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#351 2026-02-21 19:18:27
- RobertDyck
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- From: Winnipeg, Canada
- Registered: 2002-08-20
- Posts: 8,394
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Re: Peter Zeihan again: and also other thinkers:
Budgets: This thread is about Peter Zeihan. He has said China's navy is short range, not able to operate in deep water or far from Chinese shores. If a conflict with China breaks out, position 2 or 3 destroyers near Singapore and blockade shipping to China. That's it. Cut off oil imports to China. Cut off food imports. Cut off agricultural inputs (fertilizer, etc). Chinese civilization will be over in 2 years.
Peter Zeihan: World Order Falling Apart: Trump, Global Chaos & the End Of Chinese Empire
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#352 2026-02-21 19:26:03
- RobertDyck
- Moderator
- From: Winnipeg, Canada
- Registered: 2002-08-20
- Posts: 8,394
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Re: Peter Zeihan again: and also other thinkers:
If you're still worried about Purchasing Power Parity, here's a comparison of navy ships: (from Wikipedia)
Russian navy:
13 Ballistic missile submarines
12 Cruise missile submarines
13 Nuclear-powered attack submarines
19 Diesel/electric-powered attack submarines
9 Special-purpose submarines
1 Aircraft carrier (in commission, but not operational)
2 Battlecruisers
2 Cruisers
9 Destroyers
12 Frigates
c. 79 Corvettes
17 Landing ships
50+ Landing craft
5 Patrol ships
c. 60+ Patrol boats (significant numbers of additional offshore patrol vessels/light patrol boats are operated by the Russian Coast Guard, Federal Protective Service, Russian National Guard and other agencies)
43+ Mine countermeasures vessels
18 Special-purpose (intelligence) ships
Numerous other auxiliaries
United States Navy:
Commissioned (USS) – 233
Aircraft carrier – 11
Amphibious assault ship – 9
Amphibious command ship – 2
Amphibious transport dock – 13
Attack submarine – 48
Ballistic missile submarine – 14
Classic frigate – 1
Cruiser – 7 (of 20)
Destroyer – 76
Dock landing ship – 10 (of 12)
Expeditionary mobile base – 4
Guided missile submarine – 4
Littoral Combat Ship – 1
Littoral combat ship – 26 (of 31)
Mine countermeasures ship – 4
Submarine tender – 2
Technical research ship – 1
Non-commissioned (USNS) – 85
Cable ship – 1
Dry cargo ship – 14
Expeditionary fast transport – 12
Expeditionary transfer dock – 2
Fast combat support ship – 2
Fleet ocean tug – 1
High speed transport – 2
Hospital ship – 2
Instrumentation ship – 1 (of 2)
Maritime prepositioning ship – 4
Ocean surveillance ship – 5
Offshore supply vessel – 1
Replenishment oiler – 17
S.A.S.W.S Vessel A – 4
Salvage ship – 2 (of 4)
Survey ship – 7
Vehicle cargo ship – 8 (of 57)
Support (MV, RV – or no prefix) – 66
Barracks ship – 21
Container ship – 5
Dry dock – 2
Fast sea frame – 1
Fuel tanker – 5
Harbor tug – 12
Large harbor tug – 5
Oceanographic research ship – 6
S.A.S.W.S Vessel A – 4
Sea-based X-band Radar – 1
Self Defense Test Ship – 1
Torpedo trials craft – 2
Unclassified miscellaneous – 1
Ready Reserve Force ships (MV, SS, GTS) – 55
Aviation logistics support ship – 2
Crane ship – 4
Vehicle cargo ship – 49 (of 57)
Reserve Fleet ships (USS, USNS) – 26
Cruiser – 13 (of 20)
Dock landing ship – 2 (of 12)
Dry dock – 1
Expeditionary fast transport – 2
Instrumentation ship – 1 (of 2)
Littoral combat ship – 5 (of 31)
Salvage ship – 2 (of 4)
Under construction – 48
Aircraft carrier – 3
Amphibious assault ship – 2
Amphibious transport dock – 2
Attack submarine – 11
Ballistic missile submarine – 1
Destroyer – 11
Expeditionary fast transport – 2
Expeditionary mobile base – 2
Frigate – 1
Littoral combat ship – 1
Replenishment oiler – 5
Survey ship – 1
Towing, salvage and rescue ship – 6
On order – 49
Aircraft carrier – 2
Amphibious assault ship – 1
Amphibious transport dock – 2
Attack submarine – 9
Ballistic missile submarine – 2
Barracks ship – 2
Destroyer – 15
Expeditionary fast transport – 1
Expeditionary medical ship – 3
Frigate – 1
Medium landing ship – 1
Ocean surveillance ship – 2
Replenishment oiler – 4
Towing, salvage and rescue ship – 4
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#353 2026-02-21 20:50:17
- Void
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- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 9,335
Re: Peter Zeihan again: and also other thinkers:
America is much more aquatic than the Russians for good reasons. Are we a Duck or a Swan?
