The amount of effort China is putting to sabotage Taiwan independence is astonishing. I have Taiwanese relatives and I'm very worried for them.
https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/us-war-games-over-china-threat...
It is not okay to assume USA supremacy against adversaries anymore.
Why Americans still do business with China is astounding to me.
If China starts a war by releasing a biological weapon, Taiwan will be the least of their concerns. I don't see any scenario in which every Western and neutral nation on Earth doesn't turn against them. Maybe Russia helps, but I doubt it.
It would seem a treaty acknowledging Taiwan as an independent sovereign would be an ideal outcome, but it's weird to see nations express wounded pride, imo
What on earth is this supposed to mean?
I'm no fan of the Chinese government, but trying to claim it is illegitimate seems a pretty big stretch.
This is true, but it doesn't make a strong argument for legitimacy. Former governments flee countries frequently, and unless there is a rapidly implemented plan to try to get them back into power they are generally ignored.
Taiwan is better viewed as a breakaway state than having any legitimate stake in the government of mainland China.
Of course, the international community can condemn treaties and push for decolonialization, but in most cases this is foiled by the refusal of the colonial power to give up the claim. Examples: Falkland islands, West Sahara, Goa (reconquered by India using military force).
In many cases, it is advantegeous for both parties to seek a peaceful decoloniazation treaty, which becomes a part of international law and formal basis for the future claim on the decolonized territory.
In practice, colonial era treaties are less legitimate. No one except the parties directly materially affected care.
This appears to be a difficult argument to make in a consistent way. HK was ceded to GB a the Treaty of Nanking[1] which was between the UK and the Qing Dynasty Chinese government. It was later expanded in 1897, again with the Qing Dynasty.
That Dynasty collapsed in the early 20th century. That was followed by the warlord era, and then the nationalist government in the 1930s. That lasted until defeated by the Communist government in 1949.
So there were only around 20 years the Nationalist government governed mainland China, and it was long after the treaty ceding HK.
There's little evidence of support in China or even in Taiwan for the idea that the Taiwan government are the legitimate government of mainland China, and Taiwanese ambition is pretty much limited in practical terms to self government.
Indeed, I don't believe Taiwan claims China in anyway I can find reference to.
That’s exactly what the Chinese government is doing though. Isn’t that a bit of a stretch too?
China claims Taiwan just as Taiwan (more or less seriously, but I doubt with any will to ever try and recover it) claims China.
Or more like they both claim to be the legitimate government of greater China.
Unless it's barbarism then. At that point I'm pretty sure the biggest functional nuclear stockpile wins though.
Sure it does. The laws are written by those who can enforce them. That is by definition those with Might. If that is barbarism then all of earth is under barbarism (and I'd argue that this is true).
History is full of good examples. The Nuremberg trials is a great example of Might Is Right. The exact same laws used against the Nazis never were enforced on US citizens.
After all, there was a reason the Founders advised that it was a great evil to put a law on the books that couldn't be reasonably enforced due to the tendency to deligitimize the authority in question.
So in your mind, the act of murder "counts for a lot more" [0] than someone's right to their own life, and theft does not exist, since whoever possesses something owns it?
[0] What's the unit we're counting in? How do you "count" intellectual integrity or moral character?
> That’s exactly what the Chinese government is doing though. Isn’t that a bit of a stretch too?
Yes it is.
Doesn't make the OP's comment any less surprising through.
The actual policy of the Taiwanese government depends on who is in charge at the moment. The Pan-Blue Coalition favors reunification, while the Pan-Green Coalition tries to assert a separate Taiwanese national identity.
The claim on the rest of China is still there, but only because it cannot be dropped in practice. The PRC would interpret dropping the claim on the rest of China as a declaration of Secession and Independence, which would have diplomatic and possibly military consequences.
The Republic of China was the government of China from 1912 until 1949 when it was overthrown by the CCP and retreated to Taiwan. Until at least 1971 the UN recognized it as the legitimate government of all of China.
The poster's comment is outdated, but that's the historical background -- and why it's less crazy than you might have assumed without knowing the history.
The liberals / doves think it would provoke China, and be too high a price to pay for something that's already de facto truth.
But the conservatives / hawks argue against it because they deny the legitimacy of the PRC, so why would Taiwan need to declare it's independence from rebels in its own country?
