4 ms·

Unfortunately, I think the probability is pretty significant. Metaculus currently predicts a 1-in-3 chance of invasion by 2035, which sounds about right to me,

Unfortunately, I think the probability is pretty significant. Metaculus currently predicts a 1-in-3 chance of invasion by 2035, which sounds about right to me, maybe even a little low. A whole lot of signs/incentives pointing in that direction: - China's grim demographic trends mean that there will never be a better time than now: it only gets harder, with fewer fighting-age men available, the longer they wait. - The "decade of concern" [0] means that the U.S. armed forces will be uniquely unprepared to defend Taiwan in the 2020's and early 2030's because of a generational equipment overhaul, but will be better-positioned after that. - China is very aware that America's huge industrial mobilization for WWII is what pulled it out of the Great Depression. - The years of 10% annual economic growth are gone - not even necessarily because of mismanagement (although there's been plenty of that too), but because growth eventually taps out to developed-country levels. War is excellent for shoring up stagnating support with both the general public and hardliners. [0]: https://scholars-stage.org/welcome-to-the-decade-of-concern/ https://scholars-stage.org/welcome-to-the-decade-of-concern/

mr_00ff00 3y ago
> China is very aware that America's huge industrial mobilization for WWII is what pulled it out of the Great Depression. I don’t think this is a valid point. 1. China’s economy is not anywhere near as bad as the US and the Globe in the Great Depression 2. Despite the fact people say this fact, it’s debated among economists if this is true. Many say the production of the war just “hid” the economic issues and that the depression didn’t truly end until after the war. And most importantly: 3. That is very anecdotal. There are many many many examples of nations in economic turmoil and a major war making things way worse. See: Russia in World War I
- hnfong 3y ago
  I'm wondering whether "waging a war to get out of an economic depression" is just a falsehood repeated many times. If it is generally feasible to use war as a way to fix an economy, why can't nations just declare war on an imagined enemy (eg. shoot nukes at Mars or send stormtroopers to the Moon)? Arguably the space race was just doing that, but it didn't seem to fix the economy of the Soviet Union. In the case of WWII, it seems to me, as a layman, the post-war dominance of the US came from the fact that the US didn't engage in the war until the very end, and economies of other developed nations were simply decimated by the war and recovered less quickly than the US. Maybe war can boost GDP numbers in the short term, but it's quite obvious that from history, at least if you lose a war, it's going to set back your economy, and in no way going to make it better.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    You can bet that the results on Russia's economy are being watched with hawk eyes from across the Chinese border.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > "waging a war to get out of an economic depression" I guess it used to be true back in the ancient times when you could sack cities steal all of their stuff and enslave the entire population (well.. at least those you didn't murder anyway). Not sure this really applies too almost all industrial wars to any degree. Of course there might be some indirect benefits, like wars generally make political/social/economics reforms much easier (which I guess might be both a good and a bad thing)
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      > I guess it used to be true back in the ancient times when you could sack cities steal all of their stuff and enslave the entire population (well.. at least those you didn't murder anyway). That is exactly Putin's playbook for Ukraine.
      - qwytw 3y ago
        What makes you say that? I mean there is a lot of murder and destruction but I don't see how even he could've expected that could ever be directly profitable. A single tank is probably worth more than whatever you can loot from at least a medium size village (maybe even a small town) in Ukraine. Stuff just isn't worth that much these days compared to the 100s BC.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        The land has worth, the ability to control more of the fossil fuel streams to the West has value, the ability to hold a large chunk of the world's grain production has value, the population has value (in the most cynical sense of the word). Lots of people have been taken across the border into Russia proper including large numbers of children. This is fairly well documented. Also, Ukraine was on average richer per capita than Russia so to take down that neighbor may have looked like a nice way to make themselves look better.
qwytw 3y ago
> China is very aware that America's huge industrial mobilization for WWII is what pulled it out of the Great Depression. I don't think this is particularly relevant, national economies functioned very differently back in the 30s. Also the US incurred a massive public debt, with a debt-to-GDP ratio that hadn't been reached until COVID and the late 40s were a bit shake economically until the post-war boom started in the 1950s. The main reason the war was "good" for the economy is because of the massive debt funded stimulus which probably would've been utterly unfeasible politically during peacetime (but in general making things just to blow them up is not very productive). Considering how globalized and interlinked modern economies are I don't see how any possible benefit from industrial mobilization could outweigh the loss of international trade with most Western Countries. Also it's not like you can just take a random car factory and retool it to produce modern tanks/etc. in a few months like they could in the 40s. IMHO any "war economy" type industrial mobilization would be closer to the great leap forward than WW2 just because of that.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > The main reason the war was "good" for the economy is because of the massive debt funded stimulus Clarification: massive debt-funded stimulus that went into productive capacity is good for the economy, once you stop blowing up the stuff you produce (as you point out), since the productive capacity is retained. Massive debt-funded stimulus that doesn't move the needle on production, a la Covid stimulus, isn't so good for the economy.

