Tag: China

A UATV Offer

It’s become clear that a lot of readers are very interested in contemplating what is likely to come next in WWIII. As a wargamer and game developer, it’s also of particular interest to me.

Here’s the deal. If there are 10 new Premium subscriptions or 25 new Basic subscriptions in the next 24 hours, I will broadcast a supersized Darkstream dedicated to reviewing in detail the 165-page report on the CSIS summary of the 24 US vs China wargames conducted in January, entitled The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan.

By the way, there are now 5,463 videos available on UATV, with 3-6 more being added every single day. The duplicate set of servers has already been installed at the European data center and is expected to go operational before the end of the month.

UPDATE: Apparently there is considerable interest in WWIII. The 24 hours aren’t even close to being up and BOTH targets were blown away. So it’s on. I’m up to page 30 already, and I’m also working on seeing if I can obtain the rules of the wargame. They’re not necessary for the detailed analysis as I should be able to glean their assumptions from the results, but I like to read wargame rules.

Also, in order to express my appreciation for the high degree of interest indicated and support provided, I’m going to add a second review of the CNAS wargame conducted in June 2022.

DISCUSS ON SG

China Lays the Legal Ground

I think it’s safe to expect Chinese corporations to be seizing foreign-owned property in Hong Kong and Taiwan soon, and taking steps to abandon the international arbitration system given these remarks on a new law that strips foreign state immunity by the Foreign Ministry.

Q: The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress reviewed and passed the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Foreign State Immunity at a recent session. The law adjusted China’s previous stance of absolute state immunity and authorized courts in China to hear lawsuits against foreign states. What’s the reason for such an adjustment?

A: Enacting the Law on Foreign State Immunity is a normal legislative activity conducted by the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress. The law stipulates provisions related to foreign state immunity in line with international practices and aims to improve China’s foreign state immunity system. The law stipulates the rules for Chinese courts to handle civil cases involving a foreign State and its property, with a view to protecting the lawful rights and interests of the parties concerned, safeguarding the sovereign equality of States, and promoting friendly exchanges with other countries, which all in turn boost China’s higher-level opening-up.

The Law on Foreign State Immunity affirms the fundamental principle that a foreign State and its property enjoy immunity in China, at the same time stipulates exceptions relating to non-sovereign act of a foreign State, under which Chinese courts can exercise jurisdiction, such as cases involving disputes arising out of a commercial activity, relevant personal injury and property damage. The Law also states that Chinese courts can take compulsory judicial measures against a foreign State’s commercial property under strictly limited circumstances. It fully adheres to international law and it is also consistent with general state practices.

As a responsible major country, China firmly upholds the principle of sovereign equality and will faithfully implement this Law to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese nationals and legal persons and respect the immunities enjoyed by foreign States under international law.

Translation: The USA and other Western governments, including Canada, have increasingly been utilizing their courts to the detriment of Chinese corporations and individuals. China is clearly going to follow their lead by giving its courts the power to exercise jurisdiction over foreign entities and individuals who had previously been considered off-limits on the basis of foreign state immunity.

Given how little foreign investment there is in mainland China, one would tend to expect the primary application of this expanded jurisdiction will be in Hong Kong, and eventually, Taiwan.

I expect Taiwan to peacefully unify with the mainland much sooner than most people are expecting, and I strongly suspect that it will be someone like this man who will make it happen when the time comes. Despite his public statements, I would assume that he is, for all intents and purposes, the CPC’s preferred candidate for the office, because when China eventually makes its move for reunification, it will want to have a pragmatic figure in control of Taiwan’s government in order to avoid violence and bloodshed.

The billionaire founder of tech giant Foxconn, Terry Gou, has announced he will run for president of Taiwan as an independent candidate, pledging to fix cross-strait relations and boost Taiwan’s economy.

At a press conference on Monday, Gou – a well-known and outspoken businessman – announced what he called “the era of entrepreneurs’ rule”. “I have decided to join the 2024 presidential race,” he said, touting his business and finance experience, including dealings with China.

“Give me four years and I promise that I will bring 50 years of peace to the Taiwan Strait and build the deepest foundation for the mutual trust across the strait … Taiwan must not become Ukraine and I will not let Taiwan become the next Ukraine.”

