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* Russia planning attack on Poland to test Nato resolve, US warns

如果有人到現在還搞不清楚：在老鷹搏兔的態勢下，俄、烏戰爭為什麼還能打到現在？下文把「唇亡齒寒」的道理，講得活神活現。

我搞不懂的是：據說俄國已經被打得焦頭爛額，為什麼俄國還有能力另起戰端？

NATO's eastern flank prepares to fend off Russia — with or without America

Laura Kayali, Marcin Wyrwał, Philipp Fritz and Carolina Drüten, Business Insider Inc., 07/05/26

NORTH KARELIA, Finland — Bears, wolves and moose still cross the frontier freely, but for the border guards patrolling this stretch of fields and forest, this is where NATO ends.

A line of wooden poles and painted markers cuts through the light green grass, separating Finland from Russia along the alliance's longest border with Moscow — 1,343 kilometers (835 miles) of increasingly militarized territory. The crossing has been closed since 2023, the year after the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the other side lies land Finland lost to the Soviet Union when it was left to fight largely on its own in the early months of World War II.

Reporters from Axel Springer's Global Reporters Network traveled to three exposed stretches of Europe's eastern frontier — Finland's forested border with Russia, Poland's fortified line with Kaliningrad and Belarus and Lithuania's vulnerable edge near the Suwałki Gap — to see how ready NATO's frontline states are for the possibility that Moscow will attack the alliance.

What we observed was a continent racing to harden its eastern edge against a threat it can no longer assume Washington will handle. As US President Donald Trump questions old security guarantees and looks to reduce America's military footprint in Europe, the countries closest to Russia are building fortifications, expanding reserves, buying tanks and drones and preparing for the possibility that the first days of any conflict may be theirs to fight largely alone.

Since his reelection in 2024, Trump has repeatedly called into question Washington's commitment to NATO's Article 5, the foundational clause under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. The uncertainty only deepened after the war in Iran, when the president and his team threatened to reassess US membership in NATO in response to European allies' refusal to join the conflict.

Meanwhile, satellite imagery shows that Russia has built up its armed presence along its border with Finland and other EU countries, building barracks and staging military vehicles in what the head of Swedish military intelligence has described as preparation for a possible confrontation with NATO.

"Russia is a superpower, and we're a small country," said Col. Matti Pitkäniitty, commander of Finland's North Karelia Border Guard District, while driving to the border. "You have to be careful when you sleep next to a bear."

Finland never forgot the lessons of what it calls its Winter War, when it halted an unprovoked attack in 1939 by the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin but lost roughly a tenth of its territory. While much of the rest of Europe spent the decades after the Cold War cutting armies and cashing in the peace dividend, Helsinki kept conscription, maintained vast reserves and built its defenses around the assumption that Russia might one day come back.

"In the Winter War, Finland felt very alone, with very little help from other countries," said Pitkäniitty.

A dozen Finnish defense officials, military officers, lawmakers and analysts interviewed for this article described their nation as unsurprised by Russia's 2022 assault on Ukraine. And even after Finland joined NATO in 2023, Helsinki has continued to view the alliance as a reinforcement of its own defense, rather than a substitute for it.

"We're happy to be in an alliance, but we still understand that we will take the first blow alone, before NATO's Article 5 is activated," said Jukka Kopra, a Finnish lawmaker who chaired the parliament's defense committee, referring to the mutual defense clause that underpins the alliance.

"We trust the US as our ally, a member of NATO, but we realize they have crucial interests elsewhere," Kopra said.

Finland: 'Total defense'

Over decades, Finland built its preparedness around the concept of "total defense" — a mobilizable population, civil resilience, shelters and a military designed to keep fighting with or without allies. The country can mobilize nearly 870,000 reservists out of a population of 5.6 million, a figure set to reach one million by 2031.

"It's fair to say Finland is more ready to fight alone than other frontline countries. The US wind-down doesn't impact its readiness," said Eoin Micheál McNamara, a postdoctoral fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Finland spends nearly 3 percent of its GDP on defense and, in line with its commitments to NATO, it intends to raise that figure to 5 percent by 2035. Its air force expects to receive US-made F-35 fighter jets in the coming months. Like most European militaries, the Finnish armed forces are still catching up on drone warfare, but on land they have one of Europe's largest artillery arsenals.

"Stalin called artillery the god of war," said McNamara. "Unlike a lot of Western countries, Russia never forgot about artillery. Finns never forgot either."

One of Finland's greatest military assets is the land itself. An army invading from the east would have to move through a country of few roads, dense forests, deep snow and freezing temperatures, with little light in winter and almost none of the darkness that conceals movement in summer. In the woods, long, slender gray-white trunks stand so close together that it is impossible to see more than 50 meters ahead. In spring, when the leaves turn bright green, visibility drops even further.

