The only hope Europe has of breaking its subservience to the US is to not just make nice with Russia, but to totally embrace it. That is not likely to happen anytime soon, so Europe is just going to be America’s punching bag until they get it.
Radhika Desai brought up a great point regarding this on the latest Geopolitical Economy podcast: civilian shipbuilding and military shipbuilding are complementary industries. China has both, the US only has one (military). Having both allows greater innovation and technological development as people and resources can move between both. What you may learn in civilian shipbuilding will have applications in military shipbuilding (or in more Marxist terms, practice helps build knowledge and understanding). If you only having military shipbuilding capabilities, in time you may very well lag behind other nations that have both (certain when you’re talking about the scale that China is at).
I was just thinking the other day, should I ever happen to contract cancer the first thing I’m gonna do is see what kind of treatment is available in China. It really seems to me that in recent years China has become the global leader in cutting edge medical treatments, even if we don’t hear about it much in the west.
Not that I think this is likely, but a part of me wonders if the US and France are telling “Israel” they need to wrap up a ceasefire with Hezbollah and by extension stop the genocide in Gaza, but only because they plan on majorly ramping up in Ukraine before Trump takes office.
Hard to imagine Biden ever getting tough with Israel, but I was expecting to see NATO look for an off ramp with Russia by now, not escalation.
No. I have seen estimates that it would take at least 10 years of concerted effort to ramp up US production to that scale.
And should the US try something - like a naval blockade of China as I don’t think the US will attempt to ignite a direct, “hot”war - those relationships with the global south will matter a great deal. Those land connections based in the BRI will serve as lifeline for China to access the rest of Asia and point beyond in that scenario.
It really is that simple.
Inshallah