China can wait. The Army’s focus should be Europe.

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This proactive "defensive" move was essentially the basis for the US invasions in Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam and nearly every other skirmish the US has engaged in for 50 years. FYI.
But we leave after trying to install a democratic government, it worked in S. Korea and Japan atleast...
Also, do you think anyone in S. Korea thinks Communist China should control S. Korea just because they are close by? Or many people in Latvia think leaving NATO and becoming a close ally of Russia is a good idea, just because they share a border and it would make Putin feel better?
No democratic nation wants to be under the thumb of a neighboring country led by a dictatorship, or communist party.... So I think its a good principal to help them in their defense of their own freedom.
 
it worked in S. Korea and Japan atleast...
I'm not a Korean war expert, but it seems that was a truce, we lost and we won.
As for WWII, we were so plainly the victor with such superior advanced weaponry they had to unconditionally surrender and we invested heavily there. FYI they have no offensive military, only defense (there are proposals to change that).

Beginning around 1990 or so, Ukraine was under an agreement that NATO would not encroach, which we have broken. Eastern Ukraine has been in violent dispute since 2014, with western interference. In 2014 we violently installed a puppet pro-western government, arms, training, etc. and Ukraine has been killing Russians for 8 years...
 
As an arm-chair general I think might be a good Ukraine strategy to fake a few mass retreats, and let the Russians overextend and screw up their supply line defenses again...
How about a strategy of collapsing the price of oil and oil refinement. Russia's energy industry is the "fuel" to their economy and cash flow.

Triple USA refineries, allow drilling in the USA with zero restrictions, etc. Collapse oil to $15 a barrel. At $15 a barrel and export of oil both in crude and refined, would be a crushing blow to Russia's ability to fund a war.
 
Agreed.

I think China, knowing the west would reject a peace offering, used such a very public offer for propaganda and to gain favor with the rest of the world. Russia, and now China, have offered (on record) for peace deals many times. It is the west that is refusing to negotiate. That puts Russia and China in a perceived moral high ground. True or not that is the perception.

China absolutely benefits from a protracted war in Ukraine which bleeds the west dry of will-to-fight, equipment, money, and at some point manpower and more equipment. There's just no way the US could divide our forces and send 1/2 to 2 conflicts with superpowers.
One only need to look at WWII to see what happens when a military has to split its forces.

As Germany was targeting Russia, the Italians were supposed to take control of Greece, primarily the Greek Navy. Italy had a powerful Navy with modern vessels. Poor Greece had a fleet of bathtubs. Well, the well-reviewed, modern Italian Navy was unable to beat the Greek bathtub fleet. Germany then had to send many resources that were identified for Russia, into Greece. Germany was now fighting on two fronts in opposite directions.> Many military strategists and historians credit the Greek Navy as the hidden source of the defeat of Germany. Had Greece fell to the Italians, Germany would have had Russia as its exclusive strategic key task. Instead, Germany was forced to spilt its forces, and the rest is history.
 
How about a strategy of collapsing the price of oil and oil refinement. Russia's energy industry is the "fuel" to their economy and cash flow.

Triple USA refineries, allow drilling in the USA with zero restrictions, etc. Collapse oil to $15 a barrel. At $15 a barrel and export of oil both in crude and refined, would be a crushing blow to Russia's ability to fund a war.
How, exactly, would we manipulate that.

Note, when the price of oil is pushed down too low it has an opposite effect. It killed innovation, shuts down the costly oil retrieval (e.g. shale), and oil producers tend to sit on oil rather than sell it. We saw this in 2019, when OPEC tried to run shale under, that's exactly what they did. Once those producers shutter, it's costly to restart them.

I'm not sure we would be harming Russia, as much or more ourselves. The US 5% population uses 21% of the worlds oil, as of 2021. That figure may have changed. China uses 14%, with India, Japan, and Russia using 5%. Being that the US is among the largest producers and consumers, we might cripple our own oil industry. Certainly we would aggravate relations with the Middle East OPEC nations as well.
 
How, exactly, would we manipulate that.

Note, when the price of oil is pushed down too low it has an opposite effect. It killed innovation, shuts down the costly oil retrieval (e.g. shale), and oil producers tend to sit on oil rather than sell it. We saw this in 2019, when OPEC tried to run shale under, that's exactly what they did. Once those producers shutter, it's costly to restart them.

I'm not sure we would be harming Russia, as much or more ourselves. The US 5% population uses 21% of the worlds oil, as of 2021. That figure may have changed. China uses 14%, with India, Japan, and Russia using 5%. Being that the US is among the largest producers and consumers, we might cripple our own oil industry. Certainly we would aggravate relations with the Middle East OPEC nations as well.
Very good question.

I have not validated, verified, nor accredited a statement that I read, but the statement was that USA has a unbelievable amount of crude oil off its coasts in Florida and California. Very easy oil to get at. Same oil that made Venezuela very rich (before socialist) and now the tiny country of Guyana an emerging oil producer.