Even without the US, it's unlikely Finland would have to fight entirely on its own. Several European countries have an interest in keeping Russia off NATO's northern flank, according to Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Helsinki-based Nordic West Office think tank, referring specifically to Norway, Sweden and the UK.

Still, Finland would face a Russian army with more manpower and a willingness to use sheer numbers in ways the alliance cannot easily match. "Since the Winter War, the very basics haven't changed," said Pitkäniitty, the border guard commander. "We have to be able to use the terrain, operate the environment better than anyone else — then, we have leverage," he added. "Is the forest a typical Russian battle environment? I would say no. Their lessons are learned in more open environments."

Finland is now trying to teach its NATO allies how to fight on that ground. In May, two multinational exercises in southeastern Finland — Northern Star 26 and Karelian Sword 26 — were designed in part to show troops from countries including France and the United Kingdom how to operate in Northern Europe's forests, lakes and swamps. US soldiers from the Virginia National Guard also took part.

Karelian Sword — conducted in Finland's Vekaranjärvi region — involved some 10,000 soldiers in a simulated invasion of the country. One main takeaway from days of drilling in the woods was that armored vehicles and drones are ill-adapted for Finland's forests. "It's also very hard for commercial drones to find Finnish troops in the forest because of the leaves, unless you have a thermal camera," according to Col. Ari Määttä, the Karelian brigade's deputy commander who commanded the exercise.

The Nordic country is also preparing to add another obstacle. Alongside Poland and the three Baltic states, Helsinki withdrew last year from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, arguing that Russia never joined the treaty and is already using the weapons in Ukraine.

Several Finnish military officers confirmed to the Global Reporters Network that the country's defense forces plan to purchase anti-personnel landmines in the coming months. The mines would not be deployed in peacetime, they said, but would be available if the threat of a Russian invasion became more imminent.

"We have quite a long border with Russia," said First Lt. Terra Tevajärvi, a 33-year-old reservist and trained mechanized infantry officer who works as a filmmaker. Standing in a clearing, with the sounds of gunshots in the distance, he added: "Landmines would help slow [an attacker] down and make our lives easier."

Nuclear gap

There is one domain where geography, conscription and military readiness offer little protection: nuclear weapons. While Finland has practiced for a conventional defense for decades, it is only since it joined NATO three years ago that it has had to incorporate nuclear deterrence into its calculations.

Since joining the alliance, Helsinki has participated in its Nuclear Planning Group, taken part in nuclear exercises and begun rewriting laws that still reflected its long history outside the alliance. In June, Finnish lawmakers lifted restrictions on the transport and storage of nuclear weapons on Finnish territory, a legacy of its non-nuclear posture before NATO membership.

Changing that framework had proven more contentious than the discussion about joining NATO itself. Opposition parties resisted lifting the restrictions, while officials and analysts argued that Finland could not be a full participant in NATO defense planning without understanding how nuclear deterrence works. "Readiness in that regard is being learned," said McNamara. "You hear the phrase: 'Finland needs to upgrade its nuclear IQ as a society.'"

Finland's nuclear debate highlighted an uncomfortable truth. While the country is better positioned than most frontline countries to defend its territory without American ground forces, it's no more able than the rest of Europe to replace Washington's nuclear umbrella.

While the US has not publicly questioned that guarantee, the Trump administration's unpredictability has pushed Helsinki and other European capitals to examine whether Europe can build a stronger deterrent of its own.

After meeting with France's top general in the Finnish capital in June, the country's Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen acknowledged talks with Paris about French President Emmanuel Macron's proposal to broaden his country's nuclear deterrent to include other European countries. The French president, who officially proposed the idea in March, has left what he means by it purposefully ambiguous. Paris has floated joint exercises and temporary deployments of nuclear-capable French fighter jets, but not a formal European nuclear guarantee. For Finland, it is still unclear what participation in the scheme would mean.

In the meantime, Helsinki is hoping that hosting troops from two nuclear-armed allies — France and the UK — will add another layer of deterrence, even if the force itself is conventional. Paris and London have expressed interest in participating in a NATO battalion that will be based in Sweden but operate in northern Finland. Designed to strengthen the alliance's presence in the high north, the force will be led by Stockholm, another formerly neutral government that joined the military alliance after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

"We'll be on high alert, with high readiness to act," said Col. Daniel Rydberg, who leads Sweden's NATO mission in northern Finland. Along with Finnish border guards, NATO troops would be among the first responders if Russia decided to test Finland, he said in a phone interview the day before the force's inauguration in June. "The message to Russia is deterrence," he said.

