Alamani57 posted:

Do you point to the 80's due to China's integration into the Western economic system? If so, that's fair, but I consider that more of a rivalry along the lines of the US/UK in the 19th and early 20th century.

I'm in favor of viewing 2008 as the starting point for WW3. That's when the Western dominated global system seized and entered a crisis it has yet, and may never, emerge from -and- when Putin appears to have given up with cooperation between Russia and the West. Listen to his 2007 speech in Munich for the general idea. A year later we had the Georgian War as well as far more direct threats from Vladimirovich.

I did wind up finding this speech by Lavrov in 2010 which put 2022 in perspective.

https://is.muni.cz/th/xlghl/DP_Fillinger_Speeches.pdf

Twelve years ago.

https://www.unian.info/world/110340-analysis-russia-prepares-for-lengthy-battle-over-ukraine.html

Fifteen years ago.

In conclusion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sFJbi7XZt0

skooma512 posted:

https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1554218752140615687

I'm guessing the US didn't care about Afghanistan's sovereignty and just rolled up and did whatever.

Cabbages and Kings posted:

Cabbages and Kings posted:

gradenko_2000 posted:

from Max Blumenthal's "The Management of Savagery"

skooma512 posted:

We should name F-35s like they used to with B-17s. I do this in games that let me name vehicles.

I call them stuff like "Little Susie's Insulin" and "Maria's College Fund"

skooma512 posted:

"Maria's College Fund"

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/ComradeIshmael/status/1554963722447249410

indigi posted:

love a good Who Must Go

Palladium posted:

how many left alive on the list

Renaissance Robot posted:

"near peer"

Tankbuster posted:

Thats true in terms of military spending.

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

U.S. military here with a film aimed at military people saying "we have to understand china as well as the soviet union"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7JcAvnbRtE

genericnick posted:

.....not at all?

Edit: Also did the US military also pivot to video? Lmao

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

https://twitter.com/jacobin/status/1556173293861933058

quote:

I gave a lecture in Germany a couple years ago, and people in the German navy asked me point blank: “We’re eager to send a ship to the South China Sea, would that help?” And I said, “No, it’s kind of crazy for Germany to insert itself in this. It’s going to do more harm than good for sure.” They didn’t like my answer. “We were hoping you’d be rah-rah and think it’s great.”

crepeface posted:

Europe is a joke

crepeface posted:

Europe is a joke

Ardennes posted:

Also, the German fleet is also pretty much a bunch of frigates that would have to be dragged across the world and probably wouldn’t be tremendously useful in a blue water war.

Ardennes posted:

Also, the German fleet is also pretty much a bunch of frigates that would have to be dragged across the world and probably wouldn’t be tremendously useful in a blue water war.

It is more that the USN knows they are well overmatched at this point in the straits.

GlassEye-Boy posted:

most of their frigates are only armed with a cannon and no VLS capability whatsoever. A glorified coast guard.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Don't lay what the Germans are doing on everyone else, thank you very much. Germany has spent decades beating military/strategic thinking out of its leadership, to the point where I'm not sure they can even wrap their head around the idea that any country might react badly to anything they do. If Germany thinks it's a good idea then obviously everyone else does too.

The rest of Europe at least knows enough to realize there might be a reaction, even if we suffer from delusions about how easily we can shrug off that reaction.

quote:

That little story encapsulates this dynamic, which is really disturbing. NATO already didn’t have the best reputation in China, for various reasons going back years. Though ten to fifteen years ago, NATO had a reasonable working relationship with China, and the European Union had set up some really good defense exchanges and contacts with China. That was very helpful, and I had urged that Europe act as a cushion for the US-China rivalry and be a friend of the court to both sides, tell each to chill out a little. Help China to mitigate its worst nationalist tendencies, but also help the US contain its seemingly endless desire for rivalry.

I thought Europe was playing thar role pretty effectively until 2016 or so. Then things seemed to start to change, and European discourse on China radically moved to the right and became very anti-China to the point, I’d argue, of even surpassing US rhetoric on China. I found this very disturbing. I could give you endless examples of this, but if you read the Economist magazine, it’s become extremely hawkish on China over the years. In the European mind, they more or less associate Russia and China together, as authoritarianism writ large, though the Russian and Chinese regimes are very different, so lumping them together I think is misplaced.

I remember, in 2017, as the Korean crisis was unfolding, a squadron of French ships came across, and Chinese coverage of that was very upset. It was the Europeans who were leading the carving up of China in the nineteenth century, and China fought multiple wars against France and against Britain. So the idea that you’re going to have these European navies sailing around, it triggers this anger.

The other phenomenon here is NATO’s search for missions. God bless the Ukraine war, because this has given a lot of new life to NATO and given NATO bureaucrats something to do, though I think Turkey’s diplomacy and playing footsie with Russia should make people realize the alliance isn’t as together and cohesive as some would hope. On some level, there’s a silver lining to that — Europe should focus on Europe, and take its nose out of Asian affairs. To put it less charitably: What have you been doing? Was this lurch toward Asia why they seem to have been caught unawares in the war with Russia?

Bar Ran Dun posted:

the more interesting thing to me is the reactionary internal nationalist push in China over Pelosi’s visit, not dissimilar to the same thing occurring (over other issues) basically in every other country right now.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

the more interesting thing to me is the reactionary internal nationalist push in China over Pelosi’s visit, not dissimilar to the same thing occurring (over other issues) basically in every other country right now.

indigi posted:

what’s reactionary about it?

indigi posted:

what’s reactionary about it?