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-_-_-_-_-  13d ago (noahpinion.blog)   1801 thread views

Noah Smith: Manufacturing is a war now

noahpinion.blog

Industrial policy has been a frequent subject on Smith's blog, for those who don't follow it. (He's for it, and thinks that Biden's industrial policy was mostly good - it's worth following the links in this post.) This post focuses on defense-related geopolitical industrial policy goals and pros and cons of anticipated changes under the incoming Trump administration and Chinese responses. Particularly, he highlights two major things China can do: Restrict exports of raw materials (recently announced) and use their own industrial policy to hamper the West's peacetime industrial policy (de facto policy of the last 30 years). These are not extraordinary insights, but it's a good primer on the current state of affairs and policies to pay attention to in the near-future.

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Why don’t we just let China have Taiwan and the South China Sea? I really don’t care about China. China doesn’t care about most of the rest of the world. China doesn’t seek dominion over European civilization. China is uninterested in the export of world revolution in the way that, say, some historic communist states were. The Taiwanese will do just fine under Chinese rule; even the old KMT vets are unlikely to face any retribution in their very, very old age. Most people neither require nor care about democracy; they want streets that are safe, low crime, affordable and decent food on the table, a youth that is disciplined and hardworking, and a feeling that their country is headed in the right direction.

What matters is civilization. What matters is mass immigration. What matters is law and order. What matters is the cultural rot that has hollowed out the West, leaving a small class of feckless, neurotic elites and a vast population of normal people held hostage by the scum at the bottom of society who continuously go un- and under-punished. What matters is ugliness, in architecture, in obesity, in fonts, in advertising, in fashion. China is responsible for relatively little of this.

Challenging China is both pointless and cruel. The Chinese, for all the great flaws of their system, still have the kind of state capacity and self-belief that Western nations can only dream of. Waging a war against China would be an act of nightmarish self-harm. Fix the West, first, on a cultural level, then worry about whatever the fuck is going to happen with Taiwan (I don’t care).

China doesn’t care about most of the rest of the world.

This is very inaccurate. China has so called Belt and Road initiative which is used to economically influence foreign nations. They have many projects including investing in ports, extraction of natural resources in Africa or influencing South America.

leaving a small class of feckless, neurotic elites and a vast population of normal people held hostage by the scum at the bottom of society who continuously go un- and under-punished

And why you think that China is improvement here? And if you think that people praising greatest mass murderer in history (that targeted own nation, though combination of arrogance, mismanagement and stupidity) are improvement here, then I really prefer feckless, neurotic elites that at least manage to pretend that pointless mass murder is bad. Over feckless, neurotic elites that fail to achieve this.

What matters is ugliness, in architecture, in obesity, in fonts, in advertising, in fashion.

http://hipsterhitler.com/comics/05_typewriter.jpg

Why don’t we just let China have Taiwan and the South China Sea?

Ignoring geopolitics, which others have commented on, Taiwan produces over half of the world's semiconductors and almost all of the most advanced ones.

War between China and Taiwan would almost certainly throw global supply chains into chaos in the short to medium term (possibly longer, depending on how intact the industry remained after any conflict), as well as cede an advantage to China in fields such as AI which require the most advanced chips.

China doesn’t seek dominion over European civilization.

Neither does the U.S., and yet we continue to keep it aligned. Cooperative. The legacy of WWII was that you don’t have to literally occupy a territory to get value from it. Set up the right rules, and the subsequent international order serves your interests.

China would prefer a different set of rules. That’s why they’re reclaiming SCS islands, pushing the rules on international waters, and making passes at Taiwan, eroding the (admittedly weak!) rules about self-determination. The SCS connects major U.S. allies to the rest of the world. Handing those routes over to Chinese control would seriously damage the current order.

What matters is the cultural rot that has hollowed out the West,

I do not believe this can be done while abandoning the world stage. Hand-wringing over whether we’re worthy of dominating the planet is quintessential slave morality. Extending it down to surrendering our own borders and our own cities—isn’t that the source of most of your complaints?

China is responsible for relatively little of this [fecklessness].