Just what that would mean in the case of an attack by the Kremlin will depend on people like Nuutti Kurikka, a 20-year-old conscript whose great-grandfather fought in the Winter War.

Deep in the Finnish forest, Kurikka, a platoon leader, stood in front of a tank. The lesson of that war, he said, is "a mentality that we can overcome very hard things."

Unlike officials in many European capitals, he is not anxious about the Trump administration's ambiguity regarding NATO. "It's not good that the relationship is a bit shaky, but Finland is prepared to defend itself alone if needed," he said. "We did it before in the past."

Poland: 'Eastern Shield'

In November 2024, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited the small village of Dąbrówka, near his country's border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, to inspect the first stretch of a new fortification system known as the Eastern Shield. Standing before reinforced concrete anti-tank barriers known as hedgehogs, Tusk delivered a message aimed at both Poles and Moscow. "I don't have to explain to anyone that this border must be guarded exceptionally carefully," he told reporters.

At the time, Polish television reported that the first section had been completed ahead of schedule. And yet, a year and a half later, with the project roughly halfway to its 2028 deadline, the hedgehogs still stand behind Dąbrówka — but only a few hundred meters farther on, the visible fortifications end abruptly. A local resident said the activity around the border surged before Tusk's visit, then disappeared. "Before the prime minister's visit, dozens of trucks, cranes and troops passed through here day after day, week after week," the resident said. "After the visit, complete silence. The operations simply stopped."

If Finland's answer to uncertainty is national readiness, Poland's is concrete barriers, sensors, drones and one of Europe's fastest-growing armies. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Warsaw has recast itself as NATO's frontline state: buying weapons at a pace few allies can match, expanding its army, and pouring billions into new defenses along its borders with Belarus and Kaliningrad.

The message is meant to be unmistakable — to Moscow, to Washington and to Europe — that Poland is preparing not for a distant theoretical threat, but for the possibility that war could come sooner than many Western capitals assume. Yet along parts of the very frontier where that deterrent is supposed to take shape, the gap between Poland's military ambition and the physical reality on the ground remains visible: fortifications appear, then stop; materials sit in warehouses; and local residents say the building frenzy has given way to quiet.

Poland is the largest country on NATO's eastern flank and the alliance's biggest defense spender by share of GDP. Warsaw had already exceeded NATO's 2% target before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine; this year, it is set to spend 4.8% of GDP on defense even as its economy continues to grow.

At the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Poland sent more than 300 tanks from its own stocks to Ukraine, then moved to replace and expand its arsenal with off-the-shelf tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, support vehicles and rocket artillery from the United States and South Korea. Its army is NATO's third largest, behind the US and Turkey.

The sheer mass of the Polish military, combined with Warsaw's role as one of the world's largest buyers of US weapons, has earned Warsaw a reputation in Washington as a model ally. Even US President Donald Trump, while berating other European countries over defense, has regularly praised Poland. The US keeps thousands of troops in Poland, the vast majority on a rotational basis, an arrangement the Polish government is keen to keep as a deterrent to any Russian attack.

The country's importance to NATO is not just a matter of spending. Its size and location make it the alliance's central frontline state in any potential confrontation with the Kremlin. During the Cold War, West Germany was NATO's conventional bulwark against the Warsaw Pact. Today, Poland plays a similar role on NATO's eastern edge.

"While Germany has long focused on quality, Poland stands for mass and speed," said Carlo Masala, a professor at the University of the German Federal Armed Forces in Munich and one of Germany's most renowned security experts. "Because Warsaw does not rule out having to fight tomorrow. It is what is called 'fight tonight.'"

Tusk's Eastern Shield project is Warsaw's attempt to reinforce its defenses along its 800-kilometer (500-mile) frontier with Belarus, a close ally of Moscow's, and Kaliningrad, the heavily militarized Russian territory wedged between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea. Designed as a network of obstacles meant to slow an attack, channel Russian forces and buy time for NATO to respond, the system includes anti-tank and infantry trenches, concrete barriers, bunkers, drones, thermal cameras, mines and nearby military units, while also using natural obstacles such as swampy terrain. When completed, it is expected to cost about €10 billion ($11 billion) according to Poland's defense ministry.

Poland's military buildup is part of a large-scale, multi-billion-dollar new deterrence and defense system along NATO's eastern border. Known as the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, it is planned to stretch from Finland to Romania. Brig. Gen. Thomas Lowin, deputy chief of staff for operations at NATO Land Command in Izmir, says the alliance will build up much larger stockpiles of weapons, ammunition and equipment in border states, while establishing an "automated zone" of sensors and robotized weapons to help halt Russian forces early in any attack.

