including food and inputs for the growth of food. And they depend upon exports to balance the trade. Exports are vulnerable to boycotts.
The Chinese situation could hardly be more different to that of Russia. The Russians are net exporters of energy and raw materials and importers of finished goods. This puts them in a stronger position. They are not insulated from the effects of sanctions, but having commodities that everyone needs makes them a lot more resiliant than the Chinese would be in the same situation.
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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NewAtlas YouTube Video (for watchers / listeners):
The Fatal Flaw Undermining America's Defense Industrial Base
New Eastern Outlook Article (for readers):
Fatal Flaws Undermine America’s Defense Industrial Base, by Brian Berletic
BusinessDefense.gov NDIS 2023 Page:
US Department of Defense - The National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) (2023)
NDIS 2023 Report PDF
National Defense Industrial Strategy - Department of Defense - 2023
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Here's the over-arching defense problem as I see it:
1. As sophisticated as all our new military technology has become, the cost is now approaching unsustainable levels. We need simpler planes, vehicles, and ships that don't require advanced engineering degrees to repair or service in a timely manner. In a shooting war, for example, nobody has the luxury of 6 month maintenance intervals for ships. An imperfect ship available now is infinitely better than a perfect model that won't be available until after the war is over. Our defense product manufacturers seemed to understand this critically important aspect of defense procurement during WWII, but lost sight of it after wartime production ended.
2. When you try to imbue any given weapon system or combat vehicle with too many features and capabilities, it rapidly becomes optimally designed for nothing. Our blind obsession with trying to make each weapon system or combat vehicle meet all potential future requirements has been debilitating for procurement and unsustainable on cost grounds. A minimum viable product acquisition strategy needs to be pursued. Most of the true value-added has come in the form of improved sensors, communications, electronics, and timely sharing of information.
3. Chinese technical capabilities are rapidly approaching those of the west. They're simply behind the power curve due to our relative historical starting points. The Chinese and Russian defense industrial base is already far ahead of the west, specifically because our system prioritizes maximizing profits at the expense of surge capacity to produce what is required, when required, even if that means we continue to pay for the capacity to produce something such as artillery shells, when maximum output is not needed. As many people as China has, or even with only half as many, I think it's highly probable that Chinese military and space tech eclipses that of the west unless we refocus on the basics that made western civilization so wildly successful to begin with.
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For kbd512 re new Forum for Military topics...
Thanks for your support of this idea, and for showing the kind and quality of the content we might see there...
if you have a moment (and I understand they are rare), please think about how you might structure the opening topics of this proposed new forum.
It would be possible (as just one example) to include major references such as the "Art of War" by Sun Yat TZu.
It is available from major book sellers in a range of prices.
What are the 5 principles of Sun Tzu's art of war?
These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.
I asked Google what the US spends on defense, and got back the top four countries:
Highest military expenditure, total
Rank
Country
% of GDP
1
United States
3.5
2
China
1.6
3
Russia
4.1
4
India
2.4
List of countries with highest military expenditures - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expend...
I had to think about the list for a while .... I finally realized the table is ranked by total spending. The percentage of 4.1 for Russia reflects a smaller economy.
My guess is that in recent times, Putin has increased the percentage of GDP for offense at the expense of the needs of the population for non-defense items.
If this (proposed) new forum is well structured, if may attract authoritative (as opposed to just opinionated) individuals to join the forum and contribute to building up knowledge/insights/wisdom to be applied by residents of Mars to protect their new enterprise from unwanted outside influence, or internal disruption.
Some understanding of human nature seems necessary for a culture to survive in the near term, let alone the long term.
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tahanson43206,
My expertise is more related to understanding what makes a good weapon system. Good weapons tend to be easy to use, no more sophisticated than what's required to get the job done, available in large numbers, and effective in their intended role. In general, they tend to be similar to or comparable with other products of the same type. If it's radically different from all the others, then it's probably some other class of weapon designed to do something very different. The SR-71 was great at high altitude photo recon at very high speeds. The US Air Force figured out fairly quickly that it was never going to become a practical interceptor. The SR-71 sacrificed maneuverability, adaptability, and general maintainability for sake of pure speed. Calling it an interceptor because someone had the bright idea to strap some missiles to it is mildly amusing, but that's as far as the concept goes. If there is some stand-out feature or characteristic one weapon possesses that the others do not, that is fine, so long as it doesn't significantly detract from all the other required features or characteristics.
I feel as though we've strayed away from those design principles for good weapon systems here in the west, or possibly that we never learned the correct lessons from WWII. Our relentless quest for the next super weapon greatly resembles the thinking prevalent amongst weapons designers from Germany during WWII. Germany had super weapons during WWII, in significant relative numbers, yet their refusal to show proper deference to the fundamentals of what makes a good weapon probably cost them the war. The allies didn't win because German and Japanese weaponry, combat tactics, training, or fighting spirit were markedly inferior. They lost because they couldn't figure out that the minutia of their super weapons, when combined with their pointless feature or capability fixations, were incompatible with the style of warfare they were engaged in. Japan put bayonet lugs on belt-fed machine guns, and issued bayonets to their machine gunners. Issuing better ammo boxes was a better use of the available steel. I feel as though the west is now engaging in this form of silliness- not recognizing that machine gunners need quality ammo belts and boxes, rather than giant knives to attach to our machine guns.
