Turns out there's a better Pentagon tracker than the Pizza tracker?
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- Thread starter bd popeye
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South American countries lack the grit to conduct asymmetric warfare in the face of an overwhelming disadvantage. In some sense, it was beaten out of them during the Cold War, as hardcore guerillas like Che Guevara and his band were hunted down & executed. But in another sense, there's just not a sufficiently powerful ideological force within South America to oppose American hegemony - they've more or less accepted it and have found a niche within it, with the eventual hope of a Latino demographic take-over of the US in place of any military resistance.
Contrast that with the Middle East, where despite being at even more of a disadvantage vs. Western militaries, Islamic insurgents were able to consistently pose a problem for the US military. Decades after the US began its campaign to "democratize" the Middle-East, we see the Taliban return to power in Afghanistan, and the rest of the US's "nation-building" projects descending into irrelevance. The shift to a more "use Arabs to fight Arabs" strategy, under Trump and Biden, was, in this sense, out of necessity - the US recognized that it couldn't just pull off a simple military victory.
South America is clearly not the Middle East, and expecting South Americans to fight like Arabs or even Iranians is just not practical. China's ability to guarantee security in the region is effectively zero. You can't seriously defend people who won't seriously defend themselves.
Contrast that with the Middle East, where despite being at even more of a disadvantage vs. Western militaries, Islamic insurgents were able to consistently pose a problem for the US military. Decades after the US began its campaign to "democratize" the Middle-East, we see the Taliban return to power in Afghanistan, and the rest of the US's "nation-building" projects descending into irrelevance. The shift to a more "use Arabs to fight Arabs" strategy, under Trump and Biden, was, in this sense, out of necessity - the US recognized that it couldn't just pull off a simple military victory.
South America is clearly not the Middle East, and expecting South Americans to fight like Arabs or even Iranians is just not practical. China's ability to guarantee security in the region is effectively zero. You can't seriously defend people who won't seriously defend themselves.
A more appropriate username could not have posted this. Congrats.
No matter how people try to cope, the US flipping countries from pro China or Russia to pro western is not positive for China. Not just because of Venezuela itself, but also because of the signal it sends. Why should President Lula of Brazil feel safe to be in brics today? Now that he has the prospect of in the worst case an American colony as a neighbour
The Soviet Union didn't just prop up aligned governments through aid. Giving them advice and access to trade and technology is critical to show the population that they're benefiting from the relationship with the Soviets. Nobody expects China to give aid money to anti American governments. But China chooses to reduce trade when a country is under American sanctions and only smuggles in some often misdeclared oil. China hesitates to invest in sanctioned countries. China doesn't provide non financial help for them to develop their economies.
After Mao's death, the CPC has adopted the thinking of a merchant. But if China had really invested in Venezuela and Kuba to become successful, these two would have used up a lot of American attention that can now be directed at Asia.
If they still can't bring themselves to increase military spending, then so be it.
You can't defend a country that doesn't want to defend itself.
Yes and where is the Soviet Union today? I think the events of the past few days concerning Venezuela has clearly shook up a lot of people and from the comments I've been reading here it's panic stations everywhere. The United States is an empire that's on the decline, it knows this and it's why it's changing course in order to revive that empire (or at least some semblance of it) by focusing on its hemisphere. It has fired the first shot by attacking Venezuela and abducting its head of state, and coercing the current leadership into cooperating with it. It has since made threats to Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico, and insinuating its intention to forcefully annex Greenland. Successful empires are built on hard and soft power, the US has lost its soft power and has to rely on force tells me it's simply lashing out and anything built on force alone will not hold for long. The same happened to the Soviets and we can see the same starting to happen with the US.
Let's say the Americans force the entire Latin America to do it's bidding and aligns the hemisphere to cater to its interests, what next? What will they get out of it? They will shut themselves out of trade with the largest manufacturer, where will they get goods from? Their citizens won't be able to immigrate to the US because the US has shut down that avenue, so what will they get out of this arrangement? I don't like predicting the future because I think it's a fools game but from what I can see any option the US takes it will still lead to the same pot hole.
