“ There is no risk of "WW3". No one is about to try to invade the entirety of Europe and kill 150+ million people, enslaving a billion. These are all fairly self-limiting conflicts. China is interested in Taiwan (maybe) and a defensible path to the Pacific and Indian oceans. Russia is interested in having a buffer state against NATO.”
It both severely overplays the expectations people had in the early 1930’s, hindsight is 2020. And underplays the goals of China and Russia. And it doesn’t acknowledge what’s already happened like invasions and labor camps.
>And underplays the goals of China and Russia. And it doesn’t acknowledge what’s already happened like invasions and labor camps.
There is no interest for either Russia or China beyond that. A war in Eastern Europe is not in the interests of Russia, because of NATO and existing military capabilities. What is in the interests of Russia is to keep Ukraine out of NATO. The invasion of Crimea and the Donbass only happened after Ukraine expressed intent to join the EU and NATO, not before.
As far as labour camps, penal labour for unjustified offenses is simply par for the course in the Earth of 2021. It is sad. And it has nothing to do with the assertion that China somehow wants to invade all of Asia or something equally ridiculous.
They did essentially rip up the agreement in Hong Kong, and intend to completely dominate the entire South China Sea with their nine dashed line manifest destiny type claims, and they are trying to re-educate away Uighur culture.
So no, they haven’t declare they want to invade half of Asia and it’s unlikely they will do that, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t on a very risky path.
And just because I focused on China here, doesn’t mean Russia is squeaky clean.
To note, the nine dash line is just a negotiation trick. It used to be an eleven dash line and a ten dash line also, and Chinese diplomats admitted that they don't seek territorial waters beyond 12nm of land. It's the same strategy as was used in the claims with Mongolia or in claims to the arctic - make vague grandiose claims then walk them back once you secure your strategic advantage.
What China is really after is to control the waters that allow its supply lines to be secured. They see themselves as vulnerable to a blockade and their main enemy is the dominant sea power.
It has some risk, certainly. But that risk is bounded well below the risk of a confrontation between two superpowers, and importantly is not ideological or irrational but driven by simple calculus that the present situation leaves China to be too vulnerable. That's so insanely far from WW2 that isn't not even close. Any comparison to that effect is hyperbolic. It's much closer to the establishment of the Monroe doctrine both in maximum impact and in motivation. The same applies to Russia. None of them want to start invading a dozen other countries, rather they have a national interest they want to protect and act as far as is necessary to achieve that.
By rose tinted I mean, to name but a few points, Completely ignoring The other nations of bordering the South China Sea and their claims and ignoring Ukraine sovereignty because of historic borders, and ignoring the fact that china literally is creating land to expand their 12nm radius around disputed shoals.
Why did you gloss over all that? It doesn’t feel like an objective assessment when those substantial and important facts are just completely ignored. And bringing up the number of dashes shown on maps while ignoring the actual issues, why!?!?!?
Both for Russia and China, yeah sure viewed with that style of rose tinted glasses then sure you’re right about everything.
Same thing for China, they definitely have disputes in the SCS and their position is untenable.
I just don't see how you go from that to saying that WW3 is imminent. These kinds of things are more or less par for the course in geopolitics. All in all all of these things have lead to less instability and death than the first few months of the Iraq war, and that was far from WW3 too.
These are all fairly self-limiting conflicts. China is interested in Taiwan (maybe) and a defensible path to the Pacific and Indian oceans. Russia is interested in having a buffer state against NATO.
If you want to counter these objectives, then there is going to be a cost. But the cost of these objectives being realized is nowhere near that of WW2, so an armed confrontation is not worth it. The truth is that there isn't really any good solutions here. Both of these powers are in a situation where they feel that if they do not secure these strategic advantages there is a risk of disaster. The answer is either convince them that this is not the result in order to lower what cost they are willing to incur to achieve them, find a way to create an equilibrium between the US and those other powers, or use military dissuasion (which will be incredibly costly and might be impossible).
In the end this is pretty much just a very difficult position. But you should not compare tactics that do not rely on the threat of massive violence to appeasement, none of these powers is willing to do anything near WW2.