You greatly overestimate the cost of the Ukrainian war for the US. So far, most of the weapons delivered to Ukraine were from existing inventories, older weapons that were already paid for.
Also, the spending on new weapons systems goes back in the US economy, and considering the increased spending on weapons from US allies as well, the negative effect of this war on the US economy is marginal at best.
The US isn't only delivering weapons, but they're also literally paying the Ukrainian state to continue to function, things like government salary, emergency service budget etc, etc. Simply put if the 2000s-2010s the US was busy nation-building, right now the U.S. is busy nation-floating Ukraine. That cost will continue to grow especially as Russia intensifies its bombardment of key Ukrainian industry and energy infrastructure.
It's kinda like Vietnam all over again, at one point they will be exhausted and draw down their support.
The money they borrowed will be paid back in interest. Whatever effect it has on the overall US economy is small, but it sure does add to the ballooning debt the US had. Those debts are mostly foreign debt that is at the mercy of its Asian creditors. China knows this.
'Even if a country issues the leading reserve currency, even if a country is the dominant geopolitical power, that just doesn't bail countries out,' Cullum Clark told the WSJ.
'They do lose that status.'
Yale historian Professor Paul Kennedy warns that Asian nations, including China hold vast quantities of US debt in the shape of Treasury bonds.
He said they now hold the power to trigger a seismic threat to America's status if they 'just decided for some reason of having a political quarrel with the US to dump vast amounts of Treasury's'.
The United States' century as the world's greatest power could be coming to an end quicker than expected with countries in Asia increasingly likely to pull the plug
www.dailymail.co.uk
Funnily enough, the same principle where the economy grows because that money is invested back in the country's arms production applies more to Russia where their weapons factory are expanding as a result of the war. But everyone talks about Russia's economic collapse this collapse that LMAO
The money giveaways during the Covid shutdowns were a much higher burden to the US budget than helping Ukraine. Also, during Covid the economy was greatly affected by the shutdowns, so it was a lot worse than what is hapoening now.
Covid is basically a two-year panic, this war and the potential behind it could run decades into the future.
Even if the US will collapse in the future, it won’t be because of this war, but because of many other poor decisions. Helping Ukraine is one of the few good decisions made by the US leadership in the last two decades.
Bingo! now you're getting smart. This war will not collapse the U.S. in a way that will be the only reason for its collapse.
In short, we will not be seeing this anytime soon
You know there were many great powers before the US, all of them seem invincible. The predecessor of the US, the British Empire at one point held so much territory that the Sun simply wouldn't set in its territory. 2 world wars later, they failed miserably in the Suez crisis.
In the decade after the second world war, as Britain struggled to square its diminishing empire with belt-tightening measures at home, it found time to get involved in a war in Egypt. Derek Brown writes about the end of the postwar political consensus.
www.theguardian.com
The British hegemony from the days of Nelson to the tactical failure of the Royal Navy at Jutland is 100 years, and from that to the Suez crisis is another 41 years. The global hegemony of the British Empire lasted only 141 years and in 1998 Hong Kong is given back to China, marking the actual end of the British empire formally.
That's a very short span of hegemony compared to past empires. The world wars, even though won, cost them their empire. In the case of the British (and French) empire, the Boer war and colonial warfare against native Africans strip them of the power necessary to stomp the Germans early in the war. Today we're seeing the Americans repeating the same mistake, where they spent trillions of dollars and 20+ years of warfare in the Middle East, and in the process weakening their heavy industy, while their competitors, mirroring imperial Germany are expanding their heavy industry necessary to fight a great power war.
Just to give you an idea what those 20+ years in the Middle East cost the US. When the US found itself tired of waging unwinnable wars in Afghanistan and were compelled to pivot to face China, this is what they figured out.
The goal is not the total collapse of the US, rather it's the collapse of the US-led order that I'm interested in.
Those 20 years, due to budget cuts, the shift of priority from high-intensity warfare to low-intensity warfare resulted in:
- -The reduction of DDG-1000 class destroyer orders from 32 to only 3
- -The cancellation of many exotic military projects like the XM2001, KEI interceptor, CGX cruisers etc.
- -The Reduction of F-22 orders from 982 to mere 195
- -The pause in DDG-51 production, which if not happen, we would see at least 90-100 DDG-51s in service by now instead of 74.
Many of which I believe the Americans lament and wish they could turn back time, many of these if come to fruition would have no doubt give the Americans a lot of edge against China.
Ukraine will simply drag the US attention the same way the Middle East dragged US attention. And it will cost them dearly. There are now 3 active hotspeots the US must face and they simply have to pick one.
What you call the “final blow” would be a gift from Heaven for the US and the West. It is obvious to anyone watching the mainstream media that the US is trying to bait China into invading Taiwan, just like it did with Putin in Ukraine.
Unlike Russia, China is a real long term threat to US hegemony because of its very advanced economy, and the US leadership knows that a war now is preferable to a war 20 years later.
China is strong, but nowhere near as strong as to be able to win a war against the US, but given a few more decades of peace it will become a real challange. This is why the US hopes that Xi Jinping will do a blunder and attack Taiwan, which would ruin China and set it back a few decades. Also, an invasion of Taiwan is an impossible endeavor that is guaranteed to be a resounding failure.
If you want the US to lose its global dominance, you should pray that China doesn’t invade Taiwan anytime soon, because it would destroy its chances to challange the US dominance. As for other countries, right now all the rest are so far behind that they don’t even matter.
I'm not saying the US will be easy, but if Russia alone produces 7X the artillery shells of all of NATO combined, then it's no brainer that China could produce exponentially higher than that. Unlike Russia, China doesn't have funding problems and their industry actually outweighs the West.
When it comes to training, they're actively luring NATO key personnel to train them and understand the way NATO countries would fight.
Germany has become the latest country to crack down on former fighter pilots providing training to China.
www.twz.com
So not only do they win when it comes to military production, but they're narrowing the gap as well. In such a war, massive losses will be guaranteed for both sides, there will be no such thing as the USN carrier strike group swiftly obliterating Chinese landing forces, nor will there be China defeat the USA in 5 minutes using Dong Feng. It will be a long bloody protracted bloodbath even longer than the first Pacific war. But this time the US faced an enemy that far outpaced them in shipbuilding industries.
In such a case, the country that replaces its losses faster than its opponents will come out on top. During the First Pacific war, both sides traded blows, but the US simply produced more ships than the IJN which sealed the fate of Imperial Japan. The Japanese started the war with the best naval aviators in the world in 1941, but gradual attrition meant that by 1943 only a few skeleton crew remained, and the 1944 Mariana turkey shot sealed their fate. Today, the Chinese simply produce more STEM graduates, they simply have more men and they do not have the same problem imperial Japan faced in 1941-1944
I'm not saying that China won't suffer either. But that suffering is their problem. Just like Russia, I'm not championing China, but I appreciate what will the effect of such war to my own ambition.
Like I said, neither Europe, nor Asia is my main focus, but the Middle East. I have seen what a US power vacuum looks like. And war of such scale simply suck the US ability to police the Middle East.
has sold USA
, Spain
, and the Czech Republic
$850 million usd worth of Soviet caliber 122mm and 152mm artillery shells. Contracts continue and the Serbs continue to produce said ammo.
www.thefp.com
asia.nikkei.com
