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> I don't see how it can't work at least short term, when the US is by a long margin the world military and economic power.

The 90s were ~30 years ago. American economic and military capacity ain't what they used to be, and alienating your allies and friends is starting to look like a poor strategy.

USA spends more in their military than the rest of the world combined. Also the only country which used nuclear weapons of mass destruction. You must fear them.

The US spends more on everything, those numbers need to be cost adjusted for "cost of a rifle for America v cost of a rifle for China", but never are.

>The 90s were ~30 years ago. American economic and military capacity ain't what they used to be

You're totally wrong about this when you look at the numbers. EU's economy was on par with the US about 20 years ago. Now it's only half the size of the US.

When all your military spending can't help you win against a third-world country (USA in Afghanistan) or a single country 1/3 your size (Russia in Ukraine), it really makes you wonder if all that spending is justified to uphold one big bluff.

Winning is different from taking over.. Russia wants to rule over Ukraine, not destroy it.

US was all into destroying Afghanistan and Iraq. They had no intention of being there long term.

> Russia wants to rule over Ukraine, not destroy it.

Can’t it be both? It’s hard to argue they aren’t trying to destroy it. It has been attempted in the past during the Holodomor.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

The context of post-civil war stalinism and food/industrial policy was a little different from modern Russian empire-building.

Russia's end goal here is a cultural genocide.

I'll nitpick here and say that Russia's plan was more likely to topple the government and put a puppet in place and then leave, but they botched that.

Russia destroys its colonies. It wants to destroy ukraine. And it wants cultural genocide.

We aren't pointing "all our military spending" against Russia in Ukraine. Not by a long shot (no pun intended).

Of course not. But I think it's also true to say if the US hasn't been willing or able to effectively use its military power at the margin to stop a historic enemy from annexing its neighbours with impunity, your average regional power doesn't have to worry about the US using its military power to dominate world trade.

Nothing will change in the US if Ukraine falls tomorrow.

People love to cry foul when the US flexes it's might... then cry foul when the US takes a back seat... literally cry foul no matter what the US does.

If Ukraine is so important to the world order, why has Europe (you know, Ukraine's actual neighbors) not stepped up with their full military power? Why is Europe not threatening troops, missiles, aircraft, tanks, etc... even nuclear obliteration if Putin doesn't yield? Why is it the US has to swoop in, from half a world away, and save the day (again, and again, and again...)?

The US is not currently willing to send our citizens to die in Ukraine. Maybe Europeans should?

> The US is not currently willing to send our citizens to die in Ukraine

The US is currently not wanting Ukraine to win for a single reason - it’s personal to Trump. So much has happened that we’ve collectively forgotten that it was Zelensky said “No” to Trump on the phone when wanting to find any dirt on Joe Biden helping Hunter in business deals.

> The US is currently not wanting Ukraine to win for a single reason - it’s personal to Trump

That totally explains why Biden kept slow-walking support packages...

> Nothing will change in the US if Ukraine falls tomorrow.

It certainly will when Putin moves on to invading Poland or Finland. The whole point of holding the line at Ukraine is because everyone believes Putin won’t stop there.

After the unexpected difficulty of the Ukraine war, how likely is it that they would try to extend themselves even further, against stronger countries than Ukraine?

More likely than if they lose in Ukraine, that's for sure. Because the lesson they will have learned is that invading countries is a winning strategy. They were deluded enough to invade Ukraine, they are deluded enough to invade Poland.

"Putin is too sensible to invade Ukraine" was the argument people were making the day before he did. My guess is these are the same people who now say "Putin would never invade Poland".

It would not be a terrible loss for the world if Russia invades Poland. Been there, too many consonants in their names and the food is too sweet.

Never been to Finland so no opinion on that.

Just to state a fact.

Article 5 of NATO (an attack on one is an attack on all) has only been invoked once, by the US. So why did NATO members send their militaries to Afghanistan?

The real reason is that most conflicts never happen. Or are resolved before ending in a full war. Either the US or a European NATO country sending in troops would muddy the conflict so much that the risk of escalation is huge.

> People love to cry foul when the US flexes it's might... then cry foul when the US takes a back seat... literally cry foul no matter what the US does.

There's a difference between the US invading Iraq and US aiding a country being invaded.

> US aiding a country being invaded

Why can't the Germans send troops into Ukraine? Or the Brits (for all their grandstanding and bluster)?

