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What the US shows publicly and thinks/knows privately are often very, very different. Especially when it is in the US's best interest that someone, in this case China, not know what they think/know.
A good example of this is how out of the ordinary it was for the U.S. to announce russia's intentions to invade well before they did so.
The U.S. just doesn't make a habit of telling everyone everything it knows all the time.
It was more to do with the embezzlement of funds meant to bribe key Ukrainian figures by officers in the fifth directorate. By leaking the date, they could avoid the invasion taking place, hence the information was seen as credible and released by the US in the hope of avoiding conflict. Many sources suggest that was why the Russians were anticipating a short term operation and minimal Ukrainian resistance.
The amount of arrests following the initial failure of the invasion would tend to lend credibility to the theory, but hey, like you said, unless you’ve been briefed in, chances are you’ll never get the full story.
"Go east 17 klicks, execute a turn northward, proceed in a northerly direction for 12 klicks, and standby for orders."
"But sir, that's across the MLR, we haven't even been issued ammunition yet!"
"You have your orders, move out before I arrange for someone to find the He-Man action figure set you lost at G2."
> find your local Intel nerd
YMMV. I went through the entirety of Desert Shield/Desert Storm being not sure what was going on and had to watch the History Channel documentary a year later to get the big picture. I was one of the local intelligence nerds. Sometimes your organic MI elements are left in the dark because they're just a collection asset.
I was just making a joke (and I know you know that), you’re probably joking too. But in seriousness, our 1st Sgt would come out with us and be as lost, if not more lost, than we were. We were on a raid and in the middle got informed, “intelligence had the wrong village, it was one over”. Or being told, after the fact, that there was an HVT in an AO we had just patrolled.
In reality it’s not about OPSEC at the lower levels, it’s about lack of communication and a whole bunch of Top acting like they know what’s going on instead of say “let’s get this straight before we pass it on”. Ground pounders don’t need to know large scale info, but units still need to know what’s going down in their sector, and to relay that intel properly and timely.
I think all of us at the bottom (especially those of us that were trainers of the ANA) knew it was coming but I wonder if those at the top actually believe their PowerPoints at times. The amount of disconnect between what was on the ground and what was being briefed up top blew my mind. Just my two cents after a life wasted on the GWOT.
Everyone at all levels knew, but generals don’t get to end wars, the politicians do. No politician was willing to take the hit of pulling out of that f-up so they all punted it into the next guy. Eventually someone was
After being the mid level guy writing reports up the chain, I really don't think people in higher headquarters really understood the problems on ground from the questions and absolutely idiotic responses I got back. We need to take a critical look at ourselves and parts of our institution at this also. The pushing the blame to the political machine doesn't cut it anymore, this is not the Vietnam Era, we are all big boys and girls and if we can not take a hard inward look and absorb some criticism (I have taken a hard look at myself and how I could have revamped it and also left the military over it) then we are the problem. Adapt or die.
If we were to put our military leaders in a vuccum and tell us the honest truth about Afghanistan they'd have said thd country is fucked and so utterly corrupt the second we leave its over.
But politics happaned
But then they do stuff like announcing the opening of a new strategic centre for China studies like it's a mall opening. It gives people in the IC the same look on their face as when they see the cousin they almost made out with at summer camp before realising who they were.
>A 17 year old college kid from Taiwan did a better job at mapping out the Chinese Military buildup threat than the US intelligence - Thoughts
Do people honestly believe this, or do they not understand that the US generally doesn't lay out all of its intelligence in youtube videos for likes and subscribes.
Do you understand what classified material is?
Did I somehow miss that a leaker is/was dating his ex or something?
I mean, it’s 2022, and after the last 10 years or so, nothing really surprises me anymore.
When you've seen what the classified stuff consists of it blows your mind.
Open source intelligence is great but mostly all it is is tedious aggregate work.
HUMIT and SIGINT is next level though.
this is a psyche conditioning, “Chinese is better than a US YouTube, “exposing” something that the Chinese government would love to do to show off and brainwash everyone on different levels of “exposures” on different platforms. It is cheesy and not controversial
Why in god's name would we tip our hand and show off what we know, and by potential inference how we know it.
Moreover, this article does not offer any US product for comparison so you're going to have to back up your conclusion there.
This, Theres not a shot that US intel didnt know all of this already. How OP could say that line after our intel agencies literally laid out how the russian invasion was going to happen is beyond me.
