I think the thing everybody is forgetting is that INDOPACOM is probably getting ready to hang itself with the amount of things that have happened in the last 72 hours.
I assumed the US Navy wouldn't be suicidal idiots? Fighting near Chinese waters makes as much sense as fighting China by ramming its coast to sink the country into the ocean.
Yes, the US Navy is not capable of ramming China to sink it. Because no shit.
The US Navy needs to stay out of missile range of the majority of their missiles. Politely ask every tanker and cargo ship going to China to turn around. And then start sinking each and every ship that ignores the polite request. US subs get fun chance to score Chinese sub kills.
China is dependent on food and energy imports. Most tankers cannot outmaneuver and outfight an F-35. If you find one that can, I'll fully admit I underestimated the Chinese threat.
Leave destroying China's infrastructure to drones, cruise missiles, stealth bombers and the NSA's offensive electronic warfare folks. US Navy will be a big part of that.
Fun part is, US Navy and China face off over electronic warfare all the time. NCIS snags Chinese spies regularly. I had a fun time watching the US Navy team face off against their counterparts from China at Defcon's capture the flag competition couple years ago.
Chinese citizenship students with their tuition paid for by the CCP got arrested for smuggling plant fungus pathogens into the US like two weeks ago. Whether it was state sanctioned or private action is disputed. But China already SEVERELY dealt the US a blow with Huanglongbing (HLB), which has decimated US citrus production. They absolutely are looking at further avenues to attack our natural advantages.
We're already in a Cold War and I take it very seriously. But US is food and energy independent, and China isn't. China's population will drop in half over the next few decades because that's what happens when you have a One Child Policy for 50 years. US won't. We just need to decouple from China economically over those decades, and keep China boxed up until nature takes its course and they turn into Japan with decades of 0% GDP growth.
I'm really hoping for an unrestricted naval blockade if we get into a hot war with China someday. Clancy would nut. A modern-day continental system. Hell, give frigate crews right to salvage on any container ships who try to run the blockade. Payout prize money.
But no point in a war without a blockade. Land war is out. Coastal naval fights are out. Blockade and commerce raiding is the ONLY solution that would work. And work easily.
China has six boomers, nine attack subs, 30-40 Kilo class diesel subs, twp Kuznetsov hell-ships and one potentially real carrier, 30-40 real destroyers. Rest and majority are coastal defense boats.
Good for regional defense and could probably over-whelm Japan. That's take at least two US carrier groups to defeat in deep water. I'd send three to be safe. Each CSG is a supercarrier, 9 air squadrons, 2 missile cruisers, ten destroyers, two attack subs and re-supply ships. I'd tack on some extra subs and ASW assets, obviously.
Idk. US naval air power is a threat multiplier. Half of the Chinese fleet would be sinking before they got into range to fire on the US task force. Aegis class destroyers have never been involved in a real fight, so we have no idea how stupidly powerful fleet air defense is. And with the AWACS capability we have they won't see it coming until the vampires are on radar.
I wouldn't be shocked if they didn't send surface vessels at all. Satellites and long range missiles are a hell of a combo. China hasn't had a war since they invaded Vietnam and lost back in 1979.
Their subs would be their main offensive weapons. They've made improvements to their Kilos and I wouldn't discount their nuke subs. I'm doubtful China would launch nuke tipped ICBM's at blockade groups, but it'd be a concern.
Thing is, China doesn't need to invade Taiwan. They may really want to, but nothing is forcing them. Seizing Taiwan wouldn't get them anything, as chip fabs need a dozen countries to all agree to let them continue.
Spruce Pine, NC could single handedly cripple China occupied Taiwan by shutting down their quartz exports. It's a world monopoly on HPQ used for crucibles. Thankfully Spruce Pines 2194 residents have not weaponized the quartz trade.
ASML does design/research, final assembly and support. They don't make anything, they assemble the major components.
Which isn't a bad thing whatsoever. When I worked at an aerospace manufacturer, we didn't mill aluminum ourselves to make panels.
But a significant percent of the stuff ASML sources are sole source providers. No one in the world can make the optics for EUV other than Zeiss. Give someone ten years and a couple hundred billion, and sure, you could have a Zeiss replacement. It works that way for the steppers, the light system, the software folks, etc. Not to mention that the US govt owns EUV technology. ASML licenses it. EU owns a set of EUV implementation patents. ASML licenses those.
