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The US is Preparing for an Unwinnable War Against China
https://codepink.substack.com/p/the-us-is-preparing-for-an-unwinnable
Megan Russell
I very much agree, war is an inevitable outcome of the fundamental functioning of the system as a whole. It's a necessary mechanism for resolving contradictions that accumulate.
That said though, the one big difference today from the time of Lenin and Mao is that capitalism in the west has evolved past the industrial stage. The rise of financial capitalism has led to mass deindustrialization of the colonizer nations. This can be seen how the west is unable to keep up with Russia in terms of basic stuff like artillery shell production.
So, while there is an increasing push for war, the west finds itself in a historically unprecedented situation where it's not actually self sufficient in terms of many necessities. Not only that, but the whole western economy is incredibly fragile as the supply chain disruptions during the pandemic exposed.
This problem has no easy solution to it. Producing physical things like, mines, refineries, factories, and so on takes physical effort, and requires a skilled workforce. Reindustrialization is a decades long project, that's very difficult to accomplish. The utter disaster of chip production reshoring is a perfect example of the problem. Turns out that it's a kind of problem that can't be solved by printing more money.
The west being run by financial capitalists has become utterly divorced from the material reality. These people have no clue what's involved in building out supply chains and doing manufacturing because it's something they have no experience with. All of this was outsourced to other places, like China, a long time ago, and that's where the expertise is.
All that is to say that I simply don't see how the west plans to pursue this war that they want to have with China. First thing that would happen is that China would cut off exports, at which point supply chains in the west collapse overnight. Then what?
What we have right now is a proxy war, but if US attacks China directly that's a whole different game. Also, China wouldn't have to cut all exports, just strategic things. Like for example, Europe is currently unable to produce artillery shells in part cause most of the cotton needed for explosives is produced in Xinjiang, and EU stopped importing it. There's no alternative available. Titanium is another example, and there are plenty more.
I completely agree that dedollarization is necessary, and that process has already been under way for the past two years. BRICS just announced their own settlement currency as well, and I imagine that will come online sooner than later. We basically have two major economic blocs forming around the G7 and the BRICS, with the latter being the bigger one.
China's been pursuing dual circulation economy for a while now, and they have been largely reorienting their exports away from the west already. https://asiatimes.com/2024/05/2-words-explain-china-export-surge-global-south/
I would argue that the window the west had to strike at China is long past. That said, it's entirely possible that the western leadership doesn't realize it, the same way they didn't understand that taking on Russia would end poorly. So, the war might still happen, but there is no path to victory for the west. The worse possible outcome however is that US would start a nuclear holocaust rather than lose hegemony. That's a very real possibility.
There's also the whole crisis brewing in West Asia right now. If Israel provokes a war with Iran, which is looking increasingly likely, that will further drain the resources from the empire. There is absolutely no way the US can fight three major wars at the same time.
Nobody is suggesting the imperialists would put down the knives. The point I'm making is that the imperialists hollowed out their own industrial base to the point where they're not materially capable of achieving their goals.
I'm spitballing here, what if the attack is cyber? The US has more than enough resources and I would argue there is a larger vulnerable population in China (elderly, those lifted out of absolute poverty) and plenty of digital infrastructure is in the US.
Can you imagine the absolute havoc that a cyber attack against the US would bring? An entire nation atomized without communities, addicted to electronic treats, and all public infrastructure barely existing on a shoestring budget as is. People would absolutely lose their minds. The same shit tearing apart Israel would start up here—fascist, deeply indoctrinated populations become rabid when they’re losing. Compared with China, for whom it would no doubt still be crazy, but I have much more faith in the resilience, communities, and infrastructures of its people than I do American treat hogs
Also wars are not necessarily fought to be won.
Like, it’s common for a large supermarket chain to open near their competitors.
Very frequently the second competing store is in a worse location so it doesn’t “win the local market” and could even be operating at a loss. But that’s fine. Its purpose is to fuck with the competition and hurt their margins.
The USA didn’t hope to win in Ukraine. The point was the reshape the landscape of Europe, not to win.
A war with china wont have the intention of conquering china. It will be because the USA will be pushed out of the region anyway due to china’s inevitable rise so if they’re going to be forced out they will leave scars behind on their way out knowing they will lose that war but seeking to shape the future anyway.
I do wonder how much of the sabre rattling is just so the MIC can make a gazillion dollars off of the up-armament then the USA will just suddenly stop heavily antagonizing China (Let us not kid ourselves that the USA would ever completely normalize relations), turn it's attention to a much more meek target and unleash its arsenal there instead.
I mean, that would be a more """ideal""" outcome than the US and China duking it out. The MIC makes its gazillions, the US keeps importing treats (such as steel and literally everything else) and China doesn't have to break their lovely neutral foreign policy and keep doing their SWCC undisturbed. Sucks for the other country the USA is going to terrorize, hence the '""""""''s around ideal, the US always hungers for more blood.
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It's a mix of selling MIC budget and pandering to racists for votes, but the trickier problem is that both Machiavellian realpolitic schemers and random bigots who hate China can advance with that scheme. If the political landscape shifts, then the random bigots will get weeded out (in favor of different random bigots, this is American politics after all), but if anti-China sabre rattling is politically useful for long enough, then they'll end up in more stable positions of power and continue pursuing anti-China stances, even past the point where those stances were useful.
According to experts, conflict between the US and China could easily escalate into nuclear war– and a nuclear winter isn’t much farther away.
