this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
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I understand that the US is likely vulnerable to cyber attack, but is a widespread attack by China likely in the immediate future?
I mean, let's say China does disable infrastructure, banking, etc in a coordinated and widespread attack. But then what? An attack on that scale is an act of war, and I doubt China would be willing to follow up with military action at this time.
Perhaps this is more of a preventive MAD type strategy? Essentially a warning to the US to not mess with China, or else these are the consequences.
I think a lot of American planners expect the next war to be against China more than Russia, most likely as part of efforts to reclaim Taiwan militarily. Whether that actually happens or not, China seems to be trying to build a military that can win against the U.S., either by matching strengths or some more asymmetric means. I think I saw a story recently that China was constructing mockups of American navy ships in a desert that seem to be for war gaming, as an example.
Idk if Taiwan would be worth the war, at least not more than supplying Ukraine who's fighting Russia, which has done way more damage to our country recently. We need to catch up on our local chip manufacturing capabilities fast first, though.
Right after they had that Asia pacific summit in SF, suddenly there was very little news about threats to Taiwan, and there was a lot of news about new chip manufacturing setting up in like Arizona and Utah or something. Which makes me think we are going to let China take Taiwan.
I can't blame China for wanting Taiwan back. Imagine if we had a civil war and a foreign military invaded and occupied Alaska during a war just before it. Then at the end of the war one side fled to Alaska and declared it independant but we couldn't retake it because we were so debilitated from the civil war and the war before it. Now a foreign government steps in and says you can't retake your territory because they said so. I'd be pissed too.
But what do the residents of Alaska have to say? Are they doing fine? Would they be doing better if they were back under US?
Well the Japanese took Taiwan from China and then the nationalists fled China and took it over during the handover. No one asked the Chinese natives originally there if they wanted to separate from China.
We fought a civil war to keep the nation together.
Ok, but has anyone asked them anything now?
IMO it wasn't a good reason to fight a civil war. Fighting to force the south to end slavery was a good reason. Or because the south attacked the north because what it really wanted was to force the north to obey their laws about returning slaves rather than just secede and do their separate thing.
But the whole "you belong to us, like it or not" attitude is just imperialistic evil whether done by the USA or China. Or Russia or Israel.
Like if Texas seceded, the only military intervention I'd agree with is one that ensures those who don't want to be a part of separatist Texas have free passage out and support for areas that want to secede from the independent Texas (and both of those are under the assumption that Texas is gonna Texas and try to oppress/put down those people instead of let them do their thing). And there would probably need to be some kind of treaty that figures out how to handle the federal stuff in Texas and it would be incredibly complicated, but I don't think "it's complicated" is a good justification to civil war them into staying because it's already there.
Well, while I understand them wanting it back with that context, it's also been long enough that it feels like there's no point or at least not worth the trouble for them, either lol. I'm just anti-war on all fronts. It's just, idk, why at this point? National pride? It's not like the have a ton of resources, like oil like Alaska does, do they? Just the tech sector, and China could probably catch up on chip manufacturing part of that in time or just get them through trade.
But maybe people's grandparents can still probably remember when they were united and we need more time. Plus, I know they can get pretty nationalistic over there, too. I'm sure the US would try to take Hawaii in 50 years of whatever if a foreign country helped them separate from us, even though I'd like to think if they didn't want to rejoin, we wouldn't. But who knows, I've seen our right-wing in power 🙄
If you look at a map of China and the Pacific you can see that the "first island chain" of US allies totally surrounds China. From their military and strategic point of view they are being contained.
Now if China were to control the island of Taiwan they would break that containment. It's very likely they care more about the strategic position rather than whatever it is they say about wanting to reunite with the Taiwanese. They don't give a shit about the Taiwanese, they just want the island.
Ah, I didn't even think about it in geographic sense. Makes total sense. And ya, the people in power never care about that petty shit like national unity, it's just what they use to get the country on board with the next war or whatever, so with hindsight not sure why I went down that tangent lol.