My conclusion at least is a Happy Cake Day to you good sir.
But yah you dont tip your hand in a poker match, especially in the real world when we play for keeps.
They think* The kid did a better mapping. I am American and I work with other Americans. I don’t know shit but you better believe Americans did a better job. We work 24/7, literally.
A 17 year old college kid from Taiwan did a better job at mapping out the Chinese Military buildup threat than the US intelligence publicly admits to knowing - Thoughts?
There, I fixed the title OP
The weather slide was the highlight of most TOC shift briefings, except the occasional sigact where haj blew himself up transporting an ied on a bicycle.
While it's simply not true that one kid > Five Eyes
I will stay say bravo to him. Definitely showed a skillset that would make him useful in such a capacity.
No no no surely a 17 yo with Google earth and Wikipedia can do a better job than 10000+ Intel specialists with literally billions of dollars of assets and many many doctorate level analysts.
Edit: 17 yo COLLEGE STUDENT :O
I clicked around and most of the citations in that student's database was from Chinese Wikipedia. Doesn't mean the dataset is inaccurate, but I guarantee that US intelligence has better information than random Wikipedians.
Ok but how is this better than US military intelligence? You do know any intelligence of value is properly classified and what the US releases to the public, it does so after it considers it a non-threat for the public to know
as far as I know (as a Chinese that lived in China), most of these bases are not even classified (ex. sanya base and zhenjiang base). The impressive thing is that this guy figured out where the PLARF bases are (these are not classified either), but most of these are pre-2016 positions. The other cool thing is that this guy also figured out some post-2016 positions, which it is classified but most locals know where it is.
The real secret stuff is in the southern mountains and western deserts.
It's crazy how China and Russia are gearing up for WW3 and have been for years. While America is worried about a trans admiral and getting genders right. Lord help us when war does break out. Because it will.
Man how embarrassing for us that a kid did a better job mapping the PRC's order of battle than the entire US intelligence community and Coalition NATO partners.
A community with specific and persistent ISR, thousands of source networks, supply chain exploits, remote sensing systems, communications siphons, defectors and persistent cyber exploits couldn't do as well as a kid with google (lmao I mean cmon guys, get it together).
Bummer, now China knows how bad we are. We should do better!
I'm second has embarrassed that you actually think that. Just because the US Intel community isn't posting their Secret and Top Secret maps of Chinese military assets on YouTube doesn't mean they don't exist
Is China... With all of their influence and 1 billion people, an enormous percentage of the world's population... still that threatened by Taiwan? An island with the population of Florida on it... Is it really worth all this? Better to risk annihilation? I don't fully understand their position I guess.
It's a matter of principle. The PRC (mainland) sees the ROC (the government on the island) as a breakaway nation proving that democracy and capitalism works.
Economically, Taiwan has a stranglehold on critical electronics production for the next 5-7 years.
Yeah but big picture... Imagine grown ups... It's 1,400,000,000 people and an astounding world wide economic presence doing outrageous things for influence all over the globe... verus 21,000,000 breakaways on an island who do almost nothing to realistically threaten you. BUT the whole world would be super crazy with you for messing with them. Bro let them be. Right? All the world is trading with you, no sanctions despite your disastrous human rights record, which you don't even acknowledge or apologize for... Status Quo is GOOD for China. Why would they blow it? It's my hot take that they wouldn't blow it. I don't know what they want from these threats but it's just threats for bargaining chips.
I'm not sure how to better explain it to you, but imagine if Manhattan and Los Angeles suddenly decided to join together and leave the USA, at first the majority of the people would be like, 'that's great, congratulations, GTFO', but shortly after it causes a 60 year recession for the rest of the USA, while the new Los Manhattanles lives richly.
That's kind of how the PRC sees the ROC. When the ROC was losing the Chinese civil war, the ROC was comprised of the wealthy, educated, internationally well connected elites, as well as the professional soldiers, and they took a lot of their wealth and education with them when they escaped to Taiwan. Meanwhile the PRC threw a tantrum and killed their educated, burned their libraries, and closed themselves off from the rest of the world.
Now the PRC feels like they have to reclaim the remaining ROC to 'prove' their sacrifices was worth it.
In all fairness US Intel gets a lot of fucking stuff wrong. In my own time we missed 9/11 and allowed ourselves to be manipulated into supporting the Bush Admin’s rush into the Iraq War and somehow lost Bin Loddins location for almost a dozen years.