This does not make them anti-independence, just not suicidal.
Most Taiwanese would rather refer to throw off the legacy of the ROC completely, but doing so would be considered an act of war by the PRC.
That's not quite right. The government of Taiwan consists (consisted?) at least partially of the literal former government of the country now commonly known as China before the "cultural revolution" that murdered tens of million of people and put the CCP into power.
The closest analogy that you can get is the idea that the US belongs to the British (as they were our former government) - which you can make a decent case for, although I would still argue that the vastly different natures of the Revolutionary War and the Cultural Revolution still make them distinct.
Japan surely want to help, but US daddy won't allow rearming herself.
Other Asian nations?
"Why should I care, where is my economy development"
These are superfluous conditions (i.e. predicting bioweapons), and of course, and you're not going to hear about the 'real' results. And of course it ignores the after effects.
2) Defenders have considerable advantage in that situation, especially with a water gap. The 'amphibious assault' situation is severely hampered by the fact that even with air cover, all Chinese surface vessels are 'extremely vulnerable'.
Literally just a single, 2-man style team weapon system, if it could actually be deployed without sabotage, could make it nary impossible for such landings. I think it would be crazy for Taiwan not to have specialty capabilities against that kind of assault. Landing operations very dangerous for the landers.
3) Taiwan has 23M most of whom won't go down without a fight. It's incredibly difficult to occupy a place like that.
4) The 'angle' for China is likely political, and to land a vanguard of political operatives, saboteurs of all kinds, media controllers etc. and possibly to try a 'coup from within' as opposed to a frontal military confrontation.
5) Any direct military engagement would be met with pretty serious repercussions, for the first time maybe, from the West. It would be 'a big deal'.
If there were actually even a small US confrontation and say a couple of US frigates were sunk ... don't underestimate how Americans will rally under the wrath of that offence. 90% of the generally anti-war voices will quiet and look the other way while the 'other half' of the US releases the dragons in one way or another. If, as in the stated example there were 'Bioweapons' used against the US, then it would be WW3 level escalation and a nuclear standoff.
So again 'military confrontation' is a big deal, but 'military confrontation with Americans' is a much bigger deal they won't forget.
In either case, the tide of geopolitics will shift dramatically.
NPTO - the Asian equivalent of NATO would be formed instantly, with UK and EU as participating members.
TPP v2 - this would happen immediately and China would be de-facto ignored / out of the WTO.
There would be a China v. 'Almost Everyone Else' Cold War in which everyone would be forced to choose sides. In that scenario, there are actually very few places that would chose China, if forced. Aside from Russia, which would try to 'broker peace' (and of course Iran/N. Korea/Afghanistan/Syria) I think the only real holdouts would be in Africa, and they wouldn't be consequential. The Arab world would mostly go 'With the US/EU-led rest of the world' and so would South American for the most part.
6) We 'do business' with Taiwan in the hope that they can remain at least at their current levels of independence.
If China wants to take Taiwan and leverage the kind of spineless 'look the other way' artefact of our businesses and politicians they'll do it piece by piece, and/or make it look like a popular and legitimate 'coup' - and that Chinese forces are there 'only to ensure order and stability' and to 'protect democracy'. They need to give enough political cover to Nike, Pizza Hut and Apple to not pull out from China etc.. Kind of like Crimea, where we just 'forgot about it'.
I suspect you are drastically overestimating the US public's appetite for another war. In the last few years the US has been run out of Iraq by Iran, Syria by Russia and Afghanistan by the Taliban. I don't see much appetite for going back to any of those.
And if the last 10 years of US politics has taught us anything it is how vulnerable the US is to arguments that cause division. China has plenty of money, and plenty of people who will be economically hurt by a war. It's pretty easy to make an argument against defending China.
[1] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/countering-china-...
3) You mean the civilian population will fight to the death? Absolutely no way that's true. Russia showed the way in Crimea: offer incentives to those who support the "liberation"; it both erodes defender support and gives the attackers more legitimacy.
5) Headlines for days, sure, but recently the West has shown that its "red lines" are more crossable than they might appear.
