02-25-2017, 10:14 AM
(02-21-2017, 01:22 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: My contention is that I think there are limits on the extent to which China can become a fully maritime power, as opposed to a more hybrid power like France or Spain. They're not an island, nor are they surrounded by political dwarfs like the US. They're always going to have to balance their maritime interests with their position on the continent. Large, autocratic land empires do not make good neighbors, and there is ample cause for competition and maneuver there between them. Likely a cold war, rather than a hot one, at least at first, but those tensions will be there.
This makes sense. Where I am coming form is based on the notion the next Macrodecision phase will be settled mid-century-about one typical cycle length after 1945. By then China could have twice the GDP as the US and twice the military power. Thus it would be able to simultaneously deploy a land military superiority wrt to Russia AND a sea military superior wrt to the US without breaking a sweat. A no-longer hegemonic America will still be dominant in its own hemisphere because of logistical advantages. This still leaves large regions of the globe as China's sphere of interest.
I still see the current issues not as a precursor to a Global War, but rather to a Supplementary War phase. China and Russia are really trying to "round off the borders of their empire" as did Russia in WW II, Prussia in the mid-19th century, and Britain in the Seven Years War.