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That is pretty much the only time it would be possible to get a missile up to that kind of speed. And that would put it too close to the GPS satellites to be accurate. And it could not very well evade our radar from an altitude of 30 miles...Originally Posted by Hoosier
Well, this article is has some positives and some negatives as far as thier interaction with the US and the rest of the world is concerned.
I personally have greater concern about China and it's global ambitions than I do Islamic terrorism over the long term. I think the biggest threat China poses militarily is not any theoretical mach 10 missle, but rather their massive industrial capacity. They have more and more modern factories than we do hands down. They also posess vast natural resources. Their ability to manufacture more tanks, ships, guns, missles and other munitions is staggering. Even if our weapons are technologically superior, at some point the sheer numbers will favor China. As such, an American victory in a confrontation with China is not necessarily a foregone conclusion.
Industrial capacity here at home has been in decline for decades. We have been told it is too expensive to produce many things domestically and too many of us have bought into this myth. It may be cheaper to manufacture a lot of things overseas initially, but it is extremely short sighted to think that we won't end up paying the real cost later.
We should never forget that China is still a communist country. They have made many revisions to their economic model which emulate capitalism over the years, but their core philosophy is still a totalitarian approach to government.
This is a very sore subject for me and one I have thought a lot about. Thank you for posting such a thought provoking article Hoosier.
china will not be a problem. they are as much controlled by us as we are by them. militarily they don't scare me one bit. in the nuclear age numbers don't mean squat.
Funny thing is, china was our only ally in Red Dawn.
Somebody told me once that china was the biggest threat the U.S. will ever face, bigger than the soviet union and twice as powerful, practically unbeatable with their million man army.
I said sure, they have a huge army. How are they going to get anywhere? In armor? Trucks? By walking?
The air force has a name for troop concentrations: targets.
The Chinese ARE the enemy in the remake they are doing right now...
Let me provide a little background here to qualify my point. In about five thousand recorded years of history, China has almost without exception been a collection of kingdoms and empires. It's an intrinsic governance pattern that fits China well. Chinese people are, on the whole, probably the MOST naturally/purely/brutally capitalistic people you will find ANYWHERE, and without tight governmental control, shit gets out of hand very quickly.
Coming into the birth of the CCP and the formation of the PRC, you had your core contingent of Maoists, who actually believed in communism and its ideals, along with a great number of fellow travelers who found a power channel, and decided to follow along. With the exception of the cultural revolution, the Chinese economy has largely functioned as a capitalistic system underneath some high level communist-type controls. Actually, I'd argue it still was (perhaps moreso) during the revolution.
After Deng Xiaoping's reforms in the 80s, China's government effectively shed any communist operational paradigms. In Chinese business and society today, you'll find that governmental rules on paper may forbid certain commercial activities, but if you keep a low profile, avoiding the embarrassment of government officials, or are able to grease the right palms, you are commercially free to do ANYTHING. Piss off or embarrass the right officials, though, and you're sent home to your family in a bag, with a bill for the bullet in your head.
Here's where we stand today: The Chinese government is as uncommunist an organization as you can find anywhere on earth. I will even contend that as we view our country here today, America is more socialist/communist than China could hope to be. The "communist" government today is merely an extension of the historical monarchical governmental model, adapted for a modern world, where having an actual concentration of power in the public figurehead is dangerous. It's just monarchy, distributed. So yes, I agree that it's totalitarian, but please don't confuse that with "communist". The "Communism" is just dressing to keep the peasants in line.
A lot of the figures linked in the original article are factual statements of projective figures. That's all right, but it was a common thread in fears of Japan in the 80s. Some of that's going on here. Urban grown is suspect, the growth of Christianity is suspect*, and the remark somewhere about mach 10 missiles is suspect. That said, China has a lot more stamina and momentum behind it than Japan did, and China has a lot longer to go before they hit the limiting equilibrium that Japan exceeded so dramatically. They've been dormant for a long time, and I think you'd be foolish to ignore some very rapid world power changes that're coming. One BILLION people makes a big, big difference.
