I do wonder how much of the sabre rattling is just so the MIC can make a gazillion dollars off of the up-armament then the USA will just suddenly stop heavily antagonizing China (Let us not kid ourselves that the USA would ever completely normalize relations), turn it's attention to a much more meek target and unleash its arsenal there instead.
I mean, that would be a more """ideal""" outcome than the US and China duking it out. The MIC makes its gazillions, the US keeps importing treats (such as steel and literally everything else) and China doesn't have to break their lovely neutral foreign policy and keep doing their SWCC undisturbed. Sucks for the other country the USA is going to terrorize, hence the '""""""''s around ideal, the US always hungers for more blood.
It's a mix of selling MIC budget and pandering to racists for votes, but the trickier problem is that both Machiavellian realpolitic schemers and random bigots who hate China can advance with that scheme. If the political landscape shifts, then the random bigots will get weeded out (in favor of different random bigots, this is American politics after all), but if anti-China sabre rattling is politically useful for long enough, then they'll end up in more stable positions of power and continue pursuing anti-China stances, even past the point where those stances were useful.
I do wonder how much of the sabre rattling is just so the MIC can make a gazillion dollars off of the up-armament then the USA will just suddenly stop heavily antagonizing China (Let us not kid ourselves that the USA would ever completely normalize relations), turn it's attention to a much more meek target and unleash its arsenal there instead.
I mean, that would be a more """ideal""" outcome than the US and China duking it out. The MIC makes its gazillions, the US keeps importing treats (such as steel and literally everything else) and China doesn't have to break their lovely neutral foreign policy and keep doing their SWCC undisturbed. Sucks for the other country the USA is going to terrorize, hence the '""""""''s around ideal, the US always hungers for more blood.
It's a mix of selling MIC budget and pandering to racists for votes, but the trickier problem is that both Machiavellian realpolitic schemers and random bigots who hate China can advance with that scheme. If the political landscape shifts, then the random bigots will get weeded out (in favor of different random bigots, this is American politics after all), but if anti-China sabre rattling is politically useful for long enough, then they'll end up in more stable positions of power and continue pursuing anti-China stances, even past the point where those stances were useful.
cough Mexico cough