We may not be going into WW3 with Russia over Syria after all.

[A Theist]

I don't think China's really going to be helpful in curbing NOKO. Sooner or later we're going to have to deal with them in some way that will put us on a collision course with China.

Of course they won't help in curbing NoKor. NoKor, to the Chinese, is a lemon, to be squeezed of all its juice and then dropped when it is no longer useful.

But they will drop NoKor before dropping us, if for no other reason than economics. They cannot afford to lose 20% of they exports -- and that's not counting Europe, which would certainly have something to say in any collision.

In addition to that the U.S. wants to send more anti missile defense systems to SOKO, which both China and NOKO strongly oppose, and there's also discussion of the U.S. sending Nukes to Japan as a deterrent against those two nations. Seeing that economic sanctions, a nuclear armed Japan, and a powerful U.S. missile defense system in SOKO, along with the U.S.' military might is not in China's best interest, you'd think it would just go ahead and squeeze that lemon and get rid of it.

[The Grand Nudger]

US military might becomes very much in the interests of China when that might is deployed against something that destabilizes chinas economic machinery.  Chinas military might is, itself, very much in our own interest, particularly in that it reduces the level of military expenditure and adventurism required to enforce the primacy of our -mutual- interests.

I get it, the Gibbon and the R-Traitors have been telling you "Jina Bad", because they need a villain to keep you yanking the lever - but that doesn't make it so. On the balance of both history and current events..it; difficult to come up with a more important and co-committed ally to the US than China (and vv), even if China may not be a friend to all of our -other- allies, even if it may be a competitor. NK is useful as a bulwark and throwaway flak for China, but that utility ends as soon as NK steps out of line.

[Thumpalumpacus]

US military might becomes very much in the interests of China when that might is deployed against something that destabilizes chinas economic machinery.  Chinas military might is, itself, very much in our own interest, particularly in that it reduces the level of military expenditure and adventurism required to enforce the primacy of our -mutual- interests.

I get it, the Gibbon and the R-Traitors have been telling you "Jina Bad", because they need a villain to keep you yanking the lever - but that doesn't make it so.  On the balance of both history and current events..it; difficult to come up with a more important and co-committed ally to the US than China (and vv), even if China may not be a friend to all of our -other- allies, even if it may be a competitor.  NK is useful as a bulwark and throwaway flak for China, but that utility ends as soon as NK steps out of line.

Indeed, and China has already signalled to NoKor that their patience is running thin.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and rightly so, since NK's missiles may, on a good weather day assuming no manufacturing defect..be able to reach the fringes of us territory....but they could just lob that shit over the fence at China any time they're feeling particularly erratic..which is pretty much all day erryday.  

No one has more to worry about from NK than it;s closest neighbors, who..supposing they never find themselves on the end of NK's little juche song and dance routine, would invariably find themselves in the fallout of the crater that once was NK...and it may very well be that NK does this to itself or it's neighbors...on a bad weather day, due to a manufacturing defect, on accident.  

That isn't lost on China's government..unlike our current set of amateurs...they're actually pretty fuckin good at what they do.

[Thumpalumpacus]

That isn't lost on China's government..unlike our current set of amateurs...they're actually pretty fuckin good at what they do.

Indeed. They are very good at perspicacious politics, and unlike us, almost always play the Long Game.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's what a 4k year history as a country will do, I suppose. I hope we're that fortunate, 3700 years from now.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yep. As a nation, we are but children, turning over furniture and throwing our toys in a fit.

Sad that our fits kill so many and break so much.

[Chad32]

It is a little funny to remember that this country is so young, yet we've so quickly become the biggest world power.

[The Grand Nudger]

There wasn't much left of the rest of the world after WW2 - the rest of the world being the battlefield - and we just so happened to be a country willing to det a couple of nukes in anger, lol.  The writing was on the wall on that one. I think that the rapidity with which we squandered that immense advantage is more noteworthy than our having inherited the earth in the aftermath of europe trying to strangle itself one last time.

[CapnAwesome]

WW3...with Russia?  A country with a GDP less than a US state?  It would be the shortest world war in history.  That's the big lie...the one Putin tries hard to peddle.  That Russia, on it's own and by it's own merit..is still a credible threat to anyone.  A powerful state.  It's not.  Those days are gone.  We're a threat to ourselves...and Russia can use that...but that place, itself is a rinkydink shithole with a cartoon version of the mafia calling the shots.

The only credible candidates for WW3 anymore are the US, the EU, and China.  Look at that list.  Allies whose fates are almost inextricably intertwined.  China isn't even going to come riding in over N. Korea...in all likelihood...they'll be the ones to eventually bitchslap the shit out of them. They have more reason to than we do.

Sure, it;s a matter of time until some asshole detoinates a nuke somewhere (or worse........a massively virulent bioweapon)...and that might have seemed like a WW3 scenario at the end of WW2...or during the cold war. Now, it;ll just be a horrible act of terrorism or aggression by a pariah state. Dealt with immediately by the global community, if for no other reason, than their own self interests.

Russia can turn every major city in the U.S. to glass in a matter of minutes. It doesn't really matter what their gdp is.