One would think it would be a bit beneficial to have some allies in that war...

Yeah, would have been really useful for the US to at least convince China's northern neighbor to constantly do mobilization exercises [1] on their shared border to keep the PLA off-balance and draw combat power away from important theaters. Instead, we've pissed away the Sino-Soviet Split and enabled Eurasia to operate with secure interior lines. This can be chalked up entirely to really arrogant and foolish neocon decision-making with regards to Russia 2003-2007.

[1] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2018/09/russias-vostok-exercise...

Russia is now so weak as to pose no threat to China.

With ramped up warhead production and a battle-tested army? Yeah, so very weak.

It's interesting you bring up the Sino-Soviet split.

I would argue that Trump has inflicted the same thing on NATO. Atlantic relations are at an all time low. Putin will be delighted.

There’s close to zero chance the US would win a war with China in the event that it attacks Taiwan. Either china wins quickly, or it takes out all the assets which make it strategic in any case.

Why would the US or the west or China wants to start a war? Over what? They don't have any disputes about land or people. Just some irritations about whatever. But certainly not recipe for war. Even Taiwan is not a reason for the US to start a real war against China. Proxy war by supporting Taiwan sure. But thats it.

Oh, the US are gonna help Taiwan? I would've thought you might think of it as unwinnable too.

Oh, that's why Trump is trying to speed up TSMC to build chips on US soil! Now everything makes sense! Surely, TSMC will just do it! And the Chinese will wait for the transition period to finish before they attack the island!

This is absolutely intended to be sarcastic and demonstrate the absurdity that someone who cuts ties with allies would ever do anything to help the next one. And if that next one is threatened with war, it would ever feel comfortable to effectively destroy their only bargaining chip for assured US military help afterwards.

Man, all I know is this year isn't going to end well. For anyone.

Long term the Taiwan situation absolutely is unwinnable, and their current government is completely dependent on the US when it comes to staying in power. There is a strong pro-unification party ready to take over the moment US support is put on hold. Wonder if we'll see this card played when negotiating with TSMC...