There's a difference between having a partner and being entirely dependent.
Imagine it from the other side of the table: would any country rely on US companies for their OS or business tools if tomorrow the US could start a war against them ?
That's a possibility that is never frown away, and any countries with enough resources will make efforts to mitigate it, but that can't be the base assumption behind the relationship.
What’s worse, when he’ll inevitably be elected again, our trust in the US as a partner will be gone completely.
Of course sanctions on export to Russia will also be felt, but not as much as losing the money of Europe.
It’s different from China which is exporting far more finished goods. If America stops buying high end electronics from Chinese factories and starts buying from Vietnamese factories, then those exports just vanish from China’s economy. There is no backup America to buy the goods to keep the factories running.
In simpler terms, how can you just switch to a different market when the pump to make the gaz is unavailable to you.
Our dependency on the US, but also Japan, India, the EU and to some extent the rest of the world is bound to force us to keep a slow grind rather than blatant violence. At least outside of China.
I know Russia disproved the theory: they were dependent on the EU and fuck it all up anyway but... Russia then proceeded to prove the disaster it is for the country, the people and even the war: you cant win territory easily by murdering blindly left and right your commercial partners and your cultural cousins and unlike what some may believe, even some past expansion had to be based on mutual interest to last.
Huh?
I think it's the CCP that did that, not Taiwan...
After the communist revolution, the government of the RoC retreated to Taiwan. The communists called their government the People's Republic of China.
Both the RoC and the PRC agree that mainland China and the island of Taiwan are "China", and they both agree that one government should be in control. They just disagree on which government that should be.
That’s not entirely true; the coalition led by the KMT in Taiwan agrees with the PRC on the One China issue, the (currently governing) DPP led coalition does not and views Taiwan as already independent and territorially distinct from the PRC, and does not accept the One China idea.
“They just disagree on which government that should be.”
Yes, I am.
GP claims: Both the RoC and the PRC agree that mainland China and the island of Taiwan are "China", and they both agree that one government should be in control. They just disagree on which government that should be. This is false. The PRC believes that, and the RoC, currently, does not.
In more detail, the RoC’s KMT/pan-Blue coalition agrees with the PRC that the two are one China but disagrees on which government should be in charge. But, while they governed the RoC exclusively before free elections and intermittently since, they aren’t the RoC or its currently governing faction.
The DPP/pan-Green coalition, which has been dominant for several years in the RoC disagrees with the KMT and PRC and sees the PRC and RoC as two separate, geographically distinct states.
And America can't afford to lose business with China. So China will make the calculation that it can get away with an invasion of Taiwan.
It would be a cluserfuck of the highest order.
It would also be telegraphed years in advance just by the sheer number of troops and landing craft needed and they would not have air or naval superiority in any realistic scenario.
Taiwan is heavily defended.
Taiwan can be destroyed (nukes) but cannot be annexed by force in any realistic assessment of capability.
To be clear: I don't like any of these scenarios, but this is my "real politik" view. None of it would be rational for Mainland China, but it is a dictatorship. Dictators don't play by the rules.
I assume you are referring to the United States. Is the US military based in East Asia larger than Japan Self-Defence Forces? Honestly, I'm not sure. JSDF is much larger than most people realize. And to be clear, the UK has almost no presence in East Asia now. Every few years, they have a global tour, but nothing else.
And regarding the Australia submarine deal, France would only build diesel-electric subs. US+UK promise to help Australia to build nuclear subs. To me, that is the #1 reason why Australia cancelled the France deal. I am sure they negotiated for months behind the scenes to upgrade to nuclear. When rejected, they announced the Ausuk deal.
The US might not get involved in an all out war over Taiwan but they are likely to support Taiwan in case China attempts a blockade. The US frequently undertakes freedom of navigation drills and would most likely exercise such rights to circumvent China.
Now, will that escalate to a direct conflict is debatable but any genuine threats of nuking US would probably taken as a declaration of war.
