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US has suspended all military aid to Ukraine in wake of Trump-Zelenskyy row
- gnabgib 2y agoDiscussion (126 points, 5 hours ago, 78 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43248919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43248919 Related: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting (2895 points, 3 days ago, 5296 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43208973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43208973
- rzzzwilson 2y agoThe USA can do what it wants, of course. But it's odd that the USA is aligning with Russia+China when it professes to be "concentrating on China". China is carefully watching how the collective "West" fragments over Ukraine because this wiil be an important point in their decision on whether and when to attack Taiwan. The current USA administration may no longer care about Taiwan. We just have to wait until their attention meanders that way to get a reasoned, cogent statement from them. /s
- ggm 2y agoBut China also watches Ukraine and knows there is no 3 day success story here. It will grind. There will be a contested beach landing, there will be fleet losses, there will be significant manpower losses and there will be immediate trade economic losses. An immediate embargo on steel, coal and oil in, massive downturn to trade. Mind you the $780b+ of US debt will come in handy as a lever There has been no significant loss of life in the PLA since Korea, noting perhaps minor spats with Vietnam or India. Tens of thousands died in 1979, similar numbers now in current times will be a hard swallow. And I would predict higher losses. When you have twenty aircraft carriers losing one or two is sad but wearable. China has three. If they conduct àir assault from the mainland they're incurring burdens there too. Static defences will be overwhelmed both sides. So.. some amount of airfield and strategic oil supply hits.. where do you go next? Xi Jinpeng has to speak belligerently but the party secretly hopes Taiwan will blink first because actually incurring a tide of blood stains his legacy. If Xi dies soon, yes. Somebody might risk this as a signature move. Taiwan is tiny, but pretending a 3 day war and done can happen after Ukraine is insanity.
- actionfromafar 2y agoEurope can't help Taiwan. The US won't.
- ggm 2y agoKorea, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines Singapore are mentally invested in the issue around the China Sea and the spratleys. Their defence forces are going to help, and Australia and New Zealand. I don't like talking up a defensive war, but I also don't like defeatist thinking. I prefer we confront than give in, and I am confident there is a regional understanding in. ASEAN to mount a defence. And China knows it.
- throwaway48476 2y agoThey are all too far and too slow to respond to what could only be a lighting campaign.
- ggm 2y agoHow you think China can marshall an invasion force without it being seen, and mount a lightning campaign escapes me.
- throwaway48476 2y agoIt would be entirely airborne and if the coup is established before anyone in the pacific can act they likely won't respond militarily.
- ggm 2y agoIf a successful tolerably bloodless coup happens, I agree ASEAN will temporise and fall back on the painful economic warfare. I think this is the least likely assault and has many risk points in execution. No doubt Carter thought his airborne insertion into Iran was going to work.
- jimbohn 2y agoSeems to me the US has been trying to make Taiwan redundant for years, that, along with the most recent events, makes the writing on the wall clear. I think Taiwan will blink first. To me, the hate that China gets from the US elite is just because China is a success story, which puts American hegemony in doubt.
- actionfromafar 2y agoThe prospect of Chinese hegemony is even scarier.
- jimbohn 2y agoHaving a success story outside of the US doesn't mean Chinese hegemony.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- beardyw 2y agoIts sad to see a nation like the USA make such a mess of diplomacy.