So how Long will This last: How would you define the US Global Political and Economic Position Today and Moving into the Next Half Century?

[Paul3]

Could not help myself. #150.

I was waiting for somebody to do it. Now somebody point Rob in the direction of this thread.

[HarveyBoulevard]

Damn. I typed the same thing just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger.

[Ken Gargett]

Ken, for your much appreciated insolence toward El Presidente's devious instructions to derail our efforts in courtesy and respect I promise if I win that fine cigar....I'll split it with you!

perhaps we should ask his royal despot to divide it into 150 bits and ship it out to us all!

[Fosgate]

I am Active Duty Army, going on 18 years now and I have always been curious on individuals opinions on what people mean when they say another country, China in this example, will be "equal" to the U.S. military. I don't ask in the barrel chested freedom fighter come knock me off this hill fashion, more out of curiosity as to the level of warfighting education/knowledge my civilian counterparts have. In the past I've heard answers ranging from, their fighters will match ours, or they've acquired stealth technology, and the always present 1 billion to our 350 million (roughly). I often wonder when people put forth these answers are they considering the full spectrum military operation or a ***-for-tat, man v man, trench warfare style engagement.

I have two opinions on the answer to my own question. The first is I believe, admitting bias, that it will be a very long time before any nation matches the superiority of the U.S. military: caveat that with likely update to my opinion as the budget and personnel cuts from our military take effect, the effect on morale is already tangible. Second, I believe if we ever face off with China it will be cyber warfare, perhaps as a precursor to "traditional" warfare, which has potential for inflicting vast amounts of damage in ways that bullets and bombs could never do. Again just my humble opinion.

Great conversations...almost hope it doesn't stop at post #150....almost.

I was just inspired to post this music video because of your post.

[Habana Mike]

Could not help myself. #150.

Just drove back and forth, 4 hours for 3 hour Passover dinner in Toronto with 21 family members. They sat around the table, the politician at one end and did not fight about politics either.

Three generations of family with different issues including health care, education costs, housing costs, job shortages, and a whackadoodle 72-year old aunt who came close to hitting on my daughter's 23 year old boyfriend.

Only thing missing was someone in the military, like that was going to happen. Yeah right.

The US(or Canadian) political/economic positions can be discussed until we are blue in the face. We can vote the best solution in or out, but seems to me we have to do the best with what we've got and take responsibility for our own future..

Good job on getting it to 150 without any inflammatory posts! Of course some will be disqualified so there may be a few to go.....

[SaintLuis]

.in some ways, it's hard to argue against the benefit of conflicting/opposing world powers. US society was better when it had a common enemy, keeping politicians from turning Americans against themselves in manufactured class/race baited wars.

Maybe the elevation of China as an international adversary will help right the US ship, and propel us into another century of growth and stability...

...or global thermonuclear war!

[Morientes50]

As an American living in China for the last 3 years, its interesting to hear this discussion.

If you look at the last 20 centuries, China has had the highest GDP in 18 of them. However, There are many weaknesses in the country that I feel will prevent it from becoming a superpower.

So my thesis is that America will stay on top mostly because there is no other country poised to surpass it.Russia? no way. India? Many years needed to fix its problems. Really....If not America, then who else?

[UpInSmoak]

I'm the 4th generation of a US family who immigrated from Eastern Europe. My generation is the first generation to be worse of than their parents. I'm even more concerned about my young children. The US is not headed in a good direction. I'm patriot and I love my country, but I'm also a realist.

[mash]

As an American living in China for the last 3 years, its interesting to hear this discussion.

If you look at the last 20 centuries, China has had the highest GDP in 18 of them. However, There are many weaknesses in the country that I feel will prevent it from becoming a superpower.

So my thesis is that America will stay on top mostly because there is no other country poised to surpass it.Russia? no way. India? Many years needed to fix its problems. Really....If not America, then who else?

I don't think the issue is so much whether any one country will surpass the US in superpower status, it's how much relative influence the US will have in the world as a single nation. That is in a serious decline, with no end in sight.

America needs to look at where their money goes- how much to spend on the armed forces (are they really in jeopardy of being attacked and beaten militarily? Do they want to continue to be the world police?) versus education, health care, infrastructure etc.

American politics are in complete gridlock because congressman for the most part don't need to worry about governing near the center to get re-elected. The districts are so gerrymandered that their biggest threat is to be replaced by someone else from their own party who's more extreme. The Congress is worse than useless, it's a laughing stock.

It needs to look at separating church and state. Theocracies are not the key to progress.

Robin Williams said that US politicians should be like NASCAR drivers. They should have to wear uniforms with the logos of all the companies that are sponsoring them (buying them off). The corporations get richer, the vast majority of people get poorer.

It is not a rosy picture for them, regardless of the struggles the developing countries have.

[El Presidente]

Congratulations. i never thought it could be done. maybe we have found the formulae to gong forward in such a discussion.

I will draw the winner tomorrow bit it is not about the prize. It is about how enriching/educational such a discussion can be.

I will imagine how such a format can go forward, open discussion, the ball not the man.

well done one and all.

[AlohaStyle]

Yes, well done everyone... I'm quite surprised it made it all the way. But Rob, don't press your luck! lol

[poisonowns]

I honestly expected someone to Godwin this thread before it reached 100 posts.

[Fuzz]

Technically, not all 163 posts (so far) met the criteria!

