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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   14663 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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Considering how much of current American culture war debates revolve around national identity, sovereignty, and international influence, it makes me wonder: are conflicts like Russia’s move into Ukraine and China’s posture towards Taiwan fundamentally rooted in the same security dilemma, rather than pure expansionism?

I’ve been thinking about the deeper drivers behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s stance on Taiwan.

For Russia, Ukraine joining NATO would have meant that a major military alliance would sit directly on its border, severely shrinking Russia’s strategic buffer zone. Similarly, for China, the growing U.S. military presence around Taiwan raises a direct security concern.

Since U.S.-China relations have deteriorated, there has been increasing discussion about the possibility of the U.S. deploying missiles or even establishing a permanent military presence in Taiwan. Given Taiwan’s geographic position, major Chinese cities like Fuzhou, Xiamen, and even Shanghai would fall within the range of intermediate-range missiles.

This makes the Taiwan issue not purely about nationalism or ideology, but also about very tangible security calculations.

In 2024, U.S. defense reports indicated a rising focus on “hardening Taiwan” against potential Chinese action（https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jan/19/2003375866/-1/-1/1/2024-NDS.PDF”

China has repeatedly emphasized that foreign military deployments in Taiwan would cross a “red line”（https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-says-us-should-stop-official-exchanges-with-taiwan-2024-03-05/）

Russia and China's positions on Ukraine and Taiwan are first and foremost based on nationalism and what you could call ethnic sovereignty, and only secondarily based on pragmatic security concerns. You can read Putin's essay on the topic for a pretty clear description of what motivates him. Some excerpts below:

Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe.

...

Most importantly, people both in the western and eastern Russian lands spoke the same language. Their faith was Orthodox. Up to the middle of the 15th century, the unified church government remained in place.

...

The incorporation of the western Russian lands into the single state was not merely the result of political and diplomatic decisions. It was underlain by the common faith, shared cultural traditions, and – I would like to emphasize it once again – language similarity.

...

At the same time, the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians started to form and gain ground among the Polish elite and a part of the Malorussian intelligentsia. Since there was no historical basis – and could not have been any, conclusions were substantiated by all sorts of concoctions, which went as far as to claim that the Ukrainians are the true Slavs and the Russians, the Muscovites, are not. Such ”hypotheses“ became increasingly used for political purposes as a tool of rivalry between European states.

...

But in 1991, all those territories, and, which is more important, people, found themselves abroad overnight, taken away, this time indeed, from their historical motherland.

...

In essence, Ukraine's ruling circles decided to justify their country's independence through the denial of its past, however, except for border issues. They began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united us, and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation. The common tragedy of collectivization and famine of the early 1930s was portrayed as the genocide of the Ukrainian people.

...

Step by step, Ukraine was dragged into a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at turning Ukraine into a barrier between Europe and Russia, a springboard against Russia. Inevitably, there came a time when the concept of ”Ukraine is not Russia“ was no longer an option. There was a need for the ”anti-Russia“ concept which we will never accept.

...

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.

You can see that while the idea that Ukraine is a springboard for foreign powers to threaten Russia geopolitically makes an appearance, issues of national identity take precedence, including the idea that Ukrainian identity itself is a weapon that threatens Russia. This is not the kind of essay an American could or would write about Cuba in 1962, which is a case when there was a strategic threat from a foreign power without any shared ancient history or blood and soil concerns involved.

As for Taiwan, while it is not an ancient part of China the way Ukraine is an ancient part of Russia, its significance is that it is the last piece of territory (with a Han majority) taken from Qing China by foreign powers during the Century of Humiliation that remains outside of PRC control today. The CCP justifies its rule to a domestic audience by claiming that only they can undo the damage done by the Western powers and Japan during those years, firstly by making China too rich and powerful to be invaded or subjugated ever again and secondly by getting back all the territory that was stolen from them, including Taiwan. The fact that Taiwan is part of the First Island Chain with the potential to strangle Chinese naval trade in the event of a war is certainly of interest to their military planners, but it is a distant second in terms of motivations for invading or blockading the island.

I think Americans often have trouble understanding the way nationalists in other parts of the world think because it is quite alien to their own thought process, but imagine for a moment if most Anglo-Canadians were still diehard royalists who held a grudge against the US for expelling their ancestors during the Revolution and for being traitors who deny their true English identity, and would seize on any opportunity to punish them and force them back into the imperial fold. Sure, there might be offshore oil wells, cod fisheries, or Great Lakes ports of strategic importance involved in any dispute, but that's not really what it would be about.

It’s still hard to believe, even despite intellectually knowing why, how many Americans and even Mottizens display an astonishing capacity to rationalize bad foreign actors. China wants Taiwan primarily out of essentially hurt feelings; the fact that this is a batshit insane reason to start a war over a territory that has self governed with no major problems for over 30 years is so outrageous many are tempted to look for deeper meaning when there is none. Even if the US literally sent 10x the arms to Taiwan, do you know the impact that would have on Chinese national security? Almost literally zero. Zero. Nothing. Nil. Zilch. Nada.

Hell, Taiwan doesn’t even present a regional influence threat. They don’t and couldn’t project power into the South China Sea for example. The only vague threat is as a refuge for Hong Kongers and other dissidents, and even that is far overblown.

Well, maybe some of it has to do with America’s short memory when it comes to the potency of war fever. A lot of Americans try to pretend they didn’t support the Iraq war, but the opinion polls at the time don’t lie. I’ll grant there was some government deception of course but that doesn’t fully explain it.

how many Americans and even Mottizens display an astonishing capacity to rationalize bad foreign actors. China wants Taiwan primarily out of essentially hurt feelings;

I am curious how you feel about the War of Northern Imperialism Civil War: the American founding documents talk a lot about "just consent of the governed" but when some of the (state governments as proxies for) regions decided they no longer consented, Lincoln sent in troops. My own thoughts are complicated: I think the US is, for a variety of reasons (ending slavery, combined economic power) better off for the Union winning, but it does seem against the general principle of self-governance. It's not even hard to find takes today justifying curtailing the rights of the region on the basis of the actions of their forefathers.

While this wasn't exactly the language used at the time, it doesn't seem incoherent to say that the Civil War amounted to "well done, you've exercised your right to self-determination to become a nation of your own. unfortunately, judged as a neighboring foreign nation, we find you guilty of crimes so intolerable that we have no choice but to declare war on you and annex you".

You don't get to annex a nation because they do bad things. You can invade them, but that's not the same thing. The US did not annex Germany after World War II.

It also leads to the question of when the 13 colonies seceded from Britain, could Britain find some act that the Americans have committed that they decide is an intolerable crime, and annex the colonies again?

By your standard could the British invade and annex Zimbabwe?

Not to mention that the Union maintained the institution of slavery in multiple states throughout the war, including the practice of denying them the vote.

This argument is a bit like invading someone for their heinous crime of capital punishment, while continuing to hang your own criminals.

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