1. Chinese naval blockade of Taiwan
2. US will send navy + air force from Japan bases.
3. No shots fired between US and China (too risky due to both nuclear powers).
4. Optional: China may immediately claim sovereignty over Taiwan without negotiations with Taiwanese gov't.
5. China will declare that any attack on Chinese military (in the area) or military aid to Taiwan will be viewed as an "invasion" (whatever that term really means). Thus, China will declare that the use of nuclear weapons is valid to protect against invasion by US military.
6. This declaration will be interpreted by US as a nuclear threat.
7. China will refute this US claim.
8. Conclusion: US-China stalement with words only. China takes Taiwan.
Lastly, I don't like or support any of this, but, it is the most likely scenario.
The more I look at it, the more the ancient siege seems more likely than an invasion.
China doesn't want to destroy Taiwan.
Plus, destroying non-Taiwanese vessels and planes trying to break the siege seems like it would be more palatable to Chinese leaders' domestic audience.
China seemed to do a dress rehearsal for this strategy a month or two ago.
Just send a US ship with escort to Taiwan. China would have to attack US military ships to stop it.
I doubt it would happen.
Even fairly primitive mines in relatively smaller numbers (scarcely more than a thousand - China has at least 100,000) in the Iraq War were able to score a mission kill and a major hit on US ships. And that was without US ships actually docking in Iraq.
Do you know how long it took to sweep just over 1000 of those quite primitive mines in Iraq? Around 3 months.
Wait what?
And since it's also the biggest market in the EU, whatever quirky internal rules and regulations Germany has, get pretty much automatically carried out at EU level by any and all companies looking to do business in the EU.
Considering that their spy chief was caught "pants down" in Kyiv when invasion started [0] and had to be evacuated by special forces it is highly likely they had no clue. Unless of course they intentionally orchestrated the whole debacle to look like they didn't know, but that sounds more like a conspiracy theory...
[0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/special-forces-evacuate...
We won't stop eating beef 3x a day even though we know it's literally destroying the world, we still buy diamonds mined by child slaves and clothes sewn by people making pennies per hour and even the sanctions against Russia carved out exceptions for everything the West really wanted/needed.
We didn't stop doing business with China for a genocide in Tibet, an ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the brutality in Hong Kong or the human rights violations in current lockdowns.
If China invades Taiwan, we'll buy iPhones from them anyway and tweet that we don't like what they're doing. Maybe we'll send a few billion dollars to Lockheed and Raytheon to make some weapons for Taiwain, but we won't do anything that actually requires an American to give up the slightest bit of comfort.
Now, it still may be true that it's easier to manufacture iPhones than design them, but easier does not mean easy. Personally, I think you're just vastly underestimating how hard it is to manufacture iPhones at scale, which means not just finding the right part, but a part that can be delivered in the quantity and quality required to meet their production needs, and repeated for all the parts they need.
Being able to replace broken iPhone12s with new iPhone12s is real. An iPhone18XR on paper is just a piece of paper.
Anyway, why does SV have a lock on design? If anything computer design has gotten very stale since the early 90s when all the competitors to American computer systems finally croaked
Fascinating idea, until the monopolies break everything. I'll see if I can't find it.
It's The Interdependency Series by John Scalzi: https://www.goodreads.com/series/202297-the-interdependency
"Based on the Schuman plan, six countries sign a treaty to run their coal and steel industries under a common management. In this way, no single country can make the weapons of war to turn against others, as in the past."
https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...
Customers can buy elsewhere.
Corporation isn't going to shoot them for doing so.
The objection to communism isn't that people plan things. It's that the planners face no competition and the results of their plans are inescapable.
> Major innovation needs collaboration, not competition. For innovation, internal markets have the same problem as hierarchical bureaucracies. Managers vote their resources for innovations that bolster their current fiefdoms and careers. The safest strategy is to stick to the status quo. Ms. Kimes’ article gives multiple examples where competing managers at Sears looked after their own units at the expense of the interests of the firm as a whole.
(Emphasis added.)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/07/16/do-inte...
Now, what was that you were saying about central planning?
> Now, what was that you were saying about central planning?
