While I share his hope, I don’t know if I share his optimism.
This is one of those areas where our leaders need to be extremely careful in how they communicate. Not just to each other, but to the public. Legacies are shaped by these sorts of pronouncements — there’s a reason why the phrase “peace in our time” is known by pretty much everyone in the western world with a 5th-grade education.
The flip side of this coin is that most of these communications will be ignored by history. Those same 5th-grade curricula rarely include the dozens of other pronouncements the Chamberlain Administration made over the lead-up to World War II. Likewise, Biden’s words today might just as easily fade into the sands of time.
Or they might not.
In the same way that Chamberlain’s words echoed through the decades after WWII, repeated ad nauseam whenever any tin-pot dictator threatened a neighbor, Biden’s words might echo as well. Perhaps, after a World War III gets kicked off in the skies over Taiwan, Japan, Guam, and the rest of the Pacific, they might be reminders of Chamberlain-ian failure. Or perhaps they get remembered as the words auguring the implosion of Xi’s regime and the CCP, cementing their memory as chickenhawks who talked a tough “wolf warrior” game, but couldn’t hack it in a real conflict.
The point is, we don’t know. Per the title of this thread, it’s all tail risk at our current juncture.
In the past, I’ve staked myself out as a fan of Biden’s amped-up rhetoric on Taiwan — I think that at bare minimum, meeting tough talk with tough talk speaks a language Xi understands, depriving him of the false confidence that might tempt him to Fuck Around And Find Out, as the kids say. And yes, this language earns him some -somewhat- justified criticism for being reckless. But there’s a difference between when you’re talking shit to an adversary, and when you’re speaking for the wider global audience.
Tail Risks
Tail Risks
Tail Risks
Biden says “no imminent attempt” to invade Taiwan.
While I share his hope, I don’t know if I share his optimism.
This is one of those areas where our leaders need to be extremely careful in how they communicate. Not just to each other, but to the public. Legacies are shaped by these sorts of pronouncements — there’s a reason why the phrase “peace in our time” is known by pretty much everyone in the western world with a 5th-grade education.
The flip side of this coin is that most of these communications will be ignored by history. Those same 5th-grade curricula rarely include the dozens of other pronouncements the Chamberlain Administration made over the lead-up to World War II. Likewise, Biden’s words today might just as easily fade into the sands of time.
Or they might not.
In the same way that Chamberlain’s words echoed through the decades after WWII, repeated ad nauseam whenever any tin-pot dictator threatened a neighbor, Biden’s words might echo as well. Perhaps, after a World War III gets kicked off in the skies over Taiwan, Japan, Guam, and the rest of the Pacific, they might be reminders of Chamberlain-ian failure. Or perhaps they get remembered as the words auguring the implosion of Xi’s regime and the CCP, cementing their memory as chickenhawks who talked a tough “wolf warrior” game, but couldn’t hack it in a real conflict.
The point is, we don’t know. Per the title of this thread, it’s all tail risk at our current juncture.
In the past, I’ve staked myself out as a fan of Biden’s amped-up rhetoric on Taiwan — I think that at bare minimum, meeting tough talk with tough talk speaks a language Xi understands, depriving him of the false confidence that might tempt him to Fuck Around And Find Out, as the kids say. And yes, this language earns him some -somewhat- justified criticism for being reckless. But there’s a difference between when you’re talking shit to an adversary, and when you’re speaking for the wider global audience.
I hope Biden understands that difference.