China will feast on the carcass
 

Any Military strategists out there?
Will China walk into Russia? Putins current war has shown great weakness in the Russian military, and the Russian economy. Possibly a historic Blunder?

As Russian population decreases along with them having a poor military it will be hard for them to hold onto all their territory. Can see pieces being picked up but probably not in our lifetime.

Wildcard of course is their nuclear weapons

No one walks into any country that has nuclear weapons.
Russia has enough WMD to take care of any threat.
History shows the Russian Winter will defeat invaders as well.

Won't global warming take care of that in a few years.:icon_wink:

I am very surprised at the ineptness of the Russian troops....I suspected that this would have been over in a matter of days

so sad that so much of Ukraine is being destroyed and leveled....

Suspect a lot of this is that the Russian troops have nothing to fight about just want to go home.

Not to mention the Ukranians have long memories going back to Stalin starving them in the millions.

Haven’t seen nothing yet!!!:)

Nah…..it will be closed.

China has focused on the western Pacific, it has expanded its navy both quantitatively as well as qualitatively, look for Taiwan to "reunited" with continental China, probable just a walk over because there is no way we could stop it if we tried. China is a hybrid of big business and a totalitarian government , more like the national socialist of the 30-40, make deal with the big businesses and its a done deal

Got cleaned up!

Damn... I missed the fireworks!

Reuters March 25
China’s state-run Sinopec Group has suspended talks for a major petrochemical investment and a gas marketing venture in Russia, sources told Reuters, heeding a government call for caution as sanctions mount over the invasion of Ukraine.

The move by Asia’s biggest oil refiner to hit the brakes on a potentially half-billion-dollar investment in a gas chemical plant and a venture to market Russian gas in China highlights the risks, even to Russia’s most important diplomatic partner, of unexpectedly heavy Western-led sanctions.

Nuclear genie
 

seventy years ago this analysis would have been spot on. However as other posters have stated, nuclear weapons are the rubicon that china will not cross. Nato's doctrine in europe was that nuclear weapons against the numerically superior ussr and warsaw forces would be utilized if nato borders were overun. That would be russia's position today vs china.

Back in the ussr
 

despite putin's imperial and quixotic fantasy to reconstitute the russian empire the wannabe czar forgot that the russian soldiers and forces have no heart in killing their ukrainian brothers and sisters.

Putin thought they would just roll over. Did not occur to him that they would fight.

Once upon a time Russian soldiers who did not fight got stood up against a wall and shot. Those days are gone apparently.

Monty hall
 

i agree with this assessment because taiwan itself knows that this is in their best interest. The hong kong model will be improved, our access to the semi conductor market guaranteed and as monty said " let's make a deal". Eventually mainland chinese communism will implode upon itself and democracy will triumph however many decades pass peacefully. China has created it's own fatal flaw, the creation of a consumer driven middle class .

Give peace a chance
 

anyone interested in the outcome of sending aircraft carriers into hostile waters should do research on carrier killer missiles ( non nuclear ). One should not mistake military force projection for a guaranteed military outcome.

I’m certainly not a military strategist but here are my thoughts on the subject.
I think when it becomes clear the Russian military are not as sophisticated as believed China will wait until that military are deplete of resources and morale is low then they will slowly, in the guise of goodwill and humanitarian relief make Russia dependent on them which will start the eventual take over of the country making them the largest world power. I’ve been online looking for a good Chinese language app so I can personally tell them to go #%&@ themselves then at my execution for said suggestion they shoot me in the head and bingo no more worries.
Oh and I say this while sitting comfortably in my living room with absolutely no real knowledge or experience on the subject. I just wanted to be among the first to put my uninformed opinion down in writing for all to marvel.🤯🤪🤪🤪

Don't be too sure, the Nixon/Kissinger open door to China was to give them a taste of the fruits of capitalism then being a little bit pregnant democratic reforms would follow, that was the theory then , it obviously has gone in a different direction, dissidents do not fare well,become nonpersons, the Chinese communist control communication, travel, know who you talk to and about what, China has just about a lock on strategic materials, their enhanced military sits astride geopolitical critical trade routes. Russia is a continental threat, China much more problematic

More and more the rapidly growing Chinese middle class is learning how the rest of the world operates and at some point will not accept the authoritarian rule of the communist party.

