Brexit

[cdnmatt]

Matt. I don't know if you've noticed but China is already jizing themselves. We see their rising dominance every month. This is going to be the Chinese century.

Wouldn't be so sure of that. The US is still the dominant super power in the world, and doesn't look like that will be changing any time soon. Who do you think is keeping Russia and China at bay right now? There's constant mass US & NATO led military exercises in Eastern Europe, the US has beefed up it's military presence in the South Pacific to ensure China doesn't get any ideas, etc. Like it or not, and agree with US policy or not, they're currently keeping this world a peaceful place to live.

As for the Brexit, the UK leaving isn't the be all and end all. My main fear is that other countries are going to follow suit, and a divided Europe could potentially spell disaster. There's no reason to think a WARSAW type pact can't re-emerge, and I'm assuming there's discussions going on in Moscow right about such a possibiliy. Hell, Russia already invaded Ukraine, so if the EU falls apart, we could be in trouble.

[Moses]

Like it or not, and agree with US policy or not, they're currently keeping this world a peaceful place to live.

Tell that to people of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya,

[cdnmatt]

Tell that to people of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya,

Well, that's for geo-political reasons, mainly due to natural resources.

Granted, the US isn't exactly the most peace loving nation in the world, but they're probably better than having China in the role of super power.

[fountainhall]

The US is still the dominant super power in the world, and doesn't look like that will be changing any time soon.

Agree with the first part. The second depends totally on how you define "any time soon". I suggest you read Paul Kennedy's excellent book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers". It's a good 30 years since he wrote it but the conclusions remain. Kennedy outlines the reasons why nations rise and, more importantly, why they fall. All empires fall - from the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, British etc. etc. He suggests that states at the peak of their power have usually by that time started a long period of economic decline which eventually makes it impossible for them to meet their defence commitments.

As an empire expands, so does the requirement for additional funding to police it. Thus there is a direct correlation between the creation of wealth and the military expenditure required to maintain the status of empire. The tipping point comes when too much of an empire's resources are devoted to military might. At various times since the start of the Cold War, the United States has substantially increased its military expenditure as a proportion of GDP. By the end of the Clinton Presidency it had dropped to around 3.5%. After 9/11, it rapidly increased to 4.6% in 2005, then 5% in 2008 and 5.7% in 2011. Obama has been able to reduce it again, but the USA is largely paying for it through printing money as a result of ongoing Quantitative Easing - effectively devaluing its currency (although you'd not think so today of all days!)

Ironically it is Trump who has hammered away at the over-expenditure though countries like Japan, South Korea and Germany not paying anything like their share of defence commitments. But the military's fondness for ever more lethal and up-to-date weapons alongside massive over-billing and rip-offs by contractors certainly doesn't help.

Like it or not China is already well on the way to becoming the next super power.

[christianpfc]

Not on subject, but I can't this blatant ignorance of history stand as is it, lest someone thinks cndmatt is right:

Like it or not, and agree with US policy or not, they're currently keeping this world a peaceful place to live.

After World War II, the US has been the most belligerent country and been involved in more wars than any other country. [citation needed, just my impression]

[cdnmatt]

After World War II, the US has been the most belligerent country and been involved in more wars than any other country. [citation needed, just my impression]

Yes, they have. That kind of goes hand in hand with being the world super power. Listen, I don't agree with a lot that the US does either. Iraq was obviously bullshit and they knew they were going in under faulty intelligence, Vietnam was a cock-up as well and due to now declassified documents we know the Gulf of Tonkin incident was fabricated, etc.

Like it or not though, the US currently has about 660 military bases, 27,000 soldiers deployed in Europe, another 20,000 deployed in Asia, a strong presence in the South Pacific, and the list goes on. If it wasn't for the US as a deterrent, I would imagine other nations like China, Russia, and North Korea would be acting a little differently right now.

I don't agree with a lot that the US does either, but whether you like it or not, agree with their policy or not, they're helping ensure this world remains a peaceful place to live.

[Moses]

I don't agree with a lot that the US does either, but whether you like it or not, agree with their policy or not, they're helping ensure this world remains a peaceful place to live.

yeah, it is their usual method: to fire war and then to "peacefy" it ... who knew Been Laden before US started to build up his party?

[fountainhall]

If it wasn't for the US as a deterrent, I would imagine other nations like China, Russia, and North Korea would be acting a little differently right now.