Gou should not be able to come anywhere close to winning in normal political circumstances. He couldn’t even win the Kuomintang nomination. But given the fact that the outcome of the NATO-Russian war should be known by the time the election takes place in 2024, combined with the increased US activity in southeast Asia, the fear of being similarly sacrificed on the altar of US geostrategic interests may be enough to move the Taiwanese electorate away from the separatist parties.

DISCUSS ON SG

Calling China’s Bluff

The problem with de facto recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign state is that China isn’t bluffing.

The US government has approved an $80 million arms transfer to Taiwan under a program normally reserved for sovereign nations – a move likely to anger Beijing, which considers the island part of its own territory.

The State Department informed relevant lawmakers of the upcoming weapons sale on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press and Reuters, which obtained a copy of the congressional notification.

The transfer “will be used to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities through joint and combined defense capability and enhanced maritime domain awareness and maritime security capability,” the department said, without naming any particular systems.

Though prior deals with Taipei have been carried out under different export authorities, the latest transfer is slated to go through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. Past FMF sales have largely been made to full-fledged nation states, with the sole exception of the African Union, and language used in the new notification could imply sovereignty for Taiwan, a stance China is unlikely to accept.

This is more of Clown World’s very clever wordgames that no one could possibly ever see through or object to. After all, the USA isn’t formally recognizing Taiwanese sovereignty, it’s merely treating Taiwan as if it is a sovereign state. That will totally fool everyone! And if Xi and the People’s Liberation Army choose to react to the de facto recognition in the place of the de jure recogition, well, joke’s on them!

When did retarded children take over US foreign policy?

DISCUSS ON SG

Russia: Two Predictions

ANON: Peace plan. Lines on the map stay where they are. general cease fire. Ukraine stops all pursuit of war crime stuff. Ukraine joins EU, but not NATO. Reset button over a few years on sanctions, and attempt to have a non-adversarial relationship. Security guarantees on both sides. Acceptable?

VD: No chance. There is no peace plan. WWIII is already well underway. The only reason the neocons want a peace plan with Russia is so they can focus on China. But China and Russia are perfectly aware of the divide-and-conquer plan.

ANON: So peace will come when? Russia retakes the Soviet-controlled area?

VD: Peace won’t come until the USA and NATO surrender. Right now, the USA is actively pivoting to China, but having to fend off both Iran and Africa.

ANON: Nukes will fly first in Europe

VD: I don’t think so. When push comes to shove, the USA will give up Europe. The US already is actively avoiding direct conflict with Russia and dangling “hey, keep what you’ve got” in front of them. If you read the military think tanks, they’re all screaming “CHINA CHINA CHINA!”

ANON: You are assuming that all of the various EU countries will accept Russian rule.

VD: No, not at all. Russia doesn’t need or want to rule them. They want them to stop sanctioning them economically at the US demand. The US isn’t even planning to fight Russia. They’re planning to have Poland do it.

ANON: Russia has made it clear it wants the old Soviet borders and has a right to them.

VD: Russia can take all of Europe. It could have done so before. It won’t unless the Europeans are dumb enough to force them to do it. The reason the US will let Europe go is because it’s not even strong enough to beat China alone. And China is a threat in a way Russia is not.

ANON: I’m going on the record now that Russia will not and cannot take the old Soviet borders and conquer Europe. You are wrong. You are correct that the US cannot contest the South China Sea alone, but the US, Philippines, Australia, Japan, S. Korea, and Vietnam can hold off China or make it so painful to take.

VD: Here’s my prediction: China will take Taiwan without barely firing a shot. The US will not commit more than 10k additional troops to Europe. The EU and NATO collapse, and most of the current European governments are replaced with BRICS-friendly nationalist governments. The question is if any other fronts go hot. If China gets greedy, they’ll go for Australia, which will involve war with the USN. Japan, Vietnam, and S. Korea will all refuse to back the USN, Australia and the Philippines will.

ANON: We’ll see.

VD: The great unknown right now is if China and Russia mean what they say about multipolarity. Have they learned from the ultimate failures of the British and American empires or not?

DISCUSS ON SG

US Historical Hypocrisy

The Chinese diplomats are well-educated in US history, which is a real problem for US diplomats.

