This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
A war of attrition with the US, Japan, and every country which doesn't want China to be hegemon in the Western Pacific. Which is to say, all of China's neighbors. Vietnam and other regional players would maintain neutrality to not get too much on China's bad side, but they'd be rooting for US victory.
Here, Chinese victory would mean gaining control of Taiwan; US victory is not-Chinese victory.
So why would attrition mean China losing? If China can't get victory over ~3 months, its existing capabilities can't win it Taiwan. Over time, its warmaking capabilities will face increasing degradation relative to the US and its allies due to its sea lane imports being cut off. That's the core dynamic.
There are wildcards: China will be doing terribly economically, but so will US allies and the US itself. But less so than China. (Taiwan will be doing worst of all, but its military capabilities are irrelevant compared even to Japan's). That could cause domestic issues in those countries that would undermine warmaking efforts.
This is the bit that I can't understand. The US is currently unable to fully extricate Chinese gear from military supply lines and has frequent issues with counterfeit Chinese equipment showing up in military procurement. At the same time, the US navy agrees that China has approximately 232 times the amount of shipbuilding capacity that the USA does. Ukraine has proved that drones are now an increasingly important element to modern wars, and China's manufacturing capacity in that arena so dwarfs the US that there's barely even any comparison possible. At the same time, China's manufacturing base has made it a far more crucial trading partner to a lot of the world than the US. I just don't see how the US is going to interdict trade to and from China without causing the entire global economy to disintegrate overnight and make dedollarisation take place overnight rather than over a longer timespan.
In short, it comes down to oil. You need oil to make an economy run, which includes making jet fuel but also civilian purposes. China consumes around 15M barrels/day and produces only around 5M barrels/day domestically, with a strategic supply of around 1B barrels. There are workarounds--rationing, increasing imports from accessible sources--but the deficit after the strategic reserves are exhausted within 3-6 months will be crippling and destabilizing. You can run a pretty effective war machine on 5M barrels/day, but you can't sustain civil society on an 80% cut on civilian oil consumption.
The USA, for all its issues (both military and civilian), is not gonna be starved for oil. When China sinks its ships, the USA can rebuild them: it's true that China accounts for 48 per cent of global shipyard output, but South Korea (less likely) accounts for 25 per cent and Japan (more likely) does 15 per cent. Purely legal regulations prevent the US from taking advantage of those capacities, regulations that will be promptly discarded in the case of a real war.
It will happen, it will be brutal, and it will restructure the world economy. But I'm counting an obliterated world economy where China has failed to take Taiwan as a loss for China and a "win" for the US.
Aside from feeding the machine, there is also literal feeding to consider. The difference between food imports, strategic reserves and indigenous calorie production between the US and China is a very similar picture as to the oil import/reserve/local production capability differences with the US having much greater food security compared to China.
More options
Context Copy link
I strongly agree with this particular part of your assessment and have frequently posted at length on the topic here. That said, I don't think your conclusions necessarily follow. Russian oil will allow them to get by with a very thin haircut, and given the nature of Chinese society they can absolutely just use force and other import options to get by. I don't see how the US manages to prevent China and Russia from trading here.
The current leadership of the USA has been raiding the SPR to depress prices in time for an election. The US would absolutely be starved for oil when you take into account the amount of oil needed to cover up the lack of imported products from China - there's a massive amount of manufacturing that would have to take place in the US, and tooling those systems up takes time. And that's one of the other problems.
How confident are you that a war will immediately cause the US to switch to good, sober governance? Why do all the existing problems in the US government just evaporate when the war begins? Ukraine was incredibly corrupt, and yet despite an existential war taking place within their borders the corruption hasn't even gone anywhere. I just don't see how you can get those problematic regulations repealed without time that the US just wouldn't have in a situation like this, especially when those problematic regulations have constituencies with voices and influence in politics. Furthermore, the system is corrupt enough that the only presidential candidate who would actually be willing to do this (Trump) would be opposed from inside the system at multiple levels - why would these generals, who have in the past actually called China and disregarded the chain of command entirely, suddenly turn into patriots willing to do whatever it takes to win? But furthermore, bringing factories back online takes time. The US currently has severe manufacturing issues, even for military equipment, and the industrial base that could speed that up has already been shipped off to China - and I don't think the Chinese are going to give it back just because the US asked nicely.