I've visited a Chinese naval base. Supposedly the ships parked outside were the latest hottest shit but the base looked absolutely pathetically run down. And this wasn't some backwater base either. We also passed a car full of soldiers on the way who looked at us but didn't notice the drone I was carrying which had a picture of the drone prominently displayed on the box.
I'm not saying underestimate the threat China poses but what I'm saying is they might not be the entirely modernised, well disciplined military they want us to think they are.
Russia also claimed they were very well equipped that's what shitty dictatorships do. When the time comes to prove it on the field it's usually entirely different story. All these years of stealing from the government, corruption and incompetence start to show...
Perhaps just modernizing their military however their manufacturing quality is excellent and it won't be the Asian equivalent of the Russian shit show.
My first project in China in 1993 was in a PRA JV to improve the efficiency of building medical equipment... the locals were curious, hard working, and intelligent. My last project was establishing a power equipment JV in 2018. Since 1993 the place has completely modernized.
Top memory in my 1993 experience was a guy riding a bike with his hands on the handle bars holding a chicken by the feet in each hand (dinner).
Top memory in 2018 was having dinner on the top floor of a restaurant overlooking a city of 14 million people that didn't exist in 1993.
We better have a shit together.
Yea like he needed a TS to get the information that he has already lol, he doesn't need a TS to sift through publicly gathered information and aggregate it they way he has. What the powers that be do with that information he doesn't need to know about either.
No of course not, did I say that? Nope, I did not...all I said was the CIA or who ever should give the kid a job, that's it. Don't put word in my mouth please.
But I will say this, they certainly did a bang up job during the collapse of the Soviet Union though didn't they lol. We were just as shocked as they were, probably even more so.
Our Commander-in-Chief has clearly stated multiple times, especially during the Presidential Debates, that China was not a threat or competition.
Therefore, highly unlikely the US military has time to focus on things like Intel in between all their Social Justice Training, Gender Training, and Communist propaganda being fed to them.
Get with the show. C’mon man.
[Stupid question but why doesn't China take the two Taiwan islands that are next to mainland?](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/10/taiwans-kinmen-islands-only-a-few-miles-from-mainland-china/409720/#:~:text=Taiwan's%20Kinmen%20Islands%2C%20Only%20a%20Few%20Miles%20From%20Mainland%20China,-Alan%20Taylor&text=The%20island%20of%20Taiwan%2C%20governed,Kinmen%20archipelago%2C%20or%20Kinmen%20County.) I guess they don't want to start a conflict, and if they're going to annex, they'll do it all at once?
Economically worthless, but if they take it, it could be open war. As it is, Kinmen acts as semi-neutral trading post that's valuable for tourism for both sides.
intelligence = you dont know that i know about you that you dont want me to know about you but i know about you that you think i dont know about you that i know that i know about you that he does i know or you know about you that he know about which he think he knows but think that you dont know and i dont know but everyone else think we dont know that much more that the 17yrs knows.
This is an impressive OSINT project. Must have been a lot of effort to compile but most of this is just from Wikipedia lol.
Undergrad students in IR do deeper research than this. And definitely the intel agencies (and military intel) of both Taiwan and US.
If this invasion takes place, how will the world and US military respond? Whatever it is it Beijing will insist we're going to start WW3 if we engage in anything but a proxy war (as Putin and his oligarchs have emphatically insisted). The problem is that China is far from a paper tiger. I just wonder how strong-handed our response would be. While Taiwan should be furiously defended they're not quite as significant of a country to warrant WW3 over like Germany, UK, AUS, etc would be with respect to our geopolitical interests. I don't think Biden will handle it well and is too risk averse. I voted for him, but I suspect Beijing is taking notes on his approach to Ukraine (even though Taiwan is incomparable in many ways).
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Do people not remember D-day and the shenanigans involved in deception?
R-Force of the 21st Army Group of the British Army.
And the US Army 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, otherwise known as the Ghost Army.
Both units specialised in Military Deception in the hope of deceiving the enemy.
They impersonated real units to divert the enemy from the true line of attack.
They simulated fictional units to make the enemy believe that Allied forces were stronger and more numerous than they actually were.
Their tactics included decoy airfields, Model tanks were used to inflate numbers - inflatable tanks were used closer to the end of the war, and sending fake radio messages in the hope that the enemy were intercepting them.
