Military equipment is not cheap, nor is flying jets into Taiwanese airspace. Also if you keep telling the population that you’re going to invade Taiwan, then they do kind of expect it to some extent, even if the PRC is not a democracy.
Finlandization does have some benefits for the PRC, but I would not rule out a stupid land invasion of Taiwan.
If that was true, why are they still saber rattling? Stupid dictators and bloodthirsty supporters lead to stupid wars, so I wouldn’t count it out.
Look at Ukraine. Russia had already de facto annexed most of the land that they hold today. Ukraine wasn’t willing to fight them to get it back. All of Russia’s neighbors were too scared to join EU or NATO. Europe was dependent on Russian gas and vulnerable to Russian coercion.
Putin started the war anyways.
Four years later and hundreds of thousands of soldiers dead, and the economy is crashing. Ukraine is bombing the shit out of Russia and occupied Ukraine and trying to take it all back. Oligarchs are going poor/dying. NATO now has a much larger budget than the Russian military, arguably stronger than it ever was during the Cold War. Putin has no way out of this war, if he withdraws he probably ends up in the Hague.
If he had stopped after 2014, Putin could have kept everything, but he kept breaking the ceasefires and escalating.
Putin wanted Finland to stay out of NATO, look how well that worked out for him. Stupid leaders make stupid choices.
But I think NATO would probably have a coalition to protect Taiwan anyways.
EV batteries are rated for 100K miles without any maintenance, and can often exceed that many times over.
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/02/nx-s1-5706658/electric-vehicle-battery-lifespan
You cannot run a Toyota more than 15k miles without maintenance. Usually it’s just an oil change, but there are so many moving parts that need regular maintenance, and many engines will just up and die before a battery will.
EV cars also have rhe benefit of needing less brake maintenance, though that is offset by the tire wear and weight of long range EV cars.
Something like a Citroën Ami will probably wear out the interior before any mechanical component dies. Maybe some rare maintenance like a tire change.
Lithium batteries are far, far, far more reliable than a Toyota. It’s not even a comparison.
I’m trying to keep the same vehicle for as long as possible.
The oil companies are trying to make sure you stay in a metal cage as long as possible
Not mention they didn’t even tell them they were going to do it before they did it. Why should allies trust Trump’s America when they stabbed them in the back at every turn?
Assuming they’re the same as Venezuela:
The reason why this failed, was that the dictator’s successor in this instance refused to cooperate with Trump.
Gee, I hope there isn’t a major spike in energy prices next month…
Well, I’ve seen much less nuance and knowledge from other lemmy.ml users, so I appreciate your thoughtful take and arguments.
I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really want to spend time going into all the details here on an online forum.
That’s a good Wikipedia you posted, and I think we can both agree on that as a historical record of the US’s soft/hard power foreign policy.
I think you’re reading too much into Operation Gladio and the “goal” of the NED. Don’t watch what people say, what what they do.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were definitely imperialist and I wanted to point out the psychological differences between the US public’s support for those wars, and the CIA coups of the First Cold War, as well as the war fatigue afterwards, but I guess you understood that.
One thing I also wanted to point out is that the foreign policy of the different political power centers in the US can be very different. Even if the CIA and the president think that they should use financial aid or sanctions against a country, that doesn’t mean that congress or the NED will necessarily follow along.
But yeah, Iraq is basically what a “successful” Ukraine war would have looked like for Putin, and it was obviously a massive failure and decade of shame for the US. It is a tragedy that the war crimes committed there were not prosecuted properly.
For what it’s worth, I also don’t defend the modern Trump/Biden America. There were some good achievements and progress in the Bushes/Clinton/Obama years, but there are also some really stupid and destructive people in the US during all administrations.
My main point was just that color revolution theory is a hoax and that the NED didn’t overthrow any governments, and I stand by that.
You really, really should watch the video (series) I linked. It’s long, but it says everything I’m about to say. It’s really important to watch it if you genuinely believe that George Soros and the NED caused the Euromaidan.
Second, it is not russophobic to criticize Vladimir Putin. He is a murderer who has killed hundreds of thousands of Russians with his failed color revolution attempt in the Donbas.
Now let me point out the historical facts that your comment missed.
The US had no part in “dismantling” the Soviet Union. It was the communist coup attempt, the Afghanistan War, and an overdependance on oil exports that ended the Soviet Union.
