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It's hard to see what the Trump administration is doing and not assume their preferred outcome is hot war with China.
by jldugger 1y ago
It's hard to see what the Trump administration is doing and not assume their preferred outcome is hot war with China.
- wombat-man 1y agoIt kinda feels like they aren't taking time to consider the effects of their actions, and assume things will somehow work out.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness... and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” --The Great Gatsby
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- crooked-v 1y ago"Kinda"?
- conception 1y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics Dugin envisions the fall of China. The People's Republic of China, which represents an extreme geopolitical danger as an ideological enemy to the independent Russian Federation, "must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled". Dugin suggests that Russia start by taking Tibet–Xinjiang–Inner Mongolia–Manchuria as a security belt.[1] Russia should offer China help "in a southern direction – Indochina (except Vietnam, whose people is already pro-Russia), the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia" as geopolitical compensation.[9] Russia should manipulate Japanese politics by offering the Kuril Islands to Japan and provoking anti-Americanism, to "be a friend of Japan".[9] Mongolia should be absorbed into the Eurasian sphere.[9] The book emphasizes that Russia must spread geopolitical anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."
- daveguy 1y ago> The book emphasizes that Russia must spread geopolitical anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S." And what better way to facilitate the scapegoating of the US than having an incompetent aggressive fool in the Whitehouse.
- Workaccount2 1y agoOn the back of incredibly stupid identity politics that is easy to instigate in online spaces like twitter, where all the journalists go to find out what the most important topics in people's lives are...
- daveguy 1y agoYup. That is how the incompetent fool in the Whitehouse pulled it off. Scam of the century.
- pfdietz 1y agoMy theory is that by sufficiently pissing off allies, we get kicked out of alliances, and that lets Trump reduce military spending. Without the tit-for-tat of military spending for social programs, the federal government gets massively downsized. The end goal is shrinking the government back to levels not seen proportionally since before WW2.
- sasper 1y agoTrump already agreed to increase military spending by 12%, hitting a trillion dollars a year.
- pmontra 1y agoThe reach of the US economy to the rest of world will be back to before WW2 too. If the USA step back other countries will fill the space they leave, especially if the USA vacate the military bases in Europe. Those countries will be more free to swing to another security and economy partner.
- iAMkenough 1y agoMy question is how it's possible to massively shrink the government without simultaneously shrinking the economy and country as a whole. The lack of stockpiling or any other preparations before issuing the shock to the markets makes me think this is a quick sell off of the country that only benefits a few investors at the top.
- kergonath 1y agoThere is nothing preventing him from bringing the fleets and the boys back to the US and cutting the budget right now. In fact, he’s doing the opposite.
- varelse 1y ago[dead]
- joezydeco 1y agoIf you read Marcy Wheeler [1], she points out that the Trump administration just can't figure out how to negotiate. All three failed "deals": Harvard, Ukraine, tariffs.. there's just no ask there. You're going to start a hot war with China demanding....what? That they reload the container ships with Shein clothing? [1] https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/04/29/mr-art-of-the-deal-struggles-to-spin-three-failed-negotiations/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/04/29/mr-art-of-the-deal-str...
- jldugger 1y agoThats kind of my point -- they've been given an ultimatum that is logically impossible, and the only road left is escalation.
- SteveNuts 1y ago> the only road left is escalation. The other road is isolation, which I find much more likely. They'll just cut us off completely and deal with it.
- jldugger 1y agoChina has no interest in isolating from the rest of the world, Taiwan especially.
- okanat 1y agoOP meant the US. The world and its allies will isolate US. Just like they did with Soviets.
- ben_w 1y agoThese are not totally exclusive — the world may isolate the USA, and the USA may escalate with anyone (or everyone) to a hot war.
- benzible 1y agoThe other possibility is that there's no strategy or goal beyond the fact that Trump likes the word "tariff".
- moritzwarhier 1y agoWhat you say sounds very disturbing, and also resonates with me in a way. But one can still hope that the economic "warfare" won't become a literal one. I'm not saying that I can tell how likely a real military conflict between any of China, Europe, India, Russia, the US actually is. What I can tell is that even fellow agnostics should... pray (or hope) that this isn't the most likely scenario. In this regard, I don't care about globalization, injustice + capitalism. I truly just hope for the lesser evil. Regardless of the continent, political system, leaders.