Without this war on a word, more than a few passenger planes would have blown up in midair by explosives placed in toner cartridges.
You knuckleheads (sans SF) are arguing apples and oranges. War vs $$ spent to equip and keep our military on top are 2 different animals. We SHOULD keep our men and women who have decided to join the armed forces equiped with the best stuff available. How or why would you think otherwise?:rolleye33:
China has started an arms race. We are critically becoming outpaced by their ability to produce weapons technology that war-fighting scenarios are showing we will lose the battle on almost every occasion. China wants Taiwan so bad it can taste the gains. Think tanks are running computer simulations and in the last few years we simply cannot find a solution to win a confrontation if China decides to take Taiwan. Not an all out war between the two powers but China's choice to take them if they want them without fears of their own borders being challenged could happen all day long. The spending will continue but it is not at the hands of Al Qaeda or even Iran. China is the bull in the ring. We will spend more to avoid a conflict that has yet to occur, outside of a computer.
I have yet to see any real debate as to why spending more = being safer? I tend to think about this like a business would. Anyone can spend money. But it is those that spend wisely, trim the fat, and re-calculate ROIs all time that end up on top. I also see Debt as a larger threat than China or Iran and a Dollar crisis in close second. Hell did anyone read what happened at the G20? It's not just Kooks saying this stuff: America's Top Military Chief: Debt is Main Threat to U.S. National Security ... Pentagon Must Cut Spending | zero hedge I think the argument that "Oh we must out spend everyone and Oh we can't cut this or this or we will all BE KILLED or OMG you don't see those bad guys over there, lets spend 100 million to check them out" is a farce. You can't advocate smaller govt and fiscal spending without addressing all facets of Government. Every part of the Government IMO is big, slow, and inefficient.
They are trying badly to look like a real superpower, but they are racing with nobody, just trying to catch up. They are far behind. They put up huge numbers but their technology is lagging, their personnel inexperienced in war, and they have a complete inability to project power anywhere except in or very, very near China itself. Source? What kind of war and where? China might win a ground war in China, but we ain't about to fight that kind of war with them. US air and seapower is overwhelming and keeps China from going anywhere with their huge and essentially immobile army and their huge sitting duck air force. The US and China will not likely fight a war over Taiwan. China can't afford to lose such a war. And they have no need to try. They have two non-war paths to gaining Taiwan. They can go the way of Hong Kong and simply make the Taiwanese an offer that they can't refuse. As China becomes more democratic the likelihood of this is high. Secondly China still back North Korea as a bargaining chip for Taiwan. For us to end the threat from North Korea, China has to pull it's support. They will do that in exchange for the US pulling its support of Taiwan. China has great ambition from its economic transformation and it has become an economic great power. But it is not a Superpower. Not yet, by any means.
The majority of American citizens would be better off if the government began to roll back the "empire" and start trying to get the financial house in order. Let Japan and Europe start paying for their defense, for example. There is no benefit to being the world's policeman and since the Cold War the US's involvement overseas has only generated more and more resentment towards us. What is the downside to letting Japan fund more of it's defense? South Korea? Germany?
True. And it's bankrupting us, too--A key Al Qaeda strategy. They spend a hundred thousand dollars attacking us and we spend a Trillion dollars occupying two muslim nations that we don't need, don't want, and they hate us. The military doesnt want to be there, they want to gear up to win the next war, not squander billions more trying to turn muslim countries into democracies. It never was the mission. The downside is a huge loss of influence of the foreign policy of those nations. We also lose access to dozens of key forward bases.
Popular Mechanics, December 2010 issue, on news stands now. Enlightening and intended to debunk everything you just said.
