As the economic prowess grows nations can spend more on military. This is what we see happening.
I'm sure you're capable of using Google just as I did. Don't be lazy.
And you think that's relevant to the discussion how?
***
China and Russia are not new players, this is not China's first threat of nuclear war to the US or of war in general. China has had designs on those islands for a very long time.
Ashton Carter is sounding like the North Korean leader with his rhetoric.
Neither are new players regarding US intervention either. Neither are new regarding threataning war on the US, of threatening nuclear war on the US, of attacking the US economy, of threatening US alies so as to goad us into unessecary conflicts, of supporting our enemies, of hacking US government servers.....China and Russia are new players against U.S. intervention because they have now started to challenge it.
It is going to be quite rough in the next years as relative power shifts more and more and a multi polar structure emerges. And it is going to be painful and will very probably end in nuclear war. What in this context might seem surprising is that such a global conflict need not be between the USA and Russia or China. It can easily develop out of skirmishes in the Himalaya or border controversies along the European southern rim. Coalitions and alliances will shift and change as the situation begins to resemble pre ww1 history. So at least the theory of non-cooperative games might let us expect.
Neither are new players regarding US intervention either. Neither are new regarding threataning war on the US, of threatening nuclear war on the US, of attacking the US economy, of threatening US alies so as to goad us into unessecary conflicts, of supporting our enemies, of hacking US government servers.....
The US and China are not new in any respect. If anyone's new, it's the US.
Yes, I agree. Somehow these big three need to sit down together and have a good talk, learn to cooperate but that’s going to be a bitter pill for the U.S. to swallow and accept that it’s no longer the dominant lone moral guardian in the world. Britain had to go through the same transition when it lost its Empire. Together, the big three in cooperation could probably succeed in the war on terror much better than the U.S. trying to keep its dominant status.
1. Neither Russia or China have challenged the U.S. previously with nuclear strikes as far as I’m aware.
2. Again, links please to your dates on China and Russia threatening the U.S.
3. Are you aware that the U.S. is in debt to China for over a trillion dollars? If China recalled its loans, the U.S. economy would probably go bankrupt tomorrow.
4. The U.S. is itself involved in hacking, (Read up on what whistle blowers like Snowden told you). All major powers engage in espionage, propaganda and subversion.
5. The U.S. is ''new'' in what respect?
Russia informed Denmark, I think it was, that their boats would be targets for nuclear attack, if they participate in the missile defense system. As far as I remember the Russian strategy papers are quite clear on nuclear weapons' use. But it seems child like to squabble on this point. The fact is quite obvious as is it unquestioned that the USA will use nukes under certain circumstances.
Yes, I agree. Somehow these big three need to sit down together and have a good talk, learn to cooperate but that’s going to be a bitter pill for the U.S. to swallow and accept that it’s no longer the dominant lone moral guardian in the world. Britain had to go through the same transition when it lost its Empire. Together, the big three in cooperation could probably succeed in the war on terror much better than the U.S. trying to keep its dominant status.
It doesn't have to be viewed that way. Why not see it as a relief, a little help. Spread the weight, expense and responsibility around a little bit. Free the US up to focus on MUCH NEEDED domestic attentions!!!
Yes, it would be an ideal situation, but that means the U.S. loses its dominance. Russia and China have already suggested cooperation, but at the moment it’s America that won’t back down.
I’m a newbie and don’t want to be savaged at this early stage, but I’ll put out some opinions. Although it deviates from the thread topic, it does concern America’s role in assuming responsibility in world affairs.
America has brought on itself the problems it now faces.
You can’t change centuries old cultures by invasions.
You can’t wander around the world removing dictators such as Saddam and Gaddafi who held potentially explosive countries together and wonder why it unleashed a Pandora’s box of nightmares.
You can’t enforce a system of democracy on those that don’t want it using moral relativism.
Look at the countries that have had invasions, regimes changes, Arab springs and ‘strategic surgical strikes’ (a polite euphemism for a bomb on your head if you fail to comply) and you’ll smell oil. Pakistan is a hot bed of terrorism and Saudi Arabia, a known funder of terrorism, is an autocratic monarchy, arguably a dictatorship itself. Both comply with the U.S; Libya, Iraq and Syria didn’t; Russia and China won’t, can you see a pattern emerging as NATO moves its forces close to the Russian border and the U.S. considers sending the navy and air force to the Chinese border?
