“The United States of America plans to launch a war against the People’s Republic of China”
I strongly disagree. The U.S. is aware that invading China “is like hitting a pillow with your fist, then watching your fist turn into feathers.”
The U.S. has no possible military objective from a war with China. I recognize only one exception. If the DPP in Taiwan is able to deceive the U.S. into fighting a war for Taiwan independence, then the deceived Americans would be tricked into a war. But there would remain no military objective for invading China.
I consider a U.S.-China war over Taiwan to be unlikely because the military of the Republic of CHINA is NOT a Taiwanese military. Their history is China’s history. They speak Mandarin and will not fight a war to make Taiwanese their language. Fewer than 40% of the ROC military can speak Taiwanese. And a founding principle of the Republic of China was for Chinese to have a unified national language. They will not abandon their history and fight a war to make Taiwanese their language.
The ruling DPP in Taipei has called Mandarin speakers “pigs”. Only recently they dramatically cut retirement pay for those already collecting military retirement.
Bottom line, the ROC military on Taiwan is not likely to fight a war for Taiwan independence, and I expect the PLA has identified who their allies are in the ROC military.
The U.S. has nothing to gain from fighting a war against China. And if the war is over Taiwan, the military of the ROC will not oppose China.
I think hostile forces have no options other than peace.
While I do not disagree about the nature of the military forces of the Taipei administration and the nature of the DPP's traitorous incompetence, I do disagree with the notion that the US does not have an objective in mind for a war with China. They very clearly want to constrain Chinese development and progress, and the efforts to contain China short of war have clearly failed, which leaves only military action to do so. The US elite is very unwilling to concede equality, much less superiority, to a foreign power, and a non-white foreign power at that. They also have a delusional overconfidence in their abilities, as evidenced by their constant harping about US superiority and leadership which is collapsing day by day. That makes them particularly dangerous and they have already shown a severe proclivity to violence over the past 2 centuries or so, especially since the end of World War 2.
I really like your response. I disagree with much of it. My primary disagreement is your belief that there is a “US elite”. There is no such group.
Americans are divided into political factions which form coalitions to exercise ruling power. No faction has elites.
I agree racism is a factor. It is the modern version of the Yellow Peril.
To restrain economic development is not a military objective, unless you intend to destroy an economy with blockades and bombs.
China’s Belt & Road has made blockade futile. It is no longer possible to isolate China with a naval blockade.
Military strikes won’t do it either. China is large and economically decentralized. Only a nuclear war could destroy China’s economy and that would also destroy the U.S. economy. Nuclear weapons would be used by both sides, SO neither side will use them.
The war is not a military operation, it is political. And key to avoiding pressure for war is to defeat the DPP in Taiwan.
Ironically China needs both the ROC and the PRC to remain strong and healthy, because they will create a lasting peace.
We need to reestablish the 1992 accords. That creates peace between Taiwan and the mainland. It divides Japan and Australia from any anti-China alliance and it isolates anti-China factions in the U.S.
So it's clear that whatever moniker, "donor class", oligarchy, there is a group that drives the US and other western states in a manner that is detached from the common good.
While I have agreed with your takes on nearly everything, I have a quibble in this one.
"Americans are divided into political factions which form coalitions to exercise ruling power. No faction has elites."
Yes, there are factions/political parties/corporate entities that contain elites exercising outsized influence spanning decades. I don't do internet comments "debate" (arguing) so I'm not going to elaborate. I'm not sure it's a point that even matters, but you might rethink this one.
At the Naval Academy we were “the cream of the crop”, the world’s greatest gathering of Eagle Scouts.
But they booted Jeff Collins. He was the greatest expert on Shakespeare and he wrote and directed an excellent play. He was the “cream of the crop”, the elite.
I was on duty the day they kicked him out of the Academy. “Due to negligence and inattentance to duty, Mr. Collins broke a glass in the mess hall”…5 demerits put him over the limit and expelled him from Annapolis.
From over 40,000 who applied we graduated 850, but we were not really the “cream of the crop”. Our talents are so diverse, the word elite doesn’t really find a use.
I'm thinking more along the lines of traditional political party elite, elites within academia, various institutions and/or think tanks, financial elites, etc., all of whom influence political policy.
Elites within a military academy... Military elites get to decide who among themselves are "elite". I don't have that experience so I keep my mouth shut.
A war with China for economic goals would be counterproductive.
In the first two hours of conflict over Kinmen County in Xiamen harbor, China’s PLA fired 57,533 artillery rounds from 340 guns. That is almost 480 artillery shells per minute for two hours. They can do many times that now.
The U.S. would lose a conventional war, in part because whole units of the military of the Republic of China would refuse to fight or would join the PLA to defend China.
The U.S. would not survive a nuclear war. We would destroy much of the world, making Taiwan an uninhabited island.