I think that’s a difference of opportunity rather than one of character. Say what you will about modern Chinese urbanism; I draw the line at whitewashing the Cultural Revolution.

Waging a war against China would be an act of nightmarish self-harm.

Well…yes. I desperately hope it doesn’t come to this. If the CCP is rational, they hope it won’t, too. We can make it out of this without any nightmares.

Extending it down to surrendering our own borders and our own cities—isn’t that the source of most of your complaints?

If anything, I’m an American imperialist. I think America should directly rule the majority of the world, especially Central and South America, Western Europe and probably Japan and Korea. I just don’t care about China. The Chinese have no great imperialist instinct the way the Japanese, Russians, Anglos and French have or have had. They don’t seek to rule me or convert me to the Chinese system and never have. Theirs is not - in a deep sense, deeper than surface level marxism - an imperial civilization with global aims.

The Chinese have no great imperialist instinct

That is absolute nonsense. Where you got this idea? See: Xinjiang, Tibet, nine dash line. See: long line of emperors. See: obsessive superiority obsession. See: growing military. See: their wolf diplomacy self-inflicted mess. See: belt-and-road attempts.

They don’t seek to rule me

Well, for now they try for example with Latvia, Tibet, Hong-Kong, Taiwan, bunch of places in Africa (all in various coercive stages). Hopefully they will bungle it as most as they can.

And on top of that, I expect that they - like any other humans and nearly all animals - would proceed to run extractive imperialism if they could get away with it. (to the limits of their abilities, for deer it would be gorging on all the grass they have. Still smarter than say praising Mao.)

It really feels like a stretch to say that they'll domino their way from Tibet and Hong-Kong to the US. Those places are chinese speaking neighbors that were part of their territory not long ago. I really can't imagine them trying to invade Europe or the US. They might try to dominate the economy and make censor movies but... that's what the US is already doing.

If they fuck around Taiwan then you immediately will be hit by effects. See where CPU are produced.

Also, I was not disputing "USA will not be invaded" claim. I was disputing mainly "The Chinese have no great imperialist instinct" and "not (...) an imperial civilization with global aims."

"they will not invade USA in predictable future" is hardly proof of "have no great imperialist instinct"

It feels like you're making a bizarre 19th century type argument over which countries have an "imperialist instinct" or are an "imperial civilization." Should we also go after Mongolia and Macedonia just in case they try to take over the world again?

I also find it dubious that the US would fight WW3 just to protect our high-end gaming rigs and bitcoin miners. It's more likely we would simply onshore production (as we are already attempting to do) and put up with slightly decreased performance for a few years.

I am disputing claim that they have some unique "imperialist instinct" or are an "imperial civilization." or lack thereof.

I think America should directly rule the majority of the world

*proceeds to ignore the 1st/2nd largest population country on earth*

Bruh.

No one can afford to be imperialist in the coercive military sense anymore. Wars take far too long and are far too expensive, even for relatively small fronts (see: Ukraine). We're talking about Taiwan, which is a tiny island very very close to Mainland China. Even taking that would likely push the Chinese economy to the brink ... and they may still try.

What matters is who is at the "center" of the world order - economically, military, politically (in the power projection sense). USA is still number 1 in this but it's easy to identify the likely challengers; look at the places with the most people and largest economies contained within a totally self-governing polity. That's China. For a while in the 1990s-2000s, there was some speculation that the EU might create a new pan-Europa, but this was largely a feels based analysis and any intelligent observer saw that the political architecture of the EU and its member states created all sorts of horrible barriers to collective action that would be necessary to displace the Americans. But, I digress.

The Chinese aren't going to sail to Hawaii and San Diego to murder all of us counterrevolutionaries. But they, starting with Taiwan, can change the balance of power in East/Southeast asia .... an area with about 1/3rd of the global population and disproportionate importance in global shipping and trade ... and really disproportionate importance in the semiconductor industry.

"Letting China have Taiwan" doesn't result in the Taiwanese only having a no-good-very-bad-day, it results in the kind of trade war that can destabilize and, frankly, deflate (in all ways) the economic prosperity of the entire planet. The end state scenario of an ascendant China is a generation or two of global depression.