While there are currently tensions between the U.S. and China related to China's assertive steps in the South China Sea, one should not assume that war is the only possible outcome, much less a likely one. As China is a rapidly rising power, it is testing its new place in the global balance of power. While risks exist, including that of eventual war, there are many other paths that can be taken. The tensions could just as easily lead to an informal de facto arrangement that reduces tensions on both sides under which each party has clear understanding of the other's needs and accommodates them. That won't change China's territorial claims, but it could lead it to take less provocative steps that are seen as posing a potential threat to free passage of shipping.
Finally, for what it's worth, during my visit to China last year, the younger people in Beijing were particularly curious and open to the world outside China. The kind of suspicion that was written about in books during the 1970s was not evident in the younger people. Nevertheless, one should not naively expect China to cede its interests. No self-respecting country simply abandons its interests. Good management on both sides of the Pacific can allow the U.S. and China to collaborate where they have shared interests and effectively manage the areas of differences to avoid miscalculation and/or conflict. The parties are currently in the early stages of feeling their way through an area of differences.
Sandwiched between the usual banal topics of gay marriage and Ferguson, is a U.S. threat to send ships and aircraft to the South China sea over the disputed islands. America claims that the dispute is about territorial rights in the sea itself and China says it’s about the islands themselves.
Do you, like me, get a feeling of a possible big catastrophe coming in the not too distant future?
An American response
China cautions U.S. Navy on patrols in South China Sea - CNNPolitics.com
‘Washington (CNN)—The U.S. is considering deploying aircraft and ships to contest Chinese claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Options are on the table to fly surveillance aircraft and sail Navy ships nearby in a move that puts the U.S. directly into a contentious territorial contest in East Asia, in which, until now, the U.S. has avoided overtly taking sides.’
China replies
Chinese State Paper Warns "War Will Be Inevitable" Unless U.S. Stops Meddling In Territorial Dispute | Zero Hedge
'A war between the United States and China is “inevitable” unless Washington stops demanding Beijing halt its construction projects in the South China Sea, a Chinese state-owned newspaper warns.
“If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea,” The Global Times, an influential newspaper owned by the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper the People’s Daily, said in an editorial Monday.'
Will America back down? Possibly the idea will be shelved, or it might end in a stalemate. America will sail through the South China seas as it’s entitled to do but keeping well away from the islands and stick it’s tongue out and China will boast it didn’t intervene because it didn’t come near the islands. Face saved on both sides and everyone goes home happy.
The alternative is that America does intrude on the islands in which case China will react. The loss of face, which are often grounds for suicide in Asia, will force them to do so.
An alternative view
?'Nuclear war our likely future': Russia & China won't accept US hegemony, Reagan official warns ? RT News
"The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the "world’s acceptance of Washington’s hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.
Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of world peace is the world’s acceptance of Washington’s hegemony."
I think what America increasingly has to accept is that there are two new kids on the block called Russia and China and both have threatened to use nuclear weapons. China is not in opposition to a U.S. military presence in places like Japan or South Korea, but like Putin with the Ukraine and now China with the islands dispute, both are increasingly drawing red lines of their own in their own backyards.
A couple of things don. While I don't think that I've seen anybody suggesting that war between the US and China is the only possible outcome! What's concerning is that rhetoric on both sides rises to the point of irresponsible, with the appearance that there are no alternatives between doing nothing and going to war with China! Mulling around sending a larger naval presence to the SCS, along with Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and China, who's navies are already out and about just seems to be a potential for "incident" in the crowded invironment.
Good morning, John V. :2wave:
Hegemony: Preponderant influence or authority over others.
I agree with your post, especially the last paragraph. Since the end of WW2, we have become the "parent" to the rest of the world, and for the most part, we have done a decent job. Other great civilizations in history had also enjoyed that role primarily due to military superiority. However, nothing lasts forever, and the "children" today have now grown strong enough that they apparently feel a challenge to our sole leadership is warranted, since they also have comparable military strength, and they do not want us deciding their future for them.
Some sort of compromise is very necessary now, since heavy-handedness on anyone's part could destroy this planet, and every living thing on it. No one country has the right to control shipping lanes or where planes may or may not fly, since those have already been internationally accepted by everyone. I can only hope that adults understand that, and will find a solution that is acceptable to all concerned.
I am also including the ME in my post, since they are generally getting away with things we won't put up with from any other region on this globe - while we demonize Russia and China for trying the same thing? That's nonsense! Let's have a little honesty here!