Cezary Tomczyk, Poland's deputy defense minister and the official overseeing the project, called his country's part of the effort the largest fortification effort in Europe since World War II. "We are building a border that sees further, reacts faster and makes it harder for the enemy to act at every stage," he said. "Russia must know one thing: Every kilometer of potential aggression will cost more time, more equipment and more resources. The Eastern Shield is intended to raise the price of aggression to an unacceptable level."

At the end of the world

So far, however, along parts of the border, the Eastern Shield is still more promise than reality. Polish officials are reluctant to discuss delays, and not every element of the system is meant to be visible. But large sections of the border are not visibly fortified. A military facility near Dąbrówka warehouses large numbers of hedgehog anti-tank barriers, but since Tusk's visit to the village, none have been placed along the border.

Poland's defense ministry told the Global Reporters Network that engineering troops, using pre-positioned material from warehouses, would be able to erect fortifications along the entire border within seven to 14 days. But a logistics expert who has held senior military positions said some elements cannot be moved into place so quickly.

"Laying one kilometer of reinforced concrete hedgehogs takes anywhere from several weeks to several months, depending on terrain conditions," said the logistics expert, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive defense matters. "It took the army three weeks to fortify a relatively short section."

A short distance from Dąbrówka, an agritourism farm named "At the End of the World" welcomes visitors looking for a rural retreat. At the Russian border, less than 100 meters away, the only obvious protection is a simple concertina-wire fence and a scattering of warning signs.

The owner, Wioletta Bornejko, does not want the new fortifications to reach her meadow. "I hope they don't put up those concrete hedgehogs here," she said. "Even barbed wire scares away tourists. A neighbor recently closed down a similar business." Others in the area say the constant talk of war has already hurt local businesses.

The quiet is deceptive. Travel east from Dąbrówka and you'll reach the so-called Suwałki Gap. Ben Hodges, a retired general who served as the commander of US Army Europe, has described this short stretch of Polish and Lithuanian territory separating Kaliningrad from Belarus as NATO's Achilles' heel. The fear is that a Russian attack could try to close the corridor from both sides, cutting Poland and the rest of NATO from the Baltic states to the north.

Farther east, Poland's border with Belarus stretches some 420 kilometers (260 miles). There, the limits of the current defenses are even more evident. "I don't see any other fortifications here," said one soldier from a brigade serving on the border.

Much of the border is protected only by a 4-meter-high (13-feet-high) fence built in 2022. Erected to stop migrants from crossing into Poland, it would offer little protection against tanks. Poland's defense ministry told the Global Reporters Network that it currently "has material resources that allow it to secure border sections with a total length of over 140 kilometres" — less than a third of the length of the frontier.

Drone wall

Tanks and other traditional forces aren't the only thing Poland would have to worry about in case of a Russian attack. Anti-tank measures are of limited use when the weapons of choice fly far overhead and are cheap enough to exhaust conventional air defenses. And so the country is busy developing an anti-drone system it calls SAN.

Its development gained urgency after 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace last year, forcing NATO aircraft to shoot them down with missiles from F-16 and F-35 jets — a response that cost millions of euros against drones worth a fraction of that. SAN is meant to allow Poland to defend against drones without relying on fighter jets. The system, sometimes described as a "drone wall," could cost up to €4 billion — accounting for about 40% of the entire Eastern Shield. "Russia is watching Ukraine," said Tomczyk, Poland's deputy defense minister. "So are we. We draw our conclusions faster."

Tomczyk said SAN would be Europe's largest and most advanced anti-drone effort. Within 24 months, he said, the Polish army is expected to receive 18 battery modules, including about 700 combat vehicles, radars, sensors and effectors, and roughly 350 systems to detect and counter aerial threats.

"It is not a single system," he said. "It is an entire architecture for drone defense." Construction of SAN began at the start of the year and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2027, after which it will be permanently deployed on Poland's eastern border.

For Masala, the security expert, the drone wall and the Eastern Shield are part of the same strategy: to slow a Russian attack long enough for NATO to react. "It is clear that the USA is withdrawing from Europe and that the Europeans currently lack deep-strike capabilities," he said. "So we have to ask ourselves which strategies make sense in the event of conflict."

"One is to aim at delaying the Russians. This is possible with the installations that Poland is building," he added. "The lesson from Ukraine is that not everything always has to be at 150 percent, but that 80% is sometimes enough."

Lithuania: 'The Baltic Defense Line'

In the office of Raimundas Vaikšnoras, Lithuania's chief of defense, a map of the country lies spread across a table. Marked on it are the positions of German and American troops near the Belarusian border — a reminder that, for Lithuania and its Baltic neighbors, national defense depends on allies being close enough to quickly join the fight.

