taiwan

Closing out the Year

/ geotrickster / 3 Comments

It is not, nor will it become, my habit to do yearly reviews. But I figure that since last year I specifically ended on the note of making particular predictions in order to see how accurate they would be, it is worth following up on them.

“The Ukraine War will continue through most if not all of the year“
Correct.

“China will NOT invade Taiwan“

Correct.

“Republican internal meltdowns will be hilarious“

Correct. I also mentioned that Kevin McCarthy was ‘a doofus’, which turned out to be proven in the most hilarious way as he lost the speakership to his own party’s antics. And while I did correctly foresee that DeSantis would not the be the titan he was predicted by others to be, the extent of his floundering so far surprised even me.

“2022 Was Peak GenderTrender for the U.S. and 2023 will be Peak GenderTrender for the U.K.“

Correct with almost a 100% accuracy on all details when you read the full section I wrote last year for this call. I did not know a year ago about the then coming book ‘Time to Think‘, and the SNP’s sloppy attempt to shore up its floundering with culture war really sealed the deal.

“After his inevitable removal from ”””’power””””’, Juan Guaido will go the way of Saakashvili“

Mixed. I was correct that he is now entirely irrelevant, but even Saakashvilli made headlines with his Brooklyn Hipster antics for a year or two. Guaido can’t even do that. Truly the biggest tool and cuck of our time.

” OneDnD will Rival the Galactic Starcruiser in terms of corporate entertainment fiasco“

Correct, but not nearly correct enough. The Galactic Failcruiser was indeed put out of its misery just a few months ago, and Hasbro/Wizards continues on, but its apparent ‘living’ is really more the jerkings of the rigor mortis afflicted undead. OneDnD itself looks like it will be a terrible product, but this is hardly even the main story anymore. Now its about mismanagement, squandering a cornered market and turning success into failure, layoffs and stock losses, former fans leaving in droves, poisoned relations throughout the hobby, and even sending Pinkertons to intimidate product reviewers. 2023 was such a year of unmitigated failure for Hasbro that if it were not for the entire nation of Canada one-upping them with even more ridiculousness (Trudeau saying Canada’s global contribution was ‘gender language’, Parliament giving a standing ovation to an SS veteran, the entire country being on fire all summer, collapse in relations with the two most populous nations on Earth in the same year, etc) I would just give them the Fail of the Year award outright. So while I could see the clear downward trends for the company a year ago, I still missed just how catastrophic it would be. Its honestly extremely funny. Any player of TTRPGs worth their salt has long since left that company and its products behind. It is good for the hobby not to be tethered to this bloated monstrosity anymore.

So my predictions were extremely on point for 2023. I would like to make one correction to an old post however, especially in light of the Hasbro thing. When I ranked the editions of a game that even then I no longer played, I overrated DnD 5E’s accessibility considering its bland generic nature. These days, I would switch the places of 5 and 2 in that ranking. 2 was a mess in some ways, but it was still the most similar to 1, the only truly good edition. And above all, it had a ton of character. The beige grab-bag casserole of 5E tries to be everything for everyone and thus is really for no one. We see the costs of this game design philosophy now with the implosion of its parent company and the re-writing of all their materials in corporate sensitivity training HR speak.

2023 Year Rankings

Now lets do something a bit different. Lets name the best of year.

Person [lolcow] of the Year:

George Santos of course!

(Runner Up: Yevgeny Prigozhin)

Film of the Year: Oppenheimer. Most basic answer I have ever given to that question ever, but it really is. Once in a blue moon, Hollywood can still deliver. Just don’t bet on it. (Runner Up: When Evil Lurks)

Book of the Year (nonfiction): The Ideology of Democratism by Emily Finley. I can’t stop citing it. Yes, it came out in 2022, but I always count books by the year I first read them, not their publication date.(Runners Up: The Turkish War of Independence by Edward J Erickson, End Times by Peter Turchin).

Book of the Year (fiction): A Different Darkness and Other Abominations by Luigi Musolino. I read so many short story collections in the horror/new weird genre that it takes a lot to impress me, and this one really delivered. (Runners Up: Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds and Sometimes Lofty Towers by David C Smith).

Album of the Year: Panopticon- The Rime of Memory.

There never has been a year since I have discovered them when Panopticon released an album and it wasn’t either a contender or victor for album of the year. (Runner Up: Pale Jay- Bewilderment).

