Hacker News Reader

Comment by GordonS | Hacker News Reader

And let's not forget that the US recently stationed troops on a tiny Taiwanese island that's less than ten miles from the Chinese mainland. And at a time when the US is sabre-rattling over Taiwan, and is about to give Taiwan billions of dollars for "defence". And elsewhere in the world, the US almost seems to be trying to start WWIII.

In the current climate, being paranoid is the sensible option.

View on HN

I think in geopolitics it's probably always sensible to be a little paranoid...or have some people whose job that is. But I think the Kinmen thing is less big than it seems. It's already a militarized Taiwan island, and Taiwan and China are officially "still at war", so arguably the more provocative move is Taiwanese military presence there.

A handful of US troops is not a significant deployment, and I think there's many ways that US and Chinese militaries actually collaborate and communicate, and one of these is (most likely) through the plausibly deniable route of Taiwan.

You misunderstand the job of these troops.

Forward deployment like this are not there to threaten China. They are there, to tie down USA politicians.

Suppose China makes a move on Taiwan, now they have to play around US troops or fear bringing USA into the war. US politicians now have troops stuck in a war zone, they can no longer just was their hands of the situation - that would be politically unacceptable.

Imagine if Russia had even symbolical amount of troops stationed in Gaza, Israel would be in a difficult position, indiscriminate fire can kill them and start an incident

Okay, I don't think it's me that misunderstands that it's not a threat, I think it's me that's on your side.

Although your point is interesting and I hadn't considered it about the insurance policy aspect of the deployment.

What's your background? :) haha :)

> And elsewhere in the world, the US almost seems to be trying to start WWIII.

What? Where? Can you give some examples?

> is about to give Taiwan billions of dollars for "defence"

Why quote defence? You think they give it for offence?

I suppose you're a citizen of the West; then US hegemony is certainly in your best interest.

> I suppose you're a citizen of the West; then US hegemony is certainly in your best interest

I am guessing you are from US, and you guys do not notice that quite often, domestic US politics shifts and you have a schism and throw one of your ‘allies’ under the bus.

Mr. Macron he just made a speech about how Europe can no longer rely on US.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/macron-sa...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com