The U.S. wants to pivot to Asia and have the Europeans bear the brunt of containing Russia. From Andrew Korybko at korybko.substack.com:
Arms races are always a bonanza for the military-industrial complex, which exerts outsized influence over US policymaking, but there might be more to this one than just pecuniary benefits.
China warned in late July that the placement of American intermediate-range missiles could “provoke an arms race”, which was followed by Russia warning Japan in early August that hosting the same could also “trigger another arms race in the region.” It was already assessed in early July that “The Japanese-Philippine Military Logistics Pact Raises The Risk Of War With China”, with it now being clear that their shared American patron is resorting to brinksmanship as part of its “Pivot (back) to Asia”.
The US is apparently calculating that deliberately worsening tensions in Southeast and Northeast Asia respectively, both via the weaponization of its two regional allies’ new military logistics pact and the deployment of intermediate-range missiles to them, would put China and Russia on the defensive. Hungarian Prime Minister Orban recently wondered why the US would push its Eurasian adversaries closer to one another, which more observers should be asking in light of their representatives’ warnings.
Arms races are always a bonanza for the military-industrial complex, which exerts outsized influence over US policymaking, but there might be more to this one than just pecuniary benefits. By compelling China and Russia to coordinate their response to the US’ “dual containment” of what can now be described as the Sino–Russo Entente, the US might convince NATO’s EU members that continuing to contain Russia in Europe upon the inevitable end of the Ukrainian Conflict helps the US contain China in Asia afterwards.
