Subject: Re: As Albaby says...
One can recognize that something is a relative insignificant part of a larger picture without missing the larger picture. China is of enormous geopolitical importance. And raising the price of a tiny fraction of their oil by a few dollars per barrel doesn't change the larger picture by any material amount.

Which is the part you're missing. You seem to be operating under the assumption that only big bold moves done all at once move the needle. That's not how geopolitics works.

We didn't get rid of ghost ships, we have captured a small fraction of them - and that capture will have zero impact on China's ability to obtain oil, because we're going to continue to sell it to them, just on different ships. We

Sigh. After years and years of doing nothing about them, we're taking the damn things off the ocean. See above (on how you have to do things one step at a time).

We didn't add 15-20% cost to 4.5% of China's oil imports - the 4.5% figure is seaborne imports, not total imports, and China will replace some (if not all) of that oil with similarly sanctioned (and therefore discounted) product from Russia and Iran.

Sure. Which puts more pressure on two creaking economies with creaking oil infrastructure to keep up. And further erodes China's standing as a world broker with every drop they buy.

And what if Iran falls over? Maybe they start having general strikes and their oil output starts to drop.

I get your assertion that "nothing has changed in Venezuela". I just don't agree with it. Take Hezbollah. They now know that the countryside is crawling with CIA. They know the US has broken the seal in terms of openly operating inside of Venezuela and using force. They know the Chinese- and Russian- supplied air defense technology is of no use to stopping the US Air Force or Navy from doing whatever it wants. They also know that Trump has zero compunctions about blowing them all away if he felt like it.

You believe that doesn't alter their calculus, even a little?

This isn't about whether China is an important threat, or whether we need to do something to respond to that threat, or even what steps we need to take to respond to that threat. This is a disagreement on what impact the specific action we have taken in Venezuela will have on China. It's not about objectives - it's about what stems from the removal of Maduro. From your posts, I garner that you think it will result in something material. I think it will have no material effect on our geopolitical position vis-a-vis China. That's where we disagree in this thread. Not on China in general or the need to take steps to respond to them.

This is more or less right. I see these actions as a continuum, as things that flow from one theater to another in service of a larger objective. Others don't see it that way and that's totally cool. Spheres of influence - despite others' on this board dismissal of them - are a thing. Power projection is a thing.

The end goal here is to show the Chinese that It's not worth it. They've spent the better part of 20 years getting ready for 2027-2029. They don't steal data and hack infrastructure for the fun of it, they do it as their form of power projection. We're doing the same, only in different ways.

You're free to tell me I'm wrong again. Only I'm not, and I'm not going to say why I know that.

But I can't see any reason to think that a year from now, a Venezuela run by the military dictatorship with Delcy Rodriguez in the big chair will be any different from China's perspective than if it had remained Maduro in the big chair.

You're making an assumption here. That assumption is whose capital Delcy takes orders from - Beijing or Washington, D.C.? You assume Beijing. This is where our disagreement on "nothing's changed" in Venezuela. Tin pot dictators like being tin pot dictators. We've shown that the Chinese and the Cubans can't protect anyone in Caracas should we decide to squash them like bugs.

And after the USS Ford carrier group goes back to the Middle East (where it needs to be), and after the rest of the naval build up gets dispersed back to where it was, Venezuela will still be where it is, ruled by the same people it was before.

See above. Only now there's

-international pressure to hold elections
-The US removing the Ghost Fleet and dictating how oil is sold
-A newly invigorated opposition in Venezuela
-etc.