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outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, urged Washington to accelerate military development.
Better yet. Instead of spending a trillion dollars to gear up to join WW3, how about spend that money to develope domestic manufacturing so we can completely embargo all imports from China. Stay out of conflicts between other nations.
Hit them in the economy and it will hurt them far more than hitting them with bombs, plus the bonus effect of not wasting thousands if not millions of human lives.
That is the thing. We funded the Chinese build up. Stupid to fund a hostile nation.
We shouldn't do business with China, period. Not only would our economy grow like crazy, but China would decline and become less of a threat to the world.
Ironically could have learnt something from China. Just said fuck you we got everything we need on this side and close the border.
Except food, China is a net importer of food. I wonder what would happen if it stopped, would the CCP fall or would they all just starve until the population stabilized.
stay out of conflicts between other nations
Exactly. There's no way Hitler's will try to take Poland. Even if he does, it's not like the Nazis or Japanese would attack the US.
Americans can’t afford housing, homelessness is increasing, healthcare is unaffordable; and you want its population to support teabagging the rest of the world like it’s 1945. When militaries spread themselves thin, without the nation taking care of its home population, that spells trouble. Ask Rome.
All of those problems are because of political corruption, not raw money in/out. The US spends 3.5% of GDP on military, a lot, but not the most. Ranked #10 globally for military spending per GDP. Russia spends more than the US.
US is not Rome, at least not yet, or anytime in the immediate future.
That puts the Kremlin's war budget at 4.1%, but their 2024 budget puts military spending at 6% GDP. If they go over (like they did last year by 12%) it'll be even higher. Some analysts think there's even more hidden spending not being captured in these numbers.
I’ll tell this to Terry, the homeless veteran who can’t afford insulin for his untreated diabetes from agent Orange that the U.S. is only ranked 10th in military spending per GDP and ask what he thinks.
The question should not be “how much?” But “why?” If it’s to preserve our “way of life.” Whose way of life? Certainly not Terry’s.
Porque no los dos?
Um the thousands of human lives part? That's why we shouldn't do both?
Paradoxically, a large standing army will mean less likelihood of conflict. Deterrence works.
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Why did you lowball it at thousands? That war would give COVID a run for its money
Would you rather the Chinese be allowed to have their way with the entirety of the Asia-Pacific region? Based on what we've seen in Hong Kong I don't think that's a good idea.
The idea behind a massive build out of weapons is so nobody even dares to point a barrel in your direction.
The downside is that everybody else will try to find a way to make those weapons irrelevant, like swarms of $1.000 drones bypassing million dollars air defenses.
Because that does not feed the military industrial complex.
Tooling up is cheaper for employers in $CONGRESSIONAL_DISTRICT.
Building up domestic manufacturing takes years of capital investment with no quarterly KPI RoI.
Maybe one day they can attain the freedom status of the exceptional USA.
To be honest, that graph is a bit worrying especially if you look at PPP. I'm not saying "China will build more aircraft carriers than the US" or some such nonsense. I'm saying there is no point going to 300 bil if you don't want to fight the US. India is their other closest rival.
I'm not sure they would succeed, but I'm worried they might try.
The thing that's always so misleading about these numbers is that everything costs more in the US to begin with. A lot of that expense is just for US labor, which costs more per person than at least most countries. The graph is a lot more reasonable when you do [% of gdp] (https://www.statista.com/statistics/266892/military-expenditure-as-percentage-of-gdp-in-highest-spending-countries/)
I think they're probably more worried about the us invading them. We're the ones who've been invading countries most in the past 100 years, not china.
KSA being on this chart is an imposter because they can't even defeat the Houthis by themselves lmao.
All that funding is to buy and bribe the US military to maintain their own bases in the country to keep themselves secure.
The graph says "expenditure", not "quality"
Which seems appropriate
Like they are doing for the sports, spend billions to be still irrelevant
I think Taiwan doing so well in the semiconductor space is a huge win for the region. I fear China attacking would put East Asians in a tough spot; especially if the foundries get destroyed.
So does the Chinese think it will be a quick war? Recent history has shown that this kind of years never end. The Taiwanese have been preparing for this for years.
Russians thought taking Ukraine would last a few weeks and that war has been ongoing for couple of years. The Saudis are sucked into Yemen for several years. The US got into 2 forever wars at the same time.
Taiwan is a 13,976 sq mile Island. Yemen is a 214,287 sq mile desert. Ukraine is 233,062 sq miles. It's not a fair comparison. China could take Taiwan very quickly because it's a tiny little island. They're more likely to simply embargo the island though and turn it into the next Cuba.
China could take Taiwan very quickly because it’s a tiny little island.
I assume you have little military knowledge. Personally I don't make claims like this at all because I know the limits of my own knowledge. If China were to attempt to take Taiwan it would be devastating for both countries. War is absolute shit, many civilians would die, and what would China really gain? They'd gain being on America's shitlist which historically is terrible. Be careful with statements like these, they're the same ones I read right before Russia invaded Ukraine.
It is tiny, but far more parity in terms of arms and the whole being an island thing makes it exponentially harder to invade than say, a country you share a a land border with including roads leading you to where you want to go.
Yeah, man.
Well if nobody in the West is prepared to admit that Taiwan isn't a bit of China, what are they going to do about it? Probably nothing at this point. It's far enough away that it's not really a territorial threat to us, unlike Ukraine.
The real question should be, what are we doing about all that Taiwanese manufacturing we rely on? Because if the answer isn't "move it all back to Western countries where it can fuel Western economies no matter the cost" then you're making a hell of a gamble on China staying friendly with us in the future.
Time to play psyop or tankie!
The answer is Seventh Fleet goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
The current Chinese state did not exist before WW2, so I think that comparison is a bit odd
I believe they're comparing the scale seen before WW2 in general, not China itself.
Ah I see
This is the best summary I could come up with:
"All indications point to the PLA meeting President Xi Jinping's directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027," Aquilino wrote in a testimony to the US Armed Services House Committee.
"Furthermore, the PLA's actions indicate their ability to meet Xi's preferred timeline to unify Taiwan with mainland China by force if directed," added the admiral, the outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command.
He and Assistant Defense Secretary for the Indo-Pacific Command Ely Ratner both said the threat of direct conflict between the US and China is "neither immediate nor inevitable," but that the Pentagon must move fast to reduce the risk of war.
This year, the Indo-Pacific Command flagged in a priority wish list that it hoped for $11 billion more than the funds allocated by the White House, with $430 million requested for the Guam missile defense system, per documents obtained by Politico Pro.
Meanwhile, US leaders have been concerned with Xi's mandate to make China's military a "world-class" force by 2027, as the White House fears that Beijing seeks to supplant the US as the dominant power in the Indo-Pacific and eventually the rest of the globe.
The purge and reports of graft materially affecting China's arsenal triggered questions internationally about the true strength of the People's Liberation Army, and if Xi's military goals have been delayed.
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Oooh Western money is gonna be pissed.