:some-controversy:
However, the military balance of power between the USA and China is rapidly shifting in favor of the People's Republic,
Reminder that a big factor in pre WWI Germany's military planning vis-a-vis Russia was the idea that Russia must be "countered" before they built up to the point that they'd be impossible to defeat. Such thinking might become widespread in a few years in the MIC, something to remember.
This is what I see happening now with the cold war that is forming. I give it 10-15 years before China is hands down ahead of the US. I imagine the US govt has a similar number, and that's why they've been throwing everything at the wall for the past 2-3 years, seeing what sticks. A war is a lose-lose for all, but if the US can convince the world there is a genocide, or a planned pandemic, or something else, they can economically strangle China and buy some more time. It's insidious shit.
or a planned pandemic
yea, China's also seen a suspiciously large amount of pandemics over the last 3 years or so.
Funny thing is that it could work temporarily and they do cause China to stagnate, only for their own economies to fall even harder and have China pass them anyway.
So it really is a second cold war, right down to the many predictions that a confrontation is happening at any moment
Probably why Biden now says Ukraine is "too corrupt for NATO". Wants to engage with Russia and encircle China.
What are the chances of Putin playing along with something like that?
For years, I've read the comparison of Putin's foreign policy to that of the US as the US plays checkers while Putin plays chess. They are the played on the same board, but one is obviously harder (chess). Putin really does not have a strong population to enforce anything against China in the Far East (Siberia IIRC) in the event of a land war; that is why he is doing the free 20 hectares of land program, to get Russian citizens to move there and populate the region so it isn't overrun by China.
Russia's military defenses are equipped for strategic warfare. Such as ICBMs. The withdrawal from the open skies treaty by US and Russia, as well as from the Start treaty (I believe it's called) reduces restrictions on nuclear armaments.
Russia's strategic security against land invasion has always been in its size and climate, both of which make it effectively unconquerable, being almost continental in size. Yes, the territory could be nuked (though not without retaliation - Russia is believed to still maintain the "Dead hand" auto-retaliation system), but it is too vast to actually conquer in a uniform fashion. (Hence, why different regions of Russia have different cultures, for example Chechnya and Moscow).
Putin would more than likely be officially neutral for as long as he can, conducting normal trade with China for humanitarian reasons such as food.
China and Russia have both liberalised to an extent following the collapse of the USSR - China becoming a manufacturing powerhouse. A strategic alliance between Russia and China would be formidable, as Russia has a massive grain production and China has a significant need for food. The close ties of the BRI would make it easy for Putin to make a deal with China to supply their food (China imports a lot of food from the US currently, as their rapid development has resulted in a loss of arable land).
"See, Ukraine is so corrupt that they hired the son of a foreign vice president with no experience to get clout with the world's superpower for arms and energy investment" -Joe Biden probably
There is absolutely no way in hell that Vietnam would want anything to do with the US militarily. The previous admin tried, and was exposed as delusional morons: https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/08/pentagon-vietnam-military-china-us-war/
Look around your room and think not only of where everything in that room is made, but also where the individual components and the raw materials of those components are made, refined or processed. Now imagine China closing all of its sea, air and road ports the very moment war was declared against it.
Honestly. Anyone who thinks an actual war would occur is insane and has no fundamental understanding of how interconnected our world is.
I couldn't buy bullets last year because the lead was mined and primers manufactured in China.
Holy fucking shit lol does our military have some other hookup? Because it would be too fucking funny if we declared war and immediately lost our fucking ammo supplier.
It's a large amount. A alot of precursor chemicals are also refined in China then shipped to Europe. For example all US solid fuel rocket engines use Dechlorane, which is made by one company in Belgium, which gets all precursor chemicals from China. Most electronics in the military are also on Chinese made circuit boards. Final assembly of everything is usually in the US.
But yeah, US empire can't function without Chinese manufacturing, and Chinese domestic life cannot continue without the customers, no one is really interested in rocking the boat too much. I mean take the Belt and Road Initiative, you know who is a huge supporter? Bill Gates lol.
The main contracted supplier for military ammo is a factory in Missouri called Lake City. I couldn't find anything on their supply chain's origins, but also couldn't find articles about them facing input shortages like civilian factories had. That might be domestic or at least non-Chinese.
It looks like most us lead consumption is domestic (https://prd-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/atoms/files/mis-202102-lead.pdf) but I don't know enough to say weather any of the materials required to mine that lead could be produced domestically.
Anyone who thinks an actual war would occur is insane and has no fundamental understanding of how interconnected our world is.
We also shouldn't underestimate how reckless and arrogant US leaders are, and how far they are willing to go to maintain their empire.
or underestimate the ability of Fox + testosterone addled boomer factions to get their hands on power.
Anyone who thinks an actual war would occur is insane and has no fundamental understanding of how interconnected our world is.
Is exactly what was said in 1914, though.
Surely the conditions are different, but does it matter?
Good luck. Everyone in East Asia hates Japan far more than China, and Merkel’s no idiot, and isn’t hitching the EU to a dying empire
Merkel is on her way out though and with the dash direction EU politics is moving in I wouldn't be so sure the EU would do the non-horrible thing.
Come on guys, nobody's scared of terrorism anymore we need something new to justify the budget. Let's ratchet up tensions with a nuclear power, this cannot possibly backfire.
How insane do you have to be to imagine a nuclear war having anything but losers?
Everyone seems to forget that DPRK is connected by land to the US bases in South Korea, and they have a mutual defense treaty. So in addition to China, good chance south Korea would get obliterated.
