Pentagon: China No. 1 thread to global security.

Originally posted by John D Harris: quote: Originally posted by Aerich: Now talking about Azred's idea. I agree. Economic inter-dependence is the best way to stop war. Witness the EU. Now they take all that agression and put it into hard-nosed bargaining.

I think that economic inter-dependence was kinda forced on them by that "big bear" to their east licking it's chops [/QUOTE]

Psst...I think you mean west [img]smile.gif[/img] The big bear to the east is probably a polar bear on an wayward iceberg

Originally posted by John D Harris: MagiK, I'd like to hear about those 5 times myself, I can think of only the Cubain Missles crisis, possibly the shooting down of Korean flight 007, Shooting down of the U2,and it seems like there where a couple of times some ships rammed each other. Am I close? you know at our age the memory is the second thing that goes, I forgot what the first is. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I listed them in my long post above. [img]smile.gif[/img] The U2 flight was actually not that tense an issue re: Nuclear exchanges, Diplomaticly it was sticky but to my knowledge there was no real war threat.

No the Computer Glitches and misunderstood missile launches were the closest we ever came...the two NORAD glitches WERE real Britch shitters ...there were some SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY worried folks during those.....the miscommunications about the missile launches were also very serious.

All through the 70's and early 80's there were dozens of incidents where US and Soviet Subs had close encounters, and Surface ships in pac and med would ram each other fairly frequently...but again that was kind of brushed aside as inconsequential by the top levels of government...the cost of doing business you might say.


[ 06-25-2004, 11:41 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Azred]

[img]graemlins/erm.gif[/img] On the other hand, I suppose those of us who comprise Western civilization could do this to them enough to really daze and confuse them.

[Aerich]

Ok, whoa - Stalin did not think he was divinely inspired. He *was* a godless communist after all. However, he DID have an aircraft-carrier-sized belief that he was destined to be remembered as the world's greatest leader. In his own mind, HE was the socialist God and it would have been blasphemy (relatively speaking [img]smile.gif[/img] ) to believe that he was directed or influenced by another being.

As far as I know, Stalin never thought he could be wrong. He disappeared for a week right after Hitler invaded, and that was because he had a nervous breakdown; he did not believe that Hitler would invade. The problem being that Uncle Joe had positioned over 80% of his army within 200 miles of the border, thinking HE would be doing the invading. The standing army was wiped out, and they had to practically make another one from scratch. Stalin had purged 90% of the officer corps in the '30s, including everyone with a smidgeon of common sense and initiative (but somehow missed Zhukov). All he had left were a bunch of frightened yes-men who would not move without his direct order. Kind of inconvenient that he went cuckoo during the key opening stages of the invasion. Another interesting historical fact - "Stalin" translates to "Man of Steel". He had his underlings so cowed that they didn't even come into the room to help him when he had the stroke that killed him. The reason: he did not give them permission to enter. Although I do have a lingering suspicion that maybe they saw their chance to get rid of him...

Re: China - yep, I agree that China is the biggest threat in the sense that it has the largest army and best capability to launch an invasion. I'm just not sure they'd ever do that, although Taiwan is a sore spot for them. They are considerably more integrated into the world economy than they were even 20 years ago, and that is only helping them (albeit sometimes to develop better weapons). While the nuclear possibility is there, I truly believe (possibly because I sincerely want to believe it) that no nation would start a nuke war with the USA. How many thousand warheads do you have? The arsenal of any other country looks miniscule in comparison. I don't think China is enough of a rogue for that - North Korea, now, may be something entirely different.

OK, now I get the 5 almost-catastrophes. The Cuban Missile Crisis plus four technological and communications mistakes made while walking the disaster tightrope. Yikes. I was pretty sure that U2 wasn't very close. It made Eisenhower look like either an idiot or a liar, but it was more calculating than hot-blooded, on Krushchev's part. Well, that's cleared up. One testosterone-fueled incident and four monumental screwups. ::Sigh::

Umm you forget that Ungle Joe killed most of his top Military commanders and nearly ALL senior political leaders. His attention was on Finnland and it must have been sobering that 10 Finnish Divisions kicked ass against 100 Russian divisions prior to Hitlers Invasion.

As for the screw ups....it doesn't matter what CAUSED the end of the world...they all would have been equally as lethal had the world not gotten a little bit lucky in each instance.....it is almost enough to make you believe in a divine presence.