That would have been ideal in theory but very hard to do in practice.
The costs of such an endeavor, I suspect, would be higher than expected, and I suspect the leadership in China calculated that it would be cheaper to try and work with whatever the next government is
People here mention the USSR, but the USSR collapsed, so whatever cold war battles they won, in the end they lost the war.
China probably calculated that they would only focus on what's best band for their buck, around their peripherally.
Focus on strengthening militarily to protect the mainland first, instead of spending money projecting power that they don't have and can't afford right now. That's realistic
But man I wished that they did some asymmetrical warfare and just got agents to shoot down some of those us assets
Just to give you an insight from a former colony of Spain and a devout catholic country, a US green card is the ultimate dream, they will sold their mother and soul just to get one. I'm generalizing it cause I see it a lot among the Catholic worshippers.
From personal experience, without a national language, a nation doesn't deserved to exist. Why spoke a foreign language and adopt it as your official language, that's why the Latin American had not developed a sense of unity and nationhood.
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More importantly, due to globalization, industries across continents are largely complementary, while industries within a continent are competitive. This is like the US invading Brazil and Argentina; theoretically, it could control beef exports, but what would be the point? Marginal effects exist.
I see 2 opposing views here.
The China should do more to intervene camp, and the China should stay out of trouble and mind its own business camp.
Of course, both viewpoints have pros and cons.
I, for one, would like to see China do more to help countries under threat from the US, and the reasons are:
1, China has become a powerful force to reckon with and other smaller/weaker countries are watching to see if China is worthy enough for them to switch side. If China is not willing to stand up and hold the flag, nobody's gonna rally around you, and China may well find itself standing alone at the end. From this perspective, the reasons that the China should stay inactive camp espouses are simply coping, and coping hard at that. If one is unwilling to help others, and cites all kinds of reasons why not, these are excuses and copium.
2, the US studies and understands the Art of War as much as China does, if not more. Hence US understands how China thinks, eg, the concept of subduing the adversary without fighting which might have now become a liability to the Chinese military. Hence, the US is now employing salami-slicing tactic against the Belt and Road participants, knocking out one country at a time knowing that it will not elicit any firm response from China.
3, military is trained to fight. Morale of China's military might just wane seeing the do-nothing attitude of the leadership. China keeps telling its soldiers that if one encounters one's opponent on a narrow road, the brave will prevail. But the opposite is more true as China always shows restraint, not a sign of bravery I dare say.
In conclusion, I would like to see China respond more forcefully to US actions that harm its national interests. Armed reunification of Taiwan and the capture of the drug addict in Manila may be good starting points.
The China should do more to intervene camp, and the China should stay out of trouble and mind its own business camp.
Of course, both viewpoints have pros and cons.
I, for one, would like to see China do more to help countries under threat from the US, and the reasons are:
1, China has become a powerful force to reckon with and other smaller/weaker countries are watching to see if China is worthy enough for them to switch side. If China is not willing to stand up and hold the flag, nobody's gonna rally around you, and China may well find itself standing alone at the end. From this perspective, the reasons that the China should stay inactive camp espouses are simply coping, and coping hard at that. If one is unwilling to help others, and cites all kinds of reasons why not, these are excuses and copium.
2, the US studies and understands the Art of War as much as China does, if not more. Hence US understands how China thinks, eg, the concept of subduing the adversary without fighting which might have now become a liability to the Chinese military. Hence, the US is now employing salami-slicing tactic against the Belt and Road participants, knocking out one country at a time knowing that it will not elicit any firm response from China.
3, military is trained to fight. Morale of China's military might just wane seeing the do-nothing attitude of the leadership. China keeps telling its soldiers that if one encounters one's opponent on a narrow road, the brave will prevail. But the opposite is more true as China always shows restraint, not a sign of bravery I dare say.
In conclusion, I would like to see China respond more forcefully to US actions that harm its national interests. Armed reunification of Taiwan and the capture of the drug addict in Manila may be good starting points.