Comment by Teever
12 days ago
This isn't just ego. This is an impending existential issue.
America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace.
China will soon have the ability to take Taiwan and Korea and Japan. If that happens it's game over for any American interests and perhaps democracy as a whole.
Wargames[0] paint a grim picture of an upcoming conflict between China and America over Taiwan with the US barely winning at a great cost including the loss of many ships, aircraft, and the depletion of missile stocks.
The Chinese have a naval production of 260 times that of America and account for an ungodly amount of global steel production so they'll be able to bounce back faster than the US can. With a lead time for producing American missiles measured in months and years it will be just a matter of time before they take the countries in the region that are critical to American manufacturing if they're so inclined.
[0] https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...
Do you think that global hegemony by force is long-term (centuries) sustainable at all?
What makes you confident that this could ever work on a longer term? The US is only ~5% of people globally, and I would expect any industrial/technological lead to melt over the years unless there is a monumental, continuous difference in spending (like what the US military did since WW2).
But I see no indication that you can keep that situation stable over the long term, and I honestly think that attempts like the current tariff approach don't help one bit in the long run while having massive harmful side effects (price inflation, loss of planning stability/soft power/productivity).
Global hegemony of the US is based not on 5% of people, rather the US sphere of influence. US, Canada, EU, Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc. The combination is immensely rich, powerful and advanced. Even more so when you keep India on board as well.
It at least stands a fighting chance if it wasn't the case that this alliance is being destroyed before our eyes.
I will admit that even an integrated alliance cannot push around China in the way it could decades ago.
Yeah, but look at what GP is responding to:
That does not make sense.
Low value manufacturing has been disappearing from the US for decades and arguably the US -- up until the recent turmoil -- has continued to maintain its hegemony.
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I can see your point, but I disagree on this.
It is specifically "US hegemony" and not "western democracy hegemony" because the US is so extraordinarily powerful in economy and military.
Interests/culture with other democracies aligns well enough (and the power differential is large enough!) that US leadership is tolerated/supported.
But Canada, EU, Australia, Japan are NOT vasall states: If interests would clash and/or the US lose a lot of its relative power, those would cease being majority supporters and push for domestic interests instead.
Calling them "fairweather friends" might be too cynical but I think it's much more accurate than considering them integral parts of the US hegemony.
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I think "centuries", plural, is too long for anything much to last since the industrial era. I'm not comfortable guessing past 2032 even without any questions about AI.
The United Kingdom of England and Scotland didn't exist until 1707, and even that was sans-Ireland until 1800.
And yet, even with the biggest empire the world had ever known, WW1 could only be won with the support of another huge empire (France) and the subsequent arrival of the USA; shortly after this, most of Ireland became semi-independent.
WW2 was "won", again with huge support, but a pyrrhic victory from the UK's point of view, and India soon after became independent. The Suez Crisis was 1956, and showed that the old empires of the UK (and France, Union française) were no longer economically hegemonic — even when working together — and the US had replaced them in this role.
Looking into the future, there's no way to guess. The more tech advances, the easier it becomes for a single person to cause enormous, world-altering impacts: hackers are already relevant on the geopolitical stage; there's good reason to think that quality of life is directly related to how much energy a person can process, but once you have sufficient energy per-capita, it's not hard to use a cyclotron to brute-force the purification of weapons grade uranium, or to transmute depleted uranium into plutonium; simple genetic manipulation has been a standard technique for first year biology students for at least two decades, and can be done in a home lab, and at some point we will have risks from someone trying to use this for evil rather than decorative bioluminescence. All these things can topple a hegemon that spends its tomorrows looking at yesterday's battlefield.
That is not an existential issue; many former hegemons, such as the United Kingdom, continue to exist. Coalitions exist to ward off hegemons.
The UK continues to exist because it was replaced by a democratic American hegemony.
If an authoritarian country like China achieves hegemony the continued existence of democracy is at risk.
I want to live in a democratic world, not an authoritarian one.
America's democracy is a flawed one but of the two choices -- American hegemony or Chinese hegemony it is the best path to a flourishing global liberal democracy.
Can you foresee Chinese hegemony leading to increased democracy, individual property rights, due process, and rule of law?
No, I do not, but I also do not much stock in America's policy of spreading democracy. I believe that America will do best by setting a good example at home, and it is failing in this regard. China is obviously not a democracy.
My fear is that people will look at China's might and economic success and conclude that democracy is overrated.
France and Spain continue to exist and they were former hegemons. China has stably existed with long periods of turning inwards after more regional hedgemony.
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>such as the United Kingdom, continue to exist
They were really close to not existing. France stopped existing, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, all stopped existing. China, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, New Guinea, Guam, East Timor, and Nauru all stopped existing.
That was in a pre-nuclear weapon world.
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Of your list I've been to France, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France (you seem to have it twice for some reason), Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.
They all most definitely did not stop existing.
Also I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you say the United Kingdom came really close to not existing.
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Genuinely, USA as of now is threat to both peace and democracy - both at home and abroad. Whether it manages to bring back manufacturing is irrelevant to that.
> America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace.
This argument is based on experiences in WWII, i.e. the previous war. You need to be cautious about basing military doctrine on the previous war. I’m not sure the next war will be won by churning out aircraft carriers.
Regardless of what economies will be churning out to fight war, it will more than likely be the side that churns out more stuff that wins.
If not aircraft carriers then what sort of physical objects do you think will critical in winning the next major war?
I don't know why people keep thinking that China will attack Taiwan. It took HK and Macao without a shot. I think China is following Sun Tzu.
"subduing the enemy without fighting," is the epitome of strategic thinking in his book, The Art of War. This means achieving victory through cunning, deception, and maneuvering, rather than through direct confrontation and bloodshed"
They are increasing their military knowing that US military costs 4+x as much. It might be 4x better so don't fight. Just bankrupt the US. Trump wants a $1T military budget next year.
Why would China want to conquer the West? Buying what it wants is cheaper than an uncertain military battle fought with Nukes.
What I still don't get is what could China possibly want with Taiwan?
Naval routes? Just negotiate and use money instead; it'll be cheaper than war.
Brainpower? Just offer higher salaries to come work in China.
Taiwan is a tiny island smaller than Florida with only 20m people.
1) Historical claims - the CCP views Taiwan as a breakaway province and considers unification important. After the Chinese Civil War ended in 1948, the defeated Republic of China (ROC) government fled to Taiwan while the CCP took control of China.
2) Political legitimacy - successful unification would be a nationalist victory for the CCP
3) Strategic importance - key geographic asset. It lies in the first island chain, a line of US-aligned territories that can potentially restrict China's naval access to the Pacific. Control over Taiwan gives China more leverage over sea lanes critical to global trade and security influence in East Asia
4) Economic, technology bonus points - Taiwan is a global tech powerhouse, especially in semiconductors. TSMC is the world's leading chipmaker.
5) Global power dynamics - unification would weaken US influence in the region
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Regardless of the reasons (mostly political rather than rational, as my sibling comment laid out), the beach invasion barges we've been seeing are IMO a dead giveaway of intent and resolve to take Taiwan. Between that and American fecklessness, if I was Taiwanese I would be shitting my pants.
Hello slippery slope how are you doing?