Wild if true.
"Twice in the final months of the Trump administration, the country’s top military officer was so fearful that the president’s actions might spark a war with China that he moved urgently to avert armed conflict.
In a pair of secret phone calls, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa.
One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that unseated President Trump, and the other on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol siege carried out by his supporters in a quest to cancel the vote.
The first call was prompted by Milley’s review of intelligence suggesting the Chinese believed the United States was preparing to attack. That belief, the authors write, was based on tensions over military exercises in the South China Sea, and deepened by Trump’s belligerent rhetoric toward China.
“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley told him. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”
https://archive.is/nmNWr
“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,”
My call to General Li about the war against china has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my call to General Li
yeah Biden was def not doing any of that belligerent rhetoric on the campaign, no sir
Here's another really good example of people lacking nuance due to US polarizing issues.
He's criticizing Biden, not defending Trump. We should be allowed to do that lol
you imagine how lame it would be if every biden thread had someone going 'well what about turnip huh?'
Lol they're just criticizing the article and pointing out a contradiction. I'm not saying it's high level discourse but it shouldn't be equated to defending Trump either
Biden’s version of saber rattling is par for the course. Trump's version is "we'll bomb the shit out of them." It's reasonable to treat them differently.
Yeah, one side has actively slaughtered impoverished brown people, and the other has only actively slaughtered impoverished brown people.
Totally different things. I love Democrats. <3
How do you figure? It's not like Biden hasn't approved airstrikes in Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and Iraq.
In short, Republicans want there to be a full-on U.S. Empire. They're fully supportive of invading and indefinitely occupying countries and carrying on genocidal counterinsurgencies. You can trace this from the invasions of the Bush administration through "100 years in Iraq/bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" McCain through Trump tearing up a major diplomatic agreement with Iran and driving us to the brink of invading. Three beers deep, Republicans want the imperialism 1.0 of the peak British Empire.
Democrats are still awful, of course, but since Vietnam they've wanted to avoid the Big War and indefinite occupations/counterinsurgency fights that Republicans badly want. Democrats have been trying to avoid the next Vietnam while Republicans have been saying "we'll totally win this time bro, trust me." Democrats will still do coups, airstrikes, operator terrorism, and all manner of economic neoimperialism, but they at least want to avoid (for purely selfish reasons) the bloodiest and most destructive aspects of imperialism. Three beers deep, you'll still be arguing with a Democrat about the term "U.S. Empire," because they don't think we have one and they don't want to be one. This is why they'll occasionally do decent stuff like pulling out of Afghanistan, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Obama-era thaw on Cuba. They honestly buy shit like "surgical strikes" while Republicans are dipping bullets in bacon grease to do War on Terror blood magic.
Imperialism is a bipartisan consensus, but the parties want to prosecute imperialism in noticeably different ways. The Democratic way leads to substantially less death and destruction, even though it still leads a lot of death and destruction.
Glossing over the real differences between parties is just lazy "both sides are the same" thinking.
only US politician who has been unreasonably hostile towards china.
Article didn't even suggest that lol
Was just commenting on this really, at that particular moment Biden was on a national stage promising to do better more tougher sabre rattling than Trump, but is absent from the article's narrative of "China expects US attack". Likely they might've been taking his rhetoric in consideration as well, no?
These articles are clearly about pushing how Trump was a horrible exception to the American rule when he is, in fact, a logical conclusion of the American system. Biden and Obama having many of the same policies shows that and is worth pointing out, especially since they were immediately before and after Trump.
Comparing things to similar things is good for understanding the context of what’s going on. The article talks about how unhinged Trump was about China. For context it’s reasonable to compare Trump to Obama and Biden, as they came before and after. Obama was bad about most things, but not particularly bad about China. Trump saber rattled about China a lot. Biden also saber rattled about China a lot.
I mean it sounds silly but it is logical when you realize all those things are a theatrical performance made specifically for US allies and the population, reinforcing the appearance of strength but never willing to go out and prove it(all wars were always against inferior enemies), as long as someone isn't willing to call your bluff it will always work.
In any case as sinophobic as the American people may be there would never be enough popular consensus to overcome the capitalist class own interests and declare a war that would make the stock market crash 50-80% in a matter of days permanently.
The Business Plot 2.0 but it's to maintain open relations with China.
I mean, the way the material conditions are, it very well maybe that the bourgeois class are going to be the ones resisting the Sabre rattling against China if it starts looking like the populace has been worked into a fervor.
Yeah I was barely joking. I truly think the American economy being entrenched in China is the only reason a nuclear war might not happen in our lifetimes.
Actually one of the United States' main foreign policy goals since the Boxer Rebellion in 1899 is to maintain what they call a "Open Door Policy" in China. Most important is open commerical access but also political access to stop anyone (especially the Chinese) from closing that door. It's why we started sanctioning Japan for invading China in WW2, why we drove a wedge between China and the Soviet Union, and why we are freaking out about China's ascendancy right now. If a president went off the rails and like declared a full economic embargo on China he'd definitely be Business Plotted right out of there.
It's only a theatric performance because the internal models they have say "if we do a war we'll lose". This is based on constant activity from the Chinese warding off ships, fighters and threatening retaliation.
If the models ever say "if we do a war we'll win" they'll pull the trigger. It's an arms race right now of two sides building forces and testing one another but fortunately only China has any productive capacity.
"frankly, we'd like all the benefits of a nuclear war with China, and none of the downsides, thanks."
Bold of you to assume they have not been calling the Chinese to assure them that Biden was just having another senior moment
That's the idea but when it really comes down to it, who's gonna stop em?
if he read mao, it was probably some kind of "understand your enemy" thing
Bet money Trump would either get bored of or forget about the war in the span of like two weeks.
Didn't he already do that during the briefings for existing US wars? Like they had to draw nice graphs and shit to keep him interested.
Foggy memories of this being a thing, so most likely yes.
Will the US get a president younger than 75 in the future? Real falling empire hours
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Seriously, it proves that a broken clock like Trump will never make a major dent in imperialism, even if he has a good instinct once and a while. See Syria, too, where the military just started lying to him when he got interested in that operation for a weekend.
it definitely proves the president doesn't really call the shots, at least not all on his own. What would you call this other than deep state? If there was a president Bernie, this is what they'd do, except 100x worse.
Please help me General Li! He's going around saying "Listen Folks, you've been a naughty boy folks, you need to be punished. No one gives out better punishments than me folks, BELIEVE ME!" I can only hide for so long!
Unrepentant horniness like that needs to BE criminalised. Now allow us to bring you to the VolCells :volcel-judge:
Please, turn the horny down. It doesn't have to be this way :volcel-judge:
:bugs-no:
He might have been less effective than Obama at completely destroying foreign nations, but I'm sure it was not out of anti-imperialist intent.
I was told Trump was kinda-sorta good on foreign policy
i have never seen that take here, only people saying that his somewhat more isolationist ways and especially his impatience and short attention span made america's imperialist efforts less effective
and he kinda proved that to be true tbh
people saying that his somewhat more isolationist ways and especially his impatience and short attention span made america’s imperialist efforts less effective
So, "kinda-sorta good on foreign policy." It was an awful take right off the bat, and it's only gotten worse.
I'm certain Woodward just makes this shit up to sell books. I cannot conceive of a world this utterly surreal.