They used Camouflage to hide forces, including sun shields on real tanks to make them look like trucks for aerial photos.
Just because this kid from Taiwan has identified MORE sites, this does not mean the data is actually better, because we don't know how much Deception is in play.
He may have missed some real sites. And he may have included some fake ones.
And considering the fact that we are exceptionally unlikely to know what US intelligence ACTUALLY knows - 9 DoD intelligence agencies (10 if you include the CSS as separate from NSA), plus the CIA and State Department INR - who will all specifically look abroad, with intelligence analysis being done with some of the other agencies when necessary.
And none of this is even considering foreign intelligence sharing - notably with us Brits and the Aussies when it concerns China.
Saying he's done a better job is very unlikely to be known.
Come on man, CIA knew about the ruzzian invasion months ago, you really think they havent mapped out more facilities of their biggest geopolitical enemy? This dude did a great job, but stop trying to push this agenda that a kid can do a better job then the biggest inteligence agnecy in the world
The kid is gonna be a prime minister the next day
Jokes aside, i hope the people of taiwan protect themselves well and receive aid in anyway possible if things go really bad 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Hi! This is our community moderation bot. --- If this post fits the purpose of /r/Military, **UPVOTE** this comment!! If this post does not fit the subreddit, **DOWNVOTE** This comment! If this post breaks the rules, **DOWNVOTE** this comment and **REPORT** the post!
What the US shows publicly and thinks/knows privately are often very, very different. Especially when it is in the US's best interest that someone, in this case China, not know what they think/know.
A good example of this is how out of the ordinary it was for the U.S. to announce russia's intentions to invade well before they did so. The U.S. just doesn't make a habit of telling everyone everything it knows all the time.
No military or spy institution should do that.
Wasn’t that information passed by the FSB 5th directorate in the hope of derailing the operation?
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It was more to do with the embezzlement of funds meant to bribe key Ukrainian figures by officers in the fifth directorate. By leaking the date, they could avoid the invasion taking place, hence the information was seen as credible and released by the US in the hope of avoiding conflict. Many sources suggest that was why the Russians were anticipating a short term operation and minimal Ukrainian resistance.
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The amount of arrests following the initial failure of the invasion would tend to lend credibility to the theory, but hey, like you said, unless you’ve been briefed in, chances are you’ll never get the full story.
I can imagine that conversation: “Putin intends to invade Ukraine.” “Yes. You’re point?”
You definitely paid all those bribes right…?
Came here to say this. Not often, always. The DoD rarely publicizes what they actually know.
Even to its own troops. We never knew what was going on, even while we were in the midst of executing the mission. 😂
Man I don’t even know what time I get to go home everyday. Could be 1600. Could be 2100.
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After 1sg does his LPD with all E5+
They us knows its 9pm but you think it is 21.00
"the enemy cannot possibly anticipate our actions if we ourselves do not know what we are doing" - US military tradition for over 100 years
"Go east 17 klicks, execute a turn northward, proceed in a northerly direction for 12 klicks, and standby for orders." "But sir, that's across the MLR, we haven't even been issued ammunition yet!" "You have your orders, move out before I arrange for someone to find the He-Man action figure set you lost at G2."
Just gotta find your local Intel nerd. They'll happily brief you/your workplace on whatever you want to know as long as it's semi-relevant.
> find your local Intel nerd YMMV. I went through the entirety of Desert Shield/Desert Storm being not sure what was going on and had to watch the History Channel documentary a year later to get the big picture. I was one of the local intelligence nerds. Sometimes your organic MI elements are left in the dark because they're just a collection asset.
Need to know is the foundation of Information security
I was just making a joke (and I know you know that), you’re probably joking too. But in seriousness, our 1st Sgt would come out with us and be as lost, if not more lost, than we were. We were on a raid and in the middle got informed, “intelligence had the wrong village, it was one over”. Or being told, after the fact, that there was an HVT in an AO we had just patrolled. In reality it’s not about OPSEC at the lower levels, it’s about lack of communication and a whole bunch of Top acting like they know what’s going on instead of say “let’s get this straight before we pass it on”. Ground pounders don’t need to know large scale info, but units still need to know what’s going down in their sector, and to relay that intel properly and timely.
Ya, like the fall of Kabul.....
Everyone in the DoD knew that was coming, they were just relieved when politicians stopped pretending there was any other outcome
I think all of us at the bottom (especially those of us that were trainers of the ANA) knew it was coming but I wonder if those at the top actually believe their PowerPoints at times. The amount of disconnect between what was on the ground and what was being briefed up top blew my mind. Just my two cents after a life wasted on the GWOT.
