In my view, it won’t be the Confederacy 2.0. There will be multiple nations emerging out of the wreckage of the USA – one in the northeast, one in the midwest, one along the coast, and one in the south. I imagine that parts of Canada and Mexico will either absorb, or be absorbed into, pieces of those new nations as well.

It will be a HUGE setback for the US. It’s been a week since you wrote that comment, and even now, as far as I am aware, there are hundreds of thousands of service personnel in the US armed forces that have still not gotten the poison death shots. They’re not going to, either. There is no good reason for them to do so. If there are enough of them (and I don’t know what “enough” might be in this context), then the Fake Administration will have to cashier them – thereby destroying its fighting base – or keep them on – thereby destroying its own credibility.

The compromise solution will be to give them more time to get the jab, or to sweeten the deal by offering incentives and pay increases to do so. I expect that the US government will do the latter. But we’ll find out soon enough.

I doubt there will be a country made of the southern states if it comes to that. The northern states wouldn’t let the southern ones control all the shipping that goes through New Orleans.

——[“You can go to hell — I’m going to Texas.” – Davy Crockett.

Bring that real American nation action to Texas. Between Texas on the west and Florida on the right, you have the makings of real borders for a real nation.

My worry is the Taiwan invasion will metathesize into a WW I type conflict where overlapping treaties and congruent interests will compel regional and international actors to get involved

Distinct possibility. America’s entire international prestige and power base is at stake. The Deep State that actually runs the gubmint there knows full well how important the Taiwan issue is for preserving American power, now that they have systematically squandered it for 20 years. They have backed themselves into a corner, and they are now desperate.

I think we are actually observing two actors working from a position of weakness. The USA’s weaknesses are well known. China’s are less so. The Chinese are relatively stronger than the USA in terms of military and economic power right now, but that does not mean that China itself is actually particularly strong internally.

It is possible that he confuses past imperial Chinese policy with Communist policy. The two are not the same. Imperial Chinese culture understood that there are hard limits on power, and revolved around the known need to share power between the Emperor, the nobles, the local governors, and the city rulers. Communism, however, denies any such gradations of power – by definition.

It is true that modern-day China is not really “Communist” in any real sense. It is also true that the modern Chinese state apparatus denies any concept of private property or ownership. When you remove that single fundamental right, you remove the most important check on state power, and therefore the most powerful brake on the desire of the government’s leadership to expand its power and control.

All of that said, the Chinese know that their ability to expand is significantly limited. They don’t actually have the manpower or ability to expand out beyond their current borders outside of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. That is plenty, though, for now. They can expand into Africa as colonisers, but they are already facing severe backlash for doing it, and the Africans don’t appear too willing to tolerate new colonial masters. (Then again, it’s Africa, where stupid ideas persist for a much longer period than they do elsewhere, so who knows.)

The history of the 20th century with the Sino-Indian War or Johnson South Reef Skirmish provides some examples. If China takes Taiwan, it will not stop. They will be wanting more.
Many Islands in that region control by Vietnam, Japan and Philippines and the Land borders such as the Russian, Indian, Mongolia and other smaller nations could face some conflicts. Especially once the US backs away from policing the world.

My worry is the Taiwan invasion will metathesize into a WW I type conflict where overlapping treaties and congruent interests will compel regional and international actors to get involved