You may be correct re North Korea (although I don't believe its dictators are expansionist - their primary goal is self preservation) and Russia, but China's occasional forays outside its own territory has mostly been to shore up its porous borders. It did send a large fleet to Japan at one point - it had to turn back - and its claims to Taiwan and Tibet are dubious. Those territories apart, it has never ventured outside its own borders with the aim of colonisation. All pundits now regard China's absolute priority is the defence of its own long border. There are some more recent disputes re small islands in the South China Sea, but these appear more economic and the possibility of oil. Even its short war with Vietnam in 1979 concerned borders, not expansionism.

I wonder what West Germany would have looked like, after WWII, had the US been a vindictive conquerer instead of a benevolent one. The Marshall Plan paid for by US taxpayers supported the rebuilding of countries like Germany.

A perfectly valid point - apart from one crucial factor which rather kills your argument stone dead! This was not the US being kind to a ruined country and helping Germany back on his feet. It was a vital part of the US strategy to ensure communist Soviet expansionism did not reach to the Atlantic and beyond. In the same way, Roosevelt and Truman rejected Ho Chi Minh's several written requests for assistance in getting rid of the French colonists from Vietnam. The USA was no friend of colonialism. But it also desperately needed French assistance in stopping Soviet expansionism in Europe. And so it did not use any influence with France to persuade it to get out of Indo-China. That one act allied to what the US mandarins believed was the "loss of China" and the now derided "domino theory" led directly to the secret war in Laos, the tragedy of Vietnam and then another secret unauthorised war in Cambodia. That led to tiny Laos over 9 years becoming the most bombed country in world history and directly to the conditions which gave rise to the Khmer Rouge and that ghastly genocide. US actions in being a "benevolent conqueror" in Germany thereby led to the deaths of 5+ million in Asia. That does not fit my idea of "benevolence".

[cdnmatt]

China has been quite expansionist over the past few decades especially. China currently owns nearly all of Africa, a good portion of Australia's natural resources, and a host of other corporations and resource deposits across the globe. Granted, they've done all this economically and not militarily, but nonethless, you can't tell me China isn't expansionist.

What do you think the high speed rail from London to Singapore is for? That's not just China being nice. That's them taking over.

Why do you think one of Obama's foreign policies was to beef up the military in the South Pacific? He knows full well what China's ambitions are, so the US beefed up the military presence in the region to help ensure China doesn't get out of hand. Same goes for Eastern Europe and Russia.

[fountainhall]

China has been quite expansionist over the past few decades especially. China currently owns nearly all of Africa, a good portion of Australia's natural resources, and a host of other corporations and resource deposits across the globe. Granted, they've done all this economically and not militarily, but nonethless, you can't tell me China isn't expansionist.

China's economic expansionism has already been discussed - and agreed - in this thread -

China doesn't require the military strength that previous superpowers required. This will be a new form of colonialism and China will come to dominate the world like no other country ever has.

But my discussion was concerned exclusively with military expansionism, the direction this thread has taken for quite a few posts. I totally agree re China's global economic expansion. But you seem to assume that the reason for this economic expansion will lead to some form of military expansion or non-military take-over. I don't think any experts agree with that line at all. One of the most astute observers of China is the former two-time Prime Minster of Australia, Kevin Rudd, a fluent Mandarin speaker who is now President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.

In one speech in 2012, he describes the views of various experts on the likely urbanised-related drivers of Chinese growth demand until 2025 (i.e. in 13 years from the date of the speech). Take a look at the following list. This is the primary reason why China has been snapping up access to raw materials all over the world - to ensure it can meet its own internal requirements - not to expand the borders of China into other territories and countries.

- 350 million more people to move to the cities,
- 221 Chinese cities of greater than a million people (compared with the 35 in all of Europe today),
- A million kilometres of new roads,
- 28,000 kilometres of new metro-rail,
- 170 mass transit systems (twice the number in all of Europe),
- 1.6 - 1.9 billion square metres of new floor space as part of 5 million new buildings,
- 50,000 new skyscrapers (the equivalent of 2 Chicagos per year),
- 97 new airports,
- And, to fuel the above, 1000 megawatts of additional coal fired generating capacity to be commissioned every week.
- Combined with the new wind power turbine being built every hour and a half

http://www.kevinruddmp.com/2012/08/s...rowth-and.html