US conflict in the Americas

ougoah said:

They actually do have this luxury because they are considered the wealthiest and most "proper" people. This is what centuries of brainwashing does. They will absolutely be able to control and exercise dominion over Latin America. Covertly or otherwise, they will manage to achieve this.

I agree that the US appears to want to cash in some of the good guy points in exchange for some material wealth and power. They'll take the perception hit but will survive it. They need more money, resources and energy to compete with China and no one is able to threaten the US backyard. It'll be their farmland - data centres, resource wells, cheap labour. It's a clash of empires now. USA vs China. Difference is USA surrounds China with military bases and China isn't able to extract benefits from its region at all. Mostly done at loss. Do you guys know how charitable China is to countries in SE Asia and Africa? How many free handouts that could have benefited China that were given away for zero gain? Buy a few words of favour here and there but material resources wasted on trying to flirt with nations. US just takes it all and takes it for free. You can't beat that.

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Those are the advantages that the US enjoys from the system it set up post WWII and China's countering those advantages with sheer intellect and hard work in a massive Chinese population. It's the old lion fighting with its tools vs the young lion fighting with its robust growth, so I don't know what you mean by "you can't beat that," because the whole reason the US elected someone like Trump who betrays every supposed American value is that China is beating that, in trade wars, tech wars, everywhere that defines the future.

This is part of hybrid warfare though. NATO has no intentional to directly go into kinetic war with China unless they know it is worth it or pushed beyond certain points.

US empire basically grabbed non-negotiable control over a country, showed the world it can do it and only it can do it without a second word from anyone and zero immediate consequences. That is powerful signalling. China isn't able to patrol it's own province without material backlash.

The US aims to completely isolate China. Whether it succeeds is another matter but China needs to see everything coming. It's useless creating feel good excuses and distractions. US wants to secure more energy and mineral resources. It's also aiming to eventually wipe out any non-American/allied investments in Latin America. Right now countries like China have nothing to play to counter these moves. It's won some prizes and came at no cost except a bit of reputation which they simply blame shift onto Trump as an individual while reaping all the rewards. Same as the colonial powers condemning imperialism on the surface with kind words all the while enjoying the rewards.

Any recent news regarding Venezuelan Armed Forces actions?
Last time from what i could read, they already deployed their APCs and IFVs in the street.

manqiangrexue said:

Those are the advantages that the US enjoys from the system it set up post WWII and China's countering those advantages with sheer intellect and hard work in a massive Chinese population.

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It is but it's still all physics. We can't say western people aren't capable of sheer intellect and hard work. That would be contrary to reality. Sure they have dropped far from their peaks but they make up for that by taking whatever they please and still retain all the bs good guy perception points.

manqiangrexue said:

It's the old lion fighting with its tools vs the young lion fighting with its robust growth, so I don't know what you mean by "you can't beat that," because the whole reason the US elected someone like Trump who betrays every supposed American value is that China is beating that, in trade wars, tech wars, everywhere that defines the future.

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You can't beat that as in the US and allies are more than an intellectual match for China as an isolated entity. In fact materially speaking, they are doing better and have all the established foundations. We're an up and comer.

The issue is the US has noticed China. It's impossible to sail under the radar now and they've devoted their entire attention and effort to undermine and pick apart the last standing nation that has the ability to stand independent of the West while living a decent life. I wouldn't call North Korea or Russia winners despite being independent of Western control.

We beat trade wars and tech wars. The US has recently just repositioned. They are digging in for a grind now they know they can't apply quick solutions. This set up where they eventually own pretty much all of Latin America will yield a great deal of balance especially in areas they perceive themselves (and their top tier allies) to be weak in - access to cheap labour. Not to mention they may eventually get to dictate trade terms for these nations with their puppet leaders. China relies on trade for growth. They are aiming to kill three birds here - counter China's strengths in the long term by removing Latin America as a trade entity, have Latin America as a captive market and a production source for American consumerism and replacing China as its main consumer goods supplier, extract resources for itself. They are learning from their losses on the trade wars.