mr_00ff00 3y ago

> China is very aware that America's huge industrial mobilization for WWII is what pulled it out of the Great Depression. I don’t think this is a valid point. 1. China’s economy is not anywhere near as bad as the US and the Globe in the Great Depression 2. Despite the fact people say this fact, it’s debated among economists if this is true. Many say the production of the war just “hid” the economic issues and that the depression didn’t truly end until after the war. And most importantly: 3. That is very anecdotal. There are many many many examples of nations in economic turmoil and a major war making things way worse. See: Russia in World War I

hnfong 3y ago
I'm wondering whether "waging a war to get out of an economic depression" is just a falsehood repeated many times. If it is generally feasible to use war as a way to fix an economy, why can't nations just declare war on an imagined enemy (eg. shoot nukes at Mars or send stormtroopers to the Moon)? Arguably the space race was just doing that, but it didn't seem to fix the economy of the Soviet Union. In the case of WWII, it seems to me, as a layman, the post-war dominance of the US came from the fact that the US didn't engage in the war until the very end, and economies of other developed nations were simply decimated by the war and recovered less quickly than the US. Maybe war can boost GDP numbers in the short term, but it's quite obvious that from history, at least if you lose a war, it's going to set back your economy, and in no way going to make it better.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  You can bet that the results on Russia's economy are being watched with hawk eyes from across the Chinese border.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > "waging a war to get out of an economic depression" I guess it used to be true back in the ancient times when you could sack cities steal all of their stuff and enslave the entire population (well.. at least those you didn't murder anyway). Not sure this really applies too almost all industrial wars to any degree. Of course there might be some indirect benefits, like wars generally make political/social/economics reforms much easier (which I guess might be both a good and a bad thing)
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    > I guess it used to be true back in the ancient times when you could sack cities steal all of their stuff and enslave the entire population (well.. at least those you didn't murder anyway). That is exactly Putin's playbook for Ukraine.
    - qwytw 3y ago
      What makes you say that? I mean there is a lot of murder and destruction but I don't see how even he could've expected that could ever be directly profitable. A single tank is probably worth more than whatever you can loot from at least a medium size village (maybe even a small town) in Ukraine. Stuff just isn't worth that much these days compared to the 100s BC.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        The land has worth, the ability to control more of the fossil fuel streams to the West has value, the ability to hold a large chunk of the world's grain production has value, the population has value (in the most cynical sense of the word). Lots of people have been taken across the border into Russia proper including large numbers of children. This is fairly well documented. Also, Ukraine was on average richer per capita than Russia so to take down that neighbor may have looked like a nice way to make themselves look better.

qwytw 3y ago

> China is very aware that America's huge industrial mobilization for WWII is what pulled it out of the Great Depression. I don't think this is particularly relevant, national economies functioned very differently back in the 30s. Also the US incurred a massive public debt, with a debt-to-GDP ratio that hadn't been reached until COVID and the late 40s were a bit shake economically until the post-war boom started in the 1950s. The main reason the war was "good" for the economy is because of the massive debt funded stimulus which probably would've been utterly unfeasible politically during peacetime (but in general making things just to blow them up is not very productive). Considering how globalized and interlinked modern economies are I don't see how any possible benefit from industrial mobilization could outweigh the loss of international trade with most Western Countries. Also it's not like you can just take a random car factory and retool it to produce modern tanks/etc. in a few months like they could in the 40s. IMHO any "war economy" type industrial mobilization would be closer to the great leap forward than WW2 just because of that.

gottorf 3y ago
> The main reason the war was "good" for the economy is because of the massive debt funded stimulus Clarification: massive debt-funded stimulus that went into productive capacity is good for the economy, once you stop blowing up the stuff you produce (as you point out), since the productive capacity is retained. Massive debt-funded stimulus that doesn't move the needle on production, a la Covid stimulus, isn't so good for the economy.