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I think that China could do absolutely untold damage to the American psyche and illusion of invulnerability if it simply instantly obliterated these clowns on Taiwan from hundreds of kilometers away with a cloud of drones dense enough to block out the sun. America treats the navy seals like they are all Master Chief, when in reality they are just guys who can carry a log and swim for a long time or some shit. Maybe that matters when you’re like… raiding a compound of a guy who has been on the run for decades while he’s asleep with Neon Genesis Evangelion playing on the TV, but genuinely what are these guys going to do to actually fight back against China? China will never even let them see a single PLA soldier lmao.

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[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 96 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

This is a perfect example of the kind of passively fascist mystical thinking that we westerners are trained to engage in, where Great Man Theory meets Triumph of the Will. What's so special about about these guys? Practically speaking, they're a hit squad who killed an old man in his house, that's their military specialty. But because that old man was Osama Bin Laden, AKA the Voldemort of the early 2000s, killing him must have taken something special. After all, he just walked out of the Afghan mountains one day, waved his Great Man Wand, and made 9/11 happen. Such a powerful and mysterious sorcerer of history could only be taken down by an even more powerful group of heroes, like the heckin Avengers. If Seal Team whatever managed to break into his house and shoot him in the face, then they must be those heroes. They killed a powerful named character after all, what chance does a bunch of nameless Chinese missiles have?

[-] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 67 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

You’re absolutely right. The weird and stupid fascistic thought process to rationalize that your guys are superior as not just soldiers, but as human beings to enemy guys never fails to appear in any western discussion of conflict. It’s the same logic that online Rhodesia and IOF freaks (big fanbase overlap, not at all shocking) use all of the time lmao. “My team’s guys are super soldiers who are also cool and epic! Meanwhile my WEAK enemy can’t even compare!” Ok so like… what makes your enemy weak? If your enemies are so weak, why do you seem to obsess over and insist that you have and need the most elite soldiers in history? How do you know they are elite if they only fight weak enemies?

Russia-Ukraine did a decent job at proving these clowns on both sides of the conflict wrong. Every elite soldier or unit or weapon we hear about entering the battle that ”will definitely change the tide” becomes just as likely to end up as worm food as the average soldier, with no visible impact on the conflict.

[-] CarbonScored@hexbear.net 38 points 4 weeks ago

Dehumanising the enemy, literally talking about them as if they don't qualify as human, is an absurdly common approach. It's clearly an effective way of 'other'ing, but it leads to completely unrealistic attitudes like you describe. There's a line that gets crossed between bigging up your team/talking shit about the enemy, and simply losing grasp of reality.

I do think it's an inherently fascistic process, and it's something I still sadly see in the left, including Hexbears, when talking about terrible people and class enemies. Obviously some are speaking in metaphor, but not everyone.

[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 28 points 4 weeks ago

I think you're right about it being a reactionary tendency. While it's good for morale in small doses, I think it sort of...anaerobically metabolizes away your ability to engage with reality. Like in the absence of fresh data, fantasy begins to feed on itself and produce ever-stranger ideological metabolites

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[-] REgon@hexbear.net 70 points 4 weeks ago

Remember when all those ex-spec ops idiots volunteered for Ukraine and then either got got or fled home whining about "russian war doctrine" (being able to contest air superiority)
Laughed my ass off about that canadian sniper who died a few days after arriving. Yeah dude you shoot brown kids and think you're a badass, fuck you

[-] egg1918@hexbear.net 69 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

My fav was a western Nazi who tried to stop a couple of Ukrainian conscripts from retreating so they just shot him and kept going.

Once again the Russian blocking units are entirely projection.

[-] Frank@hexbear.net 41 points 4 weeks ago

Blocking units were real, but didn't shoot people. They were partially a mobile reserve of veterans to shore up the front line if it was weakened, partially for grabbing lost or deserting troops and pointing them to collection areas that would figure out who they were and get them back to their unit, and partially guarding important stuff from any nazies that managed to get through the lines to do recon or sabotage.

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[-] bbnh69420@hexbear.net 57 points 4 weeks ago

NATO occupiers being on the receiving end of aerial superiority will never stop being funny

[-] REgon@hexbear.net 54 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Then going home to go on a podcast to talk about how "their expertise better suits the war in an advisory position"

Reddit brigade was peak comedy

[-] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 49 points 4 weeks ago

When that one dude posted on Reddit with location data and got his whole barracks blown up che-smile

[-] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 31 points 4 weeks ago

The war equivalent of robbing a bank and leading the police on a chase straight to your own front door

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[-] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 33 points 4 weeks ago

“their expertise better suits the war in an advisory position”

Lmao this person have the marshal baton in their backpack. Marshal Haig's baton, to be precise.

[-] muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml 32 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

The howling and shidding will be as glorious as this Robert F Williams story:

NSFW language

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[-] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 40 points 4 weeks ago

Russia isn’t playing fair because it isn’t letting me win

[-] REgon@hexbear.net 45 points 4 weeks ago

Throwback to the dumbass lemmitor who insisted Ukraine had superior training, it just "wasn't suited to fighting against the russian military doctrine". The logic was completely circular.
That was my top voted post on my previous account, early federation was a blast.

[-] GenderIsOpSec@hexbear.net 28 points 4 weeks ago

wojak-nooo "You don't understand! My training in computer science is superior to your training in weightlifting!"

ppb-gigachad "Maybe, but this is a weightlifting competition."

