Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
This flavor of Scorched Earth has been dubbed the Broken Nest.
Elbridge Colby, the nominee for U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, is known to favor the destruction of Taiwan’s chip fabs in the event of a Chinese invasion. As recently as last year, Colby publicly asserted that “destroying TSMC” was imperative if an aggressive PRC attempted to capture these facilities, reports Datacenter Dynamics. Furthermore, the security policy professional asserts that TSMC’s destruction shouldn’t be left to Taiwan’s government or military.
Colby’s particular take on the Scorched Earth strategy has become known as the ‘Broken Nest’ deterrent, a term coined by a U.S. Army College paper in 2021. The full title of the paper is Broken Nest: Deterring China from Invading Taiwan, and though it is 15 pages long, you can understand the deterrent immediately from the title. A key thread throughout the paper is that China has started to find Taiwan more and more attractive as the island’s semiconductor prowess has grown, largely through TSMC's chipmaking abilities.
Would the Chinese Communist Party (mainland China, PRC) care so much about the relatively small earthquake and typhoon-prone island of Taiwan (ROC) if the semicon business were out of the equation? The linked paper thinks not, and Colby has echoed the paper’s central thrusts, repeatedly. Being unequivocal about TSMC’s destruction in the event of a Chinese invasion is thus extremely important in the minds of some policymakers.
“Disabling or destroying TSMC is table stakes if China is taking over Taiwan,” wrote Colby on Twitter/X earlier this year. “Would we be so insane as to allow the world's key semiconductor company fall untouched into the hands of an aggressive PRC?”
Disabling or destroying TSMC is table stakes if China is taking over Taiwan. Would we be so insane as to allow the world's key semiconductor company fall untouched into the hands of an aggressive PRC? Taiwanese should realize that would be *the least* of their problems. https://t.co/Z8qmKxjWe9 href="https://twitter.com/cantworkitout/status/1761514916224139737" data-url="https://twitter.com/cantworkitout/status/1761514916224139737" target="_blank" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" data-hl-processed="none">February 24, 2024
However, destroying TSMC and other advanced semiconductor facilities might not be easy. China would likely make great efforts to shield these locations from any wider aggression. Moreover, in 2023, we learned that Taiwan’s Minister for National Defense, Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正), would not tolerate any U.S. attempts to destroy TSMC in the event of a war with China. If the US and China are in a high-stakes game of chicken, Taiwan isn't (or wasn't) playing.
Colby, who was picked by Trump as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy over the weekend, has some other views that could cause a stir across the Taiwan Strait. A report published by the Taiwan News this week says he would be in favor of pushing Taiwan to increase its defense spending from 2.5 to 5% of GDP. Interestingly, he also recently suggested that the U.S. should prioritize arming Taiwan rather than Ukraine. Europe should do more for its neighbor, he argued.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29, @02:06AM (12 children)
Didn't the Bidchen administration require / desire this as well?
Now it's bad and/or politically volatile because Donald?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EJ on Sunday December 29, @07:27AM (10 children)
The main issue is Taiwan not getting attacked. If something we could have said would have prevented Ukraine from going through the destruction its people have faced, then it would have been worth saying.
If such a statement affords the people of Taiwan any protection at all, then I don't care who says it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 29, @07:41AM (8 children)
Keep in mind that such a statement could have been said privately. Public posturing like this can encourage like which can be unproductive. In addition, it's an implicit statement that the speaker strongly expects such an attack to succeed, possibly in the face of US support or because US support isn't there. There is a bit of implication of weakness there.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29, @04:54PM (7 children)
Keep in mind that the new fashion of wild speculative outrageous statements by head of state devalues all official statements.
Maybe US back channels will retain some credibility for the coming four years, but not what they used to. It has been tipped (and is logically sound regardless of disinformation attempts) that CIA operations abroad, particularly in Russia, are being dramatically scaled back to protect assets in the coming environment where handling of classified information by the head of state has been proven historically sloppy.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 29, @10:50PM (6 children)
New? I can come up with something for every president since Reagan [wikipedia.org].
