[pjc50]

> Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, Cuba, China, Syria and North Korea.

Putting these all in the same list conflates very different situations.

    - Big actual threat with body count: Russia.
    - Russian proxies: Syria (very lethal, but mostly within Syria, not a "threat to the west", complicated by Daesh and AQ)
    - Nasty autocracy but stable cold war: NK
    - Autocracy, but largely minding their own business and with no real capability to threaten: Cuba, Venezuela
    - Major trading partner: China

> USA recognized the danger and started dismantling the problem piece by piece

Trump era has systematically downplayed the threat from Russia. And let's not forget how many members of Trump campaign staff were jailed due to Russian influence.

[graemep]

Is Russia really a threat? It has a small economy. Its no threat at all to the US, and could be easily be beaten by the European NATO countries. It has struggled to take on just Ukraine with western backing.

China has a far bigger economy and far bigger armed forces. It has a history of aggression and has border disputes with multiple countries.

I strongly suspect that people who downplay the risk from China have not yet internalised the fact that no-white countries are powerful too now.

[pjc50]

The airliner shootdown? The polonium poisonings? Miscellaneous sabotage attempts in Europe? In addition to, you know, the active war.

There's a lot of things that China "might" do but hasn't so far translated into significant violence, beyond the low-intensity border dispute in the mountains with India. Do they have power? Yes. Are they making threats? Other than a war of words with Japan, not really. What is this "history of aggression"?

Between China and the US, only one of those two has made threats to the territorial integrity of Europe.