> They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province.
We can argue about what the exact desire is - there's 100M people in the CCP - we'll probably never know an exact answer.
The important thing is - China is willing to spend a LOT more money to take Taiwan than it is economically worth.
So this idea that 1) China wants Taiwan for chips, 2) War would cost more than chips, 3) Therefore, Taiwan is logically safe - is a fallacy.
The war in Ukraine is never going to pay off for Russia. They're not fighting that war to make money. They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives.
> They're not fighting that war to make money. They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives.
Please stop saying things like this. It doesn't help anyone.
What's wrong about this idea? Russia is actively sending men from provinces to die to lower the possibility of secession of those provinces. It might have been one of the main goals of the war.
There's one big strategic thing the Ukraine war offers Russia and that's a nice balmy port and (if they'd managed the original 3 days to Kiev) removing a potential invasion front on it's juicy underbelly.
It doesn't freeze which by Russian standards is balmy, an accidental shiboleth that trips up Russians pretending to be American online is they'll mention unprompted "warm water port" as a notable feature.[0]
This invasion is partially an extension of their goal of securing Crimea with a more solid land connection rather than the more easily interrupted bridge connection that was their only connection until they pushed up to their current lines in Eastern Ukraine.
> an accidental shiboleth that trips up Russians pretending to be American online is they'll mention unprompted "warm water port" as a notable feature.
That's just reddit paranoia. "Warm water port" is a term of art which means a port that stays free of ice. It's not about comfortable swimming temperatures.
Reddit just uses this as an excuse to say that anybody discussing reasons Russia might have started this war, other than "they're being evil for the sake of being evil, just like in my manchild Marvel/Harry Potter/Star Wars movies" is secretly a Russian bot, because even if you know such reasons might exist your willingness to discuss them, or unwillingness to go along with a simplistic groupthink narrative, is something which must be suppressed and punished. The cause is more important than your desire to have an honest conversation!
Anyway, this kind of language policing and "shibboleth" crap lame slacktivism. Go enlist. Ooh, that's probably a shibboleth too. Beep boop, Imma robot because I don't walk in lockstep with Reddit!
>"they're being evil for the sake of being evil, just like in my manchild Marvel/Harry Potter/Star Wars movies"
The amount of times I've seen people on reddit reply to (presumably real) Ukrainian redditors with a show of solidarity composed of some slogan from a Hollywood movie or to try to explain/compare their situation in Ukraine / on the world stage to an Avengers movie is honestly baffling. I genuinely can't believe that people live framing their existence and perspective of the world without the context of cheap power fantasy fiction. It's so cringingly out of touch that I'm almost far more willing to believe people talking like that are the Russian bots people are constantly harping on about trying to make Western public support look bad.
It isn't paranoia because for most counties all of their ports are "warm water" and only Russia has an obsession with "warm water ports" and is likely to use this phrase. For most countries it is like saying "car with wheels" it is just redundant.
No it's when it's used in contexts outside Russia, note I've been saying it but I'd be a shitty Russia astroturf account to be calling myself out too..., people can say warm water ports. It's mentioning it like it's a notable feature elsewhere in the world that's the telltale sign because it's pretty much only a notable feature for Russia because their other ports freeze in the winter. It's not a notable feature of Texas that it's ports are warm water ports. Every US port except small ones in Alaska that serve the fishing industry are warm water and the same is true of most of the world where all non land locked countries have at least a few lovely balmy ports to choose from.
> The only reason Russia is against NATO is the article 5
Nah, they are also against Article 4 (regional security), which while not as concrete of a commitment, applies much more broadly, and which leads to things like the current support for Ukraine, not just Article 5 (mutual defense), which only affects hem when they would want to target a NATO member’s territory in and in a couple areas close to Europe or North America.
> "They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives."
Pretty sure Putin needs to start wars, conflicts, terrorist events to maintain political stability. That is to say, he can't lose power because they'll kill him.
I use China in this context to mean the Chinese state which given their system is interchangeable with the CCP. So you can subv in CCP in my statement or even Xi if you want since he is unequivocally running things.
In the case of Ukraine, Russia's (read: the russian government which is synonymous with Putin who dictator in all but name) motivation is somewhat similar. But they don't see Ukraine as a rebellious province. They see it as a vassal state as they do all of the other former SSRs and members of the Warsaw pact. Putin and his nationalist group have a very old world view of things and a very specific concept of what their rightful sphere of influence is and what exactly it means to control it. This isn't even unique to them. After securing power, the Bolsheviks quickly attempted to bring former Russian imperial possessions back under their control. That included Ukraine, Poland and Finland. Poland and Finland were able to secure their independence, Ukraine was less fortunate. For all the talk of anti imperialism, they were just as imperial as their predecessors. So this is just russians being russians and an inability for their world view to evolve past the 19th century.
We can argue about what the exact desire is - there's 100M people in the CCP - we'll probably never know an exact answer.
The important thing is - China is willing to spend a LOT more money to take Taiwan than it is economically worth.
So this idea that 1) China wants Taiwan for chips, 2) War would cost more than chips, 3) Therefore, Taiwan is logically safe - is a fallacy.
The war in Ukraine is never going to pay off for Russia. They're not fighting that war to make money. They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives.