The energy to reach orbit is the same as a flight from Los Angles to Australia.

“…It also takes a great deal of energy to drop a projectile on a target that is not directly under your orbital track…”

Lifting bodies. We have lots of data on this.

“…Far better to have ICBMs that can hit any location on Earth in 20 minutes, but they have to be mobile and concealed (e.g. submarines) or they’re sitting ducks…”

Not a bad idea and they could be put in regular truck trailers like those all over the US in the millions if we had a gnome.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/gnome.htm

The US got into World War I against the express wishes of its political establishment. This happens sometimes in a democracy. If China invades Taiwan, how will the American voters respond?

Also, is it over in Hong Kong?

The surest way to lose a war is to surrender.

Fortunately for everyone, war changes the conversation.

Long live the Federal Reserve.

See “Franz Ferdinand”.

Wars don’t start because someone accidentally sneezed.

They start because of long-term, well-understood, vital interests.

The future of humanity hangs in the balance.

Four years.

Any.

Wretchard (Richard Fernandez) once shared the beginning of a novel he was thinking about. The story went roughly that China’s navy was acting provocatively around some islands claimed by the Philippines, resulting in the deaths of some Filipinos. The Philippines Air Force responded and with an unexpected/unintended lucky shot sank the Chinese aircraft carrier. China replied by nuking Manila.

Take that scenario. Would the US respond militarily against China? My guess is — No! Certainly not under a President Biden, and Chinese-controlled Nancy Pelosi would anyway immediately cut off funding for the US military. Substitute Tokyo or Taipei and the answer would be the same — no US military response. Strongly worded diplomatic letter in French — for sure!

Realistically, the US is not going to get into a shooting war with China, unless China did something really stupid directly against the US, like sink a US aircraft carrier. That would probably rapidly lead to a general nuclear exchange, which would be unfortunate and would not serve anyone’s interests.

Focusing the Marines on contested landings in China is beyond dumb.

I bet for the foreseeable future you would be better off with some sort of kinetic kill. Remember “brilliant pebbles”? Lasers get too damn hot and there’s no way to bleed the heat easily in Space. Of course covering low earth orbit with either would be very aggressive. Might trigger a response that no one would like.

Puncture the rocket during the boost phase. If that fails, ablate the heat shield while it’s ballistic.

The problem with orbit is that it takes a lot of energy to attain, and once there, the enemy can see you and plot your path weeks in advance. It also takes a great deal of energy to drop a projectile on a target that is not directly under your orbital track.

Far better to have ICBMs that can hit any location on Earth in 20 minutes, but they have to be mobile and concealed (e.g. submarines) or they’re sitting ducks.

Modern warfare is all offense, no defense. Anything the enemy knows the exact location of will be destroyed in minutes.

I don’t miss floppies, not even a little bit. Or CRT screens. I don’t expect I’ll miss hard drives much.