Don’t forget that they’ve come right out and said that their actions in the 2016 election were an act of war. When someone tells you that they’re at war with you, prudence dictates that you take their word on it.
I’m not so sure about that. Russia is run by kleptocrats. And just like the guy that causes $1000 worth of damage to a car to steal a $10 radio, the kleptocrats are all too happy to damage their own country as long as they can steal money faster than everything collapses. The damage they cause to other countries is mainly to distract the populace and secure their own position. Well, I suppose the population may still dream of a resurgent Russia, but while the leaders certainly exploit that I doubt they’re dumb enough to believe it.
Although we weren’t a totalitarian nation. China is a good bit behind us militarily but they are looking to catch up, and if they felt that military aggression would help them achieve their economic goals I think they would pursue them.
It’s certainly possible that a nation could overtake us and do damage to us on purpose. I was just saying that just the fact that they may overtake us someday economically doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
Russia is certainly doing lots of damage and they are a piker when it comes to GDP.
I still feel it biased the poll by expressing one side’s supposed position in partisan terms. Consider these different ways of phrasing the question:
Democrats generally consider Russia to be the main ‘villain adversary’ nation. Republicans generally consider China to be the main villain adversary nation.
Democrats generally consider Russia to be the main ‘villain adversary’ nation (since Russia helped out Trump in 2016), Republicans generally consider China to be the main villain adversary nation.
Democrats generally consider Russia to be the main ‘villain adversary’ nation (since Russia attacked the American elections in 2016), Republicans generally consider China to be the main villain adversary nation.
Democrats generally consider Russia to be the main ‘villain adversary’ nation, Republicans generally consider China to be the main villain adversary nation (since China didn’t help out Trump in 2016).
Depends on how you define adversary. China is the only near-peer outside threat to the US and the main challenge for the US going forward (assuming we don’t destroy ourselves). They’re also pretty aggressive in expanding their sphere of influence throughout Asia and Africa.
Russia is the country that’s probably most active in antagonizing the US directly though (or Iran). Probably a sign of weakness as they’re a failing nation and need to make moves to stay relevant. China is an ascendant nation and can be more patient.
If it were a foot race, I’d be worried about China beating us, because we have gotten lazy, and China has been working out. (And probably using some performance enhancing drugs.)
But I’d be much more worried about Russia trying to break our kneecaps.
That US international relations is cast in terms of “adversaries,” that national economic well-being is seen as necessarily competitive, and that these attitudes propel political and military objectives, seems to me a big problem in itself. Combined with “US exceptionalism,” that is, the US seeing itself as the only moral actor on the world stage, well, pointing fingers is unseemly
I’ve always felt that governments find their citizenry infinitely more receptive to funding whatever budgetary priorities they care to set when they paint the presumptive wolves as being deadly and right at the door.
Fear and faith win elections. Fear drives ginormous defense budgets.
It’s a good analogy. I think that China feels it’s becoming stronger than the United States and its replacement of us as the world’s most powerful country is inevitable. So they’re more relaxed and are just looking for the best circumstances to affect the shift. Whereas Russia feels that it’s weaker than the United States and has to win by some kind of unexpected stratagem.
My take is 'we have met the enemy and it is us. We are the biggest threat to our nation currently. This may have been prompted at least helped from outside, but we have took it as our own.
I remember that! Americans United to Beat the Dutch! And remember, a Dutch Treat is No Treat At ALL!
My serious answer is that Russia and China are about equals as adversaries and threats to our liberty. It is terrible to watch “democracy” being annihilated – literally poisoned – in Russia. And they’d do it to us in a heartbeat, if they could.
From a sterile geopolitics point of view, China is clearly a greater threat militarily and economically to the American empire than Russia. That said, as an American, the Republican party is a far greater threat to my family’s and my life and freedom than either of those nations. Furthermore, to the extent that Russia is a threat, that threat is greatly exacerbated by the fact that the Republicans are in bed with them.
This is a big part of it to. China is like a rival empire. Yes, they do some shady stuff, but at the end of the day they still have their empire they are trying to build, and needlessly antagonizing a rival empire won’t really benefit them. Russia is more like the barbarians. They know they lost, and now they just want to fuck with the west on their way down.
China’s objectives aren’t the same as Russia’s (Putin’s, to be specific). Putin wants the US to be so weak that it cannot buttress Western democratic Europe, which would leave the door open for an expanded Russian role in the region. Putin’s not doing this just because he’s ideologically committed to communism or some sort of Russian imperial identity; he’s running a corrupt regime that has a better chance of survival when he’s not confronted with strong democratic opposition.
Russia and China are both competitors to the United States, but China has tried to sell its relationship with the United States as a more amicable form of competition. Russia operates under no such pretense. When the US signed the Magnitsky Act, that was pretty much the final straw because global commitments to fight Russian corruption are a clear and present danger to the oligarchal regime in Russia.
Putin will probably get that if Trump wins. Hopefully Germany and France will step up to the plate if that comes to pass.
I am no expert of Europe but it seems from afar that France and Germany both have relatively strong institutions, but they are also susceptible to foreign influence.
I sometimes think that the 20th Century was never truly a battle of democracy against authoritarianism but rather a struggle between private and public power - with private power and free markets coming out on top.
Once authoritarian regimes figured that communism sucked, they simply embraced capitalism and made it work to their advantage. Russia and China are using the same economic system that beat them to now beat their old time adversaries. Not that their economies are standards of living are better, but the common weal matters less when you don’t depend on popularity with ordinary voters to get power.
Russia doesn’t just have “fingers” in the GOP, it pretty much runs the GOP. And we’re on the verge of becoming a failed nation because of it. China’s a threat, but nothing like Russia.
Yes, but first we need to survive 10 to 20 years.
Yeah. Republicans are the current greatest threat to this country.
Not American, and it’s the same answer now as it was when I was born - America.
Not so much Republicans as the Plutocracy – they’re the only important enemy America has left; other RWs, fighting for things less important than money, will eventually fade from the scene.