About China’s adventures near Taiwan — I’d read this —www.stripes.com/…
“ WASHINGTON — The American military is warning that China is probably accelerating its timetable for capturing control of Taiwan, the island democracy that has been the chief source of tension between Washington and Beijing for decades and is widely seen as the most likely trigger for a potentially catastrophic U.S.-China war.”
Hope that story comes up for you — it is pay-walled sometimes And I would keep in mind Stars and Stripes is not prone to exaggerations — they are very straight up, I think.
I wrote about some of this last month — but I think this accelerating right now -www.dailykos.com/…
Basically China thinks war is inevitable with us — and we will lose — and Taiwan is NOT defendable. Those are the main bullet points.
Let’s jump to Putin’s Russia — maybe a more immediate concern.
Russia is definitely massing force on the eastern border of Ukraine. No doubt about it. The thing that really bothers me — the Russians were doing war maneuvers in Belarus (the west) maybe two years ago — and our intelligence picked up the fact that those 10,000 participants left behind enough equipment for 100,000 soldiers. Really. Why?
I would read this —www.atlanticcouncil.org/…
There are certainly many articles that WWIII is four weeks away and all that (totally bullshit) that you can ignore — but there is this passage in that article that does concern me greatly — goes like this —
“ A military adventure in nearby Ukraine could act as a convenient distraction and serve to revitalize Putin’s personal popularity. In a worrying indication of Moscow’s intentions, the Kremlin-controlled Russian media has recently stepped up its propaganda attacks on Ukraine and begun accusing the Ukrainian authorities of plotting an offensive of their own.”
Wars always start with propaganda campaigns — you have to make your populace hate the other side and want to fight. And if he does perceive we will not respond — read Guns of August. It does not turn out well. Miscalculations.
Now — Gary Kasparov — super genius and ex-USSR chess master — is very clear about what we need to do right now. I do, and you may want to read his twitter feed. He is very direct about what we need to do right now. Here is a good quote summarizing his point of view —
He says — flat out — financially ruin about 33 oligarchs in Russia and they will remove him for us. Seize their assets. I think he is surely right. And do it soon.
Fold Putin — without a shot — and maybe get the Russian people on our side when we tell them he stole about 3 years salary from each of them and here is the money as we seize it. Putin did commit an act of war against us, remember? Not a goddamn thing he can do about it if we do it. And I am dead sure we know where that money is. British real estate etc.. He just assumes we won’t be so bold — because we sure haven’t been. Bill Browder — American business person behind the Magninsky act — will be very helpful in the endeavor - he knows the bastards— hence both of those two are on the Putin assassination list of 10 that got leaked.
It is my gut feeling — China and Russia seem to be coordinating here — that if they both caused trouble for us at the same time right now — given the chaos in our political matters and that a new administration is coming in, in the midst of it — that we have vulnerability right now. That if they both pressed matters on the same timetable that our response would be ineffective to deal with both.
In Taiwan — probably not much we can do if our war games are correct anyway. Same if Russia moved to reconnect with Kaliningrad. They would have to move thru at least one NATO ally to do it. Triggering the mutual defense agreement. Except — tactical nuclear strikes as Sherriff gamed out in 2017 may be the only alternative. He was the deputy commander of NATO — the British general. I am sure he gamed it right.
Will we go to total war over Lithuania, Estonia -or Taiwan in the east? Guns of August scenarios. If we do allow an attack on a NATO ally — NATO is dead on arrival. What is Putin’s calculation?
One thing we sure have, to me, I really think Biden is the 21st century equivalent of FDR. Besides, totalitarian regimes really can only see the weakness in a democracy — and totally miss the fact that this weakness — is really the strength.
I know this — cause we gamed it in grad school — China will eventually collapse under it’s own weight given time. That the in-land provinces will eventually turn on the coastal provinces. Given time. So there is that. But they must know that, too. We need that time. We may not have it.
What will war really look like in the 21st century anyway. No one can know. Maybe they will simply be financial manipulations. One can hope — since the other possibility is really, really bad.