Why must it be the US?

If "everyone" thinks Putin isn't going to stop with Ukraine, then it would seem Europe has an existential crisis to deal with - not the US, thousands of miles away...

Why the US and not Germany or UK?

Two reasons:

1. Because whichever country does go in, it gives everyone else in NATO an excuse to do nothing in response to Russia subsequently going to full war with whoever it was that went in. Strategic vs tactical response in local political sphere, short-term tactical benefit of using such an excuse comes at long term strategic cost.

2. Right now, each individual European power is in a state of "Oh no, Russia's probably 3-5 years away from attacking us if Ukraine falls, and it will take us 5-8 years to be ready to defend ourselves". The UK, for example, has a 136k active and 32k reserve personnel in total, while Ukraine forces have suffered ~400k wounded and ~50-100k fatalities.

Both points become "we can only intervene directly as a joint act from multiple nations".

That said, if the USA were to leave NATO, I wouldn't be overly surprised if rest of NATO may issue a joint declaration that Ukraine is now under their combined protection, nor would I be overly surprised by an alternative outcome such as NATO being functionally replaced with Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...

And also, much of Europe is, in fact, sending aid (and arms) to Ukraine. All the other stuff is about troops on the ground.

There's plenty of threats by Putin to use first strike nuclear weapons if NATO troops directly engage Russian troops. So the current approach is indirect: British "military advisers" train Ukranians in the use of British Javelin missiles, but don't pull the trigger themselves.

Even a non-nuclear direct conventional war would get very messy very quickly. NATO would have to seize Kaliningrad and Belarus, start interning Russian nationals, rush forces to hold the Baltic states, and so on. It's not complicated to say "this will be very expensive and deadly, so we're not going to do it unless absolutely forced to".

European states are now re-arming (the irony of fate is that it's now US policy for Germany and Japan to re-arm), but that is going to take a while.

You are taking a short sighted view on what it means to be a super power.

If Putin wins in Ukraine, it will show everyone that the US is incapable to hold even a weak enemy such as Russia to account. It is irrelvant that you frame it as a choice rather than a failure.

Europe has been doing more than the US in absolute and relative terms to prop up Ukraine but it hasn't been enough to help Ukraine win. As a European, I would want our governments to put soldiers down and end the war, but Russia has been successful in the information war to make too many citizens afraid to enter with troops.

The US hasn't been saving the day for anyone without ulterior motives for a long time (ever?). You make it seem like it were generous moves to counter mostly Russia or e.g. ensure access to middle eastern oil.

The US has never spend money on its allies which it didn't believe has a large return. So the current Republican administration's view to reduce engagement is actually hurting themselves. Classic lose-lose.

Entire discussion seems to be ignoring the Russian nuclear weapons, so the war has to be conducted entirely with Ukranian-flagged troops.

Why? Would the presence of peace western troops make a Nuclear strike by Russia more likely?

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44822385

"Peacekeepers" is obviously meaningless when there is no peace to keep, so the question is what happens when NATO troops attack Russian troops directly.

I mean we rolled over Afghanistan the problem is fighting a war "humanely". Hard to accomplish anything with both hands tied behind your back. Just like in Vietnam the USA's ability to wage war is only limited by what it's local population thinks is "fair".

The Bush administration was looking to "win" in the Afghanistan by doing nation building, which was never going to work, and certainly wasn't going to be accomplished by military means. Obama and Trump both chose to kick the can the road, to not pay the political cost for "losing", Biden ended the conflict, and paid the political price.

But if the US had a different objectives, every human settlement in Afghanistan could have have been radioactive ash by September 12, 2001. Or, more realistically, the US could have gone in, killed all (for some value of all) the local elites as a warning to leaders elsewhere about the costs of harboring terrorists, and then immediately left the country in the same sort of chaos that they eventually did a couple of decades later. Kabul delenda est was always accomplishable.

The only people who should be ashamed of the their performance in Ukraine are the Russians, and the Europeans, for failing to be able deter or respond to the Russia on their own despite having an economy five times the size.

US interests are perfectly well served by seeing the Russian military mauled for a generation at the cost of aid, much of it material that was going to be decommissioned anyway, that costs roughly what Americans spend on golf in a given year (Once you throw in the costs of drinks on the 19th hole.)

Anyway, US arms sales are up since the start of the conflict, Russian sales have cratered.