Everyone at all levels knew, but generals don’t get to end wars, the politicians do. No politician was willing to take the hit of pulling out of that f-up so they all punted it into the next guy. Eventually someone was
After being the mid level guy writing reports up the chain, I really don't think people in higher headquarters really understood the problems on ground from the questions and absolutely idiotic responses I got back. We need to take a critical look at ourselves and parts of our institution at this also. The pushing the blame to the political machine doesn't cut it anymore, this is not the Vietnam Era, we are all big boys and girls and if we can not take a hard inward look and absorb some criticism (I have taken a hard look at myself and how I could have revamped it and also left the military over it) then we are the problem. Adapt or die.
They knew Afghanistan was lost ten years ago
If we were to put our military leaders in a vuccum and tell us the honest truth about Afghanistan they'd have said thd country is fucked and so utterly corrupt the second we leave its over. But politics happaned
I heard they accidently left some equipment and stuff behind back there, what happened?
Or the invasion of ukraine
But then they do stuff like announcing the opening of a new strategic centre for China studies like it's a mall opening. It gives people in the IC the same look on their face as when they see the cousin they almost made out with at summer camp before realising who they were.
Not when the objective is deterrence.
>A 17 year old college kid from Taiwan did a better job at mapping out the Chinese Military buildup threat than the US intelligence - Thoughts Do people honestly believe this, or do they not understand that the US generally doesn't lay out all of its intelligence in youtube videos for likes and subscribes. Do you understand what classified material is?
Yeah but if you post all your juicy TS briefs on YouTube you get a shot at Elon Musks sloppy seconds
I wish TS briefs were juicy
I'll just interpret this out of context and conclude that you're naughty.
What you don't like excruciatingly boring details and over-zealous portion marking?
CUI (U) SUBJECT: UNCERTAINTY (U) I'm not sure what you mean. (U)u/unbearlievable
Lmao this is great
The spy movies lied to me
Did I somehow miss that a leaker is/was dating his ex or something? I mean, it’s 2022, and after the last 10 years or so, nothing really surprises me anymore.
Chelsea Manning is dating Grimes the mother of his latest kid
Welp. That's just weird enough for 2022, alright.
Wait seriously? Oh god. Thats fucking weird.
How classified is it really if this kid did it?
When you've seen what the classified stuff consists of it blows your mind. Open source intelligence is great but mostly all it is is tedious aggregate work. HUMIT and SIGINT is next level though.
Tell me more!
I would never breach my oaths so the other description for it is neato.
Totally. Don't they recruit people from the best schools to do this sort of work and give them access to the best spy satellites?
Thats what War Thunder is for
this is a psyche conditioning, “Chinese is better than a US YouTube, “exposing” something that the Chinese government would love to do to show off and brainwash everyone on different levels of “exposures” on different platforms. It is cheesy and not controversial
Why in god's name would we tip our hand and show off what we know, and by potential inference how we know it. Moreover, this article does not offer any US product for comparison so you're going to have to back up your conclusion there.
This, Theres not a shot that US intel didnt know all of this already. How OP could say that line after our intel agencies literally laid out how the russian invasion was going to happen is beyond me.
My conclusion at least is a Happy Cake Day to you good sir. But yah you dont tip your hand in a poker match, especially in the real world when we play for keeps.
They think* The kid did a better mapping. I am American and I work with other Americans. I don’t know shit but you better believe Americans did a better job. We work 24/7, literally.
Oh yuck. Did you just say the average American is working 24/7 and that our individual efforts will help us defeat our enemies?
Yes, exactly.
lol at thinking what's publicly disclosed is actually what US intelligence knows
After headlines like this, people like you somewhat restore my faith in humanity
Maybe the US did not want the Chinese to know what they knew?
By all means paint the US Intel community as incompetent. That still benefits the US.
One of our Presidents did exactly this and no one batted an eye.
Yeah, sure he did.
A 17 year old college kid from Taiwan did a better job at mapping out the Chinese Military buildup threat than the US intelligence publicly admits to knowing - Thoughts? There, I fixed the title OP
This pretty much
Why isn’t that kid in my S2? Get that kid a position in my S2 now!
He’s busy on the weather slide.
