Russia is, like the US, an plutocracy. The government is essentially managed by the captains of industry and finance. Profoundly wealthy people are not renowned for their wisdom and perception, and Vlad, even if he is actually very intelligent, is tightly constrained by them. I suspect any real cunning he might have had has been corrupted by his association with his handlers.
China is an economic juggernaut. They rely heavily on exporting manufactured goods and are interested in keeping geopolitical stability. With the exception of Taiwan, I don’t see them as liable to attack anyone militarily. Russia, on the other hand, doesn’t make anything that anyone else wants. They have less to lose by destabilizing the world order. I believe they want to retake most if not all of the old USSR, and weakening the US militarily and politically are in their long term interests.
China didn’t put one of their stooges in the White House, Russia did. I think the biggest dangers to the US are in order:
1- The Republican Party
2- Russia
3- China
It’s a good question. From our perspective, Russia should naturally want to align more with the west than with China, especially since it’s pretty clear China has designs on Russian markets in the far east and looks to supplant Moscow in that and other regions. Also, Europe is a natural market for the products Russia actually has in abundance and can easily transport to market, namely fossil fuels, especially natural gas. In addition, China is and will be the dominant power in their relationship. You can see that in the fact that Russia no longer even tries to protect its jet engine tech, knowing full well that the Chinese have been and will continue to basically steal it to reverse engineer to use to build their own capabilities. Then there are other disputes, very real, between Russia and China, including (as always seems the case with China) border disputes.
So, why doesn’t Putin see this? Well, because he’s focused on other things and has prioritized other things. I don’t think this makes him either a ‘stupid stooge’ or ‘an actual puppet’, simple a dictator who has prioritized what he feels are the most important things, not just for his country but, mainly, for himself and his faction. China has the money and the resources, at least Putin thinks so. China is also the only viable threat to the US and the west. Putin instinctively opposed the US and the west with his view that they were the ones who humiliated and eventually crushed the old Soviet Union and more importantly mother Russia. He wants to get back what he feels they lost…and that means direct confrontation with the west, especially wrt things like the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, let alone former Russian direct territories such as Ukraine. If you look at it from that perspective, then his only real choice is China. As is always the case, you have to look at it from the other guys’ perspective to understand what, to them, is the rational choice.
Putin has three goals
- Staying in power
- Making himself rich
- Making his friends rich
In the short term at least the US and the west is a much greater threat to those goals than China. For the most part China has had a policy of non-interference. So long as other countries don’t interfere in any of China’s interests China won’t interfere with any of their interests. So if Putin wants to invade Ukraine or assassinate his political opponents or jail homosexuals that’s his business.
The US on the other hands sees supporting of democracy and human rights as part of its responsibility as a world power, and is willing to take punitive action against those who step out of line, As a result it has instituted economic sanctions against Russia, and provided military support for the targets of Russias expansion. This is a much more immediate threat to Putin than some eventual competing spheres of influence in the future.
Also like many authoritarians, Putin is promoting nationalism as a way to keep his people distracted from their economic circumstances, and the prominence of the US makes it a much better target than China as an enemy on which to focus their discontent.
That is entirely true, for specific, selective definitions of “democracy”, “human rights” and where the line is and what it denotes.
This is also very, VERY true of China right now.
Arguably it’s more true of China than Russia.
I think the whole thing of “adversary nation” is silly and leads to oversimplistic views of geopolitics.
I don’t mean that to be critical to the OP. It’s a valid question of course: yes, at any given time there will be some country that poses the greatest threat and/or obstacle to American interests overall.
But a lot of news in the US (and, to a lesser extent, here in the UK), is about getting viewers to feel as though they are perpetually at war, and have some simplistic “battle for middle earth” (or “axis of evil”) understanding of good and bad nations.
The country that is the biggest threat can also be the biggest opportunity. It can be the country that you need to work with the most. Geopolitics can be nuanced.
Interesting. Which part of the news is the cartoonish ‘battle for middle earth’ aspect of this, IYOH? The fact China has recently begun massively building up its nuclear weapons capabilities, including testing hypersonic missile delivery systems? The expansion into the South China Sea region? Perhaps it’s the nearly continuous threat against Taiwan? The Indian border dispute? The dispute with Japan in the East China Sea region? The massive build-up of their conventional military which is pretty obviously aimed specifically at the US? Maybe the cartoon threat is the ongoing intellectual property theft? The subversion of our media and political system, and that of many of our allies?
I’m trying to get a handle on which aspects of these are the cartoon you envision and are being overblown by the media. Because from my perspective, they aren’t…in fact, they are deliberately and systematically being underreported and undersold by our media and our politicians…as well as all of that nuanced geopolitical threat stuff wrt China. And that, to me, underscores even more why China is such a huge threat, not just to the US but to many of our allies and most of the region they are in. But perhaps you can tell me which of these threats are about getting views and feeling as though we are perpetually at war, especially since it’s clear that until recently we weren’t focused on this region at all.
