Some random thoughts on wars between US, China and/or Russia.
We all witnessed first-hand historical record of the Cold War. There was no hot wars of any scale between US and USSR. Proxy war was the name of the game during the Cold War, while US and USSR had gone out of their ways to prevent direct military conflicts.
Let me relate and explain. I have never fought a war as a soldier. In other words, I have never shot anybody. But I did engage in a few street fights when I was growing up as a teenage. I can tell you this: people who have engaged in real-life fights never talk about fighting lightly, not mentioning war. When you put yourself in a real danger, you become more rational and pragmatic than you could possibly have thought or imagined before that. You never go after your peers until you are facing direct existential threats from them.
MAD prevented direct military conflicts between US and USSR during the cold war. The exact same logic applies to the situation between US and China. While USSR had overwhelming nuclear force, China has credible counter strike capability and enormous economic power. Under no circumstances will there be direct military conflicts between US and China from now on. Possible 20 years ago, but not now, and absolutely not in the future. When serious people talk about possible scenarios of military conflicts, they are actually talking about proxy wars in worst case scenarios.
If US today could not coerce Russia in the European theater, anyone thinks US can coerce China over Taiwan needs to have his head checked. As long as China does not take the bait, Taiwan is going nowhere. Based on my fighting experiences, Japan or S Korean would more likely be annihilated before US and China were shooting at each other over Taiwan.
US knows Taiwan is an extremely emotional subject to the Chinese. China knows what it takes to resolve the Taiwan issue. The great irony is, on this subject, always about "at what cost". So China has been essentially trading time for price.
There is no war between US and China, period. Everything else is a fair game ......
The US from the beginning to the end of the Cold War period basically silently knew that they had the USSR under control completely and that they would eventually win over time. Heck, the existence of the USSR even helped America become as productive as possible. USSR wasn't any kind of threat to them economically and technologically. It was like some kind of exercise partner to them, with positive influence even, albeit with nuclear powers.
At its height the USSR had only about 50% of the US GDP, meanwhile, China has 130% of the US GDP now and still rising, not to mention its industrial capacity stronger than the entire West combined, it's totally above the US technologically as well, nearing the level of the entire West combined in that area as well.
Comparing this to the Cold War and the USSR is a major cope. Also at that time, you had politicians in the US still being somewhat rational and many times smarter than today objectively. They still didn't experience 1991 to 2008 "hyperpower", "end of history" period of hubris and delirium so they weren't so arrogant, etc.
They still think that they have some chance to win against China, and that's why they will start a war, while in reality, they are not. They already lost. They should've thought about going against China way earlier, but their hubris and arrogance didn't allow them to see it earlier.
Either way, it's not a proxy war when the US sends money, soldiers, weapons, and the third highest political seat in the US political establishment to provoke, congressmen, and senate members, to provoke on the legal province of China constantly, in the future maybe even VPs and presidents would be sent to the island. It's not a proxy war when they order the Philippines to provoke Chinese ships on a daily basis on Chinese territorial waters and islands, increasingly send more and more weapons and soldiers to military bases all around China, always sail around China excessively, etc.
These are direct attacks on China's own territory. It isn't like they provoked some Chinese mining company's rights and interests or attacked some Chinese mercenary group in Africa, so you could say it is a proxy war, with their own proxy groups, no, this is directly throwing gloves in the face of China itself, declaring a war with China itself.
That is not a "proxy war" that is like continuous slapping in the face and instigation of a hot war they 100% want to happen, because they know that China will eventually displace their global hegemony, leading to their collapse. So they want to take those better chances now, than in the future. At this point, due to internal divisions, they would really collapse if China's rise threatened the dollar and their global financial hegemony, they will really collapse.
They will really collapse if China threatens their global military hegemony. And that will surely happen, so that's why they want a war against China early while they still think that they have some chance, a better 50% chance today, than a 0% chance in the future. But they don't realize that they are already basically near 0%. A hot war is the reality.
