| ▲ | dnemmers 10 hours ago |
| It does seem like if I was China, this would be the perfect time to make a big geopolitical move: EU and Russia tied up with Ukraine and Iran, US & Gulf allies now stuck in a war zone, US showing aging tech with large exposure to new drone warfare. This seems likely the conflict that forces the US into an immediate course correction in military makeup, or suffer large and expensive mass casualties on the battlefield. What happened to Battleships after Aircraft Carriers entered the picture, comes to mind. |
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| ▲ | toast0 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| They don't need to do anything militarily. Just keep up with Belt and Road and being a stable trade partner while the US has a trade war with everyone and started an active war with Iran over nothing, and is threatening allies. Fill the vacuum the US left behind and see what happens when the US wants to put sanctions on China in the future. |
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| ▲ | defrost 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Exactly, in the fall and aftermath of WWII the USofA Steven Bradbury'd it's way to No. #1 on the global pecking order. China, now, is ready to do as little as possible and free skate into that position by the same means. | |
| ▲ | seanmcdirmid 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Ya, China will win by default, why do something stupid like Trump would? Make friends with the world, provide working affordable solutions to the high price of oil. Uhm, it’s like Trump is doing everything for China’s benefit. |
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| ▲ | UltraSane 11 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Invading Taiwan now would be incredibly costly for China even if they win. |
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| ▲ | angry_octet 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Don't interrupt your enemy when they are busy making mistakes. Iran is shaping up to be a quagmire worse than Afghanistan or Iraq. Even if Trump pulls back from the brink, the GCC economies are significantly damaged, Iran will extort a massive wergild, and European and Asian economies will suffer another energy shock. China is relatively unscathed. |
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| ▲ | cyanydeez 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Iran is too close to china to make any real issue. USA can stop shooting themselves in the feet at any time and redirect to Taiwan. If China wanted USA tied up, theyd get south america or cuba problems, forces away from China. | | |
| ▲ | angry_octet 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | "any real issue"? Like crippling the world economy? They can extract a tithe on every gallon of oil leaving the Gulf. Without Qatari/Iranian natural gas there is a global energy crunch. South/Central America has no significant military opponents, most especially none that will consume large quantities of exquisite armaments. It would mostly consume Army resources in COIN, which they are extremely experienced with from Afghanistan. It's actually mystifying that Trump started the beef with Iran, when he could have just invaded Cuba and had an easy win. The Israeli factor of course, truly America's greatest weakness. | | |
| ▲ | nyc_data_geek1 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Without Qatari helium, there's a massive global semiconductor crunch. The fertilizer crunch and food scarcity too. It's wild to me how oblivious ostensibly intelligent people on this site regularly manage to be. | | |
| ▲ | angry_octet 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, the downstream effects of the helium shortage are going to be extremely painful. Chip production, MRI machines, welding, many scientific uses. (We can't forget the previous era of US insanity in dumping the helium reserve under the 'party balloon gas' anti-science/anti-facts 1990s Congress.[1]) The world still produces enough fertiliser, but prices will rise significantly. The biggest producers (China, India, USA) also consume most of their supply, and China and India get their methane from elsewhere or from coal. Russia is a leading exporter, so they could easily tighten the screws now, leading to further economic shocks. Big importers will feel a crunch [2] and this will leader to significant crop price increases.[3] [1] https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/02/21/federal-governm... [2] https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/ALL/yea... [3] https://farmonaut.com/mining/largest-urea-producers-2026-glo... | | |
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| ▲ | tonyedgecombe 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| If China has any sense they will be looking at how well Iran and Ukraine is going for the invaders and maybe think twice before they make the same mistake. |
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| ▲ | nacozarina 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They are waiting for the political pendulum to complete its swing. Once the blue resurgence hits, US will be deeply distracted with domestic issues and too broke for adventures. Spring 2027 will be unseasonably hot… |
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| ▲ | zugi 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It would be, unless China isn't yet militarily ready. Also if China's Taiwan plan includes using surrogates like Iran to cause simultaneous trouble, then reducing Iran's capability asynchronously eliminates one US worry during a Taiwan scenario. |