BLOOMBERG: The US said on Tuesday that it will impose visa limits on some officials in China for their part in allegedly forcing Tibetan children to assimilate into mainstream Chinese society. What is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ response?

Wang Wenbin: The US imposed those illegal sanctions on Chinese officials under the pretext of Tibet-related issues and in disregard of the facts. This move gravely interferes in China’s internal affairs, harms China’s interests, and violates basic norms governing international relations. We firmly oppose and strongly condemn it.

The human rights conditions in Tibet are at their historical best, as witnessed by the international community. The region has long enjoyed a booming economy, harmonious and stable society, and effective protection and promotion of cultural heritage. The rights and freedoms of all ethnic groups, including the freedom of religious belief and the freedom to use and develop their ethnic groups’ spoken and written languages, are fully protected. As is commonly seen around the world, there are boarding schools across Chinese provinces and regions to meet the need of the local students. In the case of China’s Tibet, this is a region of high altitude and highly scattered population in many areas. For children from herding families in particular, they have to travel long distances to get to school. If schools were to be built in every place the students live, it would be very difficult to ensure adequate teachers and quality of teaching in each school. That is why boarding schools have been set up as a practical way to ensure all children’s equal right to education. It is entirely up to the students and their parents whether to go to boarding schools or not. Students can choose to go home on every weekend, holiday and festival (including traditional Tibetan festivals such as the Tibetan New Year and the Shoton Festival), as well as during the winter and summer breaks. Parents can visit their children at school any time and take their children home whenever needed. Courses of traditional culture, such as Tibetan language and literature and folk dance, are widely available, traditional food unique to the Tibet Plateau is provided, and students are allowed to wear traditional dresses at these schools. The boarding schools in Tibet are examples of human rights and cultural heritage protection. The so-called “forced assimilation” is pure fabrication.

In contrast, throughout the US history, more than 4.7 million Native Americans were slaughtered, and people of Asian and African descent and other ethnic communities suffer daily from the scourge of racial discrimination. In recent years, the US’s armed invasion has led to millions of casualties in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. The US needs to reflect on itself, instead of styling itself as a judge and wantonly meddling in other countries’ internal affairs by wielding the big stick of “human rights”.

I need to stress that Tibet-related affairs are purely China’s internal affairs that brook no foreign interference. The US needs to respect facts, fulfill its commitment on Tibet, stop using Tibet-related issues to meddle in China’s internal affairs and undermine China’s interests, and immediately withdraw its wrong decision. Otherwise, there will be a resolute response from China.

To say that the USA is badly losing the battle for global hearts and minds would be an understatement. All the USA really had going for it once the rest of the world industrialized in the aftermath of WWII was a) its military and b) the dollar. And international confidence in both are rapidly falling.

What makes the Chinese so formidable on the global stage is the fact that unlike Europeans, they understand the influence of word magic. And unlike Clown World, they understand that power trumps influence.

DISCUSS ON SG

A Classic Clown World Caper

Whenever anything is fake, gay, and beyond retarded, you know Clown World must be involved somehow. These “peace talks” in Jeddah make the endless, pointless Israeli-Palestinian peace talks look substantive and meaningful by comparison.

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hosted a summit of 42 nations over the weekend to draft principles for the end of Putin’s War in Ukraine. Russia was not invited to the talks, but China and the remainder of the BRICS group sent delegations. The talks concluded with a statement of principles, and the group agreed to meet again in the next few weeks and that Russia would be excluded from the process.

Ukraine Peace Talks Move Forward With China Present and Russia Excluded, RED STATE, 7 August 2023

This is as if Germany, Italy, Romania, Norway, Finland, and Japan had met at Yalta to discuss the terms for the end of World War II. Personally, I suspect China only attended because none of the Standing Committee could believe that it was real and they wanted to read the transcripts just for the comedy.

Foreign Minister: Now we should discuss the matter of this invitation from the Saudis to the peace talks.

Prime Minister: What do our friends in Moscow say?

Foreign Minister: The Russians are not invited.

Security Minister: Is Lukashenko representing the Union State, then?

Foreign Minister: Belarus isn’t invited either.

Political Minister: So who is offering the terms?

