Two things. Firstly, this is nothing to be immediately concerned about. It's just foreshadowing at present. That, however, is not reason to ignore it. As a nation, we must always remember that the world is a dangerous place and that being number one is always better than being number two. Secondly, knowing that our Navy "dwarfs" theirs at present is very comforting to me. I like knowing powerful nations such as Russia and China cannot muscle us around, that we control our own destiny in the world. It has a price tag, but it's worth it to me. It keeps us safe and prosperous.
Compare their industrial machine to ours. They could do what we did during WWII in producing war materials, we could not. That scares me.
"We control our own destiny in the world". Lolololololol. Yeah sure. Being second is not such a bad thing, you are letting your American arrogance show. So you think it's ok for the USA to only have aircraft carriers, and no other country can? Sorry to inform you but china is muscling us around. 99% of the household items that Americans buy are made in china. And, last but not least, china owns a sizable amount of US debt (bonds).
I'm not so sure about that. Our industrial base is very robust. We can churn out planes and tanks and boats with maximum efficiency.
My, what a thoughtful rebuttal. The stakes are too high to come in second place. Did I say that? China is a formidable opponent, but they cannot muscle us around. We dictate the terms...for now.
Big whoop. It's the ex-Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag that was first laid down 16 years ago!?! It's no threat what so ever to the U.S. Navy. If they built 3 or 4 - then we'll begin to talk...maybe.
I never said it was a threat. It's merely an indication of what's to come. China will continue to expand and militarize. We need to think in the long term.
We dictate the terms? Really? Is that why we import so much stuff from them, so much of our stuff has been outsourced to them and they own so much of our debt? Correction, I guess they don't own as much of our debt as they used to. They are preparing to buy 50 sq miles in Idaho to set up manufacturing plant. The title of the article in this thread is a bit misleading but you get the general idea. Not that this is anything new but I don't trust chinas intentions. http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?297597-Idaho-Governor-Selling-His-State-to-the-Chinese
I wasn't talking to you...I was just saying. China is no military threat to America. They are not stupid enough to try and control other countries with wasteful, excessive military spending like America does. They just use economics.
Pretty much, yea. We hold the world reserve currency and our military is vastly superior to theirs. We depend on them to maintain our silly western fantasy world. They depend on us to grow their people out of abject poverty. Who really needs who? True. Our central bank owns the most now. I didn't pick the title, but I fail to see how it's misleading. This is a major step for China's navy. Obviously, it's not an immediate threat in anyway; our ships would blow it out of the water instantly; but that's partly my point! We don't have to worry about China or Russia or Iran jamming up trading lanes and creating regional instability because of our military spending.
This is an accurate short-to-intermediate-term assessment, but I believe that, in the long run, we must consider them a possible military threat. A policy of 'peace through strength' would be, in my opinion, enough to deter a conflict.
15 or 20 years from now that already 20 year old carrier is gonna be like bringing a Model T to the Indianapolis 500. plus, those are Chinese that are going to be trying to land and launch planes off that thing as its rocking in the waves.... they cant even turn their blinker off. i think aircraft carriers should be left to those that cant be blindfolded with dental floss. that carrier will kill more Chinese than Americans.
where did you get the idea that buying products from someone gives them dominion over you? the store down the street has been selling me cigs milk and gas for 10 years now and he dictates nothing to me. also, since i do buy so much from him... if he wanted to build a little drive through store next to my house so that i could then purchase my goods without having to get into my car... im ok with that. your logic seems flawed to me, but im not that smart so its quite possible its just over my head.
You might also want to include the fact that China is going to take the same route Japan did a while ago. Japan was where all the bisenesses were and they were pretty much in the same economic situation China is in now. Then the Japanese workers began to make money and they wanted more of it. So companies jumped ship(to China) and thats why Japanese cars are built in America. Soon, China's workers will begin to make money and want more of it so companies will jump to another country that will become the next boogyman.
Its got nice new radars and nice new missiles so its much more then just a cleaned up Russian carrier. China has a huge indigenious ship building industry and its mostly all owned by the government. They've copied the Japanese and South Korean's techniques in construction and have built a few new huge shipyards which are bigger then in the US afaik.
Peace through strength? America already spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on her military. Over 5 times what China does. How much more 'strength' do you need?
The Chinese can never hope to match our naval power. One outdated carrier is all you have? And remember its a historical fact the chinese produce low quality items.
And, because of that, we control our own destiny in the world. Enough to sustain our military superiority over the rest of the world in perpetuity.
come on people its the Chinese. they are probably going to load it with aircraft parts in containers and assemble the planes on the way to the Atlantic coast if they attack us. if ive learned anything about the Chinese, most of those planes will be missing parts. if we stop selling them duct tape the odds of them launching a successful attack against us is less than 15%.
How do you know? Can you see into the future? I never said the one carrier was anything to worry about. In fact, I specifically said there was no immediate concern in my OP. I was merely trying to highlight the long-term implications of China's military expansion. Reading comprehension is key. Empty platitude.
