"Wow, Blockbuster sucks because I have to drive to a physical store. I know, let's open up another brick-and-mortar store that's exactly like Blockbuster minus the name recognition. That'll show 'em!"
It has been extremely obvious to everyone who isn't an incredulous lib (ie the ledditor refugees from lemmee et al) that the US doesn't actually give a shit about Ukraine and is more than happen to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. Why else would the US constantly ship overpriced wunderwaffen that the Ukrainians can barely use due to lack of training time while at the same time gobbling up Ukrainian state assets? And as we saw with how Afghanistan ended, the US will inevitably pull support, most likely because of Taiwan, and the Ukrainian war effort will collapse overnight just like Afghanistan imploded as soon as the US left the country.
The US has to fight multiple fronts against its peer adversaries as well as not-quite peer adversaries. Just recently, there's a coup in Niger with crowds of Nigeriens waving Russian flags cheering the coup leaders. While Western MSM underreport the average Nigeriens' heartfelt desire to kick out the French and overexaggerate Russia's involvement per usual, an anti-France alliance is forming in the Sahel, and Putin has launched a charm offensive courting African leaders. This is the formation of another front between the West and Russia, and the US will funnel resources away from Ukraine and towards various jihadist and separatist groups like Boko Haram in order to destabilize West Africa.
Ukraine isn't so exceptional that the US will be willing to abandon a front and lose say Taiwan for the sake of Ukraine. And from MSM reporting about the failed counteroffensive, we're close to the "US cutting their loses and leaving their allies out to dry while Hexbears repeat that quote from Kissinger" stage.
China has gained an arrogance in thinking that it is too big to fail. It is a form of Trumpism on a national scale. One where it thinks it can just ignore normal restraints due to the influence it has on the world. Russia has woken the west up to this reliance on rogue states. There will be a slow move away from relying on China as a manufacturing base for cheaper goods. The EU and the US have already stated this publicly. If China continues on the path it is choosing then the west will close ranks. This is not in the interests of anyone globally.
Nobody is going to replace China as the manufacturing base. "B-b-b-but Vietnam" There's like two Chinese provinces with a larger population than Vietnam. Vietnam can't even replace two provinces individually, let along the entire country. "B-b-b-but India" India is the world's provider of IT services, not a manufacturing juggernaut by any means. This manufacturing base is not going to poof into existence. And as for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, all it showed is that the West is far more vulnerable and the "rogue states" (ie the rest of the world) don't need to concern themselves with the West for long. Why do you think so many Nigeriens are waving around Russian flags and why so many countries are tripping over themselves to join BRICS? Do you think it's a coincidence that the Nigerien coup was launched while France is still recovering from domestic riots?
I remember Westerners malding African countries did better with Covid than them even though they have a lot of things going for them (young population, less densely populated, experience with handling pandemics).
![AssortedBiscuits [they/them]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/8bdaa986-a60a-4798-a373-b4f48ee3f026.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=128)
"Wow, Blockbuster sucks because I have to drive to a physical store. I know, let's open up another brick-and-mortar store that's exactly like Blockbuster minus the name recognition. That'll show 'em!"