kanisatha

This is simply not true, at least within academic circles. In academic writings the story has consistently been of continuing Chinese growth including their overtaking the US in absolute economic size. Brands and Beckley are the first to publish academic analysis showing China has peaked. And they are not just saying this in words. Beckley has another book recently which is entirely filled with numerical data (economic and social) demonstrating this conclusion. Also, Xi personally has demonstrated repeatedly, including in his handling of his power within the party, that he is extremely risk accepting and operates in the domain of gains (a fundamental change from previous PRC leaders post-Mao who were risk averse). And he has also personally staked his legacy on the reunification issue.

Taiwan is eminently defendable. It just comes down to the will of the Taiwanese to stand and fight. That is where I have my questions. I think the greatest weakness Taiwan faces is that a considerable number of people in Taiwan may have pro-PRC sympathies, and many of them will undoubtably be PRC sleepers who get activated prior to an invasion to sow chaos within critical military and civilian sectors of Taiwan. How will the Taiwanese govt and people react to this? As for more specific military issues, yes, fending off PRC air superiority over the straits will be rather difficult initially. But in time it can be reversed, because I don't at all buy the Chinese J-series fighters as being the tech marvels the Chinese claim they are. Nor do I have much respect for the combat prowess of Chinese fighter pilots. Taiwan is doing the correct thing here by not relying entirely on their own aircraft to counter PRC air power. That would be a losing proposition. Instead, Taiwan is acquiring SAMs to make China's air ops over Taiwan and the straits very costly to them. That's the correct way to go, and we ought to be selling them even more SAMs and a greater variety of those systems. Then, after Taiwan's SAMs have taken their toll, multiple US carriers operating in the area will be able to regain local air superiority. As for the PRC invasion force, there also the Taiwanese are doing things correctly in not counting on air power to go after Chinese landing craft and supply ships. Instead, they are acquiring a lot of ground-based short-range anti-ship missiles, small and versatile systems that can be mounted on small boats and trucks. That's how you saturate and overwhelm China's naval defenses, and sink their rather vulnerable invasion force. Having anti-ship capable submarine dominance in the area would also help in this tremendously, but that is the one area where thus far Taiwan has not been able to get much capability for itself, and will have to count on US subs dominating the area for them. And the US has been doing its part on this issue, now having over 60% of its submarine force based in the Pacific including all of its best subs, and with an ever-growing number of them forward-based in Guam and Hawa'ii. US subs are now also reorienting their focus away from land-attack and back to traditional anti-sub and anti-ship warfare capabilities, precisely for Taiwan operations. China's power has peaked (see a recent article by Brands and Beckley in Foreign Affairs), and it is going to be entering a long phase of power decline in the next few decades. And China (and Xi) know this themselves. But this is also what makes China even more dangerous, because as international relations theory teaches us, a major power whose power capabilities are flat or declining but whose geopolitical ambitions continue to increase and expand is the most likely to start a war. This is because they are so committed to their vision of themselves in a position of dominance, at least regionally, but while also realizing that their window for action is rapidly closing. And so they are very strongly compelled to act, and act now, before that window closes. The supreme irony here is that another great power faced this exact same dilemma about 85 years ago. And we all know how that turned out. When a great power's ambitions know no bounds but its power has peaked and is now potentially facing decline, that is the most dangerous combination of factors of all. War is coming in the WestPac. The chairman of the JCS, in Senate testimony recently, predicted a PRC invasion of Taiwan by 2027. I predict the invasion happening by 2024 if not sooner.

And the second Izumo is named Kaga! Japan is returning to great power politics, and I for one am perfectly happy about it. Soon RoK, and possibly even Australia and Indonesia, will have carriers. And China gets to reap what it has sowed.

We're just a short ways off from not needing the soldier altogether.

Actually my doctor and audiologist said it was an option, but they strongly advised keeping it as the very last option because putting in the implants means destroying your inner ear bits. Cost I do not know specifically other than that it is very expensive. But even for my hearing aid, which is a fancy programmable device that more than ten years ago cost something like $2,500+, my insurance covered everything including all the tests and other doctor/audiology visits and I had to pay only a total of about $700 myself. Seemed eminently reasonable.

@Azdeus, yeah, the prospect of eventually becomming completely deaf is indeed my nightmare. To never again be able to hear all the voices and sounds I've come to love hearing. To lose a major part of my independence. I love my music collection (have about 250+ CDs) and I play my CDs as often as I can because I'm sad of one day not being able to hear them. At least now I can close all the windows in my house and turn up the volume a lot and in that way reasonably appreciate them. I also think my brain doesn't really 'hear' those old songs I love so much as it *remembers* them and that feels like I'm hearing them. @rjshae, you are so right! I have the same problem with people speaking from behind a mask. I think some people who normally don't mumble do so when speaking from behind a mask for some reason. That's why even though my university has allowed us to return to the classroom I have chosen to claim a disability accommodation to remain with remote teaching, because at least on Zoom I can turn on closed captioning and somewhat follow what my students are saying.