[Maplepie]

Technically, not all 163 posts (so far) met the criteria!

And that's why we call you: the fuzz! (well... I do)

If it's any consolation, Chris, I back you up on your point!

Sent from my BlackBerry Q10 using Tapatalk for Android.

[Fuzz]

Rob still has time to derail the thread!

[kwsaw63]

I am Active Duty Army, going on 18 years now and I have always been curious on individuals opinions on what people mean when they say another country, China in this example, will be "equal" to the U.S. military. I don't ask in the barrel chested freedom fighter come knock me off this hill fashion, more out of curiosity as to the level of warfighting education/knowledge my civilian counterparts have. In the past I've heard answers ranging from, their fighters will match ours, or they've acquired stealth technology, and the always present 1 billion to our 350 million (roughly). I often wonder when people put forth these answers are they considering the full spectrum military operation or a ***-for-tat, man v man, trench warfare style engagement.

I have two opinions on the answer to my own question. The first is I believe, admitting bias, that it will be a very long time before any nation matches the superiority of the U.S. military: caveat that with likely update to my opinion as the budget and personnel cuts from our military take effect, the effect on morale is already tangible. Second, I believe if we ever face off with China it will be cyber warfare, perhaps as a precursor to "traditional" warfare, which has potential for inflicting vast amounts of damage in ways that bullets and bombs could never do. Again just my humble opinion.

Great conversations...almost hope it doesn't stop at post #150....almost.

To answer your question, I think most people are thinking in terms of conventional warfare and there are 3 main aspects of military superiority to consider - superior hardware, the training & tactics to use that hardware to best effect and recent actual combat experience. I believe China (through leveraging it's economic strength) will acquire the hardware to match the US in the next 2 decades or so. However, they will lack the recent actual combat experience to be able to devise the training & tactics to put the hardware to best use (think Korean War where Allied pilots in F86 Sabres were generally superior to Chinese pilots in MiG 15s, despite the MiG 15 being the equal of the F86 Sabre). Long story short - in a conventional war (in the next 20 years) the US can be expected to prevail but the margin of superiority will be significantly reduced compared to the present day and will certainly not be the cake walk that represented the 1st Gulf War.

I also agree that cyber warfare will play an increasingly important role going forward, and again I believe the US will have an edge but that edge will be much smaller as compared to it's edge in conventional warfare.

[SaintLuis]

Congratulations. i never thought it could be done. maybe we have found the formulae to gong forward in such a discussion.

Shameless bribery and the threat of public humiliation!

[Troels]

I dont know much about military affairs but it seems to me that the fire power and Technology alone doesnt matter much. My thoughts being that the two recent American wars I know of was lost to partisans, after a massive allied investment ( my own country participated in both Iraq and Afganistan as well)

That kind of expenses, fighting vindmills, finansed by foreign loans, must make a super power vulnerable

[AndrewNR]

Ugh.. Totally just smashed out my opinion on a couple things to join in on this discussion and my phone just deleted the response. Bugger it. merica!

[shlomo]

We do spend huge amounts of money on our military and I would not be the first to stand up and say the first thing that needs to stop is the amount of waste and lack of accountability. One does not need to look too deeply to see massive amounts of waste, due to poorly managed programs, unnecessary expenditures and contractual regulations that hamstring any hope of efficiency.

Absolutely, but taking funding away is not a solution to the wastefullnes. Efficacy and efficiency problems need to be resolved, and only then can the budget be safely cut and diverted to other programs such as health, education, infrastructure, social welfare, etc...

[Paul3]

Absolutely, but taking funding away is not a solution to the wastefullnes.

A finer point that I think many fail to grasp.

[mash]

Absolutely, but taking funding away is not a solution to the wastefullnes. Efficacy and efficiency problems need to be resolved, and only then can the budget be safely cut and diverted to other programs such as health, education, infrastructure, social welfare, etc...

The way to deal with waste is to cut the budget. It's exactly the solution. Only when people have less money to spend do they begin to prioritize, and think about how to use it more wisely.

[SaintLuis]

The way to deal with waste is to cut the budget. It's exactly the solution. Only when people have less money to spend do they begin to prioritize, and think about how to use it more wisely.

That's right. I understand why the liberals don't like the starve the beast strategy, but no government ever has opted on it's own to spend less than it wants to. The money has to be taken away, and then the tenets of democracy via our republic have to reallocate what's left and prioritize.

You'll be shocked how quickly the people will be shouting about the $700/mo luxury cars congress charge to the people.

[DrunkenMonkey]

That's right. I understand why the liberals don't like the starve the beast strategy, but no government ever has opted on it's own to spend less than it wants to. The money has to be taken away, and then the tenets of democracy via our republic have to reallocate what's left and prioritize.

You'll be shocked how quickly the people will be shouting about the $700/mo luxury cars congress charge to the people.

The liberals don't like the 'starve the beast' strategy with regard to military spending cuts? I think most liberals would like to see less spent on the military.

[Paul3]

The way to deal with waste is to cut the budget. It's exactly the solution. Only when people have less money to spend do they begin to prioritize, and think about how to use it more wisely.

That would seem logical, but I disagree on the basis of accountability. When there is little to no accountability for poorly run programs, bad decisions and political self interests, budget cuts alone will not force people to be more efficient. Instead it fights a symptom while not dealing directly with the problem.

Cheers