Consider if China makes a better offer for the country than the US State Dept, which seems likely based on historical performance of the US State Dept. After the USA blows up all their old tanks, cementing anti-US hatred for generations, they can buy nice new Chinese ones after the treaty with China is signed.
The battle was a total triumph, but aftermath a tragedy, and mainly so for mind boggling incompetence of post-war Washington policy effectively instigating a civil war, then backing one side in it, then another, and then showing a middle finger to both, and walking away.
All of this could've been avoided under different leadership.
What do you mean? The war in Iraq has outlasted 3 US presidents, so clearly "different leadership" just doesn't work in practice.
IMO the US should completely change the modus operandi. "Invade & install new regime & call it democratic & steal oil" just isn't a good proposition for the local population. Unless the US can improve the proposition (to match China's "we give you lots of money and improve your quality of life") foreign military interventions just won't work.
I've been asking that question for about 15 years now, when people casually toss such empty claims out there. I've never once received a facts-based answer (for obvious reasons).
Iraq was about Russia, not oil. The same thing Syria and Libya are about. Trying to limit or strip Russian influence out of the Middle East. It's two major powers going at eachother via proxy, the same thing that has been going on all around the world between the US and Russia since WW2. Vietnam also wasn't about oil. Afghanistan also wasn't about oil.
The US lost over a trillion dollars in Iraq trying to keep the two major factions from killing eachother. There is no amount of oil that could ever come out of Iraq for the US that will make up for that.
Not Russia, Iran. Iraq was/is a proxy war between Iran and the Saudis. Russia and America are distant twice-removed cousins to a longstanding family dispute.
Seems very similar to the bull billing the china shop owner.
You are entirely wrong. Iraq was about Israel. The neoconservatives in the US pushing the invasion are Zionists and the entirety of US intervention in the ME is about strengthening Israel's position relative to the countries surrounding it. Sorry it took you 15 years to find the correct answer. You don't need to spend trillions invading countries just to get access to their oil, you can literally just buy it from them.
Southeast asia + tanks = bad mojo. Study the history. Tanks are white elephants in areas dominated by mountains and rainfall (both are tank kryptonite). Sure, US air power could dominate. They can use the same flightpaths they used in Vietnam, to the same ends. Myanmar is a country where light soldiers, guys with AKs and flipflops, are far more capable than a dozen tanks sinking into the mud.
In mountainous terrain with few trees. Drones, and air power generally, become less effective over a dense canopy. The dry bare mountains of Afghanistan was a paradise for drones. Southeast Asia's jungles and river networks won't be.
The same is much with the rest of South Myanmar, where most of country's population, and economy is.
In case of any real conflict US will get dragged in, you will all be drafted, want you or not.
Becoming a soldier after being a freewheeling young man with 6 digit income, and effectively loosing everything you put into your career, business, education, relationship with your woman is not a pleasant thing.
But think, sooner or later US will be dragged into a real conflict. Everything is going towards that, and 2020, and multiple weak presidencies have only accelerated the timeline for Beijing, and Moscow.
China's strategy is to keep US in Iraq, and Afghanistan indefinitely, and have US dragged into fighting equally pointless, exhausting conflicts, whether they will be military, trade, or diplomatic.
They want to move that big direct conflict as much into future as possible, but that day will eventually, and inevitably come.
The question will be on whose terms will it happen.
What do you want? Loose everything and win, or loose everything and loose?
WW3 is of course a different deal but that's way beyond the comfort zone of your run of the mill imperialist.
A conflict doesn't have to be a global war to qualify as "real conflict" by any sensible definition. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were a real conflict, yet there were no drafts.
Instead of absolute dollar amounts, if you compare China's military purchasing power with the US, adjusting for different labor costs and the fact that they don't include things like R&D in their military budget, then China is much closer to US spending than it appears.
Having a supply line to Asia versus China fighting close to home, that is a recipe for disaster.
