Comment by chinathrow
15 days ago
It would be so nice to not be dragged into this war by the aggressor. Russia is playing a very stupid game here.
15 days ago
It would be so nice to not be dragged into this war by the aggressor. Russia is playing a very stupid game here.
> Russia is playing a very stupid game here.
They are not, if you take the larger context into account - and that is China and their saber rattling not just against Taiwan but also against everyone else in what China thinks is "their" influence sphere such as the Philippines.
Russia's warmongering (not just in Ukraine, but also via Syria, Iran and Yemen!) is breaking apart both the US and EU internally - recent elections have shown that both populations are pretty much fed up with the wars and their consequences, and once enough countries either fall to Putin's 5th column outright or their governments pull a Chamberlain, China can be relatively certain no one will intervene too much when they decide that now is the best time to annex other countries.
I wonder if anyone thinks this seems likely:
American Secretary of Defense: "Mr. President, the Chinese just destroyed our Naval base in the Philippines, killing hundreds of US servicemen. As part of a plan to annex the country or something."
American president: "Let's not intervene too much."
I don't think the Chinese will attack US infrastructure or vessels directly, they are not that stupid - but they did attack Philippine ships in what is widely recognized Philippine territory [1] or fish illegally in Philippine territory [2].
The only response the entire West was able to give in years of Chinese transgressions were strong words, about as effective as "thoughts and prayers". China is a bully that escalates continuously (similar to Russia's behavior in Syria with the countless "red lines" that were crossed, eventually including chemical weapons) and needs to be brought to its knees before they one day trigger WW3 by accident.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/chinese-coast-gua...
[2] https://maritime-executive.com/article/philippine-official-a...
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Putin and Xi's big advantage over the US is that American presidents get elected every 4 years. If they gradually encroach on their neighbors and make intervention unpopular in the US via propaganda they don't need to attack a US base.
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Well the result of China's 5d chess has been to install a leader in the US that is likely to escalate a trade war with china when with an impending demographic crisis they most need someone to stop the trade war. Sheer genius!
The problem with dictators of all kinds is that their personal concerns (say, appearing before the local populace as "the one who re-unified China") can and will trump over what makes sense for the country long-term.
Of course that can and does also happen in democracies, but at least most reasonable democracies have some sort of "checks and balances" that at least prevents open war from breaking out.
The world will be looking to China as a stable partner while the US voluntarily dismantles its economy and very possibly its political system.
So yeah, the US absolutely got outplayed here.
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Ah yes, Trump famously hates china,
How well did that trade war go last time he was in office? Trick question, farmers got fucked, and rational minds agree that the US lost.
>Initiating steel and aluminium tariff actions in March 2018, Trump said "trade wars are good, and easy to win,"[54] but as the conflict continued to escalate through August 2019, Trump stated, "I never said China was going to be easy."
It doesn't matter what you claim to want to do or who you claim to "hate" if your sheer incompetence prevents you from accomplishing your desire.
Maybe putting a serial business failure in charge of a trade war isn't very effective?
Biden didn't get rid of them, because it's basically impossible to unwind a trade war, and then put some more limitations on solar panels. I don't think there is a clear answer yet on Biden's addition to the trade war. Probably will be "meh".
A trade war between the US and China is almost always going to be extremely negative sum. Both of our countries rely on each other for prosperity and nice shit.
Sure, but I am commenting from a non-military, non-geopolitics, non-strategy related background: It's a stupid game. Stupid in the sense of: I don't like it, I don't want to play it, thus it's stupid.