If the PRC ever manages to take even momentary control of Taiwan, there's no way they let it slip away again. And remember that the ocean supply lines heavily favor China over the US (even from Japan or South Korea) for any sort of protracted conflict. The only wild card is nuclear weapons, and all we can do is hope that neither side is insane enough to use them, "tactically" or "strategically."
Pacific NATO was called SEATO. We might be surprised at how few committed and capable allies we'd have. It'd be in most countries' interest to stay neutral in an uncertain war between the current and future economic superpowers. I'd also wager that there'll be much less domestic support for sending hundreds of thousands of Americans to die over Taiwan than there was as a response to Pearl Harbor.
The US was interfering in Japan's affairs (particularly hampering access to oil) in the lead up to late 1941, even though support for either war was in the low 60%s prior to Pearl Harbor (amazingly as low as 7% when the Netherlands, Belgium, and France were invaded).[0] The US government, in some respects, forced the Japanese's hands in a stretched gamble by attacking it first. In a hypothetical confrontation, given the historical support US (among others) have shown Taiwan, even the existing interference alone could force China's hands to take some action that causes a drastic increase in domestic support.
In other words, my wager is that you're probably correct, but the probability of a forced action after some aggression has taken place, which subsequently causes an increase of domestic support would be more likely to occur.
[0] https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us...
Missiles barrages are not particularly useful unless they have some kind of targeting ability that we don't know about. There are not enough missiles, same for artillery. They will be able to hit communications centres and established defences, but as I said, if there is a '2 man team weapon' - and Taiwan can actually deploy them, the landings will be painful.
3) I don't agree with the Crimea Taiwan comparison.
a) 1/2 of Crimeans were pro-Russian, the rest not necessarily nationalist, or prepared. There was no material military defence of Crimea, Ukraine is poor, corrupt, and uncoordinated. Crimea is fairly sparsely populated, and nobody in the world cares about it, other than the fact it was 'taken'.
b) Taiwan is a rich, highly populated country, a strong sense of identity even if their a Pro Mainland nationalists, there are millions otherwise. They wealthy, very well prepared, very well organized. They have weapons, training a political cause. Taiwan is a mid-sized economy 'that matters'.
But if there is any coordinated attempt by Taiwan to prepare for that, and any material ability for fighters to operate, there will be ongoing fighting.
5) I think you're misunderstanding the 'reaction'.
Yes, if CCP did 'Take Taiwan' - then there's probably no way anyone would uproot them directly. Unless there was an ongoing civil uprising etc. - then it's going to belong to China.
But there would be a 1) Geopolitical re-orientation like there never has been and 2) Americans do not rollover when there is blood involved. If China 'sinks a US ship' then 'they will pay' probably a disproportionately heavy price.
'Asian NATO' will form under completely new auspices: India, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, Korea etc. are now witnessing the China Dragon with a military conflict and so their fear escalates.
To your point about 'Neutrality' - Singapore might be, but not others, like India, Japan, Korea, and Arab countries which the US has incredible power over.
The 'South China Sea' probably becomes the forum for retribution, and I can see a multinational force, led by the US declaring that area 'open seas' and basically attacking any Chinese forces there. That'd be one way for the US to get their 'pound of flesh' to save face.
Pan Pacific Trade v2 would surely happen for the same reasons - it was going to happen, the only reason it did not was Trump, and now that he's killed it, it's just too hard to get going again. But a Taiwan invasion would trigger that. The 'possibly neutral' countries on the military side would more likely join this - their 'neutrality' is mostly based on fear of China, not fear of the West.
A Taiwan invasion might probably mean immediate trade war between the US and China, with the rest of the world dragged in.
And the more global geopolitical repercussions would be a little bit similar to the Cold War. The US/EU/UK/India/Japan/Korea+Others 'side' would put immense pressure on the system to try to isolate China.
Again, yes, I think China would end up keeping Taiwan, but it's the 'realignment' outside China that is the real impact.
Anyhow - direct invasion of Taiwan would be a big deal.
There's probably a number of people in leadership positions in the region who accept the realpolitik that is isn't worth fighting China over Taiwan.
> Americans do not rollover when there is blood involved.
Plenty of recent evidence says otherwise.
I didn't say 'they would be going to war over Taiwan' - I would agree with you there there.
