However China is now a full fledged dictatorship. I'm not sure you can count on them being a rational actor on the world stage.
They can do a lot of damage, but would also get absolutely devastated in return. They are food, energy insecure and entirely dependent on exports after all.
You’re not wrong, maybe all the scaremongering in the west about China overtaking us got them delusional enough in a Japanese nationalist type way for them to behave this irrational, but i highly doubt it. But that can also change pretty quick if they feel like their back is against the wall, you’re not wrong in that regard
I just don’t think it’s very likely for just about any leader putting themselves into the position you are describing. This is a reoccurring narrative in western media, and I’m not here to defend dictators, but i feel like reality is less black and white than that.
Many of the "crazed leaders" we are told are acting irrational, often do not. It’s just a very, very different perspective, often bad ones, but regardless.
Let me try to explain what I mean: during the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein was painted as this sort of crazed leader, irrationally deciding to invade Kuwait. But that’s not the entire truth. Hussein may have been an evil man, but the way the borders of Iraq were re-drawn, Iraq was completely cut off from any sources of fresh water. As expected, their neighbors cut off their already wonky water supplies and famine followed. One can still think it’s not justified to invade Kuwait over this, but there’s a clear gain to be had from this "irrational" act. Again, not a statement of personal opinion, just that there IS something to be had. I’m not trying to say that i am certain that Hussein had the prosperity of his people at heart, but i do think that it isn’t entirely irrational to acknowledge that every country in human history is 3 missed meals away from revolution. That’s not good, even if you are their benevolent god and dictator for lifetime(tm).
Russia "irrationally" invading the Ukraine may seem that way to us, but let’s see. Russias economy is just about entirely dependent on their petrochem industry. Without, their are broke. The reason why they still can compete in this market is their asset of soviet infrastructure and industry. A good majority of USSR pipelines run through the Ukraine. I’m not saying it’s okay for them to invade, but i can see what they seek to gain and why exactly they fear NATO expansion all that much.
I personally don’t see a similar gain to be had from China invading Taiwan, at least right now. They have lots to lose and little to gain. Taiwans semiconductor industry is useless without western IP, lithography equipment and customers. There are even emergency plans to destroy taiwans fabs in case of invasion. And that’s beside the damage done to mainland China itself.
But as i stated, this may very well change when they get more desperate. Hussein fully knew the consequences of screwing with the wests oil supply, but the desperation was too acute.
I just don’t buy irrationality, there’s always something to be had or something to lose. It may be entirely different from our view, but there’s gotta be something.
none of those claims are anything but proven, historical facts by the way.
Wanna lose your appetite? The leadership in charge of the described operations in Vietnam gleefully talked about their management genius. They implemented kīll quotas.
this list also is everything but exhaustive.
In the geography which with I am familiar, Iraq has two incredibly famous rivers and the Persian Gulf is actually salt water.
Turkey, Iran and Syria can and have caused horrible water shortages in Iraq.
When you're saying "Putin invaded Ukraine irrationally" you're implicitly projecting your own value system and worldview onto him.
Let's take goals. What do you think Putin's goals are? I don't think it's too fanciful to imagine that welfare of ordinary Russians is less important to him than going down in history as someone who reunited the lost Russian Empire, or even just keeping in power and adored. It's just a fact that the occupation of Crimea was extremely popular and raised his ratings, so why not try the same thing again?
What about the worldview? It is well established that Putin didn't think much of Ukraine's ability to defend, having been fed overly positive reports by his servile underlings. Hell, even Pentagon thought Ukraine will fold, shipping weapons that would work well for guerrilla warfare (Javelins) and dragging their feet on stuff regular armies need (howitzers and shells). Russians did think it'll be a walk in the park, they even had a truck of crowd control gear in that column attacking Kyiv, thinking they'll need police shields.
So when you put yourself into Putin's shoes, attacking Ukraine Just Makes Sense: a cheap&easy way to boost ratings and raise his profile in history books, what not to like? It is completely rational — for his goals and his perceived reality.
Sadly, people often fall into the trap of overextending their own worldview/goals onto others, finding a mismatch, and trying to explain that mismatch away with semi-conspiratorial thinking (Nato expansion! Pipelines! Russian speakers!) instead of reevaluating the premise.
(But yeah, clearly his actual goal was to increase his personal prestige. Is that not common knowledge yet?)
> Russia "irrationally" invading the Ukraine may seem that way to us, but let’s see.
Invading one of their largest neighbors and ruining their relationship with a nation they had significant cultural exchange and trade with (including many of their weapons factories) is irrational.
But Russia's leaders didn't want a positive neighborly relationship they wanted to conquer Ukraine and restore the empire. Putin has given speeches on this comparing himself to the old conquering czars.
> Russias economy is just about entirely dependent on their petrochem industry. Without, their are broke.
True enough
> The reason why they still can compete in this market is their asset of soviet infrastructure and industry.
Much of the equipment is western and installed in the post Soviet period.
> A good majority of USSR pipelines run through the Ukraine.
Then they probably shouldn't have invaded in 2014? Almost seems like they made a bad irrational choice. They had other pipelines that bypassed Ukraine like NS1 and NS2 which didn't enter service due to the war
> I’m not saying it’s okay for them to invade, but i can see what they seek to gain
Please explain what they tried to gain. Ukraine wouldn't have objected to exports of gas through Ukraine if not for the Russian invasion and they already had pipelines that bypassed Ukraine.
> and why exactly they fear NATO expansion all that much.
They don't fear NATO expansion, they disliked it because it prevented them from conquering or bullying countries with threats of invasion. They've taken troops of the NATO border with Finland (and didn't even invade Finland when Finland joined NATO). Russia acknowledged the right of eastern European nations to join NATO and promised to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and borders.
> I personally don’t see a similar gain to be had from China invading Taiwan, at least right now. They have lots to lose and little to gain. Taiwans semiconductor industry is useless without western IP, lithography equipment and customers. There are even emergency plans to destroy taiwans fabs in case of invasion. And that’s beside the damage done to mainland China itself.
The fabs are a red herring, they're largely irrelevant. If China invades (which I hope doesn't happen) it will not be because of any economic gains. There are no possible economic gains that would justify the costs of a war. If they invade it will be for the same reason that Russia did, because of extreme nationalism/revanchism and trying to use that extreme nationalism to maintain popularity among the population.
China is facing a deflating real estate bubble, but they still managed to grow the last year (official sources are disputed but independent estimates are still positive).
China is in a world of hurt, but the government is trying desperately to hide how bad it actually is. If this continues for a few more months, it will be an existential situation for their economy.
[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-31/china-hom...
[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-31/china-sto...
[3] - https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/foreign-direct...
edit: one also should keep in mind that the Chinese real estate market is entirely different in its importance to its populations wealth. "Buying" real estate is pretty much the only sanctioned market to invest your earnings. They still pretend to be communist after all.
Are there any dam-having countries for which this isn't the case?
[1]: https://www.ispsw.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/718_Lin.pdf
"In this case, the Three Gorges Dam may become a military target. But if this happens, it would be devastating to China as 400 million people live downstream, as well as the majority of the PLA's reserve forces that are located midstream and downstream of the Yangtze River."
Also what does "400 million people live downstream" even mean? There's ten million people living downstream of this dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Dam_(Troy), and ten million more living downstream of the various Mississippi dams and so on.
The entire three gorges meme originated from FaLunGong/Epoche times propaganda, including in linked article (to interview with Simone Gao) and all the dumb google map photos of deformed damn due to lens distortion. PRC planners there aren't concerned about dam breech, but general infra terrorism.
The onne infra PRC planners are concerned about are coastal nuclear plants under construction, which is much better ordnance trade for TW anyway, and just as much of a war crime.
But, as it seems, i vastly underestimated the effort needed to cause my theorized catastrophe. I’m entirely open to admit being wrong about that, always good to learn.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but afaik, the viability of nuclear plants as strategic targets has been vastly overblown. I’ll go read up on it, but i don’t think it’s that big of a risk.
I think you're talking about US, willing to escalate to mainland attack, specifically strategic targets that support war economy. Nuclear plants being sensation overblown since it's basically jsut another piece of hard power infra. Which BTW very few US strategic planners have actually indicated willingness to do, but also inevitably must since PRC can prosecute TW (and SKR/JP) war completely from mainland.
To which IMO, most also vastly underestimate the effort needed. Reality right now is, the amount of fire power US can surge in region (naval strikes, aviation regional runway access, CONUS long range bombers), is very limited relative to number of PRC strategic targets, and in contested space theatre. To be blunt, PRC mainland is significantly larger (more targets) and capable (less ability to hit targets) than any previous US adversaries. By 1-2 order of magnitude. Most don't grasp this.
For reference the US+co air campaign in Gulf War, where US+co surged 6 carriers and had extremely geographically favourable regional basing to supplement land aviation, conducted ~100,000 sorties in 40 days, on Iraq, a country 20x smaller (realistically 10x since PRC targets are mostly east half of country), with 80x less people (even less aggregate productive/manufacturing ability). And that campian was essentially UNCONTESTED, since IIRC the french who designed Iraqi anti-air network sold out entire system to west. And it was efficient since regional base (CENTAF Saudi) was close enough that US fighters can sortie with minimal refueling.
None of that is true in PRC campaign, distances involved and limited basing US has access to (at least relative to PRC access to their entire military infra), means US unlikely to forward deploy as much aviation, and sorties need midair tanking (possibly multiple times) to deliver weapons, assuming those fighters aren't shot down/destroyed on the ground in the first place. Same with navy - US can throw in all but the effects won't scale proprotionally since US can't actually sustain/replenish surge for more than a few weeks, assuming support assets don't get destroyed themselves when they restock in port. So to summarize PRC is 10x-20x bigger than Iraq, 80x+ more targets, in contested region where PRC has home team advantage and where US has visiting team disadvantage (with regional partners factored in), in manner that US might not even be able to sustain forward posture for more than a few weeks (vs 5 weeks of initial Gulf War campaign). If you just naively scale Iraq air campaign to PRC, it would take US 5+ years to degrade PRC same way it did Iraq.
That's the scale of problem. Granted it's very hand wavy and napkin mathy but it illustrates how gargantuan PRC actually is and how big the challenges has become relative to US military capability that is calibrated to stomp small/medium sized countries. IMO why planners last 10 years have focused on SLOC/energy blockade, because land war in Asian is stupid. But even blockade talk is going to quiet down (and IMO US supporting TW militarily) in a few years when PRC roles out CONUS conventional strike with ICBMs to mutual conventional homeland vunerability. But that's another matter entirely, the TLDR is US game theory on TW going to be very different when they realize 200-300 oil refineries and lng plants and a few F35 assembly plants can significantly degrade CONUS and NATO. The other part of hitting a 100s of smaller targets vs 1 large target that triggers nuclear retaliation is there's more rungs/opportunity to deescalate, which is probably top priority in actual US/PRC war.