121–130 of 555 posts
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I wish we'd get rid of this rule entirely. Just seems like naked protectionism, no? If a non-US carrier abides by local regulations, I don't see an issue with letting them run domestic flights.
You make it sound like that's a US-specific rule, but there's an equivalent rule in basically every country (with some exceptions, the main one being between EU member states).
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So get your luggage? Deboarding, going through immigration, getting luggage, and going through customs takes no more than 45 minutes at Narita. Give yourself a 2 hour layover to be safe. Or pack like Rick Steves and just bring a backpack with the essentials.
You don’t need to go through immigration at Narita if you are just transferring planes at the airport.
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I don't understand why "only" and "and nothing more" are present in that sentence. You don't think strategic projection of power is important?
What about those islanders though? "Power projection" is important. But it's sad that its at the expense of human beings who live and work there.
Why do you think it is happening at their expense? The other option is leaving these alone and letting the likes of China and Russia run the world.
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I know someone who grew up near a US base in the Philippines. Her father was employed as a cook at the base. When the base was closed, they went back to eeking out a living through subsistence farming. There are some positive economic impacts for the locals.
Capitalism good according to capitalism
-- Socialism pointing at subsistence farmers happy at earning a good wage
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You don’t need to go through immigration at Narita if you are just transferring planes at the airport.
You don't get a transfer if you've bought two separate flights. You have to pick up your luggage and put it on the next flight.
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No. The United States was the world's superpower on December 6, 1941. It did not get to that position by keeping the military machine well oiled. On December 6, 1941, the US vs. rest of world might have been a fair fight. Maybe. That didn't happen by being the world police.
> On December 6, 1941, the US vs. rest of world might have been a fair fight. Maybe. No, it wouldn't have. The US would likely have lost the fight, especially if you consider that in such a counterfactual world there probably wouldn't have been a WW2 going on for the past few years. While it is difficult to be more precise about when the US became the top world power than "during WW2", it is pretty clear to most know…
The US had industrial power before 1941, before 1911, starting in the 1890s.
The US could turn that into military power any time it wanted to, and in the time period between the world wars, it didn't want to.
After 1941, it wanted to. Because of a lot of lies, but that's another discussion entirely.
The usual lies and distortions that we expect from the Times . Just some examples: >In 1893, Americans overthrew the monarchy in Hawaii, then later annexed the island. A committee of native-born Hawaii citizens, Americans, and Europeans overthrew the monarchy, not the US government. The US didn't annex Hawaii until the Spanish War in 1898 demonstrated the islands' importance to the US. >a series of Supreme Court ruli…
The native-born citizens in the Committee of Safety [0] were almost all second and third generation descendants of Americans. No ethnic Hawaiians were members.
While the committee was composed of private citizens, they acted with the ultimate goal of annexation with the United States. They were crucially supported by a contingent of US troops that surrounded the palace of the Hawaiian monarchy on the orders of the chief American diplomat, whose interests in annexation aligned with the committee. [1]
0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Safety_(Hawaii)
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_Ki...
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Sometimes you have to let countries duke it out themselves and settle their scores by themselves. I also think post Cold War, we're spending way too much money protecting others at US taxpayer expense. Let those countries defend themselves. Why do we have to be the world police and take all the blowback?
American actions post world war II and post cold war are founded from the experience post-world War I, when USA left Europe to fend for itself, defend itself, and rebuild itself it resulted in a much worse outcome for the world. We tried again after World War II, but after it became clear that Europe would be ripped apart by their internal issues after World War II, and stalin would exploit that to continue to drive…
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The dollar became the world currency by accident after the OPEC started pricing petroleum in dollars. We're starting to see a slow departure from that. If we did not spend those extra tens of billions per year in projecting power, we could better serve our students, workers, retirees, infrastructure, etc. Instead, they go to ensuring Japan, Korea, Philippines, etc. don't have to spend so much on defense. As China asc…
> I'd be happy [if China] were the ones keeping shipping lanes for their own exports open and not us History's not on your side for that one. You're talking about the country that, plagued by pirates disturbing its coastal shipping, went to massive expense to construct an enormous system of inland canals running parallel to the coast that the pirates couldn't reach. If Chinese merchants wanted the sea kept clear, say…
Except that's history. Reality today is not on your side. PRC has more ship building capacity than rest of world combined. Annual production of dead weight tons per year is about 6x-8x more than output US emergency ship building program during WW2. Not to mention most new PRC surface combatants do anti piracy tours out to Africa. If PRC/PLAN wanted to take over piracy protection for her SLOCs, they can basically do so already, plenty of small hulls being retired to coast guard that even they have enough capacity to do it.
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Flight costs are a pain, and the flight durations are nothing to sneeze at either. I live out in Guam (my wife is stationed here with the Navy) and the two most common ways to get back to the mainland are via Tokyo (Narita) and Honolulu. I would definitely encourage visiting if you have the means! I find there are two types of people here: those who feel limited by the island and its infrastructure (no Target, no Sta…
> those who feel limited by the island and its infrastructure (no Target, no Starbucks, etc.) I hate those people. I live in a city of 1.5 million (there's everything here), and it's a constant background radiation talking point for a significant number of my highschool friends: how unfortunate they are that they don't live in the nearby city of 15 million. IME this constant moping has everything to do with the amoun…