The Chinese have no great imperialist instinct

Throughout most of it's history China had a tributary empire, regarding itself as the centre of civilisation (hence the 'Middle/Central Kingdom'). Neighbouring states were generally forced to adopt Chinese customs and pay tribute (with those that didn't being considered barbarians). It also expanded considerably over the centuries.

It wasn't colonial in the same way as Western European powers were and didn't have overseas territorial expansion or settler colonies (presumably largely due to China having such extensive land borders and territory to expand into), but it was definitely imperialistic.

One might argue that imperial Chinese history has little to no bearing on the posture of the modern Chinese state. As I understand we don't have good insight into the internal dynamics and political factions within the CCP, so it's difficult to talk definitively, but I do think it's pertinent that:

  • The period from the 19th century up to the formation of the current People's Republic of China is known as the Century of Humiliation, which emphasises China's loss of sovereignty and exploitation at the hands of European powers. Restoration of territorial integrity and becoming a global superpower is seen as a response to this. Personally, I think that the long history of China as the perceived centre of civilisation commanding tribute from surrounding nations is undoubtably relevant here.
  • Unlike say the US, China is a major importer of food (with relatively little arable land compared to its population) and energy (especially oil). Even if it wanted to, due to this it cannot be isolationist in the same way that the US now arguably could since the advent of fracking.

In terms of foreign relations policy the argument is more mixed. Certainly the CCP's stated foreign relations principles generally emphasise territorial respect, non-aggression and non-interference, and as I understand it the CCP does generally vote in accordance with these at the UN. However:

  • The CCP is frequently belligerent with its neighbours, and has the view that any territory formally part of the Chinese empire is rightfully theirs.
  • While it is always difficult to determine intent, it's quite plausible that this foreign policy position is a temporary posture. Its origins are from Xiaoping who came to power of the CCP in the 1970s, and while it emphasised the avoidance of controversy and use of cooperation, it was based on a Chinese idiom about biding one's time while building up strength.
  • Since the 2010s, and with China being in a much stronger position, the CCP's public diplomacy has definitely been much more combative (being colloquially dubbed 'Wolf Warrior' diplomacy).

Fix the West, first, on a cultural level, then worry about whatever the fuck is going to happen with Taiwan (I don’t care).

To join some of the other replies here, I would contend that allowing random revanchist tendencies to go unchecked would actually make it much harder to fix the West when economies go into the crapper, because wars of annexation tend to be pretty bad on a world of global trade (military border control being a damper on international movement of goods and money). Now, it is possible to head towards law-and-order without the backdrop of a strong economy, but the West has generally been about not resembling the countries that do so for quite a while now.

My answer here is that there is no meaningful "we", and your level of analysis is decoupled from actions you can personally take, because the US natsec blob gains meaning from opposition to China and is thus pretty set on that.

Coupling it with actions would be much more interesting, e.g., "why don't we form a voting block that attempts to influence either mainstream party into doing so?", "why don't we see if we can get 100 people to call their US representatives about [whatever]?", "why don't I personally see how I can meaningfully trade with China, e.g., by manufacturing stuff there".

Most people neither require nor care about democracy; they want streets that are safe, low crime, affordable and decent food on the table, a youth that is disciplined and hardworking, and a feeling that their country is headed in the right direction.

How is it possible then that there are US cities with urban cores that have none of these, and yet the local population clings to their idea of democracy?

They don’t cling to it, they simply know nothing else, nothing better.

You're much smarter and better than this.

"They've all got a chronic case of the Stupids!" is some reddit level shit.

You know the answer. You actually said it in your original jeremiad in this thread. San Franciscan and Chicagoan political elites have a relative value preference that prioritizes fealty to their political orthodoxy over real-world solutions. Why? Because it sustains and supports their status within their political groups, thus growing their access to power and resources. It is an elite circle cannabalizing the plight of normies for their own game. This is actually one of the closest things to consensus on The Motte - the ways to deal with it are the sources of argument.

