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Idk about the serial numbers, but three? Well, in fairness, Kuwaiti defense forces seem to be at fault, so it's no great slight on the American hyperpower, and if anything goes to show the power of your air defense.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/02/middleeast/us-kuwait-aircraft-crash-iran-intl-hnk
Why do you presume they will lose any oil supply? Why do you think you get to just tell countries to stop exporting to China? They're broke and need some income. You're an oil exporter. Oil is a global commodity, more oil on the market mechanistically reduces prices. Trump has already said he won't stop Venezuelan exports to China. This is just more capeshit to rationalize actions compelled half by unilateral Israeli decision and half by procrastination as part of your competition with China.
Because I'm generous and as I've explained massive commodity sectors depress a nation's ECI. It is fair that on the physical level there's plenty of complexity in fracking (the Chinese think it's one of three impressive American industries) but the volume of exports dilutes your technological value-add.
Yes but it's hopeless for basic reasons of economic development and the tremendous success of American system. Every American with half a functioning brain is already gainfully employed, and very few of those are in manufacturing, and the rest are more or less ballast. You can increase the output somewhat but if you think you get to "catch up" to China or whatever, it's pure hubris. Like, when exactly are you going to build Shenzhen and staff it with whom? Do you even realize how far ahead they are in industrial automation, in integration of all ecosystems? That it's stopped to be about "cheap labor" maybe a decade ago? That your lofty plans of solving these issues with robots all depend on Chinese suppliers?
With South American imports. You mainly export pig feed (soybeans), and cattle feed (alfalfa), not human food. In the worst case, if you compel South Americans to also stop exports, they'll probably have to eat less beef and pork, as they had historically and as the Greatest Democracy India does today. Look at the calorie consumption in China over the years, they have developed a lot of slack.
American oil is irrelevant and replaceable, you're power-tripping. They depend more on the Gulf. So next comes the usual fantasy about closing the Malacca strait I guess. Of course this is an act of war which locals (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore) will likely resist so as to not become a battlefield, and the Chinese have and will have more than enough reserves and domestic production to operate their rapidly growing navy. Did you know that China is the world's sixth largest oil producer? That in terms of total primary energy production (domestic production yes), they're global number 1 and 40% higher than the US? And that they are very quickly making inland logistics oil-independent? They'll survive even if they stop getting any oil. I swear, almost everything about conflict with China is some rehashing of the 20th century arc with Japan plus something about Soviets.
Again, for some reason you assume that your dependencies (eg the rare earths threat, that forced Trump to halt the BIS Affiliate Rule last November) are easily fixable, despite decades of forewarning, literally 30 years of Chinese openly saying that they'll weaponize it one day. I guess it's nice to have such faith in your people, and dismiss previous ineptitude as enemy action or just carelessness. Not sure how warranted it is, though.
Ok, let's say this is the new strategy. How fast do you think China could make another 2, 3, 5 thousand warheads if they wanted to? Do you really want to go back to a nuclear arms race? Who is currently building over half of all new nuclear reactors in the world, entire fleets of nuclear submarines, a nuclear aircraft carrier? In economy, they dwarf the Soviet Union colossally, and their defense spending is a fraction of yours, around 2% GD. They could outrace you by a very solid margin.
Nuclear bluff has limits, your threats have to be credible. Psychologically, they're not terrified because they assume you're not retarded enough to sacrifice New York for Taipei, no matter the imbalance. That you might sacrifice New York just to take out Beijing and Shanghai is a bit of an alien thought to them. Perhaps they're wrong, but that's the reality of their decisionmaking.
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