U.S. pushes Japan and other allies to join China chip curbs

Re:U.S. pushes Japan and other allies to join China chip curbs by somenameforme on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @02:40PM (#33440859)

One big thing has changed. In the past hegemony was enforceable. If two nations both wanted to declare themselves rulers of the world, that was solved through war. But nukes changed the game. Now outright war between "developed" (nuclear) nations has become impossible.

I'd argue that this is only coming to the front (some 80 years the development of nukes) due to historical nuance. The US and USSR kept each other, more or less, in check. When the USSR collapsed the US not only had immense soft power, but also lacked any any remotely viable competitor. But that's all changed rapidly. Russia largely rebuilt, China is becoming the dominant world power, India is coming into their own, the Mideast is no longer content just being a lapdog, and even much of Europe is increasingly being coerced into agreement rather than genuinely seeing eye to eye with the US.

So the US wants to stay the dominant world power, but has no viable claims to such, let alone means to enforce that. We're headed to a multipolar world, or nuclear war and then a multipolar world. Once choice is clearly optimal.

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Re:U.S. pushes Japan and other allies to join China chip curbs by PKop on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @03:10PM (#33441363)

..and all on top of decades of ideological propaganda that liberal democracies don't enforce will-to-power against each other, follow some supposed mutually agreed upon rules based order etc. Just when they have to project power even against supposed allies, they are at peak "glorious liberal democracy" against illiberalism rhetoric. And seeing rising economic pain in West..which is one of the pillars that they stand on. "say what you want about liberal democracy at least it provides material comfort"

If that starts to wane, much of the other aspects of liberal culture might not be able to fill the gap in "hard times" like atomisation, declining social cohesion, increasing polarization, declining military recruiting numbers and disillusion within much of veteran community of past few years. Much of the legitimacy of our institutions and leaders is predicated upon certain narratives. If they fail..

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