As long as China and Russia remain peaceful and don’t threaten their neighbors with aggression, they can absolutely win the war for hearts and minds and thus assemble a broad coalition to buck the US’s interests. The problem here is that Russia has already invaded its neighbors and proven to be a security risk for Europe, while China is doing everything it can to signal to its own population that war with Taiwan is imminent and to its neighbors that it’s a major threat. Maybe they’re all joking (well, except for Russia) but the very real security threat posed by China and Russia to their neighbors puts an upper “cap” on the effectiveness of a broad anti-US alliance. The backstop of US dominance isn’t feelings, it’s the global desire for survival.

Agreed. Russia and China have alienated every one of their neighbors by invading them, trying to take them over economically, and other bs. The US is the global hegemon mainly because of fear of Russia/China, which is not going to go away short of regime change imo.

On other hand. Not getting involved in others' conflicts might go well down in Africa for example.

Russia is heavily involved in Syria, so I don't see any principled reason to believe that "not getting involved in others' conflicts" is a red line for that alliance.

So what you're saying is that it is not in their enemies' best interests to allow them to remain peaceful.

> China is doing everything it can to signal to its own population that war with Taiwan is imminent

I haven't seen this at all, though it may well be true. What I have seen, however, is a sudden regularity in articles over the last few months on how China is a threat to Taiwan, how everyone including somehow China really seems to admit it's very much not a part of China, and how its allies need to be prepared and proactive about "defending" it from China.

Not saying Chucky isn't a bully, but I can't shake the feeling that going round telling people how you're rounding up the gang and are preparing to give him and his chums a lesson, isn't exactly the peace-maintaining de-escalation people think it is. Especially in the absence of an "if he tries something" clause.

Not really sure what to make of this comment. You start by admitting you're not really sure if China has been threatening Taiwan, but then conclude that the US is probably at fault for it anyway.

Also not sure what "rounding up the gang and preparing to give China a lesson" means here.

Can you describe why you think the US has "significantly abused their position with the US dollars hegemony."

FATCA, protectionism hidden behind AML/KYC, money printing at the expense of the other countries' reserves, sanctions or the threat of sanctions, political requests for IMF/WB funding, etc... Really, it's a shitshow and the US is rarely the good guy here.

I really don’t see how protectionism hides behind these acronyms

Sanctions would be a reasonable argument I personally agree with

I mean you are just throwing everything that the US does into one bucket called "US dollar hegemony" without discrimination. I'm not saying they don't leverage their dollar power I disagree that it "significantly abused their position" via the alphabet soup of complaints above.

I think the US sanctions regime, based on the supremacy of the US dollar, is nakedly abused. For instance, sanctioning ICC prosecutors who investigated US service members for warcrimes.

In this case you're talking about the moves by the Trump GOP administration.

For good or bad, it's still the legitimately elected US government. The Trump government represented the population of the USA, and was elected in accordance with its own rules. The consequences or fruits thereof belong to the citizens of the nation.

I understand - but to use that as an example of a pattern of the US government significantly abusing their US dollar hegemony doesn't equate.

Maybe the 40% currency devaluation?

Blowing up the Nordstream pipelines

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the...

Purely speculative conspiracy theory here.

Yes, that's why US does everything they can to prevent investigating who caused it, same with UN and US allies when it come to investigation who sabtaged NS.

But of course it's conspiracy theory, let's just label it and ignore smoking gun.

The other possibility is EU member states and investigating it would further inflame internal tensions in an already tense time and erode support for the war effort. There are many many possibilities - which is why the version you are putting forward is labelled a conspiracy theory until otherwise proven.

Hersh thinks, as of Feb 23 2023, that "the Russians have yet to put any of their main forces in". (https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1628898816953909251) I dunno what happened to him, but you should probably read his allegations with that context in mind.

Maybe the US can finally invade Saudi Arabia, lol

Edit: Was just making a joke. I’m not a warmonger.

The US has significant military presence in the whole middle-east. I think the Saudis know that, now, the US does really not want to open a new front. Especially with the Taiwan/China situation.

Invading Saudi Arabia is really complex because there is more oil coming from there than Saudi Arabia itself. Expect oil prices over $500 overnight.

The US is the largest oil producer in the world, one of the largest producers of food, one of the top innovators, has relatively healthy demographics, is surround by allies (one of which produces oil and fertilizer), and has the most dominant military on the planet.

