I’ve been wondering more and more lately if it was designed this way by whoever made these decisions at the top level to prevent another cold-war standoff situation.

By requiring the US to rely on often adversarial countries to supply some of its most crucial military components like rare earth minerals, the US couldn’t really go toe to toe with those countries.

I’m just not sure if they factored in the rapid technological rise of those adversarial countries like China.

Or maybe it really is the simplest answer that it was all purely in effort to obtain the greatest profit margins…

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AngryData 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Im sure some people with wealth and power have thought that. The only problem is haven't we seen this strategy repeatedly end up as the cause of war and conflict when one side gets cut off from a critical resource due to politics? Japan in WWII didn't really give a shit about the US except as a bottleneck to their supply of gasoline and oil. And im sure I could cherry pick out numerous examples throughout history.

Being self-sufficient prevents you from conflict both in preventing external politics from potentially cutting off from critical supplies, and by making the potential fruits of conquest and war fairly limited. Like who is going to go to war over 5% cheaper steel? You will trade for that deal, but likely not kill. But the trading could be part of the source of the problem because it can hollow out your own native industry over enough time, or prevent native industry from being built when it can be bought cheap.

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guelo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is true. During the late Bill Clinton era the arguments for normalizing trade with China were

1) more economic engagement would somehow make China democratic

2) an economically integrated China would be more interested in maintaining international stability

3) WTO membership would force China to follow trade rules

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flanz_10 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I’ve been wondering more and more lately if it was designed this way by whoever made these decisions at the top level to prevent another cold-war standoff situation.

Indulging in conspiracy at least allows you to pretend that the "top level" had a plan here.

It's much more comforting to think there was a positive intention for the way things turned out, and not just greed and short-sightedness.

Lots of people have written about "the cycles of empires".

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jollyllama 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> It's much more comforting

This kind of psychologizing can be used to subjectively argue either case.

For example, I could say that it's much more comforting to think that current circumstances are artifacts of greedy fools rather than coordination by malevolent and powerful actors.

> that the "top level" had a plan here

You're also being somewhat reductive here. Sure, entry-level conspiracies rely on an all-powerful council with top-down authority, but there are more nuanced understandings where they can arrive out of alliances of convenience between rival factions.

	▲	flanz_10 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Sure. But when someone says "designed this way", it really comes off as top-down.