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.
There's a difference between having a partner and being entirely dependent.