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The US has been exhausting reserves of hard-to-replenish weapons for Ukraine. Air defence, missile defence is possibly the most important thing for Asia. Yet Patriot batteries and interceptors have been sent to Ukraine. Not to mention the rest of the munitions shortages.
Britain fighting Germany in Europe didn't send a signal to Japan that Britain would also fight in Asia, it only weakened British strength in Asia due to forces being tied down in Europe. Japan entered the war for its own reasons which were independent of whether Britain was feeling isolationist or interventionist.
Chinese decisionmaking is mostly concerned with the balance of power in Asia, economic autarky, immediate concerns to China. They'd like the US to be tied down in Europe so the Pentagon doesn't focus all its strength against them. They'd also like the US to be embroiled in the Middle East.
It's not cowardice to assess costs and benefits of a policy and refrain from maximal engagement in a theater. There's much to learn from China's attitude overseas - trade with the Middle East is a cheap and easy way to make friends, wars are a costly and hard way of making enemies. Warfare should only be planned or pursued for key strategic goals with core relevance to national interests. For China that might be securing Taiwan, uniting the Chinese nation, securing a key base in the region. For America that could be ensuring that there are no hostile regimes in the Americas, preventing any hostile power becoming a regional hegemon like the US in the Americas or stopping any one power securing the bulk of the world's energy supplies.
The US refuses to even take on the national security threat propagandizing our children despite a literal ban passed on the books because we're too scared to actually enforce it. Either we're cowards or the Chinese propaganda is so powerful and entrenched that the security threat is even greater than we realized (and thus all the more reason we need to ban it now). And yet we aren't.
The only shows of military strength are bombing nations like Iran which are basically toddlers compared to China, when we're up against another adult we can't even do a fraction of what they do without backing down.
We have lost, we will not make any sacrifice even as they brainwash our youth. We will not stand up to them in a literal war either in the region.
Or, there never was any national security threat from TikTok, the ban was just classic bipartisanship in the "evil and stupid" sense, and Trump keeps kicking the ball down the road because he thinks doing so gives him some leverage in trade negotiations.
If the politicians across both parties are making up national security concerns as a false justification to suppress rival companies or speech, or use them in other negotiations then that also seems like a major issue of a different kind.
That being said it certainly doesn't seem fake, Tiktok is clearly a Chinese owned app with direct access to the eyes of our children.
Maybe, but it's been business-as-usual for decades.
And allowing "our children" to see things put out by the Chinese is a national security threat exactly how?
Consider that despite a literal ban being passed, two presidents have ignored it in a row. That seems pretty concerning, they must have a lot of influence in the country if we aren't even enforcing our laws.
This is facilely circular.
It's not a circular argument at all, because it's not the only reason why Tiktok is a threat. It's an auxiliary point of "Hey shit this is so dangerous that two presidents in a row would rather break the law than stop it" with the main danger being ya know, the reason we passed the law to begin with.
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I think national security threat is overselling it a little bit, but it's an extremely potent propaganda weapon. The fact China hasn't weaponized it yet has more to do with their patience for when it matters, than it does some lack of utility.
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Without fixing its manufacturing base, the US will lose any conflict with China that isn't decided in the first few days regardless of whether we're talking about 2022 or 2025 level weapon stockpiles. The fact that running out of 155 mm shells, drones, and missiles in trying to supply Ukraine has led to military and civilian leaders realizing this is a problem and working to solve it is the best thing that could have happened for American military preparedness short of not having outsourced all of those industries in the first place, even if there is a temporary shortage as a result.
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