What I mean by "you can't beat that" is imagine you are an extremely high income earner but your main competition is underemployed. But you live in a modest house and have modest means. Your high income puts you on a trajectory where in a decade or two you are undisputed wealthiest but your main competition is already sitting on that spot with plenty of investments everywhere so despite being underemployed they are raking in benefits. Furthermore, this person can steal from everyone else without cause or consequence. Eventually you would be competing not only with that main rival but also the balance of the system. You can't beat that despite your trajectory and income. You have to find a way to change this once you figure out how it works.

Honestly we (and the world) should be much more angry the US not only stole a country (non-negotiable) but set up a precedence and essentially said they'd be doing the same to a few others, not limiting to only a few more. Yet all we're hearing around the world is cope, anger at Trump as an individual and shit like Epstein files which is one clever counter-counter-distraction. Yet China is the one that is branded as the cheater and thief by the actual cheaters and thieves.

As it stands, the Council of Defense of the Nation (CODENA), Venezuela's highest security body under the Constitution, is in permanent session at Miraflores Palace following the US military operation that kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro VP

Delcy Rodríguez leads the emergency response, flanked by her brother Jorge Rodríguez (National Assembly President). Both are children of Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, a Marxist guerrilla and founder of the Socialist League, who was killed by the state in 1976.

Also present: Caryslia Rodríguez — Supreme Court (TSJ) President since January 2024. Former PSUV municipal politician and interim Caracas mayor. She validated Maduro's 2024 election victory on August 22.

Tarek William Saab — Attorney General since 2017 and President of the Moral Power (Consejo Moral Republicano) since December 2023. Hugo Chávez called him "The Poet of the Revolution." Former Anzoátegui Governor (2004-2012).

Gen. Vladimir Padrino López — Defense Minister since October 2014, the longest-serving in that role. $15 million US bounty on his head.

Gen. Domingo Hernández Lárez — Commander of CEOFANB (Strategic Operational Command) since 2021, the top operational military post. Controls all armed forces coordination. ALL SIX are under US/EU/Canadian sanctions.


VP Rodríguez stated at the CODENA meeting that the US attack began at exactly 1:58 AM local time, calling it "an unprecedented military aggression." She confirmed Maduro and Cilia Flores were "kidnapped" in the operation, demanded proof of life, and declared that Maduro remains Venezuela's only president. She announced full national mobilization is now active — militants in the streets, armed forces deployed nationwide — per contingency orders Maduro had previously issued.

Invoking Bolívar and Chávez, she framed the attack as violating Articles 1 and 2 of the UN Charter, called the blockade and strikes "crimes against humanity," and warned the region: "What they did to Venezuela today, they can do to anyone."

iewgnem said:

The envoy's job is to advance China's interest, and China's main interest vis a vis Venezuela is that it stays cooperative with China, regardless of who's in charge.
With Trump throwing Machando under the bus and Venezuela stable under Rodríguez so far, China's interest hasn't been harmed yet has it.
At end of the day you just have to look at what actually happens.

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Sorry I dont follow. Are you saying that China knew and the envoy made a deal with the next in line?

The thing is US in control of the country and its main resources now. How is this going in China's favor?

talonn said:

Sorry I dont follow. Are you saying that China knew and the envoy made a deal with the next in line?

The thing is US in control of the country and its main resources now. How is this going in China's favor?