Foreign Minister: Apparently Zelensky, by the looks of them.

Prime Minister: And they’re offering these terms to Russia?

Foreign Minister: Yes.

Prime Minister: To the side that is actually winning the war?

Foreign Minister: Yes.

Prime Minister: And they delusional?

Economics Minister: Jane Yellen’s proposals were less hallucinatory than this and she was on ‘shrooms.

Foreign Minister: So we’re not sending anyone?

Prime Minister: Are you kidding? Tell Li Hui to make sure he gets this on video! It will be even funnier than that time Chen sent a pair of Brazilian trannies to Hunter Biden’s hotel room and he was too cracked out to notice.

Foreign Minister: Right. And we’ll release the usual statement afterwards, of course.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Remarks on China Attending the Meeting in Jeddah on Ukraine

The Special Representative of the Chinese Government on Eurasian Affairs had extensive contact and exchanges with participating parties, made clear China’s position and propositions, listened to the opinions and advice from various parties, and worked for more common understandings on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. China’s positive role in promoting talks for peace was fully recognized. China will continue to act in the spirit of the four principles, joint efforts in four areas and three observations proposed by President Xi Jinping, work on the basis of the document of China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis, enhance dialogue and communication with all parties, and contribute to the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.

I’ll admit it, the diplomatic statement made me laugh. While it may not initially strike the average reader as amusing, it is if you happen to have made a regular habit of reading Chinese diplomatic responses. By changing just a few words, it could easily pass for the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Remarks on the Situation in Niger, the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Remarks on Media Reports that Italy Is Considering Not Renewing the Belt and Road Cooperation Document, or the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Remarks on the Breaking of a Window of the Chinese Embassy in Odessa That May Have Been Caused by a Russian Hypersonic Missile or Perhaps by a Careless Romanian Cleaning Lady Who is Known to Drink Țuică While She Works.

I don’t know what the eventual terms will be when the Kiev regime finally admits the obvious and surrenders while there is still the possibility of an independent Ukrainian state and before the land is entirely divided up between Russia, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, and Slovakia. But I’m confident they won’t very closely resemble the terms now being proposed in Jeddah.

UPDATE: These two quotes from the article should suffice to demonstrate how utterly clueless Red State conservatives are about the global geostrategic situation in general, and the Ukrainian military situation in particular.

The advertised purpose of the conference was to pave the way to a durable and equitable peace agreement. Equitable, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. Those folks who believe that Russia was “tricked” into or “forced” to invade Ukraine because of NATO shenanigans orchestrated by Bond-villain Victoria Nuland will view “equitable” quite differently from people without substance abuse issues…

Ultimately, I think something like Zelensky’s 10-point will be the subject of an international conference. I think part of any final deal will be a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine and Ukraine’s admission into the EU and NATO bolstered in the short run by security guarantees furnished by the G-7.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Third Front

To be honest, I thought that Iran or Syria would be the Second Front of World War III, prior to China opening Taiwan, Korea, or even the Philippines as the Third Front. But it appears Niger may have already claimed that honor. Still, the Middle East is already drawing more US troops and ships away from the Ukrainian Front.

The US military has deployed thousands of troops and additional naval assets to the Middle East to “deter” Iranian forces. The move comes after Washington accused Tehran of harassing commercial vessels and other “destabilizing” actions.

The US Navy’s 5th Fleet announced the decision on Monday, noting that more than 3,000 marines and sailors had arrived in the Red Sea aboard an amphibious assault ship and a dock landing vessel the day before.

“These units add significant operational flexibility and capability as we work alongside international partners to deter destabilizing activity and deescalate regional tensions caused by Iran’s harassment and seizures of merchant vessels earlier this year,” 5th Fleet spokesman Commander Tim Hawkins told The Hill in a statement.

The amphibious assault ship sent in the latest deployment, the USS Bataan, also carried additional air assets, the Navy added. Though it did not specify the systems on board, the military said that the ship can carry more than two dozen rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, including the Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and AV-8B Harrier attack jets, in addition to a number of landing craft. The smaller USS Carter Hall, a docking ship, will act as a support vessel for operations involving landings or amphibious attacks.

