plawolf
Lieutenant General
That’s why they make such a big distinction between lethal and non-lethal ‘aid’ aka normal commercial sales.
Remember that good generals focus more on logistics rather than tactics, because while tactics can win battles, it’s logistics that win wars.
NATO is already struggling to win the logistics support competition against just Russia’s own supply chain, imagine how fucked they will be if China threw its military industrial production capabilities behind Russia.
I think there are also deeper American insecurities at play, because I think one of their key early warning indicators would be if China starts to shift its industrial production towards a war economy footing. But if China started to massively supply arms and munitions to Russia, then that will completely muddy the waters and make it impossible for them to conclude with any confidence if China is really finally gearing up for AR or just doing good arms trade with Russia.
Chinese overt military support for Russia could indeed be an early indication that AR is imminent.
I think the one of main reason China has thus far resisted overt arms sales to Russia is also because it is not yet happy to press the button on AR. If China were to supply Russia with arms, then I think there is a fair chance the US would be able to strongarm the EU into applying the same sanctions regime against China as what they did against Russia. That will effectively force China’s hand on launching AR since the west would have already gone fully economic nuclear MAD against China, so there really isn’t any additional economic costs to also launching AR.
The other main reason I suspect is because the current situation suits China just fine. America is helping to rapidly de-industrialise the EU while also piling more debt on its already astronomical debt mountain and sucking up so much money that it further undermining its own economic foundations even as its physical infrastructure literally falls apart around their ears.
If China were to open the arms floodgates, even if the EU chickens out of going full sanctions MAD against China, it’s still not ideal for China as the massive flood of Chinese arms and munitions will probably allow Russia to just steamroll Ukraine and end the war pretty quickly. It suits China better that the EU is fully de-industrialised so even if they do side with America (as they are very likely to in a Sino-US direct clash), it doesn’t count for much anymore. That will take a few years more, so it’s better for Russia to drag the Ukraine war out a bit more. Once China is ready to makes its move, it will then send arms to allow Russia to end the war quickly and decisively in their favour.