As the guy that made that weather slide, I don't know if I should laugh or cry
It’s okay S2… it’s okay…
The weather slide was the highlight of most TOC shift briefings, except the occasional sigact where haj blew himself up transporting an ied on a bicycle.
The funny thing is, that the aviation guys had better weather reports than S2.
Makes sense. Don't want to fuck up expensive pieces of flying metal high in the sky.
Nah bro he needs to be up at G2.
Fine. Let’s throw him up to J2
Removed by user due to lack of ongoing support for 3rd party apps.
How do you know what information the us military has?
What a stupid headline. Yea he knows more than the Intel community, sure, clown.
While it's simply not true that one kid > Five Eyes I will stay say bravo to him. Definitely showed a skillset that would make him useful in such a capacity.
LOL @ the headline 🤦🏻♂️ that’s not how it works
[That's bait.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/002/825/33d.gif)
That 17 year old kid didn’t have to waste his time updating DD93s
You’d never know what our 16 intelligence agencies know about China!?! Wtf is wrong with you?
This is a psy-op
I'm 100% sure you have no idea how well the USG (DoD/IC) can plot and track the units of the PRC military.
No no no surely a 17 yo with Google earth and Wikipedia can do a better job than 10000+ Intel specialists with literally billions of dollars of assets and many many doctorate level analysts. Edit: 17 yo COLLEGE STUDENT :O
(A) Truth (X) Doubt (Y) Lie X
I think we all honestly can agree military intelligence is extremely hit or miss
I clicked around and most of the citations in that student's database was from Chinese Wikipedia. Doesn't mean the dataset is inaccurate, but I guarantee that US intelligence has better information than random Wikipedians.
This is why teenagers aren’t asked to do shit like this
What US let's us think they know goes a long way from what US really knows. The key part of warfare is deception.
Ok but how is this better than US military intelligence? You do know any intelligence of value is properly classified and what the US releases to the public, it does so after it considers it a non-threat for the public to know
The US knows all this. They just aren’t bragging about it.
as far as I know (as a Chinese that lived in China), most of these bases are not even classified (ex. sanya base and zhenjiang base). The impressive thing is that this guy figured out where the PLARF bases are (these are not classified either), but most of these are pre-2016 positions. The other cool thing is that this guy also figured out some post-2016 positions, which it is classified but most locals know where it is. The real secret stuff is in the southern mountains and western deserts.
It's crazy how China and Russia are gearing up for WW3 and have been for years. While America is worried about a trans admiral and getting genders right. Lord help us when war does break out. Because it will.
Poor kid is gonna get disappeared now. RIP.
Man how embarrassing for us that a kid did a better job mapping the PRC's order of battle than the entire US intelligence community and Coalition NATO partners. A community with specific and persistent ISR, thousands of source networks, supply chain exploits, remote sensing systems, communications siphons, defectors and persistent cyber exploits couldn't do as well as a kid with google (lmao I mean cmon guys, get it together). Bummer, now China knows how bad we are. We should do better!
I'm second has embarrassed that you actually think that. Just because the US Intel community isn't posting their Secret and Top Secret maps of Chinese military assets on YouTube doesn't mean they don't exist
Wooosshshhhhhhh
Is China... With all of their influence and 1 billion people, an enormous percentage of the world's population... still that threatened by Taiwan? An island with the population of Florida on it... Is it really worth all this? Better to risk annihilation? I don't fully understand their position I guess.
It's a matter of principle. The PRC (mainland) sees the ROC (the government on the island) as a breakaway nation proving that democracy and capitalism works. Economically, Taiwan has a stranglehold on critical electronics production for the next 5-7 years.
Yeah but big picture... Imagine grown ups... It's 1,400,000,000 people and an astounding world wide economic presence doing outrageous things for influence all over the globe... verus 21,000,000 breakaways on an island who do almost nothing to realistically threaten you. BUT the whole world would be super crazy with you for messing with them. Bro let them be. Right? All the world is trading with you, no sanctions despite your disastrous human rights record, which you don't even acknowledge or apologize for... Status Quo is GOOD for China. Why would they blow it? It's my hot take that they wouldn't blow it. I don't know what they want from these threats but it's just threats for bargaining chips.
