Besides that, artificial land is nothing new, a good chunk of NL was made by manipulating the sea. Even so this is clearly a 'landgrab', but not much different other than the time in which it happens (the present, rather than a few hundred years ago). NL did it with the colonies and plenty of other countries did it too. A lot of that has reverted over the last 3 decades but there are still quite a few remnants such as Cyprus (claimed by the Turks and the Greeks), the Falkland islands (UK vs Argentina) and a whole bunch of smaller ones.
The world map will always be in flux due to territorial disputes like these, in the end it is all about money.
The Spratly islands are in the middle of one of the most important sea corridors. Ultimately, even nationalism is about money, after all which war ever in the history of man did not start as a dispute over resources or territory?
Outside of mythology, I can't think of any in the first category; most of those that are traditionally described in the second or third were about groups control of land of material resources, though the basis of the claim to that control (or at least the propaganda to get people to fight for it) may have been based on religion/ideology.
religion and ideology are just tools to unite people, once you unite a bunch people behind a common cause, then you go take stuff from other people, or at least prevent your stuff from being taken.
The Nazi narrative was all about reclaiming what was rightfully the German people's land and resources after they were depressed by the reparations from WWI. It was created to get people behind the party and it worked.
We got involved with Europe's affairs because we made a killing selling them military equipment to blow each other up. Then it started to seem as if the Nazis might take over the continent. To drive this point home, we sold weapons to the Nazis until 1941.
Pearl Harbor happened because we started an oil embargo with Japan.
Vietnam was a proxy war, it's inherently about not letting the enemy gain land or an ally in a certain territory.
There is something to gain behind every aggression and it is usually material and for personal profit to the those initiating it.
That whole story kind of strikes me as propaganda with deliberately provided intel and probably even satellite images.
There is increasing necessity to condition Americans for what is seen as a coming confrontation with China. People need to start being worried and have concerns. I'm not placing any kind of judgement on whether that is good or bad, but it is happening and our government deems it necessary to "educate" the public and we all very well know that the NYT, along with many other mainstream news sources, are little more than government propaganda channels.
I wouldn't say it's about money. From the bottom it looks like it's all about money, because there is a huge money layer that blocks the view; but from the top, it becomes rather clear that it's not really about money at all when you have all the money you ever need. It's about power, control, and legacy; all far more elusive goals than simply money.
Not everything is an American conspiracy of some kind. These issue need to be addressed before a smaller country and China start to take shots at each other (I mean this literally and figuratively). Similar issues are happening in Ukraine with Russia annexing Crimeria.
What if China wants a piece of the Philippines or Vietnam? It needs to be addressed on an international stage before the civilians on both sides begin suffering.
I'm not saying you're wrong - it certainly needs to be addressed - but you make it sound like Russia and China are the only villains.
I think these issues need to be resolved without assessing blame, because the world's most powerful countries always try to impose their will on other smaller sovereign states.
I see what your are getting at and they are not the only villains (see US/Iraq conflict). The biggest difference between Russia's expansion and the US' conflicts is the US doesn't annex the countries we invade (in modern times at least).
Only mentioned Vietnam because it was discussed in the article. Besides US Troops arent fighting proxy wars with Russia at the moment. Just fighting "Terrorists", whatever that means at this time.
Of course, at the time China's economy and military where much smaller. But so was Vietnam's.
Out of China's neighbors that should be worried Vietnam is probably the least likely target since it's basically an armadillo. The rest, however, have plenty to fear.
And it is not only Vietnam that China should be worried about. They have heavily armed koreans and crazy japanese at their doorsteps. God knows what could really happen.
The problems in that area are nothing new, the local medias of each involved country have been talking about it for years, before the US began to take sides.
It is if you ignore artificial land construction which had no effect on territorial boundaries. Which, after all, is irrelevant to the conversation at hand.
Also - hitting closer to home for me is that a good chunk of Boston is on top of man made land. The entire "Back Bay" area (which is what most people consider downtown Boston) was originally underwater.
Neither of which allow the US to make 200 mile exclusive economic zone claims under the UN convention on the law of the sea that they otherwise wouldn't be able to make, so they're hardly relevant to the China case.
Besides that, artificial land is nothing new, a good chunk of NL was made by manipulating the sea. Even so this is clearly a 'landgrab', but not much different other than the time in which it happens (the present, rather than a few hundred years ago). NL did it with the colonies and plenty of other countries did it too. A lot of that has reverted over the last 3 decades but there are still quite a few remnants such as Cyprus (claimed by the Turks and the Greeks), the Falkland islands (UK vs Argentina) and a whole bunch of smaller ones.
The world map will always be in flux due to territorial disputes like these, in the end it is all about money.