Give an inch, they take a mile. If you just let China take Taiwan with no fight because the war would be so costly, why would China stop there? Would you let them conquer every island in the Pacific until they have everything except Hawaii too?

Because they don’t want. China for much of the last 2000 years had insane state capacity, a centralized government and some of the most modern technology of the age, and yet its territorial expansion was highly restrained.

Lol. 'We conquered to our technological limits to afford and maintain a coherent empire that, bounded by the jungles and the himelayas and the steppe and ocean, was still one of the largest in the world' is not what most historical contexts would consider 'highly restrained' imperial conquest. The Chinese imperialists conquered what they could hold, extorted what they could not, and weren't aware of what else they could profitably do.

The Chinese empires of old certainly lost out on the expansionism of overseas colonization, but this was a result of oversight and court politics, not knowing alternative opportunities existed and choosing restraint out of virtue. The modern Chinese state generally consider this a mistake not to be repeated.

Great point, and great way of wording it

I guess it depends on how invested you are in American hegemony. Which if you are a westerner, or especially a non-American westerner, might seem like a silly thing to be rooting for. But you might not realize how good you have it.

If the US lets China take Taiwan, then much of south-east Asia probably reorients politically. The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. fall out of American orbit and into the Chinese sphere; on the other hand, India might seek a formal American military alliance. International waters are no longer guaranteed by the US Navy, and the costs of cross-oceanic bulk cargo increase massively. Major economic disturbances ripple out as markets realign; international computing and mineral markets take years to recover. South Korea and Japan become nuclear states in a matter of weeks or months; Japan rips up its constitution immediately. Australia prepares to be the bulwark of southeast Asia.

Agreed. I don't see why I should be happy about some global crusade that tries, and realistically probably fails, to save the Chinese people from their despotism while I have to call the employee to unlock the toothpaste at the store because our own society has increasingly made it possible to do violent crime and property crime,

A failure to adopt a pro-social care and concern for others is why they locked up the toothpaste.

You're talking about being anti-social on a global scale.

You can absolutely be 100% "America First" without being "America Only"

Well, the fact is that these two things have basically nothing to do with one another. And it isn't even a matter of "political capital is finite and government can only do so much" because China policy is federal and locking up toothpaste is local. We're talking about completely different policy spheres.

Why don’t we just let Russia have the territory of former Novorossiya? The same arguments apply as here.

  • China is about 10x as strong
  • China does not seem to want more than taiwan and access to the ocean
  • Russia has a (recent) record of using military means and nuclear threats to expand its borders – China’s relative peacefulness (100x) should be rewarded and Russia’s behaviour punished . If nothing else, to avoid nuclearization.

China does not seem to want more than taiwan and access to the ocean

Dude ... why do they want access to the ocean? You're answering your own implied question here.

They don't want to get blockaded to shit every time they displease Current Hegemon?

right, now follow the thread further.

If you don't want to be beholden to the whims of Current Hegemon, the only way to guarantee that is to be roughly equivalent in overall power and capability to Current Hegemon. If you grow to that size, however, Current Hegemon will suspect you're a rival - which you are.

That precarious balance of power creates a tension that can go cold to hot very quickly.

China having a "history of peaceful behavior" (I would contest this assertion) does nothing to resolve this.

If you don't want to be beholden to the whims of Current Hegemon, the only way to guarantee that is to be roughly equivalent in overall power and capability to Current Hegemon.

I would say that this is not only legitimate but the right and proper aim of any nation. As opposed to the British strategy, which is to bleat endlessly about the ‘special relationship’ and hope America throws us some scraps.

I see it fas a fundamentally legitimate demand, they don’t want to be at the mercy of their rival. I’m not fighting a world war to deny them that modest amount of autonomy.

Your reasoning doesn’t seem to allow for any legitimate demand on their part, they’re just supposed to accept being beholden to the whims of current hegemon forever. Like, if they build a fort in the suburbs of beijing, the US will seemingly go: “wowowow, hold on, your capital is now less vulnerable to my potential attacks, I can’t order you around anymore, that is an obvious threat to my hegemony, you’re now a rival for world domination, let’s have a war”.