Game of the Year: Lunacid. You will see Lunacid described as a ‘King’s Field or Shadow Tower like’, and it is. But to me, who never played those games until far more recently, its something else entirely. A kind of game I always wanted. Namely, the atmosphere and setting of Arx Fatalis without the interface jank and buggy default setting. An all dungeon world of mood and shadows with a killer score and weird monsters. After decades of waiting, I finally got that game I have long pined for. Comes just a tad short of Arx in the atmosphere department (but only barely) and surpasses it in all other ways. (Runners Up: Trepang2, Hrot).

Interpretation of a Mare, one of the more memorable enemies in the game.

All in all it was a good year for me. I finally got to take my grandmother’s ashes to Japan, and I was very productive on the creative writing front with multiple projects. I got to give a lecture on Western Hemisphere geopolitics in Buenos Aires and take some side trips. Next year, I am hoping, will shape up like 2022 in being a strong year for professional output.

Predictions for 2023

/ geotrickster / 5 Comments

I’ve had a good run with predictions. Some of which you can find on older posts on this very site. 2022 also started with a big fail when the Russian invasion of Ukraine I thought was a front for being too quagmire-prone was actually be given the go-ahead. Whelp, got the second part of that right anyway. But I figured it might be good to lay out a list of ones I am feeling for 2023. I will start with my less-certain predictions and as we descend my feelings will be more certain. So I will feel less ridiculous getting the first few wrong than the later ones.

The Ukraine War will continue through most if not all of the year:

This seems a pretty easy call on base, but the specifics are almost impossible to suss out beyond it. Both countries have committed to the long haul officially, though Russia’s internal unity is harder to read than Ukraine’s. It seems like further escalation could occur but also possible that just the right equilibrium has been found to keep it simmering and localized as is.

The reason war is chosen upon, wisely or not, is to roll the dice. Its a declaration that present trends are not good enough and can only be rectified with the introduction of a chaos element. This conflict is still in a chaos element and so is hard to read outside of my assumption that it will last through most of the next year if not into the one after that. I would like to be wrong about this one, however. Even worse, this situation will likely lead to the worsening of economic warfare on Syria, because Beltway Lanyards see the issues as connected via Moscow. Incorrectly.

China will NOT invade Taiwan:

In 2023 China will still lack the logistical and military capability to pull off such an enormous conventional amphibious invasion as an attack on Taiwan. This does not mean there might not be further Taiwan strait crisis (or South China Sea naval actions elsewhere) or an economic blockade of the island. But Beijing quite simply won’t be able to launch a large scale conventional operation with its present force dispositions. Alternatively, if they try to do this soon it will go very, very poorly.

Republican internal meltdowns will be hilarious:

I neither know nor care what happens between DeSantis and Trump, but I do know Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert are already threatening to have a hair pulling catfight on the floor of the House. Its funny because I usually refer to them as the same person- a totemic hot mess at the bachelorette party by the name of Bloberta Gogurt. But right now all the signs are in for a very funny internal political struggle between pro and anti-Trump factions. The fact that Kevin McCarthy is an exceptional doofus with zero charisma will only add to the fun.

2022 Was Peak GenderTrender for the U.S. and 2023 will be Peak GenderTrender for the U.K.:

Though many have yet to come around to it, I have long held that 2020 was Peak Woke overall. People being locked inside plus (quite justifiable) protests against extremely violent and often corrupt police departments peaked our present Postmodern Protestantism moment. But that also showed that trendy causes attract bizarre attention seekers, perpetual victims, and a media obsessed with fashion and not with substance. Since then there has clearly been a backlash to wokeness growing. One I am happy to have personally contributed to (see Woke Imperium, my so far best work in the think tank world and a product of 2022). Does this cascade of events remind you of anything else? Perhaps the star cause of wokeism today?

An unhinged activist culture took over gender identity issues (separate issues to sexual orientation and increasingly separate from its own past activism) which was over-represented in tech and culture commentary. This created an unsustainable bubble where the media narrative was out of step with the public. It has also led to hubris among a group of activists who live completely high on their own supply which in turn has led to big backlashes that would be impossible to imagine even two years ago. Additionally, many who once saw trans and nonbinary rights as indistinguishable from gay rights are seeing the differences, as the one was about legally achievable victory conditions and the other, it is increasingly apparent, has titled far into the realm of ideological declaration and trendy self-ID. In 2022 the overreach of censorship and discourse policing for the sake of the feelings of TQplus has clearly led to the pendulum to swing back in the US-though it has only just started to do so. With the recent adoption of Scotland’s new self-ID law, the UK will in turn peak next year. Cancelled journalists taking heretical views of the Judith Butlerian Jihad like Jesse Singal will probably be at least partially vindicated. The obvious drooling that for profit pharmaceutical companies and cosmetic surgery industries show at new prospects will only further increase this effect.

