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by JumpCrisscross 587 days ago
> I'm not sure we want to take availability of cannon fodder to be our metric for human thriving

It's a measure of security. If you know your enemy cannot sustain a war of attrition, it incentivises launching one against them.
1 comments
zeroonetwothree 587 days ago
Typically logistics matters far more for a war of attrition and the US is still one of the best at that. Moreover what are we even talking about—an offensive war against the US? Our geographical position makes that unrealistic.
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JumpCrisscross 587 days ago
> logistics matters far more for a war of attrition and the US is still one of the best at that

Logistics matter far more in any war. In a war of attrition, however, production (not stocks) determine the outcome. (Soldiers are produced out of the civilian population.)

The reason OP's argument isn't urgent is there is no proximate war of attritition in which the stock America is running down are its soldiers. As a rich democracy, we're somewhat uniquely sensitive to troop losses. It's why we invest so heavily in technology to compensate.

> an offensive war against the US? Our geographical position makes that unrealistic

Those buffers of course. After which we don't have buffers. I'm not predicting imminent invasion of the homeland.

Like, if we lose our security positions in Europe and the West Pacific we're back where we were in the inter-War period.

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ForHackernews 587 days ago
> after which we don't have buffers

The "buffers" are two massive oceans, those are not going anywhere for the next million years.

Russia can't sustain an invasion of its next door neighbor. There is zero chance of a hostile invasion of the mainland United States.

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JumpCrisscross 587 days ago
> "buffers" are two massive oceans, those are not going anywhere for the next million years

There are also nukes. Nobody is invading America any time soon. But losing that security space means conceding a massive chunk of our GDP and, with it, autonomy and quality of life. At the very least, the system of government that oversaw that failure would be replaced.

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