From that perspective, you could say that just china strengthening and no longer starving is ‘destabilizing’ and causing war. For my part, I don’t think the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspires the Lacedaemon, makes war inevitable.

A hegemon who wishes to keep any potential rival too weak to ever present a challenge (for example, I sometimes hear the idea that the US should have bombed China into the stone age in the 80s, while it still could) is a terrible tyrant who should be overturned.

The PRC wants the South China Sea, Taiwan, Senkaku, Ryukyu (they've openly put out feelers, even if they haven't officially demanded it yet), and a few territories along the Indian border, plus maybe Korea, plus some degree of control over the policy of ~everywhere (see e.g. the Fourteen Demands).

Japan and South Korea will nuclearise if Taiwan falls unfought. Pure if-then. In a world where the USA is not willing to defend East Asia and the PLAN has Pacific Ocean access unobstructed by the First Island Chain, Beijing would otherwise be able to dictate terms to them due to the threat of blockade (neither country is remotely close to food security).

Unless we feel like performing the kowtow, we're probably going to have to fight the PRC, and if so we should fight it while our allies are all intact and the geography works against it.

I don’t care if South Korea and Japan have nukes and would probably consider it a good thing. I’m very confident that Xi Jinping does not personally want to rule over the Japanese the way Putin dreams of reconstituting the Russian Empire, so I don’t really care.

I don't care .... I don't really care

I care .... I really, really care.

the Great Man theory of history really is some midwit shit. This isn't about Xi or Putin, this is about large scale economic-military-political spheres of control and influence that will outlive both of these men. The post WW2 world order was started by a bunch of Americans that are now very dead and has been sustained for going on 80 years because of a system maintained and reinforced by cultural, political, economic, and military forces.

China is not seeking Taiwan as an end state. They are seeking to create a Chinese system (of cultural, political, economic, and military means) that similarly self-sustains and self-supports for centuries. That can only come with a reduction in both the relative and absolute power of the West, especially the United States. Such a drastic shift in power will necessarily alter our cultural values and operation. I don't want Beijing's incredibly global presence to dictate cultural norms to any extent (aside: Ban TikTok).

The world hasn't gotten any smaller, but nations (in the conceptual sense) have become larger and can move faster and further. There is no "over there" any more.

Who’s next?

Just like Japan and Korea’s fear of being cut off from the ocean is understandable, so is China’s. Even a reasonable and peaceful China would do everything to remove this knife from their throat. I’m uncomfortable getting into a massive war without trying appeasement first. You can speculate on China’s ultimate goals, but there is no record of defection and increasing demands like there is with Russia. Every power gets one tschekoslovakia, one free defect, that’s my rule.

Are you perhaps forgetting Hong Kong? They agreed to preserve Hong Kong's political systems from 1997-2047; that didn't even last until 2022.

They also have been building villages inside Bhutan, apparently confident that Bhutan can't do anything about it and nobody will call them out on it. I think there was one inside India as well.

Let's not forget their long-standing habit of taking hostages to extort their home countries' governments, and of controlling their diaspora by holding their non-diaspora families hostage.

I seem to recall a recent incident where they lit up an Australian ship with targeting radar (usually considered sufficient cause to fire back), but I can't find a citation.

The PRC is currently playing defect-bot*. A lot of these incidents are "nothingburgers" because the other side just cries and takes it, but that just means it's playing defect-bot successfully.

(Also, Japan and South Korea have far, far more to worry about from blockade than China; China has a much-better land:people ratio and it has access to land imports; Japan has no land borders and South Korea's only one is with North Korea i.e. a close Chinese ally that would take part in any such blockade. China would feel some pain from a sea blockade, but it's a long way from "lol state failure as people eat each other".)

*Its strategy is probably technically "Spiteful-Bully", but eh.

We can't tell how efficient the Chinese armed forces are. Their performance was surely not exactly stellar the last time they were sent into combat, between 1979-88 in the Chinese-Vietnamese border region. Their navy is pretty much an unknown entity in that regard in particular. There's nothing to suggest that they'd turn out to be more impressive than their Russian counterparts.