The usual hypocrisy is on display here. The USN’s justification for this deployment is “to defend the freedom of navigation”. While just yesterday, US Senators and neoclowns were decrying the Russian and Chinese ships that were exercising the very right that the US Navy is claiming to defend in the Red Sea.

In a statement on Saturday, two Republican Senators representing the state of Alaska – Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan – said a total of 11 ships had been detected “transiting US waters in the Aleutians,” citing a classified briefing, and labeling the activities “an incursion.”

Sullivan said it marks “yet another reminder that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators in Beijing and Moscow,” adding that he was pleased to see a robust US response involving four American destroyers.

Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has called the patrol “a historical first” and “highly provocative” considering tensions over Taiwan and the Ukraine conflict, the WSJ reported.

Of course, all of these actions are little more than gunboat diplomacy. A single destroyer and a single Marine Expeditionary Unit are not a serious threat to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps nor are they meant to be. What really has the neoclowns alarmed is that Russia and China have sent a very clear signal to Iran, Niger, and every other country that isn’t controlled by Washington DC that they are no longer afraid of the US Navy, and that any country that challenges the globalist hegemony doesn’t need to fear US-backed regime change anymore.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Price of Partiality

Switzerland is beginning to learn that no one will utilize a middleman who takes sides, as the Alpine country runs the risk of missing out on a truly historic opportunity:

The latest 32% monthly fall in commodities trading followed a 27.5% decline in April, 22% in March and double-digit negative figures going back to the start of the year. The latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office show the volume of Swiss commodities trading in freefall as the Ukraine war rages on, destabilising the shipment of grains around the world and redirecting the flow of Russian oil.

Switzerland has established itself a one of the most important global hubs for trading oil, metals and foodstuffs. Swiss-based companies handle 40% of all oil trades and have taken a 60% slice of the metals trading business, 65% in cotton, 55% in coffee and 35% in cocoa, according to the industry association Suissenégoce. The sector employs 35,000 people and contributes some 4% to the Swiss economy.

The real loss to the Swiss economy will be the opportunity cost going forward. With the inevitable bifurcation of the global economy into two unequal halves, the larger BRICS economy and the smaller WEF/SWIFT economy, the neutral Swiss were in the perfect position to serve as the central intersection where the two international economies could meet to trade. What will eventually be seen as a single-digit hit to the economy is actually a much larger loss to what the economy could have, and should have, become.

But the unbelievable myopia of the current set of Swiss politicians combined with external pressure from a Clown World caused them to throw away all of Switzerland’s natural and historic advantages in order to take the losing side in a war that neither Ukraine nor NATO could ever even hoped to have won militarily. Now that Clown World’s desperate bid to win the war with banks in lieu of tanks has failed, Switzerland finds itself categorized as an “unfriendly” state by both Russia and China and is increasingly likely to find itself excluded from consideration as a future central trading hub by all of the countries that are aligning themselves with BRICS.

Even FIFA and the Olympics could find themselves in jeopardy soon if all of the BRICS nations pull out of the global sports associations in solidarity with the banned Russian athletes and teams. Given that the Saudi Sports Agency has already proven that it can leverage its money to swiftly take over an entire sport with its LIV Golf maneuver, both the opportunities to a Sino-Russian-Saudi alliance and the vulnerabilities of the existing organizations are obvious to even a casual and indifferent observer.

The only hope the Swiss have of taking a central place in the future bipolar world economy is a rapid and sincere commitment to an official neutrality that is firmly established in the national constitution. The choice should be obvious given the near failure of UBS, the failure of Credit Suisse, the PGA Tour partnership, the Nigerois war for economic independence from France, the economic contraction of Germany, the coming surrender of NATO and Ukraine, the pivot of the US military toward China, and the ongoing collapse of the European Union.

The existing Atlanticist economic order is simply not going to survive in its current form, so seeking to curry its favor is not only unproductive, but self-destructive. And no redefinitions of what “neutrality” actually is will fool anyone, especially not those nations whose corporations and citizens are subject to material sanctions. Only those whose positions are inherently untenable need to redefine words in order to justify their positions.

The problem is that a generation of politicians who have been accustomed to regard the USA and the EU as the Sun and Moon for three decades are probably incapable of grasping the geostrategic realities of a world in which those two entities combined amount to nothing more than the junior side of the Great Bifurcation.

