The lights winking out in Asia is a troubling sign of the times. It is a stark reminder of the fragility of our global infrastructure and the need for greater investment in energy security. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, it is essential that we take steps to ensure that our energy systems are resilient and able to withstand shocks. This means investing in renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency, and developing better energy storage solutions. Only then can we ensure that the lights stay on in Asia and around the world.

Hello GPT.

Interesting to see someone actually trying to build up an account with GPT like this. Brings back memories of watching script kiddies running wild in the early 2000s

I missed the action. Could someone tell me what they posted?

Click your name in the top right corner of the screen and set "Showdead" to yes. It's nothing particularly interesting, just the GPT rambling you're used to seeing that looks especially close to the opening of a 13yo kids term paper.

In conclusion, Asia is a land of contrasts.

Do they mention to never get involved in a land war in Asia? Because if I was a 13 year old writing a paper and injecting quotes out of nowhere, or a machine learning spoken language bot, I'd definitely say that first and go from there.

Actually read the article, not much to see here. Basically just some lofty prose on a Japanese defense strategy document but without much in the way of insight into anything going into the geopolitical situation.

Also, the extremely forced looking diagram at the top has literally nothing to do with their thesis other than being low hanging fruit for a counterargument.

Is Puerto Rico inside the "non-integrating gap"?

It's from c.2005 but still doesn't make any more sense with that context

Barnett’s audience was the defense department, and he was telling them things that would make them feel important and virtuous. Basically internal propaganda.

I blame people like the author for the coming world war (technically we're already in it but it's not massive yet).

They just regurgitate narratives without ever having an original thought and they don't understand they're lead to war step by step.

Then, once the war reaches their country they will wonder how all of this could have happened.

It seems humans never learn.

What narrative would prevent this war according to you? (I'm not mocking you, just looking for narratives to spread).

At least they used a decent map projection.

The author doesn't endorse the diagram, he presents it as an example of the globalist idealism that he believes events have discredited

It's hard to believe globalization has a positive force on the world when China has become far more authoritarian in the last decade and has used its economic gains to loudly threaten its neighbors like Taiwan with annexation. I'm deeply pessimistic about any good that can come from continued trade with China and the west, as long as the communists wield power there.

> I'm deeply pessimistic about any good that can come from continued trade with China and the west, as long as the communists wield power there.

As the author says, the good that comes from trading with ideologically different countries is a semblance of peace. It's a weak one, but becoming more self-reliant and less global removes the last reason superpowers have to keep diplomatic and peaceful channels open.

I'd rather have US and China begrudgingly trading because they need each other than the opposite.

Well, that was the idea with Russia too, and it backfired when Putin decided that the West would hesitate to cut off trade just because of invading Ukraine. The dependency works both ways.

True, but it's always about the amount of pain you can endure.

The West in general can't endure much because it's no longer used to it, <<unless>>, and this is super important, that pain comes from a clear, mortal threat. In which case democracies are at least as resilient, probably more resilient, that dictatorships, because the decision making is spread around more and more individuals decide it's bad for them if the other side wins.

With Russia at least several countries (Eastern and Northern Europe) decided that Russia is a clear, mortal threat and they're lobbying the bigger and less decided actors (US, Western Europe) to hold the line.

With China, in case of a conflict, alarm bells would go off around the world, much more than for Russia. The US population is quite apprehensive of the PRC regime, already. In Europe a similar thing is happening.

I hope nothing happens, but I think people will be shocked how quickly the hostility ramps up if we get to it, even from people they wouldn't expect.

> The West in general can't endure much because it's no longer used to it, <<unless>>, and this is super important, that pain comes from a clear, mortal threat. In which case democracies are at least as resilient, probably more resilient than dictatorships because the decision making is spread around more

Case in point: 2014 Ukraine vs 2022 Ukraine vs 2022 Russia. The volunteer movements in UA seem to be very strong and resilient, while the war effort in RU is so centralised it's almost a satire.

Counter-argument: the rest of Europe, specifically the EU.

We have been fighting our neighbours for hundreds of years, and after WW2 we decided to enter a huge trading agreement with each other, hoping that it would create lasting peace and prosperity.

It's all a rhetoric propaganda whose audience is it's internal people, in order to keep power.

China inports 80% of energy and 80% of its food chain, either finished food or fertilizer for domestic growth. Stopping globalization trade means famine in less than a year.

Yeah globalization is over. If you’re kind and try to make friends for a long time but you keep getting treated badly, you won’t continue being kind.

>> The free, open, and stable international order, which expanded worldwide in the post-Cold War era.....