You beat the competition because USA "may" have massive, untapped reserves that are very easy to access. And you remove barriers to market for the drilling and refinement of the oil. This strategy, if feasible, could be a shot at reversing the decades long trade deficits for the USA. Other things would need to happen, the largest would be greatly reducing the USA's adult employment participation rate, which many believe is under 50 percent.
 
The way I see it, China has the US is a near checkmate on Taiwan as the US and west have spread ourselves far too thin and overplayed our hands badly in Ukraine.
here is the prc’s middle game. the prc doesn’t really care about peace in the ukraine. if the west loses then our ability to protect our pacific interests erodes. if russia loses then the vast natural resources of siberia become more availably appetizing. by the time the ukraine finishes, one way or another, with a bang or a whimper: the west’s armories will be depleted, the rest of the world will have written off american leadership as inept and dangerous, the petrodollar will be sailing away, one of the prc’s two ultimate competitors is demonstrably weakened.

plus, from the get-go, there was always much more at stake for us (strategically, economically, morally) in taiwan than in the ukraine.
 
Very good question.

I have not validated, verified, nor accredited a statement that I read, but the statement was that USA has a unbelievable amount of crude oil off its coasts in Florida and California. Very easy oil to get at. Same oil that made Venezuela very rich (before socialist) and now the tiny country of Guyana an emerging oil producer.

You beat the competition because USA "may" have massive, untapped reserves that are very easy to access. And you remove barriers to market for the drilling and refinement of the oil. This strategy, if feasible, could be a shot at reversing the decades long trade deficits for the USA. Other things would need to happen, the largest would be greatly reducing the adult employment participation rate, which many believe is over 50 percent.

Question:

Have you considered that using others' oil first, at current market prices, and holding our own oil is the best long-term strategy for long-term national defense and energy independence?

Rather than basically giving it at 15% market values in some attempt to harm Russian economy to stall a (irrelevant to our national interest) Ukraine war?

IMO Ukraine is unimportant but us holding oil is extremely important. YMMV>
 
I guess technically, just using NATO air power, even only operating inside Ukraines 1994 borders, with just Ukraine forces on the ground, we would run the Russians out quite quickly with not many losses for NATO?
Who knows what Putin would do though, or maybe someone close to him would do the world a favor... I would hope his successor would just go back to being personally greedy, and not try to revive a new USSR.

Would take a year at least. You would need to fly from bases outside of ukraine, as the ukraine bases can't handle western fighters, the landing strips are too rough and dirty. Refreshing the bases would be noticed by russia and they got missiles that can reach them easily.

Although nato is much more proficcient at sead, there's a lot of sams in the area. Nato never succeeded in destroying serbia's sam threat, that's nothing compared to what's in this theatre. And these modern sam systems don't give any warnings to their targets that a missile is heading for them, as older systems did, they can also engage at much longer distances if the target is flying above the horizon. Basically, go up high enough that manpads on the front are not lethal, and you WILL get shot at from inside russia, and shot down.
 
You're so off base it's comical. You said China has no debt yet their debit is 250% of GDP. You got something so fundamental so wrong. You really need to re-educate yourself.

Your mind is making all these false connections like Glen Beck and his chalk board. The same guy that in 2008 had no idea what Quantitative Easing was, thought Gold was going to $20k and the dollar would collapse.

You also conveniently ignored every counter point to your assumptions that I posted. Go back and educate yourself.

China's debt overhang far exceeds the burdens facing the United States
. As recently as 2020, total debt in the United States relative to GDP exceeded China's. But as of mid-2022, China's relative debt burden stood 40 percent higher than America's.

The people I know that live and have been to China know they have major problems, like any other country.

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Glen called the “ financial collapse @ that happened in 2008 several years before it happened… He saw that exactly right.

I know… I heard him say it.

Because he was noting the same exact fundamentals that were way, way out of whack before “ too big to fail” became a thing that lots of other people learned about rather late in that game.
 
Given the more isolated eastern proximity and challenges of defending Taiwan, I would expect the west to have LESS success there, not greater. The west has bases there sure, notably S. Korea. We have a (largely unarmed) Japan, and Australia. Not a whole lot more support in that region. We have to cross oceans to arrive as well, with long supply chains.

Ukraine and Russia share a border that's approximately 250 miles long and flat. Taiwan and China are separated by almost 100 miles of ocean. Ocean that's generally rough and has tough sea conditions 10 months out of the year giving China very little opportunity to launch an invasion. This invasion has to traverse 100 miles of water first and would have to be larger than Normandy. Taiwan would have advance notice, as would America. Not to mention Taiwan is a very mountainous region and their population hates China. Taiwan's geography makes it very difficult to invade. The invasion needing to be seaborne only makes it that much harder to pull off.

Even if America didn't intervene, Taiwan is in a much better geographical position than Ukraine is. Geography is king in warfare.
 
Ukraine and Russia share a border that's approximately 250 miles long and flat. Taiwan and China are separated by almost 100 miles of ocean. Ocean that's generally rough and has tough sea conditions 10 months out of the year giving China very little opportunity to launch an invasion. This invasion has to traverse 100 miles of water first and would have to be larger than Normandy. Taiwan would have advance notice, as would America. Not to mention Taiwan is a very mountainous region and their population hates China. Taiwan's geography makes it very difficult to invade. The invasion needing to be seaborne only makes it that much harder to pull off.

