Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
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Don’t know how much of an environmental impact it will cause. Especially for agricultural purposes once the conflict ends and wildlife who might accidentally eat it.
We interrupt your regular schedule of shitposting, so that we may laugh at more American wishcasting diplomacy:
- an essay by Ely Ratner, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Indo-Pacific. Ely Ratner is a Jew, a career Dem staffer and a DoD/State Department/RAND Corp apparatchik.
What I find most repulsive about the current American diplomacy is that it is filled with wishful thinking and can not recognise the realities on the ground. The countries that Ratner named - Japan, Australia, and the Philippines - all have China as their biggest trading partner. The three countries are also covered by bilateral security agreements with the US. For Japan, the US-Japan Security Treaty; for Australia, the ANZUS Treaty; and the Philippines, the Mutual Defense Treaty (US-Philippines). Which begs the question - if all of those countries are already covered by the US guarantees, wouldn't that already achieve deterrence vis-a-vis China? The very fact that this security pact is being proposed shows that American deterrence is being diminished.
What incentives would there be for Australia and Japan to defend the Filipino claims on Second Thomas Shoal? Security pacts are the most potent when one does not challenge it. NATO still exist because Russia has not carried out a military operation on a NATO country. For this proposed security pact, however, things are quite different. China has had a history of testing security alliances; China invaded Vietnam in 1979, after Vietnam had signed a security treaty with the Soviet Union in 1978. Crucially, China successfully called the Soviet bluff. The Soviet Union chose not to militarily intervene in the brief Sino-Vietnam war of 1979.
If the proposed security pact does form, it will not be worth the paper it is written on. The moment the pact gets signed is the moment the Chinese Coast Guard formally demolish the Sierra Madre and detain the Filipino sailors. Would Australia and Japan dare confront China over the shoals in the South China Sea? If they will not, then what's the point?
- an essay by Ely Ratner, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Indo-Pacific. Ely Ratner is a Jew, a career Dem staffer and a DoD/State Department/RAND Corp apparatchik.
What I find most repulsive about the current American diplomacy is that it is filled with wishful thinking and can not recognise the realities on the ground. The countries that Ratner named - Japan, Australia, and the Philippines - all have China as their biggest trading partner. The three countries are also covered by bilateral security agreements with the US. For Japan, the US-Japan Security Treaty; for Australia, the ANZUS Treaty; and the Philippines, the Mutual Defense Treaty (US-Philippines). Which begs the question - if all of those countries are already covered by the US guarantees, wouldn't that already achieve deterrence vis-a-vis China? The very fact that this security pact is being proposed shows that American deterrence is being diminished.
What incentives would there be for Australia and Japan to defend the Filipino claims on Second Thomas Shoal? Security pacts are the most potent when one does not challenge it. NATO still exist because Russia has not carried out a military operation on a NATO country. For this proposed security pact, however, things are quite different. China has had a history of testing security alliances; China invaded Vietnam in 1979, after Vietnam had signed a security treaty with the Soviet Union in 1978. Crucially, China successfully called the Soviet bluff. The Soviet Union chose not to militarily intervene in the brief Sino-Vietnam war of 1979.
If the proposed security pact does form, it will not be worth the paper it is written on. The moment the pact gets signed is the moment the Chinese Coast Guard formally demolish the Sierra Madre and detain the Filipino sailors. Would Australia and Japan dare confront China over the shoals in the South China Sea? If they will not, then what's the point?
supercat
Colonel
More like cannon fodder - what can 500 personals possibly accomplish in a conflict with a peer?
So say the ones who were defeated by the sandal-wearing Taliban and Houthis, and their 6th gen. fighter is just vaporware.
Alternative of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague?
The fact that Huawei is no longer restricted in Germany really touches some raw nerve.
America’s top diplomat has made clear that he does not trust Beijing’s English translations of Chinese officials’ words – he says they are “never right”.
The China hawk has instead urged his colleagues to go back to the original Chinese version of statements put out by Beijing to get a more accurate understanding of what is going on.
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, appears to be the most powerful diplomat under President . He is the first person since to hold the national security adviser and secretary of state positions at the same time, making him the point man on China over the next four years.
Rubio has been blunt about his distrust of China. During his secretary of state confirmation hearing in January, he highlighted the importance of referring to the original Chinese to understand the words of President .
“Don’t read the English translation that they put out because the English translation is never right,” he said.
The subject of later that month, when Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke by phone. Wang reportedly told Rubio to “hao zi wei zhi” – an idiom Beijing translated as “act accordingly” in its English readout of the call. It was more stern in foreign media reports on the meeting – Reuters translated it as “conduct yourself well”, while Bloomberg’s translation was “conduct yourself properly”.
Adding to the confusion, Rubio denied Wang had even given him any warning. “The translator that was on the call did not say anything to me that I felt was over the top. But then they put out these games – they like to play these games,” Rubio said in an interview on The Megyn Kelly Show, according to a transcript released by the US Department of State.
“They put out these translations where it says one thing in English and then it’s translated in a different – they use a different term in Mandarin – so like ‘He was warned not to overstep himself’. They never said that.”
More nuggets of gold from Ely Ratner:
Conveniently ignoring that Scott Morrison was calling for an investigation into China with weapons-inspector levels of power. Scott Morrison was so unpopular that he was turfed out in 2022. Australian Senator Jane Hume alleged that Australian Labor Party volunteers could be 'Chinese spies', and every single electorate with a significant Chinese presence all voted against the Liberal Party.
One thing I can say is thank goodness Australia hasn’t got a Trump into the Parliment, other wise the 1L olive oil would cost $65 instead of $18 for a decent brand. Thank goodness that Liberal party got blown the fuck out in the election cause those guys are literally the definition of stupid as hell given how their polices literally follow the USA like a sick dying puppy with absolutely no logic involved. At least I can make a decent hot pot with worrying about the shelves going empty like in the US right now. Also Scot Morison is a dumbass his entire tenure as Prime Minister
We'll know if Taiwan is about to deploy or receive nukes by a Chinese decapitation strike on the island. The ROC is so thoroughly infiltrated that there is no way a nuke program or delivery will go undetected.
I always found this funnier than most people think because it implies US government had previous been relying on Chinese translators and had none of their own.
Also I highly doubt people in Australia would trust the US after they saw the who Zelensky Oval Office shit show and their threats to annex canada