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America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

economist.com

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Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#41

Post by SapporoChris »

twblalock wrote: post #32
ergonaught wrote: post #29

I’ve always found it strange that military planning and training is considered newsworthy and informational. I’d be a whole lot more upset and surprised if USA and China were not preparing for a war over Taiwan. It is one of the top 3 most likely sparks for war between them. Which is not to say that it is “likely”.

Seriously. We should even be training for war with Canada -- just in case. Getting ready for a war does not provoke war. Both sides are doing it, we know each other are doing it, we do war games all the time all over the world and it's fine. Freaking the public out about how the game is played is the real danger. That happened with the balloon incident too -- oh gee China spies on us? Yeah, and we spy on them too, an…

"War of 1812, when troops from Canada — then a British colony — marched to Washington, D.C., finished James and Dolly Madison’s unfinished dinner and burned down the White House. " https://www.politico.eu/article/us-war-with-canada-cross-bor...

Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#42

Post by curiousgal »

no_wizard wrote: post #40

Is anyone really equipped to go to war with the USA? Unrestrained war with the US war machine would be....catastrophic, to say the least. I mean for both parties, but the US out spends everyone by a wide margin[0] and the US military is very advanced and well resourced, and well trained. Even if the fighting was just constrained to Taiwan, it would be pretty bad for everyone, but I think it would be especially bad fo…

Maybe you're overestimating the USA the way Russia was overestimated. How many actual wars did the USA win? Out of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gulf War only the latter was an actual victory.

Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#43

Post by skinnymuch »

ianburrell wrote: post #19
ilaksh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the biggest threat to security globally is that once it has been decided that the war is strategic, both sides will use propaganda to motivate their population into thinking that the war is a moral mission. There is not going to be anything moral about it. War is caused by a total failure of management over a number of years. A big part of what is increasing tensions are the real world economic problems globa…

My worry from debating Chinese nationalists is that they think war is necessary, that it will go their way, and that it will end. I totally understand China wanting to be superpower. They seem to think that the US is coercing everybody, including allies, by force. They think that if US is defeated and they can replace them or at least coerce the local area. I wish they kept using soft power, that was working well for…

> My worry from debating Chinese nationalists is that they think war is necessary, that it will go their way, and that it will end.

Is this bravado any different than what Europeans and Americans regularly do? Look at the imperialism and colonizing. Why can’t the west leave the world alone? Of course Taiwan and Ukraine are serious circumstances but so are Yemen, Congo, Palestine, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba, Falkan Islands, and the hundreds of coups perpetrated. When the west does stuff, the world stays out of the way. When any one else does anything, all of a sudden it’s about them being unreasonable compared to us. The major exceptions to this have been how the world treats Slavs. They’re slowly getting closer to being part of the west but the treatment vs the hegemonic powers is different.

> They also ignore the consequences like cutting off trade with most of the world.

This is primarily the five eyes, EU, and allies? This generally is what we consider white people and the consequences of colonialism and imperialism. The west is only like a billion people and change. Maybe 1.25B.

> attacking US mainland

That would never happen. Why not be worried the US will invade mainland China?

Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#44

Post by stephc_int13 »

This is diplomatic flexing, and this is part of the intimidation game.

It would be foolish for China to go into this war, they have very little to gain in case of success and a lot to lose. Also their probability of success is quite small.

They have a large army and they have a lot of equipment and weapons. But war is something special, you can't really train soldiers outside of a real conflict.

They are newbs.

Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#45

Post by lampshades »

no_wizard wrote: post #40

Is anyone really equipped to go to war with the USA? Unrestrained war with the US war machine would be....catastrophic, to say the least. I mean for both parties, but the US out spends everyone by a wide margin[0] and the US military is very advanced and well resourced, and well trained. Even if the fighting was just constrained to Taiwan, it would be pretty bad for everyone, but I think it would be especially bad fo…

I think the same and even if we weren't to go to war militarily, China is the most energy and food dependent country on Earth. We, on the other hand, are much more self-sufficient.

