WASHINGTON (AP) — Within hours of an Air Force F-22 downing a giant Chinese balloon that had crossed the United States, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reached out to his Chinese counterpart via a special crisis line, aiming for a quick general-to-general talk that could explain things and ease tensions.

This is funny in an "god damn it" kind of way.

"We spent a week trying to turn a stray weather balloon in to a major international incident and then when we called them they didn't even pick up?!"

I can't imagine how frustrating it must be trying to conduct diplomacy with this kind of childish idiocy.

  • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    They're trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want to warmonger for their base (and domestic military industrial complex), but their economic positions also make it so they have to maintain diplomatic relations with the nations they warmonger against.

    A contradiction that will result in ruination

      • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Seeing as how China and Russia have actually sensible economic processes and understand the fact that the United States current part leads only to it's own downfall, they know that the best course of action is to allow that downfall to happen and basically only intervene to prevent total global supply chain collapse (China more than Russia on this front).

        As the global hegemony of American empire disintegrates, alternatives like BRICS and B&R are the tools with which global production and trade will continue. Those systems don't need to beat American imperialism, they just have to exist and pick up the markets that leave the Western sphere of influence.