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Comment by kneebonian | Hacker News Reader

People said the exact same thing before WW1. That "the economies are to interdependent", "no one would want a war it would make things worse for everyone.", "anyone that tried to start a war would be bankrupt in days"

It turns out that economic interdependence didn't stop the Germans from marching on France when the Russians declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and once it started it turns out the economics weren't powerful enough to stop a way in progress.

Economic realities only are in play so long as no one feels they are fighting for their survival as the world geo-political maps continues to change, Russia facing a complete collapse, the coming Chinese demographic problems combined with their food supply issues, etc, many nations will see their only future being through conquest.

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You don't even have to go so far back. In January 2022 few believed that Russia would invade Ukraine because Russia was heavily depending on exporting gas and oil to the EU. The sanctions in 2014 for the annexation of Crimea were deemed to scare Russia away from doing so.

Then Russia invaded anyways and is apparently now in the process of doubling down by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of fresh recruits.

Dictators dream of conquest, often against economic or strategic realities. If the law prohibits that, call it a special operation and not a declaration of war.

Yeah, except that Russia wants raw natural resources from the Ukraine territories it wants to annex. They can kill all Ukrainians and destroy all of their cities and still be able to extract what they want.

Now do that in Taiwan. Are you going to mine semiconductors from under a rock? Do that while an army of Taiwan partisans keeps fighting for decades?

That's not why Russia started the war

Its one reason for sure. Most things come back to natural resources.

Plus...earning more revenue than before on gas and oil.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028682/russia-federal-b...

True, but with less revenue in the future and higher inflation. Also, they are killing off lots of the men needed in their workforce. Higher revenue is just being burned in $100MM missile strikes.

I agree, I can't see it end well for Russia. Still, we should not forget that even a failed state or defeated country is something to deal with.

Yea Putin is no good but that could be worse. Better the devil you than the devil you don't? He fucked that up by invading Ukraine so somethings gotta give.

How would conquest benefit the PRC, other than vague symbolism of "uniting the country" and depriving the U.S. of a potential base? Yes, there's power in the rally-round-the-flag effect, but that only goes so far from distracting citizens of the matters of survival.

Also, the world is exponentially more economically interdependent than it was a century ago. Was the trade between the Central Powers and the Entente really comparable to that between the PRC and the rest of the world today? Or even between modern Russia's trade with the world and China's trade with the world? I suspect these are all different cases that need to be examined in full, not brushed away with rhetorical flourishes.

An immense amount of consumer electronics are manufactured in China. But also, most of China's energy is imported by sea. Don't think their Belt and Road projects have managed to substitute those naval routes yet. So in the case of war, both China and its trading partners are at the risk of slitting each others' throats in a jiffy. Is that comparable to Russia, an energy exporter?

Honestly none of this really matters, the only thing that matters is what people in power decide is worth it

The almost dictator of Brazil, Bolsonaro, brags that his biggest achievement when in power was to bring the colors of the flag back to people’s lives

Like, wtf, how is this important?

And how did things work out for Bolsonaro?

He almost won re-election and got crazy people to destroy Brazil’s capital city on Jan 8th 2023

But that’s not the point, the point is people in power will do whatever they want and have their reasoning for it

Actually, he's exploring the metaverse now.

https://twitter.com/AssLatam/status/1615321859066560514

Last I heard he was eating a sandwich in Florida not that far from Mar-a-Lago.

Too early to know; ask in 3-5 years.

> How would conquest benefit the PRC, other than vague symbolism of "uniting the country" and depriving the U.S. of a potential base? Yes, there's power in the rally-round-the-flag effect, but that only goes so far from distracting citizens of the matters of survival.

Ask Putin. Symbolism might seem weak sauce, unless you're a totalitarian state whose choices are more symbolism (aka distraction) or collapse, because Door #3, liberalizing reform, is not a permissible option.

Putin's economic analysis is different from Xi's. Russia is far less reliant on energy or food imports. Not to mention, not as many gains in recent decades to risk losing, as China does. This changes the options quite a bit.

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