• FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    Maybe, maybe not. The Soviet’s first (successful) atomic ballistic missile test was in 1949, exactly one year before the Korean War. China had theirs in 1964. They were at that moment in time far behind the USA.

    Now we have to deal with the USA, Russia, and China all pointing nukes at each other and sabre rattling. North Korea literally launches ballistic missiles into the ocean as a method of threatening Japan.

    And all the while, people are suffering under the rule of cruel dictatorships.

    P.S. I can tell you with great confidence that the controversial take on the Fediverse is my willingness to fight against autocratic despots.

    • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      2 months ago

      Maybe, maybe not. The Soviet’s first (successful) atomic ballistic missile test was in 1949, exactly one year before the Korean War. China had theirs in 1964. They were at that moment in time far behind the USA.

      … okay? Unless your plan is to follow that up with an invasion of both the Soviet Union and China, that doesn’t fucking change my point? Normalizing the use of nuclear weapons to achieve political goals at the very start of the Cold War is not going to result in a less tense environment for the possibility of nuclear exchanges between nuclear powers.

      Now we have to deal with the USA, Russia, and China all pointing nukes at each other and sabre rattling. North Korea literally launches ballistic missiles into the ocean as a method of threatening Japan.

      And how would glassing the Chinese border have changed any of this except for North Korea?

      • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        2 months ago

        I could be underestimating how constantly drunk Stalin was, but I like to think he wouldn’t engage in battles that he has absolutely zero chance of winning. A world where China has been taken off the board is a world where USSR has less allies and is surrounded on all sides. Just like China is doing as Russia is losing, the USSR would have done next to nothing while China lost.

        Any alternate reality where the CCP doesn’t exist is enviable to some degree. We should have brought the entirety of China to a knee when we could have.

        • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPM
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          2 months ago

          I could be underestimating how constantly drunk Stalin was, but I like to think he wouldn’t engage in battles that he has absolutely zero chance of winning.

          The US public was tired of the Korean War in 1953. How would Stalin estimate, do you think, the American public supporting an unprovoked nuclear assault and invasion against a much larger and more dangerous enemy in Communist China and the Soviet Union simultaneously, with probably the withdrawal of the entirety of our major allies from the war?

          A world where China has been taken off the board is a world where USSR has less allies and is surrounded on all sides.

          which is exactly why the USSR would not have let China fall at that juncture. “Just let your enemies isolate you, just stand by and do nothing” is not a very likely course of action for the USSR.

          Any alternate reality where the CCP doesn’t exist is enviable to some degree.

          Fuck no. There are always worse scenarios on every aspect of reality. That’s the same kind of campism tankies use when they say that “any” outcome to mass unrest is better than the status quo. It reflects a distinct and severe lack of imagination, or else an irrational disposition towards the status in question that is entirely divorced from actual moral or strategic concerns.

          We should have brought the entirety of China to a knee when we could have.

          • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 months ago

            In the early 1950s, we’ve already established that the USSR lacks the means to put up much of a retaliation even if they wanted to. Every moment after that point was too late, it’s why the USA has effectively lost the Cold War to China with the reelection of their favored candidate Trump.

            • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPM
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              2 months ago

              In the early 1950s, we’ve already established that the USSR lacks the means to put up much of a retaliation even if they wanted to.

              Other than the overwhelming concern of conventional fucking war, the Soviet Union had several dozen nuclear weapons ready to go during the Korean War. Or are we going to glass the Soviet Union now too, with our early 1950s stockpile and delivery systems?

              Every moment after that point was too late, it’s why the USA has effectively lost the Cold War to China with the reelection of their favored candidate Trump.

              … China’s favored candidate was by no means Trump, in any of the three elections.

              • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 months ago

                I saw the Beijing operated psyops TikTok cocksucking for Trump left and right before and after the election. China favored Trump because China recognized Clinton, Biden, and Harris as both competent US leaders and more formidable adversaries in terms of geopolitical conflict and strategy.

                Trump has done so much for China that it’s absurd:

                1. Destroyed the USA’s place as top scientific world power
                2. Undone the USA’s economic leadership role
                3. Irreparably damaged NATO’s cooperative capabilities
                4. Saved China from the forced sale or shutdown of TikTok by instead making them simply majority shareholders
                5. Lifted economic sanctions from Russia

                China celebrated the Trump reelection with conviction. Xi Jinping rained praise down upon him.

                Not to mention, the literal endorsement of Trump by tankie hives like ML and Hexbear leading up to the election.

        • bufalo1973@piefed.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          It’s funny that today the general idea of the rest of the world is “we should have stopped the US when it was weak, fighting the British”.

          • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            If you dislike the USA to such an extent then surely you should be happy about such hypothetical conflicts, yes? Perhaps you simple dislike the idea of certain countries losing?

            Given that the USA is the leader of the world’s largest mutual self defence pacts, and that almost all of China’s allies are non-democracies, I would feel extremely comfortable wagering that the world at large prefers the USA and at the very least considers them a necessary evil.