The Chinese government is well ahead of the learning curve, Tiananmen Square taught the government much, we have seen nothing the like since. The control of information isolates and eliminates dissidents, social media is constrained, access denied to sites considered "hostile " if all you have is "kool aid" you drink "kool aid"

They do not have total control.

Younger kids are able to disguise their location and get onto fb and other sites that are banned in China. Also the middle class is more and more able to travel outside China and understand how life is on the outside.

N Korea has the control you are thinking of.

Germany had a substantial educated middle class in the 1930's. How did that turn out? Nationalism in Communist China is at an all time high. It was already a major societal force when I started traveling there for business 15 years ago.

North Korea is a rather stark standard to be judged by, even so while I have in to way expertise in asian politics I haven't heard of any active political dissidence in China, no matter where or when somebody isn't going to be happy and will try to express that dissatisfaction,, do the suppressed minorities count? but then they don't get talked about much here much less in China

China is well known for keeping their deals, just ask Hong Kong.

It wasn't reported in the US, but Russia and China had several border disputes decades ago. Disputes probably isn't the best word. Some were quite large in huge numbers of Chinese soldiers vs Russian military technology. Russia won those disputes resulting in 100's of thousands of dead Chinese soldiers. Russia could defeat Ukraine in a matter of weeks. They have 100's of bombers and could decimate the country from the air. But that would bring a huge outcry from the world so this is a limited engagement. China won't engage Russia militarily in the near future. They have their eyes on Taiwan especially their high tech industries. IMHO.

Kristallnacht deja vu
 

the middle class in germany 1925 -1940 fully supported the nazi propaganda and illegal rearmanent because of the historic war reparations levied against them at the end of ww1 at the treaty if versailles. The other pacific nations see the chinese ambitions and we now practice war games with japan, australia and vietnam in very short order the
australians and japanese are going to evolve from a constitutionally mandated self defense force to a nuclear power also, albeit ( with a little help from their friends)

In which case our lifetimes will be decidedly shorter.

We had hundreds of bombers and bombed and bombed the N Vietnamese but we still lost. Anti aircraft weapons now much better than what we flew against.

I doubt China is interested in Russia, per se. China has always been interested in Taiwan and taking it back. Until now, we have stood in the way. After seeing how "loyal" we have been to Ukraine, I see China taking back Taiwan with very little resistance from Taiwan and none from us.

I don't think NATO or the US or China has any interest in a war with
Russia.

Russia possesses approximately 6,000 nuclear warheads as of 2022—the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. Nearly half of the world's 12,700 nuclear weapons are owned by Russia; by comparison, the United States has about 4000 weapons.

I read that there is a large distance of water between Taiwan and China, which would give some amount of advantage to Taiwan.

Taiwan is about 100 miles from mainland China - a lot closer than Pearl Harbor was to Japan.

I think that some are remembering that History. That's why many are surrendering to the Ukrainians.

I wish that was true, but unfortunately, authoritarian regimes are on the INCREASE, not decrease, at this time in History. I too hope that it changes, but things could easily get worse before they get better. A world organization that tracks the direction that various countries are heading, classifies the US as "tending autocratic". Considering how people of our age have grown up patriotically believing and fighting for the US as the leader of free democracies, it is a special insult to our age group to hear that and realize that it is true!

Maybe we should pull back "business-wise".

Some good points, but the Ukrainian Air Force has had GREAT SUCCESS in coordination with ground-fired missiles that have forced Russia to send in missiles from Belarus and from warships to the south of Ukraine. And forced the Russians to turn to genocide directed at civilian populations by long-range missiles. Russia could (?) lose this war!

Enee meenie miney moe
 

all of the extra warheads russia has merely means they can make the rubble bounce a few times.
However
this throw weight advantage means that serious consideration would be given to decapitation strikes without warning to reduce their effectiveness. Counterforce nuclear strikes including emp blasts and cyber destruction of the command and control authority would happen.
This is why putin is afraid. The military hierarchy and oligarchs surrounding him understand this all too well. That's why you have both sen. Graham and president biden calling for putin's removal. Hopefully someone over there reads the memo.

China is overpopulated along its own eastern border. China needs oil and there is likely oil in Siberia. Russian population is concentrated in Russia's western region. So, China looks at Russia's eastern underpopulated area like a starving dog looks at a freshly grilled steak. China would not have to go to war with Russia to get parts of Eastern Russia - they could buy or trade for those parts. Russia will NEED Chinese trade more in the future.

Who is this world organization? If you say UN will say that is nonsense from a useless organization