In the geopolitical realignment, they'd be in a difficult situation, and though they might not join the Asian NATO, they'd join the new Trade Pact.
Neither Sweden nor Finland nor Austria belong to NATO either, but there's a fair degree of coordination still.
But Japan, S. Korea, India would, and that's the start of a fairly powerful coalition - some of which would probably engage the Chinese Navy in S. China sea, and maybe be involved in blockades.
"Americans do not rollover when there is blood involved Plenty of recent evidence says otherwise. :
I don't know what you mean. 9/11 resulted in two major wars and that was a non-state actor.
China sinking a couple of US ships is definitely an act of war, the only question would be 'how' the US would respond. It would be in blood, not just 'sanctions'.
As I said elsewhere: In the last few years the US has been run out of Iraq by Iran, Syria by Russia and Afghanistan by the Taliban. I don't see much appetite for going back to any of those.
Or more starkly: The US lost both those wars and the US population is sick of it.
If China sank a couple of US ships, I'm sure the US would declare war. But China would be 100% committed to winning an invasion of Taiwan, no matter what the cost.
The US.. not so much.
> Japan, S. Korea, India would, and that's the start of a fairly powerful coalition - some of which would probably engage the Chinese Navy in S. China sea, and maybe be involved in blockades.
Note that none of these countries have every said they would defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion. That's statement is conspicuously absent from anyone at all, actually.
As for a blockade, I think you are - again - overestimating support Taiwan has, and underestimating the realpolitik that would happen.
Where are the blockades over Chinese behaviour in Hong Kong? Or diplomatic protests? Or...anything at all other than newspaper articles?
As was said elsewhere here, the Afghanistan war was won quickly. Afghanistan was also easily kept. And that's fighting against an opponent using guerilla tactics. What failed was nation-building. But that's not the goal with a confrontation with China. The goal is symmetric warfare to hold back an invasion. Defensive warfare is easier than offensive, so the cost would be far higher on China invading than Taiwan/US defending.
There was perhaps a short period before the Iraq war where they were close to defeat but from memory there was never a point they stopped fighting.
The US lost the political will to stay in Afghanistan. It wasn't actually that difficult or costly, just not worth it.
There was no appetite for war after Vietnam, and yet Iraq 1, Iraq 2 and Afghanistan all happened.
If China invaded Taiwan, then the 'appetite for war would change' and if a couple of American ships were sunk, then the 'appetite for war' would be at 100%.
Sometimes I think I'm debating young people with no living memory of how these things change over time and how Americans absolutely do not tolerate direct attacks.
Pearl Harbour, 9/11, both had devastating consequences.
America was run out off Syria by Russia. There was lots of other things going on too, but Russia got a deep water port in the Mediterranean - something that both the British and American empires tried to stop for hundreds of years - before the Crimean war.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/08/after-five-years-of-fig...
https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/after-10-years-of-syrian...
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-applauds-russia-vic...
I mean Turkish forces shelled a US post in Syria at one point and laughed about it. That's how worried the rest of the world is about US appetite for war.
https://www.militarytimes.com/2019/10/13/us-troops-believe-t...
Iran has run America out of Iraq.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/18/leaked-cables-...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/18/leaked-cables-...
Where was any appetite to do anything about China's actions in HK?
Care to share a link? All I can think of is https://pacificrim.fandom.com/wiki/Jaeger XD
China is an ethnocentric state, they have long memories and they plan for things.
Xi is definitely more aggressive than the others, but China basically will be trying to 'get Taiwan back forever'.
Frankly, the 'long term solution' if Taiwan remains free, may be something like a 'One China' where Taiwan is actually completely independent. Maybe even Tibet and HK. That would probably only happen if China fell apart, there were wars, and we had this Peace Agreement where the world nominally recognized China as 'One Entity' even if they were actually completely different nation states. That is obviously not likely to happen but aside from a Chinese->Taiwan invasion I don't see how union happens.
The 'Taiwan Issue' is totally nonnegotiable to China, any attempt to bring the issue up in foreign policy discussions would have the Chinese Officials walk out in anger. As far as they are concerned 'Taiwan is China and There Is No Discussion' about it.
Wouldn't just be the U.S.
Oh, and two of the above mentioned countries have real blue water navies that can go anywhere to cut supply lines like say, oil from the Middle East. One does not.