"Tipped"?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29, @11:18PM (5 children)
>New? I can come up with something for every president since Reagan [wikipedia.org].
Congratulations, that's statecraft.
The rate and depth of ridiculous statements is at least an order of magnitude higher with 45, and if pre-inauguration posturing is anything to go by, 45 is outdoing 43 by a significant margin as well.
>"Tipped"?
Yeah, like a cow in a field heard something from a passing shadow and it got published on the internet.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 30, @06:16AM (4 children)
Agreed, but so what? I pointed out the problem with the example of the day. Nobody has bandwidth to fully handle what's coming out of the incoming administration. Maybe if we ran it through an AI rebutter?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30, @02:12PM (3 children)
>Agreed, but so what?
If the murder rate increases by 1500% is that also: so what? We had murder before, after all.
>Nobody has bandwidth to fully handle what's coming out of the incoming administration.
Same as any administration of 350M+ people, it takes a team to generate, and bigger teams to digest. 45 is different in that it is hammering the mainstream consciousness with more outrageous crap than anyone wants to even bother to digest. They are trying hard to be ignored.
Oh, on the slow burn front, but very much related to: how could such a shit show take the election:
https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.14072 [wiley.com]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 30, @02:55PM (2 children)
Nobody dies when one of these people tweets.
You're welcome! [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30, @04:17PM (1 child)
>Nobody dies when one of these people tweets.
There are other examples, but this is a classic:
https://www.poison.med.wayne.edu/updates-content/kstytapp2qfstf0pkacdxmz943u1hs [wayne.edu]
Matters of state can be much more serious, and deadly.
Roughly when the whole shithouse started going up in flames, IMO. Morrison was a prophet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSlXjrxqDOE [youtube.com]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 30, @04:29PM
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday December 30, @06:32AM
This creates division between Taiwan and the US unless it's addressed.
(Score: 1) by mcgrew on Sunday December 29, @07:14PM
Advice: fire your ESL teacher and hire someone competent. That was incomprehensible.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 4, Interesting) by esperto123 on Sunday December 29, @10:12AM (16 children)
Given that the main reason china what taiwan if for the advanced chip production factories, this is the obvious step if china really tries anything, and you don't even need explosives, just a bunch of talcum powder anywhere near the lithography machines and they are done, pretty much impossible to clean.
And you need to get the factory technicians out of the country as well, the machines are important but the highly skilled operator maybe even more.
(Score: 4, Informative) by RamiK on Sunday December 29, @04:43PM (15 children)
Going by the Taiwanese defense minster reaction, it seems that Trump's nominee is proposing that in the case of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, instead of supporting Taiwan with arms and troops, the US should instead just bomb TSMC.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29, @05:07PM (14 children)
One position of TheRump that I find somewhat logical/fair is that foreign states enjoy US military protection should shoulder their fair share of the cost of that protection.
Now, in the case of Taiwan/TSMC, the US obviously (to anyone not strung out on meth) benefits tremendously from the supply of microchips from TSMC, and if I am not mistaken Taiwan has cooperated in sanctions against Russia for the Ukraine thing too. Still, it wouldn't hurt to make the relationship more explicit, with a direct payment from Taiwan and other nations to the US for military protection. They can just charge us more for microchips to get the money...
Actually, the thing that makes the most sense to me re: microchips is for the next generation to be developed domestically and secured somewhere like Dallas, instead of 81 miles across the Formosa Strait from mainland China. That will take serious money, but not as much as operating one or more carrier groups on the far side of the Pacific indefinitely.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29, @05:17PM (1 child)
https://www.newsweek.com/texas-secession-closer-anyone-thinks-1884088 [newsweek.com] (March, 2024)
I'm unsure that Texas is the best place for such a development. Especially if it ends up lacking the supporting infrastructure of the remainder of the United States (such as the power grid).
Just saying.. volatile political environments being what they are.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29, @06:03PM
Well, if Texas goes secedeing, the US has bigger problems IMO.