The finely machined and incredibly accurate bolt-action rifles that Germany started WWII with were not what they required to win. The crudely but swiftly made MP-44s were, quite clearly, the weapons of choice. The ability to hit a target at 1,000 yards was utterly wasted when men were rapidly firing off-hand at each other from a couple hundred yards at most. You didn't need or even want bolt-action rifles at such short distances. The MG-42, MP-44, Panzerfaust, and stick grenades were the right weapons for that sort of fighting. Little has fundamentally changed about the distances of typical infantry engagements since then. Afghanistan was an outlier. The lesson is that issuing overly-capable but expensive and time consuming to manufacture, as well as train a conscript to competently use, weapons to your general infantry is a waste of time and money. Armies resisted issuing multiple ammunition magazines to their troops on the grounds that they would loose them. They'd loose a magazine that held a large portion of their ammunition in a convenient package that was handy for rapid use, but not the even smaller clips of cartridges or loose cartridges that they did issue. That was the sort of anti-logic applied by weapons instructors and procurement officers to forego issuing box magazines. Nobody involved who was in a position of authority called BS on that. That was the real reason the M1 Garand wasn't built with a 20 round detachable box magazine. After the war they built the M-14, and of course, it was issued with multiple detachable 20 round box magazines. Germany resisted making and using such weapons for much of the war because their Army weapons procurement officers turned their noses up at the kind of equipment that might win the war, at a time when they so badly needed it, which was early on, before their losses to anachronistic thinking made their situation so desperate.
Fast forward to today, and no military on planet Earth issues stripper clips or loose rounds to troops who are about to go into combat, if any magazines are available. Any magazines and ammunition that are dropped by fellow soldiers, are picked up and reused if they're still usable. Imagine that- ordinary soldiers are intelligent enough to pick up and retain any magazines that their fellow soldiers accidentally drop, so that they always have some available. All that pointless hand-wringing by officers over their soldiers losing or abandoning magazines was an utter waste of time and lives in many cases. When you need more ammo, you typically need it as fast as humanly possible. It's not a carefully orchestrated flat range exercise to impress a visiting general. It's life or death.
Why was there so much initial resistance to the idea of issuing magazines when perfectly usable magazine designs were available and offered as solutions by so many weapons designers? Ideologically-captured people had ideologically-inculcated ideas about how war was to be conducted. No consideration was given to the practical aspects of how their "war fantasies" would play out in real life combat. These same people kept score cards for troops firing at paper targets in full view of their trainees at known distances, over finely manicured grass ranges. That was yet another bizarre act of ideation about combat that probably cost many lives. War is rarely a marksmanship contest unless you're a sniper.
The way I can tell that Hitler was never a strategic thinker, is that no general officer or military operations planner worthy of that title would ever send the bulk of their army into a country so well known for its brutally cold winters without any cold weather clothing. The Third Reich had superior soldiers, superior weapons, superior tactics, local numerical superiority, and thought they were "the master race"... Somehow, their not-so-masterful leadership forgot that not even "master race" humans surive 40 below temperatures wearing a pair of fatigues. Of all possible things to not be mindful of, especially given the date of the invasion, that one thing guaranteed to kill all unprotected human beings apparently didn't affect the list of must-have items prior to their invasion. Let's say they pushed all the way to Moscow before the winter started. Were they simply going to walk all the way back to Germany before the winter? Were they going to remain in place after taking Moscow? Someone didn't think that through. Even if Hitler didn't anticipate their fight with the Russians taking as long as it did, their logistics department should've acquired parkas to issue to their troops anyway.
The US Army and Chinese Army did the same stupid thing in Korea, so the Germans weren't very special in that regard. Our troops weren't issued any winter clothing at all when the Korean War started. My grandfather nearly froze to death near the Chosin Reservoir. Simple things like that can change the course of a battle, or even a war. Whether or not your rifle shoots a bit farther, hits a little harder, or is a little more accurate than the other guy's rifle, is probably never going to amount to much of anything. All the labor and money not spent on finely machined rifles that would mostly be lost during the fighting, or bayonets for belt-fed machine guns, could pay for a coat warm enough to keep a soldier from freezing to death, or better quality food, or any food, or better medical treatment for the wounded.
Now... Take that same anti-rationalization process and start applying it to more expensive and sophisticated weapons like tanks, fighter jets, and aircraft carriers. It's easy to start justifying contrivances that make very little sense at a macro level of resolution, after you've "zoomed out" far enough from your obsession over the minutia related to a particular piece of equipment or weaponry. The more detail level analysis I've done, the less interesting I find the details, even though everyone seems to fixate on some meaningless detail because they can't visualize how all the moving pieces fit together. Performance characteristics can and do matter to a degree, but so do lots of other equally tangible things like cost, quantity, ease of use, ease of repair, and so forth. We've well and truly "fallen down" when it comes to those aspects of fighting.
That is how we have arrived at where we're at, a set of circumstances whereby Russia, a country that had to have food shipped in from America at least 3 times during the past 100 years that I know of, to prevent millions of Russians from starving to death, can still manage to make 2.6 million artillery shells per year. Meanwhile, America, a nation which supplied a healthy portion of the arms and equipment to the Red Army during WWII, now struggles to produce a half million artillery shells per year. Canada made more than a half million artillery shells per week using a grand total of 11 million people, during WWII. Somewhere along the way, our priorities and big picture thinking became scrambled beyond recognition.
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