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Radio War Nerd EP #607 — The Hellscape Trap: China, Taiwan and Declining America, feat. TP Huang (Patreon)

Published:
2026-05-15 19:08:19
Edited:
2026-05-16 13:57:14
Imported:
2026-05
Tags:

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Content

Guest: TP HuangRecorded: May 14, 2026

We talk to TP Huang about China's military strategy and hardware, Taiwan, Thucydides Trap, the Hellscape Strategy and more...

Subscribe to TP Huang's substack. Follow TP Huang on Twitter.

Total time: 1:29:37Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Buy & review John Dolan's new book, They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

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Comments

Candido Gonzalez

I’ve listened to a couple of hos X spaces talks and was looking forward to hearing TP give a knowledgeable take on China here

Matt Colston

That thumbnail picture 🤌🏿🙏🏾🙏🏾

John Waaben

The type of RWN episode that has you scratching your chin, nodding your head, and saying “hmmmm yeah ok”

DylanY Zou

Just listened to the new trueanon ep on military culture+west point. You should have jasper craven on!

Norman

I'm currently in Taiwan and the whole hellscape concept is ridiculous. No one here is really interested in being a second Ukraine. A huge portion of Taiwanese people are completely uninterested in Mainland China and politics in general, they just try their best to ignore it all. Among people who do care, there's also a real Blue (KMT, vaguely pro-unification) and Green (DPP, pro-indepence) divide that in many ways maps on to the American Blue/Red state divide. The Green side is probably slightly more numerous and they are very loud and active in the media, particularly English language media because they tend to be younger and internationally educated. But there's a real, sizeable Blue "silent minority" that doesn't get reflected in Western media much because they are older, more conservative and don't speak much English. Most importantly, the army and police are probably the most Blue group of all, so the people with the guns would actually be the least interested in fighting, while the most vocal pro-indepence people are NGO-type liberals who wouldn't be willing to actually kill or die to hold of the PLA. There's just nothing that comes close to the mobilizing power of Ukrainian nationalism.

Wesley

All due respect; I understand at an idiot level the technological advancements being spoken of and you all made the point that there is an established supply chain involved (which is by far more relevant) but how is anyone saying “wow” at supposed Chinese AI-fueled unproven weapons and ATACMS clones? Their advantages are logistical, economic, political, etc. Their advantage isn’t technological they don’t have the equivalent of Greek fire. I am probably on an island here but a cascade of wunderwaffen doesn’t convince me

Wesley

I understand that *you all* understand that china wins for realistic reasons but don’t make me get horny for oversized drones. I get horny for streamlined supply chains and clarity of purpose

Jacob Bucci

Bow to your sensei. Bow!

PostmasterFenian

Hell ya been asking for this for like two yearsp

Julia S

Have RWN done an ep on ai/autonomous weapons systems?

K Brook

I could listen to this all day, confirming some of the illogical holes in American military posturing are actually illogical. Great ep.

Aditya V

Great analysis of the India Pak war.

Schaeffer Mallory

Incredible interview and guest, cannot wait for another interview with him

Doug Cartel

In my opinion, the insistence that the 100th anniversary of the founding of the PLA is the deadline for an invasion of Taiwan is proof that the intelligence wonks have no idea what's going on in china. Over and over they kept trying to use anniversaries in Russian history to try to predict their behavior and it never worked. So, Xi hasn't told anyone jack shit, the pentagon is just making shit up and pointing at the calendar as proof.

Boobs123

Reminds me of a lot of the hype about the omnicompetence of the Japanese in the 80s and 90s and the Soviets before them. The Chinese are master international strategists, they are cranking out legions of engineers while the West is crumbling, their military is a finely honed blade while ours is a rusty fork, Chinese technology is advancing at lightning speed and America should force its tech companies to imitate China's. I understand Ames and Dolan being agreeable because this is an interview and not a debate so I don't expect much pushback, but this really sounds more like propaganda than even partiality. Remember that propaganda is most effective when it plays into the biases and beliefs you already have.

Schaeffer Mallory

Would be really interested in a deeper conversation on how exactly china uses AI (and what "AI" even means in that context). TP made a comment about how the US is so obsessed with LLMs and a differentiation between that obsession and China's seemingly more pragmatic view of AI would be really helpful

Doug Cartel

Xi seems way too friendly with Putin to call him an idiot so I would think it was anonymously from some government wonk. And in my opinion Putin just chose a bad option over other bad options because the US worked very hard to drive him into a corner where that choice seemed like the best in a bad set

Doug Cartel

I wonder if the reason Americans stupidly believe that china will try to seize the island in a landing invasion stems from the fact that this is a territorial dispute. Like, look, they want the land, why wouldn't they put troops on it if they don't want the land? Which is how Ukraine has fought - constant counterattacks and demands to defend every inch - but is ultimately a bad strategy if you want to win a war. Taking and ceding territory as a means of getting or keeping strategic superiority is better than fighting to the last man, generally

Haemu

I can understand being wary of exaggeration or simplification, but for anyone paying attention, surely this narrative hews closer to the the truth than the opposite. Wouldn't you agree?