Your outlook is significantly more gloomy than reality

All true! It's too easy to focus on the downsides, but there are significant upsides as this comment points out. There's an excellent discussion by Geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan here [1]; he talks about China vis a vis the US with respect the geographic, demographic, and economic advantages/disadvantages. Worth a watch in this context.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS4Vw6cuW4M

FYI, Peter is a bit of a sensationalist (he’s been predicting China will collapse within 10 years since 2005).

So very true, but that does not change the geographical, economic, and demographic factors he speaks about.

> is surround by allies

The US doesn't have allies but a bunch of vassal states that it's milking. The alignment of these allies depend on the particular circumstances of the situation.

It's ridiculous to consider Canada or Mexico (or if we extend this farther, the EU and Japan) "vassal states". All of these countries participate in the US Capitalist regime willingly because they get rich too.

By your standard, do any of the considered "major alternative powers" (China or Russia) have allies?

Canada and Mexico aren't vassal states.

Why didn't they then sanction USA when they invaded Iraq or Afganistan? Should not such blatant breaking of international law result in breaking all economic ties until the responsible the politicians, their funders and soldiers involved are punished?

Even Russia and China didn't sanction the US. Does that make them vassals too?

Your comment isn't attached to the history of the situation.

Very accurate. The CIA is actively involved in the interference of their 'allies' governments.

Japan didn't break from US in this news article, it received permission to do so, likely so that it can remain in a defensible position against China.

While this is all true, "cashing in" on any of those advantages is not something that can be done peacefully, so perhaps a gloomy outlook is warranted.

I don't understand? The US can disrupt food/oil/financial markets/innovation more than any other planet on earth. All of these can be flexed peacefully

Yeah, but the popular narrative now is that China is the real super power because they have a strong autocratic leader and aren't bogged down by democracy, and don't have to deal with other people's uneducated opinions.

Not that they have a mountain of shadow debt built upon the biggest housing bubble the world has ever seen (by far) and an absolute demographic time bomb about to blow up their future...

> and aren't bogged down by democracy, and don't have to deal with other people's uneducated opinions.

well, looking back at the Iraq WMD invasion - were US bogged down by democracy?

Very likely; US public opinion puts massive constraints on what's considered acceptable troop losses and deliberate infliction of civilian casualties. Given how China's treated the Uyghurs, I suspect a Chinese invasion of Iraq would've looked... different.

Before the war, a solid majority (66%) favored using military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Once the war started, a similarly large fraction of the American people thought it was the right decision. Public opinion didn't shift into the negative until quite a bit later, a while after Abu Ghraib.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-...

Disruption of financial markets is not a precision weapon, and it frequently backfires. Currency wars aligning with multipolar powers makes them even more disruptive. Once the US defense of the dollar turns from theoretical to reality, it necessitates violence. You can say "the USD has all this power as a reserve currency because of US military power projection," and it may be true, but once other powers start to align and actively compete with the dollar as the reserve currency, the US needs to actively respond. And that means making good on their threats, not just projecting them. Thus, global financial instability leads to violence.

And the US military is having a recruitment issue. Not to mention new recruits tend not to be up to fitness standards. The two wars at once standard is questionable at best.

>more than any other planet on earth

Take a look at the space around you. How many of the items you see were made in the US?

And? Access to food and energy is significantly more important that new consumer goods

Modern food and energy rely upon countless items manufactured in China. John Deere would not be able to continue making the tractors they currently make without Chinese components. Same goes for everything from oil tankers to highway pavers. Even the logistics side would become difficult without being able to replace cell phones and computers.

There are no planets on earth

It all depends on the willingness to extract that oil. Alternative energy has its merits, but there is a wing of the environmentalists that have convinced a segment of the population that "keep it in the ground" is a viable short term strategy. If this transition to green energy is not extended to more like 100 or 150 years, we are screwed.

>Europe, except for Poland and the Baltics, does not seem to be too enthusiastic for this war.

Why do blatantly false statements about Europe keep getting upvoted on HN?

The European public overwhelmingly supports Ukraine and military aid to Ukraine:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20221205IP...

Nobody is enthusiastic for war. But since Russia has failed in their winter offensive and is experiencing unsustainable losses, it would be shortsighted to force Ukraine to negotiate for peace unless it involves a complete withdrawal of Russian troops to pre-2014 borders.