I was saying that central planning that has no competition and everybody is forced to follow is the usual complaint about central planning, which has nothing to do with people and groups privately choosing to plan and collaborate.
In the future, I would really prefer that you either save the snark, assume good faith, and at least try to keep up with the points being made, or just keep it all to yourself and don't reply to me, alright? I will gladly do you the same courtesy. Breaking things down into teeny tiny pieces grows tiresome quickly.
That doesn't relate to what I wrote, which is why it is a non sequitur. Rather than just say "what about 'blah'", try actually addressing my comment coherently.
And you didn't show such a thing anyway. People aren't forced to compete, as can be seen even in the example you gave, not to mention all the collectives, unions, partnerships, companies, groups, corporations, etc., around us.
> In the future, I would really prefer that you either save the snark, assume good faith, and at least try to keep up with the points being made, or just keep it all to yourself and don't reply to me, alright? I will gladly do you the same courtesy. Breaking things down into teeny tiny pieces grows tiresome quickly.
Please.
"Now, what was that you were saying about central planning?"
That is the height of rude and bad-faith snark after posting something that did not even attempt to address my comment which was criticism of communist central planning, and I said nothing about forced competition or that people should be prevented from cooperating, so you can dismount your high horse.
I've also not initiated any discussion with you that you didn't start, so if you don't like reading my responses then you can take your own advice on that one too. Please do contact the admins if you find yourself unable to cope with that.
That’s an argument in favor of secession! They could still trade, but wouldn’t be forced into a single polity making decisions on domestic issues like education, healthcare, abortion, immigration, etc.
Flyover country likes the things that ports/harbors, hollywood, silicon valley, and banks provide.
These two are not the same.
They don't need flyover country.
We. Don't. Need. Flyover states.
A lot of the intractability of our national politics is because geographical and cultural differences are overlaid on top of normal political differences. Splitting the country up along geographic lines would allow us to just fight over politics, instead of over deep-rooted cultural patterns.
But that's what their religion says and it is what it is. It would be wrong for someone else to come along and impose their own cultural patterns (such as secularism) for the sake of a minority. That's just imperialism.
They may still have enough for their needs, but it’s unlikely they have enough for California’s needs, especially for its agriculture.
and even the parts that are less red probably wouldn't want to pipe the water down to cali latifundia. a lot of that area seems very culturally independent so i doubt they'd like being the breadbasket for something like the cali big cities.
and regardless yeah y'all do because population along the coast is very dense. you don't have enough space there to grow all that food for especially the big cali cities.
we don't need y'all, though.
I have no idea why people here fawn over your moderating. Please spare this website of anymore of it.
they'd go join "flyover country".
Even so, produce does not comprise a material percentage of the US caloric intake. Grains, tubers, grain oils, and meat definitely do.
Beyond food, there's mining and energy. Without the coasts, The US would be significantly inconvenienced. Without flyover country, the US would be dead.
Inland farmers require foreign oil as an input to the caloric production you describe, which means that to survive they need the ports and pipelines of North America as well as the cooperation of oil-rich nations.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51338 https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-u-s-oil-production-b...
This is why I said all the current informal federal-based stuff would come back through treaty. I think most people on both "sides" are reasonable, so the split would never actually happen. And if it did, people would quickly miss all the stuff from the other side of it.
It's on a level with considering what happens if the sun disappears. It can't happen without something freakish happening, and none of us really knows how it would go.
One side would devolve into an unlivable hellscape. The other side would devolve into the 1890s-1910s or so, without access to modern imported goods.
Nobody would "win". It's obviously a horrible scenario. But one side would definitely lose.
> It can't happen without something freakish happening
Nations collapse from political schism all the time. We just have short memories.
I do not believe the people yelling "secession!" are prepared to revert to a pre-WWI world.
And if your supply requirements decrease by 150MM people, that makes the job substantially easier to manage.
> I do not believe the people yelling "secession!" are prepared to revert to a pre-WWI world.
Ah, but they think they are. Which is really the only thing that matters, since beyond a certain point, it's too late.