Russia informed Denmark, I think it was, that their boats would be targets for nuclear attack, if they participate in the missile defense system. As far as I remember the Russian strategy papers are quite clear on nuclear weapons' use. But it seems child like to squabble on this point. The fact is quite obvious as is it unquestioned that the USA will use nukes under certain circumstances.
I think what Russia warned Denmark about is if it joined NATO’s defence system, it would itself become a target if hostilities escalated and not that it would attack Denmark if it joined.
Yes, more and more want nuclear power, but the U.S. can’t intervene in North Korea because that would involve China and China can’t intervene in Pakistan because that would involve the U.S.
My point was that if the big three joined in cooperation, this could be halted by mutual agreement instead of antagonising each other and everyone drawing ‘red lines’, daring and prodding each other. I personally think that's unlikely to happen and so although the U.S. is prepared to use WMD's, the danger now is that so are others.
it's fairly unlikely that China is going to nuke one of its largest markets.
I’ll go for that view too.
Perhaps it’s time for America to stop policing the world and become a little more isolationist and concentrate on its own internal security, in its own backyard?
I think that what isn’t fully understood in the west is that if sanctions hit Russia hard, their answer is to tighten their belts. In China’s case, a few cities incinerated and the loss of tens of millions wouldn’t be seen as losing. Several years ago I wondered why China was building ‘ghost cities’. Now I wonder if they know something we don’t.
The problem I think is that America has never seen real war on its own doorstep, the closest it got was 9/11 and that shocked it to the core. TV news of ‘shock and awe’ in Iraq were watched by millions sitting in a chair in the comfort of their own homes, oohing and aahing at the pretty lights and loud bangs – it was somewhere else. The U.S. is so technology advanced and reliant, that a couple of nuclear explosions on major cities and the chaos and anarchy that follows would pretty much send it back to the days of the Founding Fathers. Can you imagine the lights going out in Europe or America for more than a few hours? It’s having problems now keeping the lid on civil unrest.
No doubt someone will pop up and say no one would dare challenge the U.S. to which I’d reply; they already have.
Nevermind largest market since China knows that in doing so, it's population will be reduced to zero in a similar, retaliatory attack.
Sandwiched between the usual banal topics of gay marriage and Ferguson, is a U.S. threat to send ships and aircraft to the South China sea over the disputed islands. America claims that the dispute is about territorial rights in the sea itself and China says it’s about the islands themselves.
Do you, like me, get a feeling of a possible big catastrophe coming in the not too distant future?
An American response
China cautions U.S. Navy on patrols in South China Sea - CNNPolitics.com
‘Washington (CNN)—The U.S. is considering deploying aircraft and ships to contest Chinese claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Options are on the table to fly surveillance aircraft and sail Navy ships nearby in a move that puts the U.S. directly into a contentious territorial contest in East Asia, in which, until now, the U.S. has avoided overtly taking sides.’
China replies
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-25/war-will-be-inevitable-unless-us-stops-meddling-terrotorial-dispute-chinese-state-ne
'A war between the United States and China is “inevitable” unless Washington stops demanding Beijing halt its construction projects in the South China Sea, a Chinese state-owned newspaper warns.
“If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea,” The Global Times, an influential newspaper owned by the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper the People’s Daily, said in an editorial Monday.'
Will America back down? Possibly the idea will be shelved, or it might end in a stalemate. America will sail through the South China seas as it’s entitled to do but keeping well away from the islands and stick it’s tongue out and China will boast it didn’t intervene because it didn’t come near the islands. Face saved on both sides and everyone goes home happy.
The alternative is that America does intrude on the islands in which case China will react. The loss of face, which are often grounds for suicide in Asia, will force them to do so.
An alternative view
?'Nuclear war our likely future': Russia & China won't accept US hegemony, Reagan official warns ? RT News
"The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the "world’s acceptance of Washington’s hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.
Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of world peace is the world’s acceptance of Washington’s hegemony."
I think what America increasingly has to accept is that there are two new kids on the block called Russia and China and both have threatened to use nuclear weapons. China is not in opposition to a U.S. military presence in places like Japan or South Korea, but like Putin with the Ukraine and now China with the islands dispute, both are increasingly drawing red lines of their own in their own backyards.
That is one way of looking at it. Very similar to saying that war was not necessary in 1914 or 1939. True in some ways.
On the other hand, it is a very traditional view of history and as history has proven the best way of finding ourselves in the midst of war again.
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