Actually, I'll close like this. China's military strength is growing fast, and it's scary. Here's what's scarier: America's loss of resolve and the sapping of this country's capabilities by liberal leadership and constituency.
China may or may not win on growth, but they'll DEFINITELY win on America's self-grown demise.
*The growth of christianity I consider especially worth discussing, in light of some comments I've heard from conservative radio commentators. It's nothing - a blip. The chinese government tolerates the religion, at best. If christians show any indication of anti-governmental activity, the country will be eradicated of the religion. Secret police run way too deep in the "house church" movement. If you want to look at future threats, look more towards the migrant labor problem. THAT one WILL blow up.
9mm - because they don't make a 9.1mm
War with china
They are not foreign warmongers. If we don't poop on their sidewalk they will leave us alone.
I don't disagree with anything you said but I get nervous when applying common sense or American sensibilities to other countries. Often they don't equate.
But in the end, I'm more worried about what we're doing to ourselves, and less so with China.
.
Grandpa's Sheriff Badge, Littleton 1920's
One of the more interesting facets about China that doesn't seem to have been addressed and one that I think America's foreign policy is an abject failure on is Africa.
China is a historically far looking society. They are by any measure playing a much longer game than the West is. America is at the forefront of that failure. While China as a landmass has an obscene reserve of natural resources, they are taking a page from the American play book. Pilfer the resources of others first, so what if it costs a little bit to buy your way into those resources. In China's case that purchase cost is fractional infrastructure in those African countries.
Look at the last 5-10 years and you can easily identify where China has spend its money buying up metal, oil and gas and foundational technologies. All the while they fund Western (the US isn't the only country they lend to) debt and utilize that debt (and promise of continued funding of said debt) as leverage to obtain better and more favorable trade status. Additionally they utilize that financial leverage to ensure Western powers turn a blind eye to the literal rape of African natural resources.
Militarily, gentlemen, do not delude yourselves into believing that China is a repeat of the USSR. For those who remember and or served during the cold war, you all know as well as I that the USSR was far more than a legitimate threat to both Europe and CONUS. The greatest concern we should have is the modernization of China's military. That modernization is multifaceted and is focused primarily in to major area's; the Air Force and Navy.
While there are incremental modernization efforts for ground based forces such as a current generation tank, APC, attack helicopter and small arms; the greatest advancements are in the air and water.
A blue water Navy is something very significant for any power that wishes to reach and control any place beyond its own physical borders. China has gone beyond purchasing surplus Russian hardware to fully developing their own designs and technologies. Those technologies, while not on current parity with US and EU designs, are quickly achieving a level of threat that cannot be ignored. The Chines have what they claim is a 5th Generation fighter in development. While the US F-35 is its closest analog, the US F-22 and the yet named X series drone fighters could and should be considered the 6th and 7th generation platforms. FYI the F-22 and F-35 are both roughly considered 5th generation due to their inherent stealth and super cruise capabilities.
No gentlemen (and ladies) China is a multifaceted threat that should not be constrained to any single area be it political, financial, space based, militarily or industrial. Open your minds to the bigger picture and the threat of China quickly followed by India should give you pause.
America is a sleeping giant, I doubt any polity doubts that. The question many of those governments ask themselves is "how to we keep America asleep or push it into comma?"
Sadly, until we have a government that can realize (and execute) that both foreign and domestic policies must balance, we are driving deeper into sleep and eventual comma.
hmm.... Bear goes RRAAWR!!!!
As I read this thread...
I drink coffee from a cup made in...
China!
Maybe the cup is poisoning me!
Pistol Packing Preacher - Have Sermon-Will Travel. [John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10; Titus 3:4-7]
NRA Basic Pistol Instructor. Utah CCW Instructor.
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