Subsistence farming is great for feeding an army so you can rebel against your government
I first read that as downvote, you know the internetizen apocalypse
California produces almost 14% of all the crops grown in the US. A large portion of that are nuts and high calorie items like avocado and soy. You want food oils? Grains? Meats? CA exports all of those. CA is the 4th biggest producer of cattle in the US, 10th biggest poultry producer. 9th biggest producer of potatoes (Washington is #1, another coastal state). 2nd biggest rice producer.
As far as energy, you realize Texas is also not one of your flyover states, right? And even if it wasn't, we import plenty of energy from pipelines to coastal states so it can be sold or refined. CA has nearly the same refinement capabilities as Texas itself.
Fly over states are land. Undeveloped land is not extrinsically valuable.
IMHO, that's a free market myth made "true" through constant repetition. It breaks down if one or more parties stops prioritizing things like a free marketer.
And "keeping tensions under control" could translate to "appease the CCP and give in to its demands." It controls the real (physical) assets, as well as most of the human capital. Its adversaries are democracies, which means they're often far too focused on the people's parochial, short-term whims (e.g. failing to take strategic action because they're afraid of losing votes if those actions make iPhones more expensive).
The CCP has also has the benefit of learning from several of Russia's mistakes. They'll probably force their demands more slowly and persistently, so as to not galvanize their opponents.
It'd obviously be a mistake to say that economic interconnectivity totally prevents war, but the fact that wars break out doesn't falsify the notion that it might make conflict less common on average. The west's relationship with Russia and China has certainly been less rocky over the past 30 years than its relationship with the Soviet Union ever was.
Uhm, this isn't the first time Russia invaded Ukraine in the past decade. Remember when they invaded and took Crimea?
Also, they've been fucking with elections in other countries, like with Brexit and Trump. There was also the Wirecard scandal that they've been associated with. They've done massive amounts of damage internationally.
Yes, I mentioned it. That was in 2014 - 22 years after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Russia's antics have been damaging but child's play compared to the cold war. The US and the Soviet Union were engaged in proxy wars, insurgencies, coups and counter coups across the globe pretty much non-stop for nearly 50 years, all the while pointing two order-of-magnitude larger nuclear arsenals at each other.
Economic interdependence obviously didn't stop Russia from eventually going off the deep end. But it probably helped keep relations cool for quite a while.
Sure, but this is much more low level than a war. The US also messes with other countries elections & politics, including Euromaidan in Ukraine.
20 years is actually not a long time for an idea like we're talking about. This isn't human-scale stuff.
...
Double standards is not a good habit.
If countries giving into US demands is not something bad, then giving into "CCP demands" is not bad either.
...
The doublespeak and 'everyone except us is evil" mentality in Anglosphere is amazing.
The country that claims that there is a genocide in Xinjiang is the country that lied for EIGHT years about nonexistent Iraqi WMDs. And its the US.
Every. Single. Muslim majority country backed China at the UN after sending representatives to Xinjiang. They said that there is no such thing as a 'genocide' there. Its the US State Dept. word versus every single muslim majority country and their parliamentarians.
...
Today its easy to understand why people bought into the Iraqi WMDs lie back then: Because it makes them feel good, righteous, and the 'right side'.
As for the other Muslim-majority countries, I can’t find any news backing your statement, but that might be my own lack of Google-fu or perhaps an international underreporting by the media, so I’ll take your word for it. But still, that’s not evidence. All of those countries have little to gain from speaking out at the UN (it won’t actually directly help anyone), and they don’t necessarily feel much inter-Islam brotherhood since the genocide in Xinjiang is against a specific group of Muslims, not against Muslims in general. (Almost?) all of those countries on the other hand are receiving aid from China, which presumably is conditional on saying that there’s no genocide in Xinjiang.
Edit: nevermind, my Google-fu was weak. I found this article. Note that you’re actually simply wrong, since Qatar didn’t back China, rather abstaining. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/04/why-do-so...