If any country with a critical bit says no, you don't have new EUV machines and existing EUV machines are maintenance intensive.
If China invaded Taiwan, ALL critical bit countries would have to sign off on it. If one country says no, the Taiwan invasion is a really stupid idea because all you're doing is taking those fabs offline for 5-10 years. TSMC folks had to fly to the Pentagon to explain that to the brass.
Interesting. Thanks for the insight, i‘m not even surface-level into these topics :D
Yeah i knew they heavily cooperate with Zeiss, just not much detail of what this entails.
Ah, LLNL, SBNL and SNL did the initial R&D, while ASML got the ok for CRADA license (thru EUV LLC) back in '99 if i‘m not mistaken. Is there still most of research in the US while ASML mostly benefits? They bought SVG, but was Intel denied access to the IP like the Japanese companies?
How far has EUV currently gotten (3 nm?) and what share does it have in the current market in what area?
In terms of applications, DUV dominates across nodes ranging from approximately 180 nm to 7 nm and is widely used in the production of memory chips such as DRAM and NAND, as well as less advanced logic chips. EUV, however, is essential for advanced logic nodes of a few nanometers, particularly in high-performance CPUs and GPUs. While EUV is used for critical layers, such as metal layers, some layers still rely on DUV for cost efficiency.
China seems to invest billions into their own EUV research (Huawei, SMEE…), but i guess it‘ll take some time to catch up… Still, i wonder if the US shouldn’t consider working with japanese companies and research Institutes, now that they‘re potentially less of an economical threat and China being the adversary. Guess US gvt might fear some risks associated with such a move considering Japans exposed location.
ASML pays the US govt the patents. And US govt has the right to tell ASML not to sell machines to China. Well, the Dutch govt does, and the US govt has rights to tell the Dutch govt to please not sell to China or we yank ASML's rights.
To be fair, the US govt owns the base technology. ASML made a specific implementation of that, which is special sauce. ASML partners with companies to develop specific tech for that specific implementation. They have very long term contracts and patent sharing that means the partners can't sell the tech to other companies.
It's a huge monopoly that prevents ANY other company from making a rival EUV machine. Normally bad, but it precludes China from developing the tech within 20-50 years. China can't do EUV. No country on the planet can do EUV without ASML and the coalition. They're trying to push the boundaries of previous tech, like immersion lithography, DUV, etc.
At a guess, it'd take $0.5-2 trillion dollars and 10-20 years to do EUV independently. Assuming you could freely steal IP from ASML and partners, freely hire western techs/scientists, etc.
EUV is hard. Keep in mind, the light source is vaporizing tin droplets, and bouncing the light off a dozen mirrors to a final destination measured in nanometers.
No, lol. I could dig a hole in my backyard and find quartz. I may go see it next time I visit family in the area though. I think I have a big chunk of it at home I found as a kid. I never realized it was novel growing up.
Quartz or high purity quartz? Honestly I might schedule a trip to go see the area next time I'm down there. The nerd side of me finds lithography interesting.
Asianometry on Youtube has a lot of excellent videos on it.
It wasn't even that long ago we had ECM jousting with China. During Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in 2022 the US jammed the PLN and PLAAF so hard they couldn't track her flight at any point at all despite it being practically on their doorstep.
The wechat messages on their end were hilarious from what was leaked/shared.
When you say China dealt a blow with huanglongbing in the same breath as the recent fungal arrest, you make it sound like huanglongbing was intentionally introduced to American crops by the Chinese government.
People seriously discount the huge upper hand that the United States has over China. The threat of China is massively overblown and the United States doesn't really have much to fear.
None of those changes the fact that the United States could pretty much end China simply by choking off China's food and energy imports. Espionage, IP theft, biological threats, unfair trade practices, etc, isn't going to eliminate this massive vulnerability for China.
You're correct. But safeguarding your advantages (food, energy, sustainable population, headhunting the best folks in the world, etc) is still important. Getting complacent is never good.
That's generic advice that always applies to any situation. It's not very meaningful when describing the huge power difference between the United States and China. Between China and the United States, China is on the decline and the United States' relative trajectory is not.
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u/Armanus14 Jun 18 '25
I think the thing everybody is forgetting is that INDOPACOM is probably getting ready to hang itself with the amount of things that have happened in the last 72 hours.