Discussing long term impacts of Ukraine crisis

siegecrossbow said:

I don't think this is the case in the long term.

1) Europe will rearm for sure and be fully aligned with the U.S.
2) Belt and Road is probably dead in Europe, hopefully they can salvage some of it but I don't see how.
3) Performance of Russia's conventional military hasn't been the best, it would degrade European and U.S. perception of their capabilities. Which would in turn lead to
4) U.S. will be able to focus more on the Indo-Pacific.

Comparison with 9/11 is not appropriate since Al-Queda and Taliba were NOT a part of the Chinese camp, but the Russians are.

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EU rearming is not so bad for China because they can't afford to rearm both navy and army/air force simultaneously. Navy is not so useful against Russia, Russian SSNs own the Arctic and they have to worry about being overrun on land if they're not careful. So they invest in army and air force which is not so useful against China.

Increased military spending also means they spend less on what really counts against China: industrial modernization and social stability. China is surpassing every EU country in software, electronics, telecom, space and semiconductor, and on their heels even in traditional machine building. They need to catch up, but can't because they rely on all those sectors on the US. Then Russia is still #3 in space far above ESA, they still have significant machinery capability, and they have the energy trump card.

Speaking of which, now EU also has a doubling or so of energy costs if Russia cuts them off, making their industrial upgrade even harder. This weighs on them even more.

China also gains from the conflict because Russia used prevention of genocide as a justification for invasion. This delegitimises this argument so it's much harder to accuse China of genocide against the Uyghurs. The west is also now consuming pictures of violence against europeans on a daily basis, which normalises brutality and makes it obvious that the anti terrorism campaign in Xinjiang is a far better than what's happening in Ukraine. People are also now realising how much power China has over Russia and that China can disable western sanctions on Russia if it chose to do so. China will gain more grudging respect in the west and there will be less hatred against China as people are already hating the Russians.

Well, the good thing for navy lovers is we're probably going to see China ramp up production of 055s and 052Ds in response to basically everyone increasing their budgets. We're probably about to have a form of mini arms race soon.

gelgoog said:

Iran's problem isn't the bomb. It is that they don't have a delivery vehicle which can hit the US.

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The Iran tensions is not driven by the US but by Israel. US is simply under influence of the Israel lobby.

Minm said:

It may be overly optimistic to hope that the US will be distracted from the Pacific and focus on Europe

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I've been hearing about the "pivot to Asia" since 2012 and it keeps getting derailed, either by events in MENA or in Europe.

mossen said:

I've been hearing about the "pivot to Asia" since 2012 and it keeps getting derailed, either by events in MENA or in Europe.

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Or by Trump, whose greatest move was cancelling TPP.

mossen said:

Biggest winner of this crisis is China. The sanctions are going to make Moscow even more dependent on Beijing's good graces. It also lets China off the spotlight for the first time in maybe 5-6 years. Russia is being forced out of settling payments in USD and EUR, which allows Yuan to gain even more international market share in transactions.

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China, Russia and Indian should form their own payment system. Border disputes with India can be set aside.

sndef888 said:

Well, the good thing for navy lovers is we're probably going to see China ramp up production of 055s and 052Ds in response to basically everyone increasing their budgets. We're probably about to have a form of mini arms race soon.

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I don't see a significant ramp up of 055 and 052Ds in the coming years.
It looks like 20 in total for this 5 year period (2021-2025)

By 2025, there would be 59 in total of 055 and 052C/D

Continuing with another 20 from 2026-2030 means a total of 79, which should be more than enough in terms of air defence destroyers.

It's the other weapons systems which may see bigger production increases.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Speaking of which, now EU also has a doubling or so of energy costs if Russia cuts them off, making their industrial upgrade even harder. This weighs on them even more.

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It's not just the doubling in cost. It's how 40% of Europe's gas is supplied by Russia.

I ended up with a figure of 142 BCM for the 4 gas pipelines that connect Russia with Europe. Given an average capacity of 0.17BCM for a new build LNG gas carrier, that equates to an extra 835 LNG carrier deliveries to Europe per year. It would also take 3-7?? years to build up alternative energy supplies with pipelines or LNG infrastructure.

If the gas supply is disrupted, we can expect power cuts, industrial shortages and unheated homes in Europe.

So I don't expect either Russia or Germany to stop the gas supply.

Tyler said:

China, Russia and Indian should form their own payment system. Border disputes with India can be set aside.

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India is proving itself a little but it needs to either quit the QUAD or make it irrelevant to gain trust. They are slowly realizing how important Russia is and by extension how much more powerful China is than they are. They should take the chance for a most favorable border settlement before it's too late.