Iran, North Korea get a new partner

[julianw]

If we decided to invade China and got the jump, then I'd like our chances.

A war with China?

Don't you guys want your sneakers or SW figures that come with McDonald's Happy Meal any more?

 

Steve - The US intelligence is suspecting that Iran has already developed nuclear weapons.

[213374U]

Steve - The US intelligence is suspecting that Iran has already developed nuclear weapons.

US Intelligence is right up there with the UN in my ignore list. "

[Reveilled]

... Not to mention they changed how to spell Corea ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Probably to make them seem evil. Putting K's in the name of a country always makes it sound evil or dystopian. Amerika, Kanada. And Korea. We shouldn't be worried about terrorists with nukes, since it's the letter K that really hates our freedom. I say we turn Sesame Street into a glass parcing lot. That'll show those pescy letter K's who's boss. "

[SteveThaiBinh]

A war with China?

I don't think even George Bush is quite that stupid.

Steve - The US intelligence is suspecting that Iran has already developed nuclear weapons.

I would believe what some bloke down the pub told me before I believed US intelligence.

Probably to make them seem evil.  Putting K's in the name of a country always makes it sound evil or dystopian.  Amerika, Kanada.  And Korea.

Amerika-mura in Osaka is a happy, fun place. They have a Disney Shop. That can't be bad.

[metadigital]

... Not to mention they changed how to spell Corea ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Probably to make them seem evil. Putting K's in the name of a country always makes it sound evil or dystopian. Amerika, Kanada. And Korea. We shouldn't be worried about terrorists with nukes, since it's the letter K that really hates our freedom. I say we turn Sesame Street into a glass parcing lot. That'll show those pescy letter K's who's boss. "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think it was something even more childish than that, actually: more to do with which country came first alphabetically (or the letter C is more important than K for some other reason that escapes me).

 

They changed it back for the dual-hosting (with Japan, natch) of the last (football/soccer) World Cup

[SteveThaiBinh]

I think it was something even more childish than that, actually: more to do with which country came first alphabetically (or the letter C is more important than K for some other reason that escapes me).

There are some standard systems for writing Japanese in roman script (roma-ji). They use the letter 'k', never 'c', to represent the sound /k/ (we use 'c' or 'k' for the same sound), so I suppose they changed the English form of Corea/Korea to fit in with the Japanese language.

[metadigital]

Yeah, that was it. And (obviously) the Coreans weren't too pleased about the whole deal with the Nipon Imperialists.

[Drakron]

In case anyone is wondering in portuguese we write Corea and not Korea, same in spanish I belive.

 

Also you sould be careful about making statements over regional issues, Korea and China have a VERY long history with Japan that was not pretty, expecialy at the start of japanese imperialism.

 

Those outcries over the japanese school manuals* were not staged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*In case you dont know, Japan have the bad habbit of hidding their WW II past and a recent school manual intead of using the common name of "World War II" used the name of "The Great Asian War" that was the named used in Japan during WW II to call the war, that ticked off both Koran and China that remenber too well what they suffered during "The Great Asian War".

[EnderAndrew]

A war with China?

I don't think even George Bush is quite that stupid.

I didn't say I wanted to see it happen. I believe it was Meta who said China can not be defeated in a conventional war. I disagree with him.

[metadigital]

Okay then, what about China AND India.

 

 

Wait, I KNOW! The Rest of the World versus the US. No nukes. And no bio weapons. And the US has to count to 100 before they start.

[Cantousent]

You people are silly, At any rate, C is really the Roman version of K. It's the same sound. Unfortunately, the C in most of our languages seems to have taken on double duty as a k and s sound. Nuts.

 

What's really funny is reading a Roman rant about folks who fail to pronounce the letter H. Comedy. It's not 'Arry Potter. It's HHHHarry Potter. The Greeks didn't even have a letter. They just aspirated vowels according to an aspiration mark or memory.

 

Anyhow, to get back to the topic at hand, I think we must simply accept that nations will look after their own interests. What would serve everyone better is to find ways to make our interests coincide with the world as a whole. Since we're talking fantasy land, I think we should also make Mickey Mouse our supreme ruler. :waits for someone to make a clever joke as if he hadn't seen it coming a mile away:

[EnderAndrew]

You mean Disney doesn't already own/rule the world?