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Trump already emphasized the oil will continue to flow to China. If it continues to do so at previously agreed prices, then nothing has really changed just yet. In the future, the US will want to use this as leverage but only 4% of China's oil comes from Venezuela and market pricing will do its thing if the US takes Venezuelan output off the market. Furthermore, the US clearly intends to profit from the Venezuelan oil output as if it were entirely its own. So if the US takes those supplies off-market, that will cut into their own revenue.

ougoah said:

It is but it's still all physics. We can't say western people aren't capable of sheer intellect and hard work. That would be contrary to reality. Sure they have dropped far from their peaks but they make up for that by taking whatever they please and still retain all the bs good guy perception points.
You can't beat that as in the US and allies are more than an intellectual match for China as an isolated entity. In fact materially speaking, they are doing better and have all the established foundations. We're an up and comer.

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That's not physics; that's genetics. I would say that you overestimate your enemy's intellectual capacity. They are not in any sense a match for China intellectually and that is seen by the fact that the star scientists in every country are Chinese. You can be forgiven for making the mistake in thinking that, because China was in the past few decades very far behind the West. But that is not the historical norm. That only happened because Chinese innovation fell into centuries long torpor as the unchallenged power in Asia. For most of human history, China's technology and civilization were superior to the West; we just happen to live in the hiccup. We are fast regaining that title. The West only got ahead of China due to a unique combination of China being extremely lazy and content and the West pushing forward as hard as they could. When it's the opposite, China wins; when both push hard, China wins by sheer intellect.

ougoah said:

The issue is the US has noticed China. It's impossible to sail under the radar now and they've devoted their entire attention and effort to undermine and pick apart the last standing nation that has the ability to stand independent of the West while living a decent life. I wouldn't call North Korea or Russia winners despite being independent of Western control.

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It is the opposite. Now that China has woken up, even the West at its fastest innovative capacity will not keep up, and the US noticed too late. The entire West and all its allies pooled together under multiple US presidents of differing philosophies could not reverse the trend of China overtaking the US. The military parade this year showed them that the military window has closed as well. Now Trump doesn't talk about China nearly as much as he did before; he knows he cannot manage it. But he can manage little things like Venezuela.

ougoah said:

We beat trade wars and tech wars. The US has recently just repositioned. They are digging in for a grind now they know they can't apply quick solutions. This set up where they eventually own pretty much all of Latin America will yield a great deal of balance especially in areas they perceive themselves (and their top tier allies) to be weak in - access to cheap labour. Not to mention they may eventually get to dictate trade terms for these nations with their puppet leaders. China relies on trade for growth. They are aiming to kill three birds here - counter China's strengths in the long term by removing Latin America as a trade entity, have Latin America as a captive market and a production source for American consumerism, extract resources for itself.

What I mean by "you can't beat that" is imagine you are an extremely high income earner but your main competition is underemployed. But you live in a modest house and have modest means. Your high income puts you on a trajectory where in a decade or two you are undisputed wealthiest but your main competition is already sitting on that spot with plenty of investments everywhere so despite being underemployed they are raking in benefits. Furthermore, this person can steal from everyone else without cause or consequence. Eventually you would be competing not only with that main rival but also the balance of the system. You can't beat that despite your trajectory and income. You have to find a way to change this once you figure out how it works.

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"You can't beat that," is something I heard a Chinese person once say about the US, maybe 20 years ago. He told me that the US financial control over the world means that they print money at will for real goods and you can never outbid them for talent because they make unlimited money while you work for yours. It was a depressing conversation... until China showed us that he's wrong. China has beaten and continues to beat what some thought was unbeatable so I don't follow your logic at all. It's a very good system and very tough to beat, but unbeatable is is not because unbeaten it is not.

The truth is in the next years China will lose its economic influence in South America as usa will be forcing the whole continent to join them while USA will still massive have influence in Asia and all China can do is watch all their investments into ports and mines get seized

........... said:

The truth is in the next years China will lose its economic influence in South America as usa will be forcing the whole continent to join them while USA will still massive have influence in Asia and all China can do is watch

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If you go look at trade flows, you'd see the trend lines are actually the opposite of what you suggest. Just because Maduro got kidnapped doesn't mean Brazil suddenly stops growing its trade with China. Likewise with Argentina and the rest.