It is a real pity that the Swiss journalists who daily peruse this blog looking for ammunition to discredit and deplatform me will not quote me on this particular subject, because it is vastly more significant to them, and to those they seek to influence, than anything I have said that violates their precious Narrative.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Last Stage of the Current Phase

Russian President Vladimir Putin provides an update on the coming end to the Special Military Operation:

Moscow ready for ‘any scenario’ with NATO

Aside from the conflict with Ukraine, this month saw several non-fatal incidents in Syrian skies involving Russian aircraft and US drones, with both sides blaming each other for reckless behavior. Russia would like to avoid a direct armed confrontation with the West, but keeps the worst possible scenarios in mind, Putin said. “If someone wants it – and that’s not us – then we’re ready,” he stressed.

Putin does not directly command operation in Ukraine

According to the Russian leader, as commander-in-chief, he has been receiving regular reports about the situation of the front line and speaks with his top generals several times a day. Putin added that he can reach out to “special units” when needed. However, it would be “wrong” for the president to interfere with the military and start directly commanding the troops, he said.

Kiev running out of conscripts

The Ukrainian army is not only suffering heavy losses on the battlefield, but is struggling with manpower, Putin argued. He said that, while taking prisoners, Russian authorities discovered that Ukraine had “formed military units” made up of aircraft technicians. “What does it tell us? That their mobilization resources are depleting,” the Russian leader said. He previously noted that Kiev’s forces had lost dozens of pieces of Western armor, including German-made Leopard 2 tanks and US-supplied Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.

Putin is clarifying what we’ve already been observing from multiple sources: the Kiev regime is done without direct intervention from NATO. No amount of additional equipment, armor, aircraft, ammunition, or mercenaries is going to change anything for the regime’s operational or strategic position; a meaningless shift of a few kilometers here or there on the tactical front is the most that can potentially be accomplished. Russia has won the war of attrition.

So, NATO now faces a choice. Direct and open war with a Russian military that has completed its initial stage of mobilization and is prepared to engage its forces, the greater part of which are not even present on the European continent right now, or back down, admit that it has lost its proxy war, and attempt to negotiate a surrender to the Russians. Despite his bold words about ending Clown World, Putin has sent clear signals that he will accept the latter. So, the Special Military Operation will soon come to an end, but whether that end will be war or peace is yet to be learned.

Interestingly enough, the most rabid hawks among the neoclowns are pushing for negotiation and peace with Russia. See: Edward Luttwalk. This is because they are anticipating direct war with China, and they do not want to find themselves committed to a two-front war that cannot be won. While this is superficially the correct position, it’s an excessively optimistic one because Russia and China are not going to be divided by factional funding and clever word games; both Xi and Putin are well aware of how the neoclowns have successfully divided and conquered one enemy after another since the end of World War II.

The dumber sort of neoclowns, the sort who believe their own wordspells, are pushing for Poland to enter the war, because they know that Americans won’t support direct war with Russia but they aren’t prepared to give up when Russia is so close to running out of ammunition and Putin is about to be overthrown by a) rebel mercenaries, b) Russian democrats, or c) neurologically-enhanced cyberotters. The disastrous history of Polish democracy suggests this is possible, but given the way Putin has already stated that he’s open to giving Western Ukraine to Poland, I think it’s unlikely unless something gets sparked by Wagner in Belarus on the Polish border. There is a negotiated scenario where Poland, Belarus, and Russia all win, at the expensive of Kiev, and since the only NATO opinion that matters is that of the US neoclowns, I see the “divide-up-Western-Ukraine” as being a more likely outcome than a second NATO war by proxy with Poland playing the role of Ukraine.

However, war, unlike the tango, doesn’t take two. No matter what the immediate outcome of the Special Military Operation turns out to be, any negotiated settlement is even less likely to hold for the intermediate term than the Treaty of Versailles. Once the US-China war begins, Russia is almost certainly going to set itself to completing the task of de-NATOing Europe and excising the neoclown influence from the continent.

So, ironically, it might be better for Americans – though much worse for Europeans – if the neoclowns were to choose war with Russia and be comprehensively defeated even before the anticipated war with China, than opting for a short-term peace that will guarantee war on two fronts with two better-prepared and strategically-superior opponents.

