I don’t understand this analysis. Surely it would be easier for the Americans to control and damage the Chinese economy if Xi Jinping and Chinese business leaders were typing out emails and memos on backdoored Microsoft software or iPhones. Forcing Huawei to develop their own tech via hostility means that the Chinese market is lost forever and now the American security apparatus has to deal with an opaque ecosystem they can’t backdoor.

I’ve heard people say that the October Hamas attacks on Israel were so surprising because they were planned entirely via Chinese tech and therefore was not picked up by Zionist elint. I don’t necessarily think that’s true or even the only reason, but it’s not an implausible example of how forcing China to make its own systems is a huge own goal.

All this hostility has just made China more and more self sufficient. I just don’t see how that gives the US more leverage than a China which is completely dependent on Western tech.

Western leftists criticizing Deng for his shitty chess moves when it turns out he was playing Go the whole time.

Under Millei, all Argentinians will be merged into a gestalt consciousness who will be a billionaire.

Dedollarization and constant US imperial overreach are the two factors which are most likely to break US imperialism in the mid to long term.

American economic dominance is propped up by the ubiquity of the dollar in general trade as well as the Petro dollar. In general trade, more and more countries are pivoting to trading in their own currencies or Euros and Yuan and Rubles because of the destruction of confidence in the US dollar as a neutral reserve currency due to recent sanctions against Russia. In terms of the Petro dollar, the trend of decarbonization means that oil will be a less critical commodity over time and even now we see the likes of Saudi Arabia agreeing to sell oil to China in Yuan. Without US dollar dominance, America will not be able to print as many dollars to service its debts, which will lead to either inflation or debt default.

America, like the UK and France before it, doesn’t have the ability to fight all of its repressed imperial subjects at once. The cracks are starting to show at the US giving up against the Houthis in Yemen. The US and EU has also pegged its military prestige to the war in Ukraine, which is also starting to turn. Not only are they taking a reputational hit with every picture of a burnt out Abrams or Leopard, but lesser US allies are also starting to see that full US support doesn’t guarantee victory. Even within US policy circles there is some acknowledgement that defeat in Ukrain could lead to some sort of Suez moment for the US and NATO.

American foreign policy is essentially just age of sail imperialism but with “democratic” subbing in for “Christian”.

“They’re not Christian so we can kill them and take their stuff” has become “They’re not democratic so we can kill them and take their stuff.”

Also works on the next level because even if someone outside the European ingroup becomes democratic or Christian, that democracy or Christianity just becomes a lever of control for extractive economics.

an extended war for six months

An extended love making session of two minutes.

Holy shit, imagine mounting a rebellion for more nescafe.

Biden is Hamas.

What’s the ethics of paying Alex Jones to get his fans to boil their nads?

Once you have kids, you’ll hate them so much that you’ll want to leave them a boiling uninhabitable hellhole of a world.

Attend an AIPAC convention.

we are forced to live in a society.

“I am indigenous to this land according to my holy book which says that I wandered here from Egypt… Wait, fuck.”

Probably Zelensky promised there will be one last counteroffensive. If some success, he’s probably thinking he will convince the Russians to accept less concessions.

This sounds like the kind of magical thinking that pervaded German high command in later 1944. “If we can take the port at Antwerp, the Western Allies will sue for peace” sort of unrealistic insanity.

You gotta be pretty brave or stupid to call out the mating ability of something with “humpback” right there in the name

Israel looking at the history of indiscriminate terror bombing failing to compell surrender: “I can fix her.”

“Is upholding fascist racial supremacy wrong? No, I’ve merely been upholding the fascist racial supremacy of the wrong people.”

Taiwan should have used military force - or again, that might makes right.

“Should have” used military might? Are you from a parallel dimension where the First United Front didn’t end in the Shanghai Massacre? Tell me how it went down in your reality then. Chiang embraced the CPC from behind with hugs and kisses as a show of his appreciation for their alliance against the warlords?

I don’t have a morality problem because Chiang was an incompetent and corrupt jackass who started the civil war that he ended up losing on the mainland and having to flee to Taiwan Island.

It is about what you believe justifies a nation’s independence

My arguments as to international law go precisely towards your factually incorrect and repeated assertion that Taiwan Island is a “nation” or a “country”. You accuse me of “deflection” but you repeatedly asserted a factual and legal inaccuracy and refuse to address it. Your problem if you can’t engage with the argument, not mine. There is no such thing as a country or nation called “Taiwan” in the world.

The outcomes of civil wars is widely acknowledged by both state practice and opinio juris as being a legitimate factor in the determination of sovereignty over a territory. If you don’t believe me, ask the Confederate States of America and the Republic of Vietnam about their experiences and get back to me.

There is no “morality problem” because there is no issue of morality here. Morality is not a factor in international law.