Thank you both, rcpilot and dutch, for liking my post. I would like to add, since mentally I was not awake late last night, is that China will be a world power, no doubt about it. China will slowly change from its current communism/free trade government to a more socialist form. This will be forced upon it by both the US and the EU, as both are adament about China cleaning up its human rights record. Now, China, just because of it's size, presents a formidable foe to any nation or coalition. With one sixth of the world's population, just giving ever man a rifle will dwarf the US's forces. But what China lacks right now are political and military allies that can make its lack of technology and training seem meaningless. Because of that, China is required to grow up and face the world as a non-communist country in order to create any lasting ties. China, I don't believe, see this, and refuse to play along.
As the self-styled cusodians of the world order, America believes that we need to push them with everything we can. Right now, it is Taiwan. It may seem ogre-ish to people outside of the US (or even those within), but it really is the only weak spot that China has that outside influences can use to force a change. Now, the missile shield (a misguided, expensive, and unlikely to succeed project) is being used to prod China (and the spy planes), but the US doesn't seem to understand that our closest allies see the shield as a waste of time and something that will only widen the gap between the industialized world and everyone else.
Places like Iraq, India, Pakistan, China, and Lybia will not attack with missiles, because they all know that a) The US, will retaliate with it's own, and given the number of our missiles, they will be destroyed, and b) Even, if through the chance of a miraculous decision of the military not to strike back, that country will have destroyed itself in the world community. They will be condemed and eventually overthrown by someone. Those countries have a better chance at striking us with biological warfare, chemical warfare, or even a nuclear bomb, all of which would have to be hidden in a suitcase or something, smuggled into the US, planted, and detonated, all without the US or world tracing the terrorist attack back to the funding/supporting country. While is sounds more difficult, it is more likely, and much easier than lanching a missile, which will be seen by everyone, traced back to the source, and also requires the technology to be developed/stolen.
So, I'm pretty much saying that the US has much to fear, but we are not looking in the right directions. We see the obvious threats but fail to see the subtle ones. We rely on our past glories to protect us from tomorrow's atrocities. The US, a wonderful country with (mostly) wonderful people, may soon go the way of the Romans if we do not set ourselves straight, and that does not mean we must withdraw from the world, but that we must quit painting a target over every square inch of the land we tread. That will come by eliminating the "My country is better than your country," attitude that prevades our politics. Red-fever is done with, the commies won't kill us in out sleep, and they certainly won't take over the world. The US must look out for it's own interests now, as opposed to what it thinks it's interests are (i.e. The transfer of Taiwan to China). Our interests are the safety of our citizens abroad, the stability of our country, and the support of our current allies. Nothing is accomplished by bullying your friends, and the US will cause nothing be problems if it continues its insistance that the world follow our lead. There is a such thing as quiet inspiration, and that is worth much more than loud insistance about world affairs. Just think of the influence the US could have by working behind the scenes and keeping the old Red-fever rhetoric to a minimum.
-SammyBoy
Without Evil, there can be no Good. Therefore, without an Intel, there can be no AMD.
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