China's military expansion continues

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/strategy-policy-12/

No no, it's fine. Remember, only the US is an evil imperialist expansionist power seeking world hegemony. Everybody else is just a poor li'l innocent trying to find safety in a hostile world.

Another failure of Nixon and Reagan.

Said absolutely no-one ever.

Not saying it aint so, but the fucking Pentagon would say that, wouldn't they? Any minor erosion of their absolute hegemony is treated as a doomsday scenario.
Are they ever going to issue a report saying that threats are receding or of little significance? No, they're always going to conjure up some justification to further bloat their outrageous budget.

Ta-daaaahhh!!!

Are you trying to equate what I posted with your stupid comment in Post #2?

Only because it's like I opened the door and you stumbled merrily through it.

The most troubling part, imho, is their declaration that the entire South China Sea is their property, beyond the internationally agreed-upon 12 mi limit, and their literally building islands in it for military bases, blatantly threatening international shipping.

The cute little film of Chinese forces invading Guam should be concerning, but is most likely posturing. For now.

They've been rattling sabres at Taiwan for decades, so maybe not so much immediate worry there, but who knows when they're going to feel they're powerful enough to actually try to take the island by force.

My personal belief is that China would have to be nuts to actually start a war. They're already the manufacturing capital of the world making trillions off everybody. Why risk that for land grabs?

Because China sees itself as the only proper civilization in the world. Everyone else is a vassal state at best, barbarians at worst. They also have what, about two centuries of being pummeled by other countries to avenge? And a lot of what they're up to is driven by the need of the leadership to maintain and expand economic gains to legitimize all the shady shit they pull internally in terms of oppression of their people.

I doubt very much they would, at least a war between major powers.

Why would they?

I'm sorry @Lanzman but @RickDeckard is right, this is just another round of military dick measuring where any suggestion of the US NOT being in a position of global dominance is treated as the coming apocalypse.

China are a growing power, inevitably they will expand their military.

Just like you have been doing all this time.

In other news water is wet.

Again.

Just like you.

Certainly not JUST like us. There has to be someone to keep the schoolyard bullies in check.

And of course now you say the US is the schoolyard bully, and we go round and round and what's the use.

Even if China invades and absorbs Taiwan and Guam, you'll find a way to excuse it, or say they're just like us.

I'll not excuse it at all.

But I will point out you've invaded far more countries in the past century than they have.

To you I imagine not being top dog is a scary thought, you're used to the sense of security that goes with it.

For those of us who aren't used to it nothing much has changed.

Superpowers compete for dominance. We've all sat for years in between you and Russia playing silly buggers, waiting for someone to go that one step too far and obliterate the rest of us in the crossfire.

So what's changed?

You're playing silly buggers with China instead, but still with all our lives at stake. Please don't add further insult to that by dressing it up as keeping us safe.

Safe would be not being at the mercy of two (or three) or behemoths who don't care who they trample over to maintain face.

Eh....

No.

Now, there are some parallels between the CPC and the modern Republican Party. Both have moved beyond principles and embraced power for power’s sake, the rule of oligarchs, and use nationalism and fear of minorities/social disruption to keep their base in line with the added promise of economic rewards sprinkled in.

Thankfully unlike the PRC we aren’t a one party state, so as much as the Trumpists may envy the control the Han exercise over China’s minority populations, we aren’t there.

Yet.

Check back in 5 years.

But you are another giant nation with vast economic and military arsenals you'll use at the drop of a hat simply to maintain your credibility on the world stage.

That's what bothers the rest of us, not your internal politics or how many increments more free your citizens are or aren't.

Its your proven track record of happily killing other people's citizens to make a point when the sabre rattling gets that little too heated.

This would be a mistake.

All politics is local, or in this case domestic.

Have you heard of wagging the dog?

Probably the most relatable to you across the pond would be the Falklands War. It was always clear that the Argentines couldn’t win a head to head fight against y’all. So why did they do it? The initial explanation was that the figured you wouldn’t fight back. But what evidence did they have to base that hope on?

We’ve found out now that most of the Junta’s regime barons didn’t actually have high hopes that you would back down. They thought it was about 50/50.

So why would they risk losing a war, and very likely their rule, on a coin flip chance?

