Sudetenland 2.0

[Zetetic11235]

It is indeed true that we have let ourselfs become indebted to china, and it is quite shameful and hypocritical that we have done so. We continue our embargo with cuba, yet trade shamelessly with the chinese, forgetting our ideological convictions. We need to cut back on our foreign dependence and implememnt the same sort of balancing trade restrictions on the chinese that we have with the Japanese. It might be too little too late though.

I found this editorial regarding china interesting : The Barefoot Bum: Debt to China

[Didymos Thomas]

And people still praise Nixon for opening trade to China.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Zetetic11235

It is indeed true that we have let ourselfs become indebted to china, and it is quite shameful and hypocritical that we have done so.

It's just market forces, and it wasn't by virtue of national policy until they entered the WTO. I just heard on NPR yesterday that China comprises 40% of our national trade deficit -- in other words, the private American consumer demands Chinese goods. Perhaps not knowingly, but that's the way the supply and demand flow.

We continue our embargo with cuba yet trade shamelessly with the chinese, forgetting our ideological convictions.

If it hasn't worked in Cuba do you think there's any point in China? We only have the embargo with Cuba because we can afford to. It's not quite bullying, per se, but it's close. But we can't get away with it with China, our economy depends on them too much.

I wouldn't overestimate our country's willingness to act on principle, whatever facade we show. I mean even on a subject like genocide, i.e. a "crime against humanity" in which you'd think principle would supercede economic and political factors, we're ridiculously inconsistent. We intervene in Bosnia and Kosovo, but just ~2 years earlier we egregiously and actively impede intervention in Rwanda; we go liberate (however imperfectly) the Afghan people from one of the most horrible governments in the modern world, yet we won't walk the walk on Darfur. The cultural ethnic cleansing in Tibet is something that sells bumper stickers and that we whine about but honestly there is zero will here or anywhere else to do anything about it.

So if we aren't willing to follow even THAT principle, i.e. nothing is worse than a "crime against humanity", then what do you expect for the routine oppressions and abuses in the world? Money always wins.

[Didymos Thomas]

Money always wins.

99% of the time, anyway.

Issues like Darfur and Tibet are ignored by politicians because the political capital they stand to gain from addressing those issues is not as significant as the political damage they would cause themselves.

It's no coincidence that US politicians leave Darfur and Tibet well alone. Both involve taking on China; not an easy task.

No politician is going to tell the American public that we have to pay twice as much for consumer goods in order to save lives. Millions of abused people halfway around the world mean less than cheap TVs.

I try to avoid buying Chinese made goods. This can be tough on a budget, but I figure trying is better than absolute apathy.

[Aedes]

It hardly matters, you could spend all your money at the farmer's market and a big chunk of your money will still go to each abhorrent entity, whether a foreign government or a corporation, just by virtue of being part of the economy. But I also try to be as guiltless as possible, avoiding buying gas at places with bad human rights abuses in Africa like BP and Shell

[Holiday20310401]

A super power is really determined on what somebody can not do to the power. Nukes means you are powerful and undefeatable until a missle defence system is in place that can, with enough certainty, stop nuclear attacks. How much money that is generated by the power is not so much a factor as the dependency to other economic powers. If one can be independent then they are powerful. Russia would do as much back to the USA as the USA could do. Its just what side Europe chooses that becomes a concern. I think that Russia’s aggressiveness to Poland and their history with Germany would be a problem.

When it comes to the toys the USA has, well, most of what the US researches are ways to enhance the aircraft. So Russia’s navy is nothing. And why can’t troops be deployed from aircraft, besides navy? Russia’s too big a country to defend every square inch from aerial assault, right?

Hey, is there anybody on this forum from Russia, or is that possible?

What Russia could do is expand south and try to create a uniformity between them and India, and Middle East. Maybe convert Russia to Islam. . And then have an ultimate oil trade union that would control most of world’s oil, allowing for Russia to get back on their feet from money gained. Their prosperity could then after a while sink in to other nations and a conversion to communism middle way through could evoke other EU countries to convert. Their biggest mistake would be to convert to communism right away because that would be a red flag to the USA.

Although the USA is not going to be able to do anything for a while. And it seems that the war in Iraq is only helping Russia and China. The US becomes dependent on China so China can become a super power (slight chance), and this gives Russia time to still get profit from NATO’s apathy and USA’s lack of interest into putting money into alternative fuels and power. The USA could have been at hydrogen fuel by now had they spent the money on that kind of research rather than war.

War doesn’t get anywhere, just adds employment for American citizens, which I doubt the government is concerned about when looking at motives for war.

What is the reason you think for the war in Iraq anyways? I mean, oil I thought wouldn’t be a problem for the US, and religion is not concrete enough, it’s a tool for stability for the state, not for reprising corruption. (How redundant is that!)

The offensive on Georgia… I don’t like how Russia was careless about the targets, a lot of civilian casualties. And Poland should have the right to a missle defence system. Russia considering a defensive stance as a threat is just reason to believe that Russia wants to expand and motives are as profound as saying they want to conquest all the way to Poland then. And why shouldn’t they? From what I’ve read, “Russia is only standing because of their oil”. Well this is an inevitable reaction to the fact that the world is deviating from the uses of oil, as slowly as it is.

And, , Bush had the nerve to demand the bombing stop. How hypocritical is that!

Russia picked their timing very well. Bush was in China at the time, right?, and Bush has troops scattered, and increasing debt. Wasted will on helping Israel.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

When it comes to the toys the USA has, well, most of what the US researches are ways to enhance the aircraft.

Except for the missile technology, bomb technology, sub technology, personnel weaponry technology, computer technology, satellite technology...