At least we are not a Goose. AKA Flying Carp.
It makes very little sense for the Russians to have a Navy, but they are in love with the idea it seems.
But they are quite the thing for Eurasian/Asian Land Wars.
I think it was always wrong to think that an industrial superpower was a danger in the near Russian area. Per Peter Zeihan, trans and trucks are just not the equal to water transportation, if you can have water transportation.
The British fetish to chase the Russians around and try to get us do so as well, is not suitable to our needs.
You need to consider that it is possible that the aristocrat greens now believe that they can survive a nuclear war between America and a major Asian power. In their infantile dreams they may think that 9/10ths of the human race can be killed off while the hide in their plush bunkers. Then they come out and rule the remnants.
We are not interested in that plan.
Ending Pending 
Is it possible that the root of political science claims is to produce white collar jobs for people who paid for an education and do not want a real job?
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#354 2026-02-22 14:14:15
- kbd512
- Administrator
- Registered: 2015-01-02
- Posts: 8,517
Re: Peter Zeihan again: and also other thinkers:
1st Fleet - 1947 to 1973 (Central Pacific Ocean; Disestablished at the end of the Viet Nam War)
2nd Fleet - Norfolk, VA (North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans)
3rd Fleet - San Diego, CA (Eastern Pacific Ocean)
4th Fleet - Mayport, FL (Central and South America)
5th Fleet - Manama, Bahrain (Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Arabian Sea)
6th Fleet - Naples, Italy (Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea)
7th Fleet - Yokosuka, Japan (Western Pacific and Indian Ocean)
10th Fleet - Fort Meade, MA (US Cyber Command and Space Operations)
Apart from 10th Fleet, which has no assigned warships to the best of my knowledge, all other commissioned US Navy warships are spread amongst the 6 numbered fleets. 4th Fleet doesn't require much in the way of ocean-going warships, so we could assert with some confidence that 5 fleets must be supplied with warships, support ships, naval aviation support, and logistics ashore.
At any given time, if we have 4 ships of a given class, then only 1 of those 4 ships is ready for immediate contingency use, which includes deployment to a war zone or as a floating staging area for natural disaster relief. Amongst the 76 Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers, only 19 of them are available for deployment at any given time. The US Navy says 15 to 20 Arleigh Burkes will be on deployment at any given time, which tracks quite well with my assertion that 4 ships are required to ensure 1 of the 4 is deployed.
AEGIS Combat System equipped Arleigh Burkes are our primary air defense ships for battle groups or task forces because all of our Ticonderoga class guided missile cruisers are retiring, they're the primary anti-submarine warfare ships because we have no frigates, and they're the primary surface strike platform as well. Simple math indicates that only 4 ships per numbered fleet are available for deployment or on deployment at any given time, covering an entire ocean or sea, and sometimes more than one large body of water. This means true combat power is quite limited, especially when these destroyers are tethered to a carrier or amphibious battle group they must defend. Their freedom to operate as independent warships in a destroyer squadron task force ordered to locate and eliminate enemy warships is essentially nonexistent.
We had 670 destroyers and destroyer escorts (frigates) by the end of WWII. Towards the end of the Cold War, we still had a 600 ship Navy. No matter how capable the Arleigh Burke class is, relative to the vastly cheaper and more plentiful Fletcher class destroyers of WWII, or the Perry class guided missile frigates primarily used for sub chasing, it can only ever be in one place at one time. If a modern destroyer is tethered to a carrier battle group, then it's not fulfilling the primary role of a destroyer, which is to find and destroy enemy warships.
We have no modern frigates, so no dedicated submarine hunting ships. We have precious few mine countermeasures ships, all of which are retiring within the next decade. If the Navy's desire is to keep their high capability guided missile destroyers close to a battle group for air defense, then we need to offload the destroyer escort / frigate duties to smaller dedicated sub chasers and mine neutralization ships.
If those Tesla humanoid robots become generally useful supplements for the semi-skilled labor performed by human sailors, then perhaps we can still have a 600 ship Navy without training and paying far greater numbers of sailors. If the robots are capable of assisting with feeding the crew, cleaning the ship, and making minor repairs to engines and weapons, then we don't need any brand new warship designs, merely larger numbers of existing guided missile destroyers, aircraft carriers, and amphibious ships.
