JillyB

"right", "left", and "center" are arbitrary points. They aren't defined by Democrats, Republicans, or International politics. That's why I prefer terms like "conservative", "leftist", "reactionary", "fascist", etc. Those are actual ideologies without arbitrary boundaries. Otherwise, you're bound by the Overton window, which is always changing. The "centrist" Democrats are mostly conservative, unlike Republicans, who are mostly fascist.

Hey look, it's me

Guess I have to eat a bunch of chocolate to test if this works for me.

On mine, you can just pull them off

Is it as much fun as I'm imagining?

I think a lot of IPOs are like that

Electricity and magnetism got me to change my major from physics to mechanical engineering. I thought I loved physics. Turns out when it's a bunch of pixie bullshit that I can't feel or see, I don't like it so much. Vibrations is the E&M of Newtonian mechanics though. Had to take that one twice.

What is this flag? I'm not familiar?

Y'all just need sharper knives

I think your last point is pretty accurate. The US side has done a bunch of war games for a Taiwan invasion situation. In these games, the US side barely wins. To me, that's evidence the US probably loses. All of the Chinese decision making is done by US military people that think like the US military. If the PLA acts differently, they could easily be in a better position. Also, the Chinese capabilities will be based on US intelligence. Unless the Pentagon knows everything about missile ranges, warhead sizes, magazine depth, aircraft speeds and ranges, etc, they won't be able to anticipate a capability they didn't know about.

Probably most importantly, China has a vast industrial base and would be much closer to the fighting. All they really have to do is use up the US missile stockpiles and shoot down a few planes (probably while they're just parked in Okinawa). Once the war becomes about who can manufacture more missiles and planes to replace losses, there's no way the US will be able to keep up. If it becomes a protracted war, the US loses by default.

With the notable exception of the 90s gulf war. I suspect (with no real evidence or support), that the gulf war did a lot to set the stage politically for the US in the Middle East. Before that, the American people mostly remembered Vietnam and the pointless spending and loss of life from that embarrassing defeat. With the gulf war being such a massive win, I bet the American people gained a new view of the US military as invincible and viewed the Middle East as a pushover. 10 years later, we're in 2 forever wars.