From Brinkmanship to Bloodlines: How US-China Tensions Echo 1914 and Why Your DNA Carries History’s Weight – Plus More! #251
Grüezi!
As US-China tariff wars escalate to ‘embargo’ levels, worrying parallels to pre-WW1 diplomatic failures emerge—with Admiral Stavridis warning “we’ve never been closer to actual shooting war.”
Why Trump’s tariff logic falls apart at home—the 37 US states that would collapse under their own protectionist medicine (and why Kentucky will never face Chinese-style duties).
Personal connection: How my DNA test revealed ancestral links to violent Viking massacres.
1️⃣ The accidental adversaries
America, China and echoes of 1914
As Washington and Beijing exchange punitive tariffs with alarming speed, we’re witnessing not merely an economic skirmish but a dangerous diplomatic dynamic reminiscent of 1914’s fateful miscalculations.
US Admiral, and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, James Stavridis warns: “I’ve never felt we were as close to an actual shooting war with Beijing as we are today.”
The mirage of personal diplomacy
The most uncomfortable parallel to pre-WW1 dynamics is the over-reliance on personality-driven diplomacy despite systemic forces pushing in precisely the opposite direction. Trump indicates “he would like Xi to call him” whilst his White House spokesperson declares “the ball is in China’s court.” Meanwhile, Beijing has “no interest in being seen to be begging for a deal.”
This fixation on personal channels comes as institutional diplomatic mechanisms deteriorate. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledges the seriousness of the situation, telling investors (privately, of course) that the current standoff is “not sustainable” with reciprocal tariffs at 145% and 125% amounting to “an embargo now, on both sides.”
Shifting rhetoric, stubborn reality
Trump’s latest remarks betray growing domestic pressure. Tariffs “will come down substantially, but won’t be zero.” As Hong Kong University’s Chen Zhiwu observes: “the more Trump shows his anxiety, the more it tells China there’s no need to panic or rush.”
The escalating confrontation has led the International Monetary Fund to slash economic growth forecasts, shaken financial markets, and triggered a large sell-off of US Treasury bills. With global growth projected to reduce by 0.6%, the stakes extend beyond bilateral relations.
Diplomacy’s narrow window
Still, potential diplomatic pathways remain. China’s foreign ministry says that “the door to negotiation is open.” One solution involves China publicly inviting US officials to Beijing—allowing Xi to demonstrate initiative without appearing submissive whilst Trump could claim vindication for his hardline approach. Regional mediation through ASEAN forums is another possibility, with Malaysia hosting a summit in late May.
Sleepwalkers of 2025
Perhaps Christopher Clark’s WW1 history The Sleepwalkers remains most apt. Today’s leaders risk stumbling toward confrontation—awake to tactical concerns but seemingly blind to strategic catastrophe.
When shipping container bookings plummet and markets convulse, pragmatism should theoretically prevail. As Bessent concedes, “The goal isn’t to decouple.”
Without sufficient guardrails, we risk rediscovering what the world learned in 1914—devastating conflict sometimes emerges not because anyone wants it, but because no one can halt the machinery once set in motion.
2️⃣ Why No Tariffs At Home?
America’s home grown free-riders…
America’s 47th president swears by tariffs the way medieval doctors swore by leeches: a cure‑all for every imbalance. China dumps steel? 10% tariff. Mexico over‑exports tomatoes? Twenty‑five. Germany underspends on NATO? Threaten punitive car duties until Berlin blinks.
Which prompts an awkward question: if tariffs are truly the philosopher’s stone of economic statecraft, why hasn’t Donald Trump imposed them on the biggest free‑riders he actually controls—Kentucky, Virginia, New Mexico and three dozen other U.S. states that gorge on federal cash while paying pennies in return?
America’s unsung “trade deficit”
The Rockefeller Institute’s balance‑of‑payments ledger shows only 13 states send Washington more money than they get back; the other 37 run chronic import bills in the form of Medicaid, SNAP and Pentagon payrolls. Top three takers?
