Taiwan Elects Separatist President

“Feint” HFS your line of thinking is an amazing study in willful ignorance. Russia was logistically thwarted in its plans to take Kyiv. Recharacterizing Russia’s goals after-the-fact does a disservice to any kind of intelligent discussion. You evidently pick and choose what you want to believe, willingly casting aside US intelligence (which was proven right about Russia’s aims down to the very week they start the offensive) and even a Russian in power stating that Ukraine was just a stepping stone.

 

Willful ignorance is thinking that Moscow believed they'd be allowed to occupy all of Ukraine with 150,000 troops, while knowing full well NATO was arming Ukraine and had a vested interest there. Had this been Azerbaijan they were invading, for example, okay, I might buy it. But the Russians aren't idiots. This has always been a war with the West. The Russians were going to do what they had to do to end up exactly where we are right now. Otherwise, why not just leave and end the war? Clearly, they've lost the objective if we believe your version. What's the rationale for staying in if this does nothing for Russia?

 

And then there were two ignored.

 

Yeah, with China, I'd say it's doubly important to place ourselves in their shoes to understand what their true motives are and react accordingly. Which is the whole point of the Russian exercise. You keep wanting to see something that isn't there. I don't care what your field intelligence told you. It doesn't make any sense. We won't be able to afford those kinds of mistakes with China.

 

Stay tuned for next week’s all new episode of The Ultracrepidarian where Okee tells us all how we didn’t actually go to the moon and if we had we did it in the worst possible way.

 

This video pretty much does a great job summarizing our current approach to containing China and preparing for war in the INDOPACOM theatre.

I just hope the flag doesn't go up while I am stationed in Okinawa.

 

I'm not nearly as well-versed on China/Taiwan. I have a pretty good handle on Ukraine/Russia. I truly hope you're not imagining things with China, but I wouldn't purport to know if you are, much less explain to you why you're wrong. What I was referring to is your indifference towards Western interference in Kyiv and its impact on the events which unfolded afterwards. This all spawned from your comments about U.S. involvement in other regions.

What we can't do with China, is ignore the impact of our pre-involvement in the region. Why did Xi decide to prepare the country for war? What threat are they perceiving? Those are the questions we should be asking. If we aren't stoking the flames, then we have less to worry about. So you tell me, how involved has the U.S. in been in Taiwanese politics over the past 10 to 20 years? Are we active on the ground stirring unrest? Are we interfering with their elections? Is there corruption within the Taiwanese government?

China, historically, has mostly kept to themselves. Russia, historically, has been brutalized by invasions. So it stands to reason they would be a little paranoid. China? Not so much. But I'm not sold Xi is looking to conquer east Asia. Nor should we take any preemptive action could be viewed as a provocation. Also, we should tell Netanyahu to stop killing 500 babies to capture 1 Hamas.

 

The world is so destined for bad things because of how stupid Americans are

 

Taiwan makes Xi tie one on.

 

I just listened to the expert and I think the tweeted fair reading, especially in combination with his prior statements about Japan and South Korea during his first term and his general view on trade.

I think there is very serious doubt as to whether he even wants to defend Taiwan. I do agree that we should not stop that if it was a desire for peaceful reunification. To do otherwise with defeat our purposes.

And I certainly stand by the proposition that Americans are very very stupid people if he is going to be elected

 

I could definitely see Trump leveraging Chinese aggression into a broader conflict. It would create the environment to proclaim the need for an Emperor. And he knows just the guy.