Cutting oil from the ME would not be enough. China would ration oil and increase imports from Russia massively as well as reactivate domestic oil production, it would be great for the environment, China would carry on, and the US would make a lot of enemies.
Europe was okay with the first invasion of Iraq because they frankly had very little to lose and a lot to gain.
Meanwhile suiciding the EU economy by cutting off Chinese exports would hurt the EU a lot more than it would hurt China and certainly much more than the invasion of Kuwait.
In any case I'd recommend reading what Chinese generals write on the subject. For the exact same reason as you cited they don't want to invade Taiwan unless "necessary" until the balance of trade shifts far more into the Chinese side.
Yet when confronted on the possibility of doing it now they make a very solid point. China is the only country in the world that produces everything it needs for daily operations, without a single exception, in one way or another.
That is to say, in the Chinese calculus, the EU and US cutting themselves off of Chinese trade would hurt the former more in the short term and medium term than it would hurt China, and their arguments for it are compelling.
Beyond that, the truth is that there is a lot more to the economy than the EU and the US. China would still trade with Russia, Africa, South East Asia, almost definitely South Korea, and most of Central and South Asia.
The real thing that is at issue in Chinese military planning is not a voluntary embargo, it's a blockade by the US. But even the ability for the US to execute such a maneuver is already questionable and dwindles every year, and it would assuredly royally piss of the entirety of the world and definitely kill millions outside of China from economic dysfunction.
Tell me what I'm missing about their domestic oil industry then, because everything else I'm reading tells me they need to import around 10 million barrels of crude oil a day (primarily to produce gasoline and diesel, so it's very hard to substitute).
Meanwhile, China has reserves for 100 days of imports.
In the long term domestic and Russian production will catch up fully.
And even if Russia repudiated every other contract they have in Asia, it doesn't look like they have the pipeline capacity to get that much oil to China, even if the cross border capacity for China to import it existed. So it would have to come on tankers, which would generate some interesting geopolitical brinkmanship.
That's assuming things don't escalate far beyond sanctions or a possible blockade. The risk with a naval confrontation is that it's very easy to quickly generate casualties that would make backing down politically suicidal. Even just a few of the smaller ships getting sunk means hundreds of dead sailors.
The pipeline capacity alone from Russia to China is 1.6mbd. Of that, 600 000bd are used, so there is 1mbd of spare capacity just in that pipeline.
It doesn't really matter if the US can or can't back down. It will be disastrous politically and economically to the US and its allies to a level that can scarcely be imagined. Even then, US naval forces have a serious chance of defeat. China is not a small country you can roll over. They have a very well thought out, multilayered, exceedingly technologically sophisticated A2/AD umbrella that means that millions of square kilometers will be in practice off limits to the US. Beyond those zones, China enjoys extremely prompt hypersonic strike capability that has no real counter, which means that in a hot war any US vessel that gets it's rough location leaked running a blockade or running through a strait risks getting sunk straight up.
It's not a war that the US can win. What are the objectives? Take back Taiwan? Literally impossible. Regime change in China? Forget about it. About the only thing that can be done is to hurt the Chinese economy roughly as much as the US economy, enrage the entire rest of the world and destroy any semblance of goodwill the US has, and trigger a recession followed by a restructuring of the US economy that reduces the place of the US in the value chain.
It's simply a stupid move that has no upside. It doesn't matter how the public acts immediately, eventually the US will have to give up.
...produces finished goods. China cannot do this without massive imports of raw materials copper, iron ore, coal, etc. China has effectively colonized Africa for access to said raw materials.
Belt and Road is a way to set up overland routes to avoid any naval blockades.
Where do you you get this crap from?
I live in Africa and I have never been told what to do by a Chinese official or business - or even a local official actin on the instructions of a mandarin.
Unless you have watered 'colonisation' down to 'Chinese interests own some stuff in parts of Africa'.
Which - to indulge my woke hat - pretty offensive to people who lived under actual colonisation.
There is just science.
[Unless people truly believe the Chinese space programme uses its own, different physics, or that the concrete in the new Ethiopian dam on the Nile river has its own chemistry.]
China produces very significant amounts of copper ore, iron ore, coal, and has the facilities to expand production on short notice .