Just looking at Pakistan, for example: Pakistan has been given tens of billions of dollars by China and is owed billions more, China is a major trading of Pakistan, and China is investing in major infrastructure development there. I don’t think anything could get Pakistan to not support China in the UN.
No, we didn't. We had the word of every single insitution in the Angloamerican controlled part of the Western hemisphere. From NGOs to media. NYT was publishing dozens of articles talking about the WMDs, then one article 'questioning' whether we were "acting too fast", but inevitably concluding that the risks of 'not taking action' were far greater.
It was a TOTAL media propaganda just like now.
The French were even ridiculed for contesting the veracity of those claims. So much propaganda was done that they were able to smear an ENTIRE nation as 'surrender monkeys' and 'cowards' for persisting in questioning the claims.
> Just looking at Pakistan, for example: Pakistan has been given tens of billions of dollars by China and is owed billions more, China is a major trading of Pakistan, and China is investing in major infrastructure development there. I don’t think anything could get Pakistan to not support China in the UN.
This is a supremacist talk: "They are siding with the baddies for profit". Whereas on the other hand, the Western satellites that supported the US in the UN have absolutely no profit in backing the US. They just did it out of goodwill and morals. Nothing related to profit and foreign policy.
Qatar and Turkey abstained in order to not upset the US. Abstaining itself is already opposing since there is no way that any country in the Middle East can turn a blind eye to an actual genocide of muslims if it took place. Which makes it even more significant that every other country opposed it.
> since the genocide in Xinjiang is against a specific group of Muslims, not against Muslims in general
There is no such thing. I don't know where you pulled that out from. Xinjiang muslims are sunnis and the majority of the muslim world is sunni.
China doesn't care for niceties, they will fleece everyone for all they are worth at the first and every opportunity to advance their own agenda which is very clearly not aligned with western interests.
Put another way, you know who's funding the Chinese military? We (the west) are. We are funding the very regime who would sooner see us dead than alive. There is no room for the west in their One China vision.
Will be interesting to see how this plays out. The US can get along without Apple (although 401K's might take a big hit), but China without Apple would be a pretty big issue, even if you only look at it from an employment viewpoint.
US of course gains a lot... weakening both russia and EU while selling overpriced LPG. On the other hand, US has been afraid of a strong germany-russia cooperation for decades and has done everything possible to stop it,... the us-bombing-nordstream accusations are not something new, since US was opposed to nordstream and threatened against it for years now, way before the russia-ukraine war.
Building airpods is an industrial process. All value add. You can do it anywhere, one factories are set up, workers trained etc.
Nearly all of the energy available on Earth comes from our sun, including all fossil fuels, shallow geothermal, biomass, hydro, tidal, wave, wind and solar energies. The remainder came from other suns, such as nuclear and deep geothermal.
Deep/shallow geothermal (and hydro, tidal, wave, wind, solar) have those pesky borders and politics to deal with when looking to harness them. One country can't arbitrarily go to some other country and harness their geothermal, erect solar panels or wind turbines, etc.
The parent posters were, extremely obviously, not having a discussion on where various energy sources originated from in a science sense, but the politics surrounding the trade of those resources.
Sure you could. Just place it next to the output of a solar press and extract oil from sunflower seeds or others, let it pour into the barrel until full, replace with an empty barrel, and repeat. When you have enough oil stocked, you can use it to manipulate the market, make a fortune, start a war, takeover the world, eliminate borders, whatever you like, the sky's the limit with an empty barrel and a little sun.
If it could truly be done anywhere it would still be happening in the US.
However, you can't just extract energy from somewhere that doesn't have it. No matter how much money you want to sink into it. If there's no oil/NG/whatever, that's that. Trillions of dollars wont make it appear there. Trillions of dollars does let you setup a nice supply chain and labor force in the US though.
Then Russia decided they could invade a neighbour they claim isn't a real country - and now Germany is in for a very cold winter, and gas shortages are sending bills skyrocketing all across Europe.
If trade was supposed to stop Russia invading its neighbours, it hasn't worked very well.
Does being a neighbor matter here?