Though the causes may be different, it sounds like we actually face the same condition, though clearly a worse case for you. So sorry. For me also it is less an issue of volume and more an issue of discerning one voice from a babble. So if one person is speaking to me, while relatively closeby, and there's no ambient sound, I can here pretty well with my hearing aid. But with even a little ambient sound, or if it is an electronically generated sound, my hearing aid doesn't help much at all. I hear the sounds, but cannot distinguish words. Did you ever consider cochlear implants?

Interesting. My condition (hereditary) is that the small hairs start lying down flat suddenly at some point in time, for me in my early forties. It is much more sever in one ear than the other, so I can use a hearing aid in the "good" ear to hear somewhat. But it took me a while for my brain to adjust to hearing only the good sound signals from one ear and disregarding the bad signals from the other ear. But this also means I now hear only in mono, which has its own issues.

Awesome. Wonder if something similar could be done for those of us with hearing loss.

Hehe. Nice. This is *exactly* how things are here in the US now too, both what you said about the news media and what you said about average people. Completely agree. But imagine my plight in having to try and teach international relations classes to such a population of 18-22 year-olds. And yeah, the French in particular have long operated in exactly this way, so this is a bit of comeuppance for them.

I'd be excited about a B5 reboot. But that it will be on CW concerns me.

Well, WotC just announced the next version of D&D is to be released in 2024 (though still unclear if it will be 6e or 5.5e), so maybe Pathfinder will also move to 3e, in which case it would make sense for Owlcat to skip 2e.

Maybe give it a try if you find it for a couple of bucks? It is pretty short so it won't cost you much playtime. inXile is currently confirmed to be actively working on two AAA RPGs using the UE5 engine. One is confirmed to be a new IP steampunk game, possibly along the lines of Arcanum. About the second nothing is known. So I am hoping the second game is something using the Numenera setting, though probably not a direct sequel to T:ToN. Perhaps something along the same lines as Obsidian's Avowed: a game using the same world as T:ToN but a completely new IP with new gameplay.

I liked the game, and am hoping them will make a second one because I felt everything that was lacking in the first game was clearly due to a budget that was way too small relative to the game's vision and ambition, and also obviously then a development timeline that was also too short. Yeah the combat sucked (TB, so that may be personal), but you could evade the combat through dialog choices in most cases (inlcuding the final endgame encounter). The gameplay was very simplistic, though it had the potential to be something good. It felt like someone took a good idea and then chopped off like 70% of it because of cost. A ton of reading, which I liked but many others did not. The parts I personally liked a lot were the story, characters, and the world. And since those things are what matter most to me, that's why I ended up okay with the game, and even regretted that it was too short.

Sometimes the industry big boys like LM and Northrop do company-funded in-house projects as demonstrators for the military. LM has been working on a project that has often been colloquially referred to as "SR-72" so may be this something like that (given ACC boss's surprise).

So then only the political elites care? That would actually fit my own professional interpretation, which is what I said to a Spanish newspaper that interviewed me about it.

Yes I've played this, and also the new Torment game from inXile which is also minimal combat that mostly can be avoided.

Anyone been following the big blowup between France and Australia/UK/US over the nuclear submarine deal? I'm particularly interested to hear how the story is playing in Europe.

Given the rise of games like Gamedec and Disco Elysium, and even Encased presumably (i.e. true RPGs with no combat, or minimal combat, or combat that can mostly be avoided), can anyone recommend any similar games (Western RPGs only) that are in a medieval setting/world, or at least a pre-industrial/no firearms world? Thanks in advance!

What exactly is covered under that word "gameplay"? I see people using this word in a very wide range of contexts so I am curious about people's thoughts.

I don't think it'll take that long. I think I'll be able to/ready to play it around the four months mark.

I will say, though, that I think the biggest mistake Owlcat made here was relying on closed betas to try and bug-proof the game. They should have, instead, gone the route of a lengthy Early Access period for the game.

Yup. This is my understanding as well from regularly browsing the Owlcat forum. The people who seem to be hyper-bothered by the bugs are actually few, but they're super-vocal and will go out of their way to tell other people how disappointed/angry/offended they are with Owlcat and the game. The vast majority of people playing the game are very much liking and enjoying it (despite annoying minor bugs).

Totally agree! As for this particular game, I followed its development for a while, but eventually dropped it from my Steam wishlist mainly because I just can't get into the game's setting/world. As a passionate fantasy fan, the world of this game seems too "techy" for my tastes. But I would be interested the thoughts of anyone who's played it.

I've been wondering about picking up the first game. What would you say are the things the first game does well, especially compared with what you wrote about the new game? Something brief would be fine.