Because they thought their odds were worse if they didn’t go to war. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other resistance groups had won the majority of the population over. The regime knew that without a game changer that they were gonna end up against the wall. So a 50/50 chance was their best bet.

This is not a unique situation. The majority of military adventurism is a result of domestic politics. This is obviously more common with dictatorships as they tend to have more internal resistance against the government in general with little ability to change things without revolution but in an increasingly failed state like the US it is a growing danger.

If you care about the United States’ actions on the world stage then you should pay close attention to the internal machinations of its’ domestic interest groups and their control over our two parties.

Or even better the US, Russia and China could all just fuck off and leave the rest of us in peace?

Whether the deciding factor in all that self serving and pointless military adventuring is internal or external the end result remains the same.

We're all expendable pawns whose lives mean fuck all so long as you are seen to be winning.

Someone else's country will get fucked over. Someone else's children will be bombed in their schools, someone else's homes will be reduced to rubble, someone else's lives will be spent in fear of being shot just for the misfortune of living in the place you decided to duke it out by proxy this time.

Not yours.

I'm sorry but from the wrong end of a gun you, Russia and China all look much the same. I know you don't like hearing that, I know you've served, I know you're a decent guy, but the fact remains that the internal differences between superpowers mean absolutely fuck all to the people caught up in proxy wars.

They aren’t cheering for democracy, for a victory against communism.

They're just wanting to make it to the end of the day and wishing you'd go home and leave them be.

Ah.... okay.

A ‘both sides’er.

Gotcha.

Have a good day.

Most of us are.

The vast majority of the human race isn't American, or Russian, or even Chinese.

We aren't cheering you on when you go on your rampages to prove your manhood (ahem, "protect democracy").

We're just wanting to live our lives without worrying whether some moron in the Kremlin, Beijing or the White House is going to decide today's the day to make a point.

But Your Boy Donnie lurves Xi... well, third after Vlady and Lil Kim.

He loves that his merch is made in China for a fraction of what it would cost in the U.S.

And that commercial self interest, I hope, will be a deciding factor where human decency invariably fails.

There are simply too many intertwined financial concerns to make conflict remotely in anyone's interest.

Just like the UK did when it didn't have larger powers constraining it?

The world is too important to just let it be if you have the power to shape it to your needs, wants, desires, interests, etc. This will always be true. It flows from reason.

But "one hegemon is the same as another when you're influenced by it" is just simply not true. Not all powers have the same ethos.

China has Government and Party. Is that really so different from having Democrats and Republicans?

Yes, exactly the way we behaved. As did dozens of others before or since.

In other words you aren't special, your wars have no moral high ground for the civilians caught up in them and they're no happier seeing their children killed by your bombs than anyone else's.

If you believe otherwise you really need to start paying attention to voices other than those preaching the US propaganda.

You may be better off than some hypothetical Chinese counterpart but that doesn't make your posturing any less self serving or deadly to the people who die all across the globe.

I'm sorry but for all your talk about freedom , natural rights or manifest destiny for the bulk of us the difference is academic. China are doing exactly what every superpower does and when the shooting starts it's always somewhere else.

It might be Vietnam, it might be Korea. It might be you or them enacting regime change or fostering armed uprising against some inconvenient minor player.

The corpses don't care either way.

Considering that the Chinese Communist Party is enshrined in the Chinese Constitution and controls government at every level (constitutionally), I'd say yes, there's a huge difference between China having "Government and Party" and the USA having "Democrats and Republicans".

Oh, both formally and formerly that is definitely true. But I don't see that the US party system is more flexible, in terms of practical political power.

From the perspective of someone who is neither American nor Chinese.....how?

We can condemn China's domestic policies all day and I'll completely agree (as, I think, would @ k.) but that's beside the point.

This is about China as an international superpower, a military power who, much like yourselves, are beyond the means of most of us to defend against.

When two such powers start competing it's never really about ideologies, it's much more basic and primal than any of that and you're always careful to fight your wars in someone else's backyard.

I don't trust China one bit, and the international community needs to push back against things like their annexation of international waters.

Based on precedent of the last few decades I am much more worried about the US launching a military action that triggers global conflict than anyone else.

Spot's bored.

Still spot-on as always, and I feel a bit of nationalistic bias.

Have to work on that.