Quite true. Almost as soon as he came back, Parliament began funding a buildup of the UK military. (So apparently, they didn’t believe it either.)
Of course, with historical access to Nazi internal documents, we now know Hitler was bluffing, and would have backed down had Chamberlain held steady.
But that would have required Chamberlain to have bluffed, too – Britain’s military was much less ready for war than they were when war actually started, 336 days later.
China accounts for 97% of the production of rare earth minerals. These minerals are crucial to all sorts of modern manufacturing. Turning off that spigot would be an issue.
Also consider that China at war with the US may see South Korea, Japan and Taiwan targeted.
I am puzzled about the rare earth metals. The USA has a mine which is almost bankrupt, because the pricing is so low. Rare earths are not rare-it is just that few firms want the dangerous and dirty refining processes needed. The Chinese are only following economics-if you have no real competition, why sell cheap?
Numerous wars that didn’t make logical sense have happened anyway in history.
What about in the near future, maybe 20-30 years from now. At that point Chinas economy will be 2-3x ours in PPP. Their military may surpass ours (if they steal enough technology and invest enough in R&D).
In that situation if China beat the US they’d be the only global superpower left and it would be a unipolar world. Would China have any incentive to do that?
Naturally there is the issue of MAD in that scenario. I’m guessing China would more economic, diplomatic and cyberwar rather than military war.
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At that point Chinas economy will be 2-3x ours in PPP.
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I don’t think this is a given…it MAY be the case, but will? Personally, I doubt it, not unless China has a fundamental change. If they stay the way they are, then I doubt they will get there. If they don’t, and toss out their old school Communist baggage then I think much of the vestigial animosity between China and the US will go with it and it probably won’t matter.
Regardless, a shooting war between the US and China doesn’t make a lot of sense. If China wants to really hurt the US they could do it economically…and vice versa. A shooting war would be like to guys with fully automatic rifles in a steel broom closet opening up on each other…even if they miss each other they are bound to both be killed by the ricochets, regardless.
That’s because mining the things is pretty harmful to the environment, something China doesn’t mind so much (yet) but something the US (and other countries that have rare earth metals) has regulations that cause the price to go up quite a bit. If China DID turn off the spigot, besides shooting themselves in the foot wrt world markets it would simply drive the price up to the point where it would be cost effective to resume mining in the US (and elsewhere).
Right now, China has virtually no ability to perform an invasion across a sea.
20-30 years is not so much time to turn that around so much that they can suddenly invade a superpower with vast land area and win.
But if they were to do so, it would be far from cheap. It would be ruinous for them, and the US, and the rest of the world.
And historically, following big wars, the global economic map can change a lot. For example, maybe in the extreme scenario of both superpowers duking it out, federalist ideas become more popular in europe. A federal europe backs the right side in the sino-america war, and in the years that follow emerges as the biggest economy.