Also, you're comparing apples to oranges. The Russian Federation exists on the ruins of an empire that lost her entire periphery in 1991. This never happened to Communist China. Of course they're going to appear to be more peaceful.

There's nothing to suggest that they'd turn out to be more impressive than their Russian counterparts.

Economic, industrial and demographic might.

The Russian Federation exists on the ruins of an empire that lost her entire periphery in 1991. This never happened to Communist China. Of course they're going to appear to be more peaceful.

I don't care if it had a rough childhood. It has proven itself incapable of behaving in a civilized manner and should be incapacitated whether it has moral responsibility or not (rabid bear).

It has proven itself incapable of behaving in a civilized manner and should be incapacitated whether it has moral responsibility or not (rabid bear).

This standard means the US empire needs to be incapacitated as well. What the US has done in Libya, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc is well beyond the bounds of 'civilized' behavior. You don't get to talk about the evil Russian empire while defending the same empire that dumped agent orange on Vietnam.

Vietnam was before Russia had its own Afghanistan debacle, ancient history. I’ll grant that the US has a weaker record of peacefulness than China. I don’t want to get into a discussion of the US’ moral responsibility and war justifications either, it’s largely irrelevant. Most of the reasons why Russia should be fought and China let off the hook apply to the US as well: order of magnitude stronger, no expanding-expansionist goals, no nuclear threats.

Pretty sure that the US has been trying to expand into Russia and China for the last half century.

To quote @netstack

The legacy of WWII was that you don’t have to literally occupy a territory to get value from it. Set up the right rules, and the subsequent international order serves your interests.

The US is very keen to make Russia and China follow US rules, and I'm pretty sure they would bring about regime change if they could.

The rabidness of the Russian Bear should not cause us to discount the hunger of the Chinese Bear. Xi Jinping has made it clear that he wants China to have prestige and respect, and for all the power it has built up and all the subterfuge it has done, China does not yet have the same level of world-historical importance as the US. Anything and everything to reverse the Century of Humiliation should be considered as on the table for such a goal.

We have centuries of Chinese history in which imperialism was highly limited, contra centuries of Russian imperialism in which it very much was not.

Yes, but I suspect the point of view of China's current rulers is that these choices in its history were mistakes that they will consciously not make, which potentially means "take the opposite actions"--again, see the Century of Humiliation. Modern China will not do something as hindsightedly retarded as "ban oceanworthy ships."

This doesn't preclude China constraining itself in ways that are objectively counterproductive (overjuiced real estate, zero-COVID policy), but they seek to be the next hegemon, to embrace the Imperial history instead of trying to make it disappear, and thus we must assume they will not abstain from things that states try to do when they feel they have no limits.

True, if you were to have knowledge of Putin vs Xi’s wildest territorial dreams if they could get away with anything, I think I’d be quite sure the latter’s would be Taiwan, nine-dash-line and the US out of Korea (and probably also the end of the Kim regime, which the CCP has long been ambivalent about). Putin’s wildest territorial dreams clearly go way beyond Eastern Ukraine.

I find all this to be a bit far-fetched. When exactly did the Chinese Communists express any intent to unify Korea after expelling the Americans? Their intervention in the Korean War didn't go to such lengths either. We might as well say that their wildest dreams include Vladivostok. And what Russian ambitions are 'way beyond' Eastern Ukraine? Don't tell me it's Moldova of all places.

Their intervention in the Korean War didn't go to such lengths either.

Uh, yeah, it did? Mao was absolutely trying to unify Korea under Kim Il-Sung. They captured Seoul and would have taken all of South Korea had the UN forces not driven them back.

I don't think we can say that with certainty. The intervention happened when North Korea was on the verge of complete defeat and I'd be surprised to learn that it had goals more ambitious then restoring the status quo.

I think you might need to read up a bit more on Mao Zedong. The Sino-Soviet split occurred because Mao thought Khrushchev wasn't being aggressive enough in spreading communism; Mao was very aggressive, and was involved in the planning of the initial North Korean invasion of South Korea.