The CIA did overthrow governments during the First Cold War (as did the tankies).
However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a complete shift in the US’s foreign policy under the Bushes, Clinton, and Obama, which lasted up until the new Cold War we find ourselves in. The US did not overthrow any South American governments during the 90’s-2010’s. The two American attempts at regime change in the 2000’s, Iraq and Afghanistan, were much more heavy-handed than the Cold War era coups, and were explicitly pro-democracy, albeit imperialistic. The failures of Iraq and Afghanistan led to extreme apathy for international conflict in the US, there was zero will from Americans to interfere in Ukraine, even if the US had the resources to do it (they don’t). The US has had universal hegemony, there was no point for them to spend money invading countries.
The National Endowment for Democracy, founded in the 1980’s, has not had any part in any “Color Revolutions”, all it does is give grants to pro-democracy politicians and groups.
The fact of the matter is that “color revolution theory” is a conspiracy theory (aside from some overzealous political science authors during the Iraq war). This conspiracy theory is 99% promoted by the Russian ruling class to justify their bootlicking for Vladimir Putin.
Russians could have had democracy, but they threw it away, and now all the Russian Tsarists have left are stupid conspiracy theories saying that democracy is a Jewish hoax.
Was there a “color revolution” in Burma? I thought the color revolution conspiracy theory only applied to post-Soviet countries.
Anyways, the term “color revolution” is part of an anti-democratic conspiracy theory promoted by various dictatorships, most notably the Russian Federation, which has used it to falsely claim that the Euromaidan Revolution was orchestrated by the US.
(go ahead, post the Nyland phone call)
Here’s a video essay by Sarcasmitron that goes into the origins of the Color revolution conspiracy theory. (Starting from the second chapter, as the first chapter was mostly about US imperialism in the Iraq War)
Found Vladimir Putin
If your life/job/city sucks, it’s obviously {every human between the age of 16 and 25}'s fault, the only thing you can do to fix it is to spend the rest of your afternoon doomscrolling!
Why would you ever leave your couch?? That will never fix it!
CONSUME MORE SLOP
Please go touch grass.
I am not saying Ukrainian civilians are “Russian-backed forces”. I’m saying that Ukraine has been fighting a war against Russia and Russian-aided military forces in the Donbas, which is why the Ukrainians have been shooting in the Donbas. It is not an insurgency or ethnic cleansing. It makes no sense to say that civilians have died while ignoring the whole fact that there is a war in the Donbas.
You are also minimizing the rights of civilians by slandering the opposing side. Calling the government that was democratically elected in the May 2014 and October 2014 elections, a “Banderite regime”, is minimizing the fact that Russia is fighting a war of conquest against the people of Ukraine, and committing genocide in the process.
Yanukovich wasn’t overthrown by anyone, he fled to Russia after his security forces thought he was going to backstab them during the revolution.
The Ukrainian people are suing for peace. The problem is that every peace agreement proposed by Russia demands that Ukraine disarms, and that NATO countries are not allowed to give security guarantees. That opens the door for Russia to immediately violate the peace agreement like they have done dozens of times already since 2014.
What gives Russia the right to own the 5 oblasts, on what grounds should Ukraine cede them?
The first step to peace is an immediate ceasefire for both Russia and Ukraine. If Russia would agree to one of the countless ceasefire agreements that has been presented to them, then the war would end then and there. The US doesn’t want to spend money fighting the war any longer. Ukraine cares more about NATO security guarantees than trying to reconquer Crimea. I agree with you there that the war is not popular. The goal should be de-escalation, not bombing Kyiv with drones, or nuclear saber-rattling with IRBMs like Oreshnik.
This is a leftist, anti-imperialist perspective. Any party in the European Left Alliance would agree with my assessment.
Removed by mod
You’re so right, Brussels and Kyiv are complete sieg heil fests every day.
You’ve honestly got me there, believing Russian conspiracy theories would honestly be a lot more exciting than the boring real world.
What am I denying? I really have never heard of whatever you’re talking about.
Are you saying that Russian and DPR/LPR forces were not the target of Ukrainian artillery in the Donbas War?
I think the cold war was less about ideology about economic systems and more about alignment with the Soviet Union.
There was plenty of eurocommunism and social democracy in Europe that wasn’t commented on by the US. Relations with the PRC were normalized in the 1970s after the 1961 sino-soviet split.