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Interesting and depressing. Will the arms race never end? When I think that our garbage is our greatest export, and that China is making not only everything we buy with it, but weapons that go beyond defense, I despair of where the arms race is taking us. Eisenhower certainly had it right when he said to watch out for the military-industrial complex, but I doubt that he was referring to China when he said it.

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There always has to be a "red horde" looming just over the horizon. Otherwise we couldn't keep the "defense" industry in business making the obscene amounts of profit they make. If there isn't a horde, we'll invent one.

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There always has to be a "red horde" looming just over the horizon. Otherwise we couldn't keep the "defense" industry in business making the obscene amounts of profit they make. If there isn't a horde, we'll invent one.

I wonder if the Chinese are getting their population fired up about the "white horde" to the east?

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nothing new under the sun, and will always be that way till I'm cold and in the ground. In the forties thru the early seventies the Russian 152mm Howitzer had about a mile and a half more range than a typical U.S. towed howitzer. Nobody lost any sleep over it unless you were trading rounds tit for tat. The Russian howitzer shot at a much slower rate of fire (per minute), and wasn't all that accurate when shots had to repeat. (the difference was a twenty five foot circle verses a 100 foot circle). On the other hand the Russians had a nice little 122mm howitzer that totally outclassed the 105mm howitzer we so relied upon. But the issue with it was mobility. I still liked it better. They loved their rockets, and a good team could do serious damage after firing about eight of them. yet the guys on the other end would have them pin pointed by the time they'd fired the sixth round. At the time we had nothing to compete with them, but the loss wasn't really missed as much as some folks liked to think. A typical 105 battery would eat them alive before they got the tenth rocket adjusted.

You build the almighty world beating weapon, and the other guy will develop a way the beat it. Sad thought, but the truth

gary

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We Americans seem to spend an awful lot of our time, energy and ill-gotten revenue on what is too-often called defense (defence to those of you who didn't defend your colonies well enough from the infidels). I'm sure there's something to the old adage, "the best defense is a good offense," (or offence), but once you can destroy any country on earth several times over, shouldn't one's weaponry reflect that one is no longer offensive, but mainly defensive? For good reason, many countries think the U.S. wants to take over the world. Their reaction to this is a natural one: They steel themselves against us. They see us acting aggressively, so they act accordingly. Our "terrorist" is their "soldier." I don't know about you, but the idea that a drone guided by some unknown person could level my house and kill my family is at least as terrifying as the thought of someone showing up at my door with a bomb strapped to his or her chest. Who is the more terrifying terrorist? But I digress. in my simple way, I'm just trying to understand why everyone seems to hate the U.S., when all we're doing is just trying to get along. Back to the gist of this thread, why does China feel a need to out-range the U.S.?

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Back to the gist of this thread, why does China feel a need to out-range the U.S.?

Tactical advantage

It is worth noting that many nations like the US military because it means they don't have to spend as much. so its not as simple as saying "why does the world hate us?" Many countries are happy to have a US presences and if you remember pre 2008 Poland was more than happy to host a US Radar site for example.

Edited by TaiidanTomcat
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in my simple way, I'm just trying to understand why everyone seems to hate the U.S., when all we're doing is just trying to get along. Back to the gist of this thread, why does China feel a need to out-range the U.S.?

I guess some folks would see it that the US is problem, not the solution. I know, that is absolutely crazy but that's the way those people think.

With regard to China, some would say that they are fixated on out-fighting the US so that they can eventually re-take Taiwan. Others would say that China has an expansionist outlook and has determined that in order to achieve their long-term strategic goals, they need to be prepared to fight the US and win.

Others would argue that China is a threat to no one and they are being used to fuel the US military industrial complex. See the "red-horde" post above.

Take your pick on which theory works best for you.

Edit - since it's somewhat on topic for this thread, here's an interesting article about China's big, new hovercraft. http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/is-this-giant-soviet-era-hovercraft-chinas-new-access-w-1609439614

Edited by 11bee
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Remain calm... all is well... (need to find that GIF from Animal House)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/08/04/our-aircraft-carriers-are-not-sitting-ducks/

Personally, I still think the biggest threat to our CVN's comes from under the water, not above it but subs never get any of the cool publicity.

Absolutely.

ASW has been a neglected art these last several years too, 6 years in P-3s and all of my time is flying over sand or looking at dhows off the east African coast. Anyone who has ever tracked an actual sub (no, not one of ours coming out of Kings Bay at a known point and time...) is now USN Retired. And I'll say it, practically every time we flew an ASW ex, it would be us knuckle draggin' flt engineers sitting up front eating Cheetos who'd spot the subs periscope trailing in the water long before "Contact!" was called from the tube rats. Oh well.