Re: China...according to some of the best psychologists in the world and the best experts the US can come up with, YOU are wrong about your assessment of the Chinese governments will to destroy Taiwan rather than loose it. If you ever get the chance try checking some of the National War Colleges works on the issue. China is a HUGE country and they are willing to accept up to 60-80% of their population as casualties in a war. They do not think like Western people, their mindset and values of Human life are far different that what you are used to. If you look at their geographical layout, you will see they are not nearly as centralized as we are and they are working harder at dispursing their industry over large areas so as not to loose too much to any one nuclear strike....this is not something they have not prepared for. Hopefully things can be settled peacefully, but wishful thinking wont keep them at home.

Something to think about. You and others myself included sit here and discuss this issue by chance, There are whole TEAMS of people with access to intelligence assets we can only wish we had who do nothing all day but to ponder these issues...and plan and strategize. They have the War College, they have Annapolis, and west point and the Zoomie farm I can't recall its name....thousands of students and professors and civilians there study this kind of thing along with the normal course of study....which is why I have to shake my head when all the armchair quarterbacks start expostulating on how they would do things, giving no thought to the idea that maybe they haven't got a clue or that there are reasons why things are done the way they are.....it's easier for them to over value their own intelligence and too easy to dingrate that of the people calling the shots....after all...no live are depending on them.

[ 06-27-2004, 12:29 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Aerich]

I didn't forget that good ole Uncle Joe wiped out his military commanders and political rivals. I included the military commanders in the 90% of the officer corps. I also thought it was redundant to mention that he executed his political rivals, usually after a show trial.

Re: Finland - I'm not sure even that debacle could have sobered up Mr S. He was so drunk on power and paranoia already... But yes, that was pretty humiliating for them, and I'm sure it made the Nazis feel a little more secure about invading.

Re: China - I agree that China is willing to a lot to regain/punish Taiwan, the historical stronghold of the KMD (the Nationalist Party that the Communists drove out of China). I just hope that nuclear war is not one of the options they are willing to take. In my previous post, I was mostly talking (off-topic, I suppose) about direct confrontation with the USA. I doubt that China would start something with the West *unless* it was related to Taiwan. Again, though, point taken that I know little about it. I can't even read their state-controlled media to get an idea of the public sentiment/government position.

Re: the geographical layout. Yes, China is fairly well spread out, population-wise. However, much of that is reflective of the historical positioning of cities, not necessarily of nation-wide planning for nuclear war (not that they won't take advantage of it, though). Also, if it came to nuclear strikes by the USA (here's hoping that this is hypothetical and will always remain so), it sure wouldn't be ONE shot. Given the sheer numbers of nukes available, the geographical spreading is not as big a factor as it would have been, say forty years ago.

Originally posted by Aerich: Re: China - I agree that China is willing to a lot to regain/punish Taiwan, the historical stronghold of the KMD (the Nationalist Party that the Communists drove out of China). I just hope that nuclear war is not one of the options they are willing to take. In my previous post, I was mostly talking (off-topic, I suppose) about direct confrontation with the USA. I doubt that China would start something with the West *unless* it was related to Taiwan. Again, though, point taken that I know little about it. I can't even read their state-controlled media to get an idea of the public sentiment/government position. I wasn't trying to make it sound like *I* know so much and you so little..what I was saying is that neitherof us really can get a good handle on what is going on but that the US does spend a significant amount of time and brain power to figure these things out...all I did was repeat the reports that you can find if you look around a bit. Re: the geographical layout. Yes, China is fairly well spread out, population-wise. However, much of that is reflective of the historical positioning of cities, not necessarily of nation-wide planning for nuclear war (not that they won't take advantage of it, though). Also, if it came to nuclear strikes by the USA (here's hoping that this is hypothetical and will always remain so), it sure wouldn't be ONE shot. Given the sheer numbers of nukes available, the geographical spreading is not as big a factor as it would have been, say forty years ago. The Cities as layed out due to history was not what I was talking about...what you wont see is the distributed Industial regions that are not in the city, they are spread out away from the cities...decentralization is one of their pet projects. While you see where the cities are...you don't see the factories and plants out away from the population centers...you get a better idea of where they are by looking at rail lines. (It's how people get to work).

[ 06-27-2004, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]