Talk-Polywell.org

They have better education than you

Maybe. Maybe not. If China is stuck with better schools and America is stuck with a more open Internet my bet would be on the US.

China has not solved the governing problem. And half the country is peasants. Will they go the way of South Korea and Taiwan? Maybe. Will they have a civil war instead? Maybe.

China is doing well from a low base. We have seen that over and over. But can they keep economically improving with an aging population? Doubtful. Will planning keep producing miracles? Doubtful.

There are 64 million unused housing units in China. For a population where at minimum several hundreds of millions are ill housed. Sounds like they have a bubble. i.e. dwellings not matching the income of the dwellers.

Aero wrote:

hanelyp wrote:Peace through superior firepower. No one in their right mind picks a fight they'll lose. And if someone not in their right mind picks a fight, best to have the means to put them in their place quickly.

Death before dishonor.

Fine. Death it is then.

Newsflash, the US has already the capability to turn half of the landmass into a radioactive wasteland. So really, a couple more weaponsystems are not going to make a difference in regards to being deterrents...

And if that is the only option it might not get used when needed. Better to have lesser capabilities as well.

For anything else, why would you need to deterr people?

Because war is bad for business. Deterrence is cheaper. Generally.

For the deterrence to work you have to be willing to crush an occasional opponent. pour encourager les autres

You missunderstood my question.
"Why would you need to deterr people that do not want to attack US soil?"

Eisenhower was an asshole and strong supporter of the Morgenthau plan. He wanted to "erase Germany from the map".
Not a nice guy.

Eisenhower had direct experience with the "camps". It probably colored his thinking.

Skipjack wrote:You missunderstood my question.
"Why would you need to deterr people that do not want to attack US soil?"

Well Saddam was threatening our oil supply lines. Why wouldn't we want to deter him? When he didn't take the hint from '91 he got '03.

And actually it was European oil that was most threatened.

The Saudis of course had fears about Saddam. Why not take him out and try to set up some kind of representative government in Iraq?

BTW the US is currently the world's peace keeper and the only nation mostly trusted to do the job. Wars are bad for business. Why wouldn't the US want to deter them? Currently the US is not just another country. And the world would be worse off if it was. Given the current world geopolitical situation. Maybe in 50 or 100 years things will be different.

Eisenhower had direct experience with the "camps". It probably colored his thinking.

Uhm, cant be. He did not get to see the "camps" until the end of the war. By then the Morgenthau plan had already lost support.

Wars are bad for business.

Unless you are in the weapons industry, the most powerful lobby in the US.
The US has by far the largest defense budget in the world. This is also bad for business (unless you are in the defense industry). IMHO it is unsustainable.

On Europes oil being threatened. Seeing that most European countries were against the war and that most European countries did not join the US in the war, I have to wonder whether that was really such a big deal.
The US is of course trying to profit from the Iraq war. Certain US companies are doing really good business there. Whether that is worth the lives of so many US troops is of course a question.

They are in a high stress situation too and then they do foolish and cruel things.

The German Army was undisciplined? Another illusion shot to pieces.

The German Army was undisciplined? Another illusion shot to pieces.

Less than any other army. I was trying to emphasize that the Germans were only humans too and not holy men. But then show me any army that is.

Unless you are in the weapons industry, the most powerful lobby in the US.

Not these days. Public employees unions now take the cake.

BTW the most respected public institution in the US is its armed forces. They will get most everything they ask for for that reason. Our Congress is around 10% approval and the military is up around 67%.

Our current President's approval is now below 45% and is dropping about 1% a month (actually a little faster). If that rate continues (doubtful) he will be below 30% come the next election season.

Skipjack wrote:

The German Army was undisciplined? Another illusion shot to pieces.

Less than any other army.

No. It was policy. When Generals went to the Corporal to protest the atrocities they were told it was none of their business.

When I said the German Army of the time was undisciplined I was making a joke on the conventional meaning. But in fact it was undisciplined. And the orders to not discipline the Army came from the top.

If that rate continues (doubtful) he will be below 30% come the next election season.

Yeah, which is surprising given how much worse your last president was.
Also, no matter how much approval your army has, spending that much money on it is going to become more and more difficult with the US economy as it is. I doubt that you will be able to keep it up for very much longer.

No. It was policy. When Generals went to the Corporal to protest the atrocities they were told it was none of their business.

When I said the German Army of the time was undisciplined I was making a joke on the conventional meaning. But in fact it was undisciplined. And the orders to not discipline the Army came from the top.

ROFL