Even if America didn't intervene, Taiwan is in a much better geographical position than Ukraine is. Geography is king in warfare.
If you were a betting man, you might assume Taiwan has nukes. Its a bit conspiratorial, but these are facts:
-Taiwan has 2 functioning reactors that can produce enriched fuel
-Taiwan certainly has the scientific expertise
-Taiwan had a nuclear program as late as the 80's. The had consultation contracts at the time with some of the world's leading scientists on the matter
-Taiwan has never signed the non proliferation treaty.
-Taiwan has lots of strong allies that have nukes - USA obviously, but there also pretty friendly with France.
- Taiwan has conventional missiles that can easily reach anyplace of importance in China. It would be easy enough to set a nuke on them.

Of course, Ukraine had nukes. They gave them up with an agreement from US, UK and Russia that those countries would guarantee their security under the Budapest memorandum. Guess that didn't quite work out.
 
The way I see it, China has the US is a near checkmate on Taiwan as the US and west have spread ourselves far too thin and overplayed our hands badly in Ukraine.
Or, Xi is panicked that NATO, Japan, South Korea, Australia are united. China is already on shaky ground with their own set of problems. China's behavior is pushing countries into the west.

 
As flawed as the west is and has been on policy, I still prefer our way to their way (meaning China/Russia's world order).

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"However, I'm someone who worked hard to have a chance to go to visit China as a student. I spent about a year there, so nothing comparable to him obviously. And I can affirm even with all the world's good intentions, it's really hard not to become sour about China when you see it form the inside.

I was eager to discover the people, the culture and wasn't disappointed at all. But the Country with a big C is clearly evil, and you really quick feel it in your every day life. It is not my only personal feelings. All the other foreigners I lived with eventually shared this point of view whatever their origin. Even the one coming from countries far more desperate than mine (France).

Therefore we almost all had the same kind of feeling leaving China : amazing experience of life, amazing people but heavily rotten system than slowly pushes you toward the exit door. And this was before SerpentZA turns into a China "hater"."
 
Glen called the “ financial collapse @ that happened in 2008 several years before it happened… He saw that exactly right.
The stopped clock principle. He never says anything other than doom. Then when a recession does happen, someone says "See, he was right all along."

He also never told followers to stop buying gold, no matter how high the price goes.
 
The stopped clock principle. He never says anything other than doom. Then when a recession does happen, someone says "See, he was right all along."

He also never told followers to stop buying gold, no matter how high the price goes.
Right. He, like Peter Schiff/Ron Paul and that Libertarian pipe dream cloud are never happy and it's non-stop doom and gloom. While they have many good points, some that i fully agree with, they too have bought into an ideology and are stuck with it for life. Peter Schiff is a great example. His claim to fame was the pre 08 criies and how he predicted it. Since then he's been wrong for 15 years straight. One could even argue that crowd has been wrong since the Federal Reserve was created in 1914.

They're called permabears. I have many permabear friends. The end is always around the corner! LOL

The problem I have with a lot of these folks is their alternative world view doesn't appear to be much better. One could make the case that the Fed's track record is very mixed and needs a major paradigm shift but that's just unlikely. We don't live that world.
 
My concern is, how fast can losses be replaced, by either side? What does it matter how good your stuff is if (for example) you can only replace a single plane per month? what if your competitor can build 1 per week? who will lose that game?

That's the downside of high tech weaponry, you can't replace it easily or not at all if some part of the supply chain is out of your control.
We have EXPORTED 900 F-22 Stealth. Aircraft will not be a problem. There is no senario I can think of where we would loose a large percentage of any of our equipment. Just an opinion. Not an argument.
 
Putin, basically wants to stop NATO and this is the last attempt to do so (and looks like it failed as after this war Ukraine is for sure going to join NATO instead of going back to Russia). Russia is also not having a real capitalist economy vs China is really just communist in name only and capitalist in practice (they copied even our social security system and medicare system). Their economical powers are vastly different.

Regarding to "stop buying their junk and they will fall", they pretty much have a firewall around the country and yet their internet economy still bloom and sustained itself. I'm not so sure if we stop using them as manufacturing hub they will go starving anytime soon.
There is not going to be Ukraine after the war is over to join anything.
 
Ukraine and Russia share a border that's approximately 250 miles long and flat. Taiwan and China are separated by almost 100 miles of ocean. Ocean that's generally rough and has tough sea conditions 10 months out of the year giving China very little opportunity to launch an invasion. This invasion has to traverse 100 miles of water first and would have to be larger than Normandy. Taiwan would have advance notice, as would America. Not to mention Taiwan is a very mountainous region and their population hates China. Taiwan's geography makes it very difficult to invade. The invasion needing to be seaborne only makes it that much harder to pull off.

Even if America didn't intervene, Taiwan is in a much better geographical position than Ukraine is. Geography is king in warfare.
I agree. China can not invade by sea. They would have to use air power. And how that work out in Ukraine?. I believe Chinese aircraft would fall like leaves.
 
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