I'm no expert here but wasn't Russia doing the same thing? Taking over Ukraine with their puppet government would mean Poland, Moldova, and more countries could be next.
Well that is certainly the MSM talking point. The (unsupported) fear that Russia won't stop at Ukraine. I have never seen any evidence of that, however. It is clear in my mind Russia has a very specific purpose and has drawn a bright line at Ukraine and western encroachment there. It has attempted peace there, many times, to no avail. I see no credible evidence Russia has designs on other nations in the region. It just wants NATO out of Ukraine as the starting point. I think that's very reasonable from Russia's perspective. It's a threat on their doorstep.
I do find the bipolar western Europe concerns interesting. They simultaneously mock Russia as being an incapable military, yet are concerned of further invasions into Europe. It's a logical inconsistency. Which means it is propaganda on both fronts. Russia is actually quite capable, and their strategy is sound in spite of internet commandos claiming otherwise. And Russia has shown reservation and no inclination on other nations beyond Ukraine.
Flip that script to Mexico, Russia installing pro-Russian government, weapons, training, etc. on our doorstep. Or Russian drones spying on us from the Gulf of Mexico. We know the result, it occurred in Cuba in 1960s. The US would not tolerate it.
It's really unfortunate for the Ukrainians when they made that fateful decision in 2014 to do another color revolution.
Agreed.
US has the advantage in military because it has more military spending than the rest of the world combined, and more than half of the USD is circulated oversea. This is why US is so powerful and can win all battles.
Hang on with that. While it is true the US grossly overspends everyone else, we also grossly overpay high margins, and corrupt kickbacks and 10% to the big guy middle men for much of our MIC costs. IOW, we do not efficiently spend our money, whereas there is no comparable middle men in these other nations. Their funds go directly to the state owned military investments without corporate men skimming off the transactions. The US simply cannot win all battles, and demonstrably cannot win wars in 7 decades, due to a lot of factors we can debate at length but the fact remains in spite of all our spending and impressive tools and tech, it has gotten us effectively nowhere.
that circulation around the world aspect can stop if major commodities are not traded in USD. The quickest way to lose that is losing other nations using USD in their currency reserves. How can that happen? By pissing off countries with major economies using USD (China, Japan, S Korea, etc) and losing our military power (i.e sunking of the aircraft carrier).
If that happens, many of the USD would get out of reserves and back into US in exchange for gold and commodities. Then the downward spiral of how to fund the military and how to protect the USD. The world economy will go backwards by at least 100 years from what an economist told me.
100% Agreement. And we are seeing exactly this. The US has been a global bully for decades and using the petro-dollar global reserve currency to force our will on others, thru trade embargos, seizing assets, freezing accounts, manipulating currency, printing money out of thin air (thus devaluing what we gave them), etc. The other nations have wised up, formed allegiances and begun trading in gold, oil, Yuan, etc. and are developing an alternate (probably gold-backed crypto) currency to replace the USD. The USD petro-dollars have largely been responsible for US wealth, 1st world lifestyles, and dominance. That is rapidly coming to an end, per a lot of experts in economics.
This is why it is not a good idea to pick a battle with a lot of nations especially China (they don’t need to win, they just need US to lose so much despite winning), and there are incentives for China not to pick a fight with the US (they too will collapse if they pick a fight). Taiwan has no problem as long as US remains a super power and US does not start a war with China or encourage Taiwan to go independent.
I agree the US should radically dial back aggressive foreign policies. I think the best strategy for Taiwan, is they are not our fight or problem. We should be investing heavily instead into building our own tech/chip manufacturing plants in the US. I read one US strategy for Taiwan is to blow up the chip plants so China cannot have them. So it almost seems that no matter how this shakes out the US will need chip plants. I know Intel is building them but it's years from completion. I just shared an article stating the US is 13 years behind in munitions manufacturing as well. Our main allies in NATO are even worse off, they don't have energy, or really effective militaries, arms, munitions, food, etc. Most are heavily in debt too. They are of very limited help.
China is aligned with Russia, Saudi Arabi, India, Iran, Iraq, Brazil, etc. the largest energy and food producers in the world. China can easily trade good for energy and food. I do not see China realistically losing to the US, and given they have far greater global allegiances, manufacturing ability, and are in close proximity to oil, energy, food, etc. trade partners, China will weather a war far better than the US.
About Russia, they don’t have a choice in the future but to not lose any more Warsaw pack countries. They have nuke and resource but their biggest problem is economy. So they have to rely on China, who doesn’t want them gone or else the only common enemy left for NATO is China. I see the more US being hostile to either of them the closer they will be to each other.
Russia has grown its allegiances. It is trading arms with Iran, I think also N. Korea. The BRICS nations include Brazil, Russia, India, China, Saudi Arabia, plus others aligned include Iran, Iraq, Syria, plus resources from Afghanistan, S. Africa, and a handful more. Combined these represent at least 50% of the globe by population (>4 BILLION PEOPLE), and among the largest energy, oil, gas, food, weapons, manufacturing, and technology nations in the world. I don't think Russia is struggling for allegiances...
The US has by comparison 5% of the world population. WE definitely have superb military strength but it's propped up by the USD as you pointed out. And with $32 trillion debt, we are teetering on insolvency. WE simply don't have the money for more wars. That's problematic. It's further problematic we rely heavily on import trade and we do not have a strong manufacturing base to make things. We have a divided nation with deep socio-economic problems and seem unable or unwilling to fix simple problems here. IMO expecting we are going to fund some multi-front global war with half the world is insane and delusional. The US would be left in ruins in a conventional war. Militarily we cannot do it, and economically we'd be sent back to pre-industrial times with no economy or energy grids.