[Lucius]

While I do think that the Peoples Liberation Army is somewhat outclassed by the US, it still has more than 2 million men under arms, a tank fleet of some 8-9000 plus armoured vehicles, a fleet of destroyers (I can imagine with surface-to-air missiles) and a huge airforce of their own, however outdated it might be, would still be able to give the US a fight to remember.

It's not like some arab nation with next to no air forces or surface-to-air missiles, with an enemy capable of using strategic bombers protected by a huge amount of fighters, I'd say that maintaining air superiority gets a bit tricky, and the sheer amount of casualties on the US side would make such a war unbearable for the population back home. (Same goes for China of course, but lets face it, they're not exactly a democracy) ^_^

 

On a side note, I read that the PLA is researching energy directed weapons, such as mircowave and lasers. Most recently incorporated on their newest MBT, whose turret mounted laser will blind enemy anti-tank gunners locking on to it, effectively ruining the enemy gunners eyesight.

 

And nukes are, of course, out of the question. Or are they? :ph34r:

 

Edited a little spelling.

[EnderAndrew]

Like I said, I think the initial aggressor has a huge advantage in the ability to cripple communications, logistics and air support systems.

[Lucius]

Well it's not like you would be able to take them on the bed, suddenly having US fighters in the air over Beijing saying "Gotcha suckas!" without them having noticed anything seems a bit unlikely.

 

I'm fairly confident that they could mobilize their air defences and air forces, before facing utter destruction.

[SteveThaiBinh]

While I do think that the Peoples Liberation Army is somewhat outclassed by the US, it still has more than 2 million men under arms, a tank fleet of some 8-9000 plus armoured vehicles, a fleet of destroyers (I can imagine with surface-to-air missiles) and a huge airforce of their own, however outdated it might be, would still be able to give the US a fight to remember.

I can see the US military keeping China out of a neighbouring country such as India or Nepal, I can even see them occupying a very small portion of Chinese territory, but the idea that they could take and hold Beijing and the country as a whole is laughable. We've seen the limitations of a technologically-superior small conventional army in Iraq.

Same goes for China of course, but lets face it, they're not exactly a democracy

Even tyrants have to keep an eye on public opinion - in a sense it's more important for them, because without freedom of expression to release the pressure, it just builds and builds until there's an explosion.

And nukes are, of course, out of the question. Or are they?  :ph34r:

They are. Since it's highly unlikely that a US-China war would be fought in the vicinity of the mainland US, it would be in or near Chinese territory. Mao wouldn't have cared in the least about slaughtering a few million of his own people to win a war, but I don't think the current government could afford it.

 

China has to be the only significant (non-nuclear, non-terrorist) military threat to the US, so it's understandable if the US military uses them as a sort of yardstick in their own military planning. However, the danger is that the military planners get into the habit of thinking of China as 'the next enemy', and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[EnderAndrew]

China has to be the only significant (non-nuclear, non-terrorist) military threat to the US, so it's understandable if the US military uses them as a sort of yardstick in their own military planning.  However, the danger is that the military planners get into the habit of thinking of China as 'the next enemy', and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think it is also dangerous when the UN ignores China using nuclear demonstrations as a scare tactic on Taiwan, or transmigration practices.

 

I don't know for a fact how well China could surprise us or vice versa. I do know we have stealth technology, and the ability to mobilize very quickly. Also don't underestimate the role of covert recon operations.

[Lucius]

I don't know for a fact how well China could surprise us or vice versa.  I do know we have stealth technology, and the ability to mobilize very quickly.  Also don't underestimate the role of covert recon operations.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And that too goes both ways, the PLA has realized the importance of highly trained Special Operations Forces, even though they can't quite match the standards of the western nations, again we have quantity over quality.

 

(I take it you mean the Marine Recon here, right? Or am I mistaken?)

[EnderAndrew]

And that too goes both ways, the PLA has realized the importance of highly trained Special Operations Forces, even though they can't quite match the standards of the western nations, again we have quantity over quality.

