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I do think there's some mutually-assured destruction here. If trade truly ends, I suspect it might end in a hot war, and no one knows how that would go. (Though

I do think there's some mutually-assured destruction here. If trade truly ends, I suspect it might end in a hot war, and no one knows how that would go. (Though to support some of the comments here, and the implied point of the original essay -- China's manufacturing base becomes much more strategically important in a hot war scenario.) I mean, we've sort of long assumed that increasing trade ties led to peace, and the detente between the US and China was long taken as proof of that axiom. But morons with half-formed ideas about trade policy can blow up detente in less than 100 days, as it turns out.

mullingitover 2y ago
> If trade truly ends, I suspect it might end in a hot war Have two nuclear powers ever gone to war directly? I'm pretty sure it isn't going to happen because ultimately the leadership on both sides would be assured of being vaporized, and no leader on either side has the guts to actually die in a conflict (especially where there could very likely be no real winner, and no glory, at all). As long as that holds, we're actually pretty fortunate in that we avoid these stupid types of wars, and we're forced into these frustrating (for chest-beating tough guys) economic rivalries instead.