Firstly I didn’t mention China, and I wouldn’t want this discussion to just be a carbon copy of others that you and I are having elsewhere. I was making a general point about how international news is reported in the US.
In general, international news doesn’t get reported much in the US, beyond just threats. When there was the famous quote about Africa being a “shit-hole”, much of the media depicted it as a racist comment – that seemed a weird skew to me, since to me it was a laughably ignorant comment. But to a certain audience who might only hear about civil wars or maybe a famine, it may seem an unremarkable position.
Similarly, I’m often astonished by how many talking points can be debunked by pointing out that the rest of the world exists – a “crazy” policy that is apparently completely unworkable actually is quite workable in numerous countries around the world (yeah, I know, the US is “exceptional”). If countries are just threats though, you never hear about that side.
The “primary antagonist” thing is very much in that vein. I am not disputing that there are real threats in the world, some bigger than others. But look at the situation with nukes for example: China has, what one-fifteenth of the nukes of the US? Of course it’s not a good thing that any country’s nukes are greater than zero, but trying to paint it as an imminent threat now is just trying to find the latest thing for people to panic about because that’s the business model.
You made a general comment that trying to say a nation is adversarial to the US is similar to 'battle for middle earth", so I was trying to put this into context and see what you are getting at. Certainly, there are instances where it’s a cartoon portrayal…the run-up to the Iraqi war for instance. Iraq was never an existential threat to the US or our allies. But you are painting with a broad brush if you say ALL such distinctions are the same cartoonish portrayal.
That’s good then. It’s why I was asking for clarification.
No. China is now around 1000 working (and modern) nuclear weapons, by estimate, and is building new ones. The US only have a bit over 2000 in operation anymore, and all of them are older generation systems. China is the only nation rapidly building up not just nuclear weapons but, more concerningly, new delivery vehicles which are transformative. Oh, sure, Russia has built a few, but China recently started building a new nuclear launch facility with hundreds of silos, by some estimates for their new hypersonic system. That is a major threat to the US. I don’t know if you have been keeping up or just don’t know about this, but it’s not a paper threat for the purposes of cartoon geopolitics for the US to paint them as bad. It’s a major change in what was a very stable status quo, one that has been stable for over 2 decades…but isn’t, now.
Well, just one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day – for people living on the west coast of the US, a nuclear threat from China would not be comforting thought.
But, really, antagonist nations amount to a game of Risk between world leaders and corporate interests. The lion’s share of the actual people who live in a given nation spend very little time focusing on international relations.
What’s your cite for that? I have only seen estimates of ~350 and at least 5000 for the US.
Sure, but my point was that the level of threat has not changed. China already had nukes, so the threat remains the same as ever that China could hypothetically first strike a few cities before being obliterated by the US’ far greater arsenal.
Estimates. Though, most sources say that the Chinese will probably have over 1000 by the mid-2020’s or early 2030’s. That 350 is low, even if you aren’t counting the fact they just built a facility with over 150 new silos, or just deployed a new generation of nuclear missile subs.
As to the US, you are thinking of the total stockpile, which is probably around 5000 though don’t know the exact county. I’m talking deployed nuclear weapons, which is somewhere between 2000-3000 and was dropping (as were the Russian nukes). I’m not in a position to get your cites, but you can look most of this up yourself if you really want to. Chinese numbers are, as with everything, subject to debate since they don’t exactly publish this stuff. But Chinese numbers were the only ones going up substantially, and they are the ones really pushing for and developing next-generation launch vehicles, which is probably more important than the raw number of nukes.
Does that mean you don’t have any?
I’ll start. This is the research study collated from data by the US State department of State, Federation of American Scientists and Arms Control Association among others, that states that China has 270 weapons as of last year, with 78 now being added. Meanwhile the same research group counted almost 5,600 for the US.
I’ll start holding my breath waiting for your cite… 
And all this illustrates exactly my point. It’s not enough to just talk about the threat that China increasing its arsenal poses.
No; they must be the primary antagonist, so somehow we have to twist the numbers to claim China’s arsenal is of comparable size to the US.
So, you want to pretend you didn’t read my post. That’s fine.
A quick Google search for what I actually said on deployed warheads lists the US at 2821 warheads currently. Wiki lists the current stockpile (which is, again, what you were talking about and which I addressed already) at 3750 for the US, which doesn’t count those in storage and that would take substantial time to rework and redeploy, only those that COULD be deployed on relatively short notice.