Because if a madmen attacks a country half a planet away, we (the europeans) help them by sending our soldiers to help (syria, libya, afghanistan,...).
We also tend to treat separatists differently, depending on where and who they are... Kosovo people want to be independent, let them be independent, and think later how to (re)paint nato as a purely defensive organization, when the nato bombings of yugoslavia are over. People from republika srpska also want to leave bosnia and hercegovina... no no, the country must stay whole, we won't change maps. Catalunya? What? Where? Who? Sorry, I have to go.
What on Earth are you talking about, and what does it have to do with anything?
> We also tend to treat separatists differently, depending on where and who they are... Kosovo people want to be independent, let them be independent, and think later how to (re)paint nato as a purely defensive organization, when the nato bombings of yugoslavia are over.
Wanting to separate is one thing, being the subject of a credible ethnic cleansing campaign is another.
Why are we acting differently now? I mean.. I know.. "it's ok when we do it", but atleast stop with the bullshit about sovereing states and lives, because we didn't care when we did the occupations and we still don't care while we're occupying those countries now.
And again, I'm from a small shitty country, and our soldiers are currently occupying syria... countries like france, have a lot longer lists of occupied countries, and countries like america should be sanctioned to oblivion decades ago.
> Wanting to separate is one thing, being the subject of a credible ethnic cleansing campaign is another.
yes, and iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Parenti wrote a nice article about yugoslavia, including the ethnic cleansing part: https://web.archive.org/web/20200319062355/http://www.michae...
> Why are we acting differently now? I mean.. I know.. "it's ok when we do it", but atleast stop with the bullshit about sovereing states and lives, because we didn't care when we did the occupations and we still don't care while we're occupying those countries now.
Again, what on earth does any of this have to do with anything?
> yes, and iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq is what it looks like when the US decides they're going to invade and manufactures an excuse. The WMD claim was bullshit, everyone at the time knew it was bullshit, anyone whose opinion was worth anything was calling them out on their bullshit. That's not evidence that the core claims about Kosovo (which are disputed by, at most, a handful of cranks) were false, it's evidence of the opposite; if the reason that even people critical of the US invasion agreed that the ethnic cleansing was happening is because of some all-powerful propaganda conspiracy, how come that all-powerful propaganda conspiracy wasn't deployed to the same effect for the invasion of Iraq?
"Every US enemy is Hitler".
People made the exact same arguments in the early 1900s, they became convinced after international incident after international incident became solved without bloodshed none would. They argued that because the economies we're so intertwined with Germany being the world's leading producer of electrical appliances that were being used in English homes no one would ever want to fight a war there would be nothing to gain and everything to lose. The British in particular as the financial capital of the world pushed and leaned on this narrative hard, nothing would be more disruptive to their fiance and capital schemes than a large scale conflict. Every country in the world had treaties and agreements to try and avoid anything happening.
Then in 1914 a young disgruntled Serbian nationalist that didn't care about the economy or international relations, who cared only about the existential emptiness he had cured with fanatical nationalism assassinated the Archduke of a relatively minor European power that was considered to be on its way out.
It turns out in a national scramble for survival the economy is considered a cheap thing, especially when the actual cost is being paid in the blood of tens of thousands of young men each day.
So let me ask you this question if you are convinced that it will be too expensive to let these tensions explode, as thousands of feet march to the beat, what would you say is the price of a mile?
- Russia overestimated their position
- Russia believed the war would be over in a few days (which many in the West also believed)
- Russia assumed Europe would keep buying their oil (which has happened to an extent)
- Russia believes they can "out-suffer" the West and we will crack after a few months
- Russia believed the West was too polarized to reach consensus on an effective response
In short, Russia had a bad read on the situation and shot themselves in the foot. They thought they were in a position to impose their will without a fight or a significant response from the West.
We have seen a little bit of the same attitude from China the past several years - decadent West on the decline, democracy is flawed, etc. - but I have to think they are smart enough to realize they have been underestimating us. At a minimum, I think it pushes back their timeline for when they believed they would become the world's premier power. Hopefully, that buys us all some time to cool off and find diplomatic solutions.
