Political Memes

I have my doubts China will move on Taiwan simply because of just how ready everyone will be able to be for them launching an invasion. Xi has irredentist delusions but he's far less motivated by them than Putin is, especially with the Belt and Road, the safety valve against blockade across the first island chain, not even close to being completed.

More likely China will use the outbreak of so many conflicts to build up a list of vassal states that break themselves on the western world militarily before Beijing swoops in and offers them a very one sided basically colonial economic relationship in exchange for saying they swear they'll totally have their backs "next time", meaning never because the relationship will leave the vassal so depleted it can't do anything but export resources to China for their use in manufacturing or in sustaining their population where China's own resources come up short.

Key example right now, China's definitely letting Russia break itself against Ukraine at this point so that they have a stronger hand to demand access to the fresh water in lake Baikal, that and theorized siberian mineral and fossil fuel wealth, China has a lot of young men who are definitely never going to find a family in their lifetime, why not send them all to freeze to death in the snow covered corpse of what was once a superpower?

Your conclusion ignores the fact that (1) the GOP controls the Senate and House, and (2) the GOP's ultimate goals (fascism, dictatorship, etc.) align with Russia's reality. I hope you're right though.

I wish I agreed with the idea that the US will not let Russia win.

What even makes you think that? History? Georgia? Crimea?

The anemic response to Russian aggression over the last 20 years is why we're in this moment right now.

Fuss, sanctions, lose domestic interest while Russia has no such issues, push for peace, let Russia keep whatever they took, rinse, repeat.

And, I gotta be real, as much as I wish this was just a GOP problem, it isn't. I think the GOP is far worse, but Obama was completely delusional. In retrospect, Romney was right about Russian ambition. It's bizarre to think about the Rube Goldberg machine of human history, but if Mitt had won, the global landscape would probably be better right now. Trump never would have been president.

The election results in Slovakia and the Netherlands aren’t very positive for Ukraine though.