This was always a poor cart to pin the horse of Anglo-Leftism too, and so the lefts cultural power will likely decline along with the cause it made most central to its activism. Hopefully opening up space for unions rather than students to be the driving force of a future left.

After his inevitable removal from ”””’power””””’, Juan Guaido will go the way of Saakashvili:

No further need to really elaborate on this one. Post prime politicians with no power or reputation to speak of end up as itinerant hipsters in Brooklyn and/or gadflys in other countries. The only reason this does not apply to Liz Truss is because she still, somehow, has a seat in Parliament. (P.S. Truss is also the recipient for my Lolcow of the Year Award, congratulations on somehow even beating Bolsonaro). One thing that can be said about Guaido, he unintentionally made some great PR for Maduro.

OneDnD will Rival the Galactic Starcruiser in terms of corporate entertainment fiasco:

I don’t particularly care if OneDnD is 5.5 or 6 Edition. No table top role playing fan worth their salt is going to stick around for a company that seeks to add microtransactions and digital tracking to everything. TTRPGs are best played in person. And if they cannot be, at least made different from the video game experience.

OneDnD is not officially being released until 2024. Also, 5th Edition has attracted an enormously soy (sorry, there really is no better way to describe it) fan base. This means many people are there because of the game’s cultural popularity in twee podcasts and via Stranger Things. (Of course, the edition being played in that show is 1E, the one superior edition to 5E, but nevermind that). These are a captive audience and terrible role players, so they can be relied to stay as the bad PR and corporate vultures continue to devour this property. The real players, however, will abandon in droves. This will include a disproportionate amount of DMs who know systems. The company will then have to hire for pay dungeon masters with no direct connection to many of their players who inevitably will have to run the game via some kind of corportate check list to compensate for their lack of organic connection.

Much as the Galactic Failcruiser has become 2022’s albatross around Disney’s reputation with its fans, the unfolding drama will harm OneDnD even before its official release. The popularity of retro-clones (I am hoping many of the ones of 1E specifically here) and alternatives systems (I have recommendations should you need them) will explode. This is unambiguously good for the hobby as a whole, but will leave Dungeons and Dragons with a core fan base of people better left walled off from everyone else too. It will be a prison for redditors and pic crew avatars.

The funny thing is that Wizards of the Coast already tried this, if to a much lesser extent, with the roll out of Fourth Edition back in 2008. What they learned then was that no one wants TTRPGS to be video games. We already have video games for that. While any immediate descendant of 5E is easier to keep story-focused than the over-mechanical 4E, a homogenized corporate experience for the kitchen sink approach of 5 is likely to only please the kinds of people who are going to ditch it for a proper electronic game anyway and/or regular improv group. As they realize the long term costs of these types of services are actually a worse deal, this will exacerbate the problem

Alternatively, the mess might be so intense that WotC scraps or massively changes their plans last minute. The feedback already is so negative. This still counts as a corporate entertainment fiasco, however, and thus the prediction still holds.

Will Taiwan Fight?

/ geotrickster / 1 Comment

taiwan_strait_98

It is the nightmare scenario of policy planners in Beijing and Washington alike. It is the hypothetical that keeps many an IR scholar pondering the many ramifications and dangers. It is a war over Taiwan.

To the fellow traveler interested in world history, Taiwan’s ambiguous status on the world stage is hardly a new thing. The island was one of main progenitor points of Polynesian culture and eventually would attract a Dutch trading fort due to its simultaneous remoteness to dense population but also close proximity to China proper. The Dutch would in turn be evicted by Ming Dynasty loyalists fleeing the collapse of their government and the birth of the new Manchurian Qing Dynasty. Once the pirate base for Ming loyalists was subdued the Qing recognized the need to incorporate this nearby landmass firmly into their state.

After the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 the island’s ownership was transferred to Japan and Taiwan soon became the new Japanese Empire’s first major overseas possession (that wasn’t under the assumption of one day becoming a home island). The Japanese met significant resistance from the native population (though not the Chinese already there) and would eventually go on to incorporate indigenous scouts into their Pacific forces once this initial colonial conflict was over. There is even a metal song about these units.

