Probably not a great sign of things to come.
Edit: Chinese propaganda video of attack on Guam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBOho1AOKYY
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36598/chinese-air-forc...
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-builds-mockups-us-...
> it took until the middle of the 2010s
Here's a Chinese general openly threatening war with Japan in 2012:
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinese-general-pre...
The Taiwan Strait crisis of the '90s was before my time but it'd be interesting to know how bellicose the rhetoric got back then.
Edit: Taiwan crisis wasn't great, but it ended when the US sailed an aircraft carrier through Strait of Taiwan. So while it wasn't great, it wasn't like they were threatening war against US.
China imports 66%-75% of its oil. That would drop dramatically in a hot war, as oil imports via the South China Sea would likely be blocked. This would require any imports to sail around Australia, which would likely be stopped by the US.
Russia would happily sell China oil, but it doesn't produce nearly enough to cover the gap.
No oil, no military. No oil, no economy.
I do not think oil is such a big problem. China import is 10mln barrels while Russia exports is 5mln barrels, Kazakhstan is 1.2mln barrels. I am sure they can transport Iranian oil if needed. What will also happen is that Russia will buy oil on international market to resell to China. There is no infrastructure now to transport that much oil but it can be built surprisingly fast. Germany just demonstrated that it's possible to built LNG terminal in six months. If you ignore property rights and all enviromental regulation and enlist military you can built trans-asia pipeline in a few months. China can also import oil thru Vietnam.
But maybe they were trying to solve the problem of aging population that way.
Xi has made it very clear he would like to invade Taiwan, and soon. If Ukraine was going well for Russia, he may have already invaded.
IMHO, people/news are blowing it out of proportion.
If the boss of FedEx said we're going to end up in a war with China, how much does that say about what defense contractors are doing?
What it was probably actually about was shocking the troops assigned to AMC, establishing an important mission and raising morale, and declaring business as usual was no longer acceptable.
Gotta be creative to make people excited about moving supplies.
See also: every ridiculous statement by every startup CEO in a bubble, ever
> Minihan said in the memo that because both Taiwan and the U.S. will have presidential elections in 2024, the U.S. will be “distracted,” and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have an opportunity to move on Taiwan.
And cannot belief statesman proclaiming that now everywhere :( War should always be seen as evitable, at least that belief needs to hold up til the last second.. and even further. But who am I...
In the 80s, it felt like you might find yourself vaporized or living in a nuclear apocalypse hellscape at any moment, likely due to a misunderstanding or malfunction.
These days it seems like we're more likely to just be in a long-term adversarial position with likely proxy wars.
I feel like the WWII and Cold War eras were more about existence, whereas these days the aggression is more about how much more bounty do we want. Look at the Chinese land grabs around disputed islands versus Japan. They don't need them, but it would be nice to have them.
The whole thing just seems like a bunch of unnecessary, ego-driven B.S. on every side.
I had lots of nightmares about seeing a bright orange flash in the window back in my youth. I've had a few recently.
If they decide to take out the Steel Works in Gary, I'll be toast. If not, fallout is something that can be avoided by staying inside, away from exterior walls and the roof, and waiting it out for at least a week.
I've had Potassium Iodide in stock for my child's use since the Fukushima meltdown... I bought a new bottle when Ukraine kicked off.
I'm old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis — to borrow from Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie Wag the Dog, "This? THIS is NOTH-ing!"
1. Will I be able to stay in power? (Related: Will my populace support this war? Will my economy keep functioning?)
2. Will I end the conflict with more power / prestige / resources? (Related: How expensive will the conflict be in blood and treasure?)
Most of the things the West are doing over Ukraine are to make the "Related" answers less palatable. Very few people are calculating enough to climb to power, then risk everything on a gamble with bad odds.
If China gets serious about Kinmen and Matsu, then everyone should start worrying.
Additionally, tensions are escalating with China and the economy seems unstable. I sincerely hope that reasonable minds will be able to prevent any further escalation of these conflicts, but there is always the possibility of an unintentional incident that could lead to an expansion of these wars.
The Cold War was a lot scarier than what we have now. In the back of your mind, every day you thought that today could be the day we all get wiped out.
I'm not too worried about Russia or China starting anything nuclear these days. Russia invade Scandinavia? Sure. China invade Taiwan? Absolutely. But I'm not worried that they'll nuke someone else from a distance.
I'd like to hear more about this perspective- is this based solely on the fact that they haven't done it before or something else?
Information and and disinformation travels so much faster and so much more thoroughly these days that it’s hard to compare.
For example, in the 80s, I couldn’t even tell you what Russia looked like through photographs. there was just very little available information.
There was a big gray outline of the Soviet union on my high school history class wall, and that was about it. I had seen a few pictures of the Kremlin …the onion domes and what not. And maybe I had seen one photo of Brezhnev shown every so often on the news, but that was about it.
It’s amazing how much things have changed as far as the wealth of information is concerned.
So I’m not really answering your question, but the sheer magnitude of the lack of information … let’s say about four decades ago… is something that I really don’t see pointed out much so I thought you might find it interesting.
So in the 80s, the Soviet union was worrisome for the most part. But mostly it was just the blackest of black boxes to me.
Edits: sorry… numerous typos…typing on treadmill.
This is nothing.