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Generational Theory: Is nuclear war with China inevitable?
by
John J. Xenakis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The US Department of Commerce announced on Friday that it would block sales of US semiconductor technology to China's Huawei Technologies or its HiSilicon affiliate. The order would block sales of chips and chipsets, as well as related software and technology.
This is actually an extension of an order that was put into effect last year, that I described in detail in an article in August. ( "16-Aug-19 World View -- Results of sanctions on Huawei Electronics")
The order was put into effect because Huawei devices, including mobile phones and routers, present a threat to national security in the United States and in any other country where these devices are used and installed. It's now generally accepted that Huawei devices contain undetectable "backdoors" that allow China's military to control them remotely for the purposes of spying and data collection, and could even shut them down completely on command from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
However, Huawei has found ways to bypass the previous order, and so the extended order will restrict many more companies, including foreign companies, from selling products to Huawei. The US is able to restrict even foreign companies from selling products to Huawei if the products contain 25% or more of U.S.-originated technologies or materials.
Possibly the most significant target of the extended order is Taiwan’s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) Ltd, a major producer of chips for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit as well as mobile phone rivals Apple and Qualcomm.
The extended order will only go into effect after 120 days. In the meantime, TSMC has announced that it will conduct a thorough legal analysis, and Huawei announced that the Chinese Communist Party will retaliate.
According to reports in the CCP propaganda publication Global Times, the CCP is planning retaliation on US companies such as Apple, and halting purchase of Boeing airplanes:
"The potential move, the second time within two days that China has released message of hitting back against the US, also the very first time government source noted to target specific US companies, is a result of Washington's recent malicious attacks on China, which ignited a tsunami of anger among Chinese officials and in the business circle. China is mulling punitive countermeasures against US individuals and entities over COVID-19 lawsuits due to the abuse of litigation by the US side, sources close to the matter told the Global Times previously.China's latest moves indicate a toe-to-toe strategy between the world's two largest economies, from political to economic ends, being in full play, experts said."
At the very least, this makes it likely that the US-China trade war is back in full force.
I've been writing about this issue since 2012, when Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned of a Cyberwar Pearl Harbor from China.
First off, I'm the expert on this subject, not some reporter or politician who majored in sociology or women's studies in college. I spent five years of my career developing board-level operating systems for embedded systems, so I know how easy it would be to install a "backdoor" into a device that would allow the device to be controlled remotely by China's military. Furthermore, an implementation that uses public/private key encryption technology could be designed in such a way that the backdoor could not be detected, even by someone who suspects that the backdoor is there.
I have the skills to do this fairly easily, and there are undoubtedly many Chinese engineers with the same skills. So it would be very easy for Huawei to install undetectable backdoors into all its devices, allowing the devices to be controlled by China's military. Furthermore, in 2017, the CCP passed the National Intelligence Law, which demands that all organizations, including Huawei, "support, cooperate with, and collaborate with" China's military in collecting intelligence, even when doing so is illegal.
So any country or company that has installed Huawei networks and devices can be easily spied on by China's military, and the network can be controlled or shut down by China's military, for example at time of war.
The CCP has heavily subsidized Huawei so that Huawei's products are much cheaper than those of competitors. This has allowed Huawei to install networks in many countries, and is being particularly aggressive in installing 5G networks. China's military already has the ability to track political, media and military figures in many countries, and to steal any kind of economic or military information.
The above is the title of a recent article in the Washington Post, highlighting the fact that the CCP's handling of the Wuhan Coronavirus crisis has been nothing short of criminal. What's different now is that it isn't just the United States being the lone critic of the CCP in areas such as trade and Huawei 5G, but after the CCP seeded the virus in over 180 countries, people in many countries see the CCP as a criminal organization.
There's a debate going on as to whether the virus occurred naturally in a Chinese "wet market," or whether it originated in the Wuhan Institute Of Virology. The debate is hightened by the fact that today, many months later, the CCP still is blocking the CDC, the WHO, and other international organizations from going to Wuhan to conduct an independent investigation. The CCP's actions lead to the conclusion that the "worst" must be true, whatever the "worst" is.
But most people no longer even care about that. Who cares how the virus was created? What's being viewed internationally as criminal behavior is what the CCP did once the virus started spreading:
By seeding the world, by using their WHO puppets to lie to the world, and by buying up all available PPE in the world, the CCP gave themselves a three-month headstart on controlling the virus. The CCP seems to have succeeded in this extremely malicious and evil strategy, as they're far ahead of other countries in "opening up" their economy. The only downside for the CCP is that China is an export economy, and they've destroyed the economies of their own customers.
