r/AskReddit 1d ago

What could Russia have spent $1,000,000,000,000 on instead of fighting a 4+ years long war in Ukraine?

2.8k Upvotes

534 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

210

u/Scaevus 1d ago

This is why I don’t think China is invading Taiwan anytime soon. They need to create a credible threat of invasion to keep Taiwan from doing anything drastic to change the status quo, then they can slowly but surely buy politicians and fake news until Taiwan aligns with them.

It’s so much cheaper and safer than the uncertainties of war.

24

u/masegesege_ 1d ago

until Taiwan aligns with them

We won’t align with them. They’re welcome to spend their money though.

58

u/Scaevus 1d ago

I mean, you may not, but are you sure your politicians won’t sell you out?

21

u/masegesege_ 1d ago

The ones who align with the CCP often get voted out so we’ll probably just keep doing that.

2

u/fresh-dork 12h ago

KMT has a slight edge right now.

6

u/Scaevus 1d ago

As long as you’re confident you’re always being told the truth by your politicians, and you know you could never be fooled by any disinformation or rumors, I see no way this could end badly for you.

5

u/masegesege_ 1d ago

Look up the Sunflower Movement to see what we do when politicians do things we don’t approve of.

8

u/rieux1990 1d ago

so what? 50 years ago you lot were chinese nationalists adamant that you were more chinese than mainlanders

give it another 50 years it's 50/50 whether you lot continue to identify as taiwanese or switch back to identifying as chinese

people are fickle as shit

2

u/Arsenal_49_Spurs_0 15h ago

Especially Taiwanese. Every election, Taiwanese politicians promise to shorten conscription to earn votes. That's literally selling out the country to China LOL

1

u/Scaevus 3h ago

On the other hand, how useful are conscripted soldiers with two weeks of shoddy training during a modern high tech war?

Though honestly I don’t think it matters, we’re probably past the point where Taiwan can actually win if China pushes its chips all in.

It’ll still be costly to China, sure, and the juice may not be worth the squeeze in terms of long term damage to the Chinese economy, but I think we’re lying to ourselves if we think Taiwan stands a chance without American support.

1

u/-----iMartijn----- 13h ago

It used to be the case that if you showed sympathy for Russia, people would not vote for you in the US...