China seems to be working on catching up, and if you remove all of your soft power maybe they look more attractive?

Oh and TSMC is on an island they claim is their own. Great: an Intel that has TSMC as its largest single shareholder is essentially wholly under the thumb of the State Department.

> Great: an Intel that has TSMC as its largest single shareholder is essentially wholly under the thumb of the State Department.

They already are. The US defence industry buys from them no matter what. Which is why the US needs to ensure their survival. The concern isn't that Intel survives or not (the US would prop them up no matter what), but that they also remain on the cutting edge and the US doesn't lose out if, say, Taiwan falls to China.

Absolutely. Everything the OP mentions as a reason to continue trading with the US is also a reason for Europe to trade more with China. Historically the argument for not doing that is "look at their very different values and how they bully and threaten their neighbours, and remember that if you do business there their government will happily crush you with its arbitrary power as soon as you step out of line and even at the import/export any trade deals they do make will be them openly trying to screw you" The US isn't exactly in a strong position to continue making those arguments about why the world's other superpower is different with a straight face.

The US doesn't need to be cut out of world trade altogether (it won't be obviously) to lose a lot at the margin, with the chief beneficiaries ironically being the country the current US administration most hate...

More than what? Europe trades a tremendous amount with China in the status quo. The argument you mentioned is real, but the EU never subscribed to it in the first place; they've consistently stated (e.g. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEM...) that trade with China is very important and they have no interest in decoupling, although they'd like to lower the trade deficit.

Well yes, and so does the US. But Europe has certain significant restrictions on trade with China in sensitive areas, and levies its common external tariff on Chinese imports. China would love those restrictions to be removed and to get a broad trade deal. And other countries that consider themselves broadly aligned with the West have considerably less decision-making inertia than the EU

I don't think China would love to get a broad trade deal. Analysts in both Europe and the US generally agree that the Chinese government cultivates unbalanced trade as a matter of policy. (Indeed, one of the things that's supposed to happen as part of the US-EU "trade deal" is joint action on metals to counteract persistent Chinese overcapacity.)

A broad trade deal would be unbalanced in China's favour; they manufacture more and at lower cost. But the US isn't exactly selling the message of being the better partner right now.

Neither of them are acting like good partners right now, thus the trade disputes. Smart money has to be on the US getting a less crazy leader sooner than China stops pursuing its long-standing mercantilist ideas.

Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by a broad trade deal? As of 2023, a large majority of imports from the US and close to a majority of imports from China were tariff-free. (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...) The remainder are on goods that the EU doesn't want entirely free trade in for some reason or another. I could definitely imagine a scenario where China follows in Trump's footsteps and bullies the EU into pushing their tariff-free percentage higher, but I wouldn't call that broad and wouldn't expect it to produce radical shifts in the import-export activity of EU businesses.

Europe is not going to trade more with China, if anything, they want to trade less with China, if you look at the recent events.

- Europe signing trade deal with US

- China: We can’t afford for Russia to lose Ukraine war https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-cannot-lose-war-ukraine-09.... In other words, China is attacking Europe via Russia.

- China is in a great depression. Their only economic engine is export, and Europe is steadily putting up tariff walls.

No magic that keeps your businesses efficient or running if the government is picking winners and using tariffs. Quite the opposite.

The Soviet Union overspent on military, so much that lots of its military equipment is still present today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_main_battle_tanks_by_c...

If anything, it shows the opposite of what you are saying.

It will not work out over the long run. This is corruption; it breeds corruption, and corruption creates victims. Victims don't put up with it forever and as the old cold case appeal spiel goes, "alliances shift over time".

More prosaically, in the short term: TSMC are now effectively compelled to acquire Intel entirely or at least a controlling share, right?

Unless Trump's shakedown requires them to own 49% but then bans them from owning more than 50%, which would be the end of the USA as any sort of free market -- and I concede that is possible, because the USA now has a leader who acts more and more like an autocrat -- aren't TSMC essentially compelled by their own interests to find the just-greater-than 1% somewhere?

If you're blackmailing me into owning almost all of something but not getting control of what I owned, I think the logical next step is to forcibly gain control, yes? Because it turns the tables.

Not least because acquiescing even to buying 49% paints a target on my back.

Trump is not saving Intel: he is guaranteeing it is going to get broken up and sold off. He is destroying it. (More to the point he is immediately tying its existence to the success or failure of his own Asia-facing foreign policy, which means he is effectively asserting control over it)

TSMC is not going to get over the 50% threshold because it has no free will in this whole matter, as the very existence of Taiwan, and hence of TSMC, depends on the political will of the US.

