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A few destroyers (or even a lot of destroyers) aren't enough to break a blockade supported by aircraft. The 055 (which is really a cruiser) has 112 VLS cells and an extra 24 point defense missiles. That means with 100% of its VLS cells loaded with interceptors and a 100% interception rate, it gets sunk by a mere six B-1s carrying 144 LRASM. China probably needs aircraft cover to make a breakout there against bombers (properly supported by ISR assets) work.
However, I tend to agree with you that the blockade is not a solution (outside of putting economic pressure on China). China's navy can't be in two places at once, but I am not sure it would even try to bust a blockade, because I think they will be able to get vital imports (food, oil) from Russia. Xi would have been foolish not to secure this in his meeting with Putin over the war in Ukraine.
Watching DJT & Company, I think that they are comfortable with the US being "first among equals" in a multipolar world. In that state, there is no "theory of victory" – America slims down its hegemony to a more traditional sphere of influence and coexists with China, Russia and possibly India as peer states. But I think you are too quick to write off robotics as a replacement for China's aging population. I don't know that it's impossible, but a destabilized population pyramid can cause problems besides merely economic ones. I think we've seen sufficient evidence in the United States that domination of the political sphere by older generations can cause "lag" in apprehending new geopolitical developments (or an overemphasis on relitigating old ones!) So I do think one American theory of dominating China is just letting it fall apart of its own inertia.
But, if America wanted to be more aggressive, I think you are correct that baiting China into overreaching militarily is an easy option. Perhaps not a safe or smart one, because once the dogs of war are loosed there's no telling where they will run. But the US could probably bait China into invading Taiwan within a year at any given time. If the US believed it could win a war – and I've been trending pessimistic about China's capabilities in this regard – it would wait until it had sufficient LRASMs and Taiwan had adequate sea mines and Harpoons, and spring the trap. If the US does this, I imagine it will do it in the next decade, and probably once it gets its newer hypersonic anti-ship missiles to actually work.
Xi was perhaps foolish; China hasn't been willing to (publicly?) sign (further) long term deals (necessary to finance more pipelines) and instead enjoys limited flows from older contracts while with most Russian production capacity lacks a way to reach China. Further, they're reducing consumption due to new sanctions.
I have a pet theory that Chinese green hydrogen will cause a $80BOE ceiling on gas. N.b. heavy vehicles now consume over half of LNG in China. Now, it's just a theory and I am bullish on gas in the short term, but the financials on new projects are breathtaking.
@Magusoflight this, you see, is my "motive: trading commodities for a profit. As a long believer in some commodities supercycle to raise the next 2 billion people out of poverty, we're not seeing the same growth drivers but rather a decrease in Chinese construction aligned with long term government policy etc. I was rather shocked to realize that the CCP literally announces its policies in 5 year plans, which it actually does, enriching investors positioned to enable it. You jump to accusing me of "lying" instead of digging a bit deeper into something "well known". How do you know this? Do you agree with the same sources when they e.g. preached diversity, immigration etc.? It's particularly perplexing that @Dean claims my "economic narrative waves aside the property bubble" when I specifically wrote about it. Isn't OP's very point that we, the West, have lost, because we can't get our heads out of our asses, honestly look at the world and act? Hell, I'm not pushing the technological envelope and seeking transcendence either, I'm just seeking alpha in society's delusions.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2018/03/19/ghost-towns-or-boomtowns-what-new-cities-really-become
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/chinese-ghost-cities-2021-binhai-zhengdong-new-districts-fill-up
@phailyoor I know the government takes passports in general (particularly for people working on financial infrastructure) but DeepSeekers have said in the last days that this is not happening. I asked OP if he has proof for it, because it would really solidify his narrative.
Those articles are all quite old and I can find much more recent ones that seem to find those ghost cities are very much still a thing. Let’s leave that aside however, the construction of those buildings is horrific - the corruption in China means nothing is built to code, with them using literal beach sand in their concrete. The result? Tofu dreg quality that falls apart after only a few years. And with a population falling almost as fast as South Korea, having already peaked and no immigration to speak of, who will buy the excess inventory? Why are home sales plummeting along with home prices?
It’s true the gov announces 5 year plans but it’s not that easy to profit off it. The Chinese stock market is famously difficult to make money in.
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Perhaps it perplexes you that you were not the subject of that comment?
Your own comment on the subject of the property bubble was certainly wrong- the overproduction of buildings and ghost cities were not issues that were resolved by 'filling them up'- but I did not make a claim about your specific argument because I was not addressing your specific argument.
Is it? I've known the poster formerly known as Ilforte for years, and the fact that he defined 'theory of victory' in terms of-
-strikes me as both characteristic enough of him and disconnected enough from American political paradigm to move on without further engagement or consideration, had you not invoked me by name.
The OP certainly has enough viewpoint differences with members of this forum and broader political coalitions that I would doubt his ability to characterize, let alone speak for 'we' or 'the west,' let alone defer to his judgement or assessments on the world. For example, it is certainly a common enough perspective to believe the American end-state is hegemony as a goal in and of itself. But that perspective demonstrates a general lack of cultural awareness of how dominant American political conceptions often view American geopolitical power as a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself. There are certainly elements of American politics which value geopolitical power for power's own sake, but the reason that the American electorate has gone for the domestic-priorities President for every election for the last 30-odd years is because those foreign-affairs interests are not dominant. It is a cultural inclination which almost only the Americans get to afford thanks in no small part due to geography and geopolitical separation from revanchist and ethnic-solidarity cultural paradigms.