Chinese Communist supporters and CCP trolls claim that items in the above list are exaggerated, but there is no longer any doubt of overwhelming evidence of malicious actions and malicious intent by the Chinese Communist Party.
That's why, as the Washington Post article claims, "the world is waking up to the character of the Chinese Communist Party," which is increasingly seen as a criminal organization which has maliciously caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, increasing into the millions, in hundreds of countries. Not only has the CCP expressed no remorse, but they continue to blame others, continue to censor news reports from their own media, continue to deport reporters from foreign news organizations, and continue to block international investigations in Wuhan.
As an aside, I've noticed a significant change in Donald Trump's demeanor. In January, he was still referring to Xi Jinping as a friend, and saying that China was doing a good job. The turning point occurred in February, as I recall, when the CCP disinformation campaign began claiming that the virus was planted in Wuhan by American soldiers. This clearly infuriated Trump. Today, Trump specifically blames Xi Jinping for hundreds of thousands of deaths in over 180 countries.
Trump's change in attitude is emblematic of a change in attitude that has occurred in many populations in many countries around the world. This will not end well.
The CCP thugs may believe that now would be a good time to attack America, believing that the American armed forces are weakened by Covid-19. That's why Trump is pushing hard to open businesses again, and that's why he said on Friday, "I just want to make something clear, it's very important. Vaccine or no vaccine, we're back."
Faust is the title character in a ninetenth century play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in which Faust sells his soul to the devil in return for money and sex. The devil helps Faust seduce Gretchen. The play ends tragically as every person in Gretchen's family dies, and Gretchen is imprisoned, as Faust goes to hell to pay the price.
As I've said in the past, the Chinese are unique in a highly racist way, as I described in my book, "War Between China and Japan." While people in America consider themselves to be ordinary people who were lucky enough to be born in the greatest nation in history, the Chinese Communists view themselves as the Master Race -- yellow race, black hair, brown eyes, yellow skin -- and the rest of us as barbarians. To the CCP, other people produce products and services for the benefit of the Chinese Communists, just as mules plough the fields for the benefit of their farms. Stealing intellectual property or PPE is perfectly OK because we barbarians are the mules from which anything can be taken. On the other hand, the CCP regime will collapse if the population believes that Xi Jinping has lost the "Mandate from Heaven."
Thus, we're more and more hearing the term "Faustian bargain" in conjunction with any agreement made with the Chinese Communists.
This is clear from the CCP's subsidizing of Huawei devices. Huawei sells these devices at extremely low prices, thanks to the CCP subsidies. But that's the Faustian bargain. As we've described, the devices contain "backdoors" that allow China's military to spy on the data and control the devices remotely.
Then there are the "debt trap diplomacy" agreements in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China has been extremely secretive about the details of these agreements, but in the past, details have leaked out in several countries, and I wrote several articles when the leaks occurred. China has used these agreements to acquire and control ports and other strategic assets in Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Zambia, Kenya -- through its "debt trap diplomacy." Several other countries, including Pakistan and the Maldives, are at risk.
Based on leaks in various countries, the details of these BRI agreements are absolutely incredible. Here's the pattern:
These terms are so horrific that it's almost impossible to believe them, but that's what leaked documents have shown. ( "15-Jan-19 World View -- Kenya's leaked BRI contract reveals shocking China debt trap details")
So we're seeing this time after time in every CCP transaction. When the CCP joins an international organization like the United Nations or World Trade Organization (WTO) or World Health Organization (WHO), they feel no obligation to meet their commitments, although they demand that everyone else do so. They view these organizations as a means to control the barbarians, as a farmer might use electrified fences to control his pack of mules.
In every CCP transaction, it's always the same. The subsidized Huawei devices will control networks in any country that uses them. Joining the WHO let China use them to spread the virus worldwide. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) gives the CCP control of many governments and infrastructure in Asia and Africa.
Doing business with the CCP means selling your soul to the devil. The CCP never apologizes for errors. Never concedes that they made a mistake. Never agrees to reparations for any damage they do. The CCP is a criminal organization which, if it were an individual acting the same way, would be called psychopathic. This is not going to end well.
Let's not forget to mention that the CCP has arrested, imprisoned and enslaved millions of Muslim Uighurs and Kazakhs, something that was supposed to be "Never again!!" after Hitler did it. And the CCP has also illegally annexed the South China Sea, similar to something that Hitler also did. These are the kinds of people that we're dealing with in Xi Jinping and the CCP thugs.
