950
It also cannot accept others acting as judges when it finally invades Taiwan.
MAGAs keep saying that this isn't about the oil because the oils fields are inoperative, and it will be at least a decade, and billions of dollars before they are getting any oil out of the ground.
Meanwhile, we've been hijacking giants tankers full of oil, and China, and other countries, have been buying billions of dollars worth every year.
It seems like there is plenty of oil coming out of Venezuela, and always has been. This is all about oil, and that's all there is to it. They can deny it, but they are proven virtuoso liars, and we don't have to believe them.
They're not wrong but also the last thing those assholes want is anyone judging their shitty behavior. Ulterior Motives and all.
This also gives justification to North Korea. They've been arguing for ages that they should be allowed nuclear weapons because otherwise the US would come in and force a regime change, and now Trumpsky has just handed them the evidence.
All that NK artillery was the real deterrent. Before NK developed Nukes, after the cold war the US could have relatively easily crushed them except for the incredible amount of collateral damage they could have done to SK. However, in the post Ukraine/Trump presidency age, securing a stock of nukes or joining a defense coalition that includes at least one member with nukes seems like the wise decision. Heart breaking really.
The US could also have easily crushed the Vietnamese./s
Well... yeah, we could have.
If war was literally as simple as "kill the other person and damn the consequences" the US could have casually wiped out the viet cong at pretty much any point during the war. The political consequences for doing so were the limiting factor - an extreme example, but we could have just nuked north vietnam to glass and been done with it (and obviously that wasn't a realistic option (despite the number of times some psycho general or the other tried to advocate for it)).
If war was literally as simple as “kill the other person and damn the consequences” the US could have casually wiped out the viet cong at pretty much any point during the war.
They tried that towards the end, sending B-52s to carpet bomb Hanoi. Dozens of planes were shot down, hundreds survived, thousands of civilians were killed. If the US continued, they would have managed to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, but eventually they'd run out of planes before the Vietnamese ran out of people or willingness to defend themselves.
They escalated, yes - absolutely not denying that. But the point was that they didn't just nuke the city. Winning was important, but there was a point that the consequences of winning were deemed to outweigh the victory itself.
"we coulda won but we just didn't feel like it."
Not a very convincing argument.
That's an oversimplification to the point that it really doesn't represent my argument at all, though. But to treat with what you said, I'm not sure how
The US didn't "feel" like winning the war was so important it justified nuking north vietnam
is a bad representation of the situation? The US didn't drop sarin on the ho chi minh trail, nor did they nuke Hanoi, mobilize full wartime production, draft the "desirables" etc. Politics are a massive part of any war. "An army marches on it's stomach" isn't simply a literal adage about the importance of supplies.
The key difference, for those unfamiliar with Asia or history, is that South Korea is a cohesive modern nation with a competent military and a strong sense of national identity that feel genuine friendship with the US (for now at least). All things that weren't true about South Vietnam.
South Korea was essentially invented by the US in 1947, it took trillions in investment, and decades of propaganda+imprisoning/killing everyone left of Sygmon Rhee to create the nation of South Korea..
I think you're giving the US way too much credit here. They helped south korea establish itself with a massive investment, but they didn't "invent" the country, and its pretty insulting to south koreans that you're so willing to take away their agency in the matter.
There literally was no South Korea, just Korea before the US drew a line on a map.
if i remember correctly, the north koreans also had a role to play in drawing that map, seeing as how the north korean army was pushed all the way north to china's border.
because you dont want attention when you eventually want to take over taiwan
And what will they do hmm? Will they sell their low quality, slave labour shit elsewhere? Yea, didnt think so.
They just sell all the fucking bonds they have and tank them, the market for them, and the USA economy. Unless something has changed and i doubt it, China is the largest holder of USA debt related bonds sales in the world. It's myopic to think the only way to wage war in this day and age is through bullets with boots on the ground.
As if US would ever pay that back…
Oh we'd have to, it's a promise of its value. If China tanks the market then they're worthless for everyone holding one and can call on them immediately for their value. If we don't then no one will lend us money or buy them.
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this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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