Vaikšnoras, who has led Lithuania's armed forces since 2024, does not think a Russian surprise attack is likely. NATO warning systems, he said, make large troop movements difficult to hide. Lithuania watches rail hubs, logistics sites and when Russia and Belarus hold military exercises across the border, its armed forces respond in kind. "We organize exercises with equally strong or even stronger forces," Vaikšnoras said. "We mirror the movements of the other side."

But if Finland is preparing to fight alone if it has to and Poland is building an army capable of doing the same, the Baltic countries do not have that luxury. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are too small, too exposed and too close to Russia and Belarus to trade territory for time. Connected to the rest of NATO by the roughly 65-kilometer-wide (40-mile-wide) Suwałki Gap, they are vulnerable to being cut off by a lightning assault.

Their defense rests on a narrower calculation: make sure that NATO comes to their rescue. That makes them the most vulnerable to the Trump administration's unpredictability. And so the Baltic states have set out to bind their security as tightly as possible to the rest of the continent — through border fortifications, pre-positioned obstacles, allied troops on their soil and, above all, a German brigade meant to ensure that any Russian attack would immediately become a European war.

In any conflict in the region, the Kremlin would enjoy a clear advantage. Russian troops would be fighting virtually on their own doorstep, while NATO reinforcements would have to move across Europe — and in some cases across the Atlantic — before reaching the front. Kaliningrad compounds the problem. One of Europe's most militarized areas, the Russian territory is packed with air-defense systems, missiles and surveillance technology. In wartime, Russian military units based there could threaten NATO supply routes in the Baltic Sea and along the Polish-Lithuanian border.

Lithuania's vulnerability is on display near the village of Lavoriškės, where a red sign warns Lithuanian citizens not to travel across the frontier: "Do not risk your safety — do not travel to Belarus. You may fail to come back." The government closed the crossing in early 2024 on national security grounds. The border is lined with dense coils of razor wire, and rows of triangular concrete blocks — known as dragon's teeth — stand ready to stop enemy tanks.

The fortifications are part of the Baltic Defense Line, a joint defense project by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Along NATO's eastern frontier, the three countries are preparing anti-tank ditches, bunkers, defensive obstacles and — more controversially — minefields. Like Finland, the Baltic countries have moved to leave the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits such weapons.

"These obstacles make it harder for an attacker to simply roll through," said Ralph Thiele, a retired colonel and chairman of the Political-Military Society in Berlin. "They have to stop, bring in combat engineers and clear a path."

If Russian forces break through, they would have "open terrain," Thiele added.

Forward defense

Vaikšnoras, Lithuania's chief of defense, does not pretend his country can defend itself alone. The border fortifications are intended to slow Russians down, channel enemy forces onto predictable axes of advance and buy time for a response.

請參見「中、俄關係」一欄相關貼文。此處不排除「陰謀論」 -- 這些分析/評論旨在挑撥中、俄兩國間「兄弟之邦」的友好關係。

If China recovers Russian Far East coast, it will suddenly outflank island chain

Paula Allen, 06/30/26

The West’s strategy to contain China behind island chains risks being bypassed – China could gain free access to the Pacific by recovering territory lost to Russia in the 19th century. This may not be imminent, but it’s increasingly plausible as Russia weakens and becomes ever more dependent on China, and it could happen with little or no warning.

If China held the Pacific coast north of North Korea, including the port of Vladivostok (海參崴), its naval forces could reach the Pacific free of current chokepoints and monitoring. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan would face simultaneous strategic exposure across their defences, undersea cables and sea routes. Repossession of the lost Russian Far East would also give China maritime access to the Arctic, as well as control over critical mineral deposits central to the global technology supply chain.

China lost more than 1 million square km of Pacific coastline to Russia under the Treaty of Aigun (《璦琿條約》) in 1858 and the Convention of Peking  (《北京條約》) in 1860. The territory runs north of North Korea to the Sea of Okhotsk. Its crown is Vladivostok, Russia’s only Pacific naval base east of Sakhalin (庫頁島).

The lands were home to Tungusic peoples (通古斯族) before a weakened Qing China was forced to cede the territory through what it calls the unequal treaties. The Soviet Union promised to return it but didn’t. A border clash in 1969 and a friendship treaty in 2001 were meant to settle the matter, but they didn’t.

Chinese maps published as recently as 2023 labelled Vladivostok and nearby cities by their Chinese names, prompting sharp protests from Moscow. A leaked 2025 Russian Federal Security Service report, cited by The New York Times, suggests the Kremlin is acutely aware of the risk.

Beijing has never renounced the claim. It is simply waiting for the moment the cost of recovery falls below the cost of restraint.