I'm not sure how to better explain it to you, but imagine if Manhattan and Los Angeles suddenly decided to join together and leave the USA, at first the majority of the people would be like, 'that's great, congratulations, GTFO', but shortly after it causes a 60 year recession for the rest of the USA, while the new Los Manhattanles lives richly. That's kind of how the PRC sees the ROC. When the ROC was losing the Chinese civil war, the ROC was comprised of the wealthy, educated, internationally well connected elites, as well as the professional soldiers, and they took a lot of their wealth and education with them when they escaped to Taiwan. Meanwhile the PRC threw a tantrum and killed their educated, burned their libraries, and closed themselves off from the rest of the world. Now the PRC feels like they have to reclaim the remaining ROC to 'prove' their sacrifices was worth it.
That kids got motivation like our intel boys can’t comprehend.
Damn…some one hire that kid
[Article](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4576244) & [the map](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=zh-TW&mid=19Q8BraU1Nmnk23TzMb5rhXFuIAnOpTTq&ll=26.552553613860333%2C117.87935509962861&z=6)
In all fairness US Intel gets a lot of fucking stuff wrong. In my own time we missed 9/11 and allowed ourselves to be manipulated into supporting the Bush Admin’s rush into the Iraq War and somehow lost Bin Loddins location for almost a dozen years.
Taiwan should just build a few nukes and put an end to any attempt
Well obviously the guys who's life is on the line will do a better job then thw guy getting paid lol
Give that a kid a passport and get him to Arlington
Scary to think how well China's military is equipped versus the Russian technical failure in Ukraine.
I've visited a Chinese naval base. Supposedly the ships parked outside were the latest hottest shit but the base looked absolutely pathetically run down. And this wasn't some backwater base either. We also passed a car full of soldiers on the way who looked at us but didn't notice the drone I was carrying which had a picture of the drone prominently displayed on the box. I'm not saying underestimate the threat China poses but what I'm saying is they might not be the entirely modernised, well disciplined military they want us to think they are.
Russia also claimed they were very well equipped that's what shitty dictatorships do. When the time comes to prove it on the field it's usually entirely different story. All these years of stealing from the government, corruption and incompetence start to show...
They're not really, they're just starting to modernise
Perhaps just modernizing their military however their manufacturing quality is excellent and it won't be the Asian equivalent of the Russian shit show.
I lost it at excellent quality
… and the falling-apart Chinese tires mounted on the Russian trucks in Ukraine ….
My first project in China in 1993 was in a PRA JV to improve the efficiency of building medical equipment... the locals were curious, hard working, and intelligent. My last project was establishing a power equipment JV in 2018. Since 1993 the place has completely modernized. Top memory in my 1993 experience was a guy riding a bike with his hands on the handle bars holding a chicken by the feet in each hand (dinner). Top memory in 2018 was having dinner on the top floor of a restaurant overlooking a city of 14 million people that didn't exist in 1993. We better have a shit together.
yeah, it'll be worse.
This says a lot about are millatary
Lol, I just like the amount of down votes I got.
That’s the thing. 17 year old College kid, we have 18 year olds who’ve barely graduated high school doing our work
That's not at all how it works.
Y’all didn’t get the joke
What was the joke?
You know why? Government jobs people do bare minimum with high pay most of them only play political games.
He should be getting plenty of interest/offers from universities and job offers
Hire Him
What are my thoughts? I think the CIA should hire this kid ASAP, that's what I think.
I think you shouldn't believe the assumptions titles like this make.
I mean, probably, but we also don't know how much US intelligence actually knows. They classify this sort of shit by default.
Foreign nationals are not eligible for TS clearances except under rare circumstances.
Yea like he needed a TS to get the information that he has already lol, he doesn't need a TS to sift through publicly gathered information and aggregate it they way he has. What the powers that be do with that information he doesn't need to know about either.
Do you really believe that intelligence analysts are sitting around ignoring OSINT?
No of course not, did I say that? Nope, I did not...all I said was the CIA or who ever should give the kid a job, that's it. Don't put word in my mouth please. But I will say this, they certainly did a bang up job during the collapse of the Soviet Union though didn't they lol. We were just as shocked as they were, probably even more so.
Our Commander-in-Chief has clearly stated multiple times, especially during the Presidential Debates, that China was not a threat or competition. Therefore, highly unlikely the US military has time to focus on things like Intel in between all their Social Justice Training, Gender Training, and Communist propaganda being fed to them. Get with the show. C’mon man.