That was all fiction. China has never had free trade. Not to single them out, they're just the most obvious. NAFTA was mighty long document for a "free trade agreement" because it wasn't. The powers are all still trying to maintain power and will continue to do so. It has been interesting to see how intertwined things got under this fiction. Not sure where we go next.

One of your premises is that NAFTA isn't a free trade agreement. How do you square that premise with this quote from Wikipedia about NAFTA: "Passage of NAFTA resulted in the elimination or reduction of barriers to trade and investment between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico."?

Do you disagree with this quote? And if not, then what is your definition of free trade?

If the agreement eliminated and reduced some barriers, yet also put in place new barriers, then the quote is still true and the result isn't necessarily free trade (as it is commonly understood).

Well yes, in theory, but I have not seen that demonstration for NAFTA.

In addition to the sibling comment, there's also the question of whether it's only a free trade agreement, or if it also makes other demands. For example, NAFTA allows corporations to sue governments, expanded copyright, cancelled article 27 of the Mexican constitution, which prevented privatization or sale of indigenous communal land, and added "a 10-year data protection period against generic drug production on an expanded list of products that benefits pharmaceutical companies, particularly US makers producers of high-cost biologic drugs", whatever that means.

In other words, the GPs comment of "mighty long document" meant that it doesn't take many pages to write "reduce tariffs on the following goods".

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agre...

>> reduction of barriers to trade

That's not elimination. A free trade agreement IMHO in laymans terms would be about a paragraph explaining that no party to it will restrict or tax in any way trade between the parties. I would expect good lawyering to expand that to a few pages of legalese. NAFTA was hundreds of pages and carved out particular niches for industries in the US and Canada at least. It might have been less restrictive than whatever was in place before, but it wasn't what I'd call a free trade agreement.

Isn't free trade generally considered bad? Fair trade is the better objective.

If both parties to a trade are free, I'd say free trade is generally fair (otherwise the parties wouldn't come to an agreement and the trade would not happen). If only one side has that freedom to choose, it's possible to make an unfair trade.

No-one has free trade. Most of the time free trade agreements are made in a way that clearly benefits one side, and are an expression of power as much as a fleet with aircraft carriers

It's simple, Japan can either choose to go with China, the new great power in its region (which would be the most rational and non-violent choice), or it could choose to re-arm at the US's behest and risk direct military confrontation with the same China, which, of course, would be the violent choice (and hence the non-rational one).

That's what they get for having lost the last war in which they were involved, i.e. they get to play the music their victor is singing (also see the Plaza Accord).

Avoiding violence isn't the be all and end all of rationality.

It may be that the Japanese see hegemony of the US as a lesser evil than the CCP, and hegemony of the latter a risk well worth dying over. This may be quite rational.

I do wonder why there are so many western voices that seem almost giddy about the rise of China as a power. I imagine they don't like the west much. But unless they've also lived in China in recent years, it's just maligning the devil you know.

> of the latter a risk well worth dying over. This may be quite rational.

I'm mirroring de Gaulle right now, in saying that the US have been blind-sided by not having had any real war on their homeland for more than a century (he was saying it in 1968), that's why they have all this messianic instincts. No, almost nothing is worth dying for en masse (which what a US vs China war would mean).

I don't think de Gaulle was trying to say that repeated wars on French soil had taught France that freedom wasn't worth dying for.

Yes, unfortunately it's just "almost".

> I’m mirroring de Gaulle

Famed critic of cultural and national sovereignty?

> Famed critic of cultural and national sovereignty?

I think you got him wrong, he was in fact a supporter of national sovereignty (also see his NATO-related policies). I got that quote from a transcript of a discussion he had with Ceausescu (I'm from Romania myself), during his last visit outside of France as a president (in May '68).

He also did take some risks regarding his personal safety when it came to the sovereign future of Algeria. Granted, what his henchmen did in connection to Africa was definitely not ok (I'm right now reading a book about Foccart), but unfortunately that was par for the course for the big powers back then.

> he was in fact a supporter of national sovereignty

Whom you’re mirroring to argue Japan should submit to Beijing.

> Whom you’re mirroring to argue Japan should submit to Beijing.

I don't think China would mirror France's policies against Guinea, it has never done so in, what? 1000+ years?. Saying otherwise is preposterous. But, hey, whatever gets the Western war machine going, I guess. Also, you're ignoring the part about de Gaulle being right about NATO and about its real meaning (US direct control over Western Europe).

The U.S. has been trying to divest itself from NATO for at least a decade now, since the Obama administration.

It’s Western Europe that is unable to wean itself off the sweet sweet American funded protection.

It's inconceivable to people who've psychologically come to terms with prostrating themselves to life under oppressive regimes that someone else might be willing to die to avoid doing so.

