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I don't think you can predict what the outcome would have been from any of those decisions with any amount of certainty.
How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
61–70 of 70 posts
Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
#62Honestly I don't see a problem with it. We already waste too much money in the United States trying to be the world police, and there's no good reason for it any more. We have too many of our own problems to deal with to waste so much money on that crap.
The entire "world police" concept is ridiculous and used to mask the true colonialist ambitions the US operates under. The reason this is a "problem" is that it might make China richer rather than the US. The notion that the US military has been a force of good for the world needs to be abandoned. It serves only to encourage the US to attack more countries, as killing millions more Asians would be viewed as the more…
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
America, every European colonial power, Britian, the Soviet Union, and Imperial Japan have each had their share of atrocities where they were unchallenged superpowers.
There's a lot to be said for multipolarity.
Additionally, I'd point out the US funds ~1/4 of the UN (China next at ~1/10). Which seems pretty generous to maintaining internal order in a broad way.
Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's not just a weasel qualifier. There is mandatory military spending in the US, e.g. pensions paid to retired members of the military. So? When you're talking about how the military budget is too big, how does it make sense to exclude all the mandatory social spending from the calculation? > Sure, but the extent to which it does it is largely discretionary. That's not the point. Because defense is one of the few…
I wasn't trying to refute your larger point that quoting some arbitrary part of a government's total % of GDP spending is mostly meaningless. I was saying that your claim that "discretionary" in "discretionary military spending" is a weasel qualifier is wrong, because that part of the budget is meaningfully broken down into discretionary and non-discretionary spending. You can decide to scale active military personne…
> I was saying that your claim that "discretionary" in "discretionary military spending" is a weasel qualifier is wrong
In the above, the "discretionary" qualifier is being applied to "federal spending" not "military spending."
> So you keep saying, but the upthread comment is clearly about how much is being spent on that topic. Just because there's a law saying a certain part of the government is entrusted with a given task doesn't mean it's not meaningful to discuss how much needs to be spent on that task.
The upstream comment is arguing that too much is being spent on defense by pointing to defense spending being a high percentage of discretionary federal spending. It is meaningful to discuss whether too much is being spent on the military. But it's misleading to make that argument by pointing out that the part of the government that's meant to provide for defense (and little else) spends a large fraction of its budget on defense.
It's like the statement that "44% of Americans pay no federal income tax." That statement is technically true, but calculated to mislead because it ignores that most of the total tax burden is not "federal income tax." Likewise, more than 80% of total governmental spending is not "federal discretionary spending."
Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t get it. Why is any of this true? If this is true, why doesn’t the US also take in refugees from all over the world, and take over building schools or doing more humanitarian aid as well? What exactly is the moral principle that “someone” has to do these things, and why does that “someone” have to be the US?
If no one fights off the Somali pirates, then no one can sail their shipping boats through those passages, and the US turns a net profit by fending off the Somali pirates because no one else can/will do it. That said, it still sucks that we're the ones that have to do it.
> the US turns a net profit by fending off the Somali pirates
citation needed. Given that the US military spends more than every other national military on earth combined those must be some damn profitable pirates.
Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
#65I can't be the only one noticing so much noise about China in American media. Is America really so scared of being number 2?
There are many alternative hypotheses to your rather provocative and insulting one. As China's prominence or output rise, it makes sense coverage would rise too. It also makes sense that as China has more impact on the world, it will naturally affect the interests of a greater number of people. This in turn, means more people have a stake in something China is or isn't doing.
It's not meant to be a provocation or an insult. It's just interesting to see how ingrained American exceptionalism is in our psyches. So much so that we are almost willingly blind to how far behind we've fallen.
Also, the media and conversations towards China haven't been less than provocative. Your stance of China being more visible because they now have more impact is accurate. It's more humble, more like a true winner, a true sport who was number 1 for many years but accepts there's another game in town.
But unfortunately, we're seeing more catty behavior than mature winner behavior
Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
#66I can't be the only one noticing so much noise about China in American media. Is America really so scared of being number 2?
Humans are afraid of being number 2 after being number 1. All of them would be.
How about being humble, accepting and competing to regain number 1 without being catty high schooler about it?
Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
#67Honestly I don't see a problem with it. We already waste too much money in the United States trying to be the world police, and there's no good reason for it any more. We have too many of our own problems to deal with to waste so much money on that crap.
The entire "world police" concept is ridiculous and used to mask the true colonialist ambitions the US operates under. The reason this is a "problem" is that it might make China richer rather than the US. The notion that the US military has been a force of good for the world needs to be abandoned. It serves only to encourage the US to attack more countries, as killing millions more Asians would be viewed as the more…
>The entire "world police" concept is ridiculous and used to mask the true colonialist ambitions the US operates under.
Can you provide proof or is this just something you want to be true?
If the United States has used the military to colonize, we should get a refund. The US military didn't deliver Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan.
Also, if the US uses its military to colonize, why does the military do so many humanitarian missions? Sending food to starving people seems like a bad way to colonize, you'd expect the military to at least bomb people.
Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
#68Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
The SU was also much smaller than NATO wrt to population, it's reversed with China.
NATO countries have a comparable population to China, 938 million, according to this: http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/nato-countries/
Yeah, it's not a 2:1 thing, but 40% more is still significant.
NATO countries are much more industrialized than China (the same applied when the SU was the opponent), so that certainly helps.
Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
your priorities seem way off to me, I don't care if these countries disagree about trade but climate change needs everyone on board. Also, we don't need China following the US regime change war machine.
Count Europe out as well. With Italy officially joining the Belt and Road and Hungary expressing interest we should align ourselves with the future not a dying America.
Sure, China has the best interests of europe in mind. /s Or could they be trying to split Italy off with their populist govt not have much experience and wanting to show they are 'independent'.