And it's always important to make it clear that we're distinguishing between the CCP thugs and the ordinary Chinese people. The ordinary Chinese people are wonderful, whether they're in China, in Hong Kong or in Taiwan. In fact, the Chinese people in Taiwan have a standard of living several times better than the Chinese people in China, because Taiwan is a free market democracy, and China is a Fascist thugocracy.
The following discussion goes beyond news reporting to Generational Dynamics theory on the question of whether we're headed to nuclear war with China. It's intended to be read by those interested in better understanding of generational theory.
We can look at the big picture without referring to generational theory. There were two world wars in the last century, plus massive additional wars in Asia, the Mideast, Africa, and pretty much in every region of the world. Furthermore, there have been massive wars in every continent, in every nation, in every region of the world in every century for millennia. There is absolutely no reason why this century should be any different, and several reasons why this century should be worse. So from that point of view, it's 100% certain that there will be one or two world wars in this century, plus additional massive wars in every region of the world, and so a war between the US and China is inevitable. Only the timing is in question.
I've probably written several million words on the differences between crisis and non-crisis wars, and I won't attempt to repeat that here. But it's important to understand that crisis wars are the worst wars, and, in the words of one person, it would be necessary to "reboot the culture" during the Recovery Era following a crisis war, particular within the nation or society that lost the war. A generational crisis war is extremely horrific and traumatizing to all sides, and typically the population becomes anxious and desperate to make sure that it never happens again, and some sort of "rebooting" would not be unusual.
I get asked a lot of questions, and I try to answer all of them, based on three conditions: I have to have the time, it has to be an interesting subject, and I have to be in the mood. If those conditions aren't met, then I usually ask the questioner to do his own research. This has actually worked out very well, as a number of people have done their own research, and contributed to the development of Generational Dynamics.
So I was asked several questions about whether a crisis war is even possible between nuclear powers in the 21st century, or whether it's even possible to win a nuclear war.
Of course a nuclear war is winnable -- in the sense that one side or the other will surrender, even if both sides have huge refugee problems and multiple cities destroyed by nuclear weapons. And you can be very certain the US military -- and the military in many other countries -- are fully prepared to fight a nuclear war, with the intention of winning it.
With about 200 countries in the world, you can expect crisis wars to be occurring somewhere at any point in time. There are typically 15-20 wars going on in the world at any given time (not all crisis wars, of course). However, I recall that in 2004, there was a study by some Swedish academy that the number of wars at that time was the lowest on record.
Since the end of World War II, there have been a number of regional generational crisis wars. For reference, the following is a quick summary list of some examples that I've written about in the past:
Kenya's Mau-Mau rebellion (1956), Bolivia civil war (1967), Iran/Iraq war - Great Islamic Revolution (1979-88), Cambodian "Killing Fields" genocide (Cambodia and Thailand - 1975-79), Sudan war of independence (1991), Colombia and Venezuela - "La Violencia" or the Colombian Revolt (1948-1959), Armenia vs Azerbaijan (1989-94), Yemen civil war (1962-68), Rhodesia civil war - Zimbabwe (1979), Afghanistan civil war (1991-96), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - Kasai region (1960), Algeria's war of independence from France (1954-62), Cameroon - UPC Revolt (1956-1960), Ethiopia - Eritrea(1991), Pakistan - India - Partition war (1947), Bangladesh - East Pakistan - East India (1971), Rwanda - Burundi - Hutu-Tutsi (1994), Sri Lanka civil war - Tamil-Sinhalese (2009), Cuba (1960), Vietnam reunification civil war (1975).
Over the centuries, as transportation, communication and weaponry technologies improve, nations, societies, and identity groups tend to grow, with the result that crisis wars tend to merge into clusters. For convenience, I've referred to two different clusters that I call the WW I timeline and WW II timeline. Most of the nuclear powers (US, Britain, France, India, Pakistan, China) were on the WW II timeline. Russia was on the WW I timeline, with the Bolshevik revolution.
A lot of other countries were on the WW II timeline. Just to pick some at random, you have South Africa, Egypt, Korea, and Australia.
A lot of countries were on the WW I timeline, particularly in the Mideast with the collapse of the Russian and Ottoman empires. WW I was early enough in the century that some countries have had two crisis wars in the last century. Iran, Syria and Iraq are examples. Others have been delayed into a Fifth Turning, such as Mexico, Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. These Fifth Turning countries are all very interesting examples to study.