>Japan can either choose to go with China, the new great power in its region (which would be the most rational and non-violent choice)

It's not the non-violent choice any more than England trying to appease Nazi Germany was the non-violent choice. Or Ukraine trying to make friends with Russia.

> It's not the non-violent choice any more than England trying to appease Nazi Germany was the non-violent choice.

Or France calling Nasser as literally the new Hitler when they had become upset about the Suez Canal (real title from the NYTimes: "Nasser Is Hitler Imitator, France's Premier Charges"). It doesn't work that way.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1956/07/31/archives/nasser-is-hitler...

England was no different they too killed millions in their colonies

Sure, on paper this looks rational but there's some pretty extreme historical...context...between the two countries. It could be overcome eventually but I wouldn't put money on that universe making any more sense than our own.

Japan and China are never going to have more than a businesslike relationship. People can get on but the two countries have fundamentally different ethos'.

The best thing to come from WWII was the definitive proof that the Axis/Nazi ethos was wrong. National/racial struggle through military might does not determine history. The idea that might can make right in the modern world turned out to be false; it was an exceptional species of hubris. Engaging in that belief now as China or Russia are doing is equally self-defeating. Japan's success is a testimony to the fact that rejection of a warlike nationalist belief system confers more economic power than hanging onto a self-destructive one.

> The idea that might can make right in the modern world turned out to be false;

The idea of racial might has been disproven, but international might (including allies) very much still makes right. The undisputed winners of WWII were the USSR and the US, both with internationalist ideologies and very strong industrial bases. One might say that inclusive might makes right. (Another lesson would be to stay out of the fight and build up industrial capacity, supporting your allies by proxy while the other parties wear themselves down.)

The USSR certainly didn't stay out of the fight; but your point is taken. Inclusive might was proven more effective than exclusive might.

One of these states collapsed and was replaced by nation-states which are more or less inclusive of minorities, more or less democratic; some very much so, others not at all. The other, although it still projects power around the world, is riven by internal dissent and the type of self-questioning of its own history and validity that would never fly in a nationalist, expansionist, authoritarian state like Germany or Japan during the war.

Some people think that's a sign of weakness for the US, but since the US's hold on the world hasn't lapsed perhaps we should consider it a sign of strength. In that case it's not just inclusive might, but self-reflection against the foundations of "might" that lets one write and rewrite history by appealing to people stuck in less flexible systems.

The funniest thing about this argument in a that you could have applied it to China itself in the 1930s. “Japan is the new great power in the East. China must get with the times and submit to Japanese Imperialism. It is the natural order now in international affairs.”

I think globalization works better than how we talk about it these days. China is very cautious just because they know we are interdependent. I think this big buffer of time should be enough to resolve the conflicts with greater chance.

Of course human hubris cannot be defeated. Several of these rulers successing each other can ruin everything.

Let’s face it, there are people hungry for power who are not prioritizing prosperity, but ... power.

Most people commenting here haven’t lived in a pre-globalized world.

The reaction is basically “things are not ideal. Therefore the problem must be globalization. Or late stage capitalism. Or wokeness”. Depending on what they’ve watched on TV or read on their social media of choice. Never mind that they can’t even define what some of those things mean.

> Most people commenting here haven’t lived in a pre-globalized world.

You're probably using "globalization" as "trade, communication, and, to a lesser extent, travel, on a global scale".

They're using "globalization" as "the process seeking to erode sovereign countries, national identities, and distinct cultures, until the only remaining force and identity are corporate international conglomerates, free to do as they please since all competing systems of belonging and organization have been eliminated."

In their view, globalization is not complete until all "discrimination" by a formerly sovereign nation is made toothless. I put "discrimination" in quotes, because while it probably makes you think of whites-only water fountains, I am referring to things such as Article 27 of Mexico's constitution forbidding the sale or privatization of indigenous land, or Canada's ban on foreign house buyers [1]. I.e. discriminating against non-Canadians, or non-indigenous-Mexicans. Laws that see people as not just "global citizens", but local ones.

That NAFTA did in fact involve the cancellation of Article 27 [2], and that "free trade" agreements in general involve a host of demands that go far beyond lowering tariffs, implies the view of "globalization" as merely trade is incomplete, and that seeing it as a force opposing sovereign nations is more accurate.

[1] https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/who-s-exempt-from-canada-s-f...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agre...

Engineers should know centralized systems do not work. There is a place for trade, but absolute reliance on Russian gas or Chinese goods creates a single point of failure. There has to be an option to fall back to local sources of goods quickly, or every country becomes a single point of failure.

Yes, every time I fill the kettle from my centralized water authority then flip it on from my centralized electricity provider, then pick up my centralized newspaper to read about the performance of my investment portfolio on its centralized stock exchange, that's exactly what I think. Centralized systems simply don't work.