Both can prosper when things go good, it's when shit hits the fan that you notice the difference.
Russia’s economy is supported by oil. Oil is pretty much the one thing that they’ve still been consistently able to export.
China’s economy is based on exporting lots and lots and lots of manufactured goods. Many of them are essential, but many of them could be banned tomorrow.
How Russia got itself to the point where one person has consolidated all authority, surrounded himself with corrupt sycophants, and cannot accurately gather or integrate information from the rest of the society is the complicated question here. It’s a pretty good demonstration for anyone watching around the world that unchecked power can lead to disastrous decisions. It should inspire us to stand up for democracy and against corruption and consolidation of wealth and power in our own societies.
It’s impossible to determine Putin’s personal motivations from outside; the best we can do is speculate. My speculation is that involves some combination of (a) doing what he thinks will best maintain internal political control, (b) satisfying an egoistical urge for historical glory, and (c) a narcissistic belief that others must bow to his personal whims and a raging narcissistic grudge when they do not.
Pretty sure in reality it's not one man alone doing crazy decisions without the whole state organ being behind him.
Invading Ukraine certainly wasn’t, say, Elvira Nabiullina’s choice, or the choice of the oligarchs with homes in London or NYC. The turnover rate at the top ranks of the Russian military the past 6 months is higher than a typical McDonalds.
Russia has no convenient geographic features to protect it from invasion, so it relies on long distances. Those distances are much shorter than they used to be, and Russian doctrine for at least the past decade has been focused on creating confusion and chaos in Eastern Europe. The chaos is here, and they probably misread the international community on what they could get away with.
Now that they're in it, though, I think Putin is the biggest obstacle to Russia extricating themselves from the debacle.
Entitlement. The closest you came was the descriptor "narcissistic" in (c). Narcissism is supposed to be a rare condition, but it is found everywhere. It is easiest to understand leaders like Putin, Jong-un, Xi, DeSantis and Trump, if framed in psychological terms like narcissism with symptoms of entitlement, grandiosity, attention seeking, arrogance, bullying, lack of empathy, and a fear of criticism.
Meanwhile, China exports a lot of things that people don’t need. You can turn those off quicker.
Again — huge oversimplifications. But I think reasonably solid mental model.
It's not like that's all they export. They export a lot of essential things, and cutting them off would probably far more economically disruptive to their customers than to them. They're store shelves won't be empty, and given their political system they can probably deal with the fallout much more effectively.
There are also a lot of alternative producers of oil, while there's no other advanced manufacturing giant on the scale of China that people can shift their orders to. It would make the COVID supply chain difficulties look like a joke.
Russia starting a nuclear war would be bad for China, India and others; there's some point at which they'll cut off Russian trade.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2022/09/22/new-mas...
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/europe/gallery/mariupol-h...
Such an assumption has no rational basis itself.
"It is the world's largest technology manufacturer and service provider. While headquartered in Taiwan, the company is the largest private employer in the People's Republic of China and one of the largest employers worldwide."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
And that doesn't count all the companies that make the subassemblies and parts for Foxconn either.
http://www.mobilecellphonerepairing.com/top-mobile-phone-man...
In a trade war, those phones won’t be making it to the US.
I don't think a loss of value to the tune of $2.5T would go well for the US economy.
I don't think either country cares much about unemployment, but the US, at least, has a history of going to great lengths to maintain the value of its assets.
And I'm sure there are companies eagerly awaiting to get the business Foxconn turned down because Apple outbid them or made favorable agreements.
US GDP is $21,000B.
Losing 2% would hurt but it wouldn’t cripple the US.
Not saying there is no merit to the logic, just that it can backfire or malfunction unexpectedly.
Demand Living Wages, IMPORT
The most likely source of conflict between the US and the CCP is Taiwan, and this is an issue where reduction to economic incentives utterly fails to describe potential events.
Further strengthening China's manufacturing capacity is not in the interest of democracies.
Well, now you see how well that worked
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/michael-hudson-ameri...