At which point, consideration of what that the goal of US policy and thus 'victory' would be needs to be something 'the West' would agree upon. Whether that is Americans in a comfortable isolationism even if the world burns, or America ensuring other states don't get devoured by blobbing neighbors, or any other American paradigm of what the American goal is- would be rather relevant to what a theory of victory would be.
Put another way-
IF American victory is being the hegemon, then lack of hegemony is failure and China wins by being individually strongest.
However-
IF American victory is China not establishing military domination of eastern Eurasia, then raising potential costs of Chinese intervention to degree that China doesn't engage in territorial conquest on revanchist grounds against its regional neighbors / military intervention spree in east asia is victory, regardless of whether China or the US is individually the strongest.
It could even be regardless of a Taiwan scenario outcome. A loss over Taiwan / successful Chinese conquest over American objection would certainly be a defeat, but if the Chinese experience is bad enough that the next 50 years are spent on Chinese internal stability issues rather than trying to blob like Russia when it thinks it has a shot against the former soviet sphere, that would still be a begrudged 'victory' by a 'China doesn't dominate eastern asia' standard. It would be a victory even if the Americans are globally considered a secondary power compared to the glorious China. It would be victory even when people who insist that the American position is just cope for having lost hegemony weigh in.
Victory conditions are typically pre-defined if they are to be useful. Pre-definition requires accurate characterization of a party's goals or objectives.
This is the distinction from judging victory by a relative power relationship paradigm rather than an outcome paradigm, and more specifically which outcome. And this distinction, in turn, leads to different considerations- such as whether the US needs to be Number 1 at all times, or just be close enough for China's long-term issues to constrain its middle kingdom ambitions.
Now, presumably OP believe more of the former- it's hist standard that requires hegemony. However, it is not clear at all to me that 'the West,' or at least the Americans and their Asian allies who matter in Asia, do not believe the later. And if the OP believes one way, and 'the West' believes another, it is not obvious that it is only heads-in-asses to blame for not deferring to the OP's paradigm.
Which will probably be taken as some hostile insult by the OP, when it is not, since we get along like that.
(I love you too, Ilforte, and I'm glad you're safe and still writing even if I am unconvinced by you.)
Functional American hegemony, whether as a means or as an end, has clearly lasted for decades. Do you simply concede that it's not going to survive and the US accepts that since its continuation is not worth or not feasible fighting for?
Do you argue that people like Palmer Luckey, Alex Karp, Alex Wang, Dario Amodei, Sam Altman are, similarly to me, clueless and in disconnect with your political culture? Because they definitely argue for the maintenance and indeed revitalization of hegemony, not some strategic retreat to domestic affairs. Says Amodei:
As you can see he deems bipolar outcome unacceptable, since it's merely a prelude to American (and all Western/liberal) defeat: either the US wins a “durable strategic advantage” by capitalizing on its compute edge, or China does by capitalizing on its industrial capacity. For my part I think he's wrong and dumb, the US is highly defensible and not at risk of Chinese unipolar dominance. But that is his argument, and others are making near-identical ones.
From CSIS, I don't know, maybe you hold them too in contempt, but they use the same terminology:
All of this does not look to me like acceptance of coming multipolarity.
Do you write it off as inconsequential self-interest of individual players, because the vote of salt-of-the-earth rednecks is more influenced by price of eggs?
No. I tend to not concede to strawmen of arguments I did not make.
A second no. I thought it was clear that I argue that you do not understand how well connected people like they are or are not to the dominant American (or western) political cultures.
A third no. Though I do applaud you for ever-consistent efforts for an acerbic condescension, Ilforte.
So, how well connected are they? Enlighten me. Being a clueless Imperialist (or however you see me), I have developed the impression that Peter Thiel and his creatures, and Palantir specifically, are fairly well connected in the current American establishment.
I am under the (admittedly probably incorrect) impression that Thiel works from the sidelines, and even if he is well-connected, will not exploit these connections and opportunities to the hilt so as to keep his exposure to risk within an acceptable level. I say this because I think the single most overt political act he ever did was bankroll Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker, and he only seemed to do that because it was personal. After that, it's mostly just donating to political campaigns. Palantir, I have no clue.
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Ah, ok.
I read this as him coming to terms (at least starting to) with there not being a West qua actor with concrete goals etc. similar to whoever, a few weeks back, noted alt right thoughts about the deep state were all wrong, since it didn't resist Trump and just ...let itself and its consensus be dismantled. This is why, in my original comment, I mentioned Western traditionalists' growing support of China. Aschenbrenner et al. are case in point, self important little men plotting how to play the wrong game. I believe, in the past, OP simply feared Western actors might flip the board before we achieve the cosmicists' dream, but now believes the US lost the ability to stop it and only China still has the ability (by error).
I sure see power as mere means (and believe OP does too). I like the spirit of this exchange, although I think it's built on a fundamentally unstable foundation (assumptions about what the author means instead of just asking him) and there are more constructive things than building it. What is your telos? What do you think the CCP's is (or at least Xi's)? Dito for any other relevant actors.
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