Ray Dalio just finished a 10-day trip to China. He says global leaders know America ‘doesn’t have what it takes to fight to maintain its empire’

Nick Lichtenberg, 06/24/26

Ray Dalio has spent 42 years visiting China, building relationships with senior officials and studying its political history back to 221 BCE. But after a recent 10-day trip to Beijing—part of a monthlong tour of Asia—the Bridgewater Associates founder says something has changed, and changed fast.

"Over the past few months there has been a big shift in the world order," Dalio wrote in a sweeping essay published June 18 on LinkedIn, where his newsletter has 750,000 subscribers. (A truncated version of the piece also previously appeared in the Financial Times.)

The catalyst, in Dalio's telling, was the United States' handling of Iran's seizure of the Strait of Hormuz. The episode convinced leaders across Asia—including those who host American military bases—of something they had long suspected but never quite said aloud: that the American public "does not have the willingness to endure the discomforts of war," and that Washington "doesn't have what it takes to fight to maintain its empire."

The historical parallel Dalio reaches for is pointed. "This situation looks a lot like the British handling of Egypt's taking of the Suez Canal," he wrote, "which signaled the end of the British Empire."

It is a comparison that Dalio has been building toward for months: In March, he wrote in Fortune that the 2020s feel like "the rise of a new type of world order" resembling "pre-1945 world orders with great powers conflicts and gunboat diplomacy"—a view he illustrated with a Bank of America chart tracing 2,000 years of GDP dominance that showed China's current ascent as a return to historical norms, not a disruption of them.

A new hierarchy takes shape and the righting of a 100-year wound

What Dalio observed in Beijing was not an adversarial standoff but rather a diplomatic migration. World leaders, he says, are now traveling to meet President Xi Jinping to "build tribute-type relationships"—a phrase that is the essay's central thesis. We are, he argued, witnessing the early emergence of a modern version of China's ancient tribute system (朝貢制度): a hierarchical but nonmilitary order in which smaller powers acknowledge Chinese primacy in exchange for economic access and stability.

The diplomatic traffic has been visible: President Trump made a state visit to Beijing in May, a trip that McKinsey's China practice leaders believe reflects a U.S.-China relationship that is no longer "in free fall"—though Dalio would argue the direction of that stabilization matters as much as the fact of it.

The tribute system governed Chinese foreign relations for roughly 2,000 years, from about 200 BCE until the late 19th century. It was not an empire in the Western sense, as China did not occupy or control subordinate states. Instead, it expected deference and received it—with rewards for good relationships and punishments, typically economic, for bad ones. "In the tribute system, relations are not between equals," Dalio wrote, "but between superiors and subordinates that recognize their relative positions in the hierarchy."

The last tribute system, historians know, crumbled under what the Chinese call the "100 Years of Humiliation"—a century of foreign invasion, unequal treaties, and national trauma that began with Britain's defeat of China in the Opium War of 1839 and ended only with the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.

Dalio's lens on the dramatic events that saw the British take control of Hong Kong and open Chinese ports to foreign trade, among other things, focuses on the terms of trade that China was forced to accept and its diminishing influence over Taiwan, Korea, and the South China Sea. These are all situations that, he argues, China will seek to reverse now that the U.S. has played its hand—but China will do so in a very un-American way. "The full story of the 100 Years of Humiliation remains vivid in Chinese leaders' and most Chinese people's minds," Dalio wrote, arguing that it is not history to them, but a wound that reunification with Taiwan would help close.

Xi has been saying as much publicly. In April, as the Iran crisis was roiling global markets and the IMF was cutting its global growth forecast to 3.1%, Xi told Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez that the international order was "crumbling into disarray"—using a Chinese phrase that connotes not just chaos but moral decay. Fortune reported at the time that the comment reflected Beijing's view that the current moment of U.S. retrenchment represented not a crisis to be weathered, but an opportunity to be seized.

Dalio said he suspects that Xi wants that reunification achieved during a potential new term beginning in 2028. Taiwan's own presidential election is scheduled for January of that year, and the island's KMT opposition party—which favors closer ties with Beijing—has been quietly meeting with both Xi and members of the U.S. Congress. A KMT victory could open the door to a Hong Kong–style arrangement, Dalio suggests, without requiring American military intervention or Chinese military force.

Dalio believes that the model is returning and that Xi is actively engineering it through a new version of the 19th-century tribute system.

Fighting without fighting

Dalio's framework for understanding Chinese strategy draws heavily on Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which he recommended that readers study. Its central insight, as Dalio applies it: "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

In practice, that means China will pursue reunification with Taiwan and the dismantling of U.S. containment policies not through direct military confrontation but through relentless indirect pressure—economic, diplomatic, financial. The analogy Dalio offers is the difference between chess and Go. Chess is about annihilating your opponent. Go is about limiting their area of influence.

