Pants-of-dog wrote:
Sure. That makes sense. We should treat China as the threat that it actually is, just as we should treat the US as the threat that it actually is.
And this is true regardless of how dangerous any other country is. The fact that China is dangerous has no effect on the fact that the US is dangerous, and vice versa.
Looking at the OP, we see it is a discussion on how attempts to attain global invincibility create their own dangers. This seems like a danger that is particular to the USA. i.e. China, while dangerous in other ways, does nit seem to be endangering its own people in an attempt to be militarily invincible for the foreseeable future.
It is a danger.
Reminds me of Ghost in the Shell. The US designs an AI that is designed to solve all of the world's problems, but always give the US a slight edge. Anyway, the AI goes rogue and hilarity ensues.
I think this is what the US would prefer in the real world, but is not attainable, it's unsustainable, and probably hi-jackable for nefarious purposes. Very easy to run astray and afoul. This is the danger from the US. American propaganda is certainly framed in this context; that it brings stability to many parts of the world at a macro level (conveniently ignoring the lower levels where instability is introduced). It's probably why it's so effective.
Here's an interesting thought to think about though:
In game theory (IIRC), when you have multiple players in any type of game/competition, the most volatility (conflicts, disagreements, fights, wars, etc.) occurs when all of the players are roughly equally matched. This is because there is a higher chance that any one of the players will decide to do something drastic in order tip the scales in their favor. There is more chaos, more friction, more conflict. This affect is present in company dynamics, family dynamics, local politics, national politics, and geopolitics. In effect, the "multi-polar" world that many people think will be good, will actually bring about more conflict in more areas around the globe. We should expect to see more regional conflicts in the future. Especially as the US becomes less interested in protecting global trade (i.e. opens the game in different regions to more players).
On the other end, if there is a single dominate player. There tends to be less conflict. That's not to say we should advocate for a world police though. The world is more complex because there are layers of interconnected games. One layer's stability can create instability in other layers. For example. the geopolitical game is not independent of the national politics game in any nation, or the local politics game, or even familial politics. Thus, there can/are scenarios where you stabilize one layer (say the geopolitical game) with a single dominate player (say the US). However, the actions of this single dominate player forces instability in the lower levels (national, local, etc.). I think this is evident when you look at the history of US imperialism/interventions around the globe.
What is the magical balance point of all of these "games"? Does it even exist? I bet there is some super nerd @Potemkin type trying to answer these questions in some university basement somewhere. The kind of researcher that no one takes seriously. It will be 100 years after this person's death when we will look back on their work and realize "OMG, they were a genius! Ahead of their time!"
I can think of 11780 reasons Trump shouldn't be president ever again.