As for China, the ESTIMATED number IN 2020 was 350, but that was an ESTIMATE. I have to use all caps because apparently, you are having trouble reading what I am writing. Even if that was right (and how would we know? Should we base our credulity on that number based on how accurate their census data is, or their economic figures?) they have built a new facility of over 150 silos and have deployed new nuclear missile subs since then. I suppose they could be playing some sort of shuffle game where they haven’t increased their nuclear weapons since 2020 and are just shuffling them around…how would we know?
What we DO know is they are building those silos and subs and testing hypersonic missile systems…and doing so when there is no clear reason for them to have changed their decades-long stable policy on nuclear weapons, which was that they only needed a few for defensive purposes only. They are the ONLY power that is substantially changing their stance on this. At the same time, they are clearly expansionist.
Or, this is all your made-up middle-earth BS. Or, maybe some other options there.
I was going to get you cites for this stuff, but, frankly, you aren’t worth the effort of me doing this later when I actually have access to a computer instead of typing on a phone. You can look this stuff up yourself or you can go with the lowball estimates you Googled to ‘prove’ whatever you are trying to prove.
Apparently you don’t read your own posts. Here’s what you actually said:
Whose estimate is that?
Meanwhile I don’t know why you’re BLOCK CAPS-ing that 350 is an estimate. Yes obviously it is, it’s an estimate based on substantial data collated by multiple governmental and research agencies, I only cited a few of the better-known ones.
The thing you need a cite for is your claim that anyone is estimating the current number to really be 1000 (and remember you were trying to “correct” my number. Had you have merely said “I have doubts about 350” I wouldn’t have taken issue, but you explicitly said “No” to the number 350, like you had actual data, not just a WAG).
You see the word ‘estimate’ there? Did you see where I followed that up with saying that most think they will have them by the mid-2020s or early 2030s? I’m estimating based on speculation. I concede that most who are making the estimates seem to think it’s more like 500 or so today. The 350 you are using was the estimate in 2020 before we THINK they started expanding their own stockpile.
So:
Mine obviously. While I thought that was fairly clear in the post, I am posting from my phone and it doesn’t always convey precisely what I am trying to say. I’m fine with going with the generally accepted numbers, which are lower and growing.
My apologies then. It wasn’t supposed to be a correction, just another view. The point I was trying to make was that China’s nuclear numbers and capabilities are growing, and they are no longer the static nuclear power they once were. And nuclear is merely one of the aspects that make them an ‘adversary nation’. You seemed to be trying to downplay the threat and say that the US reaction is something akin to crying wolf or fantasy Tolkien fighting,or something. I was merely trying to put it in context. I was also going by memory for stockpiles because, frankly, the numbers especially on the Chinese side are guesses based on what the CCP tells their counterparts.
But, just to finish, yes…it was a WAG. It wasn’t supposed to be a precise number, especially since I was writing that off the top of my head, not feverishly searching Google for an expert’s speculative number. The US is more precise, and as I said the disconnect between you and I is on deployed weapons. Even that number is an estimate, but it certainly isn’t 5000 warheads.
At any rate, I apologize if I came across here as belligerent. It wasn’t my intent. You know as well as I do that this is a raw subject for me discussing this with you, but I’m trying to keep this civil and obviously, I failed on that.
Which is a change to what you originally said.
And it matters because the new point is aligned with what I am saying, not a refutation of it. Some projections of the future are that China could have a fifth of the number of US nukes in 10 years. This is a terrible thing, but puts the level of threat in better context.
Apology accepted. And I wish we could just have a civil discussion.
I know some here will never accept it, but I am a British expat who lived in China for 8 years, not a propaganda tool. I have criticized China many times, most recently on the flood response in Zhengzhou. And of course on the persecution of the Uighurs.
All I am trying to do, is inject into threads like this some degree of nuance, as with the covid threads (which I am not going to bring here).
Thank you.
I completely accept this, as you have said this in the past. However, being an expat or any sort of foreigner in China means you have to toe a line with them…or risk being expelled. You know this if you live there. So, there is always that element in my own discussions with you. But I have never felt you were lying about your situation or origin and feel like you have been critical of the things you pointed out. If I came across differently in these discussions then it wasn’t meant to be that way.
And that’s not where I am. I feel like there has been a huge whitewash of China by our own press, media, and political system, so I am NOT trying to be nuanced or even fair and balanced…if that’s even possible on this subject. What I’m trying to do is make people actually go and look for themselves and look at more than what the mainstream media sells, and more than what a lot of our political system and large corporations say. I know…for a fact…that much of what I read or consume on China is over the top. THat’s because I know…for a fact…that what we are told by the MSM and all the rest is not telling the real story. It certainly makes me more over the top on this, and probably more than slightly deranged as well. 
It was the main reason I stepped out of the board for a year or so…I was toxic and I felt the board was toxic as well, and my posting was hurting both me and the board.
I’m hoping coming back I can regulate that in myself a bit better. We shall see. You stay nuanced. 