I do not think the political will exists in the US for a long war against China. It might seem that way on paper, but the sheer dependence of the American economy on Chinese manufacturing means that a conflict with China would have such dramatic impacts on civilian life that I do not think a war-fighting regime would actually be able to stay in power. Furthermore, I think that those outcomes would actually lead to a Chinese victory anyway.
So, I'm torn: a lot of commentary thinks a seaborne oil embargo will by itself shut down China and win the war, and I think that's entirely wrong, so I get where you're coming from. At the same time, Russian/Kazakh oil imports can't replace even half of those current seaborne imports. It's not production but transport that's the issue. You can increase utilization of existing pipelines to the max, and build new pipelines, and transport oil via rail and truck, which China absolutely can and will do on short notice, and that can get to an extra one or (very optimistically) two million barrels of oil a day. Civilian rationing will cut consumption by 30%. Old, currently uneconomic domestic wells could be brought back online and add another 1M/day. That still doesn't make up for the existing 10M/day that are currently imported via the sea. The only option is civilian rationing >50%, which is unheard of in history, let alone the modern world. During WW2 US rationing cut its oil consumption by 35% IIRC. China does have advantages around civilian control here, but at some point, people break. With its own SPR, China can wage a full on war for 3-6 months without too much civilian pain, but after that it gets incredibly dicey for them. (Realistically they'd frontload a lot of the pain to keep a more stable level of wartime civilian consumption.)
As for the rest: if the US handicaps itself, it will lose. It's not a war the US will be able to win with one or both hands tied behind its back. If we're dealing with energy issues and we decide that the entire war has to be fought on solar power, we'll lose. That said, call me an optimist, but I have a bit more faith in the US than that. Once we lose our first carrier, the population will rally. Mindless, blind patriotism is obnoxious a lot of the time, but you can't give full credit to China's while entirely discounting the US's.
Frankly, I worry more about the domestic politics of Japan, Taiwan, and other regional allies, because their economies will be far more shot through than the US's. Which is not at all to minimize how much pain the US will go through (biggest economic contraction in history) but more to speak to just how absolutely screwed every country in the area is going to be. If China does get a foothold in Taiwan, many of them will want to throw in the towel and adjust to the new status quo as soon as possible just to end the pain. Probably even Taiwan.
While I don't think the US can actually effectively embargo China (especially not a China working with Russia), this is by far the biggest issue I see with your position - the part where a miracle happens which neatly resolves the countless problems currently plaguing the US government, military and population. I wasn't assuming China would be patriotic - I was assuming China would brutally suppress opposition and use their totalitarian panopticon to make sure that people obey, something that the US cannot do that without immediately triggering a domestic insurrection. In my view the destruction of a carrier would represent a massive loss of legitimacy and sponsor even further civil unrest/de-dollarisation/resistance to the GAE, and the current US political system is unable to adequately respond to crisis. Why would a military defeat somehow remove all the corruption, incompetence and malice in the US government? A total war like this would absolutely necessitate cutting off the flow of aid to Israel, for instance, but how does that happen given the Israel lobby's current level of influence over the government? Multiple members of congress, and at least one member of the First Family, have deep and serious conflicts of interest with regards to China (look at how much money Hunter made off them!). Why would the loss of a carrier instantly remove all the blackmail material the Chinese government no doubt have on them? Think about how many US industries and corporations are totally reliant on trade with China, and then think about how incredibly unpopular and distrusted the US government is. Hell, even right now the military is prioritising social change and western values over actually being a functioning military that achieves real goals. How does the massive amount of corruption and graft in the US military supply chain get fixed?
There are a multitude of reasons as to why the US hasn't dealt with these deadly serious problems yet, and I see no reason to believe that a military loss would do anything at all to change them. Rather, something like that would make the currently intractable problems the nation is facing far worse. The current political situation in the US is extremely dicey as well - the leading opposition candidate is facing multiple criminal charges and could end up spending the election in prison. Do you think his supporters are going to be eager to go risk their lives to protect Joe Biden's America? And of course in the opposite scenario, where Trump actually wins, do you think that the same military that actively disregarded his orders and broke the chain of command in order to give China advance warning of his actions, would be an effective fighting force against the Chinese? Don't forget the intelligence community which violently loathes him and actively deceived him during his presidency too - how certain are you that there isn't a single neocon in the IC or military who thinks sabotaging the military in order to discredit Trump is a good idea?
I can understand how a military attack or setback can unite people, but I really don't see how that applies to the current USA.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link