"China can gain ground by simply making the threats and not facing resistance," he wrote. "There is a good chance that the war will be so subtly fought that we won't see it being fought."

The most significant sign of this shift, Dalio says, was a private exchange between Xi and President Trump: Xi made clear, "in the form of a veiled threat," that planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan "would not be appreciated." Dalio expects Trump to ultimately cancel those sales. If he doesn't, Dalio predicted China will respond with a dramatic demonstration of force—something far more severe than the military exercises that followed Nancy Pelosi's 2022 visit to Taipei.

The leverage China holds over Taiwan is not merely military. It is technological. Taiwan produces the overwhelming majority of the world's most advanced semiconductors—the chips that power AI. Dalio puts it bluntly: "AI is everything, and AI without Taiwan is nothing."

A Chinese blockade of chip exports, he noted, would not need to happen. The threat alone would be enough to crater global stock markets, particularly AI-related equities. And China is racing toward the moment when such leverage becomes even more one-sided—Dalio said Beijing plans to achieve chip self-sufficiency by late 2027, while the U.S. and its allies remain dependent on Taiwanese production.

What this means for markets

For investors, Dalio's message is structurally bearish on U.S. primacy. China's external economy—what he calls "China, Inc."—is generating massive export surpluses and accumulating financial assets at speed. The renminbi's role in global trade is growing. Chinese companies are "understandably reluctant to accumulate American assets that can be sanctioned." Capital is flowing away from the dollar-denominated system that has underpinned global finance for 80 years.

"The world order is now in the process of changing from a U.S.-led, multilateral, rules-based order to a bipolar, power-based, hierarchical order," Dalio wrote.

請參考：

* Trump says deal to end war with Iran already signed and details to be released 'pretty soon'

The winners and losers of the Iran war

Ben Farmer, 06/15/26

A deal to end the Iran war has finally been agreed, Donald Trump has said, almost four months after the US and Israel launched their attacks on Tehran.

The conflict has torn apart the Middle East, choked the global economy and tested some of the world's greatest powers.

This is how the war has affected some of the key players.

Iran

Iran has been hammered by air strikes by the US and Israel, which enjoyed nearly complete air dominance during their campaign.

Its conventional navy has been sunk, and many senior leaders, including Ayatollah Khomeini, have been killed. An economy which was suffering badly before Feb 28 is now in even worse shape.

However, the regime remains in control and analysts say that, if anything, it is more hard line than before.

Tehran still has substantial missile and drone stocks, even though its defence industry appears to have been badly damaged.

While much of Iran's uranium enrichment infrastructure was destroyed or badly damaged by Israel and the US's earlier bombing campaign in June 2025, a large part of the highly enriched uranium it amassed is thought to have survived in Iranian hands.

Perhaps most importantly, Iran has shown its control over the Strait of Hormuz. The strait has been reopened through negotiation with Iranian permission, not through US force of arms.

Meanwhile, there appears to be no credible alternative to the Iranian regime, which killed thousands of its own people in January.

United States

The US has faced less economic disruption from the war than some countries, but it has not been pain-free. Petrol prices at the pump have risen by half, and Americans have spent nearly $450 extra per household on rising energy costs.

Polling shows they blame the war for their cost of living increase, and they are not happy with the way Washington has handled it. The US military colossus was able to strike at will, but the war showed limits to its might.

Air strikes did not remove the regime, or break its grip. Tehran has for decades readied for such a one-sided war by hiding away missiles and nuclear material and building cheap drones to strike back.

Iran damaged 20 US military sites across the region. Diplomatically, trust in the US has been further eroded, allies complain. Mr Trump plunged the Middle East into crisis with little consultation and has left allies to pick up the pieces.

Donald Trump

The US president has forged a war that has been increasingly unpopular with his Maga base and which most Americans were sceptical about.

A Fox News poll in late May reported that 60 per cent of Americans opposed the war. Such unease has fed into a slide in Mr Trump's approval ratings.

And his deal to end the war has also not delivered on his main goals, at least not yet.

The White House in April said his "clear and unchanging" objectives were to wipe out Iran's missile stocks and production, annihilate its navy, sever its support for terrorist proxies, and ensure it never acquired a nuclear weapon.

He has come closest with regards to Iran's navy, though Tehran retains a "mosquito fleet" of speedboats to harass shipping in the strait. Missile stocks have been cut by as much as half, according to some estimates, and manufacturing has been degraded, but not knocked out.

Iran still has enriched uranium, the wider nuclear issue has been kicked down the road, and Tehran continues to sponsor proxies across the Middle East, though these have been significantly weakened since 2023.

The largest initial result of the agreement appears to be the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was open and unimpeded before the war.