I guess you are not in Michigan or California since you are bragging about utilities. Actually sounds like you are in a totalitarian country since you have one centralized newspaper and one stock exchange. All right, enjoy your cool aid...

Centralised systems seem to work pretty well, when they're resourced ok, run by competent people, and share the same (or similar) values to you.

When any of those are badly off track, then alternatives/fallbacks start looking good. ;)

"We are sliding into a darker world order. "

This is the TLDR; I guess Japan will not be the only country taking similar steps. With a looming energy crisis (it's not clear how more sustainable energy sources will support the same historic growth) and an automation crisis (technology will make irrelevant many jobs before there is demand fornew ones) the social orders will be disrupted.

The west were happy trading with China even though it's threating democracies around the world but its only become an enemy when it challenged them.

There you got the Champions of humanity

News at 8, actors self interested. In other news; water wet.

Yeah, amazing how that works. People do things when it’s working well for them. And stop doing things when it’s not.

The thing is many act surprised in the light of it. “I didn’t know.” is kind of a hard sell when you have been ordering with Alibaba for a decade. Greed before morals.

> This is not a caricature.

It may not have been intended as one, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one.

Guys, could we be sensible enough not to slide into another world war this time because of trade agreements and political rivalry?

Is that why we went into the last war?

Not WW2, but political rivalries and fight for geopolitical power were big factors for WW1, from what I've read.

Have you read The Sleepwalkers? I found it so depressing that despite really liking it I couldn't finish it. It made me pine for the Austro-Hungarian empire. Which I freely admit is totally idiotic.

In any case it painted a picture (to me; I have no idea if this was the authors intent or view) of WWI starting because all of the parties were convinced that they were at a point of maximum relative strength. Germany wanted war in 1914 because they believed Russia would soon be an unstoppable colossus, France wanted war in 1914 because they thought an alliance with Russia and the U.K. in it was untenable and would soon split apart.

Maybe it's a convincing argument, maybe not but it appeals to me because it's not so much apportioning blame as it is describing motivations.

WWII on the other hand. Blame is easy to hand out. The motivations I can ascribe to Germany/Japan/USSR start out vaguely plausible in a geopolitical sense but the more you look at them the more it seems just madness in a way that none of the parties in WWI seem.

From my non-US perspective, this kind of views that China has somehow done something to disrupt world order look like obvious delusions, and I don't understand why they seem to be believed in America.

Sure, China is authoritarian. But it has always been. And it has never promised otherwise. Maybe some naive neoliberals expected it to become democratic due to some magical thinking that trade brings democracy, but as far as I know this is just Western imagination at work, not anything that China ever vowed to do, so why is China acting coherently with its decades-long policy is suddenly seen in America as some sort of treason?

And then, there is the military aspect... and sure, China is warlike, threatens Taiwan, etc., but is anyone going to seriously defend that the US is less warlike than China? Come on.

The only real explanation seems to be that China has lately been successful in becoming more powerful (the goal of any country) and the US isn't taking that well at all, the rest looks like blatant propaganda.

I agree with some of your comments, but the problem we are facing is that without democracy, we don’t know what the people of China or say Russia (or take your pick) really want. The power is concentrated at the top of pyramid and so this immediately makes it a precarious situation where a few determine for the many.

In the 00’s there were some hopes and signals and work done to see more democracy in those spheres, but it never materialized.

So while you are right in the sense of China doing China things as it has, or Russia Russian things, the fact that one guy could wake up in a grumpy mood and start a war is what makes things a lot more fragile than they ought to be.

Democracy is a bulwark against this type of fragile type of government.

> but is anyone going to seriously defend that the US is less warlike than China? Come on.

Nobody wants to live in a world where China defines the world order. They don't care about their own citizens and will care even less about the other countries they plan to control in one way or another.

Also, the US is war-like but it's still a functioning democracy despite all its flaws and the power can change every x years. With China you end up with a dictator-for-life and good luck with that.

> Maybe some naive neoliberals expected it to become democratic due to some magical thinking that trade brings democracy

The naïve neoliberals weren't fully wrong. When you trade with a foreign civilization, elements of their culture do tend to seep into yours. And American culture is particularly infectious. Where the calculus went wrong is that the CCP isn't dumb, they recognized the existential threat to their rule and countered it

Globalization was meant to make us all happy friends but that wasn’t enough for some countries who feel that they should rule the world.

i mean.

china hasn't finished its paused independence war yet...

china is still butthurt over the burning/looting of its buckingham/versailles/whitehouse...

maybe it just took a pause from the tang/song/ming dynastys? and does think the 9-line is its pond...

it might be like...what would congo do to belgium if it could?