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The Jade Revolution - China 2001

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[X] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?

I don't care if this is a bad idea, they attacked us.
 
[x] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?

Afghanistan turned into a quagmire in real life but perhaps with two superpowers double-teaming it things will work out differently. I'm concerned about how effective we'll actually be, as this is somewhat out of our line of logistics and a complicated senario I'm not sure the military can handle, but this will get us closer to the western world and earn us considerable public support ... if in the short term. And Pakistan can go fuck itself, we know the fucking mastermind himself is sleeping on their front goddamn step.
 
[X] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?
 
[x] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?


Actually thinking on the trade side, going in on this lets us work on that US rivalry in a We're Fighting Together sense. Certainly it'd be vastly easier to supply the war on terror if China is backing itm
 
[X] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?

While I'm certainly not enthusiastic about getting stuck in the Afghan quagmire, we can always leave early after the initial invasion and just frame it as a punitive expedition rather than this big nation-building and humanitarian thing that's not going to work in a million years. It's not like our army is equipped to fight a guerilla war at all so it'd likely be totally ineffective. We could offer to start some actual investments in the economy to prevent economic collapse. Maybe we can even prevent the explosion in opium production after the invasion?
 
[X] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?
 
Versharl said:
While I'm certainly not enthusiastic about getting stuck in the Afghan quagmire, we can always leave early after the initial invasion and just frame it as a punitive expedition rather than this big nation-building and humanitarian thing that's not going to work in a million years. It's not like our army is equipped to fight a guerilla war at all so it'd likely be totally ineffective. We could offer to start some actual investments in the economy to prevent economic collapse. Maybe we can even prevent the explosion in opium production after the invasion?
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The US failed to get the nation building going. We need to show the actual good work that our engineers and corpsmen will be doing, to get the Chinese people behind it (something the US military failed to do satisfactorily). Working the infrastructure, making the Afghan people more able to stand on their own with investments into their country.

Sure we're militarily behind the curve, but in the early 2ks China was undergoing a huge renaissance in terms of construction and the like. Plus its not like the Taliban/AQ/ETIR are using cutting edge equipment, it didn't really help the US much either. Lots of goat paths to trod and you need lots of manpower to do it, fancy planes only help so much.

We're the world's second largest economy, let's do something with it.
 
[x] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?
 
Dirtnap said:
The US failed to get the nation building going. We need to show the actual good work that our engineers and corpsmen will be doing, to get the Chinese people behind it (something the US military failed to do satisfactorily). Working the infrastructure, making the Afghan people more able to stand on their own with investments into their country.

Sure we're militarily behind the curve, but in the early 2ks China was undergoing a huge renaissance in terms of construction and the like. Plus its not like the Taliban/AQ/ETIR are using cutting edge equipment, it didn't really help the US much either. Lots of goat paths to trod and you need lots of manpower to do it, fancy planes only help so much.

We're the world's second largest economy, let's do something with it.
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Holy shit, you raise a really good point, and in fact it's something that China has been doing since 2013: The Belt and Road Initiative. They focused on building harbours, bridges, and roads throughout Asia and Africa, with the motive to connect developing countries to China, through good trade relations and lots and lots of debt. We would be able to get a start on one of China's greatest strengths in the modern world almost ten years early. And considering that it's actually within the mandate of our own department, in the interest of encouraging trade and good diplomatic relations, we would be in a position to take advantage of the US' reluctance to rebuild, and assist in the reconstruction of a democratic Afghanistan that we can count on as an ally in the region. We'd then be able to use that as a simultaneous carrot/stick against Pakistan, who can either choose to side with us and reap the benefits of what is going to be the world's premier superpower, or get left behind in the dust as its geographical neighbours thrive under our direction.
 
Night_stalker said:
Unless we have plans to deal with Pakistan, going into Afghan's never gonna end well.
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We've already been attacked once, by an organization known to be attached to the Taliban, and thus the Pakistani. We can't act directly on the intelligence, but sitting back and not responding is not the image we'd want to present. And if we couldn't extract any real promises from Pakistan regarding this, then their point as an ally seems limited.
 
