I am personally very afraid of what the near future brings for a armed conflict.
Are you?
I am not an expert in all the aspects of the conflict but how do see it being played out?
Ukraine woke everyone up, that war between countries was back on the table after decades of the war on terror and the like. Everyone is ramping up(Japan moving to spend 2% of GDP on defense), Germany building back up, US plugging its strategic holes, China has been building up forever etc etc
All eyes on Taiwan and the strategic islands in the pacific.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/xi-jinping-says...
I have no control over whether or not that occurs so I don't stress over it. Rather I plan for the worst and hope for the best.
It's not profitable for either nation to have a war. And neither country's ego really depends on it enough to fight about it. The ego is satisfied with the chest thumping that's got you so worried.
They'll continue to prod each other in meatspace, and continue all kinds of political and economic espionage against each other. They might even one day fund a proxy war again, the way we did in Vietnam. But both know that a direct conflict isn't in their interests, so they'll leave it at that.
I realize that all of that I'm-not-touching-you taunting does look like they're about to blow up at each other every minute. It's childish behavior, and that's what children do when they've been at it long enough. So it's hard to trust that this is actually being engaged in by adults, who are deliberately playing these stupid games without letting them get out of hand.
And yet, that's the way it works. You could spend a ton of time studying the conflict in detail, and reach the same conclusion after a lot more effort. Or you can just trust that, despite the juvenile behavior, they know which side their bread is buttered on, and won't jeopardize it.
https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/-safe-space-navy-trai...
https://www.army.mil/article/87923/high_heels_give_soldiers_...