I totally agree with all of this. I'd also use simpler language and replace "counterproductive" with "idiotically suicidal".
We've already had...a few years ago...reps from the Pentagon, and iirc, Joint Chiefs speak before Congress outlining what would happen in a "Taiwan war" in the South China Sea. America gets its ass handed to it.
Our guys are smart, they've provided good advice, and it never lasts for more than a few minutes in a 24 hour news cycle. The pols don't wanna hear it, media ignores it, and we're all the losers because of it.
Trump is not going to attack China. In fact he is in full global retreat. He just ordered 8% of the Pentagons budget cut. He has even said on record that Taiwan’s defense is implausible. Biden was the last China hawk we will see in the US. It’s full isolationism now. If Trump can hand over Europe to Putin he will have no issue with selling out East Asia.
Trump sees Xi and Putin as his only equals in terms of global power and he is keep to divide the globe into spheres of influence. Why he spends so much time on nonsense like Greenland. He wants domination of the Western Hemisphere and a trade wall put up around it. Trade will be not the focus again.
First of all, there is no actual defense cut, it’s reassigning priorities within the pentagon budget, and the anti China indopaccom is immune from having any of their funding redirected, secondly none of these types of decisions are actually made by any president of either party
This is a hilarious take. His cabinet is full of the biggest China Warhawks in the country. Stop living in a delusional world.
Secondly, Putin has no intention of taking over Europe. He wants NATO to hold up their end of the bargain, and get off his doorstep. People are so fucking gullible.
You may not know: I am not a liberal. I am an authoritarian, but believe in democracy, preferably direct democracy, though representative democracy is acceptable. btw it's lol to read McFaul talking up Putin, makes him look even worse.
McFaul, though benevolent and well-intended is indeed somewhat foolish. He is incapable of the sort of hammer-and-tongs streetfighting that is currently necessary thanks to Russia's ongoing war-crime.
Trump’s mind is buried in decades of property ownership or control is best! The only question is to what lengths that mindset will go! Profit for property ownership or bully for property ownership or war for property ownership! Hence he sees Putin trying to seek control of Ukraine is fine! He sees Gaza takeover to convert to a property transformation as fine! He has no diplomatic or political experience or expertise!
Very thoroughly researched, interesting article. I’m Australian, so I’m a bit impartial, not as defensive as some of your readers, however I do feel the title and prediction might be too strong. War can take many forms. I’ve posted my own theories and concerns on my page, tell me what you think! I’m saying that the Chinese do not need to fight or defend conventional war, Trump has presented a once in a century opportunity for China to dominate world affairs without loading a single bullet. The tariffs are the way in…
There won't be a full hot war between China and USA. Taiwan is proxy war if that happens which can be used for sanctions. The basic strategy is same as used against USSR i.e., Containment and roll back.
War is not an inevitability. Wars result from political leaders' arrogance, resentment, and vengeance-driven attitudes and their ignorance, misjudgments, and third-party provocations.
Politicians start wars. Because they're politicians and not militarily intelligent, they lack foresight and they mistakenly believe they can achieve significant gains at low costs. They rely on past experiences to craft strategies without adequately accounting for the risks of misjudgments and miscalculations, and they do not prepare contingency plans. They are politicians. I could easily see American politicians making all these mistakes.
War in the modern age is neither inevitable nor necessarily the result of irresistible forces. It arises from specific decisions made in a particular context, often solely involved with economic protectionism. All the political blather is a charade. Politicians go to great lengths and wrap themselves in all manner of benevolent goals to pretend they don't know what their hands are doing.
I like your general thesis, I agree with many of your statements, but it is a tad overwrought and relying on simplistic inflammatory rhetoric, and therefore not as convincing as it could be.
"Germany's unforgivable crime before WW2 is its attempt to extricate its economy out of the global trade system by building its own exchange system from which the global-finance can't profit anymore"
- Winston Churchill
China's Project mBridge is a direct threat to the Globalist Banksters petrodollar system
I am Filipina but I love china and Hongkong/Chinese nationals
This US citizen concurs that US foreign policy is predicated on global war and war with China.
I on the other hand have absolutely no intention of participating in or otherwise supporting that profligate intention.
Too bad for them: yet another military defeat
“The United States of America plans to launch a war against the People’s Republic of China”
I strongly disagree. The U.S. is aware that invading China “is like hitting a pillow with your fist, then watching your fist turn into feathers.”
The U.S. has no possible military objective from a war with China. I recognize only one exception. If the DPP in Taiwan is able to deceive the U.S. into fighting a war for Taiwan independence, then the deceived Americans would be tricked into a war. But there would remain no military objective for invading China.
I consider a U.S.-China war over Taiwan to be unlikely because the military of the Republic of CHINA is NOT a Taiwanese military. Their history is China’s history. They speak Mandarin and will not fight a war to make Taiwanese their language. Fewer than 40% of the ROC military can speak Taiwanese. And a founding principle of the Republic of China was for Chinese to have a unified national language. They will not abandon their history and fight a war to make Taiwanese their language.
