Posted on 03/09/2023 9:55:25 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
The reputation of the “Iron chancellor” Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) was established by his remarkable achievement in unifying Germany through three short victorious wars, from 1864-1870, that completely remade the European balance of power, and then orchestrating a generation of peace through a series of complex treaties that placed his country in amicable relations with all the continent’s great powers, except the irreconcilable French who were kept in a permanent state of diplomatic isolation.
However, in 1890, Germany’s blundering new sovereign, Kaiser Wilhelm II, dismissed Bismarck from office and subsequently rejected the renewal of the Russo-German Treaty of Accord, which led the arch-conservative Tsar Alexander III to astonish Europe by entering into an unlikely but enduring alliance with liberal France. This reconfigured the balance of power and set the stage for the catastrophic First World War.
In August 1939, another spurned Russian ruler, Joseph Stalin, reacted to the appalling appeasement of Britain and France at the recent Munich Conference by vaulting across the ideological spectrum and entering an alliance with Adolf Hitler, thereby turning the world’s diplomatic architecture upside down and directly leading to the outbreak of World War II just one month later.
In American history, there was only one diplomatic initiative that, in terms of drama, worldwide impact and enduring benefit to the participants is comparable to the above noted events. It occurred in February 1972, when President Richard Nixon, leader of the free world, journeyed to Beijing to meet with Mao Zedong, founder and leader of Communist China, in a turn of events that shocked enemies and allies of both countries and redesigned the geopolitical shape of the world for decades to come.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Can we bait China into seizing the “Northern Resource Area” (Siberia)? It would benefit us to have them fight one another.
The mistake was not turning Russia into a counterpoint once the Cold War ended. The political and media machine kept the Russia Russia Russia narrative going to ridiculous proportions and pushed Russia into the arms of the Chinese. This should have been entirely predictable by any armchair observer but especially the intel agencies. But they have become so obviously politicized; by on behalf of people and politicians who are seemingly beholden to China in myriad ways that they either didn’t see it or didn’t care.
I am not saying Russia is “good”. But I am saying that we sometimes have to deal with “bad” people in the national interest. Someone in Saudi Arabia is accused of chopping up that journalist and it caused a lot of outrage. That didn’t stop Biden from flying to Riyadh to beg for more oil, or negotiating with Venezuela.
When the Cold War ended we should have made a bigger effort to integrate Russia into the west. They may have still done terrible things; or maybe this entire disaster going on with Ukraine could have been avoided.
The Hill, right on top of things as usual.
IMO, as an armchair observer, what we should be doing is tons of business with India. They are the only viable counterpoint to China, and while they have made great strides they are still very underdeveloped they could use lots of foreign investment to modernize the way China has over the last two decades.
If we have that much time left.
The new strategic reality is that Russia’s conventional military is weak and ineffective. They cannot defend their rich, underpopulated Asia-Pacific territories ( which the Chinese are already economically leasing) or the treasure house of Siberia. China has always coveted these lands. Within a generation, The US and Japan will ally with Russia to prevent China from seizing these lands and becoming the big,est, richest most powerful nation in the world.
The current alliance between Russia and China will not last.
We’ve allowed this situation with China to go on far too long, we should have started pressuring multinational corporations to move their production away from there a decade ago. Too late now, our only option to reign in China is to provoke them into seizing Taiwan so we can have an excuse to enforce sanctions and a trade embargo against them.
Would have been wiser if we had nipped this in the bud before it ever got to this point, but our greedy globalists kept us on these policies well beyond the point where it was in our national interests to do so. So now military force will be brought into play.
Yes. Nations don't have friends, only shared interests. And we can influence circumstances to create such shared interests (for instance trade agreements, defense pacts, etc) that expand our own security. But we decided to demonize instead.
Trump was making Russia a counterpoint to guess who?
Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the UN.Accede to any goal of the communists and communism spreads.
— Communist goal #7
Pushing the Dems’ propaganda? Implying that Trump is a “Russian asset”?
FKB doing what he does best! Screwing up everything.
America thought they could let China evolve and turn into something like Taiwan, Japan or South Korea, even Singapore. This would have been a great and stabilizing force in the world. Vietnam is even working out well. But the CCP has been able to hold China under its thumb. They have now corroded institutions around the world including other governments, universities, media and world organizations like the U.N. and WHO.
You can’t fault America for trying to work with China. Their strategy worked in Germany and Japan. But the American government has to understand when its wrong. The world elites still don’t get that they are wrong. They have been corrupted by China. America is just starting to get it. But not all of the American government sees that their strategy has failed. There are still lots of government officials who think they can work out a deal with China. Its all a big misunderstanding. They think the wrong statesmanship tactics were used with China. They are wrong.
China is playing their hand well. They are corroding our institutions from within. China believes that capitalists are all corrupt. They can be bought or blackmailed. And they believe all democratic governments are weak. In that they can be manipulated by their press which can be bought.
China is not wrong. They almost own Australia. They almost owned the Philippines. Canada, England, Brazil, and India are highly influenced by China and trying to fight back. But the damage is very great. China’s advantage is its population. And its government control of its population. Our stupid government is trying to counter this by increasing our population. And our government is trying to get more control over our population. Of course this is a horrible strategy.
Our government has broken its promise to America. Its fighting China on its own. Its lost legitimacy. And it should be punished for it. China should be rolled back. It should not be treated like a developing country. It is a 1st world country hiding within a 3rd world country. Like you would do with a bad case of flees, America has to pick out every Chinese spy in our country as well as all those corrupt officials who are doing the bidding of China. And we should roll back our intelligence and state departments. They have gone rouge. They piss off most of the world. China is emulating the CCP as our CIA/FBI are emulating China. Totalitarian governments are the inevitable end to their surveillance state and public manipulation. Our current government has no more moral authority than Putin or XI. That has to stop.
We forced them together and we are F’ed.
America will not last. Look around.
*Pushing the Dems’ propaganda? Implying that Trump is a “Russian asset”?*
Wrong. Nixon did the same thing only in reverse. Pretty smart at the time. Even my military buddies at the time suggested WW3 would be between the Soviets and China with us siding with once again, guess who?
“When the Cold War ended we should have made a bigger effort to integrate Russia into the west.”
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I’ve been saying that since forever, we should have reached some sort of accommodation with Russia back in the 90’s as a way to keep China in line. But the US has always needed a scary boogieman to keep military spending up, and we weren’t ready to push China into that role at that time so we kept Russia in that role instead. I suppose it was inevitable that we would eventually lock horns with Russia, the CIA considers Eurasian economic integration as a major threat to US interests, and we’ve always intended to keep that from happening.
While Russia isn’t much of an economic threat right now, they are #1 in energy reserves, having as much as the US and Canada combined. (US & Canada are #2 & #3 in total energy reserves) So Russia always did remain a future threat and any alliance probably wouldny have lasted long.
The mistake was not turning Russia into a counterpoint once the Cold War ended. The political and media machine kept the Russia Russia Russia narrative going to ridiculous proportions and pushed Russia into the arms of the Chinese.
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I agree with you. They had some border issues, so they weren’t always buddy-buddy. We kept accusing Putin of interfering with everything, but “poor undeveloped” China was angelic because our companies could make cheap goods with their poorly paid labor. Now we depend on China for medicine, consumer electronics, and all kinds of manufactured items. Russia could have been our ally, but with all the talk of regime change, we forced him to seek another friend.
That’s a yes.
And what was smart about Nixon granting the seventh goal on the list of 45 communist goals for the USA? Oh yeah; nothing. Took Reagan to build up the US military to actually get something done about the USSR.
Opus?
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