Cold War II

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What existential threat does China pose to Canada, lmao? We aren't going to get invaded, wiped off the map, or destroyed by the Chinese. About the only thing they are going to do to us is price everyone out of their local real estate market. They can hurt us economically, and they can hurt Canadians overseas, and they can steal our technology, but there is precisely jackshit nothing they can do to mainland Canada. I mean I guess you could argue that their pollution and abuse of the environment is an existential threat to us in an indirect way, or that they could theoretically nuke us.

As for Europe, they are largely disinterested, Anthony. Putin, a talented gangster in control of a country 1/100th as powerful as China, plays them regularly. He also is getting his dick sucked by Trump so that isn't great either. They don't have the will or the means of going up against China. They have been trying to talk this down from the start. I mean, bro, you're delusional here. You can't even lower corporate taxes in most of these places without rioting, lmao, you think the people there are gonna let the politicians trash their economy to stave off the Chinese because "it is the right thing to do?"

Ah Saz. You kill me. The Chinese strategy is very simple. Soft power abroad, hard power regionally, insane techno-dystopia power at home. As you make gains, you solidify them. Everybody knows this. Nobody in Europe feels genuinely, viscerally frightened by the Chinese, because the Chinese haven't invaded half the continent. And they aren't going to, because they have learned that you can get more done this way. This isn't Stalin. It is a much more insidious threat, being "countered" by a genuine moron who seems to think that this is a simple matter of "sending out the call," and all of a sudden, the Western world will reunite and decide we don't want anything to do with that $20 trillion economy because they may or may not pose an existential threat.

It isn't going to happen like that, for a whole range of factors you simply cannot comprehend. I mean even the title of this thread is indicative of a person who simply has lost his grasp. This is going to be nothing like the Cold War, and we know this because none of the material conditions are similar. China is trading with the entire planet. They are an enormous economic and social power. Their people have emigrated everywhere. They aren't holding half of Europe hostage or moving their nukes into Cuba, it is a different beast entirely. Not only that, but our circumstances are much different. This isn't 1955, when half the population participated in the war one way or another, and had a common set of core values that the vast bulk of people could agree on. We are facing extreme turbulence and the widespread failure of our governments to adapt to new technology, ideas or even realities, such as climate change. The guys in 1955 would have just said "Well shit I guess we better dim the sun" and then f**k done it. That isn't possible now.

[Saz]

[Saz]

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[Saz]

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The thing is that nobody believes anything you say or has confidence in your ability to handle global problems in a consistent, even short-term manner. We don't doubt your competence because we disapprove of you, we just doubt your competence.

You believe that the goodwill generated by the Cold War is enough that the rest of the West will simply overlook this "aberration," even though the primary takeaway is that America has no idea what the f**k it is doing.

You further believe that the EU and Canada will gladly take the brunt of the hits, without any consultation, and thank you for it, on the grounds of a future existential threat, despite the obvious costs. The problem is that the EU and to a much lesser extent Canada are still recovering from the economic crash the US instigated. Oh and the European migrant crisis which has nothing to do with your insane war in Iraq, I'm sure.

As I said, American Idiot. We'll talk about this again in five years. Canada will inevitably have to fold to US demands, but the EU does not, and does not want too. Not in small part because you've been blundering blindly about without heeding our advice for three decades.

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[JDHURF]

[spacemonkey]

[Kane]