It would hurt production in the short term, yes, but there wouldn't be anything that China would completely miss.
A war between the USA and China would ultimately do no one good, even Chinese wolf warriors should realize that.
I agree it would do no good to have a war between the US and China for anyone. I want Taiwan to stay independent and chose its own destiny. But the reality is that China has an overwhelming advantage in-theater over anyone and it's only getting worse.
Why would the US treat Taiwan any differently when China is the US biggest trading partner?
As for Japan, they are constitutionally prevented from declaring war.
So of Taiwans strongest alies, one cant defend them,and one wont defend them.
We legit need their semi production for defense much more than we need cheap plastic kids toys at Walmart.
>One does not.
PRC has blue water Navy that operates up to ME and has been for years. It's also signifantly larger and more capable than Japans. I suspect you need to update understanding from old Zeihan powerpoints.
With respect to US, PRC has 30 CEP ICBMs which means USNavy vessels become scrap the second they pull into port. Even nuclear carriers can't stay at sea forever, nevermind their sustainment / oilers / resupply ships will be long gone. US carrier groups will likely be one-time deployment assets. This is roughly reality now, and and even more dire in the coming years. US can sink every PLAN ship on the waters and PRC can sink every USN ship in port. Or destroy entire east Asian fab supply chain, setting back US industry/tech decades. Or bait US security commitments in Korea / Japan which compels US to send assets within 1st island chain where they are weakest, negating point of blockade outside of 1st island chain. The wank over blockading PRC via Malacca / SLOC overlooks the fact that at minimum PRC can force US to sign a hegemony suicide pact. PRC can make US lose everything even in defeat. And is willing to over TW.
I don’t see a need to rebut your false claims and would encourage folks to read your comment history.
Where we failed miserably was at turning the result into a stable country, but Taiwan is already a country.
Besides that, stability is always relative, in the longer term no country is ever stable, in the shorter term in the case of countries like Afghanistan they are stable about as long as other nations don't cross their borders.
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and many others besides. All of these were at some point reasonably stable, and then someone somewhere decided to attempt to enlist them in one scheme or another and/or tried to wage a proxy war through them or actively tried to install regimes more friendly to foreign interests.
The Roman Empire in the long run also wasn't stable, but it fell to rot from within, as most countries eventually do. But in the case of Afghanistan the destructive force was applied from without.
Wasn't there a pretty famous case, in a wargame meant to simulate conflict with Iran, where the red team general actually played to win but the game leaders reset things with new constraints that played to US advantages?
There are also pretty significant intrinsic problems with a Taiwan strait conflict: it's literally in China's backyard and the PLA is modernizing so the US can no longer rely on having an overwhelming technological advantage. IIRC, Taiwan's military strategy also assumes that they'll have a technological over the PRC, so they haven't embraced asymmetric tactics as much as they should.
From my armchair, it seems to me that Taiwan needs to adopt something like the Israeli model, where pretty much their whole population is in the reserves and can be mobilized quickly for a conflict. The US needs to figure out a way to reinforce and resupply it, and disentangle its supply chains from China to make that workable.
However, I'm not hopeful with the kind of leadership we have now. It's thinking is too short term and it's unwilling to make any really costly commitments.
yes, wargames are designed to be difficult to win, unless political expediency interferes with the design.
BLUFOR kept getting revived because it was also a training exercise in addition to a wargame. You've got dozens of ships gathered in the area to practice formation maneuvering, underway replenishment, etc, under wartime conditions. If you're on a ship that's blown up on day 2 of 20, what are you supposed to do for the rest of the time? It's better for training to revive casualties.
Stuff like this is why it's not easy to trust the outcome of a wargame.
We haven't had full-on war between two sides that are "in the same league" since WW2. The cold war was tense, and there have been proxy wars, or wars between a super power and a tiny power.
When two sides are matched somewhat evenly, that's when the loss of life has been dramatic, as we've seen in both world wars.
I really hope I don't see a full on war between super powers in my or my children's lifetimes, because it would be brutal.
I mean, would we really see aircraft carriers and bombers in action? submarines? Will both sides blow up each other's satellites and create a Kessler syndrome? At which point do they start threatening with nukes?
No, I can imagine some power projection and rough play, but I don't think anyone is considering full-on war.