The ruling DPP in Taipei has called Mandarin speakers “pigs”. Only recently they dramatically cut retirement pay for those already collecting military retirement.
Bottom line, the ROC military on Taiwan is not likely to fight a war for Taiwan independence, and I expect the PLA has identified who their allies are in the ROC military.
The U.S. has nothing to gain from fighting a war against China. And if the war is over Taiwan, the military of the ROC will not oppose China.
I think hostile forces have no options other than peace.
While I do not disagree about the nature of the military forces of the Taipei administration and the nature of the DPP's traitorous incompetence, I do disagree with the notion that the US does not have an objective in mind for a war with China. They very clearly want to constrain Chinese development and progress, and the efforts to contain China short of war have clearly failed, which leaves only military action to do so. The US elite is very unwilling to concede equality, much less superiority, to a foreign power, and a non-white foreign power at that. They also have a delusional overconfidence in their abilities, as evidenced by their constant harping about US superiority and leadership which is collapsing day by day. That makes them particularly dangerous and they have already shown a severe proclivity to violence over the past 2 centuries or so, especially since the end of World War 2.
I really like your response. I disagree with much of it. My primary disagreement is your belief that there is a “US elite”. There is no such group.
Americans are divided into political factions which form coalitions to exercise ruling power. No faction has elites.
I agree racism is a factor. It is the modern version of the Yellow Peril.
To restrain economic development is not a military objective, unless you intend to destroy an economy with blockades and bombs.
China’s Belt & Road has made blockade futile. It is no longer possible to isolate China with a naval blockade.
Military strikes won’t do it either. China is large and economically decentralized. Only a nuclear war could destroy China’s economy and that would also destroy the U.S. economy. Nuclear weapons would be used by both sides, SO neither side will use them.
The war is not a military operation, it is political. And key to avoiding pressure for war is to defeat the DPP in Taiwan.
Ironically China needs both the ROC and the PRC to remain strong and healthy, because they will create a lasting peace.
We need to reestablish the 1992 accords. That creates peace between Taiwan and the mainland. It divides Japan and Australia from any anti-China alliance and it isolates anti-China factions in the U.S.
It's not news, but here's an academic take on the issue, from an Ivy League https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
So it's clear that whatever moniker, "donor class", oligarchy, there is a group that drives the US and other western states in a manner that is detached from the common good.
I would say no group “drives the US
A stampeding herd does not have leaders
While I have agreed with your takes on nearly everything, I have a quibble in this one.
"Americans are divided into political factions which form coalitions to exercise ruling power. No faction has elites."
Yes, there are factions/political parties/corporate entities that contain elites exercising outsized influence spanning decades. I don't do internet comments "debate" (arguing) so I'm not going to elaborate. I'm not sure it's a point that even matters, but you might rethink this one.
I will concede to your opinion
Maybe I am too sensitive to the term “elite”.
At the Naval Academy we were “the cream of the crop”, the world’s greatest gathering of Eagle Scouts.
But they booted Jeff Collins. He was the greatest expert on Shakespeare and he wrote and directed an excellent play. He was the “cream of the crop”, the elite.
I was on duty the day they kicked him out of the Academy. “Due to negligence and inattentance to duty, Mr. Collins broke a glass in the mess hall”…5 demerits put him over the limit and expelled him from Annapolis.
From over 40,000 who applied we graduated 850, but we were not really the “cream of the crop”. Our talents are so diverse, the word elite doesn’t really find a use.
I'm thinking more along the lines of traditional political party elite, elites within academia, various institutions and/or think tanks, financial elites, etc., all of whom influence political policy.
Elites within a military academy... Military elites get to decide who among themselves are "elite". I don't have that experience so I keep my mouth shut.
I agree with your last sentence if you inserted "good" before options.
What if war, in this specific instance, does not have a military objective, but an economic one?
A war with China for economic goals would be counterproductive.
In the first two hours of conflict over Kinmen County in Xiamen harbor, China’s PLA fired 57,533 artillery rounds from 340 guns. That is almost 480 artillery shells per minute for two hours. They can do many times that now.
The U.S. would lose a conventional war, in part because whole units of the military of the Republic of China would refuse to fight or would join the PLA to defend China.
The U.S. would not survive a nuclear war. We would destroy much of the world, making Taiwan an uninhabited island.
I totally agree with all of this. I'd also use simpler language and replace "counterproductive" with "idiotically suicidal".
We've already had...a few years ago...reps from the Pentagon, and iirc, Joint Chiefs speak before Congress outlining what would happen in a "Taiwan war" in the South China Sea. America gets its ass handed to it.
