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Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

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Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#21

Post by forapurpose »

monocasa wrote: post #4

Come on, building and rebuilding other country's economies is a boon to the local economy, particularly when that other country is footing the bill. That's literally why the US was on top starting at the end of WWII. Not everything the Soviets were doing in the 70s is the reason for their downfall.

> building and rebuilding other country's economies is a boon to the local economy, particularly when that other country is footing the bill. That's literally why the US was on top starting at the end of WWII.

I'm sure it helped, but the U.S. was already by far the dominant power before that economic activity.

At the end of WWII, the U.S. produced half of the world's GDP, a staggering number. It was the only advanced country which was physically untouched by the war, it had troops stationed throughout Europe and the Pacific, and it was the only country with nuclear weapons.

It says a lot, IMHO, that the U.S. didn't pursue a global empire at that point.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#22

Post by ilikehurdles »

rgbrenner wrote: post #19
Anarch157a wrote: post #16

>Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become overextended, the splurge of spending to sustain a strategic edge leaves more productive parts of the economy starved of capital, leading to inevitable decline. This describes the US better than China. The US spends 7.8% of it's GDP on the military, while China spends only 1.9%. If any country is o…

I was with you on the first sentence.. but where did you get 7.8%? We only spend 3.5%. [Edit: World bank puts it at 3.1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat... ] And according to the military, most of this higher than average spending is due to the military being voluntary, and needing to compete on wages in one of the highest earning countries in the world. Whether you agree with the militar…

Yep, you have to employ a lot of people to maintain military occupations in an ever-growing list of countries. Clearly we should cut benefits.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#24

Post by rgbrenner »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #22
rgbrenner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you on the first sentence.. but where did you get 7.8%? We only spend 3.5%. [Edit: World bank puts it at 3.1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat... ] And according to the military, most of this higher than average spending is due to the military being voluntary, and needing to compete on wages in one of the highest earning countries in the world. Whether you agree with the militar…

Yep, you have to employ a lot of people to maintain military occupations in an ever-growing list of countries. Clearly we should cut benefits.

We could cut the size of the military... but simply making the observation that we have a large number of people doesn't explain anything. China's military is 2x the size of the US by number of people.

It certainly doesn't follow that the richer and more valuable a country becomes (and therefore more expensive personnel), the smaller their military should be.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#25

Post by spacehome »

rgbrenner wrote: post #19
Anarch157a wrote: post #16

>Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become overextended, the splurge of spending to sustain a strategic edge leaves more productive parts of the economy starved of capital, leading to inevitable decline. This describes the US better than China. The US spends 7.8% of it's GDP on the military, while China spends only 1.9%. If any country is o…

I was with you on the first sentence.. but where did you get 7.8%? We only spend 3.5%. [Edit: World bank puts it at 3.1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat... ] And according to the military, most of this higher than average spending is due to the military being voluntary, and needing to compete on wages in one of the highest earning countries in the world. Whether you agree with the militar…

It's really hard to get a precise number of how much money we spend on military. The budget for the military is snuck into other line items and obscures the true cost. For instance the VA is not included, even though we only need the VA due to having veterans. And the costs for nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are included in the Department of Energy's budget.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#26

Post by taobility »

rgbrenner wrote: post #19
Anarch157a wrote: post #16

>Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become overextended, the splurge of spending to sustain a strategic edge leaves more productive parts of the economy starved of capital, leading to inevitable decline. This describes the US better than China. The US spends 7.8% of it's GDP on the military, while China spends only 1.9%. If any country is o…

I was with you on the first sentence.. but where did you get 7.8%? We only spend 3.5%. [Edit: World bank puts it at 3.1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat... ] And according to the military, most of this higher than average spending is due to the military being voluntary, and needing to compete on wages in one of the highest earning countries in the world. Whether you agree with the militar…

according this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War, the direct spending of DoD on Iraq war is about $757.8 billion, do you think most of that spending on the labor?

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#27

Post by nabla9 »

When you compare the cost of Belt and Road to wars that cost trillions of dollars, the money spent is peanuts.

The belt and road is already working. China-Finland train link connects Nordic countries with China in 10-12 days. They carry heavy and expensive machinery and machine parts between China and EU. Too heavy for air-travel economically and needs to arrive relatively fast.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#28

Post by Barrin92 »

I don't see any justification for the Soviet analogy other than wanting to conjure up the image of the impending collapse of China. This sounds like the infrastructure version of the 'financial bubble' prediction that crops up every other year.

If one wanted to pick a positive story there would be the example of the American progressive era, the creation of the interstate system, the railway system during the 19th century, and so forth. Not every large infrastructure project is indicative of corruption, someone needs to build infrastructure, after all, I don't think we've somehow transcended the need for transportation.

That there's military or geopolitical motivation, especially as far as the land component of the belt and road initiative is concerned seems accurate, but doesn't strike me as particularly bad. From a Chinese perspective it obviously makes sense to invest into continental infrastructure because it does not control the sea.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#29

Post by baud147258 »

forapurpose wrote: post #21
monocasa wrote: post #4

Come on, building and rebuilding other country's economies is a boon to the local economy, particularly when that other country is footing the bill. That's literally why the US was on top starting at the end of WWII. Not everything the Soviets were doing in the 70s is the reason for their downfall.

> building and rebuilding other country's economies is a boon to the local economy, particularly when that other country is footing the bill. That's literally why the US was on top starting at the end of WWII. I'm sure it helped, but the U.S. was already by far the dominant power before that economic activity. At the end of WWII, the U.S. produced half of the world's GDP, a staggering number. It was the only advanced…

>It says a lot, IMHO, that the U.S. didn't pursue a global empire at that point.

I think that, politically, it would have never been accepted by the population or the (conscription-based) army. Also they ended with big not-quite empire with NATO soon after.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#30

Post by lwf »

spacehome wrote: post #25
rgbrenner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you on the first sentence.. but where did you get 7.8%? We only spend 3.5%. [Edit: World bank puts it at 3.1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat... ] And according to the military, most of this higher than average spending is due to the military being voluntary, and needing to compete on wages in one of the highest earning countries in the world. Whether you agree with the militar…

It's really hard to get a precise number of how much money we spend on military. The budget for the military is snuck into other line items and obscures the true cost. For instance the VA is not included, even though we only need the VA due to having veterans. And the costs for nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are included in the Department of Energy's budget.

The VA is a weird case — if we had comprehensive medical coverage for all Americans, the because-of-military costs would only be those incurred due to care for wounded veterans.

I believe that's a minority of the VA's expenditures, but sometimes it is hard to separate. For example, my grandfather receives a hearing aid from the VA — is that because of too much time spent around jet planes, or just due to age?

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