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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   32042 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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Or the US could just declare in no uncertain terms that they will not defend Taiwan, which would probably spark a nuclear arms race in the region (and potentially increase the odds of Taiwan hitting the Three Gorges Dam out of spite, killing who-knows-how-many civilians) but I imagine would lower the odds of a Sino-American war.

It strikes me as painfully naive of you to assume that the US would not eventually see itself drawn into a Sino Taiwanese-Japanese-Indian-Phillipineo war.

With foreign policy hypotheticals I don't necessarily make realistic assumptions about what the entity whose policy is being considered would do.

Like, I don't think the US is very likely to declare in no uncertain terms that they will not defend Taiwan! But if a cabal of people who thought that we should avoid war with China controlled the US government indefinitely I think that they could also avoid getting drawn into the war you mention. I think that Japan (and likely South Korea) would grab nuclear weapons, India already has them, as hydroacetylene points out Taiwan would probably roll over, and the Philippines (assuming the US did not colonize them again) would get bullied and pushed around by China the same way they already have been. That means that China would be at least somewhat restricted in its ability to use coercive diplomacy to blob acquire additional territory.

(Incidentally why hasn't Trump put the Philippines on the to-grab list next to Greenland?)

I don't model China as being set on global domination through territorial conquest any more than the US is. Perhaps I am wrong. But regardless of whether or not they try to militarily acquire portions of India, Japan, or the Philippines, if the US was controlled by a cabal of people who thought that we should avoid war with China, I do not think China would attack us randomly. As far as I know China does not claim any US possessions, nor do I think they would be likely to go to war with the US over our Pacific possessions. Simply refusing to get involved in a land sea war in Asia is actually a valid option. (As I point out, a valid option with major costs to the United States!)

My point here is not that this is realistic or probable or even good. My point is that if you made me SUPREME DICTATOR OF THE UNITED STATES and my imperative goal was to avoid war with China, I would remove Taiwan as a potential flashpoint.

Taiwan hasn't shown any willingness to fight before now, these aren't slavs(who, despite their many flaws, don't have that specific one). Taiwan would just roll over without American protection.

Niether did Ukraine until February 2022.

Probably.

That will greatly increase the chance of having to fight the PLA in the Philippines or Japan or Guam or Hawaii.

Fighting in the Philippines or Japan are wars of choice inasmuch as neither of those are actual US territory (and I doubt that China will actually be eager to invade Japan if they do what I expect them to do).

Even if the PRC took over the rest of the Pacific, there's a pretty easy reason to believe they would never try to invade Guam as long as we weren't interfering with their conquests.

I am not saying this is a good or wise policy. I'm just saying that if we want to avoid war with China we can almost certainly do it simply by refusing to fight them over their core national interest.

(I do find some of the "China is so powerful they could successfully invade a single island within helicopter range even if the US opposed it" framing funny. I don't think there was any point in the Cold War where Russia could have seriously contested an American invasion of Cuba without using nuclear force. The very fact that China's power is framed by its ability of being able to potentially reclaim lost territory that is literally on their own doorstep shows you how incredibly powerful the US remains even though I think the Good Old Decade of US monopolarity is gone.)

Anyway China, in my superficial reading, is not a good or benevolent neighbor, and they will do bad things like "invading you in a punitive expedition because you obliterated their military ally Cambodia after it attacked you repeatedly for no reason" but I don't think they actually want unlimited territorial expansion. They did not attempt to hold portions of Vietnam after their border war, for instance, as I recall.

(Of course the counter argument is that nobody wants unlimited territorial expansion but the logic of empire means that you either keep growing or you stagnate and die, and thus whatever China wants now is immaterial. It's not a bad argument.)

All wars are "wars of choice".

For one side.

For all sides

This is correct! But there is a difference between wars where you are attacked and wars where you decide to intervene.

So what exactly was the choice given to Poland when Germany and the USSR decided to carve it up?

Either acquiesce to being partitioned or fight it out.

Because nobody ever had a war forced on them against their will, or because unconditional surrender is always an option?

Because unconditional surrender is always an option.

China didn't do well enough in their border war to seriously demand territorial concessions from Vietnam though, did they?

I don't think they did meaningfully. But presumably they could have fortified the ground they did take. Perhaps it would not have been worth it even if they had wanted to take over Vietnam, though.

Please, let's stop at ONE mega-stupid thing from this administration.

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