Industrial policy has been a frequent subject on Smith's blog, for those who don't follow it. (He's for it, and thinks that Biden's industrial policy was mostly good - it's worth following the links in this post.) This post focuses on defense-related geopolitical industrial policy goals and pros and cons of anticipated changes under the incoming Trump administration and Chinese responses. Particularly, he highlights two major things China can do: Restrict exports of raw materials (recently announced) and use their own industrial policy to hamper the West's peacetime industrial policy (de facto policy of the last 30 years). These are not extraordinary insights, but it's a good primer on the current state of affairs and policies to pay attention to in the near-future.
Noah Smith: Manufacturing is a war now
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Why don’t we just let China have Taiwan and the South China Sea? I really don’t care about China. China doesn’t care about most of the rest of the world. China doesn’t seek dominion over European civilization. China is uninterested in the export of world revolution in the way that, say, some historic communist states were. The Taiwanese will do just fine under Chinese rule; even the old KMT vets are unlikely to face any retribution in their very, very old age. Most people neither require nor care about democracy; they want streets that are safe, low crime, affordable and decent food on the table, a youth that is disciplined and hardworking, and a feeling that their country is headed in the right direction.
What matters is civilization. What matters is mass immigration. What matters is law and order. What matters is the cultural rot that has hollowed out the West, leaving a small class of feckless, neurotic elites and a vast population of normal people held hostage by the scum at the bottom of society who continuously go un- and under-punished. What matters is ugliness, in architecture, in obesity, in fonts, in advertising, in fashion. China is responsible for relatively little of this.
Challenging China is both pointless and cruel. The Chinese, for all the great flaws of their system, still have the kind of state capacity and self-belief that Western nations can only dream of. Waging a war against China would be an act of nightmarish self-harm. Fix the West, first, on a cultural level, then worry about whatever the fuck is going to happen with Taiwan (I don’t care).
Because if we weaken the norm that powerful countries can't just annex other countries, then we should expect to see a lot more war and a break down of the international order that allows global trade.
I can think of half a dozen countries off the top of my head who could start wars to gain territory if they knew they had the implicit permission of NATO and the western powers. This will hurt civilisation, increase illegal immigration, reduce law and order and generally results in a shittier world.
What norm? There is no such norm.
The us overthrew a democratically elected leader from Ukraine and installed a puppet.
The us has been engaging in fuckery funding terrorists in the middle east, assassinating Haitian presidents and countless other "norm breaking". Israel has been bombing military generals inside other countries sovereign territory.
At this point if the Russians decide to start assassinating US military command staff on US soil, I wouldn't bat an eye.
The Ukrainian people overthrew a leader who had lost their support. Russia likes to frame it as 'the US overthrew Ukrainian democracy', but they also frame their attempt to annex and genocide the Ukrainian nation as a defensive war against NATO.
Other countries have agency too.
Ah yes, such agency, much wow. Supporting Nazi larping snipers and having CIA handlers on the ground, very democracy, lots of self determination. Russia also wouldn't be invading Ukraine if NATO wasn't trying to cut them off the black sea.
If they wanted to genocide the Ukrainin nation they would have nuked it already.
There's a weird overlap between wokes, who think everyone right wing is a Nazi, and Russian nationalists, who think anyone who doesn't want Russia to invade them is a Nazi.
For clarity, Nazi refers to the National Socialist German Workers Party, which was in power in Germany in the 1930s and 40s. Using it outside of that is just a lazy slur and the kind of thing we try to avoid on this site.
Do you genuinely believe that if the CIA hadn't had any involvement, the Maidan wouldn't have happened and the Ukrainian people would have happily seen their country tied to the poor dictatorship to the East rather than the wealthy democracies to the West? You really think a handful of intelligence agents have so much power that they are able to control the actions of hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise have done nothing?
There are always dissatisfied factions in any country. As the country’s condition worsen, dissenting factions become stronger, but I’m pretty sure foreign support can significantly affect: a) which dissenting faction ends up on top, b) whether they’re strong enough to beat the existing government.
These things are exponential, like avalanches, or pandemics. That’s why repression almost always aims to wipe out dissidents when they’re weak and isolated.
It seems entirely plausible to me that no US support = no Maidan revolution.
Why would no US support for a primarily European supported pro-European movement mean no European support for a pro-European movement?
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