 

(I take it you mean the Marine Recon here, right? Or am I mistaken?)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes on both counts. The Marine Force Recon group trains the Navy Seals, and is really the premiere military unit in the US, and arguably the world.

 

I think the initial aggressor will have a big advantage in getting the initial jump. Both are juggernaughts who can do massive damage.

[SteveThaiBinh]

And that too goes both ways, the PLA has realized the importance of highly trained Special Operations Forces, even though they can't quite match the standards of the western nations, again we have quantity over quality.

 

(I take it you mean the Marine Recon here, right? Or am I mistaken?)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Depending on what they're planning to do, but I would have thought that Special Operations was one area where quality clearly trumped quantity.

 

And the US does have the advantage that its military gets a lot of practice.

 

One of Bush's biggest ever blunders (before we knew enough about him to started hating him - gosh, it seems so long ago now) was in his election campaign in 2000 when he called China a 'strategic competitor', rather than a partner. Arguably true, of course, but insane diplomacy - what Bush likes to think he excels at is straight talking, and what you need with China is skillful diplomacy. Especially over Taiwan, where you need to tread so gingerly around its status - not a country, part of China yet not actually part of China, and so on.

 

I'm not at all a fan of the Chinese government. Over some issues (like Taiwan, or the US spy plane that got shot down) their public pronouncements are excessive to the point of resembling the tone of a petulant teenager. So long as there's one adult in the room, things are unlikely to escalate, and until recently you could rely on the US to be that adult. Not sure now, though.

[EnderAndrew]

I'm not at all a fan of the Chinese government.  Over some issues (like Taiwan, or the US spy plane that got shot down) their public pronouncements are excessive to the point of resembling the tone of a petulant teenager.  So long as there's one adult in the room, things are unlikely to escalate, and until recently you could rely on the US to be that adult.  Not sure now, though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree, but the world has allowed China to get away with that attitude.

 

Personally, if we had a real international governing body and not the mockery that is the UN, I think we should hold up international trade laws and not allow countries like China to openly pirate billions every day.

[Lucius]

Depending on what they're planning to do, but I would have thought that Special Operations was one area where quality clearly trumped quantity.

I meant compared to western nations, China has entire regiments of SOF, but their equipment and training is not capable of competing with many western SOF.

That's what I've read anyhow, China is still a communist one party state, they probably have loads of information about their military that we can't access.

[alanschu]

We need to spend money for the purpose of spending money sometimes, and fat government contracts are exactly that

 

Spending it on silly things like social services is just silly though :D

 

 

And given the armor on the M1 Abrams, there are few things that can touch them. I've even seen an M1 take a direct shot from another M1. You don't want to mess with our tanks.

 

The Chinese Type 98 is supposedly rated to have similar armor effectiveness of the M1A2.

 

I would suspect most of the "tank advantage" would come from crews, not the tanks themselves.

[julianw]

Though the Chinese government is regarded as a totalitarian one ruled by one party only, it's actually officially (by its Constitution) ruled by a coalition of parties.

One major branch of its central government was designed to balance the power between the communist party and other parties.

In addition, the chief governing body that is made up by usually 6 or 7 of the government leaders (the chairman and prime minister included of course) always includes one non-communist as a unwritten rule.

 

The system of government in China is in no way even close to what the US has, but it was designed to be a democracy. I think the biggest problem with the Chinese government is that the government is above the law, but that's slowly changing.

Today's leaders of China is nothing like Mao or those responsible for the Tiananmen Square Bloodshed.

 

Now yes, China is not playing fair with its trades, but it has huge trade deficits with many of its neighboring countries. China does have an overall trade surplus, but if I recall correctly, China's overall trade surplus is only 10% of how much surplus it enjoys over US, so US's deficit with China can't all be blamed on China.

 

To get back on topic with China's use of nuclear weapons, Chinese government swore never to use them on Taiwan and never to use them against any other country unless attacked with nuclear weapons first.

As Steve stated even tyrannical governments care about their public image. The Chinese government certainly won't break either of their oaths to the international community unless driven into desperation.

[EnderAndrew]

If they are built to operate like a democracy, why forbid the use of the term democracy in one's personal blogs?

 

A country whose press is completely controlled and doesn't even have basic freedom of speech is backwards in my book.