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The end of NATO?
- Thread starter Waveoff
- Start date
Seriously?
OK…in 2001 Jiang Zemin became President of China. He came to power unexpectedly as a compromise candidate following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre and the west was anxious to use the moment to pull China closer to the west (a further engagement of Nixon’s China policy). Politically, Jiang was a modernist and pushed China away from Mao’s socialist structure of government ownership to private ownership and a “socialist market economy” (CHICAPS to use the AW pun). If you are interested, look up “breaking the iron rice bowl.” Not all of his actions were popular with the hard-liners.
His reforms encouraged the west to invite China into the WTO. But, they didn’t last. Jiang and his “Shanghai Clique” of other modernists were gradually replaced with hardliners until Xi Jinping took over. Put simply, Jiang in 2001 is not Xi in 2024. All of the good intentions and soft power of 2001’s moves were washed away by a more aggressive China…except now it had exceptional global financial reach. What was a good policy in 2001 is not a good policy today. The same applies to Obama. He was misled by Putin and Medvedev and the end product is not what the Russia Reset envisioned.
So, put simply, even the “smoothest” diplomacy and best mid-century diplomatic style can’t predict the future - so - Trump’s unusual and disruptive style is broadly meaningless when measured against a) his short term accomplishment (will he bring peace?) and b) the lasting impact of that peace.
This much is true.
I may be misreading the intent of this, but I'd argue China has already been doing that while also still being aggressive in the Pacific. China has moved into AFG (an Indian trading partner), they have Belt and Road into Africa and the Med, and they've got their various economic claws set into Central and South America.
I don't disagree with your statement, it just seems like it's long since already happened (or is happening).
Your assessment is correct. China has been playing the “great powers” game using money to buy access since Xi came into power, and in a tragicomedy way we’ve been paying for it with our purchasing power. The big point here, and this certainly is NOT the result of any Trump “wisdom” is that while Russia wants to play the Great Power game, they can’t. To pivot off of @robav8r post above, Putin has fucked Russia into a cocked hat. Putin, in his foolish strike at Ukraine, has…
Lost nearly 3800 tanks (and it will take 10 or more years to rebuild)
Lost some 7500 armored combat and infantry combat vehicles
Lost 395 combat aircraft
Suffered the worst naval defeat since 1905
And, of course, the manpower losses - which they can easily replace.
No matter how this ends, Russia is the real global loser.
He has also grown NATO, as both Sweden and Finland joined the alliance since the war began.
Excellent addition to the list.
Russia made some territorial progress - and they had a 4-1 manpower advantage as well as significant armor and artillery numbers. How does Ukraine retake territory when they would have to attack despite being outnumbered 4-1? It appears that maneuver tactics are extremely difficult and we have returned to WW1 attrition warfare requiring massive industrial capacity- too bad we gave our manufacturing base to China.
Comments like these always make me chuckle, and reveal the level of education behind how much people really know about the US economy. If wars were decided on making cheap manufactured goods with low quality commodities, then yeah China has an advantage. When it comes to producing high tech advanced systems at scale then it’s apples and oranges. China couldn’t even produce organically sourced ballpoint pens until 2017.
Again, how are they going to reclaim territory? Russia has the financial and numerical advantage. Just a matter of time. Ukraine needs to quit while they can instead of throwing more innocent Ukrainians to the meat grinder
What's this great financial advantage you post of? Their economy is in the toilet.
Would be cool if there were means to help accelerate that spiral to get them to leave, and not concern-post about UKR troop losses. They're in an existential fight.
It's apparent that quite a few of the participants in this thread either dont have access, or dont have a desire to read how things are really going on the battle field. Yes, it would be costly for UKR to keep up the fight. And yes, Russia is also a shit show that is vulnerable to prolonged loss of kit and personnel, especially if you pair that with a sanction laden economy. The longer the Russians fight, the stupider they look, and the less their neighbors are intimidated with anything short of nuclear weapons.