Dire Straits

Ever since I was a wee little lad, there’s been a recurring piece of “breaking news” to the effect of “China does military thing, alarming Taiwan”. Of course China is presented as the aggressor who is picking on it’s much smaller neighbor, the country of Taiwan. And, the narrative goes, Taiwan is a US ally and we’ve pledged to support them, so if China were to follow through on attacking Taiwan, they would drag the US reluctantly into World War III. This is a compelling narrative if you don’t know a lot about the history of China during the 20th century.

In fact, “Taiwan” isn’t actually a thing, at least not as we like to think of it. Taiwan is officially called the Republic of China; “mainland” China is the People’s Republic of China. Both governments believe themselves to be the only rightful rulers of all of China. The cut-and-paste paragraph in news articles relates that China sees Taiwan as a “rebellious province”; you could also say that Taiwan sees the PRC as it’s 33 rebellious provinces.

During the 1940’s, China underwent a revolution that culminated when Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic. By the early 1950’s the revolutionary period had died down and the PRC was effectively governing most of China, with one notable exception. The overthrown Republic of China government had set up a “temporary” capital in Taipei, Taiwan Province and continued to assert that they were the legitimate government of all of China. The ROC was all but defeated and confined to a small island, but the PRC lacked the ability to carry out an amphibious invasion and retake the final province that wasn’t under their control. Thus, the Chinese civil war ended in a stalemate that endures to this day.

It’s 2018, and the government of Taiwan — a tiny island — still presents itself as the legitimate ruler of the entire country of China. In fact, Taiwan held the Chinese seat at the United Nations (including the Security Council) until the world came to its senses and recognized that the PRC was the actual Chinese government and that the leftovers who were hanging on to one tiny island province could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered the legitimate rulers of the entire country. On the flip side, the PRC seems okay-ish with allowing Taiwan to govern itself autonomously while pretending that they’re not, as long as Taiwan doesn’t declare formal independence (although I think China could be justified in reasserting their authority over the island; it is historically a Chinese province, after all).

There is a point that I’m building toward with all of this history: considering the series of events that led up to the China-Taiwan standoff, it seems incredibly ridiculous that the United States has gone all-in on defending Taiwan and would get pulled into a war with China over it.

Taiwan is, historically, part of China. The Republic of China only continues to exist due to a historical/logistical anomaly. Their claim to be the sole legitimate government of all of China is ridiculous. The war is over and they lost. For the United States, a war with China would be a disaster; fighting them on their own turf would be catastrophic, as would the economic and diplomatic aftermath. Why would we go to war to defend a tiny fraction of a rump state that can’t accept the fact that they were defeated? We don’t have to go to war with China over Taiwan. We could just not do it.

There’s a lot of political games and history involved, but at the end of the day, I hope that if war breaks out between China and Taiwan, the United States will find a way to stay out of it. But with Tronald Dumpster at the helm, who even knows?

Nikki Haley’s epic pout-fest

This week, the US vetoed an otherwise-unanimous decision in the UN Security Council condemning Trump’s announcement to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A General Assembly vote then followed, in which the final tally was 128-9 in favor of condemning Trump’s recognition. It was a pretty epic trouncing.

Trump’s representative at the UN, predictably, threw a giant fucking tissy fit like the whiny little baby she is.

Arguing that, because the US contributes financially to supporting the UN, they should (apparently) always get what they want because the customer is always right or something, and that this was all a big conspiracy to embarrass ‘Murica, the US would be “taking names” of the countries that voted for the resolution.

Yep. She’s going to take 128 names.

I’m sure the entire fucking world is shaking in its boots. 

I have some advice, Ms. Haley. Given how lopsided this vote was, maybe you should stop and honestly assess the implications. What I mean is…maybe it’s not them, maybe it’s you. It really could be possible that this was just a dumb fucking idea and no one else agrees with it, couldn’t it? So please, just stop. Stop embarrassing our country with this 7th grade bully “we’re taking names” nonsense and whiny “boo hoo hoo, you don’t agree with me and it hurts my feelings, I’m taking my ball and going home” bullshit. If you act like a fucking idiot and people call you out on it, it’s not their fault. It’s yours. Just stop digging this hole deeper. Stop humiliating us.

Peace isn’t profitable

Another round of UN-sponsored peace talks aimed at a political settlement to the war in Syria ended in typical fashion:

1. Opposition says “we won’t talk about anything else until you agree that Assad steps down, immediately.”
2. Government tells the opposition to go fuck themselves.
3. Opposition blames Government for not being “serious”.
4. Nothing changes and everyone goes back to doing what they were doing.

What the opposition is demanding, in essence, is that the government forces accept defeat as a precondition to any negotiations. This might make sense if the balance of forces were stacked in favor of the opposition and the government, facing an inevitable loss, wished to use what strength they had remaining as leverage at the negotiating table.

The roles, in this case, are reversed, however. It’s the opposition that is on the back foot and on the brink of defeat. Given that the eastern portion of the country has largely been liberated from ISIS, the Syrian government has the ability now to bring the bulk of its forces to bear on the other rebel groups.

In other words, the cost to the opposition for repeatedly coming to the table with the same non-starter precondition is likely to be complete annihilation.

Why continue to beat this dead horse? The opposition still has bargaining chips. The government would likely make some sort of concessions to avoid the further bloodshed and destruction required to liberate Idlib province and root out the last stubborn pockets of resistance around the country. Why isn’t the opposition bargaining in good faith for reforms that would result in more liberties, competitive elections, etc.?

I can only speculate but I can think of two reasons.

First, because the opposition is not interested in liberty and democracy. These are buzzwords thrown about to make them more palatable. The fact that they’re bankrolled by some of the most oppressive governments who rule some of the most backwards countries in the world — the type that make Assad’s Syria look like a beacon of freedom — and are sharing the foxholes with Al Qaeda, et al. should make it obvious that they are not fighting to make Syria better. They’re fighting to make Syria worse.

Second, because the ones negotiating are not the ones who are going to do the dying. The would-be new aristocracy of Syria that’s been groomed by the Saudis and their ilk are not going to suffer. They’re going to live abroad on the Gulf monarchs’ dime while their country is destroyed. The gulf theocracies, European “human rights” bleeding-hearts, and of course the Trump regime know the opposition is not going to win the war. But they’re willing to keep the money going as long as the opposition keeps on fighting. You see, if the war ended today and peace broke out in Syria, who would bleed Iran and Russia? The opposition’s backers are using them for no other reason than to be a thorn in the side of their geopolitical opponents. And the opposition’s aristocracy knows which side it’s bread is buttered on. They can keep living lavishly abroad as long as they keep sending their followers into the meat grinder.

What other reason could their be for their reluctance to actually negotiate in good faith, despite their obviously impending defeat? The opposition’s “leaders” will keep doing their masters’ bidding, because if they actually made peace, the gravy train might stop.

Peace isn’t profitable.