Nukes are the problem, though. If they start flying, we would end up eradicating the entirety of the Northern Hemisphere from fallout.

Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#46

Post by magicalhippo »

swamp40 wrote: post #14

It would be a proxy war, not direct US troop involvement. But China says any response from Taiwan will be taken as a direct response from the US. So, that could go south in a hurry. I think Ukraine showed China exactly what the world response would be to such an invasion - i.e. shunning, so I doubt this would happen except as a way to goad the US into a war. And China certainly isn't ready for that yet. From the US P…

> I think Ukraine showed China exactly what the world response would be to such an invasion - i.e. shunning

EU shunned everything except the stuff they relied on: gas. That they kept buying in quantity. Given how much manufacturing the EU and US has outsourced to China, how effective would such shunning be?

Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#47

Post by markus_zhang »

I think war is the last resort (as no one really knows what a modern all out war looks like, even when nuclear weapons are out of the picture, which no one is sure either).

As long as China is getting some international trading and unemployment is still controllable she should be fine with some pressure from outside. If not then it's really difficult to tell what's going to occur.

Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#48

Post by no_wizard »

curiousgal wrote: post #42
no_wizard wrote: post #40

Is anyone really equipped to go to war with the USA? Unrestrained war with the US war machine would be....catastrophic, to say the least. I mean for both parties, but the US out spends everyone by a wide margin[0] and the US military is very advanced and well resourced, and well trained. Even if the fighting was just constrained to Taiwan, it would be pretty bad for everyone, but I think it would be especially bad fo…

Maybe you're overestimating the USA the way Russia was overestimated. How many actual wars did the USA win? Out of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gulf War only the latter was an actual victory.

Actual wars? In WWII the US engaged successfully in a two front war as part of the allied coalition and more directly against Imperial Japan, and I don't think that should be understated. What we call in the US the Korean War was a good show of military might, and ended short of things getting out of hand. The Gulf War is another decisive showing of force.

Nation building, however? God we do suck at that. Thats why I made the distinction. We tried nation building (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) and failed miserably, but we are not talking about nation building.

We are talking about all out total war, and I've seen enough of the war machine up close to tell you, that if it was unrestrained, it would have laid waste to their targets in short order, and without much fuss.

What Russia is doing, from the aspects of their aims, is also not total war, its trying to do nation building in the Ukraine.

I hate all war, FWIW, enough experience with it to know better, but it would be a fools errand to take on the US military machine in present by any nation, really.

Short of nukes, there just isn't any single nation that could really go to task with it, its massive, and thats why it scares me.

Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#49

Post by curiousgal »

ilaksh wrote: post #9
avgcorrection wrote: post #2

> Ignore the polite abstractions. The marines are training for a war with China, probably precipitated by an invasion of Taiwan. I guess the consent manufacturing has started. "If shit hits the fan, remember: it was probably China who started it."

This is the biggest threat to security globally is that once it has been decided that the war is strategic, both sides will use propaganda to motivate their population into thinking that the war is a moral mission. There is not going to be anything moral about it. War is caused by a total failure of management over a number of years. A big part of what is increasing tensions are the real world economic problems globa…

> This is the biggest threat to security globally

Eye Roll

I thought Russia was the biggest threat. Wait, wasn't it Iraq? No it was Iran! hmmm

Re: America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

#50

Post by HarryHirsch »

1270018080 wrote: post #37
Overtonwindow wrote: post #25

I disagree. War is too expensive for both countries and no calculus beyond lunacy can reason it to be a positive

Russia invaded Ukraine for basically no reason, it still happened. If you have enough fervent nationalism in the population and an authoritarian government, lunacy isn't going to stop anything.

Russia invaded Ukraine over control of the ports of Sebastopol and Odessa, and over control of the Varangian Road from the Black Sea to Moscow. These are immediate national security concerns. There were those of us who looked at the Eastern expansion of NATO with great concern, a proxy war was going to be fought, and Europe was going to have to deal with the refugees and the political instability.
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