I think I may have found the answer? After researching a little bit it looks like Abu al Abyad, the island above the elongated rectangles is actually an international military testing facility. This article , and a couple similar to it alluded that the area is for testing naval equipment and amphibious landings.
There are similar man made pools of salt water in desert condition that the US utilizes for radar testing at the China Lake research facility in California.
It’s probably not that bad, but I wouldn’t be surprised just based on anecdotal experience.
I’m a provider at a children’s hospital and phones have always been an issue during appointments. Before, it was mostly an issue with getting parents to pay attention or answer questions during the evaluation.
However since COVID, we’ve noticed a large increase of parents using tablets and phones as a constant babysitter. These children are so emotionally attached to their screens that they will tantrum until they have access to their screen again.
But that was in the 60s. They are not exactly new at it. I think they also invaded Vietnam but my memory is fuzzy on why.
Their last major engagement was the sino Vietnamese war, where they attempted to invade Vietnam to support the Khmer rouge in Cambodia. It was a complete shit show.
I imagine if a full invasion ever happened it would be a complete shit show. Large combined arms maneuvers are problematic for countries with actual experience. I can’t imagine choosing Taiwan for your first time.
But let’s be real for a second. the CCP(should) have little interest in invading Taiwan. Sanctions from the West would cripple the country. Also their birthrates are at an all time low. A war would devastate that even more. China is already feeling some discontent since the CCP has broken the golden contract.
One would hope, but it wouldn’t exactly surprise me if they utilized it as a rallying cry if the rise in discontent on the mainland continues.
Tbh, this seems more like training facilities for special operations. In the 60’s North Korea built a to scale mock up of the Blue House in Seoul for the same reason, then they carried out a raid in an attempt to kill the president.
I wonder if the construction of the mock up in China aligns with your recent election cycle? From what I’ve read about Ching-te, he seems pretty adamant about the sovereignty of your country.
I wouldn’t want to be in the airborne unit being dropped. Your choices are basically to be dropped into urban combat, or on a freaking mountain. But I think I’d probably choose that over an amphibious landing on an island that’s been fortifying for this specific engagement for decades.
Either way, I definitely wouldn’t choose Taiwan as my first combined arms offensive in 40 years.
Tbh, I think America in general might be a little too obsessed with personal freedom for us to transfer the entire country over to nuclear energy.
Successful nuclear programs require actual collective work for long term viability. We would need to actually give administrative powers to an agency like the nuclear regulation commission that supercedes the authority of individual states.
Otherwise its just going to be like 30 years of ironing out NIMBY state legislation before anything gets built, just like the deep storage facility we’ve been “building” since the 80s.
Yeah, but investors really don’t care about the price of a stock, they care about how much the price moves once they own it.
It’s the inherent problem with publicly owned companies. Even if you perfected a mode of profit, unless you improve upon perfection next quarter you’re in hot shit.
You can only squeeze so much profit out of any one gimmick, after that the only way to mimic growth is by cutting labour costs, and eventually diverting investment funding into profit for shareholders.
But, scarcity = value! They don’t tell you sometimes it also means you’re just easy to overlook.
I’m the only person in my discipline and with my credentials at my hospital. Which means they didn’t initially know how to pay me, and had to set up my own payment scheme in their system.
Every year when the hospital re-credentialing board goes to approve my faculty permissions, they mess up and have to call my national licensing committee… where I’m a chair member.
Yeah… My oldest cat makes different noises for different requests. Yowling near door to go outside, chirping near bowls for dinner, and little mews while following you around to be picked up. And I’m not really sure it’s an outlier case as the other two younger cats are starting to learn to do the same.