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Not wholly and really, no

China’s hypersonic missile test ‘close to Sputnik moment’, says US general
Gen Mark Milley says reports about breakthrough missile have ‘all our attention’, and says US working on same weapons

I did some work on the US hypersonic scramjets 25 years ago……

28 thoughts on “Not wholly and really, no”

  1. Presumably the US military is just angling for more funding? If they really were shitting themselves over this threat, I doubt they’d say so.

  2. Since the Chinese launched a human into space in 2003, they’ve presumably had the ability to dump H bombs on the rest of us since then. Though no doubt hypersonic drones would make skirmishes over Taiwan just that little bit more difficult.

  3. Why is that scumbag traitor Miley doing still in the military let alone running his gob off? He should be in the stockade.

  4. Since the world’s ports (and waters nearby) are stuffed full of containers and container ships, all from China, why on Earth would they need a ‘hypersonic missile’, or indeed, an ICBM, to H-Bomb whoever they want?
    Put it in a container.
    Indeed, they probably have, and container depots have thousands upon thousands of containers all stacked up. Try finding the right one.

  5. MC,

    “Presumably the US military is just angling for more funding? If they really were shitting themselves over this threat, I doubt they’d say so.”

    Indeed. And it’ll probably work.

    Something I realised about the USA is that the military is like the national religion, in the same way that the NHS is here. And both share a common thing: frontline people who are pretty damn good who are a shield to armies of bureaucrats and ne’er do wells.

    I’m not worried about China because of the whole Golden Arches thing. Why would China start a war with the USA and make everyone in China poor within days as billions in manufacturing moved elsewhere? Invade Taiwan? The result of that would be that the west would build chip fabs to protect supply. Taiwan would be a load of worthless fields.

  6. @TimtheCoder: Ports have radiation detectors and all shipping containers get checked out. I have a friend in the Border Force with an amusing story about a shipment of radioactive pork going through one of our ports. Discussions about it included the line “not even the maddest jihadi is going to make a dirty bomb out of hot pork”.

  7. why on Earth would they need a ‘hypersonic missile’, or indeed, an ICBM, to H-Bomb whoever they want?

    Idk but I reckon a container bomb is a good Tom Clancy plot device but a poor strategic weapon.

    The Chinoise want Uncle Samuel to not fuck with them, so being able to theoretically, and much belatedly, cause potential inconvenience to their major ports (or a first strike that would merely annoy) isn’t much of a deterrent and may be a liability. The US has history of planning to do much worse things to its own people to justify wars – see Operation Northwoods.

    (Note, it’s a matter of public record the US has planned massive terrorist attacks on its own soil but obviously this has never actually happened in real life and it’s just a coincidence that every war they’ve fought was much desired by the US regime before the casus belli arrived as if by magic.)

    Being able to bring guaranteed super happy glow times to their major cities, naval bases, airbases, power plants, ICBM silos and Gomorrah-on-the-Potomac within an hour or less, with no realistic possibility of interception by any current or planned defence, does the job China needs doing. They’re betting the Yanks are rational enough not to lose NYC, DC, LA, and a lot more besides for the sake of Formosa. Seems reasonable enough until you look at the circe du grotesque of dementia patients, diversity hires, mutants, perverts, confidence men, Mossad agents, race baiters, alcoholic narcissists and women they have running/looting the place.

    Die Nachbarn haben nichts gerafft
    Und fühlten sich gleich angemacht

  8. ” are rational enough not to lose NYC, DC, LA, ”
    From the Texas perspective, it’s looking win-win 🙂

    NB Steve, even after Google translate, I don’t understand your German quote! SS$_Maximum_brian_exceeded.

  9. Steve

    Dabei schoss man am Horizont

    Which would be the perfect tactic for both sides to divert attention away from their mutual imminent economic collapse.

  10. Tim, it’s a quote from 99 luftballons. But it’s no good going to the English lyrics, they don’t translate all that well.

  11. Ok, scraping the rust off…

    Die Nachbarn haben nichts gerafft
    The neighbours have no understanding

    Und fühlten sich gleich angemacht
    And feel they have-been made-angry

  12. “with no realistic possibility of interception by any current or planned defence”: mind you, that’s almost certainly true of ICBMs too. The purported interceptors are pie in the sky.

  13. Gen Mark Milley says reports about breakthrough missile have ‘all our attention’,

    Apart from the 80% of attention drooling over their first transgender general

  14. Mark Milley is too entranced with pronouns and ‘white rage’ to spend any real energy on the nation’s enemies. He leads the very dangerous cabal of officers that came up when Obama ran off the competent ones.

  15. Thanks to all who explained the quote from Steve.
    99 Red Ballons, now I understand.
    And indeed, agree with the warning.

    If gas prices stay high, and given a 10 year dearth in fossil fuel investment, courtesy of the ecofreaks, why wouldn’t it – I expect more Kibuki theatre of the Novichok-in-Pizzaland variety.

  16. In the absence of TMB or BiNKGP, a quick German lesson.
    Angemacht (past part.) of anmachen.
    Synonyms of “turn on”

    So in detective shows we hear
    “Mach das Licht an!”
    “Turn on the light !”

    Also used as “turn on” = “aroused”

    An Austrian friend of mine tells of how she had been baking with a German pal and said to her: “Mach den Ofen an.’ ( Turn the oven on).

    Her mate paused and then put on her best Marilyn voice and said to the cooker ” Hello Oven, are you feeling sexy tonight?”

    So if we want a rhyming couplet from Steve’s quote we could have

    The neighbours didn’t realise
    And felt their tempers start to rise

    I worship Nena very nearly as much as I do Clare Grogan.

  17. Dennis, Pointing Out The Obvious

    Mark Milley is too entranced with pronouns and ‘white rage’ to spend any real energy on the nation’s enemies. He leads the very dangerous cabal of officers that came up when Obama ran off the competent ones.

    +100

    I wonder why Milley bothered to say this… It isn’t like his beloved Biden Administration is going to increase military spending by one red cent. He most of all should know that.

  18. The US “won” their pissing match against the good ol’ USSR, so the whole millitary/”intelligence” complex has to find a way to rationalise their continued existence.

    News at 11/ no-one ever saw that one coming…

  19. Dennis, One of Joe's Neanderthals

    He wants to discourage Joe from reducing to the last red cent…

    I seriously doubt that. The only thing we know for sure about Mark Milley is that he will do anything to advance his career and enhance his personal standing amongst the swamp dwellers in D.C.

    He’s a courtier, and a spineless one at that.

  20. The US “won” their pissing match against the good ol’ USSR, so the whole millitary/”intelligence” complex has to find a way to rationalise their continued existence.

    The military got captured by the Neocons. Hence PNAC’s 7 countries plan, which as Steve pointed out got a miraculous kick-start with 9-11

  21. Wonder if General Miley got a back-channel phone call from his Chinese counterpart before the missile test?

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