03-14-2022, 07:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-14-2022, 07:24 AM by OutsiderFan.)
On the chess board of this geopolitical re-set we are seeing play out...
Putin made some catastrophically bad assumptions. Everyone sees this with his Ukraine gambit, but none was worse than assuming China would have his back in Ukraine. If you look at the "Risk" board entering 2022 as I like to put it, Russia & China were clear allies that formed a certain bulwark against NATO, Japan, and Australia. Any global conflict would basically pit those two sides against each other. India was probably also considered a western ally when push came to shove. Africa & South America are basically irrelevant, though the most powerful countries on those continents - Brazil and South Africa - appear to lean Russia at this point.
Now, not only has China not approved of Russia's invasion, if China refuses Russia's request to help fight the war, China and Russia have effectively ended their partnership. Russia may offer China some of Ukraine's resources if it were to take the country, but China appears smart enough to understand any Chinese presence in Ukraine would put China at risk in the country, and also risk economic blowback from the west.
China has to face the possibility of Russia's communist government imploding and maybe even a new government aligning with NATO, leaving China as the world's only communist super power. Does China want to "go it alone" as a communist country more than it wants to risk the economic war and maybe even shooting war it would get into by backing Putin? My guess is no. For as large as China's military is, it would be no match for NATO, Japan, Australia.
It was also always clear that everyone was going to have to ultimately pick a side. Countries like China and India, that abstained from the UN vote condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, seemed to be wanting to play things out a bit before having to pick a side. But given nobody wants to be on the losing side, nobody is going to be all of a sudden backing Russia now. They are going to chose to align with the western democracies as Russia sinks. So as much as China must make this choice, so too does India have to make it. India is poised to look terrible on the global stage if it doesn't turn against Russia before China does.
What a tangled web we - as a human species - have woven for ourselves. Nothing proves the idiocy of dividing ourselves among ethnic and cultural lines than the fact when push comes to shove we all have the same ambitions and needs, and all value our lives the same.
Putin made some catastrophically bad assumptions. Everyone sees this with his Ukraine gambit, but none was worse than assuming China would have his back in Ukraine. If you look at the "Risk" board entering 2022 as I like to put it, Russia & China were clear allies that formed a certain bulwark against NATO, Japan, and Australia. Any global conflict would basically pit those two sides against each other. India was probably also considered a western ally when push came to shove. Africa & South America are basically irrelevant, though the most powerful countries on those continents - Brazil and South Africa - appear to lean Russia at this point.
Now, not only has China not approved of Russia's invasion, if China refuses Russia's request to help fight the war, China and Russia have effectively ended their partnership. Russia may offer China some of Ukraine's resources if it were to take the country, but China appears smart enough to understand any Chinese presence in Ukraine would put China at risk in the country, and also risk economic blowback from the west.
China has to face the possibility of Russia's communist government imploding and maybe even a new government aligning with NATO, leaving China as the world's only communist super power. Does China want to "go it alone" as a communist country more than it wants to risk the economic war and maybe even shooting war it would get into by backing Putin? My guess is no. For as large as China's military is, it would be no match for NATO, Japan, Australia.
It was also always clear that everyone was going to have to ultimately pick a side. Countries like China and India, that abstained from the UN vote condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, seemed to be wanting to play things out a bit before having to pick a side. But given nobody wants to be on the losing side, nobody is going to be all of a sudden backing Russia now. They are going to chose to align with the western democracies as Russia sinks. So as much as China must make this choice, so too does India have to make it. India is poised to look terrible on the global stage if it doesn't turn against Russia before China does.
What a tangled web we - as a human species - have woven for ourselves. Nothing proves the idiocy of dividing ourselves among ethnic and cultural lines than the fact when push comes to shove we all have the same ambitions and needs, and all value our lives the same.