Are Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping working together against the United States?

 

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Newsweek/AFP/Getty.

Russia and China may be working together to box the United States in. Newsweek. Both Russia and China are saber rattling over Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively. Should a war break out the United States could face a two front war that it would be totally unprepared for. Russia has built up forces near the Ukrainian border while China has threatened the independence of Taiwan. The leaders of both countries appear to be taking advantage of Joe Biden's weakness. More evidence of China and Russia working together is the fact that the countries have launched joint training operations.

My Comment:

I personally don't think a war is happening anytime soon. In general, I think the Ukraine threat is massively overblown. There is a military build up but there is no sign that the Russians are actually prepared for war. This is just them saber rattling and I don't see them invading in the middle of winter. 

And for China? There is no way they invade Taiwan right now. First of all they have no where near the fleet and transports ships they would need to do so. They are building up their forces but have a long way to go before they are ready to do so. And they are, of course, hosting the Winter Olympics in 2022, and there is no chance that they would start a war before then. 

But I do see this as being a huge amount of pressure on the United States. War doesn't have to happen to put the United States in the position they want. Russia wants less interference in Ukraine ( and I don't blame them, until Ukraine stops discriminating against Russian speakers anything that happens is on them) and China wants Taiwan back. What they are doing right now is forcing Joe Biden to take a pretty unpopular position. Nobody in the United States wants to send our troops to Ukraine or Taiwan. 

Nobody here wants war, with the exception of the few remaining neocons and crazed Democrats that still blame Russia for the 2016 election. Indeed, we are still exhausted from the last war, in Afghanistan. We have not recovered at all, and fighting a major war is not in our interests. 

 I do think we have some interests in Taiwan. We foolishly supply much of our technology from the country and that is a strategic interest there. But Ukraine? We have absolutely no interest there and I can't think of a single reason to fight for them. And it's not like they have been blameless in the Donbass conflict, they aren't a country that we should back. 

I do think it is very obvious that Russia and China are taking advantage of American weakness now. I think the days of America being the main power in the world are over, and it's almost entirely due to Joe Biden. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was more of a humiliation, it showed our weakness. Biden didn't make any hard calls there at all and it led to a major terror attack and the utter embarrassment of the evacuation. 

I don't think Putin and Xi are coordinating things that closely. I also don't think they would defend each other if a war were to break out. They are not allies and are only working together for the sake of convince. 

Indeed, I think Putin is making a major mistake working with China at all. You can not trust the Communist government there and once the United States has been neutralized, Russia would have to stand alone against China, with Europe threatening him as well. In a more perfect world Russia would have allied with us against China, but I think that ship has sailed a long time ago...