Coyote Blog

11 Comments

1. Justin:

   That is Civ 4! Spamming low production island cities is much less effective in Civ 5.

   July 3, 2015, 11:16 am

2. mlhouse:

   I find this China fear to be hilarious. In a conflict with any reasonable opponent how long do you thing that isand will be functional? 15 minutes?

   July 4, 2015, 9:57 am

3. ErikTheRed:

   Ah, another country wants to spend its ultimately limited resources on what amounts more or less to nationalistic penis enhancement pills...

   July 4, 2015, 12:57 pm

4. Matthew Slyfield:

   More like 15 seconds, a couple of (non-nuclear) cruise missiles fired from over the horizon (range of a tomahawk is 1500 miles) would be all it would take to obliterate one of those bases.

   July 4, 2015, 6:11 pm

5. Matthew Slyfield:

   Unfortunately, China holds a lot of US sovereign debt, so encouraging them to spend themselves into the ground is not exactly in our best interests.

   July 4, 2015, 6:13 pm

6. joshv:

   Sadly, just about the same can be said of our carrier fleet.

   July 5, 2015, 3:17 am

7. mesocyclone:

   That's all right. The Libertarians will have us just sit here until they come ashore in Hawaii. After all, it's none of our business way out there in the Pacific, right?

   July 5, 2015, 11:40 am

8. Nimrod:

   What most people fail to realize is that all countries are effectively playing a game like this all the time, but the game they're playing is more like Europa Universalis IV which is significantly more realistic (and more complicated) than Civ 5.

   "Extend borders" isn't the goal. The ability to protect or blockade trade is.

   July 5, 2015, 11:39 pm

9. BobSykes:

   And the US itself. Any attack on these islands is an attack on Chinese territory and an act of war. It would be almost impossible to prevent the war from escalating to nuclear strikes in both countries.

   July 6, 2015, 4:53 am

10. MNHawk:

    Mr. Fake Island, meet Mr. Typhoon.

    July 6, 2015, 10:02 am

11. John_Schilling:

    Reasonable opponents prefer to resolve their conflicts in a court of law, not on the field of battle. If military force is used at all, it is preferably used to deliver a quick, bloodless fait accompli to the doorsteps of the court that will finish resolving the issue.

    According to international maritime law, which the United States and its allies kind of wrote, building two-bit islands like this can be construed as giving the Chinese legal title to seabed resources for two tiles :-) in every direction, and the islands can be defended well enough that there will be no quick, bloodless occupations. So the Chinese either get cheap access to seabed resources, or a cheap diplomatic win by showing up the United States as warmongering murderous thugs at the cost of a few expendable Chinese soldiers and a two-bit island base.

    There are things we could do to counter this strategy, but we don't seem to be doing any of them.

    July 6, 2015, 3:56 pm