Super interesting and timely. Looking forward to the next instalments.
As for the military option, I have a few thoughts. The US is certainly putting it into motion, subs in Australia, Japan mobilizing etc. but I don't know if we can say much about their intentions of using it, since the Empire has always used the threat of war to scare nations into compliance. But the issue that might push the Americans into acting, is China's rapid technological and military advancement. I'm sure war planners in the US realize that an attack in Taiwan or on the Chinese mainland is almost impossible right now, but that the chances of it succeeding become vanishingly thin as China overtakes the US in economic output. There's almost certainly some generals saying "if not now, when?" on the subject of war with China.
Thankfully(?), the US almost never uses its military against a matched enemy, coming into WW2 later to plunder the spoils, and thenceforth pressuring big powers economically while crushing smaller countries militarily (despite often losing).
The proxy war in Ukraine is also, at least partially, preventing more movement against China. Neocons and other imperialists (like Tucker) have even suggested pulling out of Ukraine to focus on China. So that, among other economic and political indicators, suggests that the US can't easily sustain a two front war (which might also explain why they're bullying their "allies" to arm themselves to the teeth).
So I don't know that Cold War planners had a a higher sense of self-preservation (after all, they almost triggered an apocalypse during the Cuban Missile Crisis), but that they simply had many more tools at their disposal, and a huge lead on every other country in the world. They knew that a war with another large nation could do to them what they'd done to Europe after WW2, and were happier using economic instead of hot war to achieve their ends where they could. So combine an increasing list of capitalist contradictions (for example, the US's military continuing to be ludicrously expensive and inefficient), the US's power waning, the clock ticking on the US's advantages and the US's unshakeable, maniacal belief in a worldwide Monroe Doctrine, and I think the the desperation is setting in, emboldening extremists to use China as a wedge issue and calling for war.
Super interesting and timely. Looking forward to the next instalments.
As for the military option, I have a few thoughts. The US is certainly putting it into motion, subs in Australia, Japan mobilizing etc. but I don't know if we can say much about their intentions of using it, since the Empire has always used the threat of war to scare nations into compliance. But the issue that might push the Americans into acting, is China's rapid technological and military advancement. I'm sure war planners in the US realize that an attack in Taiwan or on the Chinese mainland is almost impossible right now, but that the chances of it succeeding become vanishingly thin as China overtakes the US in economic output. There's almost certainly some generals saying "if not now, when?" on the subject of war with China.
Thankfully(?), the US almost never uses its military against a matched enemy, coming into WW2 later to plunder the spoils, and thenceforth pressuring big powers economically while crushing smaller countries militarily (despite often losing).
The proxy war in Ukraine is also, at least partially, preventing more movement against China. Neocons and other imperialists (like Tucker) have even suggested pulling out of Ukraine to focus on China. So that, among other economic and political indicators, suggests that the US can't easily sustain a two front war (which might also explain why they're bullying their "allies" to arm themselves to the teeth).
So I don't know that Cold War planners had a a higher sense of self-preservation (after all, they almost triggered an apocalypse during the Cuban Missile Crisis), but that they simply had many more tools at their disposal, and a huge lead on every other country in the world. They knew that a war with another large nation could do to them what they'd done to Europe after WW2, and were happier using economic instead of hot war to achieve their ends where they could. So combine an increasing list of capitalist contradictions (for example, the US's military continuing to be ludicrously expensive and inefficient), the US's power waning, the clock ticking on the US's advantages and the US's unshakeable, maniacal belief in a worldwide Monroe Doctrine, and I think the the desperation is setting in, emboldening extremists to use China as a wedge issue and calling for war.