“dont see china as capable of helping this appreciably, may be missing something...”
I think you might be right on that, maybe China is a paper tiger too.
> I think you might be right on that, maybe China is a paper tiger too.
dunno but here is my calculus fwiw-
ww iii happens between russia and whoever-not-china.
if china backs russia, china eners the MAD vortex (result- china loses)
if china does not back russia, china helpf fill the vacuum left by russia and whoever-not-china (result- chinawins)
i know, it cant be that simple. but if it is that simple, then chinas best option is to sit out ww iii and share the soils afterwards. in addition, everyone else will see the same logic.
if we get pulled into such a ww iii variant, then imo the usa would need to prepare for this scenario, because surviving ww iii would be just the beginning of our problems.
speculating, turkey would make a nice place from which to launch a nato counterstrike. currently turkey is suffering from 70 % inflation. erdogan wants low interest rates. anyway, i wonder if there is a biden admin plan to come to turkeys economic rescue in the offing, and if so what strings might be attached...
No one is really set up to fight peer powers anymore, and that includes the US.
We spent 20 years fighting an insurgency, and that means different tools and capabilities.
In short, I am worried the US is not going to be able to do a “traditional” war.