Re: B-17 Wing Covering Thickness

Our weapons are not designed to conquer China, but could be used to prevent China from conquering any country they cannot approach from overland--like Taiwan. There is unlikely to be any reason to go into all-out war with China for the forseeable future, because we have little or nothing to gain against the potential loss in personnel and material, and the Chinese have a lot to lose. I'm not sure nukes would even have a role in a war like that, at least as long as Chinese countermeasures are not up to stopping cruise misssiles with conventional warheads, or stealth weaponry. The one wild card, of course, is Taiwan, because emotion on one side or the other could outreach logic.

In ten years, the picture might not be so one-sided. And in ten years, China might not be what it is today. Nor the US, for that matter.

Mark Schynert

Which is really the point--you do not win wars by defending your own territory. Short of firing off their 18 or so ICBMs, their reach is real short.

Mark Schynert

I was never of the sense that Stalin or Khrushchev or Brezhnev cared all that much about what the West thought, and the Third World certainly aligned with the Soviets enough of the time. The issue in China is the incipient creation of a large middle class, whether Communist doctrine allows for it or not. The notion that widely-based economic prosperity and totalitarianism (or non-representative oligarchy, if you insist on softening the description of Chinese Communism to the point that you start to resemble me, the Liberal) can coexist in a stable social structure is untested, and IMHO, unlikely. The problem, well-documented in historical analysis, is that the greatest risk to dictatorial regimes is not repression and poverty, but a sense of rising expectations in the population. If these expectations are not satisfied, and if they run to democratic reform, then the Communist system is in for a heap of trouble.

Mark Schynert

I guess we're still fighting in Germany, Japan, and Italy too then...

Exactly. Those damned bullfrogs again...

Precisely.

So they have a kinder and gentler dictatorship, huh? BFD. A gilded cage is still a cage.

And I haven't forgotten Tiananmen Square...

Really? They have articles claiming that Red China has a blue water navy? And a first-class air force?? Can you point me to a specific article or two?

I've never said that Red China didn't have *any* military capabilities.

And I've never said we should ignore Red China's military buildup. I simply maintain that it's not a first-rate military power

Who says that we're just sitting around waiting for them to catch up?

Are you saying that Red China is David to our Goliath?

But we're still in Afghanistan. Looks like we'll even wind up with a couple permanent air bases there.

I dunno about the motivations on the Afghan side but our tactics and strategy were *far* superior to anything the Russians ever tried there.

There's no way a second-rate or third-rate power can defeat the US military on the field of battle. Not even in Viet Nam, which wasn't a military defeat of the US - the North defeated the South Vietnamese military.

Saturday is the last day of the sale.

Yes, same guy.

John Hairell ( snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com)

Their current frigate and destroyer designs are no slouches and they're planning a carrier. That tells me they're going for blue water in the near future.

Just enough to force the rest of the world into an awkward situation and tie up lots of blue water resources from other countries.

They are by our reckoning crazy but not stupid.

Funny thing is electronics just isn't that bad a polluter so there's no reason other than cost not to make semiconductors here. Pay me a good wage, don't involve me in office politics, allow me reasonable flex time and don't step on my home life and I'm happy to wire harnesses all day...boring but not as bad as working retail or food service.

When Kevin Bacon posts?

damn. thanks al.

yeah, just look at fast food joints, car washes and lawn care. makes me sad to think a good gardener is respected more. i have a black thumb....i touch a plant and it dies.

i had hoped the old guard would die out and the young would liberalise....wishfull thinking. until the proles understand they can dump the rulers will china change.

Precisely - I can only see a nucular exchange in the event of invasion, and I'm not convinced that either side is tilting at that now, or will be at anytime in the foreseeable future. But I do feel the rumble of some serious sabre-rattling over Taiwan...I think patience is wearing thin there.

most people can't learn from breakfest, much less history.