[-] Hexboare@hexbear.net 56 points 4 weeks ago

raiding a compound of a guy who has been on the run for decades while he’s asleep

With the ISI waving you through Pakistan security and you still manage to crash a helicopter

[-] hypercracker@hexbear.net 48 points 4 weeks ago

then come home and spin a lie about how he was "brandishing an AK at the top of the stairs" because americans' only moral lens for violence is through hollywood where the good guys spare the lives of the bad guys, only for the bad guys to suddenly grab a gun & have to be killed in immediate self-defense

[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 44 points 4 weeks ago

The way I heard it, he was literally using some random woman as a human shield while he did it too, just utter Die Hard bullshit

[-] TheLastHero@hexbear.net 31 points 4 weeks ago

Even after killing the guy you still managed to fuck it up by being so undisciplined that you multilate the body of the HVT beyond recognition, thus ruining the entire point of the mission and forcing the body to be quietly dumped into the ocean before it becomes an international embarrassment.

Was suppose to be a victory lap for imperialism but they got too mad and lost their shit mid way through. Seal team six is on the same level as conservative comedians.

[-] egg1918@hexbear.net 54 points 4 weeks ago

1000% their "training" is on how to blow up critical infrastructure like TSMC's facilities, water production, and power generation in case the PRC does launch an operation on the island.

[-] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 43 points 4 weeks ago

I assure you, person who lives here, that I am here to help you.

Distant explosion followed by power outage

This is for your own good.

Destroys economy trying to create a forever war

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 53 points 4 weeks ago

Kill one guy

vs

Fight a naton of a billion+ people

Basically the same thing!

[-] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 46 points 4 weeks ago

But what if the epic navy seals did a scuba mission against every single PLA soldier?

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[-] carpoftruth@hexbear.net 52 points 4 weeks ago

the US/puppets couldn't keep the strait of bab al-mandab open against only ansarallah. What is the theory of victory for taking on China right off their coast?

[-] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 30 points 4 weeks ago

The theory is that the U.S. thinks it is invincible

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[-] StalinStan@hexbear.net 39 points 4 weeks ago

I just saw a video where china is making a grenade launcher/sniper rifle combo. The US tried it before but decided it was too expensive. China said it wants to shoot grenades a kilometer in a light infiltry fire team.

[-] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 32 points 4 weeks ago

But seal team six guy has a big knife strapped to his chest

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[-] Frank@hexbear.net 38 points 4 weeks ago

I honestly have no idea what special forces are supposed to do during a real near-peer war in the 21st century.

[-] BobDole@hexbear.net 42 points 4 weeks ago

Obviously they’re supposed to murder civilians. That’s what they’ve always done

[-] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 31 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Recon in advance of movements, clear landing zones, etc. What the frogmen did in WW2. Basically nothing what they do today. Edit: and hell, these days you'd probably just use drones for the recon work.

[-] fox@hexbear.net 29 points 4 weeks ago

Martyrdom for propaganda

[-] GaveUp@hexbear.net 29 points 4 weeks ago

Invade back lines

There's some footage of the Russian ones so deep into Ukraine territory they manage to ambush supply trucks basically point blank with their arms

[-] GoodGuyWithACat@hexbear.net 28 points 4 weeks ago

Fight insurgents in occupied cities. Go on secret missions against non-combatant or allied nations. Train allies or insurgents. Same thing they do now, they're not gonna go near the front line. It's too risky, government has invested too much in their training when they could send grunt conscripts.

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[-] BynarsAreOk@hexbear.net 34 points 4 weeks ago

I think that China could do absolutely untold damage to the American psyche and illusion of invulnerability if it simply instantly obliterated these clowns on Taiwan from hundreds of kilometers away with a cloud of drones dense enough to block out the sun.

IDK about this, I think this is quite unrealistic and almost mythical level thinking.

IMO drones work well in Ukraine because its a huge battlefield we haven't seen something like this since WW2. For some context the Ukraine war front is well over 1000km.

The current Korean DMZ is a "tiny" 250km. The Taiwan straight is also something like 300kmx180km or so.

This means that both sides have trouble providing consistent and effective air cover for their troops, despite the Russian natural advantage Ukrainian drones are still quite effective.

Turning to Taiwan this is the opposite, it would be a very concentrated battle and anti-drone systems should be more effective simply because its a smaller area.

China already achieved military superiority over the US and the conflict will be decided over naval superiority by destroying or even damaging the US carrier fleet. In fact I do like the theory sinking a US carrier would be far worse than 9/11 for the average population and internal US politics, although perhaps that would mean accepting a WW3.

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[-] ReadFanon@hexbear.net 33 points 4 weeks ago

Skip forward two months:

"Hey guys, we successfully repelled the mainland Chinese invasion of occupied Formosa!!

What? No, you can't see any evidence of this. We sunk all of their ships in the Taiwan Strait so you'll just have to take our word for it that we actually achieved what we said we did and trust that this isn't another example of our unit pulling another political theatre manoeuvre."

😎😎

[-] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 33 points 4 weeks ago

The Navy Seal training they are undergoing is on how to move the goalposts when the PRC reunifies with Taiwan.

”We achieved our strategic objective of ensuring a smooth transition while protecting the citizens of Taiwan”

[-] Evilphd666@hexbear.net 31 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Gotta justify those "defense" dollars somehow.

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[-] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 27 points 4 weeks ago

Basically just the rock that keeps away tigers at this point.

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this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
135 points (95.3% liked)

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