[bee_rider]

Maybe we'd defend them, and, if so, the US naturally wouldn't be trading with what would be our enemy.

Maybe we'd do sanctions, cross our fingers, and hope that heavily entrenched Taiwan would be able to defend itself.

Who knows? It is the mystery of strategic ambiguity. They've been, while maybe not getting along, getting by for the last couple decades. So, hopefully we'll never find out what exactly the plan is.

Luckily Taiwan built a modern economy, where most of the value is in the people who live there (rather than natural resources). And they are pretty well entrenched. The amount of force required to conquer the place would probably slay the golden goose as a side effect. Surely China's government can see the benefit of doing peaceful business there...

[fuoqi]

Neither Taiwan, nor Ukraine are about economic value. It's about "historic justice" and protecting vital long-term national interests as seen by rulers of China and Russia respectively (e.g. in the Chinese case the latter is about breaking the first island chain). The economic aspect certainly plays a major limiting role, but it has limits as we can see today with Russia.

[bee_rider]

I really don't think they are comparable situations.

Things are working out for China at the moment. No reason to press the issue, possibly upsetting the favorable status quo, until they are powerful enough that they know nobody will say anything.

[ikrenji]

one could say it was in the vital long-term national interest of russia NOT to invade ukraine. taiwan / ukraine is just megalomania of a few men

[fuoqi]

Brzezinski would disagree with you.

Not even touching the political aspect (Ukrainian nationalism being clearly anti-Russian long before 2014), for the Russian military having well established NATO military bases in Ukraine and Georgia is many times worse than for US to have Russian bases in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America (and you should remember how US reacted to the possibility of those). And no, the Russian military can not responsibly believe in "defensiveness" of NATO for a number of good reasons.

The invasion itself is clearly a bad and desperate move, but it comes after all the previous moves (from trying to be friends with NATO during the pre-Munich years and keeping Ukraine on the hook using the Minsk agreements) were exhausted and it has piled on top of the utter failure of Russian policy on the Ukrainian front since 91 (targeting oligarchs instead of population).

[ikrenji]

Russias security is guaranteed by its nuclear weapons. Having one or a dozen NATO bases on its border doesn't alter this basic fact...

[rhn_mk1]

Do you have more reading from Brzezinski on this topic?

[ksidudwbw]

Who is it worse for? Putin or the russian people...

[scotty79]

Are you kidding? What about all the natural resources of Ukraine? And huge arable land?

If Russia managed to control Ukraine, even at terrible but temporary cost in 100 years Russia would be much better off with Ukraine than without. It would make Russia even more serious player on so many markets.

They never drew their economic power from people. They could exterminate all Ukrainians and still come on top economically in the long term if they controlled the land.

[ikrenji]

Starting a war over gas fields when the entire world is pledged to go off carbon fuel is... short sighted at best, if not outright idiotic.

[scotty79]

There's also neon, and wheat.

As for gas, we can see how overt declarations about going off carbon fuels are squaring against reality where German leaders are practically crawling up Putins ass in the middle of the war to ensure harmoneous future cooperation with a country that has only carbon fuels.