Taiwan was restored to China-then the Republic of China-after Japan’s total defeat in World War II. Shortly afterwards, the civil war in China would drive the Republic’s government and forces (with the state treasury in tow) to the island as their position rapidly collapsed in China Proper. Late Ming history repeating itself. Here the Kuomintang forces under Chiang Kai-shek would survive, unlike their Ming forebears, due to the protection of the American navy and the weak post-war status of naval forces now held by the People’s Republic on the mainland.

Not giving up its official title to be the legitimate government of China, the Republican forces on Taiwan would in fact hold China’s seat in the UN until the United States and Beijing came together during the Nixon administration to work out defensive arrangements against a perceived common Soviet threat. Much like democratic peace theory today or the US-France ‘Quasi War’ during the aftermath of both countries revolutions, international communist solidarity turned out to be hollow words easily undone by the brute realities of great power competition. The price for the US to gain this new inroad with Beijing was, of course, to put the PRC in the drivers seat as the internationally recognized government of China. Washington also had to agree that Taiwan was a part of China-but it retained its influence over the island and reiterated that it would defend the island from a reunion with the mainland that would be conducted with force.

So it remains up through today. In the meanwhile, there have been significant if minority calls in Taiwan to cease being the Republic of China and simply become Taiwan, a fully independent nation. Its historical experience has certainly put it on a more divergent path than the simple warlord renegade provinces of modern Chinese history before World War II. Of course, everyone knows that a blatant declaration of independence might well trigger a full blown military response from the mainland.

This all sounds quite convoluted, and as history and political baggage it certainly is. Will Taiwan come back into the fold through force? Diplomacy? Will even the PRC one day unexpectedly collapse leading to Chiang’s long delayed dream of reunification from Tapei a strange new reality? Will Taiwan become a fully sovereign and recognized state?

But one way it is not complicated is in what will happen to Taiwan’s future if that nightmare scenario of a military invasion to forcibly reunify the island breaks out. Despite what you may assume about such a complex issue, the entire fate of the island and of great power conflict will rest solely on one factor: Do the people of Taiwan resist the PRC or do they not?

It seems simple and perhaps reductive to break down the fate of this issue in a confrontation to this one factor, but I will list reasons why I believe this to be true:

-Neither China nor the United States wants to fight each other directly, especially as neither country knows the effectiveness of its naval strategy against the other. China has bet a lot on diesel submarines and shore based anti-ship missiles, the US on carrier battle groups, nuclear submarines, and air power. The Taiwan Straits could be the death zone of an invading fleet coming across American technological power projection, or it could be a perfect shooting gallery for mainland missiles restoring coastal defenses to their pre-gunpowder days of sabotaging troublesome fleets. Either power, or both of them, could be fatally weakened with global consequences in such a confrontation.

-The morale of the Chinese forces would be higher than that of the American forces, considering the historical ties to the island that one shares and the other do not. For Americans to be willing to take the casualties necessary to either defend or (more likely) re-take Taiwan the country would have to be united in the cause. The country could *only* be united in such a cause if the people of Taiwan were seen to be oppressed and victims of an unwanted annexation like that of Iraq invading Kuwait in 1990.

-Therefore the decision falls into Taipei’s ball court rather than Washington or Beijing. Taipei and the common people of Taiwan in general. The island is riddled with underground defenses and weapons caches to fight and delay any invasion until a bailout from America can occur. Much of its terrain is extremely mountainous. It also has a large amount of jungle. Taiwan could indeed put up quite the fight-if it were willing to. Conventionally it might be plastered (unless the PRC really screws up the initial operations) but a popular war waged by the army and militia and common civilian resistance could flounder an invasion. More importantly, such resistance is the single factor that could bring in open ended American commitment for a fight until the issue is settled with a fully independent Taiwan. (Or, if American was being extra clever, a unified China that had to legalize the KMT throughout the entirety of the mainland and open the system up to competitive elections).

And this is the question, is Taiwan willing to do this? Literally everything in a conflict over the island boils down to this single factor. Honestly, I have no idea. I don’t think most people in Taiwan even really know with certainty. But I do know that this is the factor on which US-China rivalry will hinge on in any confrontation. Without something that at least looks like a genuine people’s war, America might roll over and acquiesce as easily as a compliant Taiwan would. After all, it barely effects the core of American Pacific strength and provides a rallying cry to get more nations on Washington’s bandwagon. But if the Taiwanese are clearly fighting as allies expecting a delivery then this flies out the window. If Taiwan were to fight all sides would have to see it through for the sake of their preexisting commitments and the very legitimacy of their governments.

So to get the heart of the mater, will Taiwan fight or not?