As I said, crisis war clusters tend to merge over the centuries, and what we're looking at today with WW III is a final merging of the WW I and WW II timelines.
This leads to the question of how crisis wars start and, in particular, if the existence of nuclear weapons makes crisis wars less likely. I've thought a lot about these questions and looked at many examples, and I haven't been able to find any evidence that nuclear weapons will make any difference at all.
Let's start with examples of some American non-crisis wars. The Vietnam war (Vietnam's reunification war) evolved slowly from advisors to heavier involvement after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The Gulf war occurred after months of debate following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The Iraq war began after years of political haranguing over Iraq's WMDs. The point is that none of these were rash decisions. These occurred only after lengthy debate and consideration.
A recent example that I've pointed to often because it's so incredibly fascinating and almost unbelievable is the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. On July 12, 2006, some members of the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon crossed the border and abducted two Israeli soldiers.
Israel's government went into a state of total panic. Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called this "an act of war," and within a few hours, Israel was mobilized for war. Israel launched the war with no plan and no objective. Each day, Israel lurched from one plan and objective to the next, as the previous one failed. In the end, the war was a disaster for both Israel and Lebanon, and accomplished nothing except the destruction of a lot of Lebanon's infrastructure. The war fizzled quickly because Lebanon and Hezbollah were in a generational Awakening era.
It's really a remarkable example. On July 11, 2006, there was no thought of war. On July 13, 2006, they were at war. The abduction of Israeli soldiers was apparently a random act by some Hezbollah fighters, but that random act on July 12, 2006, was all it took to trigger a war that might have spiraled into much bigger war, if Lebanon had been in a highly xenophobic and nationalistic Crisis era.
So my view is that crisis wars start from a panicked reaction to exactly this kind of random or minor act. If the participants are in a crisis era, with populations in highly xenophobic and nationalistic moods, then a random act can quickly spiral into a larger and larger war, with no planning. World War I began when a high school student assassinated an Archduke, and it led to the collapse of the Russian and Ottoman empires.
World War II did not begin with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It didn't even begin with the Nazi invasion of Poland.
World War II began in 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident. I've written about this a number of times, but here's a summary.
The Marco Polo Bridge is about 15 km south of Beijing in China, and was so named because Marco Polo praised the bridge in the 13th century. In 1937, both Japan and China were deep into generational Crisis eras, and the Japanese and Chinese people really hated each other. On July 7, A small group of Japanese soldiers, stationed near the bridge, took a roll call and found one soldier missing. The Japanese accused Chinese soldiers, also stationed near the bridge in the city of Wanping, of abducting the Japanese soldier. A brief clash was won by the Japanese. The two sides negotiated a settlement, but both sides brought in reinforcements. Within a month there was full-scale war, leading to the Japanese "Rape of Nanking" shortly thereafter.
And, of course, we always have to mention that the Japanese soldier missed roll call because he went into the woods to pee, and lost his way back. So it's not so wrong to say that World War II was triggered because someone unexpectedly had to pee.
One of the major motivations that Japan had in bombing Pearl Harbor in 1941 was that the US, while officially neutral, was clearly supporting China in the Japan-China war, and the purpose of bombing Pearl Harbor was not to make the US a Japanese colony, but rather to prevent the US from supporting China.
Today the situation is similar to WW II, with the roles of China and Japan reversed. I didn't call my book "War between China and the US," since that's not the major objective of China. I called it "War between China and Japan." Once again, the Chinese and Japanese people are highly xenophobic and nationalistic. Once again, the Chinese and Japanese people really hate each other. The Chinese want revenge for WW II -- for Japan's invasion of China, for the comfort women, for the Rape of Nanking, for Japan's war crimes, and for the horrific chemical and biological warfare atrocities committed on Chinese people by Japan's Unit 731. But this time, the US will be supporting Japan against China, even though the US may be officially neutral at first.
There are extremely powerful emotions involved here. Most of these emotions are exhibited by young people who are indifferent to the catastrophic consequences of a war, in the same way that young people in the US support Sanders and are completely indifferent to the catastrophic consequences of his policies.
So, would these extremely powerful emotions between Chinese and Japanese people be affected by the fact that China and the US are nuclear powers? I just don't see how. There could be a trivial incident today, tomorrow or the next day, with a small clash between China and Japan that spirals into a war because of the massive nationalism and xenophobia on both sides. Nuclear weapons would have nothing to do with it, although nuclear weapons would be used as the war spiraled and progressed.
John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan: Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references, $13.99 https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Between-Prepared-Generational/dp/1732738637/
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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
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(17-May-2020)
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