New Mexico +$14,781 per person
Maryland +$12,265
Virginia +$11,577
And the biggest donors:
Massachusetts –$4,846
New Jersey –$4,344
Washington –$3,494
If these imbalances were cross‑border trade flows, they’d trigger presidential tirades and stiff duties by breakfast.
A tariff‑within‑America thought experiment
Suppose a Trumpian White House levied a Federal‑Transfer Offset Tariff: every “taker” state pays a surcharge equal to its net inflow before it can access federal programmes other than Social Security.
New Mexico’s bill: about $31 billion—one‑third of state GDP.
Maryland & Virginia: pony up or watch the Pentagon decamp to Sacramento.
Massachusetts & New Jersey: bask in a sudden tax rebate the size of their public‑school budgets.
The macro result? A $500‑billion demand shock, recession across the South and Mountain West, collapsing orders for donor‑state factories—and not a dent in the federal deficit, which is driven by entitlements and interest, not interstate transfers.
Why tariff ‘logic’ fails at home
Commerce Clause & common currency. States can’t tariff one another; they share the dollar and the bond market. Europe learned the hard way that a currency union without a transfer union explodes; the U.S. solved that in 1790.
Mutual dependence. California may “subsidise” Kentucky, but Kentucky supplies soldiers, bourbon and votes for the farm bill that props up California almonds. Surpluses and deficits are two ends of one supply chain.
Retaliation in a closed loop is self‑harm. Unlike China, Kentucky’s consumers and workers are also U.S. consumers and voters. Punish them and you shrink your own market.
A lesson for the global debate
Tariffs look decisive because their costs are hidden in higher prices and slower growth. Apply them inside a unified economy and the damage is immediate, local and undeniable. The thought experiment exposes the central fallacy of tariff maximalism: imbalances in an integrated system aren’t evidence of cheating; they’re the inevitable plumbing of specialisation and scale.
Which is why, for all his bluster, Donald Trump never tried slapping a tariff on Kentucky coal or Virginian aircraft carriers. Deep down, even the most protectionist president understands that in a real union—whether the EU or the USA—the price of prosperity is tolerating your neighbours’ surplus today so they can tolerate yours tomorrow.
So the next time someone tells you tariffs are a magic wand, ask why they’re never waved at the fifty flags around the Washington Monument.
3️⃣ Kashmir’s Bleeding Edge
A terror attack in a tourist idyll
Calm shattered. Tourists murdered. Peace dividend vaporised. The Pahalgam attack has punctured Kashmir’s carefully constructed ‘return to normality’ narrative with brutal efficiency. What follows may redefine South Asia’s most intractable conflict—testing India’s strategic doctrine in ways harking back to the grimmest chapters in the region’s bloody post-partition history.
The Modi mirage
For the Modi government, Kashmir’s burgeoning tourist industry has been exhibit A in the prosecution of its controversial decision to revoke Article 370 and strip the region of its semi-autonomous status. The attack hasn’t merely claimed innocent lives; it has gouged holes in the BJP’s carefully crafted storyline of peace delivered through muscular nationalism.
“Tourists are our lives,” protestors chanted in the aftermath—a poignant acknowledgement of Kashmir’s economic fragility and its dependency on visitors willing to brave the geopolitical crosscurrents for a glimpse of its lakes and peaks. That willingness now faces an uncertain future, as will bookings and livelihoods in a region where unemployment has long fed disillusionment.
Deterrence doctrine
The more profound implications hover like storm clouds over New Delhi’s security establishment. Since the Uri surgical strikes and the audacious Balakot air raid, India has telegraphed its willingness to respond militarily to terrorist provocations—what analysts call “punitive deterrence.”
This doctrine now faces its toughest test. Respond too tepidly, and the carefully calibrated equation of punishment and restraint unravels. React too forcefully, and the nuclear-armed neighbours could stumble toward an abyss neither wishes to approach.
India’s response
And respond India has—not with missiles and commandos but with a coordinated diplomatic broadside that’s perhaps the biggest break in bilateral relations since the 2019 Pulwama crisis.
