From: tnp@invalid.invalid   
      
   On 13/02/2024 16:58, Richard Falken wrote:   
   >    Re: Re: Google Groups   
   >    By: TimS to tnp@invalid.invalid on Tue Feb 13 2024 10:54 pm   
   >   
   >   > I know that. But instead of being warmongers they might have merely been   
   >   > strong leaders for their countries. Unluckily for the world, they   
   *are/were*   
   >   > warmongers, when there was no need. And *that* is what we have to guard   
   >   > against and prepare for.   
   >   
   > I don't think Xi is such a big warmonger since he is taking heavy profits   
   from   
   > the opposite approach - opening to trade and sending Chinesse workforce to   
   > develop poor countries to bring them into the Chinesse sphere of influence. I   
   > think his position regarding Taiwan is macho posturing. Putin has also a   
   > non-weak (I won't say "strong") case that the NATO is making open advances   
   > torward Russian interests and that Russian efforts to collaborate with NATO   
   > against common enemies have not been welcome.   
   >   
      
   I think a bit more than that. Up to a point, I think your analysis is   
   fair enough, BUT Chinas economy is in deep shit, and when your economy   
   is in deeps shit having a war is handy to kill all your young people who   
   want a better life you can't offer them, and justify draconian measures   
   of control.   
      
   The point of killing a whole generations males is that it makes room for   
   the next one...   
      
     And China wants Taiwan because it doesn't have really good chip fab of   
   its own.  Not enough for large scale drone production, and it looks like   
   world war V (We are already in IV, and III happened from 1950-1990) will   
   be heavily microchip based.   
      
   It has been noted that Russia, having nothing but oil money to purchase   
   Western  politicians and governments and Western tech, is up shit creek   
   if it's cut off from those.   
      
   China is vulnerable militarily and economically. in a similar way to   
   Japan in 1940.   
      
   A roll of the dice might be a 'nothing to lose but a population we dont   
   want anyway' move   
      
   And in the West there is a massive debt crisis that could be solved if   
   all the people who are owed money were on the other side of a neat   
   little 'moral war'   
      
      
      
   --   
   "Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social   
   conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the   
   windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) "   
      
   Alan Sokal   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)