Yeah, I'm not niave enough to believe that any modern nation states are above doing nefarious shit, but I'd like more to go on than appealing to western caricatures of foreigners and "trust me bro" anecdotes. Approving a military confrontation with the US is not something they would do just because they need the experience points to level up their troops.
Yeah he is not exactly an expert military analyst, he is just talking out of his ass about that stuff as well as most pop culture/media topics and people let him. It’s infuriating. When he analyzes stuff using his psychoanalytic lens he’s good, that’s it.
The U.S. bombed the shit out of SE Asia during the Vietnam war and still lost - I don't think a war with China would be a recap of that, but it definitely shows that practical experience doesn't mean much if the practice didn't work. Would it fuck China up? Yes, but at what cost to the U.S.? Once the shipping containers stop going across the Pacific the domestic unrest would be massive.
I haven't heard the episode itself but the point I've heard that he brings up about Chinese reliance on imported foodstuffs could be important. If China can't rely on non-western sources of food, an all out war would be just as problematic for China as it is for the US as they rely on eachother
Oh definitely I agree, the US military would be wholly unprepared for a war with China. There hasn't really been an organized military vs organized military war since world war 2 that the US has been involved in. They have no living experience to be able to win that war
I mean fighting an insurgency vs a total war are not the same thing. They are very different.
they're not really that different, at the highest intensity they join each other and they are both employed discontinuously in the battlefield. Not that it matters as modern warfare has shown that offensive warfare against any enemy who have popular support, provided there is not a ridiculously overwhelming force differential (we're talking over 20:1), the territory is not a speck (allowing for defense in depth) and there isn't several generation more advanced weaponry (irrelevant but for the smallest non state actors), is basically unwinnable. There is no scenario where the US wins against China while several where China can take and hold Taiwan (as it fits in both the overwhelming force differential and very small territory). Examples of the exceptions included, in chronological order of mention, are : Iraq, South America guerilla movements or South East Asian ones, both Afrin and Nagarno Karabakh, and Sri Lanka's Tamils;
I'm not saying america would win, just that I don't think you can extrapolate america's performance in a total war from something like afghanistan.
The thing is i think they tried total war, at least for a couple of years, it just isn't how things work anymore with modern warfare, i mean partisans were already present during ww2, if you mean total mobilization the stoppage of treats and non essential goods will crash the market hard enough to dry the US coffers before any battle, so I don't think the US is physically capable of even fighting total war at the moment. Of course a proper fascist would just suspend the markets and roll the dice so it is not entirely impossible either. Anyways, as I said offensive warfare is basically unwinnable, Turkey, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia have all tried unsucessfully with significant enough means that I don't think they would be qualitatively different from conflict with an official state actor, i think the premium we have given to infantry numbers are extremely severely reduced with new techniques, technologies and indigenous advanced fabrication (you can't say the amount of troops deployed in Yemen for instance 100000-200000 for each side would be significantly different from total war)
after all the US can’t even beat the taliban so what chance do they have of beating the PLA
It is not about beating them. It is about creating yet another conflict and getting the opponent bogged down in it. This will be completely devastating for the side on whos territory this happens, regardless who comes out on top in the end.
Like, who cares? Can you even imagine world where Slavoj Zizek paid this much attention to things he says?
Listen to Zizek for a laugh, even for an interesting insight every now and then but mostly for entertainment. Even he would tell you he's full of shit :zizek-preference:
Yeah it feels like such a chauvinistic western perspective. The way he imagines China is surface level like the way western media portrays it: some kind of dreary surveillance state with no "freedom" to do or say anything. He even mentions a couple times "friends" he has in Hong Kong and Taiwan who he says are in trouble or something. It's very spooky sounding, especially considering a majority of people in Hong Kong seem to support being part of China.
from what I've heard he was happy about the destruction of Yugoslavia, so... <opinion discarded>
If you listen carefully he has a mixed opinion about it. There was a lot of bad with Yugoslavia, just as there was plenty good. And unlike most people around here, as I mention above, he actually lived in it. In general this is a problem with some Western leftists - they almost fetishize the USSR and Yugoslavia and other ML regimes, and refuse to acknowledge some ways in which they were very bad. Statistics about orgasms, and people wanting to go back do not erase the bad, and deeply problematic, sorry.
thanks for expanding, I haven't been able to cut through enough ZIzek to get a high-resolution picture of him
although I have enjoyed a couple of his videos
didn't he lament its end somewhat at some point though, especially university wise? might get mixed up with another pilosopher who only was in Yugoslavia for a few years, i am not sure
I think of Zizek the way I think of like Marcuse or Foucault, when they get it they nail ìt perfectly, but sometimes they don't get it
Don't know enough about Marcuse, but Foucault ultimately feeds into neoliberal propaganda, no less than by pushing its author himself towards it, what anti "authoritarianism" (read communism) does to a motherfucker
I don't really care. Zizek is a funny raccoon man who has funny opinions about movies he's never seen.
because he speaks english, not even joking look at clips of him speaking any other language, much less tics
OLKD WITE MAHYO PERSON HAS BAD TAKE ON CHINA, CHAPO.HCAT IS SHOCKED AND APPAULED
I AM DRUNK DO NOT DENY ME DO NOT DENY ME AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Hey I'm also drunk and posting in this thread solidarity :fidel-salute:
i am trying to log onto Hexbear.net to debate you, unfortunately the captcha says i need a picture of your genitalia to proceed
I think he’s just being ironic, reading between the lines he sounded like he admires them more then anything
It's so hard to get through the layers of irony with Zizek
Whenever I hear him saying anything that aligns with the mainstream I immediately imagine him rolling his eyes while he’s saying it
In 20 years Zizek is gonna be remembered the same way we remember Chomsky, a total fraud.
Any self-proclaimed socialist talking shit about AES needs to be very clear and explicit about how their criticism isn't US State Department propaganda shit. If you don't do that and explain your point properly, it will always come across as US State Department propaganda shit.
Maybe Zizek knows something about this. Maybe he doesn't. I suspect he doesn't, but alas we'll never know.
Zizek is a liberal (politically) who just happens to use some quasi-Marxist analyses in his professional work.
On one hand he seems to be a little out of touch here and there and has some very dumb takes based on nothing sometimes. On the other, his general writing is really good, and I belive he is often not wrong about China. He has personal experience with socialist regimes in a way that most of the people over here do not. Finally, you may be the smartest person ever, with the most correct takes and so on and still fall victim to propaganda, especially in things you dont pay that much attention about.
