It's a topic well worth discussing. The opening post was plainly not a troll post, John, and he wasn't baiting. Do read it again. It was, in my view, unnecessarily scaremongering, and I've addressed that. So far, you have posted to the thread twice and contributed nothing.

"If there is one thing our last Iraq war demonstrates, is that going headlong to war without an understanding of all the factors, cultural and otherwise is something that America did and could do again."

I agree with this though I can't see a war coming on Biden's watch (big caveat there obviously). If Xi invades Taiwan it will cost China far more than it will gain. Russia going into Afghanistan and Ukraine has cost Russia far more than it has gained. The massive problem here is that both Xi and Putin are experts at doing the one thing that you can't do very well in open democracies, that is, hiding the truth about the impact on your own country from your people. Clamping down on dissent and censoring the internet are big parts of that, but the world is getting more and more leaky as time goes on.