Sagging poll numbers and the hangover from an unpopular and inconclusive campaign risk following Mr Trump to the November midterms.

Israel

Israel and the US began the war shoulder-to-shoulder, but it is Mr Trump who is ending it after sidelining Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the start, the prime minister of Israel told his nation that the campaign offered a chance to "put an end to the threat from the ayatollah regime in Iran".

After more than three months, Israeli officials are worried that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz will not sufficiently address their core concerns.

As a recent analysis in the Times of Israel put it: "The Iranian regime still exists. It still possesses much of its ballistic missile arsenal and its stockpile of enriched uranium. And it also controls the Strait of Hormuz."

Faced with a lack of progress in the Gulf, Mr Trump has appeared frustrated with Mr Netanyahu, and he has reportedly frozen the Israeli leader out of negotiations. A deal that may be critical to Israel's security has been taken out of its hands.

Gulf states

The decision by the US and Israel to attack Iran despite their advice shocked Gulf states.

They have gone on to bear the brunt of Iran's retaliation, though each has been affected in different ways over the past three months.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) suffered the worst barrages of drones and missiles, though its air defences prevented large damage or loss of life.

The onslaught widened existing gaps between Gulf monarchies, with the UAE complaining of a lack of solidarity from neighbours.

In its hour of need, the UAE is thought to have grown closer to Israel and the US. Other Gulf states are expected to reduce their military dependence on what they see as an unpredictable Washington.

Their reliance on the Strait of Hormuz has been laid painfully bare. The Arab Gulf states are expected to rapidly invest in alternative export routes and pipelines to ensure they are never held hostage again.

China

Iran is a Chinese ally and oil supplier, but Beijing has not been a major player in the conflict, despite an estimated 35 per cent of all the oil it consumes passing through the strait.

China has seemingly withstood the short-term economic impact better than many and even cut oil purchases. It already had large strategic reserves and a quickly growing renewables sector and has been receiving Iranian oil via a shadow tanker fleet, the US alleges.

Beijing has meanwhile enjoyed the sight of Washington caught in a costly bind over Iran and has been trying to learn whether the war's lessons could be transferred to the Indo-Pacific, analysts believe. That could include copying Iran's use of economic attrition in any stand-off over Taiwan.

Russia

Sky-high oil prices boosted Russia's finances, temporarily at least. Yet the extra revenue has not profoundly changed Vladimir Putin's worsening economic predicament, analysts say.

Labour shortages caused by mounting casualties in Ukraine and limited production capacity mean Russian industry is struggling to keep up with military demand.

Meanwhile, Kyiv's drone attacks on Russia's oil industry have helped prevent Moscow from taking advantage of the higher prices, while Ukrainian forces are causing terrible battlefield losses and may even be starting to regain slivers of territory.

Diplomatically, the Iran war has also shown, as the fall of Bashar al-Assad did in Syria two years ago, that an alliance with Moscow is no guarantee of significant Russian protection or intervention when the chips are down.

Ukraine

When the Iran war erupted, it seemed to be bad for Ukraine in many ways.

There were predictions that Western attention, funding and military support would be diverted to leave Kyiv exposed. An oil bonanza would supercharge Putin's military machine.

Instead, as the world watched Iranian drones strike Dubai's skyscrapers, Kyiv's military experience and expertise in stopping them became highly valued.

Volodymyr Zelensky acted swiftly to take advantage of his country's newfound status as a drone superpower and made new alliances with Gulf kingdoms seeking Ukrainian savvy.

Kyiv in April announced new security pacts with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The war has earned Ukraine rich new allies and military respect.

World economy

The oil price's roughly 40 per cent jump has upended outlooks for ‌inflation and interest rates. A massive release of reserve stocks cushioned the blow, but the price surge has still hit countries that rely on imported energy and fertilisers.

The effect has been harder to dodge as the war has gone on and has particularly hit some of the world's poorest countries.

Yet global stocks have weathered the storm on the back of AI optimism and persistent hopes that the war will only be short term.

That resilience may not have lasted through the summer, economists had warned as reserves were used up.

Britain

Higher costs from the war have only just started to feed through to a country already tortured by a cost of living crisis.

Household energy bills are expected to rise by an average of £200 in July and inflation is expected to rise to around 4 per cent by the end of the year. The war is expected to trim growth, too.

Sir Keir Starmer's refusal to provide military help to Mr Trump has damaged transatlantic relations. The King's barnstorming state visit to Washington cooled some of Mr Trump's ire, but relations have been strained.

The days of the unlikely Starmer-Trump friendship are long over.

The war also highlighted UK military vulnerability when a drone hit an RAF air base on Cyprus on the second night of the war, with no major Royal Navy warship in the Mediterranean at the time.


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