Artemis said:
Holy shit, you raise a really good point, and in fact it's something that China has been doing since 2013: The Belt and Road Initiative. They focused on building harbours, bridges, and roads throughout Asia and Africa, with the motive to connect developing countries to China, through good trade relations and lots and lots of debt. We would be able to get a start on one of China's greatest strengths in the modern world almost ten years early. And considering that it's actually within the mandate of our own department, in the interest of encouraging trade and good diplomatic relations, we would be in a position to take advantage of the US' reluctance to rebuild, and assist in the reconstruction of a democratic Afghanistan that we can count on as an ally in the region. We'd then be able to use that as a simultaneous carrot/stick against Pakistan, who can either choose to side with us and reap the benefits of what is going to be the world's premier superpower, or get left behind in the dust as its geographical neighbours thrive under our direction.
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See I think if we start pouring money into Afghanistan, the US will too. At that point Afghanistan chooses which of us to court economically. Either way I don't care so long as the Afghans get out of the thumb of the Taliban and stop growing opium as a main export.
 
Dirtnap said:
See I think if we start pouring money into Afghanistan, the US will too. At that point Afghanistan chooses which of us to court economically. Either way I don't care so long as the Afghans get out of the thumb of the Taliban and stop growing opium as a main export.
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And if we're doing this over the course of several years, then Afghanistan can also serve as a replacement for Pakistan as an ally in the region, so we don't have to be friends with terrorist-funding fucks. Smashing!
 
Artemis said:
And if we're doing this over the course of several years, then Afghanistan can also serve as a replacement for Pakistan as an ally in the region, so we don't have to be friends with terrorist-funding fucks. Smashing!
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We'll have to issue some military advisors if we stay long term in Afghanistan. They're very...very out of touch with modern stuff. Like Pakistan is a 'stronger' ally in that their military is slightly competent, is fairly well established and doesn't have the absolutely crippling corruption problems that Afghanistan does. They're still pretty damn corrupt though. Might be something worth looking into, trying to catch them in something they can't wave off, get some of their 'old guard' out and new (and more forward thinking) blood in.
 
Dirtnap said:
We'll have to issue some military advisors if we stay long term in Afghanistan. They're very...very out of touch with modern stuff. Like Pakistan is a 'stronger' ally in that their military is slightly competent, is fairly well established and doesn't have the absolutely crippling corruption problems that Afghanistan does. They're still pretty damn corrupt though. Might be something worth looking into, trying to catch them in something they can't wave off, get some of their 'old guard' out and new (and more forward thinking) blood in.
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It'll be challenging for sure, and definitely the work of decades. However, it's a challenge worth approaching.

Changed vote.
 
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Dirtnap said:
The US failed to get the nation building going. We need to show the actual good work that our engineers and corpsmen will be doing, to get the Chinese people behind it (something the US military failed to do satisfactorily). Working the infrastructure, making the Afghan people more able to stand on their own with investments into their country.

Sure we're militarily behind the curve, but in the early 2ks China was undergoing a huge renaissance in terms of construction and the like. Plus its not like the Taliban/AQ/ETIR are using cutting edge equipment, it didn't really help the US much either. Lots of goat paths to trod and you need lots of manpower to do it, fancy planes only help so much.

We're the world's second largest economy, let's do something with it.
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Point of order:
  1. The US and their allies did invest in infrastructure(though you could argue not enough). It's just that the actual geography of Afghanistan makes it extremely difficult and expensive to construct pretty much anything resembling a modern infrastructure like we have in the West. The rampant corruption and hostility of the populace also didn't help.
  2. Infrastructure is only a small part of "nation-building", at least how the neo-cons view it. The biggest part of it is building the institutions to establish a democracy and a functioning society with law and order. The last part is kind of difficult when you fire/imprison half of the bureaucrats running things.
  3. The extreme technological advantage that the Coalition had in Afghanistan most certainly helped them. It's just that it wasn't enough to win an assymetic war against an insurgency. If we try to fight in the same way the US did after the initial invasion, we're going to suffer significant casualties.
  4. China is not the second largest economy at this point. That would be Japan. China is number 6 only a bit ahead of Italy.
  5. I specifically advocated that we "do something with it". That's why I said: "We could offer to start some actual investments in the economy to prevent economic collapse"
Artemis said:
Holy shit, you raise a really good point, and in fact it's something that China has been doing since 2013: The Belt and Road Initiative. They focused on building harbours, bridges, and roads throughout Asia and Africa, with the motive to connect developing countries to China, through good trade relations and lots and lots of debt. We would be able to get a start on one of China's greatest strengths in the modern world almost ten years early. And considering that it's actually within the mandate of our own department, in the interest of encouraging trade and good diplomatic relations, we would be in a position to take advantage of the US' reluctance to rebuild, and assist in the reconstruction of a democratic Afghanistan that we can count on as an ally in the region. We'd then be able to use that as a simultaneous carrot/stick against Pakistan, who can either choose to side with us and reap the benefits of what is going to be the world's premier superpower, or get left behind in the dust as its geographical neighbours thrive under our direction.
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There's a reason Afghanistan is not part of the Belt and Road Initiative and it's not just because it's a failed state. Afghanistan is not suited for building modern infrastucture designed for the transport of transcontinental trade. I'm also fairly certain that we don't have the political clout or economic pull to begin the initiative at this point. We're only starting to come into our own on the international scene.
Also, I'm highly doubtful that Afghanistan is going to become democratic, especially after foreign troops pull out. The best we can hope for is a competent, secular dictator that isn't too brutal towards the civilian population.
 