And why can’t troops be deployed from aircraft, besides navy?

Because you either need a friendly airbase to launch from, or you need to launch from a ship.

Russia’s too big a country to defend every square inch from aerial assault, right?

A large part of the reason why both Hitler and Napoleon made it very far into Russia was because it's so vast that Russian / Soviet forces could never consolidate a defense.

On the other hand a large part of why both Hitler's and Napoleon's invasions are regarded as two of the dumbest military blunders in the history of the planet was because you can't maintain supply lines that go all the way to Moscow / St. Petersburg / Volgograd.

So what do you suggest, dropping 100,000 paratroopers into the steppes and having them live off of local root vegetables and vodka? Or dropping them into Moscow as if capturing the city really matters? Time and again in history (with the WORST failure being the British during the American Revolution, who occupied NYC and Philadelphia for virtually the entire war and Boston for the first year, to no meaningful end), people have looked at capturing important cities as the objective of war. But it's just not the case -- the strategy of a war, plain and simple, is to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war, which means destroying / disabling their military. Do you really think an army like Russia's, in a territory like Russia's, could be more than trivially affected by air assault in the absence of a massive occupying army?

Hitler invaded in 1941 with a land force comprising 2-3 million infantry, vastly superior mobile warfare and artillery, and complete air supremacy against a USSR that had a WWI-era army in which the entire military leadership had been executed by Stalin during the previous decade. And Hitler STILL got obliterated by the USSR.

And this is why short of a massive, well-supplied land invasion, the technology is basically incidental. I mean it's taken 250,000 ground forces to barely maintain stability in Iraq, and this is a country that doesn't even have a hostile army anymore.

War doesn’t get anywhere, just adds employment for American citizens, which I doubt the government is concerned about when looking at motives for war.

I think FDR was pretty concerned about that... And you may be too young to recall this, but back in 1992 many people speculated that George HW Bush began military operations in Somalia as a means to get the country out of recession (or at least distract the populace from the recession, because the first Gulf War was pretty popular among the American people).

What is the reason you think for the war in Iraq anyways?

All those hidden WMDs, obviously... oh wait, GWB said in his last State of the Union that the war was because "Saddam Hussein was a clear threat." Glad he cleared that one up.

The offensive on Georgia… I don’t like how Russia was careless about the targets, a lot of civilian casualties.

Most of the civilian casualties were initially being blamed on the Georgian troops, but then again there were independent bodies like the Red Cross who reviewed morgue census numbers, and concluded that both sides were exaggerating the number of fatalities for rhetorical purposes.

[Holiday20310401]

Originally Posted by Aedes

Except for the missile technology, bomb technology, sub technology, personnel weaponry technology, computer technology, satellite technology...

Good point

But Carriers and the aircraft the USA has is being advanced so quickly. Airbases won't be needed. Everything like refueling will be done in the skies.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

But Carriers and the aircraft the USA has is being advanced so quickly. Airbases won't be needed. Everything like refueling will be done in the skies.

Doesn't matter. Read the rest of my post. The problem is not getting troops in. It's been done before using the largest land armies in the history of the world and it didn't work then. Do you think that if the Wermacht, with the largest land invasion in history, was unable to subdue the USSR in the 1940s, that a little strike squad of airborne troops 1/30th the size of Operation Barbarossa would be able to accomplish anything in 2008?

Your point above, that Russia is too big to entirely to defend from air assault, misses the point. You don't attack a country. You attack an army. An invading force is not going after some stand of fir trees in the Siberian Arctic. It would have to neutralize the opposing army, otherwise there is no point.

[Zetetic11235]

There will not be any invasion of russia, it will not happen. We would loose international support if any such action were to take place, and I am sure that Russia would not hesitate to launch all of its warheads in an effort to stop U.S. bombardment.

We have nowhere near a comprehensive enough missile defence shield to deflect a full nuclear attack from Russia, and vice versa.

Russia, however, is hurting itself in these actions and driving away business partners it has/ had in foreign countries. Without oil and natural gas, Russia is a third world coutry. As we shift to alternatives, as will probably be much easier with the help of a bit of anti russian propaganda to gain the patriotic bid, Russia will find itself crippled with no way out unless it conceeds to the will of the international community.

As far as china goes, we should indeed work to gain leverage over them and alieviate the debt. We should aslo be working to avoid futher debt. I would, in the interest of the western ideal and in the interest of basic human rights, advocate any means by which we might topple China and preferably appear the protaganist. I am all for undermining a country solely on the grounds of preventing the prevalence of a conflicting ideology if only in order to keep a fairly homogenous set of ideals among those in power. I believe it is preferable to avoid polarity of ideals at all costs than to allow for what could ensue. It is from the stark polarity of emotionally charged cultural ideals that real conflict grows, and with the power of the conflicting view point so goes the tension, the greater the presence, the greater the tension.

In the end, every country works towards its interests as best it can. We should work towards our own ends and try to convince everyone else who will listen that our way it the best, or at least preferable to the other options. We should cultivate our relationship with the EU, the only other group with power and wealth similar to our own. At the same time, I would consider it of necessity to keep our military strong if for nothing else, then a deterrent. Our military has been progressively shrinking with such efforts as those of Clinton and other democratic leaders, this may need to be reversed, a greater focus on military power may be needed.

The only country which poses a threat to Western power is China, but China alone will only hold so much power. The general western sentiment concerning the merits of democracy and human rights would still hold strong in well over 3/4s of the world powers. China cannot really afford to continue as it has, and I think it quite likely that as China rises to its seat of power, it must also embrace the Western mindset in order to maximize its buisiness interests. More and more it seems that china more than anything wants to have a place in the international community, and they seem fairly willing to compromise in order to get it.