Most significantly, India’s announcement that the Indus Water Treaty “stands in abeyance” is nothing short of a geopolitical earthquake. Since 1960, this World Bank-brokered agreement has survived three wars and countless skirmishes, becoming perhaps the most durable element of the fractious India-Pakistan relationship. Its suspension strikes at Pakistan’s most fundamental vulnerability—water security in a country where agriculture employs nearly 40% of the workforce.
The expulsion of Pakistani military attachés, reduction of diplomatic presence, and closure of the Wagah-Attari border constitute what might be termed ‘diplomatic decapitation’—the systematic dismantling of formal communication channels precisely when they might be most needed. The annulment of visas for Pakistani nationals further isolates ordinary citizens caught in the crosshairs of high politics.
Timing
Terrorism’s timing is rarely accidental. The perpetrators chose their moment with calculated precision—while Vice President JD Vance was in New Delhi and as Modi pursued his careful courtship of Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan’s former US ambassador Husain Haqqani compared it to Hamas’ October 7 strike on Israel, warning it was “equally portentous in terms of possible ramifications and consequences.” The parallels are disturbing, even if the scale differs dramatically. The attack has the potential to reset regional equations and force recalculations in multiple capitals.
The nuclear shadow
Historical intelligence assessments remind us of the ever-present spectre haunting South Asian security. As US analysts have long observed, even when war probability seems low, the risk of “miscalculation or irrational response” means that conventional skirmishes carry the latent danger of nuclear escalation.
Kashmir has never been merely a territorial dispute; it represents what Pakistan’s army chief General Asim Munir recently called his country’s “jugular vein”—hyperbole, perhaps, but revealing of the existential dimensions this conflict holds for both nations.
The road ahead
The Pahalgam attack may yet prove to be the moment when Kashmir's relative stability collapsed back into familiar patterns of violence, or—one hopes in the face of history—a shock sufficient to jolt both sides toward genuine dialogue.
What seems certain is that the idyll of Kashmir’s tourist renaissance has been brutally interrupted. The question remaining is whether it can be restored before the region slides back into the abyss that has claimed far too many lives already.
4️⃣ Chinese Soldiers At NATO’s Gates?
Strategic earthquake or subtle trolling…
Remember Zhou Bo’s book Should The World Fear China? that portrayed Beijing as a settled, status quo power? Now the former PLA Senior Colonel is floating an idea that would have seemed like fantasy just years ago: Chinese peacekeepers on NATO’s doorstep.
Zhou Bo’s proposal envisions Chinese forces stepping in as the U.S. retreats from European security commitments under Trump’s second term. These wouldn’t be advisers or observers, but PLA units stationed between Russian-controlled territories and NATO members like Poland and Romania—although he suggests they serve under a UN mandate.
The timing is no coincidence. With Trump openly questioning NATO’s value and treating alliances as transactional arrangements, some see an opportunity in Washington’s retreat.
What makes Zhou’s article particularly revealing is how it drops the usual diplomatic niceties. Ukraine is a “complete loser.” Russian territorial conquests are permanent facts. This realism reflects the new era of international relations under Trump 2.0, where the pretence of values-based foreign policy has been abandoned for naked power politics.
For Europeans, this presents a tough choice. As American security guarantees become increasingly conditional and unreliable, the idea of Chinese involvement in European security—unthinkable just years ago—suddenly enters the realm of possibility. It’s not that Chinese intentions have changed; rather, the collapse of the post-war order has created openings that Beijing is positioning itself to exploit.
The implications extend far beyond Europe. If Chinese troops were to deploy to Europe’s eastern frontier, it would mark China’s emergence as a truly global military power, capable of projecting force far from its shores.
Zhou Bo’s trial balloon shows how dramatically the geopolitical landscape is shifting. In a world where the U.S. president treats NATO as a protection racket and territorial conquest is increasingly normalised, Chinese strategists are openly contemplating moves that would fundamentally reshape the global balance of power.
Whether or not Chinese peacekeepers ever patrol Europe’s eastern borders, the fact that such scenarios are now being seriously discussed signals the dawn of a new era.
5️⃣ Workplace Heroes
Integrity over interference.
