R_P wrote: 
I saw that.  It was presented that Xi would most likely move on Taiwan right after the 2024 presidential elections in Taiwan and the USA when things are most vulnerable due to the usual chaos that comes with these kinds of elections.  This general is in charge of an airlift division IIRC and has some strategic insight based on that.  The DOD also was quick to say that it does not share his conclusions.

This while we deplete are materiel in Ukraine and our strategic oil reserves.  In addition, our military is more concerned about being woke than combat ready.  We are probably now the least prepared for a major war since the end of Nam.

Sounds too reasonable to ignore to me.  I'm not saying it will happen but to pretend it can't or won't would be foolish.

China could be at war with the United States two years from now, a top Air Force general predicted in a bombastic and unusual memo to troops under his command, asserting a significantly shorter timeline before potential conflict than any other senior U.S. defense official to date.

Get off my lawn!
Monroe Doctrine Redux: US Military Trying to “Box Out” China and Russia from Strategic Resources in Latin America

Even AI Is Suspicious of the Military-Industrial Complex
Asking a leading question of the computer gods

 miamizsun wrote:
Well duh.

The Global War on Authoritarianism™

 R_P wrote:

i think that's a really misguided position to take regarding my thought process
why?

i've got what? 10? 15? 20 years or so in the anti-war thread (and others) strongly criticizing the usa's foreign policy
from a principled perspective and you know this
also, i didn't expect you to answer that question in a straight forward manner
from an individual point of view, i find it pretty consistent that given a choice the vast majority of people would choose to live in a liberal democracy
peace

 miamizsun wrote:
Looks like you will have your coercive work cut out for you (when you're not turning a blind eye that is), Mr. World Police.

 ColdMiser wrote:

there's a ton of reasons why people move
it probably boils down to freedom of choice/quality of life/opportunity
i have a pakistani neighbor who has indicated things like rule of law/safety for family/opportunity and education for his daughters
of course i'm paraphrasing
people when allowed usually vote with their feet and their money
liberal democracies have certainly benefitted from productive and talented people moving to their countries/systems
we need to streamline/simplify our immigration framework/policy
the brain drain could be mitigated by economic opportunity and the proper tools
probably post a video regarding how AI will help change some of this
hopefully in a good way

 miamizsun wrote:
I've always felt that the long term solution to the immigration issue is to get to the root of why folks are uprooting themselves and their families and heading to somewhere else (US, Europe wherever). I imagine the majority of these people would rather stay where they are if conditions were more favorable.  How you go about changing the conditions is the challenge. 

 R_P wrote:

what do you think the people fleeing/escaping are saying?
are they blaming sanctions or extreme government brutality/control?
given a choice it looks like people are choosing to live where they have more personal freedom/basic human rights
liberal democracies versus authoritarianism/dictators?
ask yourself where would you choose to live?

China and the US are locked in a cold war. We must win it. Here's how we will

 R_P wrote:


National Security Adviser John Bolton on Thursday branded Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua a “troika of tyranny” and announced new measures against the socialist countries — promising they “will feel the full weight of America’s robust sanctions regime.”

——————————————————

So, in other words, the objective of Bolton is no regime change?   Or do the sanctions have some other objective?  

I ask because US economic and financial sanctions in the post-war period have been utterly ineffective.    US top-down regime change has been more successful as American voters appear to enjoy blood baths.  

What Do Think Tanks Think? Proximity to Power and Foreign Policy Preferences

 miamizsun wrote:
Bolton brands Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua a ‘troika of tyranny’ in sanctions rollout (2018)

Too near/close to bomb them for regime change?

 miamizsun wrote:

Yes, although especially with Venezuela and Nicaragua, I wouldn't say they are authoritarian as much as simply failed states (and I'd even say failed due to some of our own influences) where authoritarians have stepped into a power vacuum as they are want to do.   I'd also say this is a cautionary tale for a land that spent days negotiating with nutjobs to elect a speaker of the house. 

record number fleeing authoritarian countries for the USA?
why?

Migrants from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua processed in record numbers at U.S. border in 2022


Officials along the U.S.-Mexico border processed Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans 572,500 times in fiscal year 2022, a tally that eclipsed the number of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who entered U.S. immigration custody during that period, newly released government statistics show.

Historically, citizens of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, collectively known as Central America's Northern Triangle, have made up the bulk of migrants processed along the U.S. southern border, alongside Mexican migrants. But that trend was upended over the past year with the arrival of record numbers of people from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries, including Colombia and Haiti.

The seismic demographic change has posed significant operational challenges for the Biden administration. On one hand, the authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua have severely limited or rejected U.S. deportations of their citizens, while Mexican officials have generally refused to accept the return of migrants who are not from Mexico or the Northern Triangle.

When American History Turns Into American Mythology

The book, which the editors describe as an “intervention” in long-running public discussions on American politics, economics and culture, is an authoritative and fitting contribution to the myth-busting genre — authoritative for the quality of the contributions and the scope of its enterprise, fitting because it captures in one volume the possibilities and pitfalls of the form. When you face down so many myths in quick succession, the values that underpin the effort grow sharper, even if the value of myths themselves grows murkier. All of our national delusions should be exposed, but I’m not sure all should be excised. Do not some myths serve a valid purpose?

Several contributors to “Myth America” successfully eviscerate tired assumptions about their subjects. Carol Anderson of Emory University discredits the persistent notion of extensive voter fraud in U.S. elections, showing how the politicians and activists who claim to defend “election integrity” are often seeking to exclude some voters from the democratic process. Daniel Immerwahr of Northwestern University puts the lie to the idea that the United States historically has lacked imperial ambitions; with its territories and tribal nations and foreign bases, he contends, the country is very much an empire today and has been so from the start. And after reading Lawrence B. Glickman’s essay on “White Backlash,” I will be careful of writing that a civil-rights protest or movement “sparked” or “fomented” or “provoked” a white backlash, as if such a response is instinctive and unavoidable. “Backlashers are rarely treated as agents of history, the people who participate in them seen as bit players rather than catalysts of the story, reactors rather than actors,” Glickman, a historian at Cornell, writes. Sometimes the best myth-busting is the kind that makes you want to rewrite old sentences.