Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
plawolf
Lieutenant General
It’s not enough to sanction the clown politicians themselves. China should design targeted sanctions designed specifically and explicitly to hit the regions where these clowns are elected.
MEP elections have long been seen as a waste of time joke by the overwhelming majority of the people these clowns are supposed to be elected to represent, with piss poor turnout rates. Maybe some sharp economic pain will make them realise electing clowns and buffoons to represent your interests is a bad idea.
Like Afghanistan, a War for Taiwan is Unwinnable
Applying the lessons learned from both Vietnam and Afghanistan could prove fruitful when considering the possibility of the United States intervening militarily to defend Taiwan from China.
by Lyle J. Goldstein
........Regrettably, the comparison does actually have merit. As in the Afghanistan War, a military conflict over Taiwan would represent a thoroughly unwinnable military scenario entailing significant and even catastrophic U.S. combat losses due largely to the brutal facts of geography. Just as our commitment to our friends in Kabul was always rather dubious, most Americans could not find Taiwan on a map. Washington abrogated its defense treaty with Taiwan in 1979 as a condition of having diplomatic relations with Beijing. Corruption plagued the U.S.-supported regime and its armed forces in Kabul, moreover, and rather similarly the Taiwan leadership also evinces a shocking lack of commitment to its own defense, and the Taiwan armed forces seem, perhaps as a result, to be rife with mismanagement and incompetence.
Yet the most decisive factor will again be nationalism. Beijing has indicated that it is willing to bear any burden to reunify the nation. That determination sounds quite familiar from the American experiences in fighting both the Vietcong and also the Taliban. And so do the rather flimsy rationales for U.S. intervention, such as “preserving U.S. credibility” or safeguarding the “rules-based order.” Blundering into yet another civil war, but this time against a nuclear-armed and thoroughly prepared opponent would, unfortunately, result in consequences far more devastating for the United States than these other disastrous conflicts.
Lyle J. Goldstein is Director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities.
Read the rest of the article/essay on the link below.
Applying the lessons learned from both Vietnam and Afghanistan could prove fruitful when considering the possibility of the United States intervening militarily to defend Taiwan from China.
by Lyle J. Goldstein
........Regrettably, the comparison does actually have merit. As in the Afghanistan War, a military conflict over Taiwan would represent a thoroughly unwinnable military scenario entailing significant and even catastrophic U.S. combat losses due largely to the brutal facts of geography. Just as our commitment to our friends in Kabul was always rather dubious, most Americans could not find Taiwan on a map. Washington abrogated its defense treaty with Taiwan in 1979 as a condition of having diplomatic relations with Beijing. Corruption plagued the U.S.-supported regime and its armed forces in Kabul, moreover, and rather similarly the Taiwan leadership also evinces a shocking lack of commitment to its own defense, and the Taiwan armed forces seem, perhaps as a result, to be rife with mismanagement and incompetence.
Yet the most decisive factor will again be nationalism. Beijing has indicated that it is willing to bear any burden to reunify the nation. That determination sounds quite familiar from the American experiences in fighting both the Vietcong and also the Taliban. And so do the rather flimsy rationales for U.S. intervention, such as “preserving U.S. credibility” or safeguarding the “rules-based order.” Blundering into yet another civil war, but this time against a nuclear-armed and thoroughly prepared opponent would, unfortunately, result in consequences far more devastating for the United States than these other disastrous conflicts.
Lyle J. Goldstein is Director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities.
Read the rest of the article/essay on the link below.
This will drive bitcoin prices even higher.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
A move in the right direction, but ultimately still rooted in the deep past without any acknowledgement of the realities otoday.
The entire piece is based on the premise that China will wear America down through relentless attrition, like the Vietcong and Taliban, where America wins the battles but looses the war through a deficit of will.
But the reality is that in a war over Taiwan, US forces are highly likely to be soundly defeated, and probably with extreme losses and massively adverse kill-death ratios, as their own war game simulations show time and again.
America is thoroughly unprepared for the deep psychological trauma such a devastating straight up military defeat will do to a nation and people who makes their military prowess such a central part of their self identity and source of national pride and social cohesion. Not to mention is standing in the world amongst allies and adversaries alike.
The best thing for America to do is to not fight China over Taiwan. Since to fight and loose there, as they are very likely to with the odds stacked against them, would likely see the US empire suffer a similar downwards spiral as the British after they lost their American colonies. It won’t be the end of the American empire, just like how the British empire endured for over a century after American independence, but it will never be the same and never again achieve the lofty heights of its prime.
To be fair to American strategists, they seem to have seen through the weaponised BS the western MSM produces on a truly industrial scale, and realised this new reality, which is why they are now trying to shift the potential battleground to the India ocean. Sadly, their political masters are all too keen to drink the Kool Aid and cannot swallow the idea of retreating from their current positions nose to nose with China in China’s front yard.
Small but important point. UK lost the American colonies in 1783 but the zenith of the British Empire was about 120 years after that. You need to read a few more Flashman novels, my friend. You can start here:
The current U.S. foreign policy is delusional. Its attempts to command the world are getting laughed at. How did this happen and what might change it?
Here are excerpts from two smart essays which discuss the theme.
Alastair Crooke asks why somehow nothing seems to be working within Joe Biden's United States. He then :
Prof. Michael Brenner recently send a longer diagnose of the U.S. political sphere to his mailing list. He sees the same foreign policy problems as Crooke does and tries to answer some of the questions Crooke is asking:
Alastair Crooke closes his essay with a rather hopeful view:
That crack in U.S. structures however may become a very dangerous moment for Russia and China. Professor Brenner thinks that only the threat of a potentially very violent scenario can cause the 'structural crack' that brings things the U.S. back to sanity:
What a pesky little insect they are.
It looks like China will take the right actions soon. They are giving China the reasons to do it.