DelightMachine
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Joined: 1/21/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: caitlyn
Vietnam and Iraq were/are regional conflicts with very limited objectives, and very limiting rules of engagement. In a global encounter, the only objective would be ultimate victory, and the only rule would be, that there are no rules. Using regional conflicts to make conclusions about global encounters is not apples to apples.
Caitlyn, to me, THAT's the best snippit of this thread. Excellent point.
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China could beat the United States right now, if only they could get the United States Navy to stay in port and never fire a shot, so they could ferry millions of soldiers over to California. Actually, that won't work ... they could never feed that army in the field more than a few weeks ... so China could beat America if the United States Navy stays in port, never fires a shot, and the United States contributes two-hundred millions tons of food to the effort.
Other countries could beat the United States, if only they could get them to not use any of their technological advantages ... no complete destruction of airfields with cruise missiles, no unmanned aircraft spotting everthing that moves so Stealth aircraft can slip in a kill it ... no destruction of entire industrial complex by submarine launched missiles.
All very viable plans.
Yet another excellent point. I can't find the post right now, but I think it was ScooterTrash who said China's technology is still far behind ours. I agree, but I want to point out that a country's ability to invent technology, bring it to market or bring it to the military is not constant over time. Japan began by copying U.S. products, but has become much more inventive in electronics, for instance. If a nation makes the right moves, it can go far over the course of decades.
If I were some kind of decision-maker in the high ranks of the Communist Party (and a somewhat ruthless person with minimal ethics) determined that I wanted to stay in control, keep my family as wealthy, secure and powerful as possible in the long run and improve things in my country (in that order of priorities), I would do just exactly what the Chinese have been doing. I'd clamp down on human rights, kill some protesters when necessary, forge ahead as fast as possible with capitalism, educate the young -- many of them at American universities -- buy off the military as much as was needed, but otherwise not be aggressive with other countries.
These guys are smart, and over time they'll benefit from smart decisions. Not the most evil rulers on the planet, but still bastards. Smart bastards though, and a threat in the long term.
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On to that corrupt and morally bancrupt American industry that is willing to use taxpayers lives and money to enrich itself ... exactly how is that any different from how it has always been?
I'd make a different point about this -- that corrupt and morally bankrupt American industry is SO clever in stealing from the rest of us that we've long been the richest or close to the richest country on earth on a per capita basis. How very clever of them to steal so much from us and leave us with more money in the end!
This just shows that they're much more dangerous than all those left-wing, socialist and communist governments out there that, when all is said and done, leave their people with less money. Verrrrrrrrry clever, them morally bankrupt American industrialists!
Oh, that's right, someone might say that we must be stealing from the Third World to keep Americans so much better off. But this shows the true craftiness of the morally bankrupt American industrialists -- the countries we do more trade with, even in the Third World, are better off than the countries that we do less trade with! So these incredibly devious, morally bankrupt, utterly crafty American industrialists are managing to steal and steal and steal from people while leaving them with more money in the end!! This is outrageous! How can we tolerate such criminality!
< Message edited by DelightMachine -- 4/14/2006 9:38:06 AM >
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RE: Emerging Superpowers the downfall of American domin... - 
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