Golden Dome for America

[EmoBirb]

Can you tell me what these interceptors are, please? Do you have any test data from these super-duper interceptors? Or is this all just a make believe word salad of missile tech buzz words that are the flavor of the month? What do you think is going to happen to the strategic satellites of the county who launches said interceptors? They better have one hell of a quick launch ability, and dozens of satellites ready to launch, or they're going to be completely blind. It would be a "cut off your nose to spite your face" scenario that would cost said country hundreds of billions of dollars, and an insurmountable amount of man power to be successful.

Hypervelocity impacts and protecting spacecraft

The consequences of meteoroid and debris impacts on spacecraft can range from small surface pits due to micrometre-size impactors and clear-hole penetrations for millimetre-size objects, to mission-critical damage for projectiles larger than 1 cm.Any impact of a 10 cm catalogue object on a...

www.esa.int

Small objects, without any propulsion, solely relying on their momentum have enough kinetic energy to severely damage if not outright destroy spacecraft, that's a literal (and well known) fact. As such, it's easy to see how such concepts can be weaponized. If Trump is hell bent on creating his super duper space interceptors (most likely economically unachievable), then you can be sure that other countries will not only deploy similar capabilities but also develop countermeasures to it.

In a thread about hypothetical thousands of US satellites meant to counter ICBMs, the idea of anti-satellite satellites is the least outlandish and quite frankly the most brutally realistic one. I wouldn't be surprised if there are already satellites able to deorbit other satellites. And if one thing is easy than it's getting some sort of projectile or launcher that can maneuver in orbit, track a target and dispense a neat little cluster of tungsten or some other dense material traveling at several kilometers per second towards your shiny anti-ICBM satellite, completely shredding the thing. And the debris shreds it's neighbor, and so on until you have a large debris cloud that has carved a huge rift into the satellite population within that specific orbit as a whole. And when you do that a couple different times you can see why at the end the ability of that orbital missile defense would be degraded when only half of them are operational.

Now would such large scale orbital warfare cause incredible amounts of debris and lead to a cascading effect which hurts everyone? Most likely. Would any country consider this a worthy trade off in the face of being able to defeat a hypothetical US ICBM defense and thus make them susceptible to retaliatory strikes with the own arsenal? Yes, almost certainly.

So the stupidest and most unrealistic bit about 'Ze Golden Dome' isn't what potential countermeasures there would be (and they'd be plentiful), but the entire idea itself is ridiculous, badly written science fiction.

At that trajectory the US government will announce plans to station nukes in orbit lmao.

 

[EmoBirb]

A lot of them are rural farmers that travel to the cities for work.

Do you know what "living in urban areas" means? As in, do you know what living somewhere means. It doesn't mean to commute there just for work, lmao.

BTW, from the same article you linked:

China's rural population as a percentage of total population fell to 40.42 percent in 2018 from 89.36 percent in 1949, according to the National Bureau Statistics (NBS). This means the nation's current rural population is less than 600 million.

Maybe read the whole thing next time?

 

[yeetmahboi]

Why would you argue against a full-on missile defense? MAD hinges its whole existence on clarity and reliability. Which is not dependable on. The US strategic missile force is limp in one arm and would take years to fix. Russia has violate treaties before and undoubtedly is developing key capabilities in secret, something the US doesn't have the luxury to do. And so is China, Iran, NK. The world is not some pony fantasy where both sides sign a truce and go on to sleep. Where there's a weak spot the adversary will exploit.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Racism? They are literally peasant farmers, though. I'm not trying to pick a fight, but, holy crap. His statement doesn't even fit the definition of racism (Read: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism).

I like this forum, Paul, so, don't ban me. If you have to do anything, please just make it to where I can't post - I need the account to access files and attachments.

Reductively labelling Chinese people "peasant farmers" is racist.

It's a belief rooted in American exceptionalism, imagining themselves superior to all other countries, and with a very old view of what China is compared to the reality of China today.

When I went to the US in 2020 I was amazed by the visible poverty much more than anything else. Yes, there are still "'peasant farmers" in China. There are also plenty of wealthy people, loads of research and education, lots of very high tech industries, and as a country it's overall pretty wealthy. Its reductive and racist to characterise China by its poorest people.

If I described America as "obese economically illiterate rural MAGA retards" that would also be racist. Not all Americans fit this stereotype. Not all Chinese people are peasant farmers. Characterising a race by its least desirable / successful members is a common racist trope.

Ed's next statement about how Trump imposing sanctions and reducing exports to the US will hollow out their economy is also wrong I think. Check what percentage of China's output goes to the US - its nowhere near as much as you probably imagine There are 184 other countries in the world outside the US walled garden of imagined superiority, several of them with more people than the US. China can weather the tariff storms fine.

 

[Dilandu]

Ed's next statement about how Trump imposing sanctions and reducing exports to the US will hollow out their economy is also wrong I think. Check what percentage of China's output goes to the US - its nowhere near as much as you probably imagine There are 184 other countries in the world outside the US walled garden of imagined superiority, several of them with more people than the US. China can weather the tariff storms fine.

Not to mention that China is controlling world supply of essentially all basic products - steel, aluminum, plastics, chemical, mechanical and electrical components. In many areas, they are close to 80% of world total production. And those aren't essy to replace. No industrialization is possible without cheap steel.

To put it simply - hthe world could manage without USA. Economical consequences would be severe, but as long as real production is working, world would be able to recover fast. But without China? It would took likely decades to even start to recover.

 

[Halcyon66]

Ed's next statement about how Trump imposing sanctions and reducing exports to the US will hollow out their economy is also wrong I think. Check what percentage of China's output goes to the US - its nowhere near as much as you probably imagine There are 184 other countries in the world outside the US walled garden of imagined superiority, several of them with more people than the US. China can weather the tariff storms fine.

Good point, China also made sure since the last time around to start to decouple from the US and started reducing its exports to the US considerably, expanding into various other markets globally.

Currently China is exporting around 12% of its goods to the US, 2016 it was over 20%.

China’s total export value was $3.58 trillion in 2024. the US accounted for $438.9 billion. So, if China and the United States completely ceased trading with each other, China’s foreign trade exports would still exceed $3 trillion.

Not to mention that China is controlling world supply of essentially all basic products - steel, aluminum, plastics, chemical, mechanical and electrical components. In many areas, they are close to 80% of world total production. And those aren't essy to replace. No industrialization is possible without cheap steel.

Exactly the US does not really understand how much they really need China.

The other obvious point to this thread is where is the money coming from, US debt clock is about to tick over to 37 trillion and counting.

Regards,

 

[yeetmahboi]

To put it simply - hthe world could manage without USA. Economical consequences would be severe, but as long as real production is working, world would be able to recover fast. But without China? It would took likely decades to even start to recover.

Sorry but what? Seriously? That 30% of the world's total GDP would move on just fine.