[x] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?
 
Artemis said:
We've already been attacked once, by an organization known to be attached to the Taliban, and thus the Pakistani. We can't act directly on the intelligence, but sitting back and not responding is not the image we'd want to present. And if we couldn't extract any real promises from Pakistan regarding this, then their point as an ally seems limited.
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I'm not saying that, I'm just saying, if AQ get their asses handed to them, they'll run up to Pakistan, and then we can't touch 'em.
 
Dirtnap said:
I was there (in '08) guy. I know what we did and didn't do.
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Yes, I got that from you mentioning it in your previous post. Now, don't take this the wrong way but I really don't care whether you were there or not as a soldier. Address the argument or not but stop trying this appeal to authority. It's annoying.
 
[x] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?
 
Night_stalker said:
I'm not saying that, I'm just saying, if AQ get their asses handed to them, they'll run up to Pakistan, and then we can't touch 'em.
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Not entirely, we know where some of their camps in Pakistan are, we know there's likely sympathisers in the government and we know they'll run there because of it. So instead of doing as the US did in Iraq, we do as the US did in Panama in 1941, replace the leader to someone who will join the 'War on Terror' and allow access to Coalition Forces.
 
[x] for Chi Haotian. He's slightly shocked you agree with his plan to join the Americans in Afghanistan but that barely slows him down, and with almost the entire cabinet unified against him, surely the President will relent?
 
Versharl said:
The US and their allies did invest in infrastructure(though you could argue not enough). It's just that the actual geography of Afghanistan makes it extremely difficult and expensive to construct pretty much anything resembling a modern infrastructure like we have in the West. The rampant corruption and hostility of the populace also didn't help.
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It's less the geography and more the corruption of the govt. We'll need to work on that and work on winning over the Afghani people, which we failed to do because we didn't understand how the Afghani people 'worked' so to speak. They're very tribal, they expect kickbacks and pocket-lining in order to get anything done. We have to find the few that are not as corrupt and work from there. It'll be slow going.

Sure the topography is challenging, but so is China's. Lots of mountains and jungles and everything else in the country. I have enough faith in the construction/engineer companies to be able to make roads through the mountains. Most of the population is also in the valleys so that won't be that difficult, to link them all up.

2. kind of ties into 1. Work on the corruption and graft, especially within their military. Once the people can be more assured that they aren't going to be randomly murdered by their own military/polic turning colors, the law and order will come. We will really have to push for economic assistance to the rural areas of Afghanistan, because they work the opium fields and we want them to not do that.

3. all the high tech low drag shit didn't do diddly to actually take ground from AQ and the Taliban, stealth fighters to fight what air force? China has precision munitions and as part of the UN can probably get in on the JDAM project. We don't have to have the high tech air power to fight the Taliban. It takes boots on the ground to do that. MRAPs and Uparmored HumVees took a lot of time to trickle into the country, because they have to be driven in. Can't just offload them at a port which is far faster. Infrared gear will be useful in the mountains up on the goat paths tracking down hideouts. I'm not sure how what we're going to do is any different than what the US did. Plus, we have a lot more bodies.

4. We can still do a lot.

Also it's not an appeal to authority if I have actual real world experience building shit in Afghanistan.
 
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