It's not even a secret at all to at least millions of folks across the world. It's only the strange American media and brainwashing system that presents the idea that China can be threatened with force.
In that sense it's highly dubious Beijing is directly involved with Myanmar's current regime change. They can achieve their objectives anyways without getting their hands dirty. Of course there may be intermediaries involved that straddle both camps so it's not clear cut either.
[1] https://www.csis.org/programs/technology-policy-program/surv...
It's worth remembering that World War II was a conflict where one side was fighting on a supply line 4,000 miles long, 3,000 by sea, and the other side was fighting a hundred miles past its own borders. The supply problems in the conflict were mostly concentrated in the latter country.
I can't speak to the quality of the Chinese military, but the US military is regarded as having perhaps the single most effective military logistics in world history.
If you know anything about logistics you'd conclude that the latter had a much harder logistical challenge, especially since the Axis didn't have much of an Atlantic Navy.
The issue of a US v China confrontation is that this won't repeat. The US will not be able to go unopposed in the seas, and it will have to supply with non-naval means.
Also, it's worth remembering that in the case you're talking about, the US against the Axis in Europe, the US was not a major or deciding force, which is a major part of why it was able to afford such extended supply lines. In an alternative scenario where the rest of the Allies were so weak as that the US was the dominant power in the conflict, maintaining those supply lines would have been incredibly difficult.
> "The Other Side" was fighting on four fronts at their borders, and had supply lines a thousand miles long on ground
Do remember that it's basically fighting the same enemy on all the fronts (who have the same this-is-not-close issue as Germany). In the one case where it's different, keep in mind that Soviet factories were moved east of the Urals to places like Novosibirsk, which is further from Moscow than Berlin is to Moscow.
> the US against the Axis in Europe, the US was not a major or deciding force
The US was about ½-⅔ the total force in Western Front. While the Western Front was smaller than the Eastern Front, the US also played a major role in the supply chain of the USSR--virtually all of the trucks and trains that kept the USSR's war economy running were supplied by the US, which was also supplying Chang Kai-Shek via The Hump (although Britain was responsible for those logistics), while meanwhile reconquering the Philippines and other Pacific islands from the Japanese. And don't forget, most of the US manufacturing is several hundred miles from the coasts (the Great Lakes don't count for transoceanic shipping purposes).
Personally, like in piloting a drone? It's a good question to ask, to be sure, but its value continues to diminish as more and more tech is deployed in warfare.
Plus there is a whole spectrum of physical intervention if we choose to. E.g. drones, supporting insurgencies, etc... that doesn't even require boots on ground.
This principle would be under R2P responsibility to protect.
Also, killing <s>human beings</s> enemy combatants dispassionately with drones... Not something I'm energetic enough to debate today.
Yeah well unfortunately they're in the wrong hemisphere for that to be an geopolitically tolerable let alone domestically palatable.
The American public and international community could likely tolerate marines preventing regime change in some former bannana republic that otherwise seems to be on the up and up but ain't no way we're getting sucked into another jungle quagmire.
And once that's done, how many years of U.S. occupation will it take when they can't get the locals to support a government run the way the US wants? Who will give up first, the US or the occupied country?
Having long-term military basing there by US or China would be... strategically significant and only IMO possible via invasion. That applies to military basing in the region in general, too much colonial history and political baggage for anything other than logistics support during peace time.
Sanctions won’t work, but tanks would.
The entirety of Myanmar's army stock of modern armoured vehicles is less than 1000, with only 200 modern tanks in unknown state of readiness.
3-4 marine heavy brigades can easily stomp all tank battalions in Myanmar's disposal.
Just saying it to state that if US wants to do anything about that, it can do that effortlessly much like its Grenada, and Panama interventions.
Laos, and Vietnam will also be eager to trim ambitions of their bellicose neighbour.
The question is how Washington, and countries in the region are afraid the prospect of direct encounter with Chinese military which is rumoured to have a secret military treaty with Yangon.