Radio War Nerd #341 — Unforgetting The Korean War, feat. Blowback cohosts Brendan James & Noah Kulwin

Great and necessary episode that shines light on the truth of Korea. However, some non-Korea asides in the episode should be addressed. In particular, as someone who lives in Taipei (and who doesn’t think Pelosi’s visit was a great idea) I have to point out that most Taiwanese either were deeply mixed or supportive about the visit. The outright pro-unification minority (slightly less in number than the outright pro-independence demographic, which is also tiny) was very noisy and angry and they of course got the cameras on them, but they’re not representative at all of the vast supermajority of the population who just want the status quo and don’t want to be pawns or have their land destroyed (“better red than dead” you could say). I know I’m saying some heretical things and that might get fierce blowback (rim shot) from the "Everything is CIA/NED/Color Revolution" crowd, but this island and its history are much more complex than Western propaganda or Chinese state/nationalist discourse would have you believe. And a few people in the group seem quite excited about the potential destruction of the island and its people, which is pretty vile, especially when they're many thousands of kilometers away, completely safe. Noah and Brendan have done lots of outstanding work and have great integrity, but they should learn a lot more about the “renegade province.” Of course, if Mao had liberated Taiwan from the KMT in 1950 (as he was planning to do before he was interrupted) he would have been greeted as a near-messiah and all of this would be moot. A lot has changed since then, and I’ve gone on long enough but am happy to answer any questions. More than anything else, I want peace. (Never mind, I’ve already announced myself as a running dog, I know)

Ok we need the next episode to talk about the north korean offer to give russia 100k troops for ukraine… what would this even look like!?

I wish it were better known that McArthur hated his nickname Dougout Doug

https://www.ft.com/content/f76534bf-b501-4cbf-9a46-80be9feb670c Tooze coming in clutch to lay out that it's way more than just having fabs and/or design teams it's a sprawling supply chain of incredibly high specification parts that almost all industrialized countries participate in

One of the huge problems related to US attempts to reshore semiconductor fabs is that the USA literally doesn't have the engineers to run the fabs. And not only does it not have them, its pipeline for training them is hot garbage. If you want to see why, just look at international PISA rankings. China, meanwhile, is training up legions of kids every year with math skills to be top notch engineers (and again, see PISA rankings for the evidence). This is a huge contributor to why China is very rapidly catching up to Taiwan in semiconductor fab technology, while the USA has lost its lead and is falling further and further behind. China can, and is, "throwing people at the problem." They already know what's possible (based on what TSMC does) figuring out how to duplicate it is easy enough if you're willing to have teams of engineers grinding away at solving it. China has the engineers, the USA does not. I'm being flippant saying its "easy enough", its an incredibly hard engineering problem, but any engineering problem (assuming it is possible in known science) is solvable with enough qualified people and enough money, and China is all-in on solving it. And they know with certainty the problem is solvable.

Pelosi's official press statement in Taiwan was so banal and boring, but she did mention that taiwanese corporations were wanting to invest in the US. Now, just in the past couple days, Biden signed a bill to make semiconductor production into a domestic industry. Assuming she wasn't just being a senile dipshit worried about trade deals, I wonder if the unneccessary provocation is meant to speed up processor factory construction in the US? That way if china does invade taiwan the US can still produce 7nm processors and all that. Might be too highbrow a plot for her, I don't know. She would need help with that kind of planning, at least.

Sound effects and whatnot are a gimmick IMO.

The first season on Iraq was really spectacular. I am old enough to remember the war, but with the passage of nearly 20 years, it's still easy to forget just how insane the whole exercise was. The Cuban revolution series was also outstanding.

https://archive.ph/RE8A3 USAF grounds its fleet of 300 F-35s over faulty ejection seat.

Season 4 is obviously Iran 1953

Blowback Season 1 was amazing

The first two seasons of Blowback were outstanding but so far season three is even better. The combination of research, storytelling, humor and music is unbeatable. I highly recommend this series.

Season 2 of the show is great because you get the sense they accidentally pilled themselves on the JFK assassination during their research.

Truman kind of sounds like the character “Gil” from The Simpsons.

Good episode, will check out BB. One thing I did want to mention and maybe others agree- please do not put audio clips or sound effects as suggested....they are so distracting, straight dialogue is so much better

Hmm, I might have to give BB a listen

I'm about halfway through BB season 3, it's sooooo good

Fucking hell “I’m a little older - I’m 31”. Goddamn kids!! (Grandpa Simpson meme)

just finished s3 yesterday, excited for this

Hell yeah, just binged the 3rd season