It's debatable whether Mao would have come in if the UN hadn't invaded North Korea, but once he did he absolutely intended to unify Korea under Kim.

(To be clear, this particular incident has little bearing on modern Chinese intentions; Xi Jinping is not Mao and has different objectives. He is also aggressive, but in a different fashion.)

Rhetoric is one thing, actions are another. Altogether I find it a bit of a stretch to say that Chinese foreign policy was markedly aggressive during Mao, either compared to that of the USSR or the Qing Dynasty for that matter.

Yeah, I agree that we should, but it would have been smart to negotiate that at the nadir of the Russian campaign in early 2023 when we could have gotten some major concessions.

Because if we weaken the norm that powerful countries can't just annex other countries, then we should expect to see a lot more war and a break down of the international order that allows global trade.

I can think of half a dozen countries off the top of my head who could start wars to gain territory if they knew they had the implicit permission of NATO and the western powers. This will hurt civilisation, increase illegal immigration, reduce law and order and generally results in a shittier world.

Because if we weaken the norm that powerful countries can't just annex other countries

What norm? There is no such norm.

The us overthrew a democratically elected leader from Ukraine and installed a puppet.

The us has been engaging in fuckery funding terrorists in the middle east, assassinating Haitian presidents and countless other "norm breaking". Israel has been bombing military generals inside other countries sovereign territory.

At this point if the Russians decide to start assassinating US military command staff on US soil, I wouldn't bat an eye.

You galactically overestimate the effect the CIA, or any spy agency for that matter, can ever have. Spy agencies can only nudge, or, at most, provide a spark when there's a highly flammable situation.

Saying the US overthrew the president of Ukraine is like saying the Russian FSB elected Trump in 2016.

The us overthrew a democratically elected leader from Ukraine and installed a puppet.

The Ukrainian people overthrew a leader who had lost their support. Russia likes to frame it as 'the US overthrew Ukrainian democracy', but they also frame their attempt to annex and genocide the Ukrainian nation as a defensive war against NATO.

Other countries have agency too.

Ah yes, such agency, much wow. Supporting Nazi larping snipers and having CIA handlers on the ground, very democracy, lots of self determination. Russia also wouldn't be invading Ukraine if NATO wasn't trying to cut them off the black sea.

and genocide the Ukrainian nation

If they wanted to genocide the Ukrainin nation they would have nuked it already.

Russia also wouldn't be invading Ukraine if NATO wasn't trying to cut them off the black sea.

NATO was planning on taking Krasnodar Krai? That's a new one to me.

Nazi larping snipers

There's a weird overlap between wokes, who think everyone right wing is a Nazi, and Russian nationalists, who think anyone who doesn't want Russia to invade them is a Nazi.

For clarity, Nazi refers to the National Socialist German Workers Party, which was in power in Germany in the 1930s and 40s. Using it outside of that is just a lazy slur and the kind of thing we try to avoid on this site.

CIA handlers on the ground

Do you genuinely believe that if the CIA hadn't had any involvement, the Maidan wouldn't have happened and the Ukrainian people would have happily seen their country tied to the poor dictatorship to the East rather than the wealthy democracies to the West? You really think a handful of intelligence agents have so much power that they are able to control the actions of hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise have done nothing?

There are always dissatisfied factions in any country. As the country’s condition worsen, dissenting factions become stronger, but I’m pretty sure foreign support can significantly affect: a) which dissenting faction ends up on top, b) whether they’re strong enough to beat the existing government.

These things are exponential, like avalanches, or pandemics. That’s why repression almost always aims to wipe out dissidents when they’re weak and isolated.

It seems entirely plausible to me that no US support = no Maidan revolution.

Why would no US support for a primarily European supported pro-European movement mean no European support for a pro-European movement?

I can think of half a dozen countries off the top of my head who could start wars to gain territory if they knew they had the implicit permission of NATO and the western powers.

None of those countries are as powerful as China, most don’t have nuclear weapons and - if they do - so does the other guy. That’s the difference.

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Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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