Our guys are smart, they've provided good advice, and it never lasts for more than a few minutes in a 24 hour news cycle. The pols don't wanna hear it, media ignores it, and we're all the losers because of it.
My roommate from the Academy and I are no longer close because he buys into the negative propaganda coming from the CIA
I agree with you
Trump is not going to attack China. In fact he is in full global retreat. He just ordered 8% of the Pentagons budget cut. He has even said on record that Taiwan’s defense is implausible. Biden was the last China hawk we will see in the US. It’s full isolationism now. If Trump can hand over Europe to Putin he will have no issue with selling out East Asia.
Trump sees Xi and Putin as his only equals in terms of global power and he is keep to divide the globe into spheres of influence. Why he spends so much time on nonsense like Greenland. He wants domination of the Western Hemisphere and a trade wall put up around it. Trade will be not the focus again.
First of all, there is no actual defense cut, it’s reassigning priorities within the pentagon budget, and the anti China indopaccom is immune from having any of their funding redirected, secondly none of these types of decisions are actually made by any president of either party
This is a hilarious take. His cabinet is full of the biggest China Warhawks in the country. Stop living in a delusional world.
Secondly, Putin has no intention of taking over Europe. He wants NATO to hold up their end of the bargain, and get off his doorstep. People are so fucking gullible.
"Putin’s unsuccessful attempts to play nice with Washington"
lol. No one serious takes you serious. Putin's an obvious mass murderer. Oh, and he is your "no limits no matter what" Partner?
Might want to rethink that one!
this is by you peoples favorite moron michael mcfail https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2001/10/us-russia-relations-after-september-11-2001?lang=en
You may not know: I am not a liberal. I am an authoritarian, but believe in democracy, preferably direct democracy, though representative democracy is acceptable. btw it's lol to read McFaul talking up Putin, makes him look even worse.
Then quit whining about Putin all you various flavors of liberal fascists kill more people in 4 years than Putin has in 25
小狗需要向毛泽东学习，反对大俄罗斯帝国主义！
oh you sorry little bitch, Putin is a dead man.
McFaul, though benevolent and well-intended is indeed somewhat foolish. He is incapable of the sort of hammer-and-tongs streetfighting that is currently necessary thanks to Russia's ongoing war-crime.
Trump’s mind is buried in decades of property ownership or control is best! The only question is to what lengths that mindset will go! Profit for property ownership or bully for property ownership or war for property ownership! Hence he sees Putin trying to seek control of Ukraine is fine! He sees Gaza takeover to convert to a property transformation as fine! He has no diplomatic or political experience or expertise!
Very thoroughly researched, interesting article. I’m Australian, so I’m a bit impartial, not as defensive as some of your readers, however I do feel the title and prediction might be too strong. War can take many forms. I’ve posted my own theories and concerns on my page, tell me what you think! I’m saying that the Chinese do not need to fight or defend conventional war, Trump has presented a once in a century opportunity for China to dominate world affairs without loading a single bullet. The tariffs are the way in…
This is my own, amateurish but carefully thought out take https://open.substack.com/pub/simmow/p/hello-world-and-goodbye-usa-dominance?r=jmi5v&utm_medium=ios
There won't be a full hot war between China and USA. Taiwan is proxy war if that happens which can be used for sanctions. The basic strategy is same as used against USSR i.e., Containment and roll back.
Current tariff is part of that.
War is not an inevitability. Wars result from political leaders' arrogance, resentment, and vengeance-driven attitudes and their ignorance, misjudgments, and third-party provocations.
Politicians start wars. Because they're politicians and not militarily intelligent, they lack foresight and they mistakenly believe they can achieve significant gains at low costs. They rely on past experiences to craft strategies without adequately accounting for the risks of misjudgments and miscalculations, and they do not prepare contingency plans. They are politicians. I could easily see American politicians making all these mistakes.
War in the modern age is neither inevitable nor necessarily the result of irresistible forces. It arises from specific decisions made in a particular context, often solely involved with economic protectionism. All the political blather is a charade. Politicians go to great lengths and wrap themselves in all manner of benevolent goals to pretend they don't know what their hands are doing.
I like your general thesis, I agree with many of your statements, but it is a tad overwrought and relying on simplistic inflammatory rhetoric, and therefore not as convincing as it could be.
ALL WARS ARE CENTRAL BANKER'S WARS
"Germany's unforgivable crime before WW2 is its attempt to extricate its economy out of the global trade system by building its own exchange system from which the global-finance can't profit anymore"
- Winston Churchill
China's Project mBridge is a direct threat to the Globalist Banksters petrodollar system
https://www.thebanker.com/content/5f4ee360-b2ce-55d8-af9e-544d8eb773a3#:~:text=The%20Bank%20for%20International%20Settlements,be%20used%20to%20evade%20sanctions.
https://substack.com/profile/91548269-callura-michael/note/c-96705191