The U.S. is in a very difficult dangerous situation….one of it’s own making. For China Taiwan is existential. For Russia Ukraine is also though differently existential. Yet in the Pacific and in eastern Europe the U.S. has been greatly ramping up it’s military capabilities and increasingly threatening both China and Russia on matters critical to them, as well as historically connected to them, but not really critical to or historically connected to the U.S.
Taiwan is part of China and the U.S. has acknowledged that for a very long time — the “One-China Policy” which Beijing has always quite understandably insisted upon. Ukraine is historically aligned with Russia and was in fact a crucial part of the Soviet Union. The Americans repeatedly promised Gorbachev that with the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union NATO would not expand eastward to the Russian border; yet that is exactly what the U.S. did as well as actually fomenting and financing the anti-Russian revolution in Ukraine.
So just what will the U.S. do if the Chinese and Russians decide to act simultaneously against U.S. plots and threats with regard to their most important geo-strategic concerns? Attacks on military sites in Russia or China would fast bring on counter-strikes against U.S. and allied forces in Europe and the Pacific; with further escalation using new super “conventional” weapons already planned. Yet militarily the U.S. would likely be defeated in both such regional conflicts without the threat or use of at least tactical nuclear weapons. Yet the use, or even threat, of any nuclear weapons is quite unthinkable as that could quickly escalate into Armageddon.
The U.S. had better rethink, retrench, and understand, if not accept, that China will not allow further U.S. measures pushing Taiwan toward more de facto independence and Russia will not allow Ukraine to be further pulled away and incorporated even de facto into NATO. The Doomsday clock is no long minutes but now seconds to midnight and counting. In these seconds it’s time for dangerous American exceptionalism and militarism to take a deep breadth and stand down with regard to both Taiwan and Ukraine.
Mark Bruzonsky 