Quote (chopstickz777 @ Jan 31 2022 07:02pm)
Pure delusions. If China takes Taiwan, nobody is doing a thing to prevent it due to the fact that attacking china = WW3. Furthermore, if China becomes a "nuclear desert" as you claim, then so will any nations attacking them, including the US.
How sad that so many Americans live in a state of sheer ignorance, not realizing that the days of empire are ending and still clinging to the false belief that it's still possible for us to intervene militarily on the entire planet, all the time, even if it means war with a nuclear armed power.
This is no longer the reality and this has been the case for decades.
We aren't talking about intervening militarily throughout the planet. We're specifically talking about leaving Europe to its own devices and preventing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
The Taiwanese situation is relatively straightforward. The CCP is a totalitarian regime which is determined to violently subjugate an independent, democratically accountable nation which they have never controlled at any point throughout the regime's existence. The United States is committed to stopping this because it would completely destabilize the current world order, provide the CCP with a stranglehold on trade-routes throughout the West Pacific, and threaten the territorial integrity of US territory and allies in the Pacific.
The how is also straightforward. Japan has already indicated that they will move to Taiwan's defense, which they must do to ensure the defense of the Senkaku Island Chain and Okinawa. The United States in turn is committed to Japanese defense (by law), without which they cannot hope to prevent China from seizing territory and otherwise controlling access to everything west of Guam.
Conflict between nuclear armed powers was a mainstay of the Cold War. I can't imagine a situation in which the CCP would decide to use nuclear weapons first, because it would result in the end of Chinese civilization. The United States is not willing to suffer the horrendous casualties required in exchange, and so neither country is incentivized to employ first strike capabilities. What's ridiculous to believe is that the CCP can realistically invade and subjugate large tracts of East Asia / the West Pacific, and the United States is compelled to watch because the United States fears that the Chinese have developed a taste for civilizational suicide. A first strike by the Chinese leads inevitably to retaliation, and the death of every Chinese leader involved in making that decision. The likelihood of that happening is beyond remote, and the United States compelling interest is in preventing the Chinese from establishing control over 2.5 billion souls, and two of top three economies by GDP.