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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

> and the west has fought wars over this very issue

Which ones?

Also, China has nukes, we probably don't want to see that war starting. I don't think there's a good military option available.

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They aren’t saying we should start a war. They are saying we’ve gone to war to defend those principles but now we put up much less resistance, such as denouncements, sanctions, etc., lots of things short of war that we’ve done with the USSR and Russia.

I read them as implying it, though even if they aren't, in previous HK threads I've seen comments that were, as if open war between two ICBM-equipped nations was something that wouldn't have disastrous consequences for every single one of us.

I also would love to know which wars we (the US, or the Western world) have gone to over those principles (versus e.g. "over oil"), because I can't think of any.

We’re not (at least I’m not) saying go to war. I’m saying take the same actions we do against Russia and Venezuela for example.

For very different reasons. Venezuela is "communists in our backyard" and Russia isn't about human rights, but about global hegemony, human rights is just the big argument.

If there was an actual point in "it's about human rights", the US would come down on Turkey like an anvil on a cartoon character in old animated movies. Instead, the US appears to support Turkey's new expansive invasion of Syria that goes hand in hand with their genocidal desires to annihilate the Kurds. It's never about human rights on the international stage, it's about power.

Its true human rights is rarely the true or stated reason, and it needn’t be here either.

It could be about hegemony and influence. the NBA and Hollywood having to cater and cave in to official Chinese positions. I think it’d be different than say hoi polloi (public opinion) in China dictating what Hollywood does. One is freedom of speech and opinion the other is government coercion and control.

Venezuela is also in top 10 of net oil exporters, which I do believe is the reason other nations in general, and US in particular, care about it at all.

There are a handful of wars in the 20th century that you can argue the US participated in because of principles (communism bad).

There are key founding principles for any liberal democracy.

China and what it stands for is the antithesis of those principles.

Our unwillingness to act on what our ancestors viewed as infringements on basic human rights will be the end of the free world.

Do they have the capacity to hit targets in the continental US without winning naval supremacy?

I don't think the navy can do anything about ICBMs, but even if, they can start by nuking the US navy.

The US Navy does appear to have an ABM capability on some of its ships:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defens...

Good to know. Now the question is, can the newest AEGIS deal with China's newest hypersonic ICBMs. It's a question I very much don't want to see answered through actual test.

As noted in that article, the system is ineffective (officially, at least) against ICBMs. It only works against ballistic missiles that don't leave the atmosphere.

They can't nuke the subs, who's primary purpose is to ensure retaliation, which hopefully the fear of keeps countries from launching nukes.

Yes.

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-41

I probably should’ve done a quick search instead of asking:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-para...

They can launch people into orbit and safely bring them back. Hitting a ground target with an ICBM is about the same difficulty.

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