Bill Owens’ resignation from 60 Minutes offers a refreshingly straightforward story: a journalist choosing integrity over interference.
Old school principles
Newsrooms were different when we started out, but the core principle remained identical—journalism exists to pursue stories without fear or favour. What distinguished Bill’s stand was its simplicity. Just the quiet dignity of saying “No” when corporate execs whose moral compasses could point any direction but straight tried to lean on him.
Money versus mission
At its heart, this clash represents media’s eternal struggle—a newsroom’s mission to report against a corporation’s desire to protect commercial interests. As CBS owner Shari Redstone balanced government approval for a merger with Trump’s massive, meritless defamation suit, it’s not hard to see which side she came down on.
She denies exerting editorial pressure, using the weaselly phrase ‘situational awareness.’ Pressure also came down from Paramount lawyers and independent directors alarmed by the lawsuit’s cost.
It would have been easy to fold.
Courage in context
What makes this story significant isn’t its complexity but its clarity. While media analysts might dissect the business imperatives or legal strategies involved, journalists recognise something far more fundamental.
There’s nothing revolutionary about knowing where ethical lines are drawn. What’s becoming extraordinary is acting honourably when they’re crossed.
As media consolidation intensifies, the pressure to accommodate, to bend, to ‘be reasonable’ grows. Against this backdrop, straightforward ethical stands become increasingly rare—and only more essential.
Bill’s decision stands as powerfully simple counterpoint—demonstrating that regardless of corporate pressures or financial stakes, journalism’s independence remains non-negotiable.
Redstone may control CBS, but she cannot command its credibility. That belongs to the journalists who build it story by story, and who, when necessary, defend it by walking away.
Bill put the grit in integrity. Proud to call him a friend.
6️⃣ ‘Boring’ Signs Of The Brave New World
China’s new cable standard signals a bigger tech ambition.
China’s new cable standard eliminates separate power and display connections—seemingly mundane until you recognise what’s really at stake: a bid to wrest control of global technological standards from Western dominance.
When Shenzhen 8K UHD Video Industry Cooperation Alliance unveiled GPMI (General Purpose Media Interface), it didn’t just introduce a cable with cool specs, it was moving to reduce China’s dependence on Western-developed standards.
For decades, standards like HDMI and DisplayPort have been controlled by Western consortiums, giving American, European, and Japanese companies big influence over the global tech ecosystem. Now China’s stepping in.
If GPMI gains traction, Chinese manufacturers could enjoy a built-in advantage in producing compatible devices. And China’s big domestic market could help establish the standard. Can China successfully challenge Western dominance in setting international standards? Will there be increasing technological divergence between East and West?
These questions matter because technology standards are more than just technical specifications—they’re instruments of economic and political influence. The country that sets the standards often reaps the economic benefits and will shape the technological landscape for years to come.
7️⃣ Massacres In My Blood
My violent past.
Having given DNA to 23andMe—one of the flakiest companies in the field—my reward for having it leaked far and wide?
Occasionally it connects me to figures from the very distant past. Lady in an Irish barrow from 5,000 years ago. Ship burial in Estonia. Hun warrior from Kyrgyzstan. A Kazakh horseman. Oh, and massacre victims…
Three of my ancestors from a thousand years ago were Danish mercenaries who—set on by an Anglo-Saxon mob—took refuge in an Oxford church. They were burned out and violently murdered in the government-ordered St Brice’s Day massacre.
After decades of watching societies grapple with historical trauma in real-time, finding my DNA connected to thousand-year-old violence presents a more personal ethical puzzle: at what point does ancestral suffering simply cease to matter?
Jewish tradition maintains that “in every generation, each person must see themselves as if they personally left Egypt.” Some cultures conceptualise responsibility as extending several generations in both directions.
Today many philosophers would argue that if there is no historic wrong still felt, no benefits still enjoyed by the murderers’ descendants, and no institutional connection, then the graveyard of history should be let alone.
Much of identity is not what we remember but what we choose to forget. And perhaps, occasionally, what our DNA unexpectedly forces us to confront.
Thanks for reading!
Best,
Adrian
