> The way I see it, World War 2 was kind of a perfect intersection of the great depression creating a perfect opening for communist revolution as countries had seen during and after World War I and the protectionist contraction of trade during that time made matters worse.
I think when economies falter governments falter, and their philosophies are discredited. So it makes sense that governments were on thin ice in the wake of WW1 and the Great Depression, and that more radical parties from the left and the right were ascendant. I think something similar is happening now, if of lower magnitude. But, no way was this a door only communists walked through, anarchists, fascists, etc were all in the mix.
> The president of China has openly stated that he thinks Karl Marx was right and has been re-aligning compliance away from reform. With such a large military build-up, Taiwan could simply be the first domino to fall to complete their historical communist revolution.
China is far from a Marxist state, they're much closer to Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist statism. If you want Marxism you should look to the EU, specifically Spain, Italy, and Denmark (lots of worker-owned coops).
Second, China's military build up is likely mainly to fortify its hegemonic aspirations, controlling the region, shipping routes, providing security to allies, etc. An invasion of Taiwan would be extremely costly. It's far more likely they blockade it and manipulate the internal political situation as long as they need to until Taiwan "chooses" reunification. My guess is we'd try to prevent this because we still need TSMC.
> then military forces would be distributed to fight on many fronts and this would limit the west's capacity to interfere with China
You are ascribing way too much strategy to the Trump admin. They deposed Maduro because they could and for oil, all of which was dumb, and they tried to decapitate Iran because Trump wanted that on his resume (also to try and out-do Obama). Neither Iran nor Venezuela had any capability to strike the US or meaningfully strike its allies, definitely not on any long-term basis.
Finally, I don't exactly know what you mean by "focus on China." The West's relationship with China is complex, a lot of people are focused on it. The likelihood of direct confrontation with them is quite low, as it'd be disastrous for both sides.
I think when economies falter governments falter, and their philosophies are discredited. So it makes sense that governments were on thin ice in the wake of WW1 and the Great Depression, and that more radical parties from the left and the right were ascendant. I think something similar is happening now, if of lower magnitude. But, no way was this a door only communists walked through, anarchists, fascists, etc were all in the mix.
> The president of China has openly stated that he thinks Karl Marx was right and has been re-aligning compliance away from reform. With such a large military build-up, Taiwan could simply be the first domino to fall to complete their historical communist revolution.
China is far from a Marxist state, they're much closer to Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist statism. If you want Marxism you should look to the EU, specifically Spain, Italy, and Denmark (lots of worker-owned coops).
Second, China's military build up is likely mainly to fortify its hegemonic aspirations, controlling the region, shipping routes, providing security to allies, etc. An invasion of Taiwan would be extremely costly. It's far more likely they blockade it and manipulate the internal political situation as long as they need to until Taiwan "chooses" reunification. My guess is we'd try to prevent this because we still need TSMC.
> then military forces would be distributed to fight on many fronts and this would limit the west's capacity to interfere with China
You are ascribing way too much strategy to the Trump admin. They deposed Maduro because they could and for oil, all of which was dumb, and they tried to decapitate Iran because Trump wanted that on his resume (also to try and out-do Obama). Neither Iran nor Venezuela had any capability to strike the US or meaningfully strike its allies, definitely not on any long-term basis.
Finally, I don't exactly know what you mean by "focus on China." The West's relationship with China is complex, a lot of people are focused on it. The likelihood of direct confrontation with them is quite low, as it'd be disastrous for both sides.