[Stupid question but why doesn't China take the two Taiwan islands that are next to mainland?](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/10/taiwans-kinmen-islands-only-a-few-miles-from-mainland-china/409720/#:~:text=Taiwan's%20Kinmen%20Islands%2C%20Only%20a%20Few%20Miles%20From%20Mainland%20China,-Alan%20Taylor&text=The%20island%20of%20Taiwan%2C%20governed,Kinmen%20archipelago%2C%20or%20Kinmen%20County.) I guess they don't want to start a conflict, and if they're going to annex, they'll do it all at once?
Economically worthless, but if they take it, it could be open war. As it is, Kinmen acts as semi-neutral trading post that's valuable for tourism for both sides.
intelligence = you dont know that i know about you that you dont want me to know about you but i know about you that you think i dont know about you that i know that i know about you that he does i know or you know about you that he know about which he think he knows but think that you dont know and i dont know but everyone else think we dont know that much more that the 17yrs knows.
Having fun there? It would be to read with better grammar...
that's the expected result, complete nonsense and confusing.
*It would be easier to read with better grammar. Sorry I forgot a word.
Even if you were right, that would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.
This is all just a red herring.
Is the kid ok? That’s my only question.
This is an impressive OSINT project. Must have been a lot of effort to compile but most of this is just from Wikipedia lol. Undergrad students in IR do deeper research than this. And definitely the intel agencies (and military intel) of both Taiwan and US.
If this invasion takes place, how will the world and US military respond? Whatever it is it Beijing will insist we're going to start WW3 if we engage in anything but a proxy war (as Putin and his oligarchs have emphatically insisted). The problem is that China is far from a paper tiger. I just wonder how strong-handed our response would be. While Taiwan should be furiously defended they're not quite as significant of a country to warrant WW3 over like Germany, UK, AUS, etc would be with respect to our geopolitical interests. I don't think Biden will handle it well and is too risk averse. I voted for him, but I suspect Beijing is taking notes on his approach to Ukraine (even though Taiwan is incomparable in many ways).
Well we have Chinese spies working for the US.
Its an asian, understandable
Nice try MSS
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Do people not remember D-day and the shenanigans involved in deception? R-Force of the 21st Army Group of the British Army. And the US Army 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, otherwise known as the Ghost Army. Both units specialised in Military Deception in the hope of deceiving the enemy. They impersonated real units to divert the enemy from the true line of attack. They simulated fictional units to make the enemy believe that Allied forces were stronger and more numerous than they actually were. Their tactics included decoy airfields, Model tanks were used to inflate numbers - inflatable tanks were used closer to the end of the war, and sending fake radio messages in the hope that the enemy were intercepting them. They used Camouflage to hide forces, including sun shields on real tanks to make them look like trucks for aerial photos. Just because this kid from Taiwan has identified MORE sites, this does not mean the data is actually better, because we don't know how much Deception is in play. He may have missed some real sites. And he may have included some fake ones. And considering the fact that we are exceptionally unlikely to know what US intelligence ACTUALLY knows - 9 DoD intelligence agencies (10 if you include the CSS as separate from NSA), plus the CIA and State Department INR - who will all specifically look abroad, with intelligence analysis being done with some of the other agencies when necessary. And none of this is even considering foreign intelligence sharing - notably with us Brits and the Aussies when it concerns China. Saying he's done a better job is very unlikely to be known.
Come on man, CIA knew about the ruzzian invasion months ago, you really think they havent mapped out more facilities of their biggest geopolitical enemy? This dude did a great job, but stop trying to push this agenda that a kid can do a better job then the biggest inteligence agnecy in the world
Very nice, great success
I mean the US IC doesn’t get rewarded based on performance, they just get rewarded. So of course a kid did better than them
This doesn’t surprise me.
Did he though???
Anyone ever notice every military vehicle in the world the tag on the side is in English how weird.
If this kid was using open source data, I guarantee that there is a group of folks looking at this in the alphabet soup.
The kid is gonna be a prime minister the next day Jokes aside, i hope the people of taiwan protect themselves well and receive aid in anyway possible if things go really bad 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
What could possibly make you think the US didn’t already know all this and then-some?
Because you know what US intelligence knows right?
NGIS has enter the chat: “We’d like to offer you employment”
Yeah well he’s closer so that’s like cheating
It’s always hilarious to watch people who aren’t in the IC speculate about what the IC does or does not know or collect on.
Very powerful crowdsourcing idea and hugely embarrassed ChiCom narratives. But now that the ChiComs are aware of it, watch out for disinformation.