Edited by 82Whitey51
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Absolutely.

ASW has been a neglected art these last several years too, 6 years in P-3s and all of my time is flying over sand or looking at dhows off the east African coast. Anyone who has ever tracked an actual sub (no, not one of ours coming out of Kings Bay at a known point and time...) is now USN Retired.

A few weeks ago I had a Navy P-3 pilot join my team on the ground and I asked him to tell me all the cool stories I know come along with tracking subs.....never tracked a non friendly sub and spent most of his his time doing ISR over Iraq. The highlights were the Cuban Cigars and Halo.....talk about boring.

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The British Empire was forged with it's military.....much like Empires prior to the British Empire. The US tried to copy this example and did not see much in the way of profits and found this was a costly path (Philippines etc). So the US switched to an economic path and did quite well. But the US always made sure to back up their global economic plan with a strong military. The US economy makes up 25% of the global economy...which is pretty good considering there are close to 200 countries on this planet. The US is a winner and if you want to be a winner.....it is smartest to copy a winner.

The Chinese are famous throughout history as merchants and traders.....this is what they do best.....it is natural for them.....the whole communist thing in China was a brain fart that never fully went away. The Chinese have never been fully concerned with democracy.....making profit is their true passion. In every country....the Chinese minority owns businesses etc. Recent discoveries indicate Chinese trading ships were traveling to North America long before the Europeans.

China has been watching the US and copying the US for a number of years in the recent decades. The Chinese have also noticed the US has backed up their global economic trade with a strong global military....so it is only natural the Chinese would also copy this aspect of the USA's successful economic plan.

There are some bad neighbourhoods on this planet....and having a global military helps when you travel through the tough neighbourhoods.

I would be more concerned with the Chinese economic plan rather than their military plan. The Chinese economic plan is the majority part of their plan that will shift the wealth to their economy. Anyone that thinks China plans to build a big military to take over the world is missing the true plan.....there is no profit having in a big military (except for weapons sales).....there is big profit in a strong global economic plan.

If you think a strong military with a weak economic plan is a good way to go......then you only have to look at North Korea to see how wrong you are.

China is busy securing resources all over the globe....especially in Africa.

The true challenge from China will be an economic challenge.

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Yup! You could get great Cubans up at Talil Ali...brought some back to Al Udeid with me once and some homo wanted to bust my balls for having "contraband". I told him to go eff himself and call the Provost Marshall...what's he gonna do, send me to Iraq?

I probably know you co-worker.

Wooge?

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A few weeks ago I had a Navy P-3 pilot join my team on the ground and I asked him to tell me all the cool stories I know come along with tracking subs.....never tracked a non friendly sub and spent most of his his time doing ISR over Iraq. The highlights were the Cuban Cigars and Halo.....talk about boring.

Totally OT but since I started the thread...

Are you allowed to smoke cigars (or just butts) / play x-box on the aircraft? I know back in the day, they smoked in flight, wasn't sure if that privilege has since been discontinued.

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I agree, and so do many of the smart folks I work with. Chiba doesn't wNt to fight us, they want to be us.

Funny thing, I talked to guy that worked over there for nearly 10 years about this. Asked him the same question, do they want to fight us. He said pretty much what you did, adding that the country is still firmly in the third world. The majority of the population doesn't have paved roads or plumbing. He said it will be decades before we have to worry about armed conflict.

My only fear is that they will start something with one of our allies over some rockpile in the Pacific and that would be sufficient spark to drag us into a larger conflict that no one wanted.

Edited by 11bee
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The British Empire was forged with it's military.....much like Empires prior to the British Empire. The US tried to copy this example and did not see much in the way of profits and found this was a costly path (Philippines etc). So the US switched to an economic path and did quite well. But the US always made sure to back up their global economic plan with a strong military. The US economy makes up 25% of the global economy...which is pretty good considering there are close to 200 countries on this planet. The US is a winner and if you want to be a winner.....it is smartest to copy a winner.

Nice post. I'm impressed with your summary of events but I had a tidbit I thought was worth mentioning. Instead of the United States not seeing profit from overseas colonies, especially the Philippines, could it be that the United States changed how it made money? Instead of creating wealth from extracting raw materials from the Pacific possessions, the USA converted its war-making industry to consumer goods manufacturing, and along with sympathies for colonized peoples of Japan and persecuted minorities in Europe and Africa, the USA was had both ethical and logical basis for sponsoring an independent Philippines.

I think this follows your statement that the US (and other Western Liberal Democracies) chose an economic path, but there are a few high visible exceptions as well. Maybe the focus for world power shifted away from Central Europe and the Pacific toward Southeast Asia and Africa, which were rapidly decolonizing.

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