π§΅It's looking increasingly likely that one day, the US is going to wake up and find Taiwan on China's side of the ledger. From there, the entire First Island Chain would become increasingly untenable, and with it any hope that the US could prevent China, over time, from...
...gaining the sort of regional hegemony that the US enjoys. This would not allow China to dominate the world, but it would allow China to compete with the US on even terms, and eventually, given the region China would dominate would be the centre of...
scholars-stage.org
scholars-stage.org
...global economic gravity, China would become the senior of the two superpowers. It's clear that the foreign policy of the current US administration is consumed by Ukraine, formed as it is by a faction who seem pathologically obsessed by Russia. And, in its desire to trap and...
...weaken Russia in Ukraine, it has also bogged itself down. Thus, while the US is focused on Europe's Eastern Approaches, and Biden is Pivoting to Europe, the US position in the Middle East is disintegrating: first with a China-brokered detente between the Saudis and Iranians...
...then detente between Saudi Arabia and Syria; then, the Saudis agreeing to sell oil in Yuan; then confirming they are moving closer to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In other words, the US's key ally in the Arab world has become, at best...
...a balancing power, leaving the US with only Egypt. Soon, Turkey, Iran and Syria will attend a meeting in Moscow to normalise relations between Turkey and Syria, leaving the US position in Syria untenable, and paving the way for the Syrian civil war to end in Assad's terms...
...a clear defeat for US neocon aims.
Meantime, in South America, the Monroe Doctrine appears increasingly under threat. China is now the major trading partner of almost every country in South America. Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile are cooperating on the Bi-Oceanic...
Meantime, in South America, the Monroe Doctrine appears increasingly under threat. China is now the major trading partner of almost every country in South America. Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile are cooperating on the Bi-Oceanic...
...Corridor, which will allow goods to reach China facing ports more quickly and cheaply, and bypass the Panama Canal. Paraguay built its section last year. Brazil has said that it would start trading with China in Yuan. Brazil is also pushing for...
...more pan-South American integration (it is working on either a joint currency or unit of exchange with Argentina) and BRICS integration. Part of this is due to the preferences of President Lula, who was favoured by the US foreign policy crowd over Jair Bolsonaro, a pro-US...
...South American strongman of the Cold War archetype, because they couldn't bear Bolsonaro's Trump-like qualities and associations. Honduras has broken diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of China and Argentina is talking about a Chinese military base
reuters.com
reuters.com
...in the country.
Meanwhile, US Ukraine policy is not, as the Biden Administration claims, deterring China, as @PatPorter76, Professor of International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham, points out in an excellent essay. That's...
engelsbergideas.com
Meanwhile, US Ukraine policy is not, as the Biden Administration claims, deterring China, as @PatPorter76, Professor of International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham, points out in an excellent essay. That's...
engelsbergideas.com
...not the way the world works (Domino Theory is false); aid to Ukraine draws down materiel that could have gone to Taiwan (yes, there *is* significant overlap, no matter what is claimed); it prevents a shift of materiel, manpower and focus from Europe to the Western Pacific...
...and it reduces the political capital -- in Europe mainly, but also America -- for the full spectrum sanctions needed to deter China. And that's before we get to the fact Russia has finally been driven into China's arms, with all that means for China's strategic depth in...
...food, fertilizers, energy, industrial metals, and timber, and the fact the economic damage done to Europe by this policy makes it more difficult (politically impossible?) for Europe to rearm and thus take its share of the division of labour needed for a real Pivot to Asia...
In fact, the US ability to defend Taiwan has been significantly weakened by US policy in Ukraine, and will contine being weakened by it.
@ElbridgeColby is a Realist. His suggested policy to contain China made perfect sense from Realist's perspective (and, I would argue, from...
@ElbridgeColby is a Realist. His suggested policy to contain China made perfect sense from Realist's perspective (and, I would argue, from...
...a strategic perspective). Yet realists must see the world as it is, not as they wish it was, or through an ideological lens as the neocons and liberal universalists see it. And, realistically, for the Biden Administration (which still had two years to run), damaging Russia...
...is more important than anything else. Thus, other theatres are suffering, and are going to continue suffering, as a consequence. The most important of these is the Western Pacific. Given how late in the day the US woke up to strategic competition with China, these years and...
...even months are crucial. So perhaps it's time for @ElbridgeColby and other realists to take a long, coldly sober look at the array of forces on either side of the ledger. Perhaps the US has passed the point where *managing* China's rise is a less worse option than a forlorn...
...attempt to hobble it, destroying relations with an incredibly important peer in the process. The Biden Administration will not be moved, and 2yrs down the line, *if* Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland and co are kicked out, will the situation even be salvageable?
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