DISCUSS ON SG

The End of a Naval Era

After 80 years, the United States Navy is no longer the dominant naval power on Earth.

Moscow and Beijing conducted large-scale naval drills in the Sea of Japan this week, Russia’s Pacific Fleet announced in a statement to journalists on Sunday. The three-day exercise involved a wide range of activities, including joint firing drills, a simulated naval battle, and air defense training.

The ‘North/Cooperation-2023’ exercise was held over July 20-23, the fleet’s press service said. It involved two Russian anti-submarine war frigates and two Chinese destroyers, as well as a pair of both Russian corvettes and Chinese guard ships alongside a number of support vessels, the statement said.

A total of 30 aircraft from both nations also took part in the drills, the fleet said, adding that this included anti-submarine planes and helicopters, interceptors and other maritime aircraft, the fleet said. The two nations’ naval groups took part in some 20 combat exercises during the drills, it added.

The drills were aimed at “strengthening the naval cooperation between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China as well as maintaining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific Region,” the statement said.

This is significant because it is a signal that the Russians and Chinese are now confident that their combined naval power rivals that of the USA. I expect it will not be too long now before China announces that the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits are off-limits, dares the USN to challenge the ban, and the USN subsequently backs down after mumbling some meaningless phrases about “the freedom of the seas”.

How can we be so certain that China is now a greater sea power than the USA? After all, while the USN has fewer ships than the PLN, it has the advantage of more experience, better quality ships, and more of the aircraft carriers that have been the heart of all naval power since 1941. The reason is twofold. First, as we’ve seen in Ukraine, air power is now vulnerable to air defense systems to a much greater extent than before. Any air strike from a carrier against a first-tier military target is likely to lose more than half the planes it launches.

Second, and more important, China can rapidly replace its naval losses in the event of a war. The USA cannot. In fact, China’s shipbuilding advantage over the USA now exceeds the historical advantage that the USA enjoyed over Japan in WWII by a considerable margin.

A U.S. Navy briefing slide is calling new attention to the worrisome disparity between Chinese and U.S. capacity to build new naval vessels and total naval force sizes. The data compiled by the Office of Naval Intelligence says that a growing gap in fleet sizes is being helped by China’s shipbuilders being more than 200 times more capable of producing surface warships and submarines. This underscores longstanding concerns about the U.S. Navy’s ability to challenge Chinese fleets, as well as sustain its forces afloat, in any future high-end conflict.

The most eye-catching component of the slide is a depiction of the relative Chinese and U.S. shipbuilding capacity expressed in terms of gross tonnage. The graphic shows that China’s shipyards have a capacity of around 23,250,000 million tons versus less than 100,000 tons in the United States. That is at least an astonishing 232 times greater than the United States.

Consider the implications of this massive capacity delta in light of the historic difference between US and Japanese manufacturing between 1942 and 1945.

Shipping Tonnage Produced, 1942 to 1945

—————-1942———-1943————1944———-1945

USA—–6,252,300—15,153,000—14,580,000—8,804,900

Japan——511,100—-1,023,000——1,929,200—–626,300

delta——-1223%——–1481%————757%——-1406%

Speaking of aircraft carriers, Japan was only able to build 9 carriers over the course of the war, some of which were never launched, while the US launched 120, many of which were surplus to requirements.

Aircraft produced, 1942 to 1945

———–1942——-1943——-1944——-1945

USA—-47,800—–85,900—–96,300—–46,000

Japan—8,900—–16,700—–28,200—–11,100

delta—–537%——-514%——-342%——-414%

And while it is theoretically possible for the US to signficantly expand its industrial capacity in order to reduce its disadvantage, the political, ideological, and demographic realities render that improbable to the point of total impossibility. The US corpocracy’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equality is actively reducing its current capabilities, which means there is no way it can reasonably be expected to expand them successfully.

I’d always thought that the end of US naval dominance would be the consequence of a Sicilian Expedition that resulted in the unexpected sinking of one or more aircraft carriers. But thanks to Ukraine and the offshoring of US industrial capacity, we appear to have passed that historical point in relative peace and without any fireworks.

DISCUSS ON SG