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#355 2026-02-24 12:35:52
- Void
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- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 9,335
Re: Peter Zeihan again: and also other thinkers:
Keep in mind that when I study something like this, I do not have 100% trust. I have been stupid before about converting to a line of thinking, it is always possible that I am in danger of stupid again now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77BOh0Pqjfs
Quote:
Trump DESTROYS Globalism: The End of The Empire
Rich Does Politics
The moderator is from the Indian sub-continent, which is both good and bad potentially. It is good to get thinking from another mixing zone, but it is also possible that bad thinking might be intentionally injected into our cultures. I have not seen that yet, but I am on guard against that possibility.
Seems like a nice guy, but of course the devil could fool me quite easily as well I expect.
Ending Pending
Last edited by Void (2026-02-24 12:39:03)
Is it possible that the root of political science claims is to produce white collar jobs for people who paid for an education and do not want a real job?
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#356 2026-02-27 13:54:15
- Void
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- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 9,335
Re: Peter Zeihan again: and also other thinkers:
This is a cultural item, I guess, and I don't want to start another topic for it, I will put it here. The Cyber-cabs will be a form of transport robot.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … &FORM=VIRE Quote:
Tesla Just Made the Biggest Bet in Industrial History
YouTube
Farzad
11.7K views
I am sure there will be denial and cultural resistance/disruption for this.
I expect that if it works on in one part of the USA or one country in the world, it will eventually become almost universal.
It is a curious matter that some kids may never get drivers licenses or learn to drive.
As for you, you will have to see what you care to believe about it and what you eventually get forced to believe.
I think that the old guard is already having some level of allergic level reaction to it.
Ending Pending
Last edited by Void (2026-02-27 13:58:26)
Is it possible that the root of political science claims is to produce white collar jobs for people who paid for an education and do not want a real job?
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#357 Yesterday 07:01:22
- kbd512
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- Registered: 2015-01-02
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Re: Peter Zeihan again: and also other thinkers:
Void,
When a large swath of society has no longer has jobs, thus no money to go anywhere to do anything, who is the customer base for this wonderful new technology?
Is it people who have typical economic means, who don't have money to buy tens of millions of new cars at the present time?
Is it simply more independently wealthy people who can easily afford to pay their own driver?
AI is already replacing many white collar jobs, apparently many blue collar jobs as well, so who still has money to buy new cars?
We're talking about tens of millions of jobs in the transport and automotive maintenance sectors around the world, about 3 million in the US alone, so this question requires a real answer. Telling them to "learn to code" isn't going to cut it.
I can see rental car agencies and taxi services buying them if the vehicles live up to marketing claims. Rental car agencies no longer purchase many EVs because they cannot resell them at a profit every couple years. The taxi service industry is largely owner-operator-based. Existing electrical power generation infrastructure hasn't kept pace with new AI-based demands placed on our electric grid, which seems like an even larger and more fundamental economics problem.
We're still waiting for Tesla to revolutionize the North American trucking industry with their EV semis.
The very first time a highly motivated software engineer, who is now unemployed, infiltrates the software update system and sends a software modification to all vehicles to crash most of them at the same time, is likely to single-handedly end this entire half-baked concept.
We already know the hacker won't have the money to replace a fleet of tens of millions of vehicles, so do we bankrupt the company who made the autonomous driving software, the insurance company, or the person who paid for the vehicles?
Assuming passengers who were riding in one of these driver-less taxi vehicles at the time of the hack survive their ordeal, will they ever trust them again?
This seems likely to become a self-correcting economics problem. It'll work great until it doesn't, and then it's done.
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#358 Yesterday 11:16:16
- Void
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- Registered: 2011-12-29
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Re: Peter Zeihan again: and also other thinkers:
I see your immune system is active. That is not necessarily a bad thing.
As for my assessment of future events, "I DON'T KNOW" explains it efficiently.
I am elder and retired, and for me it is potential entertainment on my way to my termination of existence in this world.
I already do not drive this world at all, if I ever did.
I will see what happens, until I don't see what happens.
That's about it.
I dipped my toe into some low-level programming before I retired. I was tempted to continue with it as a Hobie, but I anticipated that everyone in the 3rd world would want to make money coding. And I was while employed responsible for the software of my department. So it was less a toy than a stressful task.
I did know that Excel could write macro code, so I figured, coding would eventually make me outdated. I was very correct.
I am along for the ride, until my dirt nap comes.
I hope things will go well, but history says very likely monkeys at the steering wheel will also make some things wrong.
Ending Pending
Last edited by Void (Yesterday 11:19:10)
Is it possible that the root of political science claims is to produce white collar jobs for people who paid for an education and do not want a real job?
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