Yes, but I think America will walk back it's current hawkish defense posture around going head to head with china over Taiwan over the next 10 years. If they get into a fight, I expect the US to supply arms and money but not soldiers or marines.

This posture change will keep pace broadly with the American domestic chip fab industry.

The US has had Taiwan in its China war plan for decades now. It is the single best point to defend against an aggressive China.

>> If they get into a fight, I expect the US to supply arms and money but not soldiers or marines.

This is very obviously true, since China is a nuclear power and has ICBMs as well. We won't be involved in a hot war with them for the same reason we have been avoiding that with Russia.

I don't think you are right. Only if the pro-authoritarian Republicans seize power in the US. Trump, or others. The same factors that lead to Republicans wanting to help Russia could ultimately come to sway in Chinese policy in the US.

Voters in a democracy tend to react better to dollars-spent than bodybags-returned.

So support via the former will always be the more tenable position for a democracy.

Voters in democracy tend to react better when debt or "others" are seen to be paying for things and not them...

I can assure you that if the everyday American saw in line item on their paycheck called "Ukraine War Tax" the public would be much less supportive, but since all the money is either printed, to debt then there is a disconnect between government spending, and the hidden tax of inflation everyone is paying but pretending to just be "greedy companies" and not government spending that is the cause

Don't worry. Politicians will be sending out mailers and running ads that put that "Ukraine War Tax" front and center into peoples' minds. Support for Ukraine is substantially higher on the left and is falling on the right as people begin blaming the war for rising fuel prices in the USA.

Republicans want the Presidency in 2024, and turning their base against Ukraine is going to be a pillar of their strategy.

People should be blaming decades of both Republican and Democrat spending policies, and a fed focused more on political goals than on solid classic economics which resulted in a over heated stock, and housing market that was never allowed to properly cool even after the market signaled several times there are systemic issues... Instead both the government and the fed just poured on the gas instead of putting water on the fire.

The War is just the needle that is contributing to the massive bubble popping

The best way for the EU to 'fight' russia would be to not be dependent on it for energy.

Russia can also do what it likes because of the constant nuclear threat. Russia has nukes that work, whereas the likes of the UK has a single nuclear sub that occasionally gets stuck on a sand banks. The Russians probably know where it is at all times.

Yup. It's actually the same answer how we should have fought middle eastern terrorism after 911. The answer was for the west to become energy independent from the middle east as fast and sustainability as possible.

Fortunately there are other nuclear powers in the EU.

It was one EU country in particular that was very vulnerable for a few separate reasons for the Russian gas politics, but they have seen the errors of their ways at long last.

Dependence on Russian energy is significantly reduced and there more than every intention to reduce this to zero. Note that the intention was always there, gas was only ever a stopgap between now and fully renewable.

> Russia has nukes that work

Does it?

Nominally, Russia has roughly the same number of nukes as the US.

The US military budget is 700bn/yr and it spends 60bn/yr in maintaining its nuclear weapons. So 60bn/yr is a good estimate for what it costs to maintain a US/Russia-sized nuclear weapons arsenal.

Russia spends 60bn/yr on its military in _total_. However much of that goes into maintaining its nuclear arsenal is clearly not nearly enough. By all accounts Russia can't even maintain its trucks. Most likely the budget for nuclear maintenance is "disappearing" the same way that much state money disappears in Russia. Surely no on believes that Russia has been spending 60bn/yr since the 70s, when the last nuke was detonated.

Russia no longer has nuclear weapons, you heard it here first.

It doesn't take very many to ruin a nation, and no one will be comforted by the fact that you were wrong when the plumes comes down from the sky.

Even if they have only one working nuke, in the right spot it would still be hundreds of thousands or millions dead/injured and a crippled nation for at least a few years.

You make a good point, the Russkies should schedule a test. If that violates a treaty, well that never seemed to bother them before.