As for infrastructure, a single good power plant near the chip facilities can prioritize electricity to them - citizens of Texas (excluding the Ted Cruz types) are an independent hardy sort, they'll get through the cold just fine if it means keeping the chips flowing, and if Granny does freeze to death, they have faith that it was God's will that her 80 acres passed on to them that year.
On a more serious side, I believe Dallas has a fair amount of human capital with background in chip-making, maybe a bit out of date, but it's better than starting from scratch somewhere like Arkansas or Mississippi.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday December 29, @07:55PM (8 children)
US relations with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and even Australia are established around preventing China from controlling Pacific trade as part of what the US learned from Pearl Harbor. It's become an immediate concern in recent years: https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/RL33153.pdf [fas.org]
Isolationism and quid pro quo relationships work right up until your trade partners start shooting each other and you lose income regardless of who is winning. Another world war lesson...
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(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29, @10:35PM (7 children)
We have quid pro quo already, it's just not spelled out explicitly. If one or more states in the region decide to cut their military support payments, we either return to non-explicit quid pro quo, or pull their support (which isn't really an option unless they start their own military coverage/ joint exercises).
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday December 30, @12:36PM (6 children)
The people that just got elected into office are saying it's American tax payer money subsidizing the US military industrial complex rather than quid pro quo and would rather just cut it out and reallocate the funds directly to US armed forces, social services, tax cuts and maybe even do something about the national debt.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30, @02:22PM (5 children)
A brilliantly incomplete and impractical proposal, just like the best (and worst) of 43's proclamations.
Stop subsidizing the military industrial complex and find the armed forces directly? So we put a few more bucks in Gomer Pyle's pocket and he sources his rifle from the local gun show, or what?
Also, I don't doubt that 45 has, at some point, talked about bolstering funding of social services, but do you have a link to that one? All my "news" sources are fixated on links from 45 to project 2025 and their plans in motion to raise the SS retirement age to 70, downsizing the program expenses by 21%, etc.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Monday December 30, @03:44PM (4 children)
Half of them just voted in favor of expanding social security expenditure to 3 million retired Americans: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-fairness-act-senate-vote-passed/ [cbsnews.com]
Keep in mind they have very different expectations from social security: https://www.aei.org/op-eds/j-d-vance-on-social-security-reform/ [aei.org]
Kinda yes. Their pick of generals want more border patrols and infantry and use Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza to justify the need. And if securing oil fields cuts down unemployment... Well, they're a self-contradictory bunch that's for sure.
Look, it's a half-assed 5-years-plan style industrial policy with numerous flaws, cons and pros that the Republicans don't even agree on completely nor do they have the majority to push through. Like you, I feel most of it is bad and doomed to fail if only due to Trump's short attention span. However, it doesn't change the fact these aren't your normal Republican bills and that there's some overlap with many Democrat past bills and agendas in ways that cross the partisan lines that will end up passing.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30, @04:34PM (3 children)
Throwing carrots to the first responders isn't surprising at all, nice of them to include teachers on this round. I do agree with the general direction of change: equal treatment for everyone. I'd like to see that change continue to drive in the direction of UBI, as quickly as possible without overly damaging the economic system before it has a chance to adapt.
> these aren't your normal Republican bills and that there's some overlap with many Democrat past bills and agendas in ways that cross the partisan lines that will end up passing.
Yeah, it's a mixed bag and that's not all bad.
I've never been thrilled with the Democrats, either, but they do seem the lesser of the two weevils [youtube.com] in terms of potential harms done to the largest number of people.
This latest election post-game made quite a fuss about the blue team targeting college educated suburbanites, which I have been since 1990, so I guess their messaging has been successful enough with me to keep my vote. Red team messaging varies from weak to strongly repellent for the most part for me. I like to think that I evaluate the candidates independently of their affiliation, but I also believe that at the big State Governor / national representatives level the names on the ballot are just figureheads reading scripts. Having met Rick Scott and Marco Rubio in person at hour-ish long events, I got the very strong sense that neither of them are in any way "in charge" of or deciding anything, they're just making in-person appearances like musicians on tour selling records. Rubio is good at wooing a crowd, even when he fails to deliver on every single promise he speaks. I'm sure that's why they're keeping him around. Scott was even more of a zombie on parade when he visited us, lit up for the cameras and just struggling to get the next cup of coffee down between TV shots.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday December 30, @06:01PM (2 children)
The problem with the Democrats and pre-Trump Republicans is that they keep throwing money at problems instead of actually fixing them so the debt just keeps climbing. Fix the loopholes tax code? Just add new taxes instead. Fix health care? Make insurance more profitable. Fix foreign oil reliance? Frack away. Climate change? Tax local ICE and tax break imported EVs. Military expenditure too big? Route it to industry...
The good thing about the current administration is that they seem to be willing to throw away existing contractors and employees and axe whole departments and agencies. So, if their proposed fixes fail (and they will), the following administration won't face the political resistance from entrenched interest owners they're facing now when trying to reform stuff. It's a terrible ugly fix that might be worse than the disease in some cases... But we have to acknowledge the mounting national debt and trade deficits are terminal diseases to the US and some chemo might be in order.
Yeah I don't trust anything politicians say regardless of party affiliation. The only thing that matters is their voting records:
https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/1601/marco-rubio [votesmart.org]
https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/124204/rick-scott [votesmart.org]
Everything else is just showmanship.
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(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 31, @01:52AM (1 child)
>throwing money at problems instead of actually fixing them
Easy calculus: as legislators they have the power of the budget. Their primary job is to get re-elected, so throwing money at things makes the recipients happy, and continuing to support them.
I keep coming back to this in my mind: maybe two days after RFK was nominated to the HHS cabinet post, they came out with a ban on red dye in foods, something that has been a known issue for 50+ years, and banned in Europe for 30+. I can't imagine the timing is a coincidence. Whoever is about to get fired wanted the credit for finally getting that done, and since they are toast anyway, the business interests that have been successfully stalling the issue for decades in the US just lost their leverage.
I have noticed about three news items like that since the cuckoo cabinet crew was announced. Take the wins where you can get them. Sad that business as usual is so dysfunctional.
>When their proposed fixes fail (and they will), the following administration won't face the political resistance from entrenched interest owners they're facing now when trying to reform stuff.
In the mid 1990s the head of the FDA went rogue, stopped following the laws for new medical device permission to market reviews, installed a bunch of "no men" and the 90 day process ground to a halt for years. I forget if there was a coincident external political change like a new administration, but in the end they sent them all packing and restaffed with competent people who got the process moving again, remarkably quickly after the purge.
>some chemo might be in order
Too bad it has to be administered by a clown car full of freaks
>showmanship
Do you remember Newt Gingrich, perpetually red in the face pounding the podium with partisan rhetoric yelled into the microphone? Yeah, I met him in person in a small group for about 30 minutes, he was nothing like that.
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(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday December 31, @08:16AM
When Benjamin Franklin went to France as the first US Ambassador to raise up funds, he wore a fur hat, hid his command over the French language and pretended to be a revolutionary frontier man with tales of fighting Indians and the English while braving the elements to rile up investors and sympathizers with the American cause.
When he got back, Congress was very critical of his style with reports of wild drunken parties full of debauchery of all forms and set a hearing regarding all the delegations' missing funds. Franklin shrugged, pointed at all the trade deals and treaties he secured and replied "Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out his master's grain". The congressional review ended with that.
It's a time honored tradition.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 30, @04:38PM
Keep in mind that a considerable portion of US military protection is merely corruption and waste. I don't think it'd be fair to make Taiwan pay for that. And once you get past that, is anyone not really paying their fair share?
(Score: 2) by esperto123 on Monday December 30, @10:08PM (1 child)
well, that US military protection is not because the government is nice and want to protect every one from "bad guys", it does because is some way or another it helps the US by either protecting resource suppliers, important markets for its products or because it will make the life of opposing states more difficult, which probably is all three for taiwan, AND taiwan also buys a LOT of military hardware from the US, hardware with high aggregate value and that make a positive impact in the economy, so trump's argument that others should pay their dues is, in my opinion, daft for a US president, because being the biggest motherfucker around (including being the biggest donor to the UN) is one of the main ways US projects and keeps power and can have trillions of dollars in debt and still be considered a good place to invest.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 31, @01:33AM
>daft for a US president,
Not so much daft as simple minded, like so many of his supporters.
Yes DT has advisors, he might even listen to them occasionally when he sits at the big boys table. But, for public consumption, he says the first simplest thing that pops into his head, and the millions of Americans who have never traveled more than 50 miles from their birthplace love him like that.
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday December 29, @06:25PM
The irony of all this bluster is its mostly submarine propaganda for TSMC. It's not like they have the only fab on the planet, but you're being led to think that by infinite legacy propaganda media.
Amusingly, I recall about two years ago China got the first shipment of 3nm GAA production-grade chips, and they came not from TSMC but from ... Samsung.
Probably if China just wants chips it's easier to not piss off the Koreans than to take over an entire maritime island in what amounts to a very slow-motion but likely to be very bloody civil war. If they do decide to take over Taiwan militarily its not going to be because they want chips. If they want to take over a 3mm foundry, they'll just tell their NK lackeys to invade SK. Why should they do a naval invasion against a defended island by themselves, if their friends would love to take over a foundry for them? "Look you guys are starving we'll give you infinite trainloads of rice if you give us Hwaseong after your successful invasion, deal? deal" That's the most plausible path to China militarily taking over a 3nm foundry, not some overcomplicated nonsense invading Taiwan.
If you want the worlds smallest 3nm production transistors shipping since 2022, you have to go to Hwaseong Campus, or maybe Taylor Texas starting in 2026. There is a narrow window around next year where TSMC might FINALLY be shipping 3nm but bigger production chips than the Koreans. Or maybe Pyeongtaek.
I used to work with a guy who really liked to talk about his home country so I hear about this stuff. I'm about 99% sure he's correct and about 1% maybe he's just very proud of Samsung.
Where we're at right now is claiming via propaganda in 1940 that the Japanese were desperate to take over the lush pineapple plantations of Hawaii. Thats... not exactly what was going on.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Sunday December 29, @07:23PM (6 children)
We have no right whatever to destroy factories in any foreign country! After all, Taiwan isn't a US territory. This is simply bullshit.
More bullshit from President Elect Pinnochio:
How many Brooklyn Bridges has that gold plated fraudster sold you fools?
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 3, Funny) by FunkyLich on Sunday December 29, @09:48PM
Wait, there's more than one of those?
That lying son of a b...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 29, @10:57PM (3 children)
Do we have a right to invade another country and take their factories?
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Monday December 30, @04:30AM (2 children)
We apparently have a right to invade and take over a canal if they don't give in to our threats.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday December 31, @06:44PM (1 child)
We apparently have a right to invade and take over a canal if they don't give in to our threats.
Nobody but you and the world's greatest lying and proven in court fraudster think so.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday December 31, @07:59PM
I think that was said sarcastically, so that might have been a "Whoosh"...
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30, @04:42PM
> bullshit from President Elect Pinnochio:
Is he smarter than a 5th grader? No, he is not, and his base loves him for it. He's relatable.
On the campaign trail Obama naively promised to shut down Gitmo, then backtracked when he "learned the full reality of the situation."
45 will keep spouting entertaining nonsense for the next 3-4 years. I think it's a media saturation strategy, keeping not only the mainstream but also the social media channels saturated with reactions to his bullshit in an attempt to damp down reactions to the real atrocities they are going to attempt.
I suspect it's going to work, to a large extent. Probably better than the "pull a fast one behind closed doors then spring it before anybody can react" strategy demonstrated by DeSantis recently: https://www.yahoo.com/news/curiouser-curiouser-florida-state-parks-225500910.html [yahoo.com] and of course the very real threat of retaliation against anyone who gets in his way: https://www.facebook.com/100063466723384/posts/1062144365911111/ [facebook.com]
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