I think that a military conflict between China and the US is highly probable. I also think that China will lose it. While the US hard power (& the quality of strategic thinking) may have substantially deteriorated since 1991, China:
China is overall much more backward in terms of technology & manufacturing than almost anyone in the US foreign policy establishment is ready to admit. Beijing knows it, DC doesn't
Which, again, shows how much did the American strategic thinking deteriorate since 1991
PS I believe that the end of the Cold War had a corrupting effect on the US strategists. With the real and credible threat gone, too many started exaggerating (or making up?) BS threats. Consequently, the skills and competences for dealing with a real threat have atrophied
After decades of obsessing about BS threats such as guerillas far away, they will have to face a real threat: an organised state of roughly comparable resources and capacities
Meanwhile, competences for even properly understanding an actual, non-BS threat have largely atrophied
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François Guizot defined feudalism as perhaps the only form of tyranny that will be never accepted by the ruled. The theocratic despotism, the monarchic despotism can be genuinely loved and voluntarily accepted by their subjects. In contrast, the feudal despotism is always hated
What makes the difference is that a monarch/theocrat does NOT act on his own behalf. To the contrary, he represents something larger, superior to himself. It may be God. It may be an idea. Anyway, he is only a representative of something bigger, making his rule more acceptable
Consider Stalin. He does NOT act on his own behalf. He is merely a representative of something bigger. It's not all about Stalin. It's not all focused on Stalin. There is a divine, super-human institution of which Stalin is only a temporary executive
Prigozhin was a junior member of the St Petersburg gang. A vassal of Putin's vassal. Still, a rightful member of the gang that constitutes the core of the ruling elite. Consequently, his death will make an impression of the regime killing its previously untouchable core members
If the regime has indeed killed one of its core members, then the St Petersburg gang is probably not as united as it seemed to be. The death of Prigozhin reflects the depth of divisions in the narrow circle of upper elite.
This is the impression it makes on the outsiders
Even worse, this raises a question of how secure the other members of the gang should feel. In particular, how much of their previous untouchability will remain
5. As the production of precise parts switched from the manual to computer control, the labor capable of producing precise parts (-> weaponry) manually was lost
6. The tactic knowledge has been lost, too
7. Which cements transition and makes it absolutely and 100% irreversible
8. No military industrial complex in the world can produce precise parts at a consistent quality other than based on the computer control
9. That includes every military industry including Russia, China, N. Korea, Iran
10. Iran may be the only one who even tries to obfuscate it
“They” who “know better” do not exist as a coherent group. There’s no “them”
If I were to name the most underrated force in the world, I would choose the information asymmetry. We systematically and semis-consciously underestimate how great it is https://t.co/bRt4mSEHxH
“They can’t do something so obviously stupid/irrational”
Is usually wrong. They absolutely can. Why?
Because it is NOT obvious. You mistakenly think it is obvious because you ignore the elephant in the room - the information asymmetry
Which is more often than not a particular case of the worldview asymmetry and the asymmetry of conceptual frameworks. An even bigger elephant in the room