Otherwise I fully agree with you, this will definitely not work out in the long run, but who cares about the long run anymore in this day and age?

But they have to try, right? Otherwise as you say, they are essentially operating under Rubio and Trump's control as a tool of the State Department.

The other important thing about this is that it dirties Intel almost immediately with presidential cheeto dust. So the value is going to fall over the long term, and this isn't the last sell-off they will have to do. Can you stop TSMC or a stalking horse for TSMC buying up parts of the rest?

Trump has created a powerful victim here.

Why would China annexing Taiwan have any direct effect on TSMC ?

I'd imagine they would be happy to have TSMC still selling to NVidia, Apple and AMD, and therefore a powerful lever in case of future US export controls/etc.

because even without deliberate sabotage a war in Taiwan would shut TSMC down for at least a decade. Changing the toilet paper supplier can drop yield by 20% until they sort it out. How do you think a warzone will affect it?

TSMC built a fab in Arizona that in 2 years was up and running delivering chips to Apple, so it doesn't take that long ...

Obviously a protracted or nasty war would have a severe impact, but it's hard to see why China would want to harm TSMC, even if worse case for US they stopped them from exporting.

you're assuming way less action from the US than there would actually be. it's not about the exports, it's about the supply chain to supply a fab. they need euv machines, wafers, thousands of specifically sourced chemicals etc.

it's not about what China wants, it's just not feasible to operate a fab in a warzone

It won't work out because the people in charge are the dumbest motherfuckers imaginable. They are utterly convinced that every one of their stupid ideas is brilliant, that they know everything, and that the way forward is to liquidate anyone who has the audacity to say 'no' or 'you're wrong' to them.

That's not the roadmap to good management of anything, as literally anyone who has ever worked a job will tell you. How people can see an amalgamation of all the traits they despise in a peer or leader that they actually have to interact with, and go 'oh yeah this guy should be running the entire country, this will end well' is mindblowing.

The empire can run on fumes and momentum... for a while. No company or country is so exceptional that it can survive enough mismanagement, eventually you burn through the furniture, and piss away whatever lead or competency you had.

I'm not sure they're convinced that every idea is brilliant. They're convinced that they have to convince everyone else that every idea is brilliant, because if they don't, everyone else will wake up and realize that many of their ideas are in fact not all that bright.

I don't think at this point it's safe to say that they are actually playing 3-dimensional chess. There is plenty of evidence that indicates that they are stupid enough to believe their own bullshit.

It seems like the tariffs are at least one-dimensional chess. The supposed rationale for the numbers was widely ridiculed, but now it’s clear that the numbers didn’t matter as long as they’re large. The tariffs have no rational basis as tariffs, they’re just a convenient stick for extortionate demands like this one.

The US margin on economic power isn't all that great, by GDP/PPP it's a long way behind China.

Though from the POV of economic coercion, the question is probably more like "what's the USA's import/export market like relative to all my markets including domestic?", which is going to vary wildly by industry.

> Ally with China, Iran and Russia to fight the US?

Replace Iran with the EU, and yes, some or all of them.

> EU as much as they dislike the US, has a laundry list of urgent domestic issues like Russia,

Urgent, but affordable.

> no cheap energy, no tech industry,

Energy isn't meaningfully worse than anyone else, lots of tech but it's mostly local rather than global in scale

> ageing population, economic stagnation or even decline,

Like everyone else, including the USA

> collapsing welfare system

News to me. Also: Wasn't the USA's supposed to collapsing since Obama took power?

But also, not a unified welfare system over all member nations of the EU.

> illegal immigration leading to a rise right wing extremism leading to crackdowns on freedom of speech and censorship.

Is it, or is that a narrative? And specifically, is it doing this worse than the USA today?

US is a lot richer than China. GDP/PPP does not count the number of citizens.

If per capita was what mattered, the US would be kowtowing to each of Luxembourg, Singapore, and Ireland. The US does not, because "per capita" isn't as important as "per government".

The mean wealth/income per person in the USA is indeed higher than China.

So what?

> What can they do now, when the US holds all the